The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (21 page)

The summer of 1939 was strange and electric; a sleepwalking summer, thought Olivia. War's imminence stalked the city like the certainty of death: you knew that sooner or later it must come, and sometimes that knowledge blinded, deafened you, but you could not think about it all the time, it was impossible: you had to pay the grocery bills, you had to get your shoes mended, you had to sit in your sunlit drawing room and pour tea smilingly for visitors.

During that summer Olivia spent as much time as she could at Dickie's house—now her house—in Sussex. She went alone, since Bernard was always occupied in London. Besides, he thought her visits unnecessary and told her so, irritably. The Ganders are looking after the place, he would say, seeing her stuff blouses and stockings and silk petticoats into her overnight bag, there is no need for you to go. If you'll only wait a week or so I can come with you. Olivia did not argue but she went all the same, catching the glossy malachite train at Victoria, taking a taxi to the house from Lewes station. Once she was there she sat among Dickie's pictures in his sage-green drawing room, she watched the plums ripen in his orchard, she tried to mix Negronis as he had mixed them. Her own solitude, her own freedom, delighted her, consoling her for the fact that Bernard was—or at least, Bernard seemed—too busy now to take her dancing. Olivia had not danced the tango since the night of her birthday party. She did not complain, though. She was afraid that her husband would think her shallow, to care about such a thing at such a time.

Bernard meanwhile had thrown his energies into civil defense preparations. He was agitating for a change in the strategy on air raid shelters. Londoners would need more protection than trenches or steel huts, or the shored-up crypts of churches. Why was the government refusing to open the underground stations, which would provide deep shelter for thousands? It was a scandal, a typical example of the few ignoring the many, and Bernard said so at every opportunity. Remembering Dickie's intentions—and his fear of boredom during air raids—he also joined the ARP. Bernard had exactly the right qualities for an air raid warden: natural authority, along with the bonhomie to chivvy without giving offense. He was especially deft at jollying sullen householders into acquiring sandbags and stuffing up cracks to make good their blackout.

In this purposeful flurry Bernard was able, most of the time, to bury his grief over his uncle's death. Olivia had been right. Bernard was hurt by Dickie's decision to leave her the house in Sussex. He felt that Dickie was criticizing his behavior toward Olivia—unfairly, since it was too late now for Bernard to justify it. Deep down he felt the subterranean heave of jealousy. Perhaps his uncle had preferred Olivia, perhaps he had loved her more than he loved Bernard. That fear haunted him, tainting his memories of Dickie with the tang of betrayal. He would never have prevented his wife from taking possession of her property. Apart from anything else he had no appetite for the recriminations, the bald truths that would follow. Nevertheless, he felt a perverse and childish—but of course childish—pleasure, to think how the war would soon end her forays to Sussex. He pictured Olivia as a migrant bird, high crested, brightly plumed, strutting restlessly between the four brick walls of the Bedford Square drawing room. Well, she can stay there, he thought, as he pulled on his regulation ARP boots, ready to begin his long evening's work.

On the morning
of September 3 Filomena sat with her brother in the kitchen, listening to the radio. Unusually for a Sunday the BBC was playing light music, a selection of tunes by Sir Arthur Sullivan. It had been announced that the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, was intending to broadcast to the nation at a quarter past eleven.

“I wish that he would speak and get it over with,” said Filomena, fidgeting. She wanted something to occupy her, an onion to chop, a sock to darn, but it seemed disrespectful, out of keeping with the solemnity of the moment. In her dress pocket was the latest of the letters she had received from Stan. There had been three or four of them since he left London, robust cheerful letters, not very long; Filomena had the impression that he had struggled to write them.

“It won't be long,” said Antonio. “It's already five minutes to eleven.”

“Do you think we should wake Papa, to hear the broadcast?”

Antonio shook his head. “Let him sleep. He will find out soon enough.”

Two days before, Antonio had taken his father to the Italian hospital in Queen Square. The doctor, a clever overworked young man from Verona, diagnosed a chronic inflammation of the lungs. He needs rest, he said, his own eyes crumpled from lack of sleep. They both knew that the cure he proposed was impossible: at six the next morning Enrico would be in Leicester Square, opening the kiosk.

“This is horrible music,” said Filomena, and then: “What does your Mr. Rodway say about the war? Does he think that Mussolini will side with Germany?”

“Oh, the
duce
will do nothing. He will stay out of it until he sees who is winning. We will have to watch our step, though, Mena. Remember when Italy invaded Abyssinia, and people in the street called us traitors? It will be even worse this time.”

“But I was born here,” said Filomena, “I have lived here all my life.”

Antonio shrugged as if to say, It will make no difference. Filomena felt the crackle of Stan's letter against her hip. He had known that war was coming soon, but he had no idea where he would be sent. The letter was signed, Your friend, Stanley Harker.

On the radio the music drew to a close. There was a brief, fraught, heavy silence. Filomena pushed back her chair.

“I can't stand this,” she said, and she ran out through the scullery into the yard. The sun was shining. From the open windows about her she could hear Neville Chamberlain's voice seep mournfully into the air. Filomena could not make out the words but she knew that they spelled the end of the familiar world.

“I don't understand,”
said Antonio. “Surely Mrs. Rodway is accustomed to traveling alone?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bernard, “but it is different now. You never know what may happen.”

They were sitting at the Lyons Corner House in Coventry Street, while a waitress in a stiff black dress brought them high tea. It was early in October, and still it seemed that the war had not yet begun. The theaters and cinemas were closed, and in the Regent's Park zoo the poisonous snakes had been killed with chloroform in case they escaped during a raid, but there had been no bombs, no choking clouds of mustard gas.

“I would go myself,” Bernard went on, slicing across the white-filmed yolk of his poached egg, “but Herr Fischer has been summoned before a Home Office tribunal and I have promised to help him prepare.”

As soon as war was declared the home secretary, Sir John Anderson, had announced plans for dealing with enemy aliens. Tribunals would be set up across the country to assess whether or not they were a threat to Britain. Category A, the most dangerous, would be interned; the rest would be left at liberty, though some—the doubtful cases—would be kept under watch, their movements restricted.

“Surely nobody can believe that Herr Fischer is dangerous?” Antonio said. “He's a refugee.”

“Oh, it is a formality. Konrad is nervous, though. The hearings are held in secret, which is bound to put a man on edge. And the tribunal members will be the usual starched shirts: barristers, justices of the peace. The kind of Briton who thinks you can never trust a foreigner. You are fortunate, Antonio, that your great leader has declared his neutrality.”

“For the present,” said Antonio drily.

Bernard grinned and ate another luscious mouthful of toast and egg and butter. “Of course, there is no need for Olivia to go to Sussex, we employ a local family to look after the house. But you know what women are like. She insists that there are things only she can do. And I do not want her wandering the country alone. If there is an invasion the Germans could come smack through Newhaven. You would not have sent your own wife to Italy, would you, without the protection of your brother.” He pushed a plate of tea cakes toward Antonio. “Eat something, please, Antonio. You're making me feel like a hog.”

Politely Antonio bit into one of the tea cakes, which he found bland and stodgy. “There must be other—more suitable people to escort Mrs. Rodway to Sussex,” he said. Someone of your own class, was what he meant. The thought of being alone with Olivia filled him with agitation. He had the feeling that he ought to do whatever he could to prevent it.

“Well, possibly,” said Bernard, “but Olivia likes you, Antonio. At least, she doesn't dislike you, which appears to be the case with many of my friends.” He sighed, and drew the tip of his knife delicately across his second poached egg, allowing the bright orange yolk to flood out. “And it will only be for one night. I know your father is not in the best of health, but surely he can manage without you for one night?”

Olivia was infuriated
by her husband's maneuver. This might be her last chance to spend time alone in Dickie's house, and she could see that pleasure being snatched from her by Bernard's controlling hand.

She was also piqued by his choice of chaperone. She had been shocked to find Antonio in the arms of feckless flighty Iris. It was not only the discovery that her confidant, the man she had thought understood her, was a philanderer. She remembered the outrage in his eyes that night in the Paradise Ballroom, and how ashamed he had made her feel. He's nothing but a hypocrite, she thought. One rule for himself, a quite different one for me.

Antonio, sitting opposite her in the carriage—they were traveling first class, in plush antimacassared seats—could tell that she was fizzing with anger, although he did not comprehend why. She was wearing a dark purple suit and a small hat with a veil; a frivolous hat, although it did not look frivolous on Olivia, with her thunderclap face.

The October sun, streaming dustily through the glass, was unseasonably warm. As the train drew south of Croydon Olivia got up to open the window.

“Let me,” said Antonio, “please, Mrs. Rodway.”

“Why? I'm perfectly capable of doing it.” Olivia tugged at the leather strap to pull the window down. “You are as bad as Bernard. He thinks that women can do nothing practical. I'm used to shifting for myself. I was living in a bedsit when he met me. A person who has lived in a bedsit can do anything.”

She sat down once more, staring at him with wide provocative eyes. Antonio had no idea how he was going to survive the next thirty-six hours in her company. He thought of her mocking smile when she had found him with Iris in his arms. Was that why she was so angry? Surely not; surely nothing he did could matter that much to Olivia. All the same Antonio felt an intense compulsion to justify himself, to set the record straight.

“I ought to tell you, Mrs. Rodway,” he said, licking his lips, “that there is nothing between me and Iris. There never has been—”

Olivia held up her gloved hand to silence him. “You don't have to explain yourself, Signor Trombetta. Your canoodlings are none of my business. Your wife's business, perhaps, but not mine.” She picked up the magazine on her lap. “And now I'd like to continue the journey in peace. You're here because my husband asked you to keep watch on me. He may even have paid you, I don't know. But don't let's pretend that we're traveling together from choice.”

They arrived at
Lewes late in the afternoon. The station was solid and handsome, redbrick with whitewashed metal awnings. As they stepped from the carriage, porters sprang up to seize Olivia's bags and escort her to the taxi rank. Antonio fumbled the business of tipping them, and was annoyed to see Olivia suppress a smile. The money for the tips had come from Bernard, of course, handed over with the discreet grace that Antonio lacked. His own clumsiness gnawed at him as the taxi swept through the quaint streets of Lewes. It was ten minutes before he became aware that they were in the countryside, green curved beautiful countryside, cut through in places where quarrymen had been tunneling for chalk. The sight flooded Antonio with an unlooked-for calm. He was not accustomed to so much sky, pale but luminous, after the tall narrow canyon that was Frith Street.