The Lido Girls

‘You don’t look well.’ Natalie swung open the first door that she came to. She had just enough time to flick the electric light switch and illuminate the drab clothes hanging from a hat stand and the horizontal mirror edged with light bulbs, before Delphi’s legs buckled again. Like a puppet with its strings cut, sleep triumphed and she piled to the floor. Natalie slowed her fall as much as she could and then crouched beside her. There was a tatty knitted polo neck on the back of the dressing table chair, which she smoothed over her.

Natalie watched and waited. She was still the same beautiful Delphi in every way except her jaw was clenched, and she was asleep on the floor. Natalie didn’t touch her. Sometimes in these fits she was actually still awake, but trapped by the paralysis of her own body. Natalie’s touch would be leaden to her.

She looked at her watch. So much for the quick escape after the rally. She’d promised Miss Lott that she’d check in the girls at the college’s ten o’clock curfew, but Delphi would be in no fit state to get the tram home by herself. The changing room had its own telephone on a stand, next to a vase of carnations. That was their first bit of luck because she was going to have to call up Delphi’s younger brother, Jack.

*

‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry.’ Prunella Stack twitched her head and backed out of the room, checking the name plaque on the door. ‘I thought I was in my changing room.’

‘No, no, it is. That’s to say…’ Natalie found herself unusually tongue-tied.

‘I was feeling a bit light-headed…’ Delphi explained. Her voice still groggy with sleep.

‘…So I brought her inside for a rest.’

Delphi had come around twenty minutes ago and she’d grown cold and was now wearing the polo-neck jumper while they waited for her brother, Jack, to arrive and drive them home.

‘Oh, you poor dear,’ Prunella cooed as Delphi and Natalie introduced themselves and shook hands. There was a kerfuffle at the door. A photographer tried to push his way in; the flashbulb went, and a woman with dark hair sent him packing.

‘These newspaper photographers become a nuisance after a while,’ Prunella explained. ‘You were taken ill during the demonstration, I recall? I saw you leave; you looked terribly pale.’

‘Oh it was nothing.’ Delphi flushed red. ‘I was giddy with excitement. I want to train with you, you see.’

Natalie made for the door. They would wait for Jack in the corridor. She regretted sneaking out of the college to come here as it was; to now be meeting Prunella Stack was one dance with the devil too many. But Delphi hadn’t even let go of the woman’s hand. She was under her spell, and at close quarters Natalie could see why.

‘Well I hope we didn’t make you overexert yourself with the demonstration.’ Prunella wore a look of concern as she asked her Aunt Norah to fetch both of the visitors a glass of water and told Natalie to sit down. ‘Our teachers are a lot fitter than they might look. It’s all too easy to expect too much of our members.’

Natalie laughed at Prunella’s suggestion; she couldn’t help herself. Delphi nudged her in the ribs and she stopped, but it was too late. She had piqued Prunella’s interest. The other woman leant against the dressing table, her long slender legs and bare feet stretching out in front of her, her face upturned and serious, inviting Natalie to explain her mirth.

‘I’m a physical training teacher, that’s all,’ Natalie explained, but the sharp gaze coming from Delphi told her that her tone was a little too heavy with pomposity. ‘Actually I’m the Vice Principal at Linshatch College of Physical Education. I suppose, I just wouldn’t say…’ She stopped herself before she said too much and offended Prunella.

‘What wouldn’t you say?’ Prunella enquired after a moment’s silence.

‘Well…no…it’s nothing.’

‘I’m interested,’ Prunella said. ‘You don’t have to worry about offending us.’

She thought of her promise to Delphi to give it a go, and keep an open mind, and she had done that. Besides, Prunella’s smile was warm and friendly and made her feel there was nothing to fear in being honest.

‘Very well then.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I was surprised at what you said about your instructors, that’s all. Your activities – I just didn’t find them terribly invigorating.’

‘I see,’ Prunella said with a sniff. The smile had evaporated. Delphi delivered another nudge in her side.

Aunt Norah, whose jet-black hair rose up from her forehead like the fat end of a cream horn, had returned with two glasses of water and had overheard Natalie’s credentials. ‘You probably know that we’re trying to gain national recognition for the League,’ she said, addressing Natalie, ‘but we’re finding the Board of Education is rather a closed shop and wedded to the methods employed by the colleges.’

‘I’m sure Natty could help…’

‘I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t.’ Natalie clasped her hands in front of her. Their pact to support one another’s ambitions didn’t extend to sabotaging one career for the advancement of the other.

‘Could you offer any advice?’ Norah pressed her.

Natalie looked to Delphi. She was just smiling and encouraging her to say something charming, but if these women deserved anything, then it was the truth.

‘The problem is that the establishment puts a lot of faith in science and it’s because of that scientific grounding that we know that our methods work, you see.’ She paused. Aunt Norah had folded her arms at that last remark. ‘I was curious to come along today. I must admit I have heard some suspicious rumours about you, but Delphi is quite taken with her classes and wants to train as an instructor. And I did have a lovely day out…’ She paused again, hoping the conversation might take a different turn, but they both still looked at her with expectation. ‘At the end of it all, I am left wondering whether without rigour and discipline, is this really educational?’

Prunella’s smile had grown over-ripe and was beginning to sour.

‘The ladies have had fun today.’ Prunella almost punched out the words. ‘You said it yourself. Our classes lift spirits and let women express themselves through movement…’

‘Absolutely,’ Delphi murmured.

‘Mmm.’ Natalie scratched her neck. ‘But none of that is…’ Stalled by the fear of making things worse she came back to the same word ‘…educational. I mean what has anybody actually learned today?’

‘Oh, Natty!’ Delphi shook her head. ‘You were moved to tears today.’

‘Yes but that’s not exercise as I know it… Miss Stack, in my view it’s bordering on artistic poppycock.’

She saw Prunella’s eyes widen.

‘What she means to say is…’

‘It’s all right.’ Prunella held up a hand. ‘We come from different worlds. And we’ve heard worse, much worse. Our methods are based on exercises used in India for many hundreds of years. What’s more, the number of women here today means more to us than the support of the Board of Education. Now, if you think you’re feeling quite well,’ she said to Delphi, ‘perhaps you and your friend wouldn’t mind…’

Keen to comply with Prunella’s request, and mindful that she’d spoiled what should have been Delphi’s moment to create a good impression, Natalie rushed to the door and opened it while looking behind for Delphi to follow, and in doing so she collided with the chest of a man in the corridor.

‘Steady on, Natty!’ The man held her in his arms. It took her a moment to realise it was Delphi’s brother, Jack, come to take them home. ‘Knight in shining armour at your service.’ He winked.

She pulled herself free, stepping back to take him in. This was the first time she’d seen him since he’d returned from living in America, and what a difference those seven years had made. His hair – more of a white blond than she’d remembered – flopped forwards over the side of his forehead and lightly fringed his lively eyes. She appeared to be frozen to the spot by the blue of them.

‘Hello, Jack,’ Delphi said with a sigh. ‘Are you here to take Cinderella back to her scullery?’

‘Keep the jumper.’ Prunella addressed Delphi, and then as Natalie reached the door, she said, ‘Discipline or not, we run the League on good intentions and a rather frayed shoestring. In regards to the things you’ve heard, I’d be grateful if you could quash any rumours you hear about us profiteering. We actually barely turn a profit at all.’

They walked down the corridor shrouded in an uncomfortable silence, Jack looking from one of them to the other as if trying to guess who would speak first.

‘Mother’s snake venom didn’t work then?’ he tried a joke, a reference to Mrs Mulberry’s attempt at finding a cure for Delphi’s illness with a tonic she had purchased from the reptile curator at London Zoo. Neither of them found it funny.

‘That was just the foot up my career needed,’ Delphi said eventually, once they were far enough away to be out of earshot. ‘I can’t possibly apply for a place on their instructor training course now.’

‘I’ll put it right,’ Natalie called after her as Delphi stomped on ahead and then slowed again as her tiredness caught a hold of her.

‘And how will you do that, exactly?’ Delphi shook her head in exasperation and took Jack’s arm to steady her.

Natalie had no idea, but she was going to have to think of something.

Chapter Two

The swallow dive

The diver arches her back and holds her arms out from her sides until she is close to the water.

‘It took me a moment to recognise you back there,’ Jack told her as they continued in darkness down another tree-tunnelled Kentish lane. They’d dropped Delphi – still angry – safely back home, taking her straight up to her room to avoid her parents and their guests in the drawing room. Now for this final leg it was just the two of them.

She thought about it for a moment.

‘What do you mean?’ She caught a glimpse of Woodham’s motor repair yard. They weren’t far from the college now.

‘You didn’t look how I remembered, I suppose. You looked like one of those women you were with, actually. You both did.’

‘I’m really not a part of that set.’

And nor is that likely to ever happen. Artistic poppycock! What a thing to say.

‘Your hair looks different, you’re wearing make-up, but actually…’ he nodded his head ‘…yes, that’s it. I think it was the shorts that threw me.’

She supposed she did take more care over her appearance these days.

‘What I’m really saying is that I had no idea you had such great legs.’

He laughed as he said it and lifted an arm from the steering wheel to defend himself from the blow she launched at his head. America had done nothing to quell his confidence, or his flirting.

‘And what about me?’

‘What about you?’ She turned her head away from him to feel the heat on her cheeks with the back of her hand.

‘Did you recognise me?’ he asked.

‘Of course. You haven’t changed a bit.’

‘Oh.’ He sounded disappointed and she wished she’d told him the truth – that she’d been struck by how handsome he looked, and how his shoulders had filled out, and his eyes, well he’d always had those eyes. But she didn’t trust how those words would sound coming from her mouth.

‘Delphi told me about your girl,’ she said instead. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh that.’ He shrugged. With no warning he pulled the steering wheel to the left, fast. She held on to the side of her seat as they took the bend far too quickly and watched the intense darkness through the windscreen for oncoming lights. ‘Mother says I rushed in.’ With a subtle twitch of her head she looked at his face. His jaw was set. ‘But she’s happy now of course. She’s got her boy home.’ She held on to her seat again as this time he forced the car to lurch to the right.

‘Do you think your mother will let Delphi train as an instructor?’

He shrugged. ‘You’re closest to her and you’ve seen how controlling Mother is. I think someone needs to be honest with my sister about her prospects.’

‘You think that should be me?’

‘Well the two of you discuss everything, don’t you? I’ve seen the letters arriving since I’ve been back. What do the two of you find to say?’

‘All sorts. Education, fitness, new teaching methods, female emancipation in sport, what is happening around the world… The thing is, Jack, she has a brilliant mind, and she can’t stay hidden at home her whole life. She needs to be allowed to work around her illness.’

‘Mother always thought Delphi was a bad influence on you before she got sent down from the college. Perhaps they had it the wrong way around.’

Had Delphi told him how Natalie had refused the idea of them sharing a flat together? Even Mrs Mulberry had hinted that she might approve of it. She trusted Natalie with her daughter it seemed. But even though Delphi had sulked, she hadn’t been swayed. Lots of women did share a home together these days, but she couldn’t be certain that she’d be comfortable as one of them.

‘We’re friends, friends with similar interests – that’s all.’ She hated to think their friendship had been subject to dissection and speculation, that they stood out simply because they understood one another. Her cheeks were hot once more.

‘It’s all right. I’m not prying.’ Jack held up his hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I agree. Delphi needs her own life and I’m working on something actually; let’s call it Jack’s escape plan.’ He brushed his lips to zip them together.

‘Are you still dreaming of becoming an Olympic diver?’ she asked.

‘Always,’ he said, ‘always.’

*

It had been raining in Kent. The air was damp and chilled for so close to May. Jack slid a packet of Navy Cut cigarettes from his back pocket. He offered one to Natalie – she shook her head – and then he slotted one between his teeth and lit it, his spare hand slouched in his baggy trouser pocket. Then came the sweet tobacco as it burnt in the night air and drifted away.

She removed her own bag from the boot, thanked him for driving her back. He took her by surprise; moving in to embrace her, his hands spread on her back, and she closed her eyes for a second or two before she jerked away and pulled herself free.

‘So what’s next for you?’ She held her satchel in front of her and backed away from him.

‘Training and trying to make the team for the Berlin games next year.’ He smoothed his fringe back with his fingers. ‘And I’m on the job hunt. The less time spent with Mother, the better.’

‘It will be good for Delphi to have you home. If you’re feeling miserable already, think what it’s like for her.’

‘Over there…’ he gestured in the dark towards America ‘…it was easy to forget what was going on at home, but now I’m back here, well…’ He trailed away.

‘It’s not so easy to ignore?’ she offered as he pulled on his cigarette.

He nodded in the darkness. ‘We’ll see if my escape plan leads us anywhere.’

A branch snapped behind a shadowy rhododendron bush at the border of the driveway. A fox or a badger perhaps. Then a rustling of leaves. She strained her eyes towards the dark mass and approached it. Then the night returned to the deep silence of the countryside.

‘You’d better be on your way, or I’ll be in trouble.’

He climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s not leave it another seven years,’ he said as he tipped his hat and snapped the door shut.

She listened to his tyres crunching back down the gravel until the sound of the engine faded away, the residue of Olympia’s cacophony still playing faintly in her ears. It had been so nice to escape for a few hours, to feel the pulse of life beyond the grounds, but she was back where she belonged now and there was no use her being down in the dumps about it.

What does Jack have planned? She wandered back towards the house, hoping he might do a better job of helping Delphi, perhaps undo the damage she’d done tonight with Prunella Stack.

In the darkness, the mansion house felt more like a stranger than the old friend she’d left behind earlier that afternoon. There was a disconcerting feeling of not knowing where the college ended and the night began. Several rectangles of yellow light were beacons in the night. Beacons that should have been long extinguished. Lights out was hours ago. But then the Principal, Miss Lott, was unwell and so she was awake through the night more and more often. Natalie fought to ignore the sense she had here of being hemmed in, as if she lived on a tiny island that afforded no variety, no change of company.

Then movement from the bushes again. This time more rustling and another branch snapped. She yelled. Clutched her chest. A shape emerged, too big to be an animal, and then another. She realised too late it was a girl’s voice, nothing to be afraid of, and that the girl had been giggling.

‘Quick!’ the girl whispered and scampered across the gravel towards the dorm entrance. Natalie didn’t pursue them. The second figure, with a deeper voice, whispered something and then ran past Natalie in a blur back down the driveway towards the gates. The curfew was very strict: ten o’clock. The girls didn’t miss it by a minute. For a girl to be out three hours after curfew, and with a young man, was unthinkable.

But she had led a poor example herself, and who knew if the girl had seen her being dropped off by Jack. Seen the two of them in their awkward embrace. What had that been? An innocent gesture, a thank you perhaps for helping Delphi? Had she jumped to the wrong conclusion when she pulled away? He was her best friend’s brother after all, much younger than her, and he had no shortage of admirers. ‘I had no idea you had such great legs.’ But he had said that, hadn’t he?

She’d recognised the outline of the spectacles and the thick thatch of hair on the person who had just run into the dorm, though she would have guessed who it was without the physical clues. Margaret Wilkins following her own timetable again. It would wait until the morning because as it happened Miss Lott had already arranged for the girl’s mother and father to come to the college to discuss what they were to do about their wayward daughter.

*

Last night’s rain hadn’t returned and instead the sky showered them with blue. She’d heard the crunch of gravel and the girls chattering as they’d cycled to church, and then the awful Sunday silence fell on her. She didn’t have the comfort of a busy timetable to pull her through the day. There wouldn’t even be a letter from Delphi this weekend.

Aside from writing to Delphi, Sunday usually meant a few hours to herself that she had the challenge of trying to fill. She had a new pattern for a trouser suit. She’d splashed out on a length of powder-blue silk too. But when would I wear it? She could make two blouses and some embellishments out of this length, far more practical. But whatever the silk was to become, it would have to wait because the Principal, Miss Lott, had asked to see her, no doubt for a briefing before Miss Wilkins’s parents arrived for their meeting that afternoon.

She left the fabric on the narrow patch of her bedroom floor. As she stood she caught a quick glimpse of the box that once again safely stored her Women’s League of Health and Beauty uniform.

Cutting straight through the study to the adjoining private dining room, she found the Principal alone with one arm pressed against the mantelpiece, her body crooked, stooped over, while her other hand was splayed across her stomach. Her usually curled hair was in tufts, floating around her head like un-spun wool. She looked frail and vulnerable – not yet even dressed. She was still in her flannelette dressing gown and slippers.

As soon as she saw Natalie she pulled herself upright and forced a smile. Her face was pinched, pain carved into it. Her Scottie dog, Murray, wagged his tail at her ankles, looking at Natalie as if he expected her to make things better.

‘How was your brother?’

Natalie snatched a quick look at Miss Lott. Does she know I lied about my whereabouts yesterday? ‘As dull as ever…’ She left it hanging. Miss Lott knew exactly how she felt about her only surviving brother.

Miss Lott winced as she straightened up. With light, careful steps she led her out to the sheltered balcony where in contrast to the exposed playing field, the sun baked the tiled floor.

The relief of seeing the teapot on the table, its steam curling out from the spout, made tears warm her eyes. She hadn’t quite realised it before but she’d been afraid that the word had somehow got out that she’d been at Olympia yesterday with the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, and not with her brother.

The adjoining building sheltered them from the breeze and the clear skies were a hint of summer. Despite this, Miss Lott wrapped a blanket around her thin legs.

Her eyes and mouth closed tight for a second until the sudden pain had passed. Her breathing had quickened. Natalie waited.

‘My goodness, you look terrified,’ Miss Lott said once she’d harnessed her breath again, but she had to stop to cough.

She’d been thinking how much she wished she could tell Miss Lott about Olympia, about the League, Delphi’s desire to be a part of it, and how she’d spoiled a chance meeting by offending Prunella. But I can’t. Absolutely not. I won’t put her in the position of knowing that I lied or that I am desperately bored of life here.

‘You have Miss Wilkins’s family coming in today?’

Natalie nodded.

‘Tread carefully. I had Lord Lacey on the telephone last night. He has a personal connection with the family, but he disapproves of the girl, and her mother. He wants you to get rid of Miss Wilkins so he can plead the decision was out of his hands.’

Natalie waited while Miss Lott took another breath. She thought again about seeing the girl out late last night, messing about with a boy too. She couldn’t mention it, not if she wanted to save the girl’s skin – as well as preserve her own.

‘She’s very talented, you know.’

‘I do know. But she’s made no effort to play along with the rules and now she has a trustee against her. I’m afraid she’s run out of lives.’

Just then, the second-year girls dressed in their ankle-length sage hooded cloaks wobbled in along the driveway below, slowing their bicycles to a stop in the sheds to the left of the house. They unloaded their handlebars of wooden hoops and totes bulging with skittles, beanbags and canes used to take the primary school children for games after Sunday school. One of the girls frantically pumped up her old bicycle’s front tyre while the others left her to it. Chatting and laughing, they drifted off like dandelion seeds towards the new wing at the rear of the house.

The smile fell from Natalie’s face when Miss Lott let out a little exhalation as she lifted the teapot. She gently stirred up the tea leaves by swirling the pot’s fat belly, her thumb holding the lid steady. She shot a sideways glance at Natalie, letting her know she had caught her watching her and that she knew she was taking in how much weaker she’d become.

‘Wilkins wasn’t the reason I asked you here, actually.’ Miss Lott’s tone had changed, her voice tremored as her emotions plucked at her vocal cords. ‘The hard truth is that my time here is coming to a close.’

Natalie gripped the arm of her chair. Only serious ill health would drive Miss Lott from the college. She had been there so long that it was unimaginable to think of the place without her.

The Principal was careful not to look at her. Instead she spent too long setting the teapot down and adjusting the angle so that the handle sat parallel to the edge of the table. Then she tipped some pills into her mouth with a flat palm and swallowed them down dry.

‘Will you stay much longer?’ Natalie ventured.

‘It’s hard to say, but I don’t think I’ve got long.’

Natalie swallowed hard. The news stuck in her throat like molasses. Her own restlessness would grow and grow without Miss Lott around. She would become even lonelier at the college without her to talk with. It was such an awful thought that she couldn’t completely let it in.