Dance on a Sinking Ship

by Kilian, Michael;

  “They’re taking me off the story. They don’t like it anyway. Carlson’s in town from London. He’s put me onto something else. It’s …” Spencer lifted his glass, peering at it as a means of avoiding Laingen’s eyes. “It’s a good story, Bill. It’s damn good, big. So big that if I told you about it with the promise you wouldn’t go after it I’d hate myself. And if you did go after it, I’d hate you.”

  “Is it here, in Paris?”

  Spencer drank, sipping this time. “No, not really. Starts here, but I have to go back to the States. That’s what has me scared. It’s a hard story to get, Bill. Easy to blow. If I do, they’ll haul me back—throw me onto the police beat again, or send me down to the land of the hayheads to cover the state legislature. I know they will. I almost think they’re arranging it that way, hoping I’ll make a shambles of this thing so they can throw me away. The paper’s been sold, you know. The new owners were enemies of my father. Carlson can’t stand me. It’s a matter of class, don’t you know. ‘The very rich are different from you and me.’ He believes that. And he hates me for it, even though my father went bankrupt ten years ago.”

  Laingen searched for some gesture to show that such matters of class meant nothing to him, though Spencer had been a rich boy and his own father had owned nothing grander than a small hardware store in Minnesota. Finally he reassured himself that Spencer already knew that, that he himself already knew that. He poured a little cognac into his coffee. “Are you sure you’re not just a little depressed and paranoid from your hangover, from last night?”

  “I’m depressed and paranoid from my life, Bill. And I think they’ve really got me this time.”

  “If they try it, just come back. Get another job.”

  “Have you forgotten the Depression? The new people they’re sending over are making half what we’re paid, and there are thousands more after their jobs. I’m so flat, stony broke I’m not sure I could even raise passage money. As it is, I owe everybody in Paris except the prime minister and Whitney’s husband. I owe Whitney three thousand francs. She’s part of it, too, Bill. She gave me an ultimatum. Give up my job or give up her. She said she can’t stand it any more that I’m always going off to riots or wars in Algeria or Nazi rallies in Germany. She wants to keep me, Bill, on the side, in some little nearby flat, paid for out of her boundless pocket money. I asked her to marry me, but she’d have none of that. Wants her husband and me. And now I’m going to be hauled back to Chicago. I’m going to lose her and my job here.”

  “Even if it turns out as you say, Jim, there are certainly worse places than Chicago.”

  “Paris in the spring; Chicago in the Depression. I can take all my old girlfriends from the Saddle and Cycle Club down to Halsted Street for a glimpse of Frank Nitti eating lasagne.” He shook his head. “Damn. Listen to me. On top of everything else, I’m turning into a twit.”

  He pressed his face into his hands. Someone else came to the door and rattled its handle, but Pierre Hillion shook his head in a vigorous no.

  Laignen studied his friend. “I’ll tell you what I think it is, mon vieux,” he said. “I think you just can’t handle what’s happened to you and Whitney.”

  Spencer raised his head and sat back. Laignen had never seen him look so awful.

  “What I can’t handle, William, is Whitney, period. Too young, too rich, too married, too smart, too chic, too American, too classic and great, too … there are better French words for her.” He glanced down at the glinting blade of the saber. “Christ,” he said, picking up the weapon. “None of this matters to her, do you know? What happened in the Place de la Concorde yesterday. She thinks it’s just noise in the night. Something that will pass.”

  “She cares, Jim. And she cares about you. She’ll be waiting for you when you get back from the States. So will Jean and I.”

  Spencer rose and, with a clumsy flourish, drained his glass. He set it on the table.

  “L’audace,” he said. “Toujours l’audace.” It had been the motto of a failed French general and the epitaph of the generation that had died in the mass murder that was the Great War.

  “The trouble with you, Jimmy, is that you’re so idealistic about your cynicism.”

  “What?”

  Laignen regretted the remark, but there was no useful way of withdrawing it. “When you get back, we’ll go down to Spain,” he said. “There may be fighting by then.”

  “There’ll be fighting, all right, but I’ll be on Halsted Street. I’ve got that goddamn Whitney in my blood, Bill.” He rested the sword blade on Laingen’s shoulder, then lifted it in a sudden arc. “I love you, Bill. I love Floride. I love Pierre. Christ, today I am filled with love for those two dead horses.” He took a step. “Okay. I go. L’homme courageux.”

  Pierre Hillion watched sympathetically as Spencer wobbled out the door, then he lighted another cigarette. “Fascist bastards,” he said. “Nous les détritions.”

  Laignen sipped more coffee, then put money on the table, paying Spencer’s bill. That was his gesture on the matter of class.

  The horses thudded in a heavy trot along the muddy path paralleling the Allée de Longchamp in the Bois de Boulogne. Lord Brownlow, astride an overweight gray, took the lead, Fruity Metcalfe following close behind on an unhappy roan mare. Inspector Runcie, riding uncomfortably, brought up the rear on a smaller horse. Improbably dressed in gray flannels, an athletic pullover, and dark glasses, Edward P. trotted alongside Fruity’s mount, clinging to the stirrup and breathing heavily.

  He had developed this silly habit on a visit to Kenya in 1928, the same trip in which he and Lady Erskine had won lasting scorn for throwing all the gramophone records in the Muthaiga Club out the ballroom window because he thought them all wrong for dancing. He had gone down to the Nairobi racecourse at half-past six the next morning and asked Sir Derek Erskine if he might hang on to his stirrup and run while Sir Derek exercised his horse. He did this most of the mornings he was in Africa.

  Nowadays he performed this ritual rarely—perhaps twice a year—and anything faster than a very slow trot was out of the question. Metcalfe was hard put to keep his mare to that. She’d keep slipping back into a jerking walk, compelling him to goad her into a trot again and then yank savagely back on the reins to slow her speed to that of the huffing, wheezing man beside him. Once a cavalry officer in India, he hated to treat horses this way and despised himself for this morning.

  Brownlow swerved his gray around a muddy spot in the trail. Metcalfe’s mare shifted around it also, causing Edward P. to slip and stumble. Letting go of the stirrup, he skittered, sliding, across the muck, finding an anchorage finally at the side of a large tree. He stood with hands on hips, catching his breath.

  “Damn you, Fruity. You can ride better than that, surely.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Metcalfe said, unhappily. “Got taken quite by surprise.”

  “Yes, well, mind you don’t next time. Give me a cigarette.”

  Metcalfe dismounted to hand the man one and light it for him, as the others came up. Runcie could not hold his horse still.

  “Have I asked you how you’re coming along with a boat?” Edward said.

  “Yes, at breakfast, sir,” said Brownlow. “But we were interrupted, by Mrs. Simpson.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, how are you coming along with getting a bloody boat?”

  “We think we have one, sir,” said Brownlow. “A Dutchman, sailing from Le Havre tomorrow. It’s a maiden voyage and there won’t be many passengers aboard. They’ve had to postpone sailing twice now because of some engineering problems, and most of the original passengers have booked passage elsewhere.”

  “Well played, Fruity. Well played.”

  “But we still think you should return home, sir,” said Brownlow. “You’re bound to be recognized.”

  “You’re to see to it that I’m not.”

  “Yes, David, but—”

  “On a first crossing like this,” Brownlow said, “they’ll hold the speed down. We�
��ll be out of circulation for a very long time.”

  “That’s precisely what I want,” Edward snapped. “Now let’s find a taxi and get back to the hotel. The path’s much too muddy for running.”

  “But the horses,” said Fruity. “We’re more than a mile from the stables.”

  “Be a good chap, will you, Fruity? We’ll wait for you at the Crillon. Or perhaps not. Wallis will want to do some shopping. I’m sure she hasn’t clothes for a crossing.”

  Lord Mountbatten had risen early in hopes of finding Edwina at last returned, but once again he was disappointed. He went about bathing and shaving, poking his head out into the suite to listen for her in between times, but with the same result. Irritated now, he dressed quickly, choosing gray trousers and a natty navy-blue jacket, then sat down to wait for however long it took. To pass the time, he began rereading a genealogical work that dealt with his Spanish relations descended from his mother’s cousin Princess Victoria Eugenia of Battenburg by means of her marriage to King Alfonso III. Despite his fascination with this subject, he fell asleep again.

  When he awakened, it was to the sound of running water and, a moment later, a knock at the door to their suite. Edwina reached it before he did. She was wearing only a slip but she paid this indiscretion no mind, as usual, as she stepped back to admit a bellman carrying a tray. On it were a bottle of champagne, a bottle of vodka, a silver bowl of ice, and a single glass. Signing the bill, she smiled wickedly at the embarrassed attendant, then turned and started back toward the bath without waiting for him to leave.

  “Be a dear and open the champagne, Dickie,” she said through the open door as she removed the last of her clothing. “I’m in desperate need of something to drown a really crashing headache.”

  Mountbatten nodded curtly to the bellman, who hesitated a moment, then, with a quick glance in Edwina’s direction, fled.

  “Do you realize the time?” Mountbatten said, raising his voice over the sound of running water in the bath. “We will be late. Edwina, I am never late!”

  “Please, Dickie. My headache.”

  “Edwina, you simply cannot go on conducting yourself like a girl from the Bal-Musette. We’re traveling with the Prince of Wales! My cousin.”

  “Rot, Dickie.”

  “This is not La Boule Blanche! This is the Hotel Crillon! And we are due for lunch!”

  “Oh, shut up, Dickie, and bring me my drink.”

  He stared at the doorway in helpless rage, as he had stared at the seaman who had brought him the signal from the admiral ordering his destroyer not to sail with the fleet for Abyssinia. Then, as if their quarrel had not occurred, he began whistling as he finally set about preparing his wife a cocktail half champagne and half vodka.

  “Did you hear the news?” he said, bringing her drink into the bath.

  “I’ve heard no news at all,” she said, slipping into the tub. She pushed herself down until the steamy water reached to the top of her shoulders, then reached and took the glass. “I’ve been with surrealists all night. Had a very intense conversation with one of their leading lights, Louis Aragon. Fascinating man. Dreadfully common, of course. And very boring on communism. But otherwise rather extraordinary. A friend of Nancy Cunard’s, don’t you know.”

  “Not friend. Lover.”

  “Yes, well.” She sipped from her cold drink, then closed her eyes. Mountbatten looked about for a place to sit, but her clothes were everywhere.

  “The prince wants to go to America,” Mountbatten said, leaning back against the wash basin. He suddenly realized his perfectly pressed jacket was getting wet from water on the basin’s rim, but it was too late. He’d already struck his pose.

  “Well, I think he should go to America, Dickie. That poor man deserves whatever he wants. And gets.”

  “Edwina. He wants to go now. With all of us.”

  “But we’ve already been to America with him. I don’t like repeating things. And at all events I’ve spent a lot of time in America already this year and have only just returned from Australia. A spot of homelife in Malta now will do me just fine. They’ve asked me to do news broadcasts on the radio there, did you know? As long as this Abyssinian crisis is on. I really shouldn’t have come with you to Paris in the first place. I’m needed.”

  The remark was a nasty little touch, implying he was not. The sea dog left at the dock.

  She took another sip of her drink, then set the glass carelessly on the edge of the tub and began to scrub vigorously. A bath for Edwina did instead of sleep. His eye traveled along the soapy sheen of her leg. Edwina at thirty-four still had smashing legs and a very trim figure. She was paying the price for her manic indulgences in her face. Networks of little lines had formed about her eyes and mouth. They would shortly deepen, especially if she kept up these rough-country treks into the farthest corners of the world in between her bouts of debauchery.

  “I’m sorry, Edwina, but he hasn’t exactly given us much choice.”

  “It’s impossible; Noel is coming over tomorrow from London,” she said, revealing her real reason for not wanting to make the sailing, for not wanting to do much of anything with Mountbatten this season. Noel Coward had written a play about her, Hands Across the Sea, starring himself and Gertrude Lawrence. With this he had won her patronage and devotion forever. Edwina loved the theater. As she did not read, it was her only literature.

  “He was very specific about not wanting Noel along. He’s tired of being associated with fairies.”

  “Quite. He can go off to America without any fairies in tow and I will go back to Malta with Noel. Norma Shearer’s coming as well.”

  “Edwina, please. He’s the king.”

  She sat up, sloshing some water over the side of the tub and nearly toppling her glass. “Not bloody yet, he isn’t. Come now, Dickie. You’re the captain of a destroyer. There’s a crisis. How can he ask you to desert your post?”

  “Because my post has already deserted me.” He put hand to chin, pouting. His ship, the H.M.S. Wishart, was part of the squadron that had been left behind at Malta when the rest of the fleet had steamed on to Port Said. He had taken it as an affront, sure that the admiral had deliberately sought to keep him out of the action, such as there might be. Under Mountbatten’s command, the old Wishart had won the fleet gunnery trophy, scoring twice as many hits as any other ship, though at an extremely slow rate of fire. His destroyer had been named Cock of the Fleet, and teams from his crew had won the water polo and cricket competitions as well. Yet they had dared leave him behind. He ought to go off to America just to show his pique. And his royal association.

  “It’s not a real war,” he said, “except to the Abyssinians. And Britain’s not officially involved in it. The fleet doesn’t seem to need my squadron no matter what.”

  “Of course it does, Dickie. You’re there to guard Malta. That’s the only reason you’ve been left behind. They couldn’t very well leave Malta to the Italians.”

  “The Foreign Office told the prince there’s a fifty-fifty chance the Italians will bomb Malta. I was going to send you away.”

  “Instead you sent us both.” She splashed, reaching for her drink. After a large sip, she slid deep into the water again.

  “Damn it, Edwina! I begged the admiral to let me take the Wishart to Port Said. But he wouldn’t agree. I also have a duty to the king, er, prince. And if he needs me on this voyage, he shall have me. I’ll miss some squadron maneuvers. But the Crown must come first.”

  “Too right, Dickie. What shit.”

  He wondered if it was time to retreat. He was tired of retreating.

  “You could use a chance to return to the royal family’s good grace,” he said. It was a broadside, loaded with heavy shot, and intended as such. Edwina had been virtually barred from Court since 1932, when her affair with the black actor Paul Robeson had leaked in innuendo form into the press. She still seethed at the very mention of George V and had taken to allowing only the Daily Worker into her house, to Mountbatten’
s acute embarrassment, though he shared much of her socialist philosophy—or said he did.

  “How low and common of you, Dickie. The prince himself is in bad graces with Buckingham Palace. Why do you think I tolerate his friendship, and all this endless fucking silliness? Because I know how painful it is for them. That’s why I do everything I can to encourage this dreary affair of his with Mrs. Simpson. Because I know it’s making them positively writhe, Dickie. Positively writhe.”

  Her skin was flushed a very ruddy pink from the hot bath water and her anger. Her brown eyes glistened as much as her wet, dark hair. Suddenly she stood up, water pouring from her beautiful body in dozens of small cataracts.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I will go with you on this pointless voyage. The newspapers are sure to catch hold of it, and I can’t think of a more splendid scandal!”

  Chips Channon and the Coopers waited an extra half hour for the Mountbattens, then went off to the restaurant without them, beginning luncheon with a round of kiss-me-quicks, a strong but beguiling cocktail made with Pernod, Cointreau, bitters, and soda, poured over ice. All three were badly hung over. Chips looked pained, Duff was irritable, and Diana seemed queasy. She had assisted their search for happiness the night before with a discreet dose of cocaine.

  “I wonder if Dickie and Edwina had a row,” Channon said, lighting a cigarette. His dark eyes looked weak and bleary from his discomfort.

  “Of course they had a row, Chipsie,” said Diana. “They always have a row.”

  “At the least they could have sent someone to tell us.”

  “They never send someone to tell us,” said Duff. He, too, lighted a cigarette, then peered into his wallet. He frowned, predictably. The Coopers belonged to one of the fifty First Families of the realm. Once again they were short of money.

  “I say, Chips,” Duff said, somewhat gruffly. “If His Royal Highness does persist in this American expedition, I may have to impose on your generosity until we return. I won’t have time to draw on my account.”