Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [28]
Grace could feel her face starting to burn with misery and humiliation, which was made even worse when her partner for the evening stepped into the hallway. Alan Parker’s cousin was everything that Bella’s boyfriend was not. He was tall, broad-shouldered and very good-looking, the uniform he was wearing making him look distinguished and smart, despite the fact that his leg was in plaster and he was having to use crutches. His hair was thick and dark and nicely barbered.
‘I can see that your cousin is teasing us both,’ he told Grace, offering her both his hand and the kindest smile she had ever seen. It was so warm and understanding that she could feel her earlier misery melting away. ‘And I’m going to be escorting the prettiest girl at the dance.’
Bella flashed them an angry look. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you could see her in her Lewis’s uniform,’ she tittered angrily. ‘I really don’t know how you can work there, Grace, especially with that horrid common girl who works in the Gown Salon with you.’
‘Come on, Bella, otherwise we’re going to be late,’ Alan interrupted her irritably, thrusting a box containing a corsage of flowers towards her.
‘Oh, how lovely. Look, Mummy, my favourite flower. Alan darling, you are so thoughtful.’
‘Bet she ordered it herself and told him what she wanted,’ Charlie muttered irrepressibly in Grace’s ear as they all watched whilst Bella begged Alan with prettily sweet insistence to pin the corsage on for her.
‘Thank you, darling,’ she told him once he had finished, raising herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek and then pouting when he rubbed his skin, protesting that she was covering him in lipstick.
‘Seb, Charlie is taking you and Grace in his car. Grace can sit in the back so you’ll have plenty of room for your crutches. Alan, come on, darling. I dare say that everyone will be waiting for us to arrive.’ She gave a tinkling little laugh. ‘It’s so embarrassing, but everyone seems to take their lead from me and Alan. I suppose it’s flattering really.’
‘And entirely natural,’ Grace heard her auntie Vi saying firmly.
‘I’m really sorry that you’ve been forced to travel with us, instead of with your cousin,’ Grace apologised to Seb.
‘I’m not,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘In actual fact, Alan isn’t my cousin. Our relationship is rather more tenuous than that. It’s very good of his parents to put me up, though, whilst I wait for the medics to pronounce me fit for service. With any luck I should be off their hands by this time next week and back with my unit.’
They had reached Charlie’s car, and Seb opened the door and told her cheerfully, ‘There’s no need for you to risk creasing your outfit clambering into the back. I’ll sit there.’
‘Oh, no, you mustn’t,’ Grace protested, but it was too late. Seb was already settling himself in the back of the car.
‘This is going to be such a wonderful evening,’ Bella told Alan, hanging on to his arm possessively as they walked from his car to the Tennis Club entrance. Through the open double doors it was possible to see into the square hallway, which was decorated with bunting in the Tennis Club colours and cleverly cut-out paper streamers of tennis racquets and balls. On a table underneath the central light stood an impressive floral arrangement provided by those mothers who were on the roster for the church flowers, the flowers in shades of red, white and blue, but Bella wasn’t particularly interested in the effort the Social Committee had made to strike a cheery yet patriotic note in the décor for the dance. After all, she had far more important things on her mind than a few paper streamers and some flowers.
She breathed a deep sigh, keeping a firm hold on Alan as they went inside, whispering softly to him, ‘When we’re married and our children are growing