After the Last Dance (14 page)

‘Oh, so you know him, then?' Rose asked in surprise, though Sylvia was one of those people who knew everyone.

‘I know of him,' Sylvia lowered her voice. ‘He's half-American, frightfully rich and does something frightfully hush-hush.'

‘But what exactly?' Rose persisted; she was curious to know what strange, silent Edward did.

Sylvia sighed. ‘You're not meant to ask. Do remember that there's a war on.'

‘I'm hardly likely to forget.' Rose nudged Sylvia. ‘Does he push paper like Bertie?'

‘Special Operations, probably,' Sylvia said shortly. ‘We shouldn't even be talking about this.'

Further ahead, Bertie was jabbering away at Edward, who was silent. Giving nothing away. ‘You mean, he's a
spy?
' she hissed.

‘Spymaster, more like,' Sylvia muttered and then she took pity on Rose. ‘Strictly off-book and you didn't hear it from me. I know he seems perfectly nice, but you know what they say about still waters. I imagine he could be quite ruthless if he had to interrogate enemy agents and that sort of thing.'

‘Don't tease,' Rose said crossly. ‘Of course he doesn't interrogate enemy agents. He's absolutely not the type.'

‘Will you keep your voice down? Goodness, Rose, are you all right? Even in this light, you're looking a little peaky.'

‘I feel quite peculiar.' Rose plucked at her mother's funeral fur. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead and top lip. One moment she felt as if she was being boiled alive, the next she was freezing despite thermals and fur coat. ‘I might be going down with the flu.' Both Phyllis and Maggie had been laid low with a flu bug that had decimated the volunteers at Rainbow Corner.

‘Well, you'll just have to wait until we get home to go down with it,' Sylvia told her unsympathetically, as they caught up with Bertie and Edward who had come to a halt outside a mansion block that loomed up out of the darkness. ‘You can't skip out on a man after he's paid for three courses and wine. It's unspeakably rude.'

They all crammed into a tiny lift and when Bertie pulled the door shut with a crash, Rose felt it reverberate in her belly. The smell of Sylvia's perfume, heavy with the scent of lilies, and the cigar smoke that clung to Bertie's topcoat, had her lurching back against Edward.

He put a hand on Rose's shoulder to steady her. ‘Are you all right?' he whispered so he wouldn't be heard over the clanging of the lift as it travelled between floors and Bertie's guffaws as Sylvia said something. ‘You're rather pale.'

‘I'm absolutely fine.' Maybe she would be if she could sit down in a dark corner of Bertie's flat and stay very, very still.

But as soon as they entered, the floor and the walls crowded in on Rose and she could smell stale cigars and the kippers Bertie had had for breakfast and her belly lurched again and…

‘Oh dear!' Sylvia exclaimed when Rose clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘Bertie, where's the bathroom?'

‘Good God! Down the corridor, last door on the left.'

Rose took off at a gallop, flung the door open and threw herself onto her knees.

Ten minutes later, flushed and cringing, she crept into the lounge where Bertie and Sylvia were flicking through records and Edward was perched on the arm of a sofa holding a glass of fizzing white liquid. ‘Come and sit down,' he said gently, gesturing at the couch. ‘I liberated Bertie's last bottle of Bromo-Seltzer for you.'

She sat down on the sofa and took the glass, then cringed again. ‘I'm so dreadfully sorry. I don't know what you must think.' Her cheeks blazed with yet more shameful heat. ‘I couldn't even open the window because of the blackout.'

Bertie waved a hand. ‘No worse than me after a regimental mess dinner. The char can sort it out in the morning.'

That made Rose feel ashamed all over again because she'd imagined Bertie to be a bumptious oaf when really he was an absolute darling: so full of relentless good cheer.

Sylvia shot her a sympathetic look. ‘No doughnuts for you for a while.'

‘I may never eat again.' Rose sipped at the Bromo-Seltzer. Like every other drink she'd had in London, it tasted awful. ‘I really am sorry,' she said again but Bertie and Sylvia had put on a record and only Edward heard her.

‘Please stop apologising. You haven't done anything so terrible in the grand scheme of things. Though I did think ordering the pavlova was rather foolhardy.' He smiled that grave smile, which meant it was a joke.

‘Well you might have told me,' Rose grumbled. She finished the rest of the Bromo, pulling a face as the last powdery, bitter dregs coated her tongue, but she did feel a little better. Wrung out and fragile but she didn't think she was going to die any more.

‘I would have if I'd thought you'd take my advice,' Edward said. ‘Sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes. I'm sure you'll never order caviar and steak tournedos again.'

‘Don't talk about food,' Rose begged and he smiled again. She was tired and her thoughts had become all jumbled up. She leant her head back against Edward's side and he stroked her hot forehead with cool fingers. It felt lovely. Soothing. Safe in that cosy room, curtains closed tight against the night, Sylvia singing, ‘
Oh, please have some pity
I'm all alone in this big city I tell you I'm just a lonesome babe in the wood
…
'

Jane didn't know what time she finally fell asleep but she woke the next morning as Leo came into the room with a breakfast tray. ‘To make up for putting you in front of the firing squad last night,' he said with a rueful smile, which Jane was more than happy to return, then agree to Leo's suggestion that they spend the day like tourists.

What else could she do? Besides, spending the day, lots of days, with Leo didn't have to be an ordeal. He was funny, easy-going, charming when he could be bothered to make the effort and once they left the house and began to make their way through Kensington, he had a story about every street they walked down. Stories about a misspent youth of illegal raves in derelict warehouses, pining after Chelsea heiresses who wouldn't give him the time of day and soaking up his hangovers with a fry-up.

This morning, the late October sun was high and bright but with an autumn crispness to the air that made Jane think of bonfires and fireworks. They meandered down the back streets, stopping for coffee at a tiny Italian hole in the wall – Leo was crestfallen that they didn't remember him – and then to the V&A.

‘We'll start at the bottom,' Leo said although the bottom was very boring: fiddly stone carvings and pots and ancient religious relics. Even the word ‘artefact' made Jane want to yawn. Then, there were the galleries. Jane suffered in silence for Leo's sake, because he obviously cared more about art than she did, but he shuffled along without much enthusiasm, hands shoved into the pockets of an ancient black coat.

‘God, this is dull,' he announced. ‘Let's go and look at the pretty dresses.'

The pretty dresses were the part that Jane had liked best when she'd come here on Sunday afternoons with Charles. He'd start at the bottom too but they'd always save the best for last and end up at the fashion galleries. ‘I'll have that one and that one, not that one, but definitely that one,' she'd say as she pointed at Schiaparelli ballgowns or a Balenciaga cocktail dress, as if she were walking through Selfridges with a personal shopper.

Then and now, they finished in the café. Leo ate cake. It was too early for a drink, though if he were on his own Jane was sure he'd have had one. Jane drank decaffeinated coffee.

‘What shall we do now?' he asked. ‘What's the time?'

It was only half past twelve, the café filling up with the early lunch crowd: vacant-looking teenagers wielding massive backpacks, mothers with babies wedged into Bugaboos and Björn slings and a frightening number of ladies up from the provinces in comfortable walking shoes and anoraks.

‘We can't go back for at least another two hours,' Jane said. ‘Didn't you say Rose was having people over for lunch?'

‘Not people. My mother.' Leo scraped the side of his fork across his plate to gather up the last smears of cream cheese frosting. They were seated next to a window and it was the first time that Jane had seen him in such clear, unflinching daylight. Greying at the temples, grey in the face, the skin slack around his eyes and jawline. ‘She's in town for the next few days so I have to keep a low profile.' He wouldn't look her in the eye. ‘I'm not even fucked up in an interesting, romantic way. All my problems are white middle class problems.'

Jane had figured
that
out within five minutes of meeting him. ‘You could choose not to be fucked up,' she suggested.

‘Nah, everyone's fucked up. Even you. Like if your dad
did
die when you were a kid and then your mum dumped you in some boarding school full of religious nutters in the Australian Bush, then you're fucked up too.'

‘You can rise above being fucked up. It's a matter of applying yourself.'

Leo waved his fork at her, swollen eyes narrowed. ‘Unless none of that stuff is true, which means you're fucked up in a completely different way.'

‘Darling, do we really have to spend the next two hours debating the finer points of being fucked up?' Jane asked. ‘If so, I'd much rather go and look at some really boring religious artefacts.'

‘I'm just saying that —'

‘Well, hello! Fancy running into the two of you here!' They both turned in the direction of the enthusiastic, slightly camp voice.

It was George. Rose's George, arrived to save them from themselves. As he was a curator at the V&A, he whisked them off to the bowels of the building to show them all sorts of treasures. A collection of early-twentieth-century Scandinavian glassware, a pair of Vivienne Westwood bondage trousers, origami sculptures no bigger than Jane's finger that were so beautiful but so fragile, they made her feel sad just to look at them.

George insisted that they join him for lunch in the staff canteen so he could regale them with stories of Rose. How they'd met at the cheese counter in Harvey Nichols nearly forty years ago: nineteen-year-old George with his blue Mohican and leather shorts stopping to ask Rose if her polka dot dress was a vintage Claire McCardell ‘though she didn't call it vintage. Still doesn't. Says there's no point in throwing away perfectly good clothes. Anyway, it was love at first sight. No, that's sheer hyperbole. It was best friends at first sight.' George suddenly crumbled. His bright, bird-like face looked as if someone had started to rub out the edges, owlish eyes tearing up behind his horn-rim glasses. ‘I don't think a day's gone by since then that we haven't spoken. I can't imagine my life without Rose in it.'

He was crying. Right there at the table. Jane sat there in an agony of embarrassment because everyone, all of George's colleagues, were looking at them.

‘Rose would hate it if I cried, but when I'm not with her, I can't seem to stop,' George said. His tears were staining the slim-cut lapels of his suit; one landed with a buoyant plop onto his bread plate, right in the middle of his pat of butter.

Jane turned her face away, made her body stiff and hard. She hated seeing anyone cry. She always wanted to tell them to man up. Grow a pair. Crying didn't solve anything – it just made people think you were weak.

‘Hey, George, come on, buddy,' she heard Leo say softly, then he clumsily got to his feet, grabbed a handful of napkins and crouched down in front of the older man. ‘You know Rose would kill you if she heard you were crying in the V and A staff canteen. She'd expect The Ritz at the very least.'

George gave a short phlegmy laugh and took the napkins Leo offered. He wiped his eyes. ‘Thank you,' he said quietly. Then he blew his nose. ‘Actually, Rose hates The Ritz. Refuses to go. Says it's full of tourists and people with more money than sense.'

Leo patted George's knee. Jane hadn't expected him to be so capable of kindness. To reach out to someone who was hurting with no ulterior motive. Leo was still crouched down in front of George and had taken the older man's hands in his own. ‘One day, when you really need cheering up, I'll tell you about the only time I ever went to The Ritz. Blagged my way into a supermodel's twenty-first birthday party. Twelve hours later, I was escorted out through the kitchens wearing motorcycle boots and a gold dress I got given by another supermodel.' He stood up and puffed out his chest. ‘I was banned for life from every Ritz in the world.'

George was still blowing his nose, but his face was sharp again, though a little pinker than it had been before. ‘I've missed you, Leo,' he said, with one final sniff. ‘We both have. It's good that you've come back.'

They didn't stay long after that. It was after three. ‘Lunch will definitely be over by three,' Jane said. ‘Half two is industry standard. Let's go back so I can change shoes.'

They walked back to the house in silence. Ever since they'd said goodbye to George, Leo had been quiet. He only came to when they reached the square. The sun was starting to drift, the light soft and diffused, the drooping leaves creating dancing shadows. Leo took Jane's arm. ‘Let's go round the back,' he said. ‘So there's no danger of any doorstep confrontations.'

Jane decided not to ask Leo why he was so determined to avoid his mother. Family stuff was always messy, fraught with real and imagined slights, and feuds that went back years. Hopefully she wouldn't have to stick around long enough to get involved.

‘Liddy and Frank live there, the one with the red door,' Leo suddenly said, as he steered Jane down a little mews to the left of the house, the cobbles playing havoc with her ballet flats. He was pointing at a pretty little carriage house. ‘Have you met Frank yet? Liddy's husband and Rose's driver. He's also very handy around the house. Changing light bulbs, sorting out —'

Jane hadn't really been listening until Leo cut off mid-sentence – his attention caught by Rose and another woman, as tall as she was, but younger, hair darker, stepping out of a doorway. They embraced, awkwardly but affectionately, as if the obvious regard they had for each other didn't normally extend to hugging.

‘Well, that's done it,' Leo snapped as if Jane had taken him to the very edge of his nerves then pushed him over. ‘I'm out of here.'

‘Don't be so silly.' Whatever bad blood there might be between Leo and his mother was no reason to stalk off, coat billowing in the breeze. ‘For goodness sake, darling, come back!'

Rose and the other woman – Leo's mother, because she couldn't be anyone else – turned to look.

Leo could have just sucked it up. Said
Hello, you're looking well, how's Dad, weather's chilly for this time of year, isn't it?
It would have been trite and a little painful but it wouldn't have killed him. It wouldn't kill Jane either. So she did what Leo didn't have the guts to do: painted on her bravest smile and walked towards the two women.

‘Hello,' Jane said brightly. ‘Hope I'm not interrupting anything.'

Standing there on the kitchen doorstep, Rose introduced them. ‘Linda, I told you about Jane, Leo's wife. And Jane, I haven't had a chance to tell you a thing about Linda, my sister Shirley's youngest girl. Her coronation baby, Shirley used to call her.'

They shook hands. Murmured greetings. Linda shrank back as soon as the handshake was over. There was an echo of Rose on her face, the faintest trace of Leo. Maybe around the eyes or in the generous curve of her lips, which twisted anxiously in a polite smile.

‘Sorry about Leo. I could run after him?' Jane suggested, in the hope of making a quick escape.

‘There's not much point,' Rose said. She looked up at the sky, which had turned from blue to grey as they'd been standing there. ‘It's going to rain.'

‘You go in,' Linda said to her. ‘It's too cold to be standing here.'

‘Stop fussing. A little breeze isn't going to kill me.' But then Rose shivered and Jane thought she might go in without arguing. Instead she paused and looked at Linda, then Jane. ‘You might as well sit down and have a little chat about that boy of yours.'

Rose abandoned them once she'd shown them through the kitchen and down a half-flight of steps to what she called the morning room and Jane would have called a conservatory.

Linda perched on the edge of the duck-egg-blue sofa like she might bolt at any second. ‘Rose said you were very pretty.' It sounded like an accusation and maybe she realised that because she sank back a little as if she was forcing herself to relax. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘There's no need to be.' Jane willed her beauty to dim a little. ‘I'm sure this visit is difficult enough without Leo and me turning up like this.'

Linda wasn't really relevant, but she was Leo's mother and Rose seemed to be fond of her, so she might prove useful. After three years of shopping trips, spa days and girls' lunches with Jackie, she could play the part of the eager-to-please daughter-in-law to perfection.

So when Lydia came in with a laden tray and Linda looked longingly at the walnut cake, Jane said she'd have a slice because Linda had the hungry, desperate look of a woman who couldn't bear to eat cake alone.

Trying to make conversation though was like wading through treacle in six-inch heels. It was only through dogged perseverance that Jane discovered that Linda had two more days in London, then would catch the train back to Durham on Thursday morning, as she hated driving on the motorway. And that it was something of a tradition that on her last evening in London, she and Rose would see a show then have dinner at Joe Allen's.

‘That sounds lovely,' Jane exclaimed. She'd played to tough crowds before, but Linda might have been the toughest yet. She was staring down at the floor, refusing to make eye contact and hadn't even taken off her beige trench coat, which was slightly too big for her as if she'd bought it expecting to grow into it. ‘What are you going to see?'

‘Was Leo in Australia three years ago?' Linda asked. She'd raised her head and there were patches of red dusted along her cheekbones. ‘In Sydney?'

Jane and Leo hadn't got as far as discussing what they were doing three years ago. ‘We had quite a whirlwind romance. You know how it is. And so…'

‘Because Alistair, his brother, lives out there. He was working for Doctors Without Borders, met an Australian girl.' Linda stopped to visibly gather herself. She took three deep breaths, placed her hands on her knees and drew back her shoulders. It suddenly occurred to Jane that the other woman wasn't flustered or awkward but so angry she could hardly speak.

‘Are you all right?' Jane tried to loosen and relax her own limbs so they weren't stiff and tense too. ‘We don't have to talk about Leo if it's going to upset you. Obviously, I
adore
him, but he can be impossible sometimes.'

‘Alistair saw Leo walking towards him and he called his name and Leo looked right at him, then carried on walking past like Alistair wasn't even there.' Linda looked at Jane incredulously. ‘Who does that? To his own brother.'

Jane couldn't resist the urge for one really good squirm. ‘Families are quite complicated, aren't they?'