Free At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham Page B

Jack.
    July turned to August which was heavy with heat and with rain too, but by then Rosie had learned the rudiments of shorthand on her own late at night in her room, though she still had no speed. But it would come. Goddamn it, it would come. She would make sure it did.
    The weather didn’t matter during the day either because she had coaxed Mrs Eaves into letting her play Bix Beiderbecke through the speakers so that his mellifluous cornet-playing filled the store. But only once a day, Mrs Eaves, the supervisor, had said, jangling the keys on the belt of her overalls, leaning across the mahogany counter, because the public prefer the Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller – the romantic, the slick.
    So too did Norah, but Rosie didn’t care so much about that now that she knew. Norah had not had such a bad war. She had pranced around, showing off, drinking tea with a cocked little finger, putting the milk in last.
    ‘So why lie?’ Rosie had asked Jack.
    He had shrugged and so she had asked Norah that same day, leaning on the rectangular counter, talking quietly so that the other assistants could not hear.
    Norah had flared with anger. ‘I’m not lying,’ she said, ‘not really. You had a much better time. It should have been me. I’m older.’
    Perhaps, Rosie thought now as she ticked records off against the stocklist, Norah was still trying to adjust, to come to terms with leaving Somerset. Perhaps she yearned for the people who had been her family for that time. If so, she understood and so she played the Andrews Sisters and smiled at Norah, who didn’t smile back.
    Rosie turned as a customer, a woman in a felt hat, asked for ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’.
    ‘It’s sure nice. I really like Glenn Miller,’ Rosie said as she wrapped it. Grandpa did too. He had heard it on the wireless and tapped his foot as he read
Silas Marner.
Rosie had laughed and told him that she would try to buy a gramophone and he could bop to Duke Ellington. He had stopped having accidents now. There had been no soiled sheets, no embarrassed lowering of the eyes, and he even wanted to hear of her evenings at the Palais with the gang.
    She told him how she and Jack jitterbugged around the floor, feet moving fast, swirling in and then out, up and over his hip, his shoulder, while the MC shook his head, tapped them on the shoulders and pointed to the sign on the wall: ABSOLUTELY NO JITTERBUGGING ALLOWED .
    They didn’t stop. No one stopped. They all danced. The war was over. They had all fought it, Rosie too, Jack said. They all bore the scars. He could see hers, he had told her, in her eyes, and they were still fresh, but they would go. One day they would go. And we’re alive so we’ll jitterbug like the others and no one will tell us we can’t. So they jitterbugged and it kept the shadows and the pain away.
    But there were nights when Ollie lurched home drunk and there was shouting and banging to be heard through the walls. On these nights Jack didn’t come dancing, he stayed behind to stand between Maisie, Lee and Ollie. It wasn’t the same without him. Dancing with Sam and Ted, Dave and Paul didn’t stop her wanting Frank and Nancy. It didn’t stop her wanting Maisie and Ollie as they had been before the war. It didn’t stop her wanting a much earlier time when there had been no pain or anger in Jack’s eyes. And it made her think of Joe.
    Rosie tipped the Beiderbecke record back into its sleeve. Her legs ached. There was no air in the shop and the heat was thick about her. She longed for a draught or the cool of the evening. She pulled her burgundy overall away from her back and then stood still. Nancy had said it was the best way of cooling down. It did no good to fret. Maisie had said that too last night when at last she had come round and Rosie stood still now, thinking of Maisie’s plump arms, so like Nancy’s.
    For a moment it had been like Pennsylvania again but then Nancy had never smelt of lavender. Maisie did, always had