Mildred is a pretty girl, even though her heavily applied powder has failed to hide her ginger freckles, and her thick, curly hair looks to Rosetta an unnatural shade of platinum. She has dressed up for the occasion; Rosetta observes her stylish suit, notes that here, too, something strikes a jarring note. ‘Probably second-hand,’ she thinks. ‘Well cut, but obviously made for someone else.’ Her eyes travel to the girl’s shoes, a little worn, a little dusty. One of them is scarred by a scratch across the toe. ‘She’s fallen on hard times,’ Rosetta thinks. ‘This can only mean trouble.’
Then she speaks. ‘Mildred.’ Determined to regain the upper hand, Rosetta’s brisk delivery masks the anxiety she feels. ‘Exactly what is it that you want?’
‘It is not a matter of what I want,’ Mildred responds tartly, with a vermilion smile. ‘It’s really all about what you and your husband need.’
‘Really? I can’t imagine anything you have that either of us could possibly require.’
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Mrs Zeno. I do. Let’s just call it … protection, security.’
Rosetta’s heart is thudding, but she remains absolutely still. She will not let Mildred see the rising panic that she feels.
‘It’s very simple, really. I came over here to find my fortune, thought I’d make a splash in one of the big shows. But it hasn’t turned out quite as easy as I thought it’d be. I used nearly every penny I had to get here and now, as the Americans would say, I’m flat broke.
‘You and Zeno, however, seem to have had some luck. Oh, I’ve hung about outside. I’ve seen the toffs line up.’
Rosetta, silent, waits.
‘I read the illustrated papers every chance I’ve got. I can spot a title when I see one. The Duchess of Rutland, Lady Diana, the Countess of Glasgow and the rest of them. They all come here, don’t they?
‘Why, you must be making money hand over fist.’
Rosetta breaks her silence, though retains her cool hauteur. ‘Mildred, perhaps you would be so good as to come to the point. I repeat, what exactly is it that you want?’
‘I think you know, Mrs Zeno. But let me spell it out. It’s simple, really. I want money and unless you give it to me, all this,’ she gestures at the elegant room, the Persian rug, the delphiniums in their porcelain vase, ‘will be gone. It’ll disappear, a bit like … yes, that’s it,’ she laughs, snaps her fingers. ‘Like in a magic trick.
‘I’ll tell the papers who you two really are and where you’re from. Just imagine the scandal! Wait till all your fancy patients find out. Ooh, I’d love to see their faces when they discover that their wonderful Japanese Professor is just a shabby little fairground fake who’s been putting on a show.’ Mildred laughs again; the sound is shrill and sharp.
Despite her fear, Rosetta maintains her composure. She knows what she must do.
‘Mildred, my dear,’ she smiles sweetly, ‘I quite see what you mean. Life in London can be so expensive and I’m sure neither of us would want you to go without.
‘Only we need to discuss this a little further, to decide on what is the best arrangement we can come to. Now, for the time being, as a demonstration of good faith, do you think that five pounds would do?’
Slowly, she counts out each note on the table. Mildred eyes the money, runs a pink, hungry tongue along her painted lips.
‘And perhaps something to brighten up that lovely suit you are wearing?’
Rosetta unpins a small ruby and pearl brooch from her lapel, picks up the money and places both into Mildred’s outstretched hand.
‘Take this as well. I am quite certain that we can enter into a suitable agreement, but I really can’t discuss it here; a patient might call in. Do you know the Gardenia Tea Rooms? They are not far away. Go there now and I’ll meet you, just as soon as I can get away. I’ll not be long.’
Rosetta watches Mildred leave, waits five minutes, then five minutes more. She strews the contents of her reticule across the floor, then pulls at the collar of her coat until it tears. Finally, she takes a pair of scissors from the drawer, leaves their gleaming blades open on the desk. Satisfied, she departs. Once outside the New Bond Street rooms, Rosetta walks a little way, then turns left. Yes, he is in his usual spot, close to the smart barber’s shop.
Rosetta runs towards the thick-set policeman and, breathless, but with her most enchanting smile, cries out, ‘Oh, I’m so very glad to see you, Constable Hall!’
He tips his tall hat. Mrs Zeno is a favourite of his; she and the Professor never fail to show their appreciation for keeping this expensive neighbourhood so safe. There is always a ham at Christmas for him and Mrs Hall. She’s a good-looking woman too, a real stunner. Hall wonders what is wrong.
‘Constable, a terrifying young woman just forced her way into the Professor’s consulting rooms. I was there alone. She took money from my reticule and look –’ Rosetta points towards her coat – ‘she tore off my pearl and ruby brooch. She had sharp steel scissors – she threatened to cut my throat!
‘Do hurry, Constable. She was raving; quite mad, you know.
‘I was too frightened to follow. But I was able to watch her from the window. I think she went in the direction of the Gardenia Tea Rooms. Perhaps if you’re quick, you’ll catch her there now.’
As Constable Hall sets off at a clip Rosetta breathes a deep sigh. She has been lucky this time. But she knows it is a sign. Life cannot continue as it has been. Something is bound to come out soon. And what with Britain and Germany at war, and Zeno close to breaking point …
‘We are on the wrong side of the world,’ she thinks. ‘It is time to go home.’
FORTY-TWO
NOVEMBER 1914
There are hurried goodbyes, frantic packing, a passage booked, a long sea voyage to be made. The many distinguished friends and patrons of Professor and Mrs Carl Zeno are very sorry to see them leave. Members of various royal families, a legion of lords and ladies and a number of outstanding representatives from the worlds of arts, letters and science all express their disappointment. Some of Professor Zeno’s female patients shed tears. But in these most uncertain times, well, of course it is understood that, though the loss will be very great, the Professor and his wife must do what they think best. Mrs Zeno has relatives in distant Australia; it is only natural that she wishes to join them.
It is Lilian who suffers most. Rosetta says, ‘Darling, you could come with us. We both want you to. Why not?’ But her dearest friend is anxious and confused. She feels torn in two. There are her children. It is complicated.
The day before their ocean liner will set sail, Rosetta pays a final call. There is one matter to which she must attend that has so far remained undone.
She takes a cab from Portman Square to a smart Belgravia address. It is a white Georgian townhouse fortuitously located in a discreet side street. Rosetta had planned to wear her chic new navy Lucile suit, indeed, was already dressed when, suddenly, she changed her mind. Now, beneath her sombre coat, she wears a crimson garment that is considerably less restrained.
It is a dress in which to take a risk, a dress that can induce recklessness. Rosetta thinks of the last time she wore it, on Tamarama Beach, though so much has happened since then that the moonlit night seems less a recollection, more like an enchanting dream.
Rosetta knocks with her black suede-gloved hand upon the oak door. She hesitates. The person she has come to say goodbye to is probably not home. The wisest course would be to turn around and go.
Unexpectedly, the door swings open. ‘Madame Zeno!’ the striking young man before her exclaims. ‘But I had no idea! Please, come in. Let me take your coat.’
It is clear that Alberto has not been expecting company. There are no servants and he looks unusually disordered in his attire. He is without either his jacket or a tie, and his high-collared shirt is unbuttoned and awry. She can see his throat, the outline of the muscles on his chest.
‘I must apologise for the state of my undress.’ He smiles ruef
ully. ‘As you can see, I am leaving soon and have been busy sorting out my paintings and my books.’
‘Alberto, really?’ Rosetta’s response is accompanied by a look of bemusement. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me? I am intrigued.’
He pushes back a lock of black hair, an expression of contrition on his handsome face. ‘I am sorry I have caught you – what is it that you say? Yes, unawares. But everything has happened so suddenly,’ he explains.
‘With war declared, there is a great demand for wheat and beef. My father needs my assistance to run our estates in Argentina. I must return immediately.’
Alberto gestures with his hand. ‘Everything I own is currently on the high seas, and I will soon set sail as well. All I have is a bed to sleep on and what little you see here.’
The only furniture remaining consists of two simple chairs and a small ebony table on which there is a gramophone. A record plays. It fills the bare room with music that Rosetta has come to know well. Pulsating, driving, it is unmistakably from the barrios of the Argentine.
‘There is another reason I have to return. I am marrying.’
Rosetta looks up sharply.
‘Yes, I see you are surprised. I am a little myself. Perhaps it was your husband’s vision that changed my mind,’ Alberto says with a droll look.
‘The fact is, it is my father’s wish. I have known Maria Louisa since I was a child. She is from a well-placed family. It is, what you would call, a very suitable alliance.’ He shrugs his shoulders, gives an exaggerated sigh.
‘In any case, there is only one woman I truly desire. Let me describe her to you. She is very beautiful, has hair the colour of the darkest wine and at the moment, she is looking quite enchanting in a very pretty red dress. Unfortunately, she has continued to reject me. What can I do?’
Alberto’s stay in London has done nothing to lessen his easy charm.
‘But I am forgetting myself. We can at least sit down. I still have brandy, or coffee if you prefer. Just don’t ask me for some of your awful tea. That is one habit of the English I will honestly never understand.’
Rosetta shakes her head. ‘Really, I only came to say farewell. Thank you, but there is nothing that I want.’
As the intoxicating music continues to pervade the room Alberto asks, ‘Truly? Nothing?’ Then he rises to his feet. ‘Well, there is something I would like to ask of you, as we are quite alone. Just this once, while I still have the chance.’
Rosetta looks at Alberto, at the tanned skin of his chest, his white teeth and lazy smile. She feels her pulse begin to race, a slipping of her hard-won self-control.
Alberto reaches for Rosetta’s hand. He looks at her and says with fierce intent, ‘Donna Rosa, you know what I want most in all the world.’
In the fading autumn light, in an empty house in Belgravia, they begin to dance.
PART THREE
AUSTRALIA
FORTY-THREE
SYDNEY, FEBRUARY 1940
She stands in her open doorway, her eyes half closed against the glare. The amber shards of light have an eerie quality, as if refracted by an alien sun in a strange galaxy.
‘Bushfire season,’ she whispers, blinking.
In valleys and gorges, thousands of eucalypts are burning in the Blue Mountains forty miles west of Sydney. As their silvery leaves and sap-filled limbs ignite, fiery clouds rise and billow, race towards the city. There, in Bronte, Rosetta lives by the sea, but even in this haven the air is thick and heavy. She can taste the acrid smoke; her tongue feels rough and gritty.
She looks up, startled by a chorus of screeching cries. A flock of ragged cockatoos are perched in the branches of an exhausted jacaranda. The birds throw back their sulphurous heads, flutter their pale, singed wings. ‘At least,’ she thinks, ‘they have escaped the flames.’ Her garden is a sanctuary.
Rosetta hurries across the parched lawn. She has seen the red-faced postman pause by her front gate and is impatient to discover what letters he might have.
‘Hot enough for ya?’ the man asks laconically when he sees her approaching. ‘I reckon this summer’ll be a record breaker,’ he adds, wiping his face.
She gives him a quick smile of commiseration, then takes the mail and strides back to the welcome coolness of her house, filled with a sense of anticipation. One letter has captured her attention: it bears a distinctive crest with a frond-like curlicue at each side extending from an embossed crown at its centre. Quickly, she picks up a chased silver knife, slides it along the seam of the envelope and extricates the letter. Then she pauses. The printed address at the top of the watermarked page is Brook House, once the grand Park Lane mansion owned by the multimillionaire and intimate confidant of the late King Edward, Sir Ernest Cassel.
Apparently, the writer is not living in Brook House at this precarious time for underneath are typed the words of a different, even more illustrious residence, Kensington Palace. This is the grand London home of a dozen members of the British royal family. A glance at the foot of the letter confirms what Rosetta has suspected. The signature, written in a forceful hand and underlined, is that of Edwina Mountbatten.
The letter’s date is 28 December 1939. An English winter, Rosetta thinks to herself, snow and ice, Christmas trees and sugared mice. She wonders how easy it has been to celebrate; while Australia’s current inferno is the result of a natural conspiracy between heat and drought, in Europe a conflagration made by man has, once more, broken out.
Lord Louis Mountbatten, Edwina’s husband and the cousin of the King, is captaining the destroyer HMS Kelly, though soon his drive, ambition and connections will propel him into a more elevated role. Edwina is busy doing other things.
For years regarded as among London’s most glittering, albeit promiscuous, socialites, she has acquired an outrageous reputation. In 1932 King George himself insisted that the Mountbattens sue for libel when it was suggested by The People that Edwina had been ‘caught in compromising circumstances’ with her lover (rumoured to be the black American actor Paul Robeson but in fact Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, a West Indian cabaret singer). The King considered legal action to be the only way in which to mitigate the scandal’s impact on the royal family.
Since then, Lady Mountbatten has undergone a remarkable change. Now she devotes her considerable energy and passion to the Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance. Edwina works tirelessly. Lord Louis, filled with pride, says approvingly to his daughter Pamela that her mother has found her ‘purpose in life’. Rosetta knows of these recent developments. She is aware that Lady Mountbatten will not wish an indelicate revelation to interfere with her new self-sacrificing status.
Rosetta skims the letter. She tries to swallow, finds her throat constricted. ‘It is this hideous weather,’ she tells herself and gulps a glass of water. Then she reads again, notes Edwina’s sentiments, their careful wording. Edwina thanks Rosetta for her ‘kind letter’ of 3 December and expresses gratitude for all Rosetta did for her aunt. Next, she thanks Rosetta for passing on ‘various enclosures’. Edwina then moves on to the matter of the grave and headstone: her nephew, Dermot Pakenham, and her nieces will more than likely reimburse Rosetta for her ‘expenses’, she says.
Yes, Rosetta thinks, that is to be expected. She has not begrudged the fact of meeting the cost of Lilian’s funeral expenses, not for a moment, but she sees the family’s assumption of responsibility for this outlay is their equivalent of closing ranks. Far be it for a Mountbatten, an Ashley or a Pakenham to permit exposure of another scandal.
The ‘war to end all wars’ has not fulfilled its promise. Now, once more, it is a time for the defence not just of that island nation, but of those qualities that the people of her upper classes profess to hold so dear: decency, honourable family values. Lilian and her husband, Arthur, never divorced, nor formally separated. Their irregular relationship was not made public.
Edwina, however, is a woman of the world, and as such knows its ways better than do most. She fully appreciates the
meaning of discretion at all costs, for others if not always for herself.
When she wrote her letter in December, Rosetta devoted considerable thought as to the wisdom of including one of the ‘various enclosures’ to which Edwina refers. At last she decided to proceed, though with the addition of a pertinent question. Now Rosetta reads her correspondent’s firm response.
Edwina writes that she is returning ‘the one letter’ and agrees with Rosetta’s suggestion that it not be forwarded to the children. In fact, she goes a step further and asks Rosetta to destroy it. After this, there comes a request for photographs, then additional expressions of gratitude and thanks. Nothing of particular consequence, unlike that brief, undated letter from Lilian that Edwina has returned. It shares a potential for damage similar to that of an incendiary device.
My Darling R,
I will be brief. It is enough to say that you have transported me to a realm which I had never imagined I might enter, yet now I revel in. Yes, I had a position in society, I had my husband and the children. I should feel guilt, I know, for casting all this aside, particularly those three innocents; I confess that I do not. I am shameless.
The depth of feeling I have for you is without parallel. Rosie, my sweet flower, I know you have never before expressed a wish to engage in particular activities, nor even for me to speak of certain matters pertaining to the man we both love dearly. But last night, when we three truly became one, I experienced an unsurpassable ecstasy. My lips are scalded from kisses given and received. Surely, it is worth forsaking the world for a night such as this!
The note is unsigned, save for the letter L.
Rosetta has a distant look in her dark gold eyes. Ah, dearest Lilian, she reflects, you were always artless, prone to emotional excess, and yet … she sighs, remembering how it was in those days when desire electrified their every thought and nothing seemed to matter more than each other’s happiness. Then she does what Edwina wants. Rosetta strikes a match and in an instant there is no evidence that such rapture ever existed.
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