Destiny (15 page)

DESTINY • 97

Edouard joined in the conversation briefly, when Irene went off to dance with Binky, but no one was listening to anything he said, so after a while he gave up. He leaned back in his chair and drank champagne, although he knew he had already had more than enough, and wished he were old enough to do something useful, wished the evening would end, wished he hadn't quarreled with Celestine. The quarrel had left him miserable all day; now the drink, and the stuffy air, the cigar smoke, the piano music, the flushed faces and loud voices, all made him long to be back with her, to lie in her arms, to be at peace in the quiet of her room.

"Is he really the Baron de Chavigny?" Suddenly the girl called Violet turned to him, her question taking him by surprise. She nodded across the table at Jean-Paul, who was predicting the Boches would be driven out of France by the end of '42. "Your friend. Is he?"

"He's my brother." Edouard returned to the room with difficulty. He was aware that his own voice was slightly slurred. "And no, he's not the Baron de Chavigny. Not yet. He will be. Our father is—at present."

Violet's dehcate plucked brows drew together in a little frown. "Oh, I see. I just wondered. He wrote that on his card, you see. The one he sent round. And—well, I wondered if it was a joke. Men do play jokes like that sometimes, you know."

"They do?"

"Oh, yes!" She clasped her thin hands together. "If they want to persuade you to come out—that sort of thing. I usually say no, you see. But tonight I felt a httle low. Tired. And I was intrigued. So I said yes."

"Women are always intrigued by my brother."

He was aware the moment the words were out that it was hardly the most polite thing to say. A slight flush rose over her cheekbones, but she seemed not greatly to mind.

"Are you giving me a warning?"

She arched her brows as she said it, and widened her eyes, her manner coquettish, but slightly amateurishly so. Edouard felt impatient. He had been wrong earlier; she was just like all the other women Jean-Paul picked up and discarded—silly, he thought.

"Who knows?" He shrugged. "Do you need one?"

Her blush deepened then, so he felt boorish and instantly repentent.

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't been in London long. I was brought up in Devon."

Edouard knew that was a cue of some kind, that he ought to ask her about Devon or something, because she seemed quite eager he should do so. But he had never been there, knew nothing about it, and—just then— his mind felt as if it couldn't grapple with the problem of that county at all.

98 • SALLY BEAUMAN

There was an awkward silence, at the end of which the girl called Violet nervously lifted her champagne glass.

"Oh, well," she said. "It's your birthday, isn't it? Happy Birthday."

It was the last thing she said to him. Shortly afterward, Jean-Paul showed signs of impatience, and kept looking at his watch. Pierre had become lachrymose; the fate of la belle France was too much for him. Jean-Paul ushered them all out into a pitch-black Piccadilly Circus, and announced the night was still young.

There were some dissenters. Pierre and Fran9ois announced they were leaving. A brother officer had given them a bottle of Marc, and they intended to return home and drink it and continue their argument. Binky had to report for a briefing next morning, and thought he'd better call it a day. Edouard privately felt that the night was not young but hideously old, and the sooner it was terminated the better. But he could see the scowl of disappointment beginning on Jean-Paul's face, and so he kept silent. Sandy announced that he was game; he felt like a bit of a spree. And at that, Jean-Paul revived.

Three men, one boy, and two women piled into Chog's Daimler, and set about the business of escorting the ladies home. This took longer than anyone had anticipated, because the ladies lived in digs in Islington, which Chog had never heard of and insisted was near Basingstoke. They drove around in the blackout for what seemed to Edouard hours, with Chog announcing at intervals that they must almost be there now, and if the M.P.'s got him this time, he was done for. Sandy had thoughtfully brought along a bottle of brandy; the women sat on the men's laps, and everyone except Violet and Edouard sang, untunefully, but with gusto.

"You silly boys! You're mad—you are." Irene gave an ear-splitting screech. "We're there! I told you so. Look, up there's the Angel. Go right, and right again . . . that's it! Anyone for a nightcap?"

"Irene—it's late. I don't think that would be a good idea."

The girl called Violet had scrambled out of the car first; Irene fell out after her, with many gigglings and pinchings and shrieks. "Someone pinched my bum! They did! I swear I felt a pinch, Vi, right there. Oh, you're naughty boys, you are. I told you, Vi. I said, never trust a Frenchman. ..."

"Mesdames." Jean-Paul had also extricated himself from the car. He bowed over their hands with a gallantry Edouard knew was designed to get rid of them quickly with a minimum of fuss. He held on to Violet's hand appreciably longer than he did Irene's.

"I was honored you could join us. ... /4 votre service. . . . Au revoir. ..."

DESTINY • 99

He escorted them to their door, saw them inside, then weaved his way back to the Daimler and heaved himself inside.

"Christ, Jean, you lay it on thick. ..." Sandy yawned as Chog shifted the gears with a crunch, and the car swerved around in a circle, narrowly missing a lamppost. "I told you she was a prissy piece. Why bother?"

"Why not?" Jean shrugged; he winked at Edouard. "I like her eyes. Anyway, who cares? We've got rid of them now. Let's go on to the Four Hundred. ..."

They went on to the Four Hundred, but Jean-Paul grew restive and said he found it boring. Then they went to a place called Vic's, where a young man wearing makeup sat at the piano and played songs. They had a brandy there, then Sandy said he couldn't stand being in the same room with such frightful nancy-boys. They barreled out onto the sidewalk, and Edouard looked at the street, which was rising and falling in the most peculiar way, like waves. He suggested they might go home.

"Go home? Go home?" Chog appeared incensed at this suggestion. He staggered about the sidewalk and made punching motions in the air. "This is London! This is wartime! We can't go home! Who suggested that? Go on —which one of you fellows said it? Say it again, damn it, and I'll knock him down. ..."

"Nobody said it. Nobody said a thing. . . ." Sandy made pacifying noises. He paused. "The thing is. The problem is. Where can we go? I mean—where can a fellow have a good time? That's what we want. That's what we deserve, eh? A proper English good time."

Chog loomed up out of the darkness, his round face pale and incandescent with inspiration. He waved his arms like a windmill. "I know! Of course. I know! We'll go to Pauhne's. Pauline's is just the place."

Jean-Paul and Sandy exchanged glances.

"Pauline's? Can we get in, do you think, Chog?"

"Get in? Get in? Of course we can get in." Chog moved purposefully back to the Daimler, which was parked with one wheel on the sidewalk. "You're with me," he said grandly. "There isn't a place in London won't welcome me. And my friends. My special friends."

"Are you sure it's all right?" Sandy hung back. He nudged Jean-Paul. "What about Edouard?"

"Edouard's all right. Edouard's my friend." Chog put a plump arm around Edouard's shoulder. He lurched. " 'S Edouard's birthday, isn't it? He's a man now. You are a man, aren't you, Edouard? You want to come to Pauline's, don't you?"

"Of course he does." Jean-Paul decided the matter. He opened the Daimler's doors and pushed Edouard inside. Edouard slumped onto the leather seat. Jean-Paul clambered in beside him and patted his thigh. "Not

100 • SALLY BEAUMAN

a word to Maman about this, eh? She might think you were a bit young. Women never understand these things. ..."

"Women? Who mentioned women?" Chog was in the driver's seat attempting to locate the steering wheel. "Fll sing you a song about women. This song is a wonderful song, and it says it all. I shall sing it to you now."

And he did.

Like a bird scenting carrion, Pauline Simonescu had arrived in London in 1939 with the advent of war. No one knew her exact origins, but rumors proliferated: she was Romanian; she had been brought up in Paris; she had been the mistress of King Carol of Romania; she had Gypsy blood, or Jewish, or Arab; she had previously run the most luxurious brothel in Paris, but, like the Baron de Chavigny, had foreseen the arrival of the Germans; she had left just in time. She had money, but her Mayfair establishment was also bankrolled: by a famous and distinguished city financier; by the American wife of an English peer with whom she had a lesbian alliance; by a German steel magnate attempting to corrupt the morale of the Allied officer classes. She was discreet; she was a spy; she took drugs; she never touched alcohol. Her world was the twiht zone where the pleasures money and connections bought shaded from excess into vice; no one hked her, but many found her useful. As far as Chog was concerned, she was a madam, and her premises were just off Berkeley Square.

But where exactly? They drove three times around the square, squinting through the darkness at the side streets; then the Daimler ran out of petrol.

"Not to worry," Chog cried cheerfully as they all piled out onto the sidewalk. "Easier on foot. My nose will lead me to it."

He turned right into a dark street of expensive houses, felt the stubs of eighteenth-century railings that had gone to be melted down for bomb casings, and began to count. Three houses along, he stopped, just as the air-raid siren began to wail and searchlights suddenly knifed the sky.

"Merde. ..."

"It's all right, for God's sake. We're there. I told you my nose would find it. . . ."He lifted his nose into the air, sniffed loudly, and began to yowl like a dog. Sandy and Jean-Paul doubled up with laughter.

"I can smell it. I can smell it. I can smell— Ah, good evening." The door opened; very dim light spilled out over the impressive portico steps. A very large black man in a white suit with a gold bracelet stood in the doorway.

Chog looked at him, and he looked at Chog.

DESTINY • 101

"Lord Vvyan Knollys." He waved at Sandy. "The Earl of Newhaven. Two very old friends of mine who are . . . who are—French."

The black man did not move.

"Oh, for God's sake. I was here last Tuesday." He began fumbling for his wallet.

Jean-Paul stepped forward superbly.

"The Baron de Chavigny presents his compliments to Madame Simonescu."

A folded twenty-pound note exchanged hands with scarcely a rustle. The black man stepped back, the four entered, and the door shut.

"Jean-Paul ..."

"Edouard. Shut up."

They were ushered out of the narrow passageway into a magnificent and brilliantly lit hall. The floor was marble; a huge crystal chandelier scintillated, throwing diamond light on the wide, branched staircase, on two superb Fragonards and one Titian. Flesh tints eddied before Edouard's eyes. At the foot of the staircase a tiny woman held out her hand with the air of a grand duchess.

Pauhne Simonescu was perhaps five feet tall, certainly no more. She made stature seem unimportant. Jet black hair was combed straight back from a handsome, slightly vulpine face dominated by the strength of the nose and the glitter of the black eyes. She was dressed in a full-length scarlet dress with a neckline that made no attempt to disguise angular masculine shoulders. From her ears, pendant rubies the size of pigeon eggs hung hke gouts of blood. The hand she held out to them was weighted with a matching ring. Edouard, as he bent over it, recognized de Chavigny workmanship.

She greeted each of them in turn, pausing a httle to look more closely at Jean-Paul.

"Monsieur le Baron." A fractional pause. "But of course. I am acquainted with your father. He is well, I hope?"

Her voice was deep, heavily accented. Jean-Paul, for once discomfitted, stammered some reply to which she scarcely listened. She twisted her head a little to one side, and Edouard was reminded of a bird. There was the sound of a distant explosion, well muflled.

"The bombs." She shrugged the wide shoulders. "In a moment we shall hear the lorries. I dislike them more. They make me think of tumbrels— but of course, that is only fancy. Come with me. What will you drink? What will you smoke? We have some fine cognac. There is a case left of the 'thirty-seven Krug, which is excellent. Perhaps you prefer malt whisky?"

She was leading them toward a magnificent drawing room. Through its half-open doors, Edouard could hear the sounds of conversation and

102 • SALLY BEAUMAN

laughter, the chnk of glasses, the rustle of dresses. He glimpsed young men in uniform, older men in evening dress, beautiful women, none of them old. He heard the click of a roulette wheel; an Aubusson carpet rippled; the tall carved mahogany doors bent on their hinges. He leaned up against the wall. Sandy and Chog were having a whispered conversation. Pauline Simonescu turned.

"But of course, you are correct. Tonight is the special night—you are fortunate. Carlotta is here." She paused. "Also Sylvie—you remember her, perhaps. Lord Vvyan? And Leila, our little Egyptian. Mary—she came to me from Ireland, a true Celt, such beautiful red hair. Christine. Pamela. Patricia. Joanne—you like Americans? I am looking ahead, you see, to when the brave American boys join forces with the Allies. Juliet. Adeline. Beatrice. But no. Tonight you would like to see Carlotta. You have taste. Carlotta is not for every day, but then, this is not every day. It is a mad time, this war, a hectic time for the nerves of you brave young men. And Carlotta is so soothing."

She stepped to one side.

"Downstairs. Pascal will show you the way. The Krug, I think. And perhaps some coffee for our young friend? He looks a little tired, and it would be such a pity if he couldn't ..."

"Participate?" Sandy put in with a chuckle of laughter. Madame Simonescu's black eyes flashed.