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By Root 567 0

so why shouldn’t she have the benefit of it? Years ago Jack had given her a pad of cotton-wool soaked in whisky for the toothache. ‘Get rid of them,’ said Nellie contemptuously. ‘You don’t want any truck with those. Get yourself some nice new teeth.’ And she did, though it took her six years to pay for them. Rita went to the dentist regularly – but then times had changed. Rita? She went into the hall to search for her. The door was open on to the street. Mrs Evans at No. 9 was leaning out of her bedroom window to get a shuftie at the goings on. Margo caught a glimpse of a green velvet dress and a tall soldier with his hands in his pockets lounging against the privet hedge.

She hesitated, and at that moment Mrs Mander called from the kitchen: ‘Marge, Marge, give us a hand with the eats!’

She couldn’t refuse, not being an invited guest in the first place.

‘Our Rita’s on the step,’ she said, ‘with a soldier. There’s no harm, is there?’

‘Get away,’ said Mrs Mander. ‘She’s seventeen.’ The display of food on the table was quite pre-war in style: a whole ham lying in a bed of brown jelly; a bowl of real butter, like a slab of dripping, white as milk; on a dinner plate, piled high, a pyramid of oranges. Margo sat down on a chair and looked.

‘It’s Chuck,’ said Mrs Mander. ‘He insisted.’

‘I was never in the limelight, was I?’ asked Margo.

‘You what?’ Mrs Mander paused from slicing bread.

‘You could never say I was made much of?’

‘You’ve been drinking, Marge,’ said Mrs Mander, relieved.

‘I’ve never felt,’ continued Margo, picking at the ham with her fingers, ‘that people took enough notice. I have got thoughts.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Mander.

‘You’ve got Cyril and George and your Valerie …’

‘Well, you’ve Rita.’

‘She’s not easy, you know. We’ve got her and we haven’t.’

At that moment Chuck came into the room and asked for an orange.

‘We’re going to play games,’ he said; ‘I want an orange,’ taking one from the dinner plate and beginning to tear the peel from it.

‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Mander. ‘What sort of a game?’

‘Napoleon’s eye,’ said Chuck. ‘Valerie knows it.’ And he went out with the fruit clamped in his sharp wolfish teeth.

After a time there was a lot of activity in the hall. Girls sat down giggling in the kitchen alongside Margo. She held her head up and tried to concentrate. Shrieks came from the front room. A young woman in a grey costume appeared, wringing her right hand and moaning with mock terror. ‘It’s awful,’ she cried, ‘it’s really awful.’

One by one the girls were taken into the other room. At last they came for Margo.

‘Get off,’ she protested. But they blindfolded her and led her away. She was aware of men’s hands holding her, spinning her round in a circle.

‘You are now on the flag ship,’ drawled an unfamiliar voice, and she was lifted in the air and rocked like a baby.

‘Oh, oh, oh,’ she screamed, little flecks of light dancing before her eyes.

‘It is a rough and stormy night. You are about to meet Napoleon, greatest of British admirals.’

Her hand was held in a dry palm. She sat down on something soft and yielding.

‘How do you do ! Pleased to meet you.’

‘How do you do,’ repeated Marge, her hand pumping up and down.

‘Feel his head,’ said the voice, and she stroked at something slippery, like satin – quilted like a tea cosy.

‘Get away,’ she screeched, ‘it’s a cosy.’

‘This is his good arm – this is his bad arm.’

She felt a bandaged wrist, a bulky object. All around, the air was filled with whispers, instructions, smothered bursts of merriment. She was like a dog, pointing her nose to scent the wind, sitting there in her best crêpe dress, helpless.

‘This is Napoleon’s good eye,’ said a girl’s voice, and her nails flicked skin. She could feel the quivering eyeball beneath the lid.

‘And this is Napoleon’s bad eye –’

All at once her finger was seized firmly by the root and stabbed fiercely downwards. Into moist juicy flesh. She screamed thinly, over and over, shaking with revulsion while the cloth was torn from her eyes and she saw Chuck grinning at her with the obscenely fingered orange lying