‘You don’t look yourself
Tin not myself.’
A confession from one and a warning from the other were preempted by Sarah in the kitchen calling, ‘Mary, Mary, where have you put the chickens, hey? ‘And Mary answering, ‘Where have I put them - when they haven’t been delivered yet?’
‘There isn’t going to be enough food,’ said Daphne and they got into Betty’s car and drove out into the countryside to any shop or butcher or bakery they could find. But others had had the same idea: shop after shop had been cleaned out. At last they found shelves still stacked with bread, and a butcher with a sheep’s carcass. They returned, with this booty, to find their charges, all ten of them, under the tree in Bettys garden, sprawling on rugs, being fed ham and chicken and salad by the maids.
‘We could drive you to see the sights,’ said Betty,
‘We could take you up Table Mountain,’ said Daphne.
The young men agreed that nothing could he better than sitting here, looking down on their enemy, the sea, which today spread out glimmering like a peacock’s tail, looking like anything but what it was, a submarine-haunted killer.
The two women and the baby sat near them on the grass, both with that maternal smile which is as good as a chastity belt. But this lot, unlike previous invasions off the troopships, looked too beaten up to be a threat. Daphne felt the gaze of the young man on her, saw his haunted hungry eyes, and then glanced at Betty, who of course would notice. He was already better, they all were: these young men were recovering as they breathed, and ate, and ate, and demolished piles of grapes. The air was heavy with the smell of liniments and ointments, there were dressings here and there on sore skins, but you would not think these were the scarecrows who had conic off the boat yesterday.
Then they confessed for a need to sleep, and all went off to their beds. It was early afternoon. All over the two gardens that were being made one by that night’s party, trestles were being set out, with piles of cutlery and plates and glasses, and smells of cooking meat came from the kitchens. Not only here, everywhere through the city, went on preparations and already men in uniforms were roaming these upper streets. There would be hundreds of them, hoping to be lucky, hoping for a welcome.
The organisations that dealt with incursions from the troopships asked for volunteers for these parties, knowing that only the incapacitated would hold back. The lucky ones were chosen by lot: names taken from a pail. For days and weeks to come slips of paper with the names of Captain E.R. Baker, Sgt. ‘Red’ Smith, Corporal Burners, Rifleman Barry, Private Jones, hundreds of them, were all over the city, in gutters, clogged on windowsills, fluttering about as the winds blew, Tom, Dick and Harry’s names were everywhere, while they were on their way to - but it had to be India.
Betty and Daphne had each put down for four hundred, knowing that the unlucky and the uninvited would be wandering up to stand like poor children at a shop window, looking in at festive gardens. And then they would be invited in: who could turn them away?The young men woke at five or so, and sleep had taken them another step towards their healthy selves. Their uniforms were clean and ironed now, and they were shaved and brushed.
At six o’clock Hetty went off to her house to dress and Daphne looked over the evening dresses in her long crammed wardrobe; she and her Joe had gone in for dancing, when she first came, the two couples had gone dancing often, and here were evening dresses pressed and ready for action.
She took out the one she thought of as her cleverest, though it could be described, simply, as a white dress. It was of white silk pique, stiff and glossy, but a world away from the white dress she would have worn as her English self: she could see it, limp white chiffon, with pink embroidery. She put on her white armour, described on the pattern as ‘a gown of classical simplicity’. She smiled at herself in the long mirror. She shone, gleaming shoulders, the glisten of the white stuff, her hair, her eyes. She snapped on shiny jet necklace and bracelets, her grandmother’s, a mourning set; jet for mourning but just look how it set her off! And now her hair, down it fell, her yellow triumphant hair, achieved by perms, not to wave it, but to make it heavy and straight. And she peered close into her face that was enclosed in the yellow frame, and then she-was saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ She was trembling. ‘I’ve gone mad,’ she said to her reflection, but probably addressing her friend Betty. ‘Yes, I have.’ She pinned the hair up into the chignon, ageing herself by ten years into a young matron. Nothing like Ginger Rogers now (they said she was like Ginger Rogers, with her hair swinging about). Now she was the hostess, nothing more. Beside her was the English rose in her white chiffon, her invisible alter ego, the chrysalis she had discarded. A rosebud mouth smiled mistily: Daphne took her scarlet lipstick and obliterated it. Well defended, she went out, meeting Betty coming over. The two of them made a picture, and they knew it. ‘You do make a picture!’ And, ‘The dark and the light of it.’ Betty wore her dark brown silk dress. They had made their evening dresses from Vogue patterns, running them up on Singer sewing machines, side by side at a table in either house, as they felt. They were proud of their creations. ‘Dior, out of my way, “Norman Hartnell, here we come,’ they would sing to their own and each other’s reflections. Betty’s dress had lacked its finish, at first. They tried on it diamante or ‘cluster’ brooches in strong colours. ‘Vulgar,’ they pronounced. ‘No, that’s not it …’ Daphne remembered that her English- rose self had a little necklace and bracelets of white daisies, that could have been made to go - or rather, go against - the formality, of that stiff brown gown, so apt that the two had fallen about laughing, pleased with themselves.
Two young women, so recently girls in their fathers’ houses, had found themselves in their own houses, with indulgent husbands and servants. Time and space to spread themselves, then to discover that what was strongest in them was an appetite for accomplishment. They transformed rooms with colour and texture, changed their gardens, came upon new talents every day, were like conquerors in new lands, but what they liked best was transforming themselves, with the aid of their sewing machines. Often as they flung lengths of material about, or draped themselves, they broke into fits of laughter and collapsed into chairs, helpless. ‘Just as well no one can
see us, Bets.’ ‘They’d think us lunatics.’ ‘Perhaps we are.’ And the giggles broke out again. These exuberances of healthy vitality, these festivals of self-discovery, innocent because of the flagrant enjoyment of their vanities, ended with Daphne’s miscarriage and Hetty’s getting pregnant. The zest had gone and two sober young matrons looked back on giddy girls. Now they made baby clothes and shirts for their husbands. But in their cupboard hung the results of their early intoxications, and when they arrayed themselves in this dress or that, the other would signal: ‘Oh, Bets, that was a morning, wasn’t it! ‘Daphne, we were inspired that day.’
Now they gave each other the swiftest of once-overs and got on to the serious business of the night. Already cars were delivering soldiers to the two houses, and to the others in the street, and groups of soldiers wandered up, clutching bits of paper with addresses. The gramophone, with its stacks of records, was on the stoep and beside it was the gardener, ready to wind it up and change the records. Dance music came from every house, music and voices.
Daphne checked that the furniture in the living-room had been pushed back, leaving a clear floor, and that the drink was flowing. Betty went back to her house, and both women stood on their steps waving up men and girls: all the girls in the city were available tonight, for dancing at least, each worth her weight in gold. ‘You girls are worth your weight in gold.’ ‘Call your friends, everyone, we must have girls.’
