The Company of Strangers (14 page)

‘It’s the only reason we’ve kept the death sentence.’

‘Tell your mother from me,’ said Hal conspiratorially over his glass, ‘it’s
all
about making money and if you
don’t talk about it…you don’t make it. I don’t know how you limeys ever fall in love.’

It made her wonder about her mother broaching the subject with Rawlinson, helping him off with his wooden leg. Some things just weren’t meant to be thought about.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly made lame by the idea.

‘Stiff upper lip,’ said Hal, showing her one.

‘I don’t think we like to look that stupid.’

Hal was looking at her differently now. She glanced around the crowd and had a rush of freedom. Nobody knew her. She knew nobody. She could be whoever she liked…as long as it was Anne Ashworth.

‘Do you play roulette?’ asked Hal.

‘We already did.’

‘Did we?’

‘Last night. I was on the other side from your
petite grive.
’

‘My
petite
what?’

‘Song thrush,’ said Anne. ‘And I wouldn’t play roulette, Hal. The odds are terrible.’

‘Yeah, I guessed as much. You don’t look the type.’

‘You two finally met,’ said Mary, coming between them.

‘Yeah,’ said Hal, dubious now, shifting on to his back foot to see which way this would go.

‘I was going to persuade Hal to give up roulette,’ said Anne. ‘Talk him through the odds.’

‘I’d
love
you to do that.’

Beecham Lazard appeared at the french windows. Hal put his arm around Mary and steered her away.

‘Excuse us, Anne. Honey, there’s Beecham, let’s go talk to him,’ he said. ‘See you later, Anne.’

‘Bye, Hal.’

Mary rolled her eyes. They reached Lazard, who put his arm around Mary, buffed her shoulder. Anne finished her cigarette, socked back the tepid champagne, pleased with
herself. A hand took the empty glass and replaced it with a full one.

‘The bump’s gone down,’ said Karl Voss.

‘I slept. I’m fine now,’ she said, the social fluency she’d experienced with Hal freezing up inside her.

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the terrace looking at the party.

‘I wanted to ask you something earlier, but I didn’t want to appear…callous.’

‘You mean, when in fact you
are
callous,’ she said, the line coming out wrong – rude, not funny.

He laughed – both of them nervous.

‘I mean it would have seemed…ah…scientific to have asked the question…or clinical.’

‘Which was?’

‘Whether while drowning you saw your life flash before you. It’s what everybody says.’

‘Does that mean old people take longer to drown?’ she asked. ‘All those reels to get through.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘I did see some things, but it’s not what I would have called a whole life…more of a newsreel. Quite a dull one too. What would yours be like?’

‘Well, not
Gone with the Wind
, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I haven’t seen the film.’

‘Lisbon is the only city in Europe where you can see it, maybe…’ He stopped himself, remembered at the last minute where he was, who he was and who he was talking to. ‘Maybe when life is less complicated…’

‘Does life get any less complicated?’

‘Possibly not,’ he said, ‘but there are good complications and bad ones.’

‘We have a choice?’

‘No, but to seize the good ones when they come along, that’s the thing…like this afternoon.’

‘That was an accident, wasn’t it?’ she said to the ground.

‘Was it?’ he asked, and turned to face the façade lights on the lawn.

Insects swirled high above their heads. The light took his face down to monochrome, white with black lines and grey cross-hatching. An artist’s view. A geometrician’s. She looked at him now, stared at him wide-eyed as a child, until she remembered in some ridiculous corner of her brain that it was rude to stare, and rude to point and rude to talk about money or food and rude to get down from the table without asking. The rules of rudeness. How could there be so many?

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, turning his face to hers.

She reeled her mind in, ransacked it for some intelligent thought.

‘About fate,’ she lied, ‘seeing as you brought it up.’

‘I’m not sure there can be any fate in wartime,’ he said. ‘It’s as if God’s lost control of the game and the children have taken over…naughty children. Don’t you think…? We’re in the hands of…’

‘Ah, Voss, you haven’t introduced me to your charming companion.’

The voice belonged to the German she’d heard in Wilshere’s study, a voice as clipped as a shod hoof on cobbles. Voss held out his hand towards her, his brain frantically riffling the pages of memory. All blanks. He opened his other hand to the man next to him, who was tall, balding and held a pince-nez to his fattish face, which was broken up by a goatee beard, giving him the look of an academic, an art historian perhaps.

‘General Reinhardt Wolters, may I present…’ He turned back to her, his mind unjogged.

‘Anne Ashworth,’ she said. ‘I’m staying here with the Wilsheres.’

‘A beautiful house,’ said Wolters, which it wasn’t, ‘a magnificent evening. Are you English, Miss Ashworth?’

‘Yes, I am,’ she said, bringing her defiance under control.

‘Forgive me for asking. You sound it but don’t look it.’

‘I’ve been in the sun,’ she said.

‘I think you are new here…no? You must be quite surprised, coming from England into this…’ He spread his hand out in front of him at nothing in particular.

‘You mean the lights?’

‘The lights,’ he agreed, ‘and the level of…fraternization with the enemy. We can all be friends in Lisbon.’

Wolters smiled with teeth gone yellow and a gap next to a canine. He was wrong. She didn’t like being this close to the enemy, or at least this version of the enemy, but then Voss was the enemy, too.

‘You’re right, Mr Wolters, but it doesn’t feel like war here,’ she said. ‘Perhaps if bombs were falling on us we’d feel differently about each other. As it is…’

She dipped her mouth to the champagne glass.

‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Wolters. ‘Captain Voss, a word with you, please.’

Voss and the general nodded to her and they stepped off the terrace and walked beyond the façade lights into the matt black of the garden. She fingered the bump on her head thinking that this could be a hard school. She hadn’t expected the lines to be so blurred. She hadn’t expected someone like Karl Voss, military attaché to the German Legation, whom she knew even now she was looking for and waiting to come back.

‘Some people are staying for dinner,’ said Wilshere, touching her on the shoulder with two fingers. Always touching. ‘You’ll join us, won’t you?’

He didn’t wait for her reply because he was set upon by the pack of women Anne remembered collectively as the
Romanians. She backed down the steps and retreated into the darkness. The party was already dispersing.

‘
Je vous remercies infinement
’ – she heard a woman’s voice pitched hard against the soft night – ‘
mais on étés invités de diner par le roi d’Italie.
’

She turned her back, let her eyes grow used to the dark. There was no one on the lawn. She headed for the bushes, towards human noises which, as she neared them, made her veer suddenly away. Grunting, panting, the slap of skin. She stood in the lee of the bushes, confused. The noises stopped. Moments later Beecham Lazard appeared in a gap in the hedge, combing his hair back into its imperturbable shape, stretching his neck out of his collar. He loped back towards the house. A minute later, Mary Couples materialized in the same gap. She lifted the hem of her dress and brushed her knees. She threw her head back and shoved life into her hair.

Sunday, 16th July 1944, Wilshere’s house, Estoril, near Lisbon.

Anne hoped there would be someone English at dinner, Cardew and his wife perhaps, she’d seen him wave at the beginning of the party but only got to him at the end. She’d had time to pass on her dead-letter drop site and nothing more and they’d left for a dinner with a Spanish trade delegation. Now she looked down the table at two Portuguese couples, an Argentinian and a Spanish couple, Wolters from the German Legation, Beecham Lazard and, the only other single woman, an Italian contessa of some age and faded beauty.

Anne was seated between an Argentinian and Lazard on the window side. She was opposite a small Portuguese woman with hair curled tight to her head, who was wearing a dress made for someone more elegant. Wilshere sat at one end. His wife’s chair was empty. Nobody asked after her.

A thick, smooth yellow soup was served from large silver tureens. Its only taste was faint and pewtery, perhaps from the ladle. Throughout this course Lazard kept his left leg pressed against her thigh while he spoke scrap-metal Portuguese to the woman on his right. She replied in perfect English, but Lazard’s determination was unbreachable.

The fish course arrived, which was a tacit signal for all the men to start conversing with the woman on their other side. Lazard turned on Anne, looking her over like a complicated dessert, contemplating which bit to eat first.

‘I met Hal and Mary Couples today,’ she said, to divert him. ‘Two of your fellow Americans.’

‘Ah, yes, Hal,’ he said, as if he were a distant relative, rather than the man whose wife he’d been tussling with in the bushes. ‘I bet he talked to you about business. That’s what Hal likes to do.’

‘And roulette…and songbirds. A passion of his.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ said Lazard. ‘And what’s your passion, Anne? I hope you’re not going to say typing and shorthand.’

She opened up her fish, imitating Lazard, slitting it along the bone and levering the flesh away. She was glad of the distraction. What was her passion, now that she was Anne Ashworth? Not mathematics.

‘Maybe I’m an old-fashioned good-time girl, but one who hasn’t had a lot of practice. England hasn’t been a good-time place these last few years.’

‘Maybe I should take you out…show you the fleshpots of Lisbon.’

‘Are there any?’

‘Sure, we could have dinner in the Negresco, go to the Miami dancing bar, take a look in the Olimpia Club. They’re all classy joints.’

He lifted away the bone and head of his fish, parted the white meat below.

‘There was a riot yesterday in the middle of Lisbon just before my flight arrived. Somebody told me it was a food riot. Sawdust in the
chouriços.
’

‘Communists,’ said Lazard, as if they were a terminal disease. ‘There’s a lot of different worlds down there in the city, Anne, but roughly speaking they break down into two groups. The “haves” and the “have nots”. You’re a “have” and you’ll have to get used to the “have nots” or stay out here in Estoril, where there’s nothing but “haves”.’

He put his knife and fork together over the skeleton of his fish and gulped down the remainder of his glass of white wine, which was instantly refilled. The plates were removed and, in the quiet while the meat course was served, the contessa made her first contribution of the evening, from one end of the table to the other.

‘Now that Cherbourg has been lost, Herr Wolters, and the Allies are marching on Paris, what do you think your Herr Schickelgruber’s going to do next?’

‘Her again,’ said Lazard, into his napkin.

Wolters took the insult face on, holding his glass by the stem and looking into the wine as if for some prescience. He pursed his goatee.

‘The Führer, madam, is calm,’ he said, batting back her rudeness, ‘and as for marching on Paris, it may look a short distance on the map but be assured the Allies will meet with the fiercest resistance.’

‘And the Russians?’ she asked, without missing a beat.

Wolters gripped the edge of the table, shifted his buttocks on the brocade upholstery of his seat. All heads tuned in for some special intelligence. Only the clatter of the servants’ spoons, dishing out the rice and vegetables, disturbed the quiet. Wolters looked as if he was tempted to turn the table up and over this venal bunch. He surveyed them in turn, apart from the English girl and the threadbare Milanese contessa, silently accusing them of getting fat from selling whatever they could lay their hands on to the Reich.

‘It’s true. The Russians have been enjoying some success,’ he said, unruffled, measured, ‘but don’t believe for a moment that one hectare of Ger—…of French soil will be given up without the most bitter fighting the world has ever seen. There will be no surrender.’

His cold-blooded certainty shook nerves around the table, except for Wilshere’s. He seemed amused at the fanaticism on display.

‘You don’t think they’ll get rid of him…’ started the contessa.

‘
They
?’ asked Wolters.

‘Germans who would like there still to be a Germany after this business is all finished.’

‘There will
always
be a Germany,’ said Wolters, who’d never reached the cold, windy passage of this type of thinking.

‘You still believe in miracles, I see.’

‘We have ruled out nothing,’ said Wolters who, suddenly aware that those words might appear ridiculous, added, ‘Perhaps you are unaware of our unmanned rockets dropping on London.’

Eyes switched to Anne momentarily. They all knew by now she was English, from London.

‘
This
,’ he said, holding up a stiff finger, ‘this is merely practice.’

The cutlery hovered over the china.

‘We’ve been hearing about these miracle weapons from the German press for years,’ said Lazard. ‘Are they ready now?’

Wolters didn’t reply but stabbed into his meat and ate wolfishly, as if the dish were Europe and he had plenty of appetite for it.

After dinner the women went into the sitting room to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, the men filed into a room off the dining room where cigars and port had been laid on. Wolters joined shoulders with Wilshere as he rounded the dining table.

‘Who was
she
?’ he asked, loudly.

‘La Contessa della Trecata,’ said Wilshere, smiling.

‘Is she a Jew?’

The Italian woman caught hold of Anne’s arm as they walked down the corridor, her hand gripped and regripped the firm flesh.

‘I am, of course,’ she said, in her paper-thin voice.

‘What?’

‘Jewish. I insulted him too much…him and his Herr Schickelgruber,’ she said. ‘But then…you’re English, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I’m staying here while I work in Lisbon.’

‘What do you think of your Mr Moseley?’

‘I think he is mistaken.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘maybe I should learn something from you about choice of words. Mistaken. Needless to say, we are the only non-fascists here. The Argentines are
Peronistas
, the Spaniards are
Francophilos
, the Portuguese are
Salazaristocratos
and the German, well, you know what the German is.’

‘And Mr Lazard?’

‘
Capitalista
,’ she said, dismissing him with a snort.

‘And Mr Wilshere?’

‘Unpredictable Irish blood. He is supposed to be neutral like Salazar, if you see what I mean. A man who admires one party whilst making money out of both. In Wilshere’s case I think he
dislikes
one party while making money out of both.’

‘So…not a fascist.’

The women sat around the empty fireplace, the two Portuguese fitting cigarettes into ostentatious holders. The contessa smoked hers straight, offering one to Anne. A maid poured the coffee.

‘Has anyone seen Mafalda?’ asked one of the Portuguese.

‘I understand she’s unwell,’ said the contessa.

‘For some time now,’ said the Spaniard.

‘We’ve been in the north,’ said the other Portuguese. ‘We’re out of touch.’

‘I’ve seen her,’ said Anne.

‘Well?’

‘But I only arrived yesterday.’

‘But you’ve seen her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, tell us.’

‘It’s just that…’

‘We are all
friends
of Mafalda here,’ said the Spaniard, which sounded threatening.

‘Let the girl speak,’ said the contessa.

‘She seems to be confused,’ Anne said, guarded.

‘Confused. What’s confused?’

‘She seems to think I’m somebody else.’

‘Mafalda? This is nonsense.’

‘I told you,’ said one Portuguese to the other in her own language. ‘Didn’t I tell you about the dress?’

‘Whose dress is that?’ asked the Argentine in English.

All eyes fell on Anne, except the contessa’s – she stood at the fireplace smoking with her chin raised, the gossip well beneath her contempt.

‘That’s not your dress, is it?’ asked the first Portuguese.

‘If you let the girl draw breath, she’ll tell you,’ said the contessa.

‘No, it is not my dress. Mine is being cleaned. This was left for me in my room while I was sleeping.’

‘I knew it. It’s come straight from that Parisienne’s scissors in the Chiado. She’s cut one for me.’

‘Not the one you’re wearing, I hope,’ said the contessa.

‘I think this dress and some riding clothes I wore this morning belonged to an American woman…and Dona Mafalda seems to thinks so, too. She has us confused.’

‘Hoody Laberna,’ said the Spaniard, throwing up her hands, triumphant.

The Argentinian’s coffee cup flipped in its saucer.

‘Hoody who?’

‘Judy Laverne,’ said Anne. ‘I was told she was deported some months ago.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Another American – Mary Couples.’

‘What does
she
know?’ said the Portuguese.

‘The little
puta
wasn’t even here,’ confirmed the Spaniard, and her Argentinian friend laughed.

‘Judy Laverne died in a car accident,’ said the contessa, ‘
before
she was deported.’

‘If you’ve been riding up on the
serra
you’ll know the road,’ said the Portuguese. ‘She was on her way back to Cascais and she came off on that tight bend, just after the Azoia junction. There’s a very steep drop. It was a terrible thing. The car exploded. She didn’t stand a chance.’

‘They say she’d been drinking,’ said the other Portuguese.

‘I don’t know how they would know that,’ said the contessa. ‘The body was completely burnt.’

The string of pearls around Anne’s throat felt suddenly tight. She pushed a finger up underneath them. How could Mary Couples not have heard about this?

‘But why am I wearing Judy Laverne’s clothes?’ she asked.

‘They were left, I suppose…’ said the Portuguese. ‘If you’ve come from England I imagine you don’t have much of a wardrobe.’

Their eyes dropped away from her, swapped knowing looks amongst themselves. Anne felt hemmed in by the dress, these people and their society. The Argentinian with her hair scraped back so tight her eyebrows were up to her hairline. The Spaniard and her sexual suspicions, her tittering disdain for Mary Couples. The Portuguese and their gossip, sitting on their plump behinds, smoking out of their ridiculous holders. All of them desperate to show how much they knew about absolutely nothing. The contessa seemed to be the only decent person in the room.

‘I hope none of you are suffering from the same confusion
as Dona Mafalda,’ said Anne. ‘I might be wearing her clothes, but I’m
not
Judy Laverne.’

‘Of course not, dear,’ said the Portuguese, voice oozing. ‘Whoever said you were?’

The condescension incensed her further and she knew she was going to overstep the mark.

‘You all knew that Judy Laverne was Mr Wilshere’s mistress and you’ve all made the assumption that because I’ve stepped into her shoes that
I’ll
be his mistress too. Well, I’m not and I won’t be, and never will.’

She should have stormed out then but two things stopped her. She knew how complicated it was to work around all the furniture in the room and…damn them. The contessa patted her on the arm. Anne wasn’t sure whether it was reassurance or some friendly advice to leave it at that.

The air had stiffened up around the fireplace. Cigarettes and holders were stuck in the silence.

‘Who do you think will get to Berlin first?’ asked the contessa.

The question shot through the gathering and thudded into the wall like a flaming arrow. Everyone ignored it. The Argentinian and the Spaniard started talking about horse racing, the Portuguese went into an important name exchange. The house could have burnt down before they got round to responding.

Anne was left with the contessa. She asked her how she came to be in Portugal. The contessa told her she was on her own, living in a small
pensão
in Cascais. Her family had shipped her across to Spain in 1942 with the explanation that the war was getting closer. It was on the boat and the subsequent train journey to Madrid that she found out from other refugees why her family had done this. It was the first she’d heard of the Jews being rounded up all over Europe. There’d been no word from her family since.

‘I think they have gone underground,’ she said. ‘They couldn’t expect me to live like that at my age so they sent me away. In a few months this will be over and they will send for me. I am patient.’

As the contessa spoke her face roamed the objects in the room. The words came out detached from another mental process, which was working on her eyes and jaw. The words forced belief, while the subconscious battled against the unimaginable certainty that she was now alone. The clothes, the hairstyles, the painted lips, the eager teeth behind them, the soft fleshy tongues rooted in the hollow mouths, the incessant chatter in the room suddenly grated on Anne’s ears like a steel butcher’s saw ripping through bone.

A servant came to tell them the cars were ready. Anne supported the contessa to the door, put her into a car. As she was about to close the door, the contessa leaned forward, took her hand.

‘Be careful with Senhor Wilshere,’ she said, ‘or Mafalda will have you deported, just like she did Judy Laverne.’