The Bannister Girls Read Free Page A

cheers of the onlookers. At the end of the dance, the band played a burst of a patriotic song of the moment, and the girls pirouetted slowly, each one saluting and dropping down on one knee, before they all scrambled up and kicked their way sideways offstage.
    â€˜How d’you like it, me lady?’ Dolly leaned across the table to leer at Angel.
    â€˜It’s marvellous! I’ve never seen anything like it!’
    Dolly looked taken aback at Angel’s obvious enthusiasm. At first, her eyes had watered in the heavy smoky atmosphere, worse than any London pea-souper, but she had quickly got used to it, and revelled in the unusual evening.
    â€˜You really mean it, don’t you?’ Jacques said with pleasure. ‘You look a different girl from the one who was so cross at not finding a cab!’
    Angel laughed, perfectly relaxed. She felt different too. She felt – uninhibited, for the first time in her life. Even on her most defiant jaunts away from home, she had never felt quite this buoyant, and she couldn’t explain why. She didn’t want to explain, or to question it. In that instant, she identified totally with these people here, desperately enjoying themselves today, because none of them knew what tomorrow might bring.
    â€˜You don’t even know my name,’ she said suddenly, remembering her manners. ‘It’s Angel – Angel Bannister –’
    â€˜
Angel
! What a bleedin’ name to go to bed with!’ Dollyshrieked. Reg leaned across the table.
    â€˜I had a mate who worked for a bigwig called Sir Fred Bannister in Yorkshire once. Bastard of a bloke, he was too. Only came visiting his factory once or twice a year to see they wasn’t shirking, and spent the rest of his time in his posh house in London or his country estate in Somerset.’
    Dolly was watching Angel’s face.
    â€˜You’d better stop going on about ’im, Reg. Looks like our Angel’s heard of ’im too.’
    â€˜He’s my father,’ she said calmly. ‘And he’s not such a bastard when you get to know him, Reg. It all depends on who he’s dealing with.’
    â€˜
Touché
!’ Jacques murmured with a smile. ‘So we have someone important amongst us, do we?’
    â€˜No. Just another human being.’
    She spoke smartly. It always made her squirm when she sensed inverted snobbery. Besides, somehow it didn’t sit well on Jacques whoever-he-was. She asked him outright.
    â€˜Just another Flying Corps officer,’ he replied in the same vein. ‘Though my full name is Captain Jacques de Ville.’
    â€˜An’ I’m Dolly Dilkes, an’ this ’ere’s Reg Porter, so now we all know each other, let’s watch the show!’ Dolly said, bored with all this formality. She and Reg had only taken Jax under their wing for the evening, so to speak, when he’d looked lost and lonely, and she was already half regretting it.
    One of the dancing girls walked slowly across the stage carrying a large cardboard placard, announcing that the next act would be Miss Eliza Kent, the Songbird of the South.
    â€˜Ooh, she’s lovely,’ Dolly sighed. ‘She always makes me want to cry.’
    â€˜Well, don’t cry too much, or that black stuff will be running all over your face,’ Reg grinned, as she flapped her heavy eyelashes at him for effect.
    Miss Eliza Kent was small and waiflike, dressed in a long gown and a wide flowered hat that almost dwarfed her. But her voice was pure and powerful, tugging at the heartstringsfrom the moment she opened her mouth to sing of heartache and suffering, and ending with more inspiring songs spawned by the war, urging everyone to join in with her. They did so lustily, with tears in their eyes, or huskily through working throats.
    â€˜â€¦and we’ll never see our Johnny,
    no, no, never again…
    now he’s gone to join his brothers
    and the