‘We are, Mrs C,’ said Skins. ‘Seeing an old friend.’
‘So he said. What a treat that would be, eh?’ said Mrs Cordell wistfully. ‘Lunch at The Ritz. I hope she’s paying for it, mind you. I can’t hardly dream of such a thing on my widow’s pension and I don’t suppose you boys is much better off. Oh, come ’ere, Barty.’ She pulled a small handkerchief from the sleeve of her housecoat and licked it, before bending down to where Dunn was lacing his shoes. She wiped a tiny smudge of shaving soap from below his ear. ‘Can’t have you going out looking a state.’
Skins smirked. ‘Honestly, mate. Smarten yourself up a bit, there’s a good lad. Letting the side down.’
‘There, that’s better,’ said Mrs Cordell. ‘You’ll pass muster now. Can’t have a lodger of mine being turned away by some snooty doorman because you didn’t look your best.’
Dunn stood and kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks, Mrs C. We’d best be on our way, though – don’t want to keep Lady H waiting.’
‘Ooh, “Lady H”. Get you. You go and have a lovely time, dear.’
They trooped out the front door together and clambered into the waiting taxi.
‘That’s quite a landlady you’ve got there, Barty,’ said Ellie.
‘I know,’ said Dunn. ‘It’s halfway between embarrassing and heartbreaking – I can never quite decide which. She misses her boys, though, that’s the truth of it, so I just sort of let her get on with it.’
Ellie touched his arm. ‘You’re a much nicer man than you give yourself credit for, Bartholomew Dunn. I can’t understand why you haven’t been snapped up.’
‘That’s exactly what I keep saying,’ he said. ‘I’m a catch.’
‘You are, honey. And don’t let Ivor tell you any different.’
Skins had, indeed, been about to tell him different. Instead he said, ‘Do they do nice cakes at The Ritz? Maybe we could get something to take back for her.’
Ellie leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘Oh, Ivor,’ she said. ‘You absolute sweetheart. You’re a catch, too.’
Skins grinned.
The journey was an uneventful one and they arrived on Piccadilly at the front door of The Ritz at exactly one o’clock. A doorman in an inordinately smart uniform ushered them inside, and they stood for a moment, admiring the opulence.
‘That’s a lot of marble,’ said Skins. ‘It doesn’t matter how many of these sorts of places we see, I’ll never take it for granted.’
‘I should think not,’ said a woman in her late fifties wearing an extremely smart two-piece suit. She stood almost as tall as Dunn, and the dark hair peeping artfully from beneath her fashionable cloche hat was streaked with grey.
‘Lady H,’ said Skins delightedly. ‘Wonderful to see you, old girl.’ They kissed cheeks.
‘And you, dear boy,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And Eleanora, darling. You look simply marvellous.’ Cheeks, once more, were kissed.
‘And dear, dear Barty. It’s been, what, a year?’
‘Something like that,’ said Dunn.
‘We really should get to London more often, shouldn’t we, dear?’
This last was addressed to the smaller woman standing, as ever, in her friend’s shadow. This was Florence Armstrong, whose name in certain circles was often prefaced with ‘the redoubtable . . .’ She, too, was fashionably dressed, though her own dark hair showed a good deal less grey. Her smile was warm, and Skins could still see the mischievous light in her eyes that had attracted him when they first met nearly twenty years earlier.
‘All right, Flo?’ said Skins. ‘I didn’t see you down there.’
‘Come here, you cheeky bugger,’ she said, and hugged him. ‘How are you? You missed my birthday party.’
‘We were working,’ he said. ‘We tried to get out of the gig. Didn’t we try?’
‘They did try,’ agreed Ellie. ‘I was so sad to miss it.’
She hugged her old friend warmly. They had known each other for fifteen years, since Emily Hardcastle and Flo had saved her life at Weston-super-Mare when Ellie was just sixteen. Ellie and Flo had written at least once a month – often once a week – ever since, with only the same wartime restrictions that had slowed Ellie and Skins’s correspondence getting in the way.
‘Well, I shall entertain no such excuses for missing my sixtieth,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘You’re never sixty,’ said Skins. ‘Really?’
‘No,’ said Flo, ‘she’s not. And she won’t be for another two years, but she’s already planning the party. The seventh of November, 1927. Put it in your diaries.’
‘There’s a three-line whip on that one,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’ve already agreed with the Farley-Strouds to use The Grange.’
‘Is that where we played that time? The engagement party?’ said Dunn.
‘That’s the place.’
‘And it’s still the same people who own it?’ said Skins. ‘They were ancient when we were there.’
‘I’ve never been entirely certain how old they are, but I’d say they were well into their late seventies by now and still going strong,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘They’ve got years in them yet. But come, we haven’t travelled all the way to this fine establishment to stand in the foyer and talk about birthday parties, no matter how much marble there is. There’s a table in one of their splendid dining rooms with my name on it. We must eat.’
‘I’ll not argue with that,’ said Skins, and they followed her as she strode off to find someone to take them to their table.
They were seated with some ceremony by a cloud of waiters. Lady Hardcastle, it seemed, was a regular and rather popular guest.
‘That’s enough fussing for the moment, dear,’ she said, as she shooed the last of them away from rearranging her cutlery and glassware. ‘I appreciate the attention, really I do, but consider my ego well and truly stroked for now. If you want to be properly useful you could be an absolute pet and bring us a couple of bottles of that champagne I like.’
‘The ’22, my lady?’ said the waiter with a small bow.
‘Good lord, no. The ’21. Unless you have any of the 1915 left?’
‘I shall see what the sommelier has to say, my lady. I’m sure he can find something extra-special for you and your . . . guests.’ This last word was delivered with the tiniest hint of disdain as he inspected the rather-too-fashionable attire of the three strangers at the table.
‘Cheeky little bleeder,’ said Skins once the waiter had scurried away. ‘My wife’s a bloody millionairess, I’ll have you know.’
‘Not quite, dear,’ said Ellie. ‘And don’t go running away with the idea that we’ll be dining in places like this all the time when they finally release my inheritance.’
‘I’d be happy with a saveloy and a ha’porth of chips if I was eating it with you, my sweet. But . . . I mean . . . really. Looking at us like we was nobodies.’
‘I am a nobody,’ said Dunn. ‘And proud of it. But if you’re going to carry on being soppy like that, I might have to send the pair of you out for your saveloy and chips while I stay here with the ladies.’