THE LAST DANCE

I took a deep breath, smoothed my hands over my hair, straightened my collar, and stepped up to the microphone. Put on my best smile, swayed towards the audience, snapped my fingers and began to sing.

I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less!

 But tonight was history. Tonight was special - in more ways than one. For this was the last time the Stevie-dores would be performing together. War was over, and we were playing our last show. This Demob Dance in the big hangar at RAF Felham was celebration of the end of six years concentrated courage, strength and self sacrifice - and everyone here, hundreds of folk, were determined to celebrate in style!

There were sixteen of us up on stage in our tuxedos or sleek blue crepe gowns; battledress was for daytime concerts only - and we played more than a few of those!

Stevie Simms, leader of the Stevie-dores, stood centre stage, his back to the packed hall. No conductor’s wand for Stevie - he would swing it tonight! And after tonight would return quietly to the second row of violins in one of London’s top symphony orchestras.

 As for me - who knows? All I’d been thinking about for two years was following my yellow brick road and walking off into the sunset with my dream boat. Only trouble was, my dream boat had dumped me on the shore, and was somewhere out there in the crowd now, just enjoying the show, for once!

 So it looked like Willie Dann, ‘singer to the squadrons, crooner of high command, tenor to the troops, your serenader to the stars’ - as Stevie liked to announce me, to my eternal embarrassment - would have to go back to being just William Danvers, who made up iron tonic and ’flu powders in the back of his dad’s chemist’s shop in Southwark!

o0o0o0o0o

I hadn’t meant my war to turn out like this. I’d gone into the RAF with ambitions to be a pilot. Learn a fabulous skill, rule the skies. But because I could ride a motorbike, could strip down an engine and make even a hopeless crate run sweet again, I’d been turned into a dispatch rider instead.

Still, that was a job with it’s own sort of romance - tearing through the night with important messages in my bag, a bit like the chap riding from Aix to Ghent in that urgent, galloping old poem. Until bomb fallout got me and the bike, putting me in hospital for months with a leg that would never again let me run for anything faster than an egg and spoon race.

 Well, you have to be philosophical about such things, and there were a lot of people worse off than me! But it meant I needed another way to do my bit for the war effort. And that’s how I ended up with the Stevie-dores!

Convalescing at the seaside, I was belting out ’Champagne Charlie’ in The King’s Arms when this gorgeous blonde tugged my elbow. She had the sweetest forget-me-not blue eyes I’d ever seen, with mesmerising silvery lashes. Right there and then, I decided I could follow her anywhere!

 “My name is Dorothea Mills,” she said, “And you sing like a dream. Do you want a job?”

 It turned out that she worked for some forces entertainment agency - which I’d never heard of before - and she was recruiting musicians and singers to tour the world and entertain the troops. Soldiers, sailors, munitions workers, home and away, where ever the music took us, whenever the call came. So what about it?

 Why not? With my new Limping Leslie routine it was bound to be more fun, more useful, than driving a desk or pushing a pen! If she thought singing in the choirs of National Street School and St Chad’s Church was the right background for singing swing, that is!

o0o0o0o0o

So Dorrie, a classy, determined lady with quiet, melancholy charm, put the Stevie-dores together - just like that! Oh, we all worked well together, made a sweet sound and suchlike. We always put up a good show, and  we had our fans! It was not the front line, but it was still hard work! Dangerous sometimes, with too much travel, difficult conditions.

 It was bad enough for the musicians - but as the singer, I was the focus. If I was bad, they looked bad. My responsibility. And I’d tried to sing in deserts and factories, mess halls and aircraft hangars. I’d put my shoulders back and belt out tunes standing on oil drums and machine tools, canteen tables and upturned beer barrels; a real stage was a luxury! Who says show business is glamorous?

 Out in the real world, we were also-rans. Thousands cheered and applauded us, but the real heroes were them out there - our audience. People who fought and toiled! Us blokes in The Stevie-dores were rejects from all that.

 Stevie had one lung. Ed the drummer was colour blind. Jimmy the pianist - malaria from the last lot, Frank and Walter simply too old to fight. Then there was me and my leg! As for the girls - yes, we had girls - Gladys and Stella played brass, more fun than being forces filing clerks, they giggled. Lois a cut-glass sort of girl Gladys and Stella reckoned was far too elegant for uniform. Actually she was a music teacher in a girl’s school in civvy street. In the Stevie-dores she was alto sax, mainly. Swing fiddle, piano, clarinet or piccolo, as needed. A versatile musician, and a sweet girl, too.

 Lois and me got on really well. But I only had eyes for Dorrie. She could tell I was smitten, from that very first day, and I suppose she charmed me into singing for her, for the troops…..well, now I know she did.

 But we were good together, me and her. Both blond, blue eyes, both tall. A striking couple - everyone said so! And between them Dorrie, (officially our manager and Miss Fixit,) and Stevie, well, they taught me how to put a song over to an audience, grab them by the throat, make them think I was singing my song for each one of them, alone - like I knew their life stories.

o0o0o0o0o

The Stevie-dores worked their socks off for more than two years. We were a team, all of us - Dorrie and me included. But Dorrie and me were also a team of two; if you know what I mean? I was head over heels in love with Dorrie. Eyes for nothing and no-one else. She snapped her fingers, and I jumped.

 She was a looker, all right. As well as capable, and strong minded. But away from work very quiet, self contained, sad, even. Eventually I found out what she was sad about. She had a husband, she admitted finally. Had being the word! He was a pilot, lost over France - more than two years ago, nothing heard since. She was sure he was dead, and so was I from what she told me.

But I understood, then, why she’d go all thoughtful and withdrawn sometimes, even though she was all soft and feminine to kiss, when she was in the mood. So I did my best to look after Dorrie - and she did her best to look after us all.

 I asked her to marry me. When she knew if she was free She smiled her saddest smile then,  shook her head.

 “I can’t, Willie. Not until I know for sure about Joe……”

 I was disappointed all right, but I understood. I held her tight and tried to hug her better, until she laughed and said: “No hard feelings, Willie?”

 And I said: “No hard feelings, Dorrie. But just let me know when you’re sure. Because I’ll be here…..”

o0o0o0o0o

So that was the understanding between us. Up until today.

Gladys and Stella had often tried to fix me up with friends of theirs - knowing the situation with Dorrie - but I always shook my head, smiling. Their uncomplicated good natures cheered me up, regardless.

It was only when Lois made one of her infrequent personal remarks that I was pulled up short.

“You’re letting your life go by,” she’d mutter when she got cross about me mooning over Dorrie. Or, crossly sometimes, “don’t be such a sap, William!” (she was the only person who called me William! I rather liked it)

“Oh, come on, Lois - there’s a war on!” I’d plead. And she would swallow her temper and smile back at me. She knew, as well as I did - as well as Dorrie did - that the more we all stayed sweet with each other, the more successful the Stevie-dores would be, and then the easier our busy, hectic, mad musical life became.

And then the war was over. We’d been expecting it for months, and were abroad when the announcement was made.

 “Will you marry me now?” I pleaded with Dorrie.

She shook her head, of course. She had to be sure about the fate of her Joe. I was upset, but I couldn’t blame her. I just wished I had someone as faithful waiting for me, that was all……

“She’ll never marry you, Willie, not in a thousand years,” declared Lois glumly over a cup of tea in some Naafi or other.

 “Why not?”

“You are a nit!” she said, looking up at me. “She wants to love you - and who could blame her? - but I reckon, alive or dead, her Joe is still the only man for her.”

 She looked very serious. Profound, even. She had thick brunette hair in the latest rolled wave style, dark shining eyes like humbugs, a tiny girl who played a slinky sax solo and had an infectious laugh when in the right mood.

 “You think so?” I asked. And she nodded her head.

 “Oh, yes. My advice, when you’re demobbed, is to go back to your chemist’s shop and forget her.”

 “Easier said than done!” I replied. “And what are you going to do?”

 “Oh!” she looked and sounded amazed that I’d asked her. “Go back to teaching music, I suppose. Become an elderly and eccentric spinster and forget my glamorous days out on the road with a swing band!” 

“It’ll be that easy?” I exclaimed, amazed.

 “No, of course it won’t!” she said, and jumped to her feet, almost ran off. As if I’d upset her. But I couldn’t think how! I didn’t mean anything to her, after all. And I knew she had no sweetheart waiting in the wings to worry her! It was a puzzle!

 I’d never seen her so upset before - or since. Well - until today!

 All the Stevie-dores were in a strange mood - sad but eager - for today’s last ever show. In the morning we would all be off. All the lads were eager to get home. Gladys and Stella were excited but wistful: “We’ll never have such fun again!” they both declared. “Despite the bombs and the terrifying journeys and the terrible digs and the hard work….!”

 Lois kept looking at me as if she was about to burst into tears. As if she was going to say something, if she could only find out how! While Dorrie was so glowing, so excited, she could hardly sit still! It took me a while to work out that she was happy! Until I saw the cause!

o0o0o0o0o

“Willie! This is…..let me introduce you properly…..this is Joe!”

The young man on Dorrie’s arm wore RAF Flight Officer’s uniform. He was tall, broad shouldered and blond - almost my double, except his hair looked white  next to mine. He was too thin for his uniform, his blue eyes overbright, and I could tell, from the dark smudges beneath them, the haunted look behind them, that Dorrie’s Joe had fought a whole war of his own while he had been missing in action.

 “Hallo, mate!” I said cheerfully, and held out my hand to take his. “Nice to meet you! Glad you got home safe and sound!”

 And I was, too!

“’Allo, Willie. I have been hearing so much about you. Thank you for looking after my Dorothea  while I have been away.”

 His English was careful, perfect, but strongly accented. He was, I realised, one of the Free Polish fliers who had escaped to England to be the bravest of the brave.

 “No bother at all, mate. But I think she looked after me better. All of us in the Stevie-dores, in fact. She’s a great lady.”

 Dorrie smiled, and blushed like a girl. And it was worth everything to see that.

 “Thanks, Miss Wells, for looking after us all so well - just in case I don’t get a chance later!” I said, all formal. Shook her hand, and planted a decorous peck on her cheek.

 “Mrs Kriztowiecz; she is Mrs Josef Krizstowiecz again now,” corrected Joe, enjoying rolling the words off his tongue.

 I smiled at them both - meaning it - and turned away.

 Lois, passing and seeing the tail end of this, caught my arm once we were out of earshot.

“Are you such a gent? Or don’t you really care anymore?” she demanded in her quietly fierce way.

 “Lois, if you don’t leave me alone right now I shall cry like a baby,” I said, as lightly as I could manage. She shot me one indescribable look - then bolted! Whatever she saw in my face was obviously something to run away from!

o0o0o0o0o

And that’s why I’m up here on stage, really pouring my heart into my songs tonight. It might be the very last time I sing them, but I think this is the very first time I’ve properly felt them! The great last song of a dying swan, is it? Or the tears of a clown? Either way, I’m really feeling the music tonight! I’ve lost Dorrie for good now - and to a better man than me! So I’ll go back to the chemist’s shop and concentrate on foot powder and corn plasters. And I’ll be fine, then.

But tonight I’ve got to sing….and Stevie keeps looking at me a bit sideways; he’s not used to me throwing my heart into it like this. For in that mass of humanity down on the dance floor, somewhere down there, Dorrie dances happily in her Joe’s arms. And deserves every twirl and glide they share!

 The songs I sing stab me in the heart. I sing about being up on the stand, singing with the band - while I serenade my lover dancing by in someone else’s arms. I sing about singing through my tears - and that’s what it feels like!

 I pour my heart into singing to Dorrie that life is just an empty thing without her near - although she never tried to fool me about her situation. I sing that the love that was once a fire must now remain an ember. So I must not look back, but forwards. I sing that love is the sweetest thing - because I still believe that, despite everything!

 At some point I falter, and step backwards to take a sip of water from the glass Lois keeps handy by her music stand. At the same moment we both see Dorrie glide past in Joe’s arms. She looks radiant, and so does he. I gasp, surprised. Daft, but I feel tears come into my eyes. Almost miss my cue for the next song!

 Lois sees! Leaps to her feet, puts her arms around me, and waltzs me back to the microphone. She does it so smoothly only the band and I know this is not planned.

But the music continues….. 

‘Hold my hand…….” she sings in her warm, mellow soprano. And I do. She goes on about how we’ll walk through life together, no matter what. I grin at her as she sings that she’ll be the kind of friend who will see me through to the end. She’s already done that, I think!

My turn. I find my voice. Grasp her fingers tight, sing something gratefully about her holding my hand so we both walk more steady - that she holds my heart already.

 She beams at me. I beam back, It’s not just the music talking. I look into her eyes and see what she’s never dared to say to me before, and even now only dare say in song - in front of hundreds of people!

 How blind can one idiotic man be, I ask myself? Who but Lois has listened to my daydreams, seen me as I really am, put up with my music and my moans - and still been kind and open hearted? If loving Dorrie was always an unattainable dream, loving Lois will be real, and special, and honest and fun!

 How long has this girl loved me? But never said a word? It’s enough to make a grown man blush! She reads the thoughts running through my head, and laughs out loud. I hug her to me, and sing on into ‘Goodnight, sweetheart.’  The dancers slow, the audience looks up to the stage, and joins in the song.

 Hundreds of voices join together to celebrate life, and the end of six long years of war. Of new lives to come, new futures to face. Before us, down in the hangar, lovers kiss, strangers hug each other and the sense of hope and wonder and endless possibility is a tangible, magical, thing.

o0o0o0o0o

And tomorrow is another new day. A day in which to start everything anew. Lois looks up at me with shining eyes, and with a rush of emotion, I promise her - myself - that I will do my best to make sure she stays as happy as she looks tonight. And that I will, too!

I catch Dorrie’s eye, where she is standing by the front of the stage, Joe’s arms enfolded about her. We nod acknowledgement of each other, smile. A slow, wistful smile of moving on and away. From what might have been.

The audience applauds the Stevie-dores as the last notes of music fade away. And the Stevie-dores - all 16 of us - applaud back. Then the music plays on again as the crowd leave, and go off into the night.

Until there is just Lois and me, alone on our empty stage, and with so much to say……. 

END

Copyright  © Liz Gilbey

First Published in People’s Friend magazine