In the Mouth of the Tiger

by Lynette Silver

  ‘Denis used to love the slide,’ Maxine said. ‘He and his friends would spend hours sliding down and tumbling into the sea. Then they would climb up – always laughing – and do it all over again. Oh, the joy of being young.’

  Tony had been listening wide-eyed. ‘Can I try?’ he asked, and Maxine leaned down and pinched his cheek. ‘Only if your Daddy says so,’ she said.

  ‘And only if your Daddy goes with you,’ I added. The morning chill had completely dissipated and the day was now quite hot. Denis levered himself out of his chair and whisked Tony high into the air. ‘Real chip off the old block, aren’t you?’ he chuckled holding him up at arm’s length. ‘Come on, Tiger, let’s get some bathers on.’

  While Denis and Tony had the time of their lives careering down the slide to splash into the sea, Maxine and I sipped tiny glasses of iced crème de menthe and talked in the sun. As I have said, it was an extraordinary conversation. At first I was a little defensive, a little shy, but Maxine was so frank and charming that I found I had no alternative but to match her, confidence for confidence.

  Within minutes I was telling her how Denis had transformed me from Nona Orlov/Brayer/Roberts, a little Russian émigré girl, into Norma Felice Elesmere-Elliott, an Englishwoman born and bred.

  ‘And who do you think I really am?’ Maxine retorted. ‘I was born Jessica Dermot – Dettie Dermot to those who knew me. Even that was a sham – it should have been MacDermot but Grandfather dropped the Mac because the Irish had a bad name in New England in the middle of the last century.’

  ‘Where did Maxine Elliott come from?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘I invented it myself,’ Maxine said with relish. ‘Both the Maxine and the Elliott. Before me, there were no Maxines anywhere on earth. There are quite a few now – and whether or not they know it, they have all copied their name from mine. As for Elliott – well, it sounds nice, don’t you think? Restrained but just a little bit colourful. They use it as a first name in the States.’

  ‘Do you ever feel a little bit awkward?’ I asked. ‘I sometimes wonder if it’s right just to invent a name.’

  Maxine shook her head. ‘If you don’t own your name, what on earth do you own? You know it’s quite legal to change your name to anything you like? Just as long as you don’t change it for a fraudulent purpose. A lawyer once told me that. And he must have been a good lawyer because he ended up on the English High Court.’

  ‘Denis changed his name,’ I said quietly. ‘From Elesmere to Elliott. Do you know why?’

  ‘I think that’s his business,’ Maxine said. She didn’t say it evasively, or in implied criticism of my question, but just as a statement of fact. I found myself nodding in agreement.

  Maxine opened the subject of Denis’s involvement in intelligence work herself. We’d touched on the prospects of a world war – this was 1939, don’t forget – and she was concerned about Denis’s association with the Malayan stay-behind parties.

  ‘I don’t think he will be going into the jungle,’ I said. ‘We met Colin Mackenzie in Ceylon and he promised me Denis was too valuable to get trapped behind enemy lines.’

  Maxine knew Colin, as I thought she might, and nodded. ‘Colin is a sound man,’ she said. ‘And he’s going to run the Eastern Bureau of British Intelligence if the Japanese attack.’

  ‘I think Denis’s real boss is a man called Stewart Menzies,’ I ventured. I pronounced the name in the Scots way that Denis did, ‘Ming-us’.

  ‘You know I introduced Denis to Stewart?’ Maxine said. ‘Here at the Château. They have so much in common. For all intents and purposes Stewart is already the head of British Intelligence, but he will be in name as well before the year is out.’ She spoke the last sentence casually but with utter certainty. She wasn’t guessing, she knew.

  ‘What do you mean, they have so much in common?’

  Maxine looked thoughtful. ‘Well, they are both men of action for a start. I can’t abide the other sort, can you? The sort of man who struts and postures, and talks a lot but doesn’t actually do anything.’

  ‘What else have they in common?’ I persisted.

  ‘Oh, lots of things.’ She waved her hand dismissively, but then leaned towards me and looked me squarely in the eye. ‘Some people are not bound by other people’s rules, Norma. They invent their own. Stewart and Denis and a few other men like them play the game of life on their own terms. They chuck the dice with cavalier abandon and accept what it brings with a cheerful smile. And they don’t play for money – that’s the least worthy prize of all – but for honour, and the causes of the angels.’ Then she gave a chuckle, a little embarrassed by her eloquence, and sat back in her canvas chair with her little green drink clutched in her plump hand.

  I remembered what Denis had said in my dream. That life was only a game we played, and that when it was over we would pour ourselves a gin and tonic and laugh about it. I felt goose pimples rising on my arms.

  ‘Denis doesn’t talk about his family much,’ I said. (What an understatement! He never spoke about his family.) ‘Have you met his people?’

  ‘I know his mother, Frankie Rumens. The Rumens are a Tunbridge Wells family. Huguenots, of course.’

  ‘Why of course?’ I couldn’t help asking.

  Maxine smiled, a thoughtful, faraway look in her eyes. ‘The Huguenots almost ran London during the Edwardian years, you know. Financially and socially, and probably politically as well.’ Then she turned and smiled at me gloriously. ‘This must all seem double Dutch to you, my dear. I really will have to sit you down one day and tell you all about how it really was. How England was run in the dog-days of the British Empire.’

  Just then Domenico presented two other guests. They were middle-aged Frenchmen, looking uncomfortable in tight, shiny black suits that looked as though they had seen better days. ‘We will be having afternoon tea soon, messieurs,’ Maxine said graciously. ‘After that, we must have a long talk. In the meantime, why not join my other guests for a swim? Domenico will find you costumes.’

  Both men eyed the water uncertainly. March is not usually a month for swimming in the south of France, but a suggestion from Madame Elliott was clearly a command. When they had gone Maxine sighed. ‘My favourite Communists,’ she said. ‘Fighting a lost cause here in Provence, I’m afraid, but they do the best they can for their people. And so I do my best to help them.’

  ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ I asked. ‘They really are Communists.’

  ‘Indeed they are Communists, and proud of it. Monsieur Diderot is the mayor of Vallauris, and Monsieur Lliboutry is his town clerk. Vallauris is a little town up in the hills not far from here. It has a council elected by the people, and the council is Communist because the people of Vallauris are starving. You see, my dear, Vallauris is off the beaten tourist track. That means its people suffer the high prices caused by the tourist boom but do not receive any income from tourism. The people are literally starving amid all the plenty around us. It’s the children who really concern me. The poor little mites are so much skinnier than their cousins from Cannes or Antibes.’

  ‘Can’t the Government do anything to help?’ I asked.

  ‘The government in this part of France is almost Fascist. It is controlled by big business and it hates the Communists almost as much as Mussolini’s Fascists do over the border. The poor people of Vallauris are paying the price for electing a Communist town council.’

  ‘How do you help them?’ I asked.

  ‘By having them come here as my guests. Making a fuss of them. The local bigwigs would like people to think of the Communists as Untouchables. That way nobody is going to worry how badly they are treated. But if I, as a well-known foreigner, take an interest in them, then the powers that be will know that the world is watching. I also give them money. And I intend to do something practical for the children. I am hoping we can organise for some high-protein food to be distributed regularly at the local school. That is what I will be talking to them about later.’
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br />   Denis and Tony joined us dripping water, Tony shaking and bluelipped with cold. The Mediterranean in March was a darn sight colder than our swimming pool in Rifle Range Lane. ‘Can’t you see how chilled he is?’ I scolded, quickly kneeling down and wrapping the poor child in a towel. ‘Poor little Tony! Do you want a hot bath, my darling?’

  ‘I’m not cold, Mummy,’ Tony said stoutly. ‘Did you see me on the slide?’

  ‘Of course Mummy saw you, and so did I,’ Maxine interposed. ‘Aren’t you a brave boy!’ She turned to Denis. ‘You should have told me you had named him Tony.’ She said it with a queer, sad inflection that invested the simple remark with a significance that eluded me.

  ‘Norma chose the name,’ Denis said gently.

  ‘It’s the best name in the world,’ Maxine said briskly, looking at Tony. ‘I knew a Tony once. He was brave, and true, and honourable.’ She looked up at Denis almost wistfully. ‘I know your Tony will grow up to be just like him.’

  Afternoon tea was served in the drawing room, and it was a far more formal occasion than I had expected. There were half a dozen people around the tea table when we arrived – the two Communists from Vallauris, an American couple called Wassall, a tall straight man with silver hair whom Maxine introduced as George Keppel, and the Countess Muriel de la Warr. I was slightly flustered at being introduced to a countess, but Muriel immediately put me at ease. ‘Saw your husband and little boy shooting the slide,’ she boomed cheerfully. ‘Can’t say I’d have the guts to go into the water this time of year. But I daresay it’s about the same temperature as Brighton on a hot day in June.’

  ‘It certainly tired Tony out,’ I said. ‘He’s downstairs fast asleep. Maxine very kindly lent us a room and a nursemaid to keep an eye on him.’

  George Keppel was sizing me up with twinkling eyes. ‘So you’re the dear girl Denis has been raving about,’ he said. ‘Understand everything now. Denis has damned good taste.’ He had the same challenging eyes as Freddie Burton, and I’m sure he would have been a charmer in his day. I had a vague idea I had heard his name and I asked him in what context it might have been.

  ‘Cuckold of the King’s Mistress,’ he said immediately. ‘My wife was a great favourite of the late King. I was propelled into the limelight willy-nilly. You may well have seen me strutting about in Tatler or the Illustrated London News.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, George,’ Maxine cut in. ‘That was thirty years ago. Before Norma was born.’

  ‘Notoriety is awkward at the time,’ George said to me confidentially. ‘But it has its small compensations. I’m still offered the best seats at the opera, and the best table at the Ritz.’

  ‘That’s because you are a Keppel,’ Maxine said sharply. ‘It’s got nothing to do with the fact Alice was a friend of the King.’ She turned to me. ‘He is getting maudlin and silly in his old age. Don’t take any notice when he talks like that.’

  Domenico and a couple of footmen swept into the room with cakes and scones and cucumber sandwiches. ‘I hear Gandhi is on another of his hunger strikes,’ Maxine said, selecting a large slice of chocolate cake. ‘I do empathise with his motives, but surely doing without dinner is not going to change the views of the British Government?’ The comment was obviously aimed at changing the subject and the Mayor of Vallauris followed her lead.

  ‘I think this man – the Mahatma? – is the future of India,’ he said earnestly. ‘He has the people of India on his side. With the people on his side nothing can stop him.’

  ‘He has half the people of India on his side,’ Muriel de la Warr said crisply. ‘There is a religious divide that goes right down the middle of India, and the British will exploit that divide if ever Gandhi looks even remotely close to winning.’

  Monsieur Diderot leaned forward. ‘With respect, dear English lady, what could you know about the will of the people?’

  ‘I know a damned sight more than you do about what’s going on in India,’ Muriel retorted hotly. ‘And for your information, Monsieur Diderot, I have done something about it, too.’

  Monsieur Diderot’s expressive Gallic shrug said as clearly as words: What could an English milady possibly know about the burning issue of Indian independence? Stung by the man’s sceptical smile, Muriel sprang to her feet. ‘I might have been imprisoned – even shot as a traitor – for what I have done for the secessionists,’ she said vehemently. ‘Don’t judge a coat by its colour, Monsieur Diderot.’

  There was a slightly shocked silence in the room. As Muriel sat down, her face flaming with a mixture of righteous anger and embarrassment, I decided to intervene. ‘I congratulate you, Muriel,’ I said. ‘I think it’s dreadful how we British can suppress a whole people and still call ourselves the champions of liberty. There are Indians in Malaya too. The Tamils. They have been exploited and denied a say in things for generations.’ I looked across at Denis for support. ‘Denis and I, too, have helped these people. As best we could.’

  Monsieur Diderot ran a finger around the inside of his celluloid collar. He was clearly beginning to feel out of his depth. An entire roomful of comfortable English bourgeois were turning into revolutionary hotheads before his very eyes. ‘India is a problem for the British, I suppose,’ he conceded. ‘I was only expressing a universal truth. That the will of the people will eventually prevail.’

  It was Denis who managed to steer the conversation on to safer ground. ‘Somerset Maugham lives somewhere down here, doesn’t he?’ he asked, leaning back casually in his chair and crossing his legs. ‘Do you see anything of him, Maxine?’

  Maxine pulled a face. ‘Not since his last book of short stories. You know he put me into one of them? I’m in a story called “The Four Fat Women of Antibes”. I’ll never forgive the man. I’m one of the four fat women, for heaven sake!’

  ‘I think he dislikes women in general,’ I said. ‘What do you call those people? Misogynists?’

  The conversation became animated and general, giving me an opportunity to turn quietly to Maxine. ‘Was Muriel really at risk of being shot?’ I asked. The idea sent a shiver down my spine. After all, but for the grace of God . . .

  Maxine took me across to a grand piano that stood beside the tall French doors opening to the terrace. The top of the piano was covered in photographs in simple silver frames. She picked one up and handed it to me. It showed Muriel – a much younger Muriel – standing beside a slightly balding man with a military moustache. On the man’s other side was a girl with rather striking black hair. ‘That’s Muriel with Stewart Menzies,’ Maxine said. ‘The other woman is her daughter Avice. Avice was married to Stewart at the time Muriel was linked to a very serious plot by Indian secessionists to bring down the Raj. Stewart saved her from almost certain prison if not worse. He did it by saying that if his mother-in-law were to be charged with treason he would have no option but to resign from the Secret Service. They couldn’t let him do that – he’s by far the best they’ve ever had. So they had to leave Muriel alone. A man called Rajachandra was shot, though. For insurrection.’

  I stared at Stewart’s face in the photo. He looked so conventional, almost stuffy. And yet he’d gambled his whole career to save a woman accused of treason.

  ‘Is Avice still married to Stewart?’ I asked.

  Maxine shook her head. ‘A woman of no loyalty whatsoever. Didn’t want to be involved in her mother’s disgrace, and thought her husband was about to topple. So she went off with another man.’

  ‘How awful for Stewart.’

  Maxine shook her head again. ‘Best thing that could have happened. He’s now married to a lovely girl who would die for him. They’ve got a daughter who is the apple of Stewart’s eye.’

  Maxine paused and picked up another photograph. ‘This is the Tony I used to know,’ she said gently. ‘He was Tony Wilding, and he won the men’s singles at Wimbledon before the Great War. He played life by his own rules, too. The dice rolled the wrong way for him at the second battle of Ypres.’

  I took the photog
raph from her. It showed a handsome young man leaning casually against a sports car. ‘The picture was taken after a car rally on the Grande Corniche in 1913,’ Maxine said leaning over my shoulder. ‘Young men love speeding on the Corniche. I think it’s a combination of the danger and the extraordinary beauty. There is no road on earth as dramatic, or as dangerous, as the Grande Corniche.’

  I put the picture down carefully. ‘I know you helped the Belgians, and had a rescue barge close to Ypres during the battle,’ I said quietly. ‘Did you see your Tony at all?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ Maxine said. ‘That was part of the reason I was there. He was in the Guards, stationed at Ypres, and I saw him the night before he died. We dined on the barge that night, the Julia, just outside of Poperinge, and toasted each other in the best French champagne.’ She paused, a faraway look I her eyes. ‘I could hear a barrage beginning. A deep rumble, as though the very earth was groaning. It was awful when you heard that, because it meant that there was going to be a battle. I didn’t want Tony to go back to his regiment but he insisted. I became quite frantic, I’m afraid, because I didn’t want him to die. We shouted at each other, and then he drove back to the lines on his motor cycle. He was killed six hours later.’

  I touched Maxine’s hand. ‘He would not want you to remember the quarrel,’ I said. ‘I think he would want you to remember that death is just part of the game, and that you will both laugh about it all later.’

  Maxine gripped my arm fiercely and led me out onto the patio, where the late afternoon sun slanted through the ornamental trees and the sea looked suddenly dark. ‘You understand, don’t you Norma?’ she said. ‘We all meet up later, don’t we? Somehow, somewhere, we all meet up again? And laugh about the game we’ve all been playing?’

  I nodded without speaking.