After the Cabaret (7 page)

Then he said, ‘I went to sit in the kitchen. I was fed up. I was supposed to look after the household. This was my contribution. But it was a nightmare. No one helped. No one thanked me. My relationship with Briggs, who had saved me, got me into Britain, describing me as a servant,
was terrible. I had no status in the country, no friends, no relatives, no certainty. And I had lived in Germany until nineteen thirty-five. I knew very clearly what would happen if the war was lost. I was sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring the noise – they had the gramophone playing now – and people were coming in and out. I felt very low, very depressed. Then Briggs came in. He said only, “I'm going upstairs. I've work to do.”

‘There was a crash, and laughter and the doorbell rang again. There were feet on the stairs and cries of welcome. A very handsome young man put his head round the door, “Alexander!” he cried. “Where's Loomie?”

‘“I really don't know, Casimir,” said Briggs.

‘Then in came Charles Denham and sat down at the table with a sigh. Briggs said to him, “Charles, I'm heading upstairs. I've work to do,” but Charles replied, “Gerda's staying in Gloucester with her aunt.”

‘Gerda was his lover, but she was married to an American diplomat and would not leave her husband and children for him.

‘“Rotten for you,” said Briggs, but without much concern in his voice. He turned to leave the room.

‘Charles halted him. “No,” he said. “Listen, Briggs, do you know a man called Jonty Till?”

‘“No, I don't think so.”

‘“I've got a suspicion he's Gerda's latest.”

‘“That's no good, if it's true.”

‘“You couldn't find out for me, could you?”

‘“Me? Why?” asked Briggs, astonished.

‘“Well, you're supposed to be a spy.”

‘“My dear Charles, first, I'm not a spy, and second, even if I were, what makes you think I'd spend the Government's money hanging about outside Gerda's house to see what she's doing? I suppose you'd want me to wear a false beard.”

‘“Oh, God, I'm so unhappy. It's the uncertainty. If only I
knew
. I'd rather have the truth, whatever it was.”

‘“I shouldn't think you would,” Briggs said. “If you knew for certain this Till character had supplanted you, you'd feel even more unhappy. Look, Charles, what with there being a war on I really
must
go away and look at my papers.” He added, “Have you asked her about Till?”

‘“Yes. She said there was nothing between them.”

‘“I suppose she might anyway.”

‘“Quite. I think I'll go and see if there's anything to drink.” Denham got up and swayed out of the room.

‘Briggs said, “Oh, my God. Doesn't he realise? I think it's escaped him we're fighting a war against Hitler and his fascists.”

‘Sally, bright-eyed and red-cheeked, was in the doorway. “But how nice it would be if someone helped – the Soviet Union, for example,” she said. Because, of course, Stalin and Hitler had signed a pact which meant that Russia wouldn't fight.

‘“You know the party line,” Briggs said sternly. “But what I'd like to know is how you persuaded Sir Peveril to let you have the attic.”

‘“I didn't persuade him at all, darling,' Sally said. “I just rang up and asked him and he was an absolute sweetie and said yes, of course I must move in if I wanted to. He's a
darling, but honestly, Briggs, I do hope we're all going to be great friends here and get along like a house on fire, with never a cross word between us.”

‘“I hope so, too,” said Briggs, “but I'm not optimistic. Still, while we're chatting, Sally, do tell me, what did you do with your baby? Leave it on a bench at King's Cross?”

‘“Don't be so utterly foul, Briggs. The baby's in the country with my family. My old nanny's gone back to help.”

‘“If anyone asked me for my advice,” Briggs said deliberately, “I wouldn't recommend them to hand over another child for her to bring up. Not after you.”

‘“Aren't you a bastard, Briggs?” Sally said. “Nanny Trot's absolutely wonderful. I think it's horrible to say things about a person's nanny.” She turned to the young officer with whom she had arrived. “Pierre, sweetie, I'm desperate to get out of here. Shall we go to the French, darling?' And they disappeared.

‘“She's going to be such a nuisance,” Briggs said, and went straight upstairs to do his work.

‘Not long after that I saw Pym and the Legionnaire staggering up the stairs together. Pym had his hand in the back of the Legionnaire's trousers. I wondered how much work Briggs would get done. Briggs and I slept in the larger bedroom upstairs and Pym's bedroom was at the end of the passageway. Julia had the room further along, between Pym's and ours, opposite the bathroom, but that was all right. It was Pym and Pym's boyfriends – pick-ups, really – who were the problem.

‘I think that before war was declared the flat had been
rented to a young couple who kept it as a base for when they wanted to come to parties and other things in London, and it was consequently well decorated and furnished. As time went by, of course, standards declined.

‘I went and sat down in a chair by the window. The WAAF who had cried had fallen asleep on the sofa. The other was searching in a cupboard for gramophone records. Then she started dancing with Hodd, the RAF officer. Sally and her French officer were still there – they had not gone out. The music stopped and I heard her saying to Charles Denham, who was standing by the fireplace, “No, Charles. It's not Jonty Till. It's his brother, Vernon. He and Gerda spent a weekend together in Scarborough – everybody knows.” She never had any tact.

‘Meanwhile Pym had rolled downstairs, in a pair of jodhpurs, and was rummaging in a cupboard for a bottle. He straightened up, holding it. “Scarborough – funny place to go,” he remarked. “And, Charles, I hope we're not going to hear of any more of those tired old suicide attempts of yours.”

‘Charles crossed the room and tried to punch him on the nose, but only hit his cheek because Pym turned his head aside at the last moment. Charles tried again. A girl in a beret who had just come in screamed. Someone pulled Charles away. It wasn't hard. Pym staggered off upstairs. Then everyone who was left woke up the WAAF and we all went off to the French pub.

‘We rolled through the dark streets singing, “You stepped out of a drain. You looked quite insane. That's why I loved you—”

Bruno sat quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat and went on. ‘Then La Vie en Rose tried to open. There were more cellars behind it and these became useful later on during air-raids – we'd sit on the old empty casks Cora had kept there since Edward VII's time, or on a carpet on the floor or in a set of dining chairs she had cleared out of the hotel in the twenties. It was quite luxurious compared with the tube stations or the cramped air-raid shelters in people's gardens.

‘You entered La Vie by going down the steps from the street into the basement. The main entrance of the hotel was next door. Once down there you banged on an unpleasant purple door with whatever you had in your hand, the women used to take off a shoe sometimes to hammer with. Then at some point someone would open up, Cora, perhaps, or Vi – or one of the band or a guest, even. One night young Hodd, a bit the worse for wear, was beating on the door crying out in an Irish accent, “Will you open up in there, for the love of God? What does a man have to do to get a drink round here?” Then the door opened and he was looking straight into the face of an air vice-marshal, who just said, “Thank God you're not in uniform, Squadron Leader,” and let him in. Of course, Hodd was in uniform.

‘The legend went that one day two girls in evening dress, looking for their boyfriends, had the door opened to them by Winston Churchill, who said gallantly that if they couldn't find who they were looking for they'd be welcome at his table – where his private secretary, a cabinet member and a general were sitting.

‘The rules for membership of La Vie en Rose were the same as the rules for staying at the Bessemer. If Cora liked you, you got in. If she didn't, you stayed out. The room was very small, rectangular, only about twenty-one feet by fifteen, with a bar at the back, next to the stairs, a tiny platform at the other end, hardly big enough to take the band, which usually consisted of a piano, saxophone and a couple of drums. There was just enough room on this dais for Vi or Sally, who worked in shifts. Apart from that there were ten small tables, crammed together and in front of the platform a tiny space where you could dance – almost. People were jammed together on busy nights but in places like that they like to be crowded together.

‘The whole place was painted strawberry pink, which looked horrible in daylight, but was somehow comforting at night, when the lights, also pink-shaded, were low.

‘The beer was terrible – Cora didn't care. Where she got the other drinks from it was better not to ask. I don't know how she did it but throughout the war when the pubs, even, would have to put up signs saying NO BEER, Cora managed something. There was almost always gin, whisky and brandy and sometimes there would be a miraculous arrival of wine, or plum brandy, or Calvados.

‘How Cora found the drink was one mystery. Where she got the band from was another. They started with an old pianist, Vincent Tubman, who had been an accompanist in his younger days for many famous singers, including, by his account, Dame Nellie Melba. He claimed to have stood in when her own accompanist was taken ill. However, the drink had got to Vincent. He wasn't bad when he was
sober but he often wasn't. Sometimes I saw him carried unconscious from his piano stool. At first, too, there was a furtive saxophonist, who seldom spoke. He came and went guiltily each evening. Briggs thought he was a deserter who thought he'd be safest from detection in a place full of senior servicemen, what they called the “brass”. Pym's theory was that he was a bigamist, hiding from several wives. The drummer was a tired young man who worked as a postman during the day – they couldn't call him up because he had bad lungs. And, of course, there were Vi and Sally.

‘Pontifex Street had decided to turn out in force to celebrate the opening on the seventh of September. But at five o'clock the sirens went and the big raid began. The West End of London where we were was much less affected, but it was a shock. The bombers just came straight in through southern England, crossed the Thames and bombarded the docks, railway lines and homes of the East End.

‘People had never experienced this before and they were terrified. The fire services and ambulances weren't properly prepared, the ack-ack batteries weren't in place. There weren't enough air-raid shelters. The bombers flew off and returned two hours later, when it was getting dark. The raids went on for twelve hours, until dawn next day.

‘It must have been about seven, getting dark, when I stood with Pym on the roof at Pontifex Street, and saw what we were to see often again – the sun setting in the west but appearing to set also in the east, where a glow of fire four miles away stretched along the whole horizon.

‘Then we heard the bombers coming back and the sound
of the second attack. The sirens started up again. Puffs of smoke began to appear on the burning horizon. We heard some planes coming towards us. Pym said, “Bloody hell,” and we scrambled through the skylight into the attic, through Sally's cluttered room and down the ladder to the upper floor of the flat. Then we fled into the shop below.

‘There was a cellar door set into the wall beside the back door and Pym hammered on this as the bombers droned overhead. There was an explosion that seemed near us, though it was perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Later we were to think of such a hit as distant.

‘“Louisa! Anne!” Pym was shouting. “Let us in!” These were the names of the two gentlewomen who ran the cake shop downstairs. But they had bolted themselves in and it was some time before they opened up, as if they thought the Gestapo was already there. When Louisa pulled back the bolts Anne was sitting on a crate, wearing her gas mask, just in case.

‘I was surprised to see Briggs already there, sitting on the dirt floor, leaning against the wall at the back, smoking a cigarette. “I strolled back to get a clean shirt,” he told Pym. “Otherwise I'd be safe and sound in our secret bunker miles below the earth.” This was the coal cellar of their offices in Baker Street. “It's opening night at La Vie,” he added gloomily. “I was rather looking forward to it. You didn't think to bring anything to drink, did you? The sirens went off just as I was opening the front door.”

‘“Is that all you can think of?” cried Louisa. “We've nothing – no food, no water – we could be here for days. We could all be killed.”

‘“Better to be drunk, then,” observed Pym.

‘A bomb whistled down outside. There was a great thump, some dust rose from the floor, some plaster came off the walls, the overhead bulb flickered but did not go out.

‘To me it sounded very close, but I couldn't place where it was. Later we would learn how near, and where a bomb had landed and say, “There goes the post office.” But at that moment my fear of the unaccustomed bombardment was less than the fear of a German victory, invasion, my own capture and death. These seemed suddenly much closer. My freedom in Britain had always been conditional. I saw the prison gates, the grave.

‘“If this is going to happen very often,” Briggs said looking round, “we'll have to do something about this place.” Pym looked a little tense, but Briggs showed no fear. Anne began to cry and had to take off her gas mask to wipe her eyes. Louisa tried to comfort her. The noise went on. The worst was not knowing what was happening outside. We sat there for about fifteen minutes until in a lull Pym said, “Sod it. I'm going out to see what's happening.”