‘Here we are.’
My office was also sparsely furnished and immaculately tidy, but here the resemblance ended. For one thing it was tiny, not much bigger than my childhood bedroom at home. For another it was utterly plain and functional without the smallest flourish of the style so evident next door. A slatted blind hung at the window; there was a clock on the wall, two filing cabinets, a waste-paper bin, and a revolving chair at a desk which faced out of the window. The typewriter was new, as was the telephone. Spotless, serviceable corded carpet covered the floor. It looked as if it had just been fitted out, as if no one else had ever worked there.
‘Will this be all right?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is there anything else you think you’d need? I believe in giving a person all the tools necessary to do the job.’
‘I shan’t know that until I start,’ I said, and immediately rebuked myself for sounding peremptory. ‘I mean, I can’t imagine that there is anything.’
‘But you’ll let me know?’
‘Of course.’
He showed me out again.
‘And over here are the usual necessities.’
These were a cloakroom and a tiny kitchenette, both neatly and unexceptionally appointed, like the small office, in the same neutral colour scheme and with identical slatted blinds. I noticed a fourth door on the landing, but it was closed, and he didn’t so much as mention it.
Back in his own room he pushed the door to and invited me to sit down. The leather chairs were surprisingly comfortable, and their slight backwards tilt gave me no option but to sit in a way that made me feel, as the Riley had earlier, like a different woman – elegant and poised.
Ashe must have thought the same, for as he sat down opposite, he remarked: ‘You have good legs.’
I suppose I should have been shocked, or at least taken aback. Strangely, I wasn’t, but not being sure of the appropriate response, I said nothing. He displayed again that hint of a smile, as if his view of the world had just been confirmed to his satisfaction.
‘How remiss of me,’ he said, ‘I haven’t offered you anything. Would you care for a drink of any kind?’
I should rather have liked a cup of tea, but the thought of him making one for me in the narrow kitchenette was too uncomfortable. ‘No thank you.’
‘In that case,’ he said as he leaned back, opening his arms briefly before letting them rest on the chair, ‘do you have any questions for me?’
Though I’d had cause to feel afraid of Ashe on more than one occasion, I sensed that in small matters he was not easily offended. Best to know now, anyway – I backed my intuition.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Jarvis told me that you’d bought several of Suzannah Murchie’s paintings. Will you hang them here?’
‘I haven’t decided,’ he replied. ‘I doubt it. I like to keep things simple here, as you’ve noticed. In my house in Kensington, probably.’
‘I hope you won’t mind my mentioning this, but I hear she’s to paint your portrait.’
‘You heard that, did you?’ I detected, for the first time, a silky coldness in his manner. ‘Who from?’
‘Suzannah herself.’
‘Did you.’ He opened one hand. ‘Then it must be true.’
There was no reproof in the words themselves and yet I was, unmistakably, rebuked. I had overstepped the mark. Complacently, I had believed I’d got the measure of him, and what I could and could not say with impunity. Now I saw that I knew nothing, not even what it was that I’d done wrong. But I would have given my right hand to have the last two minutes over again.
He sat very still, his gaze on me, hands relaxed where they rested on the sides of the chair. I realised I could not apologise – to say ‘sorry’ when he’d offered no reproof would be as good as saying, ‘I am a crass, foolish young woman’, and I wasn’t about to do that.
Instead, I got up. ‘Mr Ashe, it’s time I was going. Thank you so much.’
He waited for a moment before rising. That moment before he stood was the most exquisitely judged slight.
Now he was once more the gentleman, opening the door, showing me to the lift, waiting beside me in silence. When it arrived and the door opened, there was no farewell handshake, but he said pleasantly enough:
‘I look forward to seeing you next week, then.’
‘Yes. Goodbye, Mr Ashe.’
‘Goodnight, Mrs Griffe.’
As the lift swayed slowly down to the ground floor I closed my eyes in a mixture of relief and shame. Everything had been going so well; my intuition, surely, had been sound, until that moment of icy disapproval.
And suddenly it washed over me: what it was I had done wrong. That white, empty, elegant room was a mask, just as Ashe’s soft voice and civil manner were a mask. But I had presumed to know what lay behind them.
I’d behaved as if I knew him, and John Ashe did not care to be known.
When I emerged on to the pavement, I was temporarily disorientated. I stood there, trying to collect myself. Remembering my arrangement with Alan, I glanced at my watch. I had only been in the building for half an hour, much less time than predicted. I would probably have to wait for him, but where? The garden in the centre of the square looked inviting, but there were two tramps weaving about on the grass, sharing a bottle. A man wandered past and brushed heavily against me so that I staggered. He turned and snarled something at me, his face blurred and angry.
‘Pamela!’ Alan was at my side, a little out of breath. ‘You beat me to it – I’m so sorry.’
‘We were quicker than I expected.’
He put his arm through mine, and it was so welcome. ‘How was it?’
‘Fine.’
‘ I hope you don’t mind my saying but you look a bit peaky. Would you like to find somewhere to sit down?’
‘No, I’m all right. Let’s just walk.’
‘If you’re sure. Tell you what, let’s head down in the direction of the Embankment. It’ll be lovely down by the river this evening. If we want to we can always hop on a bus.’
We set off at an easy pace, falling naturally into step. I was steadied by Alan’s arm, and his presence. I no longer felt stiff and out of place. We were just another young couple strolling through the summer streets. As I relaxed, I began to see that my faux pas with John Ashe had not been so terrible; perhaps had not happened at all. He was an odd, unsettling man and I had been thrown off balance. In future I would make sure always to err on the side of caution.
Alan squeezed my arm. ‘How are you?’
‘Better.’
‘Good. I knew you weren’t right the moment I saw you. It’s my job, remember.’
To reassure him, and myself, I said: ‘The place was terrifically smart – very different to where I work in Highgate.’
‘You said that was, sort of, colourful and chaotic?’
‘Chaotic’s a bit strong. But certainly not highly organised. This is so tidy and clean you could eat your breakfast off the floor as my mother would say. I couldn’t see one piece of paper.’
‘Sounds a bit off-putting. Not too tidy? You’ll be able to work there?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure I will.’
‘And this chap Ashe – he’ll be a fair employer?’
I considered this. Whatever else he might or might not be, I was convinced of one thing.
‘Very fair,’ I said.
We were approaching Cambridge Circus and I suddenly caught sight of the road sign.
‘Romilly Street!’ I exclaimed. ‘A girl from my digs works here. At a place called the Apache Club. It’s one of John Ashe’s.’
‘Can’t say I’ve heard of it,’ said Alan, ‘but then I wouldn’t have.’
‘Nor me, until she told me about it. It’s madly exclusive.’
He slapped his brow. ‘Damn – and I was thinking I could take you there!’
‘Do you mind if we find where it is, just out of curiosity?’
‘Lead on.’
‘No wonder it’s exclusive,’ said Alan, ‘no one can find it.’
‘I know it’s here somewhere. Wait there.’ The proprietor of a small newsagent and tobacconist was out on the pavement, pushing back the awning over his window preparatory to shutting up shop.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a place called the Apache Club.’
‘Isn’t everyone, miss?’ he asked. He had a gentle world-weariness rather like Chef’s.
‘Are they?’
‘I’m not surprised you haven’t spotted it. That’s the idea, if you get my meaning.’
‘So – where is it?’
He pointed in a westerly direction. ‘Thirty yards, other side of the road, doorway next to the flower shop. Not open for hours yet.’
‘I realise that.’
‘Nothing to see.’ He shook his head. ‘Looks like a bit of a dump. Beats me why they’re all mad for it.’
I said, by way of explaining my own interest: ‘A friend of mine works there,’ and at once, as so often, wished I hadn’t. The man’s eyebrows rose.
‘Does she now?’
‘Anyway—’
‘Used to be a church there, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘Funny idea, having a nightclub where people were buried.’
‘I suppose so . . . Thanks, anyway.’
‘What was all that about?’ asked Alan. ‘Is he a member or something?’
I had to laugh. ‘No!’
‘Well, you said it was exclusive . . .’
‘Come on, it’s just along here.’
The man had been absolutely right – there was nothing to see.
Like John Ashe’s office the entrance to the Apache was almost anonymous and not just discreet but drab. Next to the buckets of flowers, still out on the pavement on this fine evening, a flight of steps scuttled down to basement level. We peered over the railings. The door at the bottom was painted black. On the ground in front of it, picked out in small brass letters in the concrete, was the word ‘Apache’. The window was obscured by a black wooden screen.
‘What does your friend do down there?’ asked Alan.
I thought of Louise in her backless turquoise lame, a bird of paradise in that dark, secretive box of a place. ‘She’s a sort of waitress.’
‘Accent on the “sort of”, I bet.’
‘It’s perfectly respectable and above board,’ I said without much conviction.
‘Pull the other one, Pam. It’s a dive. I bet someone’s watching us through a peephole.’
‘This isn’t America! Anyway, there’s probably no one there yet, I don’t imagine it gets going until after nine o’clock at night.’
He put his arm round me. ‘No place for a GP on call, I fear.’
His hand on my waist was warm; it made me conscious of my figure in a way I hadn’t been for years. And hadn’t John Ashe told me I had good legs?
We walked all the way to the Embankment. And as we perched on the wall watching the river traffic slip by in the sunshine, we kissed again. I might never be a bird of paradise like Louise, but I could feel my dowdy feathers dropping away, one by one, and my truer, brighter colours showing through.
Chapter Thirteen
Not only the surroundings made my work for John Ashe different. As he had implied, this was not a situation in which it was up to me to order things. Everything was already perfectly ordered, and my sole responsibility – for the time being anyway – was to arrive punctually, sit down quietly at my desk and do the job exactly as it was set out for me.
After the uncomfortable moment during my first visit I was not going to run even the tiniest risk of being thought over-familiar. I was determined to be the reserved, dependable, discreet person who had attracted his interest in the first place.
A list of the copytyping, correspondence, and calls to be made, in Ashe’s tall, racing, black handwriting, would be waiting on the desk. On my first visit he pointed out that they were listed in order of precedence, and should be undertaken as far as possible in that order. He always greeted me civilly, delivered dictation – in my office, not his – and then left me to get on with it. In this respect he was like Jarvis, except that when Ashe retreated to that big, white room and closed the door he seemed to disappear off the face of the earth.
I learned that the Apache Club was his, but knew better than to mention Louise.
I didn’t know what silence was until I went to work in Soho Square. The passers-by, the policemen, the newsvendors, the traffic, the tramps in the garden, seemed to occupy another dimension; or more accurately I did, looking down at them from the stillness of the second floor. At Seven Crompton Terrace when the house was empty, or almost empty, the silence was of a different kind – the house itself seemed to breathe, and pulse, and seethe with life even when I was the only person in it. Here, where I was never alone, the silence was palpable, as though a muffling hood had been thrown over the rooms. The brass plaques testified that there must have been other people besides us in the building, but I never heard them. The occasional slow, muted grinding of the lift moving between floors only emphasised the dense hush. It made me self-conscious about the simplest thing like coughing, going to the lavatory, or filling the kettle, so I tended not to do them, and to emerge after two hours with a full bladder, a dry mouth, and for some reason a ravenous appetite. I always left the office empty as I had found it, and John Ashe invariably saw me out with the utmost courtesy.
Everyone was eager to know how I was getting on, and their curiosity confirmed my sense of going where few had gone before. In a way it was a pity to disappoint them, but professional ethics apart, there was so little to tell.
Dorothy met me, duster in hand, the moment I came through the door the morning after my first stint at Ashe Enterprises.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ I replied, removing my hat as I went into the study. She followed. ‘Don’t be like that! What’s it like?’
I didn’t bother to conceal my smile. She enjoyed being teased as much as I enjoyed teasing her. ‘Just a job, you know . . .’
‘No I don’t! Spoilsport – give over.’
I sat down and began taking the cover off my typewriter. ‘Truthfully, Dorothy, there’s nothing to tell. I took dictation, typed letters—’
‘Who to?’
‘Dorothy!’ I laughed at her sheer cheek. ‘You know perfectly well I wouldn’t dream of telling you that!’
‘No harm in trying. Was he there all the time?’
‘No, he was in his own room next door.’
‘Anyone else come? Pick up any snippets?’
‘No!’ I said, rather more firmly. She was incorrigible, as well as insatiable. ‘I didn’t, and I’m not going to.’
She shrugged. ‘What a waste. If I could do that –’ she nodded at the typewriter – ‘I’d be in there, I can tell you.’
‘I dare say. Look, Dorothy, I must get on.’
‘If you say so.’
She made to leave and then paused, counting off the names on her fingers: ‘So madam up top’s gone; Mr Rintoul’s gone too, what a surprise; Miss Georgina’s gone home. It’s like the grave round here. I wish someone’d offer me another job . . .’
With this shaft she closed the door and continued with her dusting, humming as she went. Given her powers of observation and her quick brain she was wasted in domestic work, but the thought of her acting as someone’s personal assistant, charged with discretion at all times, made the blood run cold.
Christopher Jarvis dressed up his own curiosity as professional concern. ‘Having as it were put you in the way of this extra work,’ he said urbanely, ‘I do hope it’s all going well.’
‘So far,’ I said.
‘I have a feeling the two of you are well suited,’ he remarked, adding as though I might have leapt to some other conclusion: ‘Professionally speaking.’
> ‘We seem to understand each other,’ I agreed.
‘Excellent. What do you think of the office? The height of fashion, isn’t it?’
‘Mr Ashe’s is. Mine’s functional and none the worse for that.’
Jarvis glanced around, one self-deprecating eyebrow raised. ‘Makes a change, I dare say . . .’
‘It’s different.’
‘And life would be dull if we were all the same!’
I was being pressed, albeit charmingly, for an opinion, which I was not going to venture. To deflect his interrogation I asked a question of my own.
‘You will let me know if these hours are inconvenient, won’t you?’
‘They aren’t, in the least.’
‘Both Mr Ashe and I appreciate that my job here must come first.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jarvis. ‘If there’s a conflict of interests at any time I’ll have a word with him.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, ‘What about me?’ but I stopped myself. He had meant nothing by it, and I was their employee after all.
Amanda Jarvis inclined more towards the giving than the eliciting of information. Neither she nor her husband were ones to pull rank, but it was as if my job at Ashe Enterprises put me in a different position vis à vis her – one of slightly greater equality. It was a case of ‘to them that hath’: I knew more, so I could be spoken to more freely.
‘I’ve never been to the office, of course,’ she said, ‘but I believe it’s very different from the house in Piedmont Gardens.’
‘Is that the one in Kensington?’
She sighed, one hand on her cheek in awed reflection. ‘It’s magnificent! A palace . . .’
‘I think he’s going to hang the picture there, the one he bought of Suzannah’s.’
‘I expect so. He’s got a valuable collection, you know.’
‘He’s a connoisseur?’
‘Oh yes. Christopher’s rather put out at Ashe having bought all three. It’s much better for the artist at this stage if their work is spread about, seen more widely, to get people talking.’
‘I suppose so.’
She shook her head, contemplating something in her mind’s eye. ‘I don’t know what Felicia thinks of all the stuff he buys, considering she’s not interested herself.’
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