Chapter Text
Once they’d left the hall, Patsy wasn’t entirely sure where they would be going. Delia was walking ahead of her with apparent purpose, her heels clicking on the path. Patsy pulled her coat tighter and hurried to catch up. ‘Er – do you – where are we going, old thing?’ Part of her sighed at the way she became brisker and posher whenever she was the least bit uncertain. Delia might well be laughing at her inside.
The other girl smiled, amused. ‘Do you have a preference for a club?’
‘Not particularly, no.’ Patsy shuffled her feet, her steps skipping as Delia kept walking. ‘I don’t really have much of a clue about jazz clubs – or music at all, really.’ Her nurse’s voice started to creep in. ‘Is it – it’s quite respectable?’
Delia stopped and smiled. ‘I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.’ Patsy looked at her and she stared at her for a moment, challenging her. Then she collapsed into chuckles. ‘I have no idea, Patience Mount, no more than you. Well – I know at least that we’re heading in the direction of Soho. Shall we?’
Patsy laughed and followed her down to the Tube station. As their train pulled in, she was still smiling. She pulled herself together well enough on the journey to help Delia watch out the train windows for the station names. Confident as Delia was, she didn’t think she would know her way around London, and Patsy knew she was certainly not much better.
Picadilly station was a busy mess, full of gay young people in freshly starched dresses and slacks. As they exited the train, Delia slowed. Patsy could see her worrying at her lip out of the corner of her eye. Her protective instinct kicked in. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and set off briskly for the escalator, elbows flared slightly to clear a path through the carefree crowd.
After a few moments she felt a tug at the small of her back. She turned sharply, every muscle tensing, only to see Delia pull her hand away from the back of her skirt, looking sheepish. ‘Sorry – I was afraid I would lose you in the crowd.’
Patsy forced herself to take a breath, despite how her animal brain was shrieking to run. If she upset Delia again she was sure she would really run off. And this girl couldn’t be left to roam alone in London late on a Friday night, she told herself. Instead she let out all the air and the tension in a massive sigh. ‘Look at me – I’m hard to lose in a crowd. Just – follow me.’ She turned sharply, searching the high tunnel of the escalator for something to distract herself from jumping out of her skin.
Finally they emerged into the cool night air. The sky was a ribbon of velvet blue above the buildings and Patsy couldn’t resist the urge to gulp down the cool air. Delia, obviously having learned, came up to her side, a decorous inch of space between both their skirts. ‘Shall we go towards Carnaby Street? I’ve heard that’s where the best clubs are.
Patsy nodded and mustered a smile. ‘You lead on.’ Delia started moving off with apparent purpose, and it was now Patsy who was following him along, drinking in the sounds and the laughter. There was a smell of cigarettes everywhere, making her want a smoke, and the cloying whiff of perfume that lingered every time they brushed past a giggling couple. Delia kept her eyes ahead, searching the signs above shops and restaurants. The streets were getting more crowded as Delia backed her way up and down paths. People were getting rougher too, lads jostling with a nervous edge that threatened Patsy was starting to wonder had the girl gotten them utterly lost when Delia let out an excited squeak and pointed to the polished sign that said The Ostrich above a freshly painted black door to the side of a battered Chinese restaurant. ‘Oooooh, this is the place,’ she said, wringing her hands in excitement.
Patsy looked dubiously. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh yes, Marcella one of the trainees told me, she’s from London.’ Delia examined the door appraisingly. ‘Do we knock?’
Patsy stepped forward and tried the door determinedly. It swung open to reveal a dingy staircase and the jaunty plunking of a piano from the bowels of the building. ‘Suppose not.’ She ushered Delia with her arm. ‘After you.’ Delia picked her way carefully down the stairs, and Patsy followed her, clutching for the banister somewhere in the darkness.
At the bottom, Delia faltered and Patsy almost ran into her. A suave young type in a dark shirt loomed out of the darkness, his pale face looking like a self-important boiled egg. ‘Ladies. Twelve shillings and ten each in.’
He smiled and winked at Patsy. She smiled blandly and dug around in her purse, but Delia got there first, handing the fellow the money. ‘I’ll cover her.’
Patsy frowned. The guy jerked his head and pulled aside a curtain behind him. The piano grew louder, accompanied by loud chatter and glasses tinkling. Patsy bent down to Delia’s ear. ‘You didn’t need to do that. I’m perfectly able to pay for myself.’ She felt an uncomfortable prickling of embarrassment. She wasn’t just able to pay, she was truly well off, with the money her father sent her and her wages. Low as they were for a trainee, she didn’t think Delia could say the same. ‘Please, let me pay you back.’
Delia only smiled. ‘I don’t mind, it’s my treat.’ Patsy dithered. Clearly Delia could see the look on her face. ‘If you’re that worried, buy me a drink inside.’
‘Are you going in or not?’ The lad went to drop the curtain. Patsy sighed and stalked past him.
Behind it was a small, smoky hall full of young patrons. Dresses tangled and swirled around slacks and small wobbly tables bedecked with delicate, half-empty glasses. A small clearing in the tables functioned as a makeshift dance floor where some energetic types flung themselves about. Above the masses, half obscured by a fog of smoke the band was setting to vigorously on the piano, the clarinet and a host of brass instruments. As they entered the piano-heavy song they’d been playing ended, and a short man with a comically large double bass emerged from the murk to start a jaunty new tune with a zippy rhythm. Patsy felt her foot tapping along to the music and a smile grew on her face.
Delia seemed even more delighted beside her, like a child let loose in a sweet shop. She turned to Patsy with a wicked little grin, her shoulders jigging along to the trombone. ‘What a place!’ she yelled over the noise of the room.
‘I need a drink. Find us a table?’ Delia nodded. ‘Oh – and what would you like to drink?’
Delia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I – I don’t really know.’ Her smile folded awkwardly. ‘I’ve not ever been -out like this.’
Patsy blinked in surprise. ‘Really? Not to dances at home?’
‘Well – yes, but I’ve never been to – you know, a club, or out drinking.’
‘Goodness, Busby, I thought you were just shy about the knocking.’ Delia gave a small laugh, but she seemed more guarded. Patsy flashed her a bright smile. ‘Well, I suppose it’s just like a village dance, only with stronger lemonade – and no six inches for the Holy Spirit.’
Even in the twilight she saw Delia go bright red. It made Patsy’s stomach drop a little, goodness knows why. She mustered her friendly smile again. ‘I’ll get you a babycham. It’s a nice drink to start with.’
She pushed her way around the crowd to the bar and ordered the babycham and a margherita for herself. Her eyes wandered over the room again as she waited. The crowd was a mix of black and white patrons, but the groups didn’t appear to mix much. Some musical-looking types sat in a mixed group, obliviously deep in conversation, instrument cases propped up beside them like toddlers at the dinner table. Otherwise tables were decidedly separated like a chessboard. Most everyone had on the same fashions, their flounciest skirts and most pressed shirts and sweater sets, the women’s hair pinned or chemically tamed. The music swung on, the band showing no signs of tiring. The dancers’ spirits were also high, enthusiasm making up for the occasional elbowing and toe-stepping.
Grabbing the drinks, Patsy made her way gingerly back to where she’d left Delia. She wasn’t there but Patsy spotted her cropped bob a few tables away, nodding over something with the group she’d noticed. There were five people clustered around the tall and precarious wooden table. The leader of the discussion seemed to be a short black man with cropped hair. As Patsy got close enough to hear their conversation, the timbre of the man’s voice tipped her off that it was in fact a woman, in trailing men’s slacks and suspenders. She had a lilting Jamaican accent and was speaking rapidly, punctuating her points by rapping the table.
‘You’ve got to hear Joe Harriot play. He does Saturday nights up in Mac’s on Oxford Street? Girl, how haven’t you heard of him?’
Delia looked up startled as Patsy hovered, drinks in hand. ‘Oh, hello erm – this is my friend Patience Mount.’ Patsy gave a nod and gave the table a friendly smile. ‘Patsy,’ she said, ‘among friends.’
The short woman looked her up and down. ‘Frank Linton.’
The woman next to her let out a peal of laughter. ‘Frances really, though it doesn’t suit her at all.’ She was also Jamaican, her complexion a shade darker than her companion, and she had her hair in a trim poodle cut like American film stars, held back with flower hairpins. She moved a slim flute case off the stool beside her, and Patsy gratefuly took a seat. ‘Claudette Esson.’ She slung her arm around the tall, broad-shouldered man to her left, who turned away from the . ‘This here is Barry.’
The man gave a disarming smile. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ His accent was unmistakably from Cork; Patsy recognised the accent of one of her old teachers. She smiled and shook his hand too.
‘What brought you here tonight then, Patience?’ She dispensed the name like it did in fact try her patience. Patsy felt starched and constrained beside her.
‘I came here with Delia, we – she wanted to see jazz live. We work together.’ She bit her tongue to stop herself going into a long explanation of how she’d met her new friend; Delia had doubtless already filled the group in. She was looking more comfortable than she had since Patsy had met her, the ghost of a laugh on her face and pleasantly flushed from the warmth of the club. She took a sip of her drink, made a surprised face and set it down gingerly.
‘Gosh, I didn’t expect it to taste so sour – like an old apple core.’
Frank let out a laugh and slapped her on the back. ‘You can do much better than that. Next one’s on me, I’ll get you something good.’ Patsy didn’t know why she felt so put out. Delia forced down another gulp of the babycham and smiled. ‘I’m alright for now. You didn’t say by the way, what you do.’
‘I’m a musician.’ Frank tossed it out with bravado. ‘I play jazz piano. In my brother’s band – Benny, the trumpet player onstage.’ She nodded towards the stage, where the trumpet player lowered his instrument to crack them a smile. ‘We play ‘What about you, Patience? Are you a nurse too?’
‘I am, final year. And – my friends call me Patsy.’ She couldn’t take this Patience business anymore. ‘I’m just moved to London, same as Delia.’ Her terse answers and plummy voice weren’t impressing with this group, she knew.
‘How are you finding it here?’ Claudette asked, clearly the peacemaker of the group. ‘When I came here I’d never been to such a big city in my life, I was really scared. Till I met friends of course,’ she said smiling, and leaned her head against Barry’s arm.
‘I – I suppose it’s not the easiest place to come and live. I live with my aunt. She’s – a character.’ The anxiety crept back as she thought about going back to Gloria’s.
‘Hear hear,’ Barry chimed in. ‘I lived with my cousin when I first came here – Frank still lives with Benny and his girl. Thank God I moved in with a mate. Speak of the devil – how’re you lad?’ He addressed this over Patsy’s head. Looking behind her she saw the boy from the entrance hall strutting towards them with a smirk on his face.
‘Alright, mate – who have we here?’
Frank took over. ‘New to town. Delia Busby and Patsy Mount. Nurses, the both of them.’
‘We met earlier, sort of. I’m Lenny.’ He winked stuck his hand out to Patsy, who shook it politely. His angelic baby face was belied by tattoos on his arm. ‘Benny finishing up soon? I’m dying to head home.’
‘I think they’re at the end of the set.’ Frank turned to Delia again. ‘You want to come over for a real drink?’
‘Why not?’ Delia smiled. ‘Pats?’
Patsy cast a doubtful look at Lenny, who smirked back in a way that she thought might have been flirtatious. She couldn’t leave Delia to go by herself. ‘Why not?’