After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘So one summer night in Pontifex Street, we were sitting out on the flat part of the roof with a bottle of gin Adrian Pym had got from somewhere, and we had hauled some cushions and the gramophone up through the trap-door. It was dark, of course. There were no street-lamps, no lights showing from the houses, the skies were filled with the vast white shapes of barrage balloons. It was rather quiet, too – conditions kept traffic off the roads. It was like living in the country, really, but more menacing.

  ‘We were a good-looking group, I have to say this,’ Bruno told Greg. ‘Briggs was a tall, slender man, very handsome in an English way – a long nose and pale brown hair, with a lock that fell forward. The most beautiful thing about him was his eyebrows, over which that lock of hair so often fell – arched, fine, covering rather narrow, long blue eyes. Pym’s appearance was rather extraordinary. He was dark-haired with very blue eyes, fringed with thick black lashes. His lips were full. His body was beautiful, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, and his legs were superb. He was also very attractive, sexually attractive, and people, men and women alike, just fell for him. He had no inhibitions and this came out of him, like a scent. He could have seduced a bishop. Indeed,’ said Bruno, ‘according to him, he had.

  ‘Julia,’ Bruno went on, with a grimace, ‘was an awful girl. “Terribly pretty,” they used to say of her, and I suppose she was, blonde, with big blue eyes and a small mouth. Oh, those “terribly pretty” cold English blondes.’ Bruno smiled an old, cynical smile at Greg. ‘You will be thinking that Lowenthal, the nasty old queen, can see only the attractions of men, eh? Perhaps – but I don’t think so. So there we were, none of us yet thirty, like you, beautiful and afraid. I myself,’ he said, with some vanity, ‘was tall, blond and pretty, Aryan to the fingertips, to one who did not know the truth. I was twenty-one. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Bruno Lowenthal – tall, handsome, only twenty-one years old.

  ‘So there we sat, with the music playing, and I remember Briggs looking up, saying, “You can see the stars. It’s such a good opportunity to learn astronomy.” He was sitting on a cushion, and his hair was very neat even after the scramble up the ladder and through the trap-door to the roof. His shirt, open at the neck, was clean, his trousers still had a crease.

  ‘“I’d rather you took up astrology, Briggs,” said Pym. “Then you could put on a fringed shawl and earrings and tell us all our fortunes.” The doorbell rang downstairs. We ignored it.

  ‘“Good idea,” said Julia Montrose. Well, we all knew what she wanted an astrologer to tell her. Sir Peveril was running a branch of the intelligence services at the time. She was his secretary, and his lover. She hoped he would abandon his wife and children, who were living in the country, and marry her. But at that time Sir Peveril was not thinking of making any changes in his private life. His work was making too many demands on him. Or so he said.

  ‘Julia was sitting, tidily, on her cushion, blonde hair in a roll at the back. Pym was lying down, a bit drunk, looking as ever like an Italian angel, with his perfect golden skin, smooth dark hair, large eyes with the long lashes – oh, everybody fell in love with Adrian Pym, though he never fell in love with anyone.

  ‘And he said, in a Romanian-gypsy accent, “I see you, my dear, wife of a handsome man in his fifties, with a brood of tall sons about you, ruling over wide, rolling acres in the West.” When I say he sounded like a Romanian gypsy, he did. He had an uncanny ear for accents, a gift for languages, a nasty tongue, also. Julia winced, for he was telling her what she most wanted – and that meant he knew.

  ‘At this point the doorbell rang again, for a long time. The caller had stuck their thumb on it. “Hell,” said Briggs and, “Loomie, you’re a cad,” said Julia to Pym.

  ‘“Worse than that, dear, much worse,” he said.

  ‘Then the bell stopped ringing and a voice came yelling up through the darkness from the silent street. “Pym – Briggs – Julia – somebody! Let me in!” It was a woman’s voice.

  ‘“Who’s that?” Briggs remarked, without much interest.

  ‘I knew. “It’s Sally Bowles,” I said.

  ‘“Shit!” exclaimed Pym. “Keep down, everyone. Pretend to be out.”

  ‘The voice came again. “I know you’re in. I can hear the music. Let me in. Don’t be rotten. Loomie – let me in.”

  ‘“She’ll wake up the whole street,” Briggs said. He stood up.

  ‘”No,” Pym protested.

  ‘“Sally! Shut up! I’m coming down,” Briggs said, over the parapet. “My God! What have you got on?”

  ‘“It’s my uniform,” she shouted back. “Open the door.”

  ‘“Just stop yelling,” he called. “She’s wearing a maid’s uniform,” he told us, as he went to the trap-door.

  ‘As I followed Briggs down the ladder I heard Pym suggest, “Perhaps she thinks we’re having a fancy-dress party.” And there at the door Sally was indeed dressed as a maid in a black dress, black stockings and a white frilled apron. In her hand she carried what had evidently been a maid’s starched white cap. She came in and Briggs shut the door quickly so the light could not escape.

  ‘When we got upstairs, Briggs said, “Hello, Sally. Nice to see you. Sorry about having to ask you to leave. We’re overcrowded here as it is. Tell me one thing, why are you dressed like that?”

  ‘“I’m a maid,” Sally explained. “I’ve just slipped out to see you.” Then she came to the point: “I wondered if there was any news of Theo.”

  ‘“Well, Sally,” he said, “quite honestly, even if I knew, I’m not supposed to say.”

  ‘“I love him. He’s the only man I’ve ever really loved,” said Sally, emotionally.

  ‘“Oh, crikey,” Briggs said. “Well, since you ask me, I actually don’t know where he is.”

  ‘This was not enough for Sally. Soon she was on the roof, her uniform, especially the apron, much the worse for having climbed the ladder. She began to ramble on about Theo, the days in Berlin when they’d shared a room in a working-class house in a slummy area, the romance of it, the full moon over the Unter den Linden, the simple goodness of the honest working folk with whom they’d lodged. And who had been glad of the money, I thought. I knew that life.

  ‘She was talking about the mid thirties when she had been singing in tatty little cabarets and Theo had been collecting material for the Witness, a weekly magazine he ran at the time. And working for The Times. And reporting back to … somebody. The German authorities suspected him of spying, not wrongly, I think. To many he was a hero – young, handsome, brave, a man with a cause. Well, it was dangerous enough there, at that time, God knows, but nothing was ever going to happen to Theo. He was too quick on his feet, and always had enough connections to get him out of trouble. As always, at any time, there were Theo and his kind and there were the rest of us, the natives, with cardboard in our shoes and no ticket out. He may have been a hero, Theo, but the rest of us were martyrs, and I know which I’d rather be. I said nothing like this at the time, though. Briggs, to his credit, knew how I felt. He was tough, a martinet, a disciplinarian, of himself and everyone else. Something so harsh, so cruel in his past had made him see through everything.

  ‘Pym was different. He didn’t care what I or anyone else felt. I’ve never understood what Pym did care about. I suppose his actions were dictated by rage. He was upper class, but had no money. He was homosexual, so a criminal under the law. With care, by hard work and concealment, he could have risen high, but when he looked about him he didn’t want to rise high in this country where wealth came by accident of birth and where the law would put him in prison.

  ‘Of the three of us, I suppose Julia was the most sympathetic to Sally’s account of her Berlin romance with Theo Fitzpatrick. You only had to show these well-brought-up young women a good-looking young man, with a day’s stubble, a worker’s cap on his head, giving the clenched-fist salute, and common sense deserted them. Even today – I see the pop stars on TV sometimes – there’s still the same old glam
our. The allure of rough trade. It’s not so exciting if you grew up in that milieu, in a cap, ill-fitting shoes, not so clean.

  ‘But I lose the point. It was Pym who interrupted this romantic tale and got down to brass tacks. “Sally,” he said, “it’s rumoured you have a baby. Would it be tactless to ask if Theo’s the father?”

  ‘Sally was a bit drunk – she’d confessed to some Free French cognac taken earlier in a hotel bedroom at the Bessemer while she was doing whatever she was supposed to do, turning down the bed, dusting the dressing-table. On the roof she’d had the best part of a tumbler of gin. She put on a dignified voice and told Pym, “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  ‘“Come off it, Sally,” he said.

  ‘“Well, it isn’t.”

  ‘“If you want us to find Theo, don’t you think you owe us some information in return?”

  ‘“You’re a spy, of course, Loomie. That’s why you want to swap secret for secret.”

  ‘“I only asked—”

  ‘“And you got a dusty answer, Pym, so shut up,” Julia said. “If Sally doesn’t want to tell you who the baby’s father is, it’s up to her. Actually, Sally,” she said, “all I know about Theo is that he’s been at a sort of secret code-cracking place in the country, but he’s been agitating to go abroad to do liaison with the patriots in Norway and the last news indicated he’d succeeded.”

  ‘“Does he speak any Norwegian?” Briggs asked.

  ‘“His theory is he can get by with German and Anglo-Saxon,” Julia explained.

  ‘“Thank God those in charge have worked out a master-plan. Theo will quote Beowulf at the Germans until they surrender. This is an amateur’s war,” said Pym.

  ‘“Brilliant improvisation, that’s the term,” Briggs said.

  ‘There was the beginning of a gloomy silence. Briggs then asked Sally, “After you and Theo parted …?”

  ‘But Pym interrupted, “I think I’ve been invited to a party in Tite Street. Do you want to come along with me, Sally? I’m after a golden Norwegian, but I think he’ll like you better. Will you be my decoy?” He added, with transparent cunning, “He may know something about Theo.”

  ‘“Count me in,” said Sally promptly.

  ‘The last we saw was the pair of them going off up the dark and silent street, arm in arm, singing, “It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go—”

  ‘We heard before we saw a convoy of trucks coming towards the crossing at the top of Pontifex Street. It came slowly across the road as Pym and Sally approached the corner. There were whistles and shouts from the soldiers in the lorries and a responding chorus, “But my heart’s right there.”

  ‘“Well, Sally’s out for a good time,” said Julia, a bit sadly. Then she mentioned she was getting cold, so we went inside and to bed.’

  ‘I’m a little tired myself now,’ Bruno Lowenthal said to Greg Phillips, in the sunny room at Cornwall Street. ‘Do you mind if we finish for today?’

  ‘No, no, of course not, sir,’ Greg said, startled, coming back suddenly to the present, into the antique-filled room. He looked at the old man opposite. ‘Thank you. It’s been most interesting. I’m impressed by your memory.’

  Bruno said, slowly, ‘I seldom think of those days. The last time I really remembered it all was when the participants were exposed, disgraced, fled to Moscow. Now it all comes flooding back. But it is very tiring.’

  There was a silence. Greg was not sure how to respond and was fearful that, if he got it wrong, Bruno would escape him. He said, tentatively, ‘Should we perhaps leave intervals between sessions, sir?’

  ‘Call me Bruno. No, no. Come tomorrow, to the shop, at one o’clock.’ He got up and took a card from a bowl on the mantelpiece. ‘Here is the address.’

  The audience was over. Greg, who had been listening in silence for two hours, his head reeling, took his leave. He could not believe, as he found his way back to his cheap hotel, that this was happening to him.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Katherine?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman’s voice, at the other end of the line, uncertainly. ‘Yes? Who are – my God! Oh, my God,’ she said, half amused, half horrified. ‘It’s you, isn’t it, Greg?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Katherine. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Are you here?’

  ‘Yes. Katherine, can we meet? I realise you may not want to see me. You got my letter?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I want to see you. Greg, it’s been six, nearly seven years. I often think of you.’

  ‘I often think of you. You’re still Miss Ledbetter, I assume.’

  ‘Dr Ledbetter,’ she told him.

  ‘I’m imagining you in a study overlooking Newnham’s immemorial elms, fire burning, surrounded by books—’

  ‘Grey hair piled on top of my head, held up by hairpins, fashionably dressed in a baggy tweed skirt and lisle stockings. No, I’m in my jeans looking out over the immemorial bus-stop in Histon Road. How are you getting on?’

  ‘That’s the point. Did you ever hear of Bruno Lowenthal?’

  ‘Bruno Lowenthal? I think so. But it’s just a name. I know almost nothing about him. Do you want sources?’

  ‘Not sources, Katherine. Background. Can you help me – please? I’ll pay for the dinner.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Cambridge.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can help. Now I think about it, I can’t even remember when he died.’

  ‘That’s because he’s not dead. I’ve just been talking to him.’

  ‘What! He’s alive. You found him. How? Where is he?’

  ‘London. He runs some kind of antique shop.’

  ‘How the hell did you find him? Who put you on to him?’

  ‘Unlike in Britain, life in the United States sometimes happens without us having to contact our own or someone else’s cousins. What I did was get a British telephone directory, look up Lowenthal under L, then I called him. Neat trick?’

  ‘Phew!’

  ‘So, dinner tomorrow night? Give me the address and I’ll collect you.’

  ‘Not tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow you’re having a working dinner with Professor Thomas Thomson-Thomson, who’s married to your godmother. The affair’s a secret, but everybody knows.’

  ‘Greg, you’re psychic. Or maybe just psychotic. I’ve sometimes wondered why we ever parted. Now I’ve remembered.’

  ‘Because, like Dracula, you couldn’t live in daylight.’

  ‘Cancel the dinner.’

  ‘No. I’m coming the day after.’

  ‘No – the day after that.’

  Later Katherine Ledbetter, who was indeed sitting at a book-laden desk in a room overlooking the gardens of Newnham College, Cambridge, including its immemorial elms, put the phone down and whispered, ‘Oh, Christ.’

  While Greg, in his Bayswater Hotel, measured his length on the dismal raspberry-coloured bed-cover and groaned, ‘Oh, God – Katherine, Katherine.’

  It had been many years since they had had their mad affair in Cambridge, followed by a terrible parting. Like Dracula again, it wouldn’t die, never had for Greg, anyhow, and now that he had spoken to her, he knew it had not died for Katherine either. She couldn’t disguise it. He knew her voice too well.

  In Cambridge, Katherine planned rapidly to cancel their meeting on some spurious grounds. Then she made a phone call to a relative.

  Meanwhile Greg, in London, had decided that she was deciding to do this and resolved to take effective counter-measures next day. He would leave for Cambridge as soon as his second meeting with Bruno Lowenthal had taken place. He would arrive twenty-four hours before they had agreed to meet and cut her off at the pass as she tried to escape him.

  Chapter 12

  The day after Sally’s visit to Pontifex Street she arrived in the foyer at the Bessemer at six in the morning, somewhat drunk, her maid’s uniform dusty and torn. From the desk, Bates’s eye was gloomy but unsurpr
ised.

  He reported her, of course, and Cora Blow sacked her. ‘You’ve been a chambermaid here for two days – two days too many,’ Cora remarked unemotionally.

  ‘Mrs Blow, I left the hotel at ten last night and returned at six this morning. Surely you can’t expect me to be on duty all day and all night as well.’

  ‘Can’t I? In the good old days there was no such thing as time off. Your off-duty time is when I say it is,’ Cora replied implacably. ‘Moreover, there’s the damage to your uniform and a complaint from Colonel le Brun.’

  ‘He complained about me?’ protested Sally.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Cora said. ‘It’s your job to stay away from the guests.’

  ‘He said he knew my mother.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps it was even true. I fail to see what difference that makes, especially to a Frenchman.’

  ‘So I’m sacked.’

  ‘Up to a point,’ Cora conceded. ‘It’s plain you haven’t even the vestiges of the making of a chambermaid. But I have another position to offer you.’

  Sally, who was feeling dizzy, looked at the astonishing old woman with apprehension. What was she about to suggest? It might be anything.

  But Cora’s plan was music to Sally’s ears. The deep basement was part kitchen – if the guests had only known what it was like they would have paid not to dine at the hotel – part repository for old furniture and part cellar. Cora’s idea was to clear out part of this area, put in a bar and paint the place pink: La Vie en Rose would be created, bomb shelter and club in one. With a band or, at any rate, a pianist, so that people could dance – and a cabaret.

  ‘You’ll do,’ said Cora. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let in anyone I don’t like. Hand your uniform to Mr Bates. It’ll be ten shillings for cleaning and repairs. I’ll have the money now.’

  Sally handed it over. Cora put it in her pocket. She said, ‘There’s another artist, a singer who plays the piano. She’ll double as manageress so you’ll have to take your orders from her. I’m sorry about that but quite honestly, Miss Bowles, I couldn’t put you in charge of a rice pudding, and Vi Simcox, who sings under the name of Lola Laine, is a thoroughly competent young woman. She’s not exactly out of the top drawer but you’ll have to make the best of that’