She had been so excited travelling south, catching a glimpse of Edinburgh for the first time then crossing the border into England at Berwick-on-Tweed. Looking back she could see how naive she had been.
Once in London she booked into a boarding house and found that it cost rather more than she thought it would. Day after day she tramped the streets of the city from one theatrical agency to another where she was asked to produce photographs and references or give details of previous experience and shown the door when she admitted she had none.
“Can you dance?” asked one of the girls also staying at the boarding house as Rona sat on her bed brushing away tears of frustration. She had spent yet another tiring and fruitless day trawling the streets and was missing her Mum and Dad and sisters back in Inverness.
“Yes I can,” Rona answered sulkily. “I went to dancing classes for years. Why?”
“Well, there's a club across town called the Golden Garden and two of their dancers left last week; they actually joined up â can you imagine! They actually volunteered to go to into the Army! Anyway they've got one new dancer but I think the manager might still be looking for another replacement, it's worth a try. I'd go myself, but I've got two left feet.”
*
The music came to an end and the row of dancers turned their backs to the audience, bent over wiggling their hips and showing their frilly underwear to the hoots and yells of the drunken patrons.
Rona had been offered the job straight away, she was a good dancer and had natural rhythm but the club was a sleazy dive run by an even sleazier manager. She hesitated at first but âbeggars couldn't be choosers' and she was almost out of money. Eventually decided to take the job and moved into a flat with a few of the other girls also working at the club. They were happy to have her to share the rent but unfortunately, she had to share a bedroom with Norma, one of the older dancers who obviously didn't like her and who, to Rona's horror, sometimes brought men home with her. At such times, Rona found it less comfortable but also less embarrassing to sleep on the sofa in the small lounge room.
The curtain fell. Puffing and panting the dancers left the stage for a forty-minute break during which they had to get themselves something to eat and drink, repair make-up and fix hair as well as change into a different outfit.
Rona liked some of the girls and one, in particular, an Irish girl called Nancy Carey was often kind to her and shared a sandwich with her if she had none of her own. One night Nancy had even given her a drink of gin, but Rona hated the taste and, much to the amusement of the others, spat it out onto the dressing room floor.
“Silly little fool,” Norma said impatiently, “that's gin you know. It's not easy to come by these days, you've no idea what Nancy might've had to do to get that.”
Rona guessed what she was hinting at but couldn't understand why the others found it so funny. It was true that Nancy always seemed to have plenty of money, but she hadn't ever seen her with any men, not like Norma who she thought quite shameless.
The manager called for the dancers to get on stage again and hopping into shoes and adjusting feathers on their heads and hips they wobbled up the wooden steps to start their second show of the evening. As the curtains swung apart, Rona fixed her smile and moved onto the stage but just minutes into the routine the siren wailed. In the wings, the manager franticly waved his arms in a signal for the girls to keep going as he always did, but Rona found it difficult to concentrate. She hadn't got used to wartime London and was nervous. So far they had been lucky, there had been lots of air-raids but none close to the club. The manager wouldn't allow them to leave the stage and their biggest problem was usually the noise of the raid preventing them from keeping in time with the music. Tonight, however, it seemed much louder and closer and the audience was distracted and looking up at the ceiling from where a delicate shower of plaster floated down. Still the manager waved them on but from the corner of her eye Rona noticed he now had his hat and coat on and felt sure he was about to run for cover.
Suddenly the lights flashed off and on again, there was a horrendous crash as the side of the building caved in sending the audience scrambling for the door in the darkness as the lights went out for good. Without a glance towards the now empty space where the manager had stood, the girls fled from the stage, pushing and shoving down the wooden steps and grabbing their coats from the stand where they hung in the narrow hallway.
Rona was petrified, but Nancy grabbed her hand as they left the club by the back door and they raced along the street towards the air-raid shelter with the rest of the girls hot on their heels. The shelter was some way off and in their high-heeled shoes they had to clamber over rubble from previous raids while more bombs and incendiaries fell around them.
At last they arrived and clattered down the steps into the shelter and pushed open the door as an ARP Warden pulled them in and quickly closed it behind them. It was a large cavernous space attached to the underground railway, the lighting was dim and the air was thick with the breath and fear emanating from the dozens of people spread around. Rona had only ever seen newsreels of Londoners crammed into air-raid shelters with stout ladies smiling as they knitted and sang cheerful songs, while children slept on makeshift beds, she had never actually been in one and things were not quite as the newsreels showed. The faces of the occupants were anything but cheerful; they were grey and drawn and at each thump of the above attack they flinched nervously.
The girls found a place to sit down on some wooden crates and as their coats fell open showing their black fishnet stockings and skimpy outfits there was a murmur of disapproval from the women and a one or two whistles from the men. Rona was embarrassed and pulled her coat around her knees, but Nancy thought it a huge joke and pulling out a bottle of gin from her coat pocket raised it towards the whistling men and laughed loudly shouting, “Cheers boys.”
A huge thud shook the walls and silenced everyone and those who hadn't closed their eyes in prayer were scanning the stone ceiling waiting for it to collapse upon them at any moment. It seemed to go on forever but eventually the noise grew more distant and people began to move and chatter to their neighbours and smile with relief. No-one spoke to the dancing girls until a man sitting opposite them picked up an accordion and began to play, “Come on girls” he called to them, “give us dance then!”
The girls ignored him until the he began to play âMademoiselle from Armentieres' and Nancy, by this time the worse for drink, jumped to her feet, dropped off her coat and began to cavort before her audience. There was clapping and shouting from many of the occupants of the shelter who were grateful for any distraction from the onslaught raging outside, but the women whose husbands appreciated Nancy's display were not amused and one or two of them tried to physically restrain her. Norma and the other girls went to Nancy's rescue and suddenly the whole place seemed to be a seething battleground.
Totally outnumbered and protesting loudly, the dancers were hauled to their feet and pushed out through the doors onto the steps outside. A railway official and the ARP Warden who tried hard to prevent this happening were pushed out of the way and order was only restored when the doors were firmly shut and the girls were stranded in the inferno on the other side. Rona and one two of the others were crying, and Nancy sat on the steps of the shelter alternatively shouting drunken abuse, at the murdering Nazis and the jealous bitches in the air-raid shelter. As they cowered by the wall of the shelter, a building on the other side of the road received a direct hit. Screaming and running for their lives the girls fled in all directions through a cloud of dust and debris.
Rona found herself alone and lost. The others just seemed to have disappeared and weeping for her mum she wandered backwards and forwards along the street, not knowing which was the right direction to get back to the flat. After almost an hour of dodging rubbish and potholes and praying out loud, Rona suddenly recognised where she was and ran as fast as she could to the door of the block where she lived. She ran up the staircase and into the flat that was, in fact, no safer than the street outside but felt so to her.
The raid seemed to be grumbling on further away and Rona caught her breath and began to calm down. She washed her hands and face in the bathroom and suddenly felt more exhausted than frightened and was about to go into the bedroom when she heard talking and giggling from inside. Norma had arrived home first and was entertaining so there was no way she could sleep in her bed. Unhappily she pulled her coat around her and huddled beneath a blanket she had earlier left on the sofa; putting her head under the pillow she again sobbed for her parents and wondered if they were crying for her. She made up her mind she was getting out of London as soon as she had the train fare to Inverness. It would be embarrassing returning to admit she had failed, but anything would be better than this.
Sometime later, the opening of the bedroom door brought Rona out from under the pillow and in the darkness she could just make out two figures moving across the room. She heard a man's high-pitched voice say goodnight to Norma and ask if she would see him again. “We'll have to see won't we,” Norma replied callously shutting the door behind him
The all-clear sounded and Rona got up from the sofa frightening Norma, who had no idea she was there. “For heaven's sake girl, what are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack or something creeping about the place in the dark.”
Rona began to shake all over again, “Please Norma don't shout at me, not tonight, I'm frightened. Will you put the light on, please?”
Norma sighed and her voice softened, “No point love, the power's gone off again.”
Rona began to cry loudly and Norma sat her down on the sofa holding her arm, “Pull yourself together love you're all right, it's all over now. You stay here and I'll go downstairs to the other flats and see if anyone has any candles to spare.”
Grateful for the first friendly words Norma had ever spoken to her, Rona wiped her tears, huddled beneath the blanket and pulled her coat around her. She was still wearing only her stage costume and was shivering with cold, but Norma would be back soon and so would the other girls, she hoped they were all right. She comforted herself with her decision to go home to her parents and to safety.
The door opened gently and quietly and Rona stood up to see who had come home and spoke softly trying not to frighten anyone else as she had Norma. She saw the shape move swiftly towards her and felt the swishing slash across her throat that stopped her breath and made her eyes widen as she fell back towards the sofa. Warm blood poured over her and Rona McLean, the young runaway from Inverness, gasped her last.
CHAPTER ONE
1966 â The Lazarus Secrets
Alexander and Charles stood side by side and watched as Clarissa knelt at the well-tended grave-side and arranged the yellow roses in the enamel vase. Clarissa kissed her fingers and ran them gently over Eloise's name, “We're here again Mama, all of us” she whispered gently, “we haven't forgotten you and never will. Everyone's well at home and we tell them about you all the time and even the little ones want to hear stories of your life. Rest in peace Mama.”
She stood up and took her place beside the two men who smiled sadly at her and for a few minutes the three of them stood in silence looking at the headstone on the grave of the woman who had been such a pivotal part of their lives.
Eloise Marie Darrington
Aged 70
Died 10 May 1939
Such a short dedication on the large, white marble headstone for one who had been so strong and precious but they knew most certainly that there would be more names to come; in death, as in life, they would want to be together.
They turned away and linking arms walked slowly along the church footpath to the gate and crossed the road to the little park set in the centre of the divided road from where they could see the rear of the house that had been their home for so many years. Once a year on the anniversary of Eloise's death they had made this pilgrimage to London to remember her and to re-visit the place that had been the refuge for the four of them after sadness and death had left them broken in body and spirit. They paid a retainer to the verger of the local church to keep the grave clean and tidy during the rest of the year but on this day they always brought yellow roses. They were Eloise's favourites and had been since Charles had left a vase full of them in her room on the day she came to live with them in the London house.
“It hasn't changed much has it?” commented Charles as they sat on one of the wood and iron park benches near the small bubbling fountain, “the park's still beautifully cared for and these are the original benches,” he tapped the sturdy seat with his knuckles, “although I think they've been renovated and the pathways have been re-laid.” He pointed across the road, “Some of those big houses have been converted into apartments or even offices.”
“Shame to make such beautiful homes into offices,” said Alexander, “but I suppose these days people can't afford to run such huge places.”
Clarissa nodded, “Yes but our's is still a family home. If you remember the last time we came there were children playing in the garden, it reminded me of you two and Max playing cricket out there.”
The house has been Clarissa's childhood home until the day she had walked away from it and from her brother Charles to be with Michael. Charles had discovered she was going out with Michael and had forbidden her to have anything more to do with him, a common soldier, a private in the army and certainly not good enough, in Charles's eyes, to marry his sister.
Charles had been at that time a Major serving in the war. He was ten years older than Clarissa and as her guardian had expected her to do as he asked, but she had defied him and left the house to live with her best friend's family until she and Michael married.