The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom

by Alison Love

  She was also piqued by his choice of chaperone. She had been shocked to find Antonio in the arms of feckless flighty Iris. It was not only the discovery that her confidant, the man she had thought understood her, was a philanderer. She remembered the outrage in his eyes that night in the Paradise Ballroom, and how ashamed he had made her feel. He’s nothing but a hypocrite, she thought. One rule for himself, a quite different one for me.

  Antonio, sitting opposite her in the carriage—they were traveling first class, in plush antimacassared seats—could tell that she was fizzing with anger, although he did not comprehend why. She was wearing a dark purple suit and a small hat with a veil; a frivolous hat, although it did not look frivolous on Olivia, with her thunderclap face.

  The October sun, streaming dustily through the glass, was unseasonably warm. As the train drew south of Croydon Olivia got up to open the window.

  “Let me,” said Antonio, “please, Mrs. Rodway.”

  “Why? I’m perfectly capable of doing it.” Olivia tugged at the leather strap to pull the window down. “You are as bad as Bernard. He thinks that women can do nothing practical. I’m used to shifting for myself. I was living in a bedsit when he met me. A person who has lived in a bedsit can do anything.”

  She sat down once more, staring at him with wide provocative eyes. Antonio had no idea how he was going to survive the next thirty-six hours in her company. He thought of her mocking smile when she had found him with Iris in his arms. Was that why she was so angry? Surely not; surely nothing he did could matter that much to Olivia. All the same Antonio felt an intense compulsion to justify himself, to set the record straight.

  “I ought to tell you, Mrs. Rodway,” he said, licking his lips, “that there is nothing between me and Iris. There never has been—”

  Olivia held up her gloved hand to silence him. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Signor Trombetta. Your canoodlings are none of my business. Your wife’s business, perhaps, but not mine.” She picked up the magazine on her lap. “And now I’d like to continue the journey in peace. You’re here because my husband asked you to keep watch on me. He may even have paid you, I don’t know. But don’t let’s pretend that we’re traveling together from choice.”

  —

  They arrived at Lewes late in the afternoon. The station was solid and handsome, redbrick with whitewashed metal awnings. As they stepped from the carriage, porters sprang up to seize Olivia’s bags and escort her to the taxi rank. Antonio fumbled the business of tipping them, and was annoyed to see Olivia suppress a smile. The money for the tips had come from Bernard, of course, handed over with the discreet grace that Antonio lacked. His own clumsiness gnawed at him as the taxi swept through the quaint streets of Lewes. It was ten minutes before he became aware that they were in the countryside, green curved beautiful countryside, cut through in places where quarrymen had been tunneling for chalk. The sight flooded Antonio with an unlooked-for calm. He was not accustomed to so much sky, pale but luminous, after the tall narrow canyon that was Frith Street.

  He sensed a change in Olivia too. The rage ebbed from her, leaving her cleansed and calm in the seat beside him. “I love it here,” she said quite suddenly. “I am sorry that I was rude to you, Antonio. I was angry with my husband, that’s all.”

  The taxi drew up beside Dickie’s flint-walled house. Olivia did not wait for Antonio to pay the driver; she hurried toward the porch, a large iron key in her hand.

  “Mrs. Gander?” he heard her call. “Are you there?”

  When he had dealt with the taxi Antonio followed her through the hall into a low-ceilinged room, painted a powdery sage green. Olivia was staring at the hearth, which was littered with soot and broken mortar. The debris had spilled onto the Persian carpet beside the gilt fender. She frowned. “It must have been a brick, falling down the chimney.”

  Antonio pointed to the leather of the chesterfield, spattered with dirty whitish streaks. “No, it’s a bird. There is a bird in the house.”

  Briskly he crossed toward the window and shook the russet velvet curtains. At once a creature flew up, beating against the lead-lighted panes. It was a crow, its black feathers smeared with chimney dust. There was something dazed and terrible about it.

  “Get it out.” Olivia pressed her hands to her face. “Oh, please, get it out.”

  “But you lived in a bedsit,” said Antonio. “A person who has lived in a bedsit can do anything.”

  When he looked at her, though, he saw that she was transfixed by horror, and he reached for the curlicued metal handle to open the window. “Vai!” he yelled, clapping his hands. “Vai, cretino!”

  The crow, in a frenzy, thrashed hopelessly against the wooden sill. Antonio was afraid of seizing it in case he damaged its wings. Grasping the velvet curtain he whisked it to and fro to drive the creature out, still shouting. For half a minute the bird swooped and fluttered before at last it tumbled through the open window.

  “Tcha,” said Antonio, with satisfaction. He leaned out to make certain that the crow was not injured and then he closed the window. “We had better clean up, that mess will stain. Show me where the kitchen is, Mrs. Rodway. I will light the stove for hot water.”

  Olivia did not answer. She was standing beside the fireplace, a silver photograph frame in one hand. “That was horrible. Like a lost soul, trapped in the house. And the more it struggles, the worse it becomes…”

  “The creature has escaped now. It is quite safe. You are quite safe.”

  Olivia shivered. “It’s a bad omen, though. Degrading.” She turned the silver frame to show him. It was a photograph of Olivia herself, serene and haughty in a gleaming oyster-colored dress. The glass was spattered with thick gray droppings. “Dickie loved this picture, he had a copy of it in Chelsea too. It was taken on my honeymoon with Bernard. We went on an Atlantic cruise. I had never seen such luxury. I felt that I was living someone else’s life, someone luckier than me, someone more deserving…”

  There were some decanters on the sideboard, elegant Art Deco decanters tipped with chrome. Antonio poured some brandy from one of them into a glass.

  “You’re upset. Sit down, drink this.”

  Olivia swallowed the brandy. Then she strode toward the window, still clutching the photograph. “I suppose you think that I married Bernard for his money,” she said. “Well, perhaps I did. Money can be very glamorous. It wasn’t wealth I wanted, though, it was opportunity. I thought that Bernard would open up my life like some wonderful book. I’m not a greedy woman, I don’t care about furs or jewelry. All I wanted was the chance to do things, to see things. I didn’t think of it as being about money. Is that naïve?”

  “I do not know,” said Antonio. He could not keep his eyes from her as she paced across the floor, talking, talking.

  “You think you can escape your origins, but you can’t. Bernard thought that he could transform me, that I would be wax in his hands, and in a way he did, and I was. But the real me shines through, and the real me isn’t what poor Bernard wants at all.”

  The discontent in her face was like the eerie light of a storm. I love her, thought Antonio. I have never loved anyone as I love her. He tried to conjure the memory of his wife—Danila on their wedding day, sweet and shining—but her image seemed as artificial as a painted plaster saint. It had no power to protect him.

  “Besides, I cannot have his children. I destroyed all that, you know how.” Olivia’s eyes flared at him for an instant. “Bernard does not realize it, I have never told him, he would not forgive me if he knew, he would never forgive me—”

  “Hush,” said Antonio, “hush.” Crossing toward her he prised the silver frame from her fingers. Then he took out his handkerchief and wiped the glass until all the stains and smears had gone. Olivia watched him do it.

  “I thought you must despise me,” she said. “A scarlet woman, a gold digger. I was afraid you would betray me, and tell Bernard my secret.”

  Antonio stared at the photograph: Olivia, insc
rutable in her oyster silk dress. The words burned unspoken on his lips. How could I betray you? I love you.

  “No,” he said aloud, “I have never despised you.”

  “The fact is, we are alike, you and I. We’re both impostors. We do not belong here, we are outsiders, we belong in the yard of the Paradise Ballroom.” Olivia gave a skewed grin. “Do you remember, Antonio? You gave me your bottle of beer.”

  Antonio did not answer. I cannot bear this, he thought. He replaced the photograph on the mantelpiece, running his fingertips across the frame’s edge. His face felt rigid as a mask with the need to keep silent.

  “Antonio,” said Olivia, “is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing is wrong. It is only—I do not think I ought to spend the night here. Perhaps there is a place in the village where I can stay?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Olivia. “My husband knows you’re with me, it was his idea. There’s nothing scandalous about it—”

  “I’m in love with you, Mrs. Rodway.” The words rang in Antonio’s ears as though someone else had spoken them. They sounded brusque, almost angry. “It is hopeless, I realize that, I’ve always realized that, but it’s the truth.”

  Olivia did not move. Her eyes were wide as saucers. “Antonio,” she said gently, “you cannot be in love with me. You have a wife, a child.”

  “Yes, I know, I am a married man.” Antonio grimaced. “It makes no difference, though. It does not stop me from loving you. I am not a philanderer, Mrs. Rodway, I do not make a habit of seducing women. But I do not think I can stay here tonight…”

  In silence Olivia crossed to the sideboard and poured herself more brandy. “Do you know,” she said, in a conversational voice, “Bernard hasn’t laid a finger on me for six months? That’s how much my husband loves me.”

  She looked across at Antonio. There was a defiant expression on her face. It took Antonio’s breath away. “Olivia…,” he said, stepping toward her. At once she crumbled, burying her cheeks in her hands.

  “Oh, you are right, it is hopeless. Perhaps you should leave after all, Antonio. Perhaps it would be safer.”

  “Safer?” said Antonio.

  Olivia lowered her head. Her voice was so soft he could scarcely hear. “I want you too. I have wanted you since I first saw you, that night at the Paradise Ballroom. I pretended I did not, I told myself it was nothing, but all the time, Antonio—”

  He could not stop himself. He pulled her into his arms. She stiffened for an instant, startled, before she pressed herself fiercely against him. His lips were on her neck, her fingers were in his hair. He could feel the heat of her breasts. I would die for her, thought Antonio, and then: But this is betrayal, this is mortal sin. At once he lurched away.

  Olivia drew back at exactly the same time. Her eyes were wild and terrified. He knew they were the mirror image of his own.

  “Oh, Antonio. We cannot, we must not,” she said, and before he could stop her—before he could speak—she fled from the room, running up the stairs into the dark unknown depths of the house.

  Konrad Fischer’s hearing took place in the classroom of a dour redbrick Victorian school. The smell of the room reminded Bernard of his days at Rugby. It was a mixture of chalk and sweaty blazers along with an acrid scent—part boredom, part fear. Bernard felt a twang of indignation, that after all he had already suffered Herr Fischer was forced to undergo this examination.

  “Don’t be anxious,” he murmured as they sat on hard upright chairs. “It will be all right, I promise.”

  Herr Fischer licked his lips without listening. He was carrying a sheaf of documents in a brown leather music case, letters vouching for his respectability from members of the refugee association, and from Charles Connor, Dickie’s friend from the BBC.

  The chair of the tribunal was a retired bank manager named Reginald Whitworth, now a justice of the peace. “Herr Konrad Fischer?” he said, eyeing them above his gilt half-moon spectacles. “And this is?”

  “My name is Bernard Rodway. Herr Fischer was told that he could be accompanied by a friend, although regrettably he is not allowed the support of a lawyer.”

  Whitworth glanced at him before shifting his gaze deliberately to Herr Fischer. He had a port drinker’s nose, Bernard noticed, red veined and bulbous.

  “You do not need a lawyer, Herr Fischer. We wish only to determine whether you may present a threat to this country now we are at war. I am sure you understand that. You are an Austrian citizen, I believe? And you arrived in London eighteen months ago, in the spring of 1938. Do you have any family remaining in Austria?”

  Herr Fischer tried to answer, but the words stuck in his throat like sand.

  “Speak up, Herr Fischer,” said Whitworth, not unkindly.

  “My sister. My sister, Brigitta. If she is still alive…”

  The desolation in his voice put Bernard in a fury. “I presume you know, Mr. Chairman, that Herr Fischer is a refugee? He was forced to abandon a prestigious musical career in Vienna on account of Hitler’s persecution. Now that he has found shelter here he is hardly likely to offer comfort to the enemy.”

  Reginald Whitworth studied him. “What did you say your name was? Rodway? I thought that I recognized it. Don’t you write for the New Statesman?”

  “Sometimes,” said Bernard, “yes.”

  Whitworth’s eyes lit up, uncanny as marsh gas. “So you take the view that this country would be better off if we were ruled by Bolsheviks?”

  Bernard hesitated. In fact he disliked the New Statesman’s reluctance to criticize Stalin, but he was not going to give this Colonel Blimp the satisfaction of admitting it. “In my opinion, our fear of communism has blinded us to the true evil in our midst. If we had been less inclined to regard Hitler as a useful buffer against the Reds we would not be at war today.”

  “A dangerous view. The Nazis and the Soviets are allies now. Let us not forget that.”

  Bernard was about to argue back when one of the other tribunal members, an elderly, mild-looking fellow, interrupted. “We are not here to debate your political views, Mr. Rodway. We are here to consider the position of Herr Fischer.”

  “Indeed,” said Reginald Whitworth, displeased at being reminded of his own function. The atmosphere in the room grew still more awkward. “May I ask how you support yourself, Herr Fischer? Have you found employment here in London?”

  “I teach. Singing and so forth. And I have some work in the theater. I have letters here vouching for me—”

  “But it is all theatrical work?” the elderly gentleman remarked, with an air of disappointment. “Precarious in wartime, Herr Fischer. Most of our theaters have been closed.”

  “Music is Herr Fischer’s profession,” Bernard put in. “What else would you expect him to do? And it is not so precarious as you may think. Soon we will be thirsting for music to lift our spirits. Besides, Herr Fischer can call on my support at any time.”

  Reginald Whitworth glanced across as though he did not consider Bernard’s support to be much of a recommendation. The panel members murmured among themselves. The elderly man appeared to be disagreeing, politely, with his chairman. At last Whitworth indicated to the tribunal’s clerk that they had reached a decision.

  “We recognize, Herr Fischer, that you are a refugee from Nazi oppression, and that fact will be recorded in your file. In our judgment, you present no immediate danger to this country, but we would like to keep abreast of your movements. For that reason, we are placing you in category B.”

  Herr Fischer frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Certain restrictions will be placed upon you, that is all. You should not travel more than five miles from your home, and you are forbidden from owning a motorcar or a camera. Nothing that could be called draconian.” The chairman looked up with a brisk, you-can-go-now smile. “My advice is to find yourself a steady job, Herr Fischer, and perhaps we will reconsider your case.”

  Herr Fischer looked first at Reginald Whitworth, then at Bern
ard. There was a bewildered expression on his face. Bernard opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Sheltering Herr Fischer with his arm he escorted him in silence from the schoolroom.

  —

  Olivia was shocked by the outcome of Herr Fischer’s hearing. She had assumed that Bernard, with his charm, his confidence, would easily persuade the tribunal that the Austrian could do no harm.

  “Didn’t you explain that he was a refugee?” she said. They were sitting in the drawing room in Bedford Square, she and Bernard. It was an afternoon when Herr Fischer normally gave lessons, but he had sent a message to say he was not well.

  “Of course I explained. They did not want to hear, that is all.” Bernard squirted soda into his inch of whisky. “The chairman was an archetypal pigheaded Tory. Tried to get me into an argument about communism, but I wouldn’t bite.”

  Something about Bernard’s nonchalance made Olivia guess that he was lying. She had a sudden glimpse of what had really happened at the tribunal.

  Bernard switched on the radio, to forestall further discussion. The news was on: a German U-boat had managed to enter the British naval base at Scapa Flow. It had torpedoed a battleship, the Royal Oak, sinking it with the loss of nearly a thousand lives.

  “Horrible,” said Olivia, shivering.

  “Well,” said Bernard, “we had better grow accustomed to it. Those deaths won’t be the last.” He was rising to refill his whisky glass when the doorbell jangled. “Dear God, it’s Antonio. Didn’t you send to him, to tell him that Herr Fischer was ill?”

  Olivia’s heart leaped. She had not seen Antonio since their return from Sussex, and she could not tell if what she felt was joy or stomach-wrenching fear.

  “I did not think,” she said. “I assumed that you—”

  “Can’t you get anything right, Olivia? I’m a busy man, I had Herr Fischer’s tribunal, I have my ARP shifts. The least you can do is to manage our lives with a modicum of efficiency.” Bernard clicked off the radio. “You’ll have to deal with him, that’s all. My shift starts in half an hour.”