The Key to Rebecca (30 page)

She shook Billy’s hand. “How do you do,” she said. “I’m Elene Fontana.”

“We never know what time Dad’s coming home,” Billy said. “I hope you won’t have to wait too long.”

She had not yet recovered her composure. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind—it doesn’t matter a bit ...”

“Would you like a drink, or anything?”

He was very polite, like his father, with a formality that was somehow disarming. Elene said: “No, thank you.”

“Well, I’ve got to have my supper. Sorry to leave you alone.”

“No, no ...”

“If you need anything, just call Gaafar.”

“Thank you.”

The boy went out, and Elene sat down heavily. She was disoriented, as if in her own home she had found a door to a room she had not known was there. She noticed a photograph on the marble mantelpiece, and got up to look at it. It was a picture of a beautiful woman in her early twenties, a cool, aristocratic-looking woman with a faintly supercilious smile. Elene admired the dress she was wearing, something silky and flowing, hanging in elegant folds from her slender figure. The woman’s hair and makeup were perfect. The eyes were startlingly familiar, clear and perceptive and light in color: Elene realized that Billy had eyes like that. This, then, was Billy’s mother—Vandam’s wife. She was, of course, exactly the kind of woman who would be his wife, a classic English beauty with a superior air.

Elene felt she had been a fool. Women like that were queuing up to marry men like Vandam. As if he would have bypassed all of them only to fall for an Egyptian courtesan! She rehearsed the things that divided her from him: he was respectable and she was disreputable; he was British and she was Egyptian; he was Christian—presumably—and she was Jewish; he was well bred and she came out of the slums of Alexandria; he was almost forty and she was twenty-three... The list was long.

Tucked into the back of the photograph frame was a page torn from a magazine. The paper was old and yellowing. The page bore the same photograph. Elene saw that it had come from a magazine called
The Tatler.
She had heard of it: it was much read by the wives of colonels in Cairo, for it reported all the trivial events of London society—parties, balls, charity lunches, gallery openings and the activities of English royalty. The picture of Mrs. Vandam took up most of this page, and a paragraph of type beneath the picture reported that Angela, daughter of Sir Peter and Lady Beresford, was engaged to be married to Lieutenant William Vandam, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Vandam of Gately, Dorset. Elene refolded the cutting and put it back.

The family picture was complete: Attractive British officer, cool, self-assured English wife, intelligent charming son, beautiful home, money, class and happiness. Everything else was a dream.

She wandered around the room, wondering if it held any more shocks in store. The room had been furnished by Mrs. Vandam, of course, in perfect, bloodless taste. The decorous print of the curtains toned with the restrained hue of the upholstery and the elegant striped wallpaper. Elene wondered what their bedroom would be like. It too would be coolly tasteful, she guessed. Perhaps the main color would be blue-green, the shade they called eau de Nil although it was not a bit like the muddy water of the Nile, Would they have twin beds? She hoped so. She would never know.

Against one wall was a small upright piano. She wondered who played. Perhaps Mrs. Vandam sat here sometimes, in the evenings, filling the air with Chopin while Vandam sat in the armchair, over there, watching her fondly. Perhaps Vandam accompanied himself as he sang romantic ballads to her in a strong tenor. Perhaps Billy had a tutor, and fingered hesitant scales every afternoon when he came home from school. She looked through the pile of sheet music in the seat of the piano stool. She had been right about the Chopin: they had all the waltzes here in a book.

She picked up a novel from the top of the piano and opened it. She read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The opening sentences intrigued her, and she wondered whether Vandam was reading the book. Perhaps she could borrow it: it would be good to have something of his. On the other hand, she had the feeling he was not a great reader of fiction. She did not want to borrow it from his wife.

Billy came in. Elene put the book down.suddenly, feeling irrationally guilty, as if she had been prying. Billy saw the gesture. “That one’s no good,” he said. “It’s about some silly girl who’s afraid of her husband’s housekeeper. There’s no action.”

Elene sat down, and Billy sat opposite her. Obviously he was going to entertain her. He was a miniature of his father, except for those clear gray eyes. She said: “You’ve read it, then?”

“Rebecca? Yes. But I didn’t like it much. I always finish them, though.”

“What do you like to read?”

“I like tecs best.”

“Tecs?”

“Detectives. I’ve read all of Agatha Christie’s and Dorothy Say ers’. But I like the American ones most of all—S. S. Van Dine and Raymond Chandler.”

“Really?” Elene smiled. “I like detective stories too—I read them all the time.”

“Oh! Who’s your favorite tec?”

Elene considered. “Maigret.”

“I’ve never heard of him. What’s the author’s name?”

“Georges Simenon. He writes in French, but now some of the books have been translated into English. They’re set in Paris, mostly. They’re very ... complex.”

“Would you lend me one? It’s so hard to get new books, I’ve read all the ones in this house, and in the school library. And I swap with my friends but they like, you know, stories about children having adventures in the school holidays.”

“All right,” Elene said. “Let’s swap. What have you got to lend me? I don’t think I’ve read any American ones.”

“I’ll lend you a Chandler. The American ones are much more true to life, you know. I’ve gone off those stories about English country houses and people who probably couldn’t murder a fly.”

It was odd, Elene thought, that a boy for whom the English country house might be part of everyday life should find stories about American private eyes more “true to life.” She hesitated, then asked: “Does your mother read detective stories?”

Billy said briskly: “My mother died last year in Crete.”

“Oh!” Elene put her hand to her mouth; she felt the blood drain from her face. So Vandam was not married!

A moment later she felt ashamed that that had been her first thought, and sympathy for the child her second. She said: “Billy, how awful for you. I’m so sorry.” Real death had suddenly intruded into their lighthearted talk of murder stories, and she felt embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” Billy said. “It’s the war, you see.”

And now he was like his father again. For a while, talking about books, he had been full of boyish enthusiasm, but now the mask was on, and it was a smaller version of the mask used by his father: courtesy, formality, the attitude of the considerate host. It’s the
war, you see:
he had heard someone else say that, and had adopted it as his own defense. She wondered whether his preference for “true-to-life” murders, as opposed to implausible country-house killings, dated from the death of his mother. Now he was looking around him, searching for something, inspiration perhaps. In a moment he would offer her cigarettes, whiskey, tea. It was hard enough to know what to say to a bereaved adult: with Billy she felt helpless. She decided to talk of something else.

She said awkwardly: “I suppose, with your father working at GHQ, you get more news of the war than the rest of us.”

“I suppose I do, but usually I don’t really understand it. When he comes home in a bad mood I know we’ve lost another battle.” He started to bite a fingernail, then stuffed his hands into his shorts pockets. “I wish I was
older.”

“You want to fight?”

He looked at her fiercely, as if he thought she was mocking him. “I’m not one of those kids who thinks it’s all jolly good fun, like the cowboy films.”

She murmured: “I’m sure you’re not.”

“It’s just that I’m afraid the Germans will
win.”

Elene thought: Oh, Billy, if you were ten years older I’d fall in love with you, too. “It might not be so bad,” she said. “They’re not monsters.”

He gave her a skeptical look: she should have known better than to soft-soap him. He said: “They’d only do to us what we’ve been doing to the Egyptians for fifty years.”

It was another of his father’s lines, she was sure.

Billy said: “But then it would all have been for nothing.” He bit his nail again, and this time he did not stop himself. Elene wondered
what
would have been for nothing: the death of his mother? His own personal struggle to be brave? The two-year seesaw of the desert war? European civilization?

“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” she said feebly.

Billy looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “I’m supposed to go to bed at nine.” Suddenly he was a child again.

“I suppose you’d better go, then.”

“Yes.” He stood up.

“May I come and say good night to you, in a few minutes?”

“If you like.” He went out.

What kind of life did they lead in this house? Elene wondered. The man, the boy and the old servant lived here together, each with his own concerns. Was there laughter, and kindness, and affection? Did they have time to play games and sing songs and go on picnics? By comparison with her own childhood Billy’s was enormously privileged; nevertheless she feared this might be a terribly adult household for a boy to grow up in. His young-old wisdom was charming, but he seemed like a child who did not have much fun. She experienced a rush of compassion for him, a motherless child in an alien country besieged by foreign armies.

She left the drawing room and went upstairs. There seemed to be three or four bedrooms on the second floor, with a narrow staircase leading up to a third floor where, presumably, Gaafar slept. One of the bedroom doors was open, and she went in.

It did not look much like a small boy’s bedroom. Elene did not know a lot about small boys—she had had four sisters—but she was expecting to see model airplanes, jigsaw puzzles, a train set, sports gear and perhaps an old, neglected teddy bear. She would not have been surprised to see clothes on the floor, a construction set on the bed and a pair of dirty football boots on the polished surface of a desk. But the place might almost have been the bedroom of an adult. The clothes were folded neatly on a chair, the top of the chest of drawers was clear, schoolbooks were stacked tidily on the desk and the only toy in evidence was a cardboard model of a tank. Billy was in bed, his striped pajama top buttoned to the neck, a book on the blanket beside him.

“I like your room,” Elene said deceitfully.

Billy said: “It’s fine.”

“What are you reading?”

She sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, don’t stay awake too late.”

“I’ve to put out the light at nine-thirty.”

She leaned forward suddenly and kissed his cheek.

At that moment the door opened and Vandam walked in.

 

It was the familiarity of the scene that was so shocking: the boy in bed with his book, the light from the bedside lamp falling just so, the woman leaning forward to kiss the boy good night. Vandam stood and stared, feeling like one who knows he is in a dream but still cannot wake up.

Elene stood up and said: “Hello, William.”

“Hello, Elene.”

“Good night, Billy.”

“Good night, Miss Fontana.”

She went past Vandam and left the room. Vandam sat on the edge of the bed, in the dip in the covers which she had vacated. He said: “Been entertaining our guest?”

“Yes.”

“Good man.”

“I like her—she reads detective stories. We’re going to swap books.”

“That’s grand. Have you done your prep?”

“Yes—French vocab.”

“Want me to test you?”

“It’s all right, Gaafar tested me. I say, she’s ever so pretty, isn’t she.”

“Yes. She’s working on something for me—it’s a bit hush-hush, so ...”

“My lips are sealed.”

Vandam smiled. “That’s the stuff.”

Billy lowered his voice. “Is she, you know, a secret agent?”

Vandam put a finger to his lips. “Walls have ears.”

The boy looked suspicious. “You’re having me on.”

Vandam shook his head silently.

Billy said: “Gosh!”

Vandam stood up. “Lights out at nine-thirty.”

“Right-ho. Good night.”

“Good night, Billy.” Vandam went out. As he closed the door it occurred to him that Elene’s good-night kiss had probably done Billy a lot more good than his father’s man-to-man chat.

He found Elene in the drawing room, shaking martinis. He felt he should have resented more than he did the way she had made herself at home in his house, but he was too tired to strike attitudes. He sank gratefully into a chair and accepted a drink.

Elene said: “Busy day?”

Vandam’s whole section had been working on the new wireless security procedures that were being introduced following the capture of the German listening unit at the Hill of Jesus, but Vandam was not going to tell Elene that. Also, he felt she was playacting the role of housewife, and she had no right to do that. He said: “What made you come here?”

“I’ve got a date with Wolff.”

“Wonderful!” Vandam immediately forgot all lesser concerns. “When?”

“Thursday.” She handed him a sheet of paper.

He studied the message. It was a peremptory summons written in a clear, stylish script. “How did this come?”

“A boy brought it to my door.”

“Did you question the boy? Where he was given the message and by whom, and so on?”

She was crestfallen. “I never thought to do that.”

“Never mind.” Wolff would have taken precautions, anyway; the boy would have known nothing of value.