‘This will be good,’ Jack said. ‘Geoffrey’s a professional.’
When he began playing, she and Jack stood side by side swaying and joined everyone else belting out the tunes they all knew, starting with ‘Daisy Bell’, a song they tended to call ‘A Bicycle Built For Two’. They followed it with ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ending with a raucous ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and then a gentler ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’.
By now the drink was flowing freely and a young man with a limp had brought out a 1930s, hand-cranked, wind-up gramophone, which he set up on the table next to where Florence now stood a little distance from Jack and the others. As he wandered further off, she drifted down the street in the other direction. She smiled at everyone and grinned at the children as they wove around people’s legs, tables, chairs, shrieking and laughing whenever they tripped an adult up. Florence had already drunk another pint of cider and felt light-headed.
It was then she saw Bruce standing behind his mother, who was sitting at a table looking pale but recovered. Bruce waved and she went across to say hello.
‘I’m so happy to see you,’ he said, smiling broadly, his hazel eyes shining. ‘Sorry not to see you since our cinema trip.’
‘My fault,’ Grace said. ‘But I’m much better now.’
‘Mother insisted on coming,’ Bruce added. ‘Even though I offered to stay at home with her.’
‘Poof!’ Grace said. ‘What kind of celebration would that have been?’
At that moment, the man with the gramophone began cranking up. After a few crackles they heard a dance tune begin to play.
Bruce glanced at his mother. ‘Go on,’ her look seemed to say, and he held out his hand to Florence. For an hour they danced wildly to ‘In the Mood’ by Glenn Miller and other lively tunes. Later, towards the end, they kind of rocked together to the romantic ‘Wonder When My Baby’s Coming Home’ by Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra.Florence felt rather drunk and very carefree in Bruce’s arms. At the end the man with the record player put on Vera Lynn singing ‘There’ll Always Be an England’.The dancers stilled and Florence felt the tears that had been threatening all day flow over and run down her cheeks. Bruce handed her a handkerchief.
‘It’s clean,’ he said, and smiled sympathetically.
She glanced about her and saw that practically everyone had tears in their eyes. The bombs, the destruction of so much of their beautiful country, the buildings that lay in ruins. The fear. The lost lives. But it wasn’t just about the past. Their transitory sadness was also tinged with anxiety about what might lie ahead – how they would live with what had happened and what kind of future they faced. And so the afternoon passed by and as dusk fell there was to be a huge bonfire in a meadow beyond the village. Bruce had gone to take care of his mother and Florence, realising she hadn’t seen Jack for ages, looked around for him. She couldn’t see him anywhere. Surely, he hadn’t already gone home? He must be helping with the bonfire.
Soon after that Bruce joined her again and put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Are you cold?’
She shook her head. ‘Not at all.’
‘Mum’s having a rest in a friend’s house.’ He glanced to the right. ‘There’s tea over there. Would you like some?’
‘Oh God, yes. I’m dreadfully thirsty.’
They shared a mug of tepid and very weak tea then he linked arms with her as they set off to walk through the meadow. ‘Are you hoping to go to France to visit your sisters soon?’ he asked.
Florence sighed. ‘I wrote to them yesterday. I don’t know how things are over there. It was chaos after the liberation and still seems to be.’
She didn’t tell him she was also thinking of Rosalie and how likely travel to Malta might be. Claudette had written again of Rosalie in her last letter, and Florence hadn’t been able to put it out of her head since.I must know what happened to her, Florence, before it is too late,she had written.
As they reached the bonfire, she watched the golden flames flickering on the drunk, happy faces of the people opposite. She felt light as air. Probably the cider – but still, it was wonderful to feel so free from care for once. Bruce gently turned her around. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. Then he kissed her on the lips, and she leant into him and forgot about everything else.
CHAPTER 27
Riva
Malta, 1925
With a towel wrapped turban-style on her head and another knotted loosely around her body, Riva heard someone knocking on the front door. It was her day off and she’d just washed her hair, but she could hardly go down to the street like that. She heard one of the girls on the landing and then from downstairs some murmuring. A few minutes later Bobby walked into her room armed with chocolates and flowers and beaming at her.
‘Well, you look—’
‘Undressed,’ she said, more forcefully than she meant, feeling that she had somehow been negligent to let him see her like this. ‘Déshabillée?’
‘Gorgeous, actually. Pink-cheeked and fresh. Come over to Lottie’s with me?’
‘Why?’ She was feeling annoyed and a little hurt that he was just springing this on her without so much as an apology for not being in touch for at least three weeks.
‘She and her beau are over on Gozo until tomorrow. We’ll have the place to ourselves.’
‘Why not the apartment you share?’
