The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (14 page)

“I know,” said Antonio. “I do not blame you, Bruno.”

“But you don't understand what it was
like
. In front of her family, Antonio. In front of my cousin Danila, in front of my comrades from the
fascio
. How could I forget? It is too much to ask.” Bruno looked at his glass, found it empty, and looked again, to be quite sure. Then he said: “Renata is a good girl. She will be a good mother to my children. And I do not wish to be a bachelor all my life. No, I will be happy with Renata. I am certain of it.”

The sight of the South Downs, glimpsed through the carriage window, gave Olivia a thrill of recognition. It was the first time she had seen that curved green horizon since she left for London, and she had not realized how clearly it was etched upon her mind, deeper than any conscious memory. She closed her eyes for a moment. It made her throat ache to think of her lonely, thwarted childhood.

Olivia was spending the weekend in Sussex with Uncle Dickie. You've never seen my pretty house, have you, my angel? Dickie had said, while they were having dinner in his tiny, Pompeii-red dining room in Chelsea. Yes, Bernard, I know you're too busy to leave London, but there's no reason why Olivia shouldn't have a trip to the country. You'll just have to manage without her.

The train slowed as it drew into Haywards Heath. A couple of smartly dressed women, on their way home from shopping in London, gathered up their bags to alight. They inclined their heads politely to Olivia, in her silk blouse, her beautiful amber suit, her ivory kid gloves. These were the kind of women for whom, once upon a time, Olivia's mother, Daisy, had made clothes, kneeling before them with pins in her mouth, pretending it was her mistake when their waistbands were too tight. Graciously Olivia returned the women's smiles. Oh, I am a fraud, she thought.

She stretched out her gloved hand for the newspaper she had bought for the journey. There was another crisis in Eastern Europe, some standoff with Hitler over German nationals living in Czechoslovakia, and Olivia was trying to understand what it meant. Bernard had told her about it, of course, but the way he explained these things made her mind switch off. It was partly his tone of voice, patient, but with a note of exasperation; it was also that he talked for too long. Just when Olivia had grasped the point he would add another fact, another theory, and she would lose the thread once more.

A string of names leaped from the black newsprint: Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia. Magical names, Olivia thought. They conjured up pictures of turreted castles and tumbling russet-leaved woods, and yet she knew there was something ugly about the whole business, it was a rattling of sabers, an excuse for war. Where will it end? Bernard had said, throwing up his hands in despair. We should have stood firm sooner, first on the Rhineland, then on Austria. That is what you do with bullies: you stand firm.

Olivia tried to settle herself more comfortably in the cushioned seat. She was bleeding. Her period had come on two days before, painfully; after lunch she had gone to bed with some aspirin. A few minutes later Bernard appeared, bringing a hot water bottle.

“Did you know,” he said, “the rubber hot water bottle was invented by a Croat from Austria-Hungary, a man named Eduard Penkala? He called it the Termofor.” Bernard gave a nervous grin, dallying beside the window. “His invention didn't do him much good, though. He died of pneumonia when he was fifty.”

Olivia thought he must be gabbling because he was embarrassed: Bernard, sisterless, was in awe of menstruation. She settled the hot water bottle on her stomach and waited for him to go. Instead he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Poor darling,” he said, taking her hand. “I had hoped that maybe this month—well, you know.”

Olivia stared. She and Bernard had ceased to use contraception soon after their marriage, but it had been in a casual, don't-let's-bother way; they had never talked about starting a family.

“Penelope is looking forward to having grandchildren,” Bernard said. “That is, she's looking forward to our grandchildren. She thinks they'll be more interesting than Lionel's brood, and she wants to enjoy them before she's old and gaga.” He chafed at Olivia's fingers, which in spite of the hot water bottle were cold. “That's a good sign, don't you think, darling? It shows that she's accepted you into the family.”

The words ran silently through Olivia's head. I thought you didn't want them to accept me, I thought you married me to defy them: your outrageous misfit wife.

“Well, you have a nice long sleep. I've got to go out, there's a meeting this afternoon to talk about the Czech crisis, but Avril will bring you anything you need.” Leaning forward Bernard kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe we'll have better luck next month, eh?”

Olivia wriggled down beneath the brown silk eiderdown. The pain shimmered from her pelvis to her spine. It echoed that other pain, bent double in the mildewed lavatory in Pimlico. My miscalculation, she thought, and a tide of misery rose within her.

What Olivia called
her miscalculation had happened, as these things do, when she least expected it. She had been a dance hostess for nearly five years and she had grown used to that twilight world, sleeping until noon, counting her tips, rinsing her stockings. The commercial traveler from Cardiff had moved on, but there had been others, three or four of them, whom Olivia had learned to treat with a salty detachment. The younger girls asked advice from her now, instead of the other way about. He claims he's serious, but I think there's a fiancée at home in Essex, they would say mournfully, and Olivia would smile, elegant, contemptuous. Oh, there's always a fiancée at home in Essex, she said.

She had thought herself pretty much fireproof when, queuing for the cinema on her evening off, she heard a familiar voice.

“Olivia? Good lord. It is you, isn't it?”

Olivia glanced up with the haughty air she employed to quell wandering hands on the dance floor. It was Jimmy, the stage manager from the Palace Theatre: her first lover. He looked older but he had not lost his rumpled tawny charm, and he seemed delighted to see her. They went for a drink at the Coach and Horses in Greek Street. The girls in the pub stole surreptitious glances at Jimmy, but for once he had eyes only for Olivia.

“I'm going to buy you a Guinness, you need fattening up. No, actually, it suits you. It makes you look
très distinguée
. All tits and cheekbones. You've really grown up, darling, haven't you?”

Jimmy's attention brought back memories of her younger, innocent self, startled to find herself the object of desire. Between this nostalgia and two glasses of Guinness it seemed natural—pleasurable, even—to go back to his flat in Romilly Street. Just once, she thought woozily, for old times' sake. It can't do any harm.

They were already naked when Jimmy, reaching to his bedside table, said: “Damn it, I was sure I'd got a condom. I don't suppose you…”

Olivia shook her head. “I haven't got anything with me. It's probably all right, though. I'm due to get the curse next week.”

Jimmy looked at her admiringly. “My, my. You have changed, my darling. I must say, I rather adore you like this. You used to be a bit of a dozy Dora.” He slid back into the bed. “Well, I'll be careful anyway, I promise.”

It did not take long for Olivia to realize what had happened. She tried to keep it from the other girls, but of course word got out; she could tell from the way they looked at her. How are the mighty fallen, their glances said. Jimmy would probably have given her the money to help her out, handing it over with that hard-done-by look of his, but Olivia was too proud to ask. Instead she sold the last bits of jewelry she had inherited from her mother: her wedding ring, a silver locket, a cameo brooch with a Medusa's head upon it.

The abortionist was a former doctor, pallid with a smattering of gingery hair. The fact that he had been struck off for misconduct did not hamper his sense of superiority. He peered at Olivia through round metal spectacles, as if it demeaned him to be breaking the law on her account.

“Will I—will it stop me from ever having children?” asked Olivia, as she lay on the narrow couch, knees raised, staring at the cream distempered ceiling. The smell of antiseptic, which should have been reassuring, filled her with horror. She wanted to ask, Will it hurt? but she was afraid of what the answer might be.

The doctor was sterilizing his hooks and knives in a pan of boiling water. “It's possible,” he said. “To be frank with you, young lady, you should have thought of that before.”

Dickie's house was
a sprawling, flint-clad cottage just below Firle Beacon. As he had said, it was very pretty, with a garden full of cornflowers and pink rambling roses, leading to a small orchard. They sat upon the sunlit terrace drinking Dickie's favorite, Negronis.

“A barman in Florence taught me how to mix them. He claimed that he used to make them for the Count de Negroni himself, although I suspect it was a fib.” Dickie handed Olivia her glass with its clinking ice and its twist of orange. “Katya liked Negronis too, you know.”

“I'm not surprised, if you made them like this.” Olivia felt strangely joyful. Perhaps it is because I am in the country, she thought, perhaps this is where I belong, not in London at all. She did not want to believe, even for a moment, that she was happy because she was away from Bernard.

Dickie was watching the gardener, a ruddy-faced boy in a collarless shirt, cross the lawn from the orchard. When the boy came within earshot he called: “Plums, Fred?”

“Greengages.” Fred held out his trug with a sweet lazy smile. “Ripe as you like.”

Dickie took one of the green and gold plums and bit into it. “Pure nectar,” he said, catching the juice from his chin with his little finger. “Olivia? No? Go on, then, Fred. Take them through to Mrs. Gander in the kitchen.”

“It's so beautiful here.” Olivia stretched out her long legs. Above her loomed the snub-nosed mass of Firle Beacon, like a benign watchful spirit. It seemed to her that the very beat of her heart was slower, calmer. “I'm astonished you can ever bring yourself to leave and go back to Chelsea.”

“Oh, it's a rural idyll. Hills, sunlight, wood smoke, plum trees, boys. What could be more like paradise? You and Bernard should find a place in the country. Except, of course, Bernard would never go there. He would be full of the best intentions but there would always be something new to keep him in London: one of his committees, one of his protégés.” Dickie fitted a cigarette into his jade holder. “Is he neglecting you, my angel?”

“No. What Bernard does is important, I admire him for it. It is only—”

“You wish that he would spend some time with you, instead of rushing madly from one enthusiasm to the next. I'm afraid that is Bernard, my sweet. I love my nephew very much, he is a clever man, a generous man, but you could not commend him for his staying power. None of his passions last long.”

“Including his passion for me?” Olivia said. Dickie paused, breathing a blue scented plume of smoke into the air. Then he reached for Olivia's hand and kissed it. She knew that he was searching for a diplomatic way of saying, Yes, including you.

“That will be different,” he managed at last. “In my experience the best marriages are never built on passion.”

“It is all right, Dickie,” said Olivia. “You don't have to be tactful. I've learned what Bernard is like. He didn't fall in love with me: he fell in love with the idea of me.” Even as she spoke Olivia recognized, for the first time, that this was true. It gave her a frisson of satisfaction, to have at last named the thing that had been troubling her.

“Of course he did. We only ever fall in love with ideas.” Dickie flicked a gray worm of ash from his cigarette. “Reality would send us screaming to the madhouse. But Bernard does it more than most. He's a born romantic. The trouble is, he doesn't realize it. As that great connoisseur of human nature William Shakespeare would say, he hath ever but slenderly known himself.”

They sat in silence, gazing at the dappled lawn, the plum trees, the curve of the South Downs. What would happen, Olivia thought, if I confided in Dickie? What would happen if I said, Once upon a time I had an abortion, and now I am afraid that I will never have children? She looked at Dickie's face, wise and faintly waspish, and she opened her mouth to speak.