Dark Palace (39 page)

Dare she ask?

‘Which nugget was that?'

‘ “Still trying to sell your dried fruit, Frank.” '

Oh. ‘More a quip than a nugget.'

‘And also your belief in sanctions.'

‘I'm flattered to be quoted.'

‘Tell me what went wrong?'

She described the interviews. ‘It's really a case of
nul et non avenu
.'

‘You mean, you delivered them a message and they returned it unanswered?'

‘'Fraid so.'

‘You know that being married is the problem.'

He must have mentioned it in his letter of introduction. ‘I know. But I was married in a church.'

He got the joke and laughed. ‘You mean that for Rationalists a church marriage doesn't really count?'

‘Yes.'

They both chuckled.

‘I had a call from a mutual friend of ours,' John said.

‘Who was that?'

‘Scraper Smith—said he'd bumped into you in Sydney.'

She felt sick

‘Small world,' John said.

‘Small world.'

John went on, ‘Scraper said that you were a treasure and should be grabbed by the Department.'

Grabbed.

‘How do you know Scraper?' she managed to ask.

‘He did some work for me on a case—a few cases actually. As you see, he can't ever appear in court—does devilling. You impressed him.'

She tried to control the nausea rising inside her.

‘I agree with him,' said John.

‘About what?'

‘About how Australia should grab you and put you to work somewhere.'

‘Oh well, thank you, John,' she said. ‘We tried. I appreciated your letter to the Department. Being married is probably the biggest obstacle.'

‘You'll go back to the League?'

‘I think they still need me.'

‘I am sure they do. Australia's loss.'

1938

‘Ambrose,' she said, waking him, holding on to his arm. ‘Someone's just let themselves into the apartment.'

Ambrose sat up in the bed, listening.

‘Must be Robert,' she said.

‘He didn't telegram?'

‘No.'

They listened and heard two male voices. The sound of luggage dropped to the floor.

The light in the front room came on, and showed under the door of Ambrose's room.

There was a silence as she heard what she knew was Robert at the drawer where any mail for him was put.

The sound of a drink being poured.

Then Robert called her name and she heard him go to her bedroom and knock. She heard the door of her bedroom being opened and then heard him return to the living room, calling out both for her and for Ambrose.

Ambrose put on the bedside light. ‘It's two in the morning,' he said.

She made the sickening admission to herself that this had had to happen sooner or later.

Ambrose was
en femme
.

That everything between Robert and Ambrose and her had been left horribly vague now came crashing down on her. She'd tried at times in letters to make it clear that the marriage was over and that something else now existed between them, better described in her mind as a friendly, bohemian arrangement about accommodation.

That hadn't quite stuck, nor been quite true.

‘He can go to his room—the bed's made up,' she whispered.

And it was no longer his room, it was a guest room.

‘There is someone with him,' Ambrose said.

Damn, damn, damn.

‘You stay here,' she said, leaving the bed, finding her robe and slippers.

Damn.

And then Robert, without knocking, opened the door to Ambrose's room, coming face to face with her as she tied the sash of the gown around her waist. She closed the gown across her breasts barely concealed by the lace of her nightgown.

Light from the front room streamed some way into the bedroom.

He stood there and behind him she saw Potato Gray.

He and Gray both peered in behind her.

She couldn't believe their crassness. Both, of course, were under the weather.

She glanced quickly to see what it was they could see. Ambrose, lying on one elbow, was mostly covered by the bed clothing, but it was clear in the glow of the bedside light that he was in a feminine silk nightgown—well, boudoir satin, to be precise—and that he had traces of make-up, his lips definitely had lipstick on them and he wore black eye make-up, giving him Egyptian eyes. The one hand which showed had
its nails painted crimson. He wore three silver rings. After their coupling, they'd both fallen into sleep without properly removing their make-up. There were two bedside tables and both had jewellery on them.

Robert's eyes went from Ambrose's bed to her and then back to Ambrose.

He turned to Gray and said in a crude voice, ‘Potato, have you seen anything like this in all your born days?'

Potato made an amused, embarrassed noise but avoided a reply.

‘Oh, this must be Shanghai, Potato—we must be back in the bordellos of Shanghai.'

She moved forward, pushing them out of the room.

Her mind was racing with thoughts about the situation as her anger tried to find expression.

She closed the door behind her, still shepherding both the men into the front room.

Robert had ‘known' about Ambrose only in the abstract, had never witnessed it. During all his other visits he'd seen a very respectable and conservative Ambrose.

The impact of what he'd seen now showed on his face as the three of them stood facing each other in the front room.

‘Why didn't you telegram that you were coming?!' she almost shouted.

And she'd forgotten whether she'd ever made it clear that Ambrose and she had resumed a physical relationship. Or whether Robert had ever asked. Or whether that was taken for granted. Or whether she'd considered it none of his business. Or whether he ever considered Ambrose as being eligible for the category of lover.

Robert probably dismissed him as a rival of the proper male sort.

She was afire with angry embarrassment. And guilt. That this had happened was inescapably her fault.

Way back at the beginning of the separation, there'd been
bedroom nonsense with Robert coming and going, a few days at a time, with each of them—Robert, Ambrose and she—sleeping in their own bedrooms, although, in Robert's and her case, not altogether decorously. In those early days, he'd taken his husbandly rights now and then. But that sort of thing had not happened for some time.

In those days, Ambrose had silently accepted all this, behaving with absolute correctness in matters of dress and conversation, with everything very pally and clubby in the apartment. And she'd hid deep down in her confusions, allowing the confusions to drift on.

Why, oh why, hadn't she cleaned it all up and had done with the empty marriage? Why the nonsense of leaving him all that time with a key? Why the symbolic suit hanging in the wardrobe?

It was the weakest thing she had ever done in her life. Dishonest in every way.

And there'd been silly play-acting about her marriage back in Australia. A game which no one close to them in the League and diplomatic life now believed or expected.

And then, within the empty subterfuge of the marriage, there was the real subterfuge—the game within a game—because of Ambrose's secret life and the secret intimate life which had grown out of it which lived itself out in the privacy of the Molly Club and occasionally at dinner parties in some apartments with friends from the Molly who were in the know or themselves players of the same game.

Now this secret intimacy had been appallingly revealed in the most embarrassing and uncouth of ways.

With the gross Potato Gray as the witness at the funeral.

She wondered if she had the odour of the night about her. Too bad if she did.

Gray was, at least, ill at ease.

Good.

She regained her composure.

‘Well, well, well,' Robert said. It was clear to her that he was in an ugly mood.

‘Perhaps we could find a doss at a friendly inn, old man,' Gray said.

‘No, make yourself at home, Potato—this is
my home
—you're welcome here,' Robert said. And looking then at her, said, ‘Isn't he, my love?'

She looked at him. He'd declined. What age was he now? In his mid-forties? His decline was ahead of his age.

‘Both of you should leave,' she said, coldly. ‘I'll call an hotel and book for you both.'

‘How about a welcoming kiss?' Robert said, approaching her, his breath heavy with alcohol.

She pushed him away. ‘Get out. You have no rights here.'

Even for Robert, this behaviour was really beyond the pale and out of character.

‘Control yourself.'

‘We're still married, remember,' he said. ‘Have rights.'

Probably true in Swiss law, she thought. She was chilled and frightened by his tone and the whole mess.

‘As a civilised person you have no rights,' she said. ‘Please go.'

Gray was now standing at the bookshelves of the apartment, feigning an interest in the books.

Robert and she glared at each other.

There was the click of the door of Ambrose's room opening, and they all looked around.

Ambrose had not changed into male attire.

He was in a feminine silk robe—black, plain enough, but clearly feminine. He had on embroidered velvet slippers. The lipstick was still evident, his eye make-up quite striking.

Silver rings on fingers of both hands.

She thought that he looked tasteful, exquisite.

She could only shudder about how he must appear to Robert and Gray.

She was somewhat startled by his coming out of the room but then felt hysterically pleased and released.

By his appearance Ambrose had broken through all the hypocrisy of it.

Perhaps it brought with it ruin and disaster, but it also brought with it a special kind of splintering relief. She smiled at him and went to him, taking his hand, taking it up to her lips, kissing his ringed fingers for strength.

Strength for both of them.

Robert was disconcerted. He turned to Gray and said, ‘May I introduce Miss Westwood?'

The schoolboy joke sounded weak and uncouth.

Gray tried to laugh, holding in his hand a book taken from the shelf, now obviously embarrassed by it all. For once he seemed not willing to play Robert's game. His eyes went nervously back to the book, as if he'd been interrupted in his reading, and then up from the book to Ambrose for a surreptitious glance, and then back to the book.

Ambrose said, ‘Hadn't we all better settle down, darlings? Get some sleep?'

She was impressed by his composure.

She said, ‘Why don't you leave, Robert? I'm sure you can find an hotel that'll put you up.'

‘I intend to stay,' he said, in a voice she hardly recognised. The voice, she guessed, of a fierce male, fighting for what he saw as his marriage or even his home.

She saw that Robert was trying to hold his ground—or what he saw as his ground. ‘For God's sake then, go to your room—' she immediately repudiated her use of the word ‘your' and corrected herself—‘sleep in the
guest
room, the bed is made up. Gray, you can sleep on the settee, Robert knows where the bed linen is. Both of you get to sleep and you can find accommodation in the morning. And stop gawking like schoolboys. Surely you men of the world have seen things more incredible than this. Try to be urbane. And good night.'

‘Good night, Robert. Good night, Gray,' Ambrose said sweetly, but in the almost theatrical sweetness of his voice there was a barbed strength.

Gray's head came up out of the book again and like a polite boy he said, ‘Oh, yes—good night all.' And then he went back to staring at the open book.

Ambrose and she went to his room, closing the door behind them. She turned the key.

They took off their robes and lay down in a loose embrace. She was trembling.

‘I apologise. I am so sorry,' she said. ‘I am so sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry. They're both soused. We know he's not a bad fellow. Generally speaking.'

Ambrose then managed a chuckle, a strained chuckle, but a chuckle nonetheless, ‘And he's had a nasty shock.'

She smiled in the darkness. ‘A very nasty shock. But was it nasty enough?'

‘They will probably awake as if from a dream,' Ambrose said. ‘It's their Midsummer Night's.'

She chuckled. ‘With Gray as Bottom.'

‘Have you ever told him?' Ambrose asked.

‘Told him what?'

‘For a start—that we were lovers.'

‘I
thought
I had. But that wasn't the nature of his shock tonight.'

‘No.'

‘Perhaps I hadn't quite prepared him for that. For the reality of that. He
knew
, but I don't think he ever quite
imagined
it. Not in fine detail.'

‘Difficult thing to put in a letter. Difficult for a chap such as he is, to
picture
, I would think.'

‘The word will be around the traps tomorrow, I suppose.'

‘He may feel that he should keep silent. Because of you. Maybe he'll think
his
pride is at stake also.'

‘Let's hope so. And that dreadful Potato Gray.'

‘Potato'll probably think he dreamt it. Maybe one of his better dreams.'

She chuckled. ‘Oh, what a dreadful thing to have happened.'

‘Not something one would've chosen to have happen at 2 a.m.'

‘And why are these two rats here in Geneva? Surely not for the Assembly. Something must be in the wind.'

‘The Spanish war? Czechoslovakia?'

‘They've smelled something.'

Ambrose and she eventually got back to a restless sleep.

In the morning, Ambrose and she lay awake, dreading the breakfast confrontation.

‘I don't have to rush,' she said. ‘The Assembly can do without me this morning. I'll get up and deal with Robert. Sadly, I'd rather face dreadful Robert than the dreadful Assembly.'

‘If you want, I'll hang about—moral support and so on.'

‘No, no—it's my mess. I have to sweep it up once and for all.'

There was a knock on the door.

‘Awake?' It was Robert.

‘Yes,' she said, formally.

‘Offering apologies. Buy you both breakfast?' There was some contrition in his voice.

Ambrose and she looked at each other. Ambrose raised his eyebrows.

‘I accept,' she said. ‘Late breakfast—at nine down at the café.'

‘Fine. I'm going out for a walk.'

They heard him talking to Gray and then the front door opened and closed.

‘It has to be divorce,' she said.

‘Probably best,' he said.

‘I'll make an appointment with a lawyer today. Do you think Gray went with him?'