The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom

by Alison Love

  At the word baby Pasquale’s mouth twisted like a terrible rope. Filomena thought of the damage her brother had done. That damage would haunt Pasquale and his family forever. How could he love his son, knowing what he knew? How could he trust his wife?

  “Believe me,” she said more gently, “Valentino is not at home—”

  There was a clatter of footsteps behind her. It was Mauro, accompanied by a police constable, an awkward young man with a spray of pimples upon his cheeks. At the sight of his uniform Filomena’s heart gave a leap, instantly suppressed.

  “What’s happening here, then? I’ve been told there’s a disturbance.” The young policeman stuck out his chin as though the gesture would, against the odds, give him authority.

  Pasquale relaxed his grip upon his club. “It is a misunderstanding,” he said in English. “We intended to play a joke on a paesano, a compatriot, but we came to the wrong house. We did not mean to frighten these ladies.”

  The policeman looked doubtfully around the kitchen, at Mauro, at Renata, at Danila rigid in her chair. When he spoke, though, it was to Filomena.

  “Have these fellows been threatening you, miss?”

  “I have explained, Constable,” said Pasquale smoothly. Filomena remembered that he was a waiter at Bianchi’s, accustomed to dealing with the high and mighty. “It was a joke, a mistake. We are leaving now.”

  “Miss?” said the policeman, his eyes still upon Filomena. She wavered for a moment and then shook her head.

  “No, they have not been threatening us. We were startled, that is all.”

  “Well, I’ll see them off the premises,” the policeman said. “Come on then, let’s be having you.”

  Filomena saw Pasquale’s fist tighten on his wooden club, but he thought better of it and followed the policeman to the open door. At the last moment he turned to Filomena.

  “I will find your brother,” he hissed. “I will not rest until I find him. And when I find him I will kill him, even if I hang for it. You tell your brother that.”

  —

  Filomena thought that Valentino would laugh off Pasquale’s threat, but he did not. When Mauro fetched him home from the fascio his face was as pale as the tablecloths that arrived daily at the Goodge Street laundry.

  “How many men were with him? Two? And they had clubs, you say?”

  “Rounders bats,” said Filomena, who could not help feeling a glimmer of satisfaction, to see her swaggering brother so rattled.

  “Claudia must have told her husband.” Valentino’s hands were shaking; he could scarcely hold the cigarette to his lips. “She was afraid that she would go to hell if she did not confess the truth—”

  “So the child is yours?” said Enrico. His eyes, fixed upon his favorite son, were like granite.

  Valentino shrugged. “I do not know. He could be mine. Nobody will ever be certain, not me, not Pasquale, not Claudia herself.”

  Or the child, thought Filomena. What would it be like for that child, never to know his own parentage?

  At the table Enrico put his head in his hands. “Oh, Valentino, my son,” he said. There was despair, not reproach, in his voice now.

  “Do not be angry with me, Papa.” Valentino crouched beside his father’s chair like a chastened schoolboy. “It is not my fault, Claudia was willing, she tempted me…”

  Reaching down, Enrico caressed his son’s black tangled hair. Then he said: “You had better leave the room, Filomena. This is no conversation for an unmarried woman to hear.”

  “I don’t see why,” said Filomena stoutly. “I understand what has happened. And I am the one who dealt with Pasquale.”

  “Yes, by calling in the British authorities.” There was a zest in Valentino’s bitterness, as he seized the chance to divert blame. “It is dishonorable, it is not how we Italians do these things, we settle our affairs within our own community—”

  “Filomena did what she thought best,” said Antonio, who had been silent until now. “She had my wife and child to protect. The question is, what should we do next? This man Pasquale is serious, Valentino. Next time you may not be so fortunate.”

  Valentino let out a whimper. “There, there, my son,” said Enrico. “We will think of something. Antonio will think of something.” He looked eagerly across the room. “Can we talk to this Pasquale, do you suppose, Antonio? I could speak to him. It will be better coming from an older man, from a father. I persuaded Carlo Ricci to forgive Valentino after that business with Lucia.”

  “That was different,” said Antonio. “Lucia’s father chose to be deceived, you know that, Papa. Pasquale will not be mollified so easily. You will have to lie low for a while, Valentino. Leave Soho, leave London for six months, maybe a year.”

  “But where will I go?” wailed Valentino. “I do not want to leave my home, my family…”

  All eyes were upon Antonio now, part in appeal, part in fear. “You should go to Italy,” he said. “Back to Lazio, back to the village. Pasquale is not from our region, he has no friends or relations there, he cannot pursue you.”

  A mutinous expression crossed Valentino’s face. “I do not want to take flight like a coward. It would be shameful.”

  “It is not cowardice, Valentino. It is wisdom.” Antonio paused. He guessed that what he was about to say would change his life, and yet when the words came out they sounded casual, reasonable, not dramatic at all.

  “Danila wants to return to her parents’ house in Lazio, she thinks it will be safer for our son. She cannot travel alone, and I cannot go with her. I cannot leave Papa, I cannot leave my work. You will not be taking flight, you will be protecting your sister-in-law. What is shameful about that?”

  Four days later Danila and the baby left for Italy, escorted by Valentino. They took the train from Victoria, as once the children of loyal fascists had done, gleefully gathering for their summer camps while Ambassador Grandi doled out sweets.

  Antonio accompanied the travelers to the station. Enrico had hoped to go too, to catch the last possible glimpse of his favorite son, but his breathing had grown worse and he was confined to bed in Frith Street.

  “Courage, Valentino,” said Antonio to his brother, who was weeping as the bus trundled inexorably along Piccadilly. “Papa will travel to Lazio soon. This summer, perhaps. It is not as though you will never see him again.”

  “If the war comes it may be impossible to travel,” Danila said in a flat voice. She was in the seat behind the two brothers, beautifully dressed in a fawn coat and a yellow-ocher hat. Her sleeping child was cradled in her lap. She had cried when Antonio first told her he was not coming with her to Italy. For the rest of the night she had wheedled and wept and caressed him, trying to persuade him to change his mind. Once she realized, though, that he would not, it seemed to Antonio that she hardened, becoming brisk and organized. During those last days she showed no sign of intimacy or regret.

  “We will find a way,” said Antonio. He did not want to think about the future. All his concentration was fixed upon the task ahead. Farewells were muddled, awkward affairs; you could be tormented afterward by your own clumsiness. He was hoping that he would manage the departure of his wife and son cleanly, decently.

  The platforms at Victoria were busy with day-trippers to the south coast. Antonio hauled Danila’s suitcases toward the train. Most of the things she had packed were for the baby, christening gifts, the soft mass of jerseys she had knitted. Antonio knew that his son would not need so many warm clothes in Lazio—Danila would have to find him cooler things, of cotton or linen, to survive the Italian summer—but, like so much, the words had gone unsaid.

  He turned to watch his wife follow him demurely along the platform. Last night, in the darkness, he had taken her in his arms, sliding his hand along her thigh to give notice of his intention to make love to her. Danila did not move. Antonio raised the hem of her white cotton nightdress, then let it fall once more. I do not want a wife who submits, he thought, I want a wife who desires me. He patted
her knee—a peacemaking gesture, as if to say, It is all right, I will not insist—and he slid to the far edge of the mattress, where he lay awake until the room grew light.

  On the platform the baby was chuntering irritably, his chubby limbs eeling from Danila’s grasp. Soon he would be too big for her to carry. When I see him next, Antonio thought, he will not recognize me, and who knows? Perhaps I will not recognize him, for all that he is my flesh and blood. Putting down the valises he threw open the carriage door. Danila stepped forward to embrace him. For a moment he remembered the early days of their marriage, when she had nestled against him like a trustful bird.

  “Oh, my love,” he said, softening. At that moment the baby began to cry, pushing furiously against his father.

  “Mama,” he said, seizing a black lock of Antonio’s hair, “Mama.”

  “Hush.” Danila’s attention turned to the child, uncurling his plump fingers. “We had better get him settled, Antonio. He will howl all the way to Dover otherwise.”

  And that is how it is, thought Antonio, as he helped his wife into the railway carriage. That is how it will always be.

  “Take care of them, Valentino,” he said, throwing his arms about his brother. “I am trusting them to you. Do not let any harm come to them, on the journey or in Lazio.”

  Valentino rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Of course, Antonino. You can count on me.” He gripped his brother once more, fiercely. “And promise me that you will look after Papa?”

  “It will be my greatest care, Valentino. Keep your spirits up. We will see each other soon.”

  The whistle was blowing now. There was a frantic slamming of doors; then, like a pantomime dragon, the train began to huff and puff out of the station, gathering speed. Valentino leaned from the window, waving, but of Danila there was no sign. Antonio watched until the guard’s brown van had disappeared along the track. Once the train was out of sight he walked back through the platform gates into the ornate brick ticket hall. A sense of unfamiliar lightness swept through him; he could almost taste it at the back of his throat. It was only when he had stepped into the sunlit street that he recognized it as freedom.

  —

  At home in Frith Street Filomena was stewing an oxtail for Enrico’s supper. She was humming one of the songs she had heard Antonio practice. Unlike her brother, Filomena knew that she was happy: knew it straightforwardly, without shame. She had often imagined a home from which Danila and Valentino were absent, but she had never dreamed that it could be achieved so easily. Joyful vistas opened before her. She would be able to come and go without sniping or grumbling; nobody would complain that she was late home from the laundry, or that she had put too much nutmeg in the gnocchi.

  “These foolish things…” sang Filomena, not very tunefully, as she poked at the oxtail in the pan. There was a rap upon the front door: a loud rap, full of bravado. Filomena wiped her steam-damp hands upon her apron. If it is Pasquale, she thought, I will tell him that he is too late, Valentino has gone, he will never find him. I will not be afraid, I will take pleasure in telling him.

  It was not Pasquale, though: it was Stanley Harker, in his blue high-buttoned uniform. His copper’s face was screwed up in a determined expression.

  “I heard there’d been some trouble here,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Filomena stared. Then in a matter-of-fact voice she said: “You had better come inside. Be quiet, though. My father is asleep.”

  Stan wiped his stout boots carefully on the mat. Once they were in the kitchen Filomena closed the door, so they could not be heard.

  “Salty told me that he’d been here.” Stan was looking around the kitchen, at the well-scrubbed table, at the black stove: all the things Filomena had described, in their walks between Goodge Street and Frith Street, but which until now he had never seen. “Constable Sellers, I mean. Salty’s his nickname, that’s what we call him down at the station. He said there’d been some trouble, a gang of men with clubs. It bothered me.”

  Filomena stood beside the table with her arms folded. She knew she ought to offer Stan something—coffee, a bottle of beer—but to do so would compromise her. It would confirm once and for all that Stan had been present, in her home; she would never be able to deny it.

  “It was my brother Valentino. He caused offense to one of our countrymen. But it is all right now. My father has sent Valentino to Lazio, out of harm’s way. He has gone with Danila and the baby.”

  “But you did not go too?”

  “Of course not. Papa is ill, his chest is weak still, he needs nursing. And someone has to keep house for Antonio.”

  “Ah,” said Stan, and then: “Is that the scullery where you sleep?” There was an incredulous note in his voice that annoyed Filomena. How dare he criticize her family’s arrangements?

  “Yes,” she said fiercely.

  Stan gave a faint smile. “You did not send me word, Filomena. I thought that I would hear from you, but there was nothing. Even though you did not marry this fiancé of yours, this Bruno.”

  Filomena lowered her head. She could feel the blood burn in her cheeks. “I promised Antonio that I would not see you again. He said that he would not tell my father about you—about our friendship—as long as I gave him my promise—”

  “And you agreed?”

  The words crowded to Filomena’s lips. I told you it was impossible, my father would have packed me off to Lazio, what in the world did you expect me to do? She did not say any of them. She stood silent, her head still bowed.

  “I have another reason for coming,” said Stan, after a moment. “I’m joining up. My father died at Christmas, so there’s one less mouth to feed. And I want to do my bit against Hitler when the time comes.”

  Filomena looked at him then. “I’m sorry about your father,” she said. “Does it mean that you’ll be leaving London?”

  “Yes. I’ll be off for basic training in a couple of weeks. I’m going to Catterick, in Yorkshire.” Stan paused. He was gazing at Filomena. A quite other dialogue was taking place within that gaze. “I’ve never been so far north before. Never been further than King’s Cross, if truth be known.”

  He is going to kiss me, thought Filomena. The memory of their last kiss, sudden and thirsty, swept through her.

  “Will you write to me?” she said abruptly, twisting sideways. It wrong-footed Stan.

  “What? But won’t your family find out?”

  “You can send letters to the post office in Charing Cross Road, I’ll collect them there. It will be easier now that Danila and Valentino have gone. I will have more freedom.”

  Their eyes met once more, as they each registered what Filomena’s new freedom might mean. For an instant everything hung in the balance. Then, from the floor above, Enrico called out.

  “Mena! Where are you, Mena?” It was a sick man’s querulous voice, and it brought Filomena to herself.

  “It’s my father.” She put out her hands, as though she could shoo Stan from the house without actually touching him. “You had better go, Stan.”

  Stan held his ground a moment longer, doggedly. “If I do write, Filomena, will you write back?”

  “Of course I will. Only you must go now, Stan. Please, before my father hears you.”

  Dickie’s funeral was huge and glamorous. Bernard organized it in a weeklong frenzy of efficiency, although it was Penelope who styled herself as chief mourner. She was draped in acres of black chiffon as she followed the coffin into the church, supported by her two sons. Olivia walked behind them, wearing a very simple, very severe coat and skirt that Dickie had always admired. Only you can get away with that, my angel, he had said, any other woman would look like a prison warder. The lump in Olivia’s throat swelled. The church was crammed with people whom she did not recognize. For a moment she hoped she might see Antonio Trombetta’s face—comforting, familiar—but there was no sign of him.

  After the funeral, Dickie’s solicitor read his will to
the family, sitting in the drawing room at Bedford Square. Dickie had left money to the refugee association, and some of his objects—the more opulent ones—to Penelope. Everything else was divided between the two Rodway brothers apart from the house in Sussex, which Dickie had bequeathed to Olivia.

  “How extraordinary,” said Lionel, with a snort half of outrage, half of disbelief. “Are you sure you’ve read it correctly?”

  Penelope gave Olivia a shrewd, rather accusing look. “It’s a new will, isn’t it? He made it only a few months ago. Do you think he was in his right wits?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Mother,” Bernard said. “There’s nothing suspicious about it. Uncle Dickie was very fond of Olivia, he wanted to give her something.”

  “But a house,” said Penelope. “He could have left her some jewelry, or maybe a picture. Far more suitable.”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “I stayed there with Dickie last year. He knew how much I loved the place. I grew up in Sussex, you know—”

  “It’s not a valuable house, in any case,” Bernard put in impatiently. “It’s a typical ramshackle country cottage. I daresay the upkeep will cost me more than the damn place is worth. Let’s drop it, shall we? The rest of the will seems perfectly fair.”

  “Do you mind about the house?” Olivia asked Bernard later, when they were alone. They had both changed out of their constricting funeral clothes and were having a whisky before bed.

  “Of course I don’t mind. It would be churlish to mind. I don’t understand why he did it, that’s all. I think he was being mischievous. He guessed that it would annoy Lionel and my mother. And you can see their point, it is an eccentric thing to do. I know Dickie wanted you to enjoy the house, but he could just as well have left it to me on your behalf.”

  Olivia was silent. She had the feeling that Bernard cared far more about the bequest than he would admit. He had not talked at all about his grief for Dickie, or the sudden, shocking circumstances of his death. When he spoke of his uncle it was as though he were still alive and simply, for the moment, absent from the room.