The Hidden Women: An inspirational novel of sisterhood and strength

‘Dance?’ he eventually suggested and I nodded. He took my hand and led me out to the floor, swinging me round as another jive track started. He wasn’t the best dancer but what he lacked in skill he made up for in enthusiasm, whirling me backwards and forwards across the floor until I was breathless and giddy.

‘Having fun?’ Annie spun past me, on the arm of one of Will’s friends, called Frank.

‘Lots of fun,’ I gasped. I was happier than I’d been for ages. Months. Years, perhaps. Not for the first time in my life, I marvelled at just how wonderful music was at making everything seem better.

‘Come with me,’ Annie said, grabbing my hand. ‘Will, you get us some more drinks.’

Will saluted Annie jokingly and, giggling madly, Annie, Flora and I crowded into the lav where two women were checking their hair at the mirror.

‘So?’ said Flora, craning her neck to check her seams were still in place on the back of her legs.

‘So what?’ I looked at my reflection. My hair was coming loose and my cheeks were flushed.

‘Do you like him?’

‘Will?’

‘No, Father Christmas. Of course, Will,’ Annie said.

I leaned against the wall. ‘He’s lovely,’ I said. ‘He’s so funny, and charming. And he loves to dance.’

‘Uh-oh,’ said Flora. ‘I think someone has a crush.’

I felt myself blush. ‘That’s just the thing,’ I said with a sigh. I waited for the two girls who’d been doing their hair to leave so it was just the three of us. ‘I don’t.’

Annie looked at me. ‘Really?’

I shook my head, sadly. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I wish I felt something – a spark or something – but I don’t.’

Flora draped an arm round my shoulder. ‘Darling Lil,’ she said. ‘I know you play your cards close to your chest.’

‘And a lovely chest it is,’ Annie drawled. She sat up on the sink next to me and lit a cigarette as Flora nudged her to be quiet.

‘When I joined up, I never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet two girls like you,’ Flora went on. ‘I was so bloody scared and you made it better.’

I smiled at her. I felt the same.

‘And I know you don’t want to talk about what happened to you,’ she said. I dropped my eyes from hers. It was too hard to think about and I was grateful the girls knew something was wrong inside of me, but never pushed me to elaborate. Flora squeezed me a bit tighter. ‘But I also know that we are all a bit damaged. Some more than others. That’s just life. And if you don’t want to be with Will, then don’t force it. Maybe it’ll happen later, maybe it won’t. It’s fine either way.’

I felt tears heavy behind my eyelids and blinked them away. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

Annie jumped down from the sink. ‘Thank God none of us are flying tomorrow,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘I’m more than a bit tiddly.’

‘It’s a shame, though,’ Flora said. ‘Because if one of us had been on that trip to Newcastle, we could have …’

‘Shh,’ said Annie covering Flora’s mouth with her hand. She nodded towards the cubicles. The one at the end was shut. Flora’s eyes widened in shock.

‘Bloody hell,’ I breathed. None of us had noticed that someone else was in the lav with us.

We all stared at each other for a second, grateful Annie had noticed when she did and stopped Flora before she said anything incriminating.

‘Let’s go home,’ I said.

As we turned to leave the tiny toilet, we heard whoever it was in the cubicle pull the chain.

‘Let’s go,’ I said again, suddenly desperate to be out of there. ‘It’s past my bedtime.’

Chapter 11

Helena

May 2018

I was too surprised to do anything but stare at the screen. Above the red stamp declaring that Lil had been dishonourably discharged, it also said Lil had been court-martialled and found guilty of contravening standing orders. It was completely bewildering and I wasn’t sure what to do. Luckily, Jack took over.

‘This is a shock,’ he said. ‘Do you need to get back for Dora?’

I shook my head, touched he’d remembered her name.

‘She’s with my mum.’

‘Well, how about we print this out, take all the info we’ve got to the pub, and chat about it all over a drink?’

I felt shaky. What had Lil done that deserved a court martial? Had she broken the law? Had she gone AWOL? I shook my head again, more vigorously this time.

‘None of this makes sense,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t sound like Lil.’

Jack was bustling around me, stuffing pieces of paper into the folder. I found I didn’t even care that he was putting them in upside down and back to front. Instead I just stared at the screen.

‘It must be a mistake. Lil has always been a bit of a free spirit, but she’s not a bad person.’

Jack paused in his gathering. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here and you can tell me all about her. She sounds interesting.’

‘Oh, she’s interesting, all right,’ I said. I looked at him standing there, clutching the folder, with bits of paper hanging out of it, and smiled. ‘Thanks. You’re being very nice.’

‘I feel like it’s all my fault,’ he admitted. ‘You’d have been none the wiser if I’d not turned up and started poking around your research.’

He wasn’t wrong, but somehow I was pleased. Finding out more about Lil’s war felt like the right thing to do – even if she’d kept it a secret all this time.

Jack grinned at me and I squinted at him.

‘Can you go to the pub?’ I said. ‘Like a normal person?’

He frowned.

‘I am a normal person.’

‘I mean, you’re famous. Won’t you get mobbed?’

‘Nah,’ Jack said. ‘No one ever thinks it’s me. I think it’s because I’m so scruffy. People usually just tell me I look like Jack Jones.’

I laughed and gestured to his immaculate T-shirt. ‘But you’re all dressed up,’ I said.

With a grin, Jack pulled a tatty hoodie out of his bag and shoved it over his head. Then he jammed a faded baseball cap on top of his curls, balled up the beautiful leather jacket and squished it into his rucksack – much to my distress – and looked at me in triumph.

‘Better?’ he said. ‘I’m in disguise.’

I laughed again because he looked so pleased with himself.

‘Better,’ I agreed.

‘So let’s go,’ Jack said. ‘I’m dying to know more about Lil.’

‘If you want to know more about Lil, you really need to meet my sister Miranda,’ I said. ‘Mind if I give her a ring?’

It wasn’t a total lie. If I adored Lil, Miranda adored her even more and she could definitely talk about her until the cows came home. But I could do that myself, so I didn’t need Miranda to paint a good picture of our aunt. Instead I thought I wanted her there as a kind of shield. My attraction to Jack seemed to be growing by the second and I wasn’t completely comfortable with being alone with him. I thought having Miranda there might force me to be more professional and stop gazing at him with my tongue hanging out like a thirsty puppy.

Unfortunately, Miranda’s reaction was predictably similar to mine. She arrived in the bar at a trendy hotel near the office just after we did. Jack was ordering the drinks and I was sitting in the semi-circular booth he’d chosen.

‘We’ll have more room here to spread out all the papers,’ he’d said when we arrived, turning round to catch a waiter’s eye and knocking the folder off the table with his bag. I’d caught the file before everything fell out and put it back on the table top without him noticing. ‘Stay here, I’ll get some drinks.’

Miranda slid in next to me.

‘Is that him?’ she said, watching Jack at the bar with ill-disguised longing. ‘Oh, my.’

I elbowed her, hard. ‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘You’re married. And too old for him.’

‘Window shopping,’ Miranda said. ‘And I am not too old.’

Then she stopped looking at Jack and turned her stare to me instead.

‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘This isn’t just banter, is it?’

‘Jack’s getting wine, I think.’

‘Don’t ignore me. You like him.’

I felt myself flushing again. ‘He’s nice,’ I muttered. ‘And handsome.’

‘Ohhhh,’ Miranda breathed. ‘You’ve got a crush.’

I gave her a fierce look. ‘Have not,’ I said.

‘You are allowed,’ she said. ‘It’s not a crime. It’s ages since you broke up with Greg. It’s definitely time to get back on that horse.’

‘Jack is not a horse.’ I frowned at her, to warn her he was approaching. ‘And it’s unprofessional to have a crush on someone I’m researching. And how can I date anyone? I’ve got Dora to think about.’

‘Lot of excuses, there, Nell,’ Miranda said. ‘Protesting too much, I think …’

She stopped talking as Jack approached. He put a tray of drinks down, slopping some of his beer on to the table, and beamed at Miranda.

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he said, gleefully shaking her hand. ‘I’ve heard lots about you from Helena.’

Again with the way he said my name. I imagined him saying it to other people. ‘Have you met my wife – Helena?’ and smiled to myself.

‘Nell,’ Miranda said, giving me a shove. ‘Are you with us?’

I blinked, startled out of my daydream. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking about Lil.’

‘Oh yes, tell me more,’ Jack said. He began taking the drinks off the tray and I helped him, trying to make sure he didn’t spill any more than he already had. I handed Miranda a wine glass and a napkin to wipe up splatters and poured some Pinot Grigio for us both.

‘Is Lil your dad’s sister?’ Jack drank a mouthful of beer.

‘No, she’s Dad’s aunt, actually,’ Miranda said. ‘Our parents are both only children. But Lil was the baby of her family, so she’s not really that much older than Dad.’

‘You said she was very special to you?’ Jack prompted.

Miranda and I looked at each other. We didn’t often talk about when we were growing up.

I took a breath. ‘We had a bit of an unconventional childhood,’ I began.

‘And you have two other siblings, am I right?’

He’d remembered what I’d told him. Miranda, obviously impressed, smiled. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘There’s Andy and Imogen, too.’

‘Andy’s nearly thirty, and Immy’s twenty-six,’ I added.

Jack nodded. ‘I always wanted brothers and sisters when I was growing up,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have lots of kids.’

Miranda gave me a meaningful look and I spluttered on my wine. Jack thumped me on the back.

‘Easy there,’ he said. ‘No need to gulp.’

Miranda, looking chic and businesslike in what seemed to be a very expensive suit, with her curly hair pulled back into a neat twist, leaned back in the booth and carried on talking while I wiped my mouth with the napkin Jack offered.

‘Our parents are both creative and a bit scatty,’ she said.

I snorted. ‘Scatty,’ I said. ‘Forgetful, more like.’

‘When we were growing up they weren’t great with money,’ Miranda went on. ‘Bills often went unpaid. The electricity would go off. They weren’t poor. Just disorganised.’

‘But when we were really small, it was all fun,’ I said. ‘We were too little to know any different and all we knew was they loved us.’

‘But when Mum had Imogen, things changed,’ Miranda said. ‘Postnatal depression, I guess. Though it took a while for it to really get a hold of her.’

Jack nodded. ‘I have a friend who has depression,’ he said. ‘It’s like a gradual creeping up with him.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ Miranda said. ‘She didn’t just wake up depressed one morning, it was more like a downward spiral.’

I let Miranda talk. She was two years older than me so she remembered it better.

‘Once, Mum left Andy in my classroom when she dropped me at school, instead of taking him to nursery,’ she continued. ‘When my teacher noticed him, she rang Mum to come and get him. She was so upset.’

‘Andy wasn’t remotely bothered of course,’ I added, wanting to make Mum sound less awful.

‘But that’s when things started to go downhill. Mum wasn’t really functioning and Dad – well, like I said, he was “scatty”.’ Miranda made quote marks with her fingers. ‘Things got a bit messy for a while.’

Jack smiled at me. ‘Did your mum work?’ he asked.

‘She still does,’ I said. ‘In fact, you might know of her – she’s an art historian.’

‘So that’s where you get it from,’ Jack said to me. I felt like a flower opening up in sunshine as he turned his gaze to me.

Miranda butted in and I almost tutted because I was enjoying having Jack’s attention.

‘She’s an expert in Victorian painting and she’s often on those daytime antiques shoes. She’s brilliant, actually, on screen. She’s so enthusiastic and because she’s been a university lecturer forever she explains things really well. She writes books, too. We’re very proud of her, because it’s not been easy for her.’

Jack was staring at Miranda. ‘I know her,’ he said, excitedly. ‘She’s got hair just like you but in a cloud round her face, right?’

Miranda laughed. ‘That’s her,’ she said. ‘And she wears glasses like Helena’s.’

I pushed my black-rimmed specs up my nose and grinned. ‘I don’t have the hair,’ I said, gesturing to my own poker-straight style. ‘But I did inherit the dodgy eyesight.’

I felt we were giving Jack an unfair picture of our mother so I carried on. ‘Mum’s wonderful. She’s a brilliant grandmother to Dora, and Miranda’s little boy. She’s helped me out so much. I wouldn’t have been able to go back to work without knowing she was round the corner.’

Miranda nodded. ‘She is fab,’ she said. ‘We’re lucky she got over her depression and that it never came back – not like it was.’

‘And what about your dad?’

I felt a bit like Jack was researching us rather than me him, but somehow I didn’t mind.

‘Dad’s a composer,’ Miranda said. ‘He writes music for films and TV shows, and adverts sometimes too.’

I shifted in my seat. ‘He did some of the music for Mackenzie,’ I said, wondering if I should have mentioned this before. ‘Not the theme but some of the incidental music.’

He gaped at me in astonishment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My Mackenzie?’

‘The very same.’

Jack chuckled. ‘Isn’t it a small world, eh?’

‘Isn’t it,’ said Miranda. ‘Dad’s career was just taking off in the Nineties, when we were growing up. He worked long hours. And when Mum got ill, he wasn’t completely able to cope with four kids.’

Jack nodded. ‘And Lil?’

‘She was a musician, like Dad,’ I told him. ‘Piano, mostly, but she’s the sort of person who can play anything. She was a session musician and she travelled all over the world playing with different bands or singers. Six months on a cruise ship here, a year in a jazz club in New York, there. Recording an album with the Rolling Stones one day, hanging out with Fleetwood Mac the next.’

‘Sounds incredible.’

‘She’s got some brilliant stories,’ I agreed.

‘But when we were kids and Mum was poorly,’ Miranda said, ‘Lil stepped in and made sure we were being looked after.’ She drained her wine glass. ‘I’m not sure what we would have done without her.’

‘Blimey,’ Jack said, topping up Miranda’s empty glass. ‘You are really close?’

I nodded. ‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘And yet she’s never mentioned her time in the ATA.’

I looked at Miranda. ‘Manda, we found Lil’s service record.’ I picked up the folder Jack had brought with him, which was now splattered with beer and something that looked like tomato ketchup, even though we’d not eaten. ‘Look at what happened.’

I handed her the sheet of paper and watched as she read the lines at the bottom.

‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘Dishonourable discharge?’

‘What do you think, Manda?’ I said. ‘Do you still think we should speak to her about it?’

Miranda made a face. ‘I’m going to Paris on Friday for a week,’ she said. ‘So I can’t help. But yes, I think you should go and see her. Find out what it was all about.’

‘She might not want to talk,’ I said. ‘What if it upsets her? She’s really old.’

‘She’s tough as old boots,’ said Miranda. ‘I really think you should try to talk about it. We can’t pretend that we don’t know now – she’d see through that in a flash.’

I nodded. That was true.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and see her at the weekend.’

Chapter 12

The following Saturday, Dora and I sat on a train heading out through the leafy suburbs of south-west London to see Lil. She was ninety-four now and very frail, so she lived in a care home. It was an amazing place, funded by an entertainers’ charity. All the residents of the home had once made their living as performers of one kind or another and now saw out their days reminiscing together and – too often for my liking – providing their own entertainment. They had mostly been jobbing actors, or, as Lil had been, session musicians, but there was the occasional recognisable face and they all loved to put on a show.

I normally phoned ahead when I visited, but today I’d not told Lil I was coming. After everything we’d found out, I was nervous about seeing her, which was strange considering how much I loved her. And for some reason I didn’t want to warn her – though quite why I needed to be so sneaky about it all, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like I was expecting to walk in and catch her piloting a Spitfire around the residents’ lounge.

What I actually found, when we walked into the residents’ lounge, was one of the actors – a man who once trod the boards at the RSC and had been a regular on the West End stage – standing in the middle of the room, reciting a speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I paused by the door, scanning the room for Lil and clocked her sitting in the corner watching the ageing actor with barely disguised amusement. Our eyes met and she smiled.

‘Hello,’ she called, ignoring the fact that the actor was still going. ‘I wasn’t expecting you today.’

Dora jumped up and down. She loved Lil. ‘Hello!’ she shouted. ‘’Lo, Lil!’

Like a small bullet, she swerved the gesturing arms of the Shakespearean chap, and hurtled over to my aunt. I followed and sat down next to her.

‘Surprise!’ I said. ‘Careful of Lil’s legs, Dora.’

Dora clambered up on to my knee and beamed at Lil. ‘’Lo, Lil,’ she said again.

‘Hello, my darling girl,’ Lil said to her, twirling one of her curls round her finger. ‘I think you’ve grown again.’

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