The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (35 page)

In that moment Bernard guessed. “You're not going to marry me after all, are you?”

“No,” said Filomena, “I'm not. I am very grateful to you for asking me, and I know you would be the kindest husband in the world, but I cannot do it. I would never be your equal, even in your eyes. I would always be the Eyetie girl from Soho…”

Bernard opened his mouth to argue. Then he stopped and said: “That's not the real reason, is it, Filomena?”

Filomena bowed her head, searching for the words, and the courage to say them. “I saw you looking at her picture,” she said at last, “Olivia's picture. I saw your face. You do not love me, Mr. Rodway. What you want is companionship. And I may be thirty years old, I may be past my prime, but I'm not ready to settle for that.”

Bernard gazed at her, so serious, so composed. He felt overwhelmed by regret. “You would lack nothing, you know, if you married me.”

“I would lack passion.” Filomena said it quietly, without any suggestion of reproach. Bernard was silent. He knew that it was the truth.

“Besides, you are a successful man, a famous man. You will find someone cleverer and more glamorous than me, someone far better suited to be your wife—”

“Oh, Filomena. Nobody could be better suited than you.” Reaching out he took her hand and kissed it. “You will stay with me, though, won't you? You are like my family, you and Nina and Antonio. I could not bear to lose you from my life.”

Filomena's cheeks had flushed crimson with the relief of speaking out. “Of course I will stay,” she said. “I could never leave Nina, and besides, you have been so kind to us, so generous. How could we not repay that kindness now?”

When his rehearsal
had finished Antonio set off to meet his family, walking through Piccadilly Circus toward Charing Cross Road. Soho now was a dream landscape, familiar, half-forgotten buildings interspersed with empty spaces. Newport Dwellings, once home to scores of Italians, had been destroyed by a mine, plummeting from the sky in broad daylight, suspended from a parachute. The jumbled ruins had been colonized by rosebay willow herb, the whiskery plant nicknamed fireweed because it flourished upon bomb sites.

Filomena and the children were waiting for him in Ricci's café; or rather, what had once been Ricci's. During the war, while Carlo Ricci was interned, his wife had brought in a shrewd young manager who secretly renegotiated the lease in his own name. The café was called the Blue Grotto now, with Formica tables and a glossy espresso machine behind the counter.

“What's wrong?” Antonio said to Filomena. “You look flustered.”

“Nothing's wrong,” said Filomena, “nothing at all.” Briskly she gathered her belongings, snapping shut her handbag, buttoning Nina's velvet coat. “Let's be off. I think it's going to rain.”

The house in Frith Street looked as it had always done, tall and narrow, the door opening directly onto the pavement. The curtains were drawn at all the high windows. It made the house seem shrunken and secretive, shutting them out.

“We used to live there, your
zia
Mena and I,” Antonio said. “My papa, Enrico, and I ran a little sweet shop. And
zia
Mena used to work in a laundry, washing sheets. When she came home her clothes always smelled of starch.”

“Soho,” said Nina, “we're in Soho, aren't we?”

“That's right.” Antonio glanced at his son. “Do you want to go inside, Rico? We can knock on the door if you like, see if the new tenants will let us in.”

Rico had screwed up his eyes, tilting his neck back to look at the upper window of the house. “I do not remember it,” he said. “I do not remember it at all.” His voice was thick with distress, as though the not remembering were somehow his fault.

Gravely Antonio put his arm about his son's shoulders. “It does not matter, Rico,” he said, and he gestured along the street toward the square, with its patch of lawn, its graceful trees. Their leaves were beginning to curl and fade in the autumn chill. “We'll go, shall we, and sit in the park? Then we can find somewhere to have tea. Nina? Do you want to go to the park?”

Nina had been distracted by a figure on the opposite pavement. “Aunt Min,” she said, pointing, “why is that man staring at us?”

Filomena turned. The man was stocky and wide faced, with straw-colored hair. He stood quite still, his feet planted upon the paving stones. Her first giddy thought was that he had not changed, except that in one hand he carried a stick. Then he stepped out to cross the road, rolling his weight clumsily forward to get started.

“Frostbite,” said Stan Harker. “I lost three toes to it, out there in Norway. Made life in a German prison camp tricky, I can tell you.” He fixed his pale blue eyes upon Filomena. “I'm surprised to see you, Filomena. I came to look for you, but the new people said you'd moved on.”

“I have—I did—” Filomena's mouth was loose and sticky as glue; she could not get the words out.

“I've got lodgings around the corner,” said Stan. “Easy for walking to Bow Street. They've given me a desk job with the force, but it won't last. I can't stand it, not after being on the beat. I'll have to learn a trade, carpentry maybe, or mechanics.” He looked at Nina. “Is this your daughter? She looks like you.”

“No, it's not my daughter, I'm not married, it's my—my niece, we've been living down in Sussex, she and I. And this is my nephew from Italy…”

Antonio, hearing his competent sister dither, stepped forward. “Constable Harker,” he said, putting out his hand. Stan smiled.

“It's Antonio, isn't it? Well, I'm glad to see that you got through the war.”

“Yes,” said Antonio, “I got through the war.” The two men looked at one another. Each could read the memory of hardship and imprisonment in the other's face.

“What about your mother?” asked Filomena, finding her voice.

Stan shook his head. “Air raid. The house was flattened. And she wouldn't use the shelters. She always said that if she was going to be killed she'd rather it was in her own bed. Well, she got her wish.”

Filomena was going to say, I'm sorry, but her mouth had turned to glue once more. Beside her Nina was growing restless, turning her toes in and out, fidgeting with her belt.

“Are we going to the park, Aunt Min? Rico and I want to go to the park.”

“We are going to Soho Square, Constable Harker,” Antonio said, “and then to have some tea. Would you like to come with us?”

“Thank you,” said Stan. “That's very civil. I will, if you don't mind.”

The square was in shadow but the sun was glinting upon the top of the trees. Antonio took one of Nina's hands, Rico the other. From time to time Nina gave a gawky unexpected skip, jerking at their arms. Stan and Filomena followed. At first Filomena kept pausing, concerned he could not keep up, but then she and Stan fell into step, and they walked on in silence, side by side.

Several books have been invaluable to me in writing this novel.
‘Collar the Lot!'
by Peter and Leni Gillman offers a definitive account of the internment and expulsion of so-called enemy aliens during the war, while
Island of Barbed Wire
by Connery Chappell paints a vivid picture of the lives of internees on the Isle of Man. Both Terri Colpi's
The Italian Factor
and Claudia Baldoli's
Exporting Fascism
provide detailed insights into the Italian community in Britain, especially during the 1930s. Of the many books that exist about wartime Britain the one I found most useful was Philip Ziegler's
London at War 1939–1945.
Any historical errors are, of course, my own.

Thanks go to my wonderful agent Maggie Hanbury for her belief in me and in this book. I am also grateful to Jenny Parrott, Philippa Pride, and Sheila Thompson for their advice on the text, and to Robin Straus and all the team at Crown, especially Rose Fox and Kim Silverton, for their hard work on this U.S. edition. Finally, thank you to my parents, Elinor Winifred Luxton and Don Love, for their lifelong encouragement, and to Barry MacDonald for his constancy and support.