After the Cabaret (24 page)

‘Be careful it doesn't fade,' Bruno said.

‘I will. I can't thank you enough – really not. Do you think it would be possible to use it as a cover for the book?'

‘Why not? It's yours. Eugene gave it to me. I'm giving it to you. Here's a document stating that.'

Overwhelmed at this generosity Greg spluttered his thanks.

‘We must get on,' Bruno said firmly, between mouthfuls of his antipasto. And while keen enough himself to get Bruno's story as fast as possible Greg wondered again at the old man's sudden emphasis on speed.

‘Sally was rather quiet and subdued after Eugene left,' Bruno said. ‘She didn't have a leg to stand on, really, for during the course of the relationship she'd told everybody repeatedly, even Eugene himself, how Theo was the only man she'd ever loved. Once he'd gone, though, she'd lie around the flat when she'd done her postal deliveries, saying, ‘I've got the blues.'

‘There were other reasons for her depression. Pym was feeding her with secret reports about measures being taken against European Jews, the deportations and such. All Jews had had to wear a yellow star since September 'forty-one, and at the beginning of 'forty-two, though we didn't know it then, Heydrich had started organising what they called “the final solution”. By nineteen forty-three millions had been murdered. This is the sort of information that Pym relayed to Sally and, of course, it made her unhappy. Not everybody was familiar with the details of all this, but as early as December 'forty-two the British Government
knew enough about the exterminations to condemn them publicly. Few could have guessed how bad it was, though.' Bruno sighed. ‘Not till the end.'

‘Then, Ralph Hodd, who had escaped from his prison camp and gone back, unhurt, to Bomber Command, was killed in a raid over Germany. Sally's mother sent her the newspaper cutting announcing his death, without a word of comment.'

‘Why would Pym have been trying to upset Sally with all this information about the Holocaust?' Greg asked.

‘He thought it would be useful later,' Bruno said.

‘Useful? I don't understand.'

‘You will,' said Bruno grimly. He raised a finger. ‘You must wait. You are irritated, but it will be easier by far, to take everything in order.' He smiled. ‘I am a German, after all. Everything in order,' he said.

Greg produced his meatloaf and tomato sauce.

‘Good,' said Bruno. ‘Did your girlfriend help?'

‘She had to leave. Budget problems at her college.'

‘An intelligent young lady – yes?'

‘She certainly is.'

‘Will you have the pleasure of Christmas together?'

‘Yes, with her uncle, in Dorset.'

‘A charming place, Dorset,' said Bruno, with a nasty expression on his face. Then, ‘Well, on with the tale. Sally was sad and then her mood improved a little. She was an optimist at heart. Things would get better – the struggle continues – we will overcome in the end. All that sort of thing she believed.'

‘Not a bad philosophy,' said Greg stoutly.

‘For an American,' Bruno said. ‘A little foolish for a European. But never mind. She went on singing, and doing her day-time job.' Bruno broke into song in a cracked voice. ‘“Please don't talk about me when I'm gone – no matter how I carry on – please don't talk about me when I'm gone.”'

Greg smiled.

‘There was another song. I think she learned it from Eugene. “That don't bother me. You can see that I ain't free, but that don't bother me.”'

Greg joined in and they both laughed.

‘However,' Bruno went on, ‘unlike when Theo dumped her, she said this time that she'd given up men. “I've given up men, darling,”' he quoted. ‘“From now on I'm going to be like a little nun and dedicate myself to the Party.” But there were other things going on at Pontifex Street too.

‘It was around that time that I got up one night – I couldn't sleep I suppose – and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I found Pym and Briggs and Geoffrey Forbes poring over some blueprints they had spread out on the kitchen table. That wasn't so strange. They were all concerned with secrets and naturally new scientific developments in warfare were important to them. I think what shook me was the way they looked at me when I first came in – they covered it up quickly, but I saw they were very shocked. Just that I'd come into the room. They didn't want any witnesses, even me. I didn't know what they were doing and I didn't care, which they would have known well. So why the alarm? Why the secrecy? I went back to bed and forgot it as soon as possible.

‘But not really, because the next day I came in to find Sally painting her toenails red with some paint from a child's painting kit – the red enamel used for the lead soldiers' tunics. She was quite proud to have discovered it in a shop somewhere in Soho. And then I asked her, “Sally, do you know anywhere I could stay? Don't tell anybody I asked.”

‘“You want to move?” she asked me. “I don't know anywhere. Sorry.” So many houses had been destroyed and people were living in very bad accommodation, with relatives – anything. So I knew she probably would have heard of nothing and had to be content. Though, basically, I was not.

‘Cora then did a strange thing. She banned Pym from La Vie. When he arrived one night she just said, like a pub landlady, “No, you're barred.” He tried to argue, but it was hopeless. She said it was over his bill, which was enormous, but that wasn't it. Cora never cared about things like that. I think she smelt trouble. Pym had a good cover – his perpetual drinking and roaming around for sex masked everything. But there was a Russian sailor, for example, who spent two weeks at Pontifex Street before his ship sailed, drinking vodka straight from the bottle and singing all the time. Who was he, really? A pick-up of Pym's, or a messenger? Although the Allies were winning the war, things at Pontifex Street seemed more unpleasant somehow than during its worst hours. The atmosphere was bad. Cora had guessed something too, I'm sure of that now.

‘Anyway, I stayed, for there was nowhere else to go. Not
long after, Sally too was looking around for somewhere else to live.

‘That began one morning with the arrival of Sally's parents, Geneviève in a good pre-war suit, Harry looking worn out. I could see there was going to be trouble so I left the sitting room and went into the kitchen where I started to read the paper. Sally, with a gloomy face, followed me in to make some tea. “Storm clouds overhead,” she said, picking up the tray. Later, I could hear voices in the living room.

‘“Sally. Something really must be done,” her father said.

‘Then Geneviève. “It's too much, now Nanny's left, with all the shortages. Only an unpleasant girl from the village—”

‘Then came Harry Jackson-Bowles's rumble again. “Too much for your mother,” and Genevieve's, “Gisela's out of hand.”

‘Sally said something about the bombing and was rapidly interrupted by her mother more loudly. “Sally, we've done our best, but this can't go on for ever. What about the child's father? Can't he do anything? You've got to think of her future.”

‘Sally seemed to be pleading for time. I heard Geneviève say, “No, no, Sally. This must be settled now. What are you going to do?”

‘Then her father's voice and then Sally's, rising, “I can't come home.”

‘Feet came upstairs, Briggs's step, which went past the kitchen door. The living-room door opened, and I heard
Sally's father's voice, which broke off. Sally must have pleaded, silently, with Briggs, for somehow he was invited to dinner at the Connaught, where the Jackson-Bowleses were staying, to serve as the buffer between them and Sally, I suppose.

‘He came in later in the evening, took off his hat and neatly put his gloves in it. “My God, Bruno,” he exclaimed, “Geneviève Jackson-Bowles is a bitch of the first water. I really can't understand why Sally puts up with it. How sweetly Geneviève denigrates her. ‘Poor Clothilde,'” he mimicked, “‘she's so ill. Sally wouldn't care, Mr Briggs. Family means so little to these modern girls, don't you agree? But, forgive me, I can't expect you to understand a mother's feelings when she sees a daughter so.' What a dreadful woman. I wonder why she doesn't like Sally?”

‘“You ought to know,” I said. “You dislike her enough yourself.”

‘“I detest her sloppy habits and her sloppy emotions. ‘Theo – the only man I've ever really loved,'” he mimicked again, with cruel accuracy. “I can't bear her stockings in the bathroom, her muddles and messes. Well, I've never liked women, you know that, Bruno.”

‘“You've never liked anybody. You can't stand the disorder,” I dared to tell him.

‘He laughed. “The Jackson-Bowleses are determined to get rid of the child,” he told me. “Well, Sally can't bring it here. Even she sees that. Of course,” he added, “what Sally doesn't know is that Theo's on his way back from Washington. They want him for the Balkans. He's trying to wriggle out of it, but I don't think he'll be successful.
Poor old Fitzpatrick's coming from the bright lights to London.” And Briggs laughed again. “Woman trouble. Eleanor Roosevelt took a dislike to him. Curtains for Fitzpatrick. I wonder what Sally'll make of that?”

‘Well, we all wondered,' said Bruno.

Sally was at Vi's flat in Pimlico. Washing was stretched across a corner of the room, Vi's bed, neatly made up, was in another corner. Vi was putting carrots and potatoes into an enamel dish.

‘I'm sorry, Sally,' she was saying, ‘but I can't see any way. Ted's patched the roof and the landlord's let the upstairs flat again to some friends of Ted who got bombed out just last week. It's a mate of his from the docks, his wife and three kids under six. They'd been bombed out once before. They had to move in with her mum and dad and the wife began to go round the bend – I mean it, sitting on the edge of the bed all day, crying and ignoring the kids. Here they've only got two attic rooms, but to her it's Paradise. You know what it's like, Sal. There's nowhere to rent.'

Sally sighed.

‘Look,' Vi said, ‘They can't just bring Gisela down here and dump her, like an unwanted dog.'

‘Trot's had to go down to Folkestone to look after her
sister who was a nurse in London, but she's collapsed under the strain. She's terribly ill. Mother says she can't manage and if Gisela doesn't come here I'll have to go back to take care of her.'

‘You don't want to bring her back to the bombing. But going home doesn't sound too good.' Vi had her own opinion of Sally's mother. ‘Can't you get Sir Peveril to wangle something?'

‘I doubt it.'

Vi put the vegetable stew in the oven and turned on the gas. ‘That'll have to do for Ted and Jack when they get in. I wish I could've got a sausage or two to go with it. Jack's downstairs with Mrs Brown. Ted'll be going to pick him up when he gets off shift. I think he's getting sweet on the woman downstairs, her with the kid and the husband with Monty in North Africa. Her husband hasn't seen the boy since he was tiny, hasn't had leave for a year. That'll be a nice surprise for him, finding his wife in love with another man when he gets back, won't it?'

‘What are
you
going to eat, Vi?' asked Sally.

‘A cup of tea and a fag, as usual,' said Vi.

‘You'll cave in,' Sally said.

‘We can't all afford to eat out in restaurants,' Vi told her.

‘What've you got?'

‘Two bob, till Cora pays me.'

‘I've got a shilling. Let's go to Lyon's quickly.'

‘You're on,' said Vi.

They hurried out, Vi carrying her flimsy evening-dress in her gas mask case while Sally's contained a torch and
Vi's make-up and shoes. In the street, there was a strong gust of wind and some leaves blew in their faces. ‘Another winter coming on,' Vi remarked.

‘Any news from Archie?' asked Sally, as they turned to the bus stop.

Vi's boyfriend's ship had been sunk off Norway
en route
to Russia and there was no news. ‘It's so bloody long since I've seen him,' Vi confessed. ‘Of course I want him to be OK, but who'll come back, eh? The same old Archie? To the same old Vi?'

There was a silence.

Then, across the road, Sally spotted two American uniforms, and Vi, noticing, said, ‘You still haven't got over that darkie, have you?'

‘There wasn't much in it,' Sally told her.

‘No?' said Vi, sceptical.

‘No,' Sally said. ‘Are my eyes deceiving me or is that a bus coming?'

‘It must be a mirage.'

Once on the parked bus Vi said, ‘If this is winning, I wonder what losing's like?'

‘A bloody sight worse,' Sally said.

Stretched out in a chair in the flat, with a glass of brandy in his hand, Bruno said, ‘Theo got back just after the Jackson-Bowleses' visit. Geneviève had been ringing Sally regularly every Sunday morning, early, so as to disturb us all, to ask how Sally's search for a flat for herself and Gisela was going and Sally, for some reason, did not evade these phone calls. Each Sunday morning we'd hear her saying, “Yes, maman. No, maman. I'll do as you say, maman.” When she'd put the phone down she'd head for the gin.

‘Then one Sunday she turned round and there was Theo, in the doorway with his suitcase. She launched herself towards him and he embraced her. They went upstairs without a word. Julia, Briggs and Pym were all there, drinking coffee and reading.

‘Julia looked up and said, “Oh, God, not again.”

‘Pym, bare-chested, in a pair of very dirty trousers, asked, “I wonder what our boy's playing at now?”