After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘Sales, buying trips. Other dealers come to me, I go to them. There’s a grapevine. I’m training the girl, Fiona, to go to sales for me. But she’s not good. As you may have seen, I specialise in Regency and early Victorian objects. I like them very much – they are cosier than eighteenth-century things but not so ornate as furniture became later in the nineteenth century. In the nineteen fifties there was quite a lot about in houses and attics. It was not so much valued – you might find a card table in a greenhouse, with flower-pots on it, a chair, original upholstery, in a spare bedroom. It’s not so easy now, but that was when I began to deal in it, and learn.

  ‘You see, Greg, once the war was over I became a junk-dealer in an area of junk-dealers, men with horses and carts going round buying old gas-cookers, baths, broken chairs. When I got a van I became an aristocrat. All London was dilapidated at that time. What was not broken was old and this neighbourhood was as bad as anywhere. One of my distinguished professional rivals – he had a shop not three hundred yards from where I am today – was a famous mass murderer. He had the bodies of six or seven women buried in his flat and his back yard. So, I dealt in old pots and pans, chipped plates, second-hand electric fires, cookers – not very nice. Then slowly I began to collect better things, quietly, and sell them. I haven’t done so badly, eh?’ he asked. ‘Not for a poor immigrant boy, a refugee. You’re an American. You understand such things.’

  ‘You left Pontifex Street?’ Greg said.

  Bruno shrugged. ‘After the war, Briggs dumped me. He found someone more attractive and that was it, goodbye, Bruno. I wasn’t sad. I was fed up with him. Out of decency – and because I knew too much – they fixed me up with papers and Briggs gave me a little money to get started. Not much but, to be fair, all he had. He was not a wealthy man. What I minded, though, was that I never saw him again. I phoned once, then I wrote. Nothing. He was cold, Briggs.’ He paused then told Greg, ‘They were all cold-Pym, Briggs, Julia Montrose – cold in a way I don’t suppose you could imagine.’

  They had ordered and the waiters brought their food. Bruno tucked into his veal with appetite. Then he looked up at Greg and asked, ‘Tell me about your book. How long have you to write it?’

  ‘There’s no set deadline. But I hope to begin writing some time next year. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you talk to me, sir.’

  ‘I told you to call me Bruno. These days I am too much “Sir” or Mr Lowenthal. That happens when you get old. Well, you want more information, you ambitious young man, in a hurry. Where were we?’

  ‘Sally had gone off to a party with Adrian Pym. But first, Bruno, can you tell me what happened to Sally? I can’t find any record of her. Of course, women marry and change their names. Do you know how she finished up?’

  ‘She’s dead, I suppose, like so many of us,’ Bruno told him. The thought appeared to give him no pain. ‘But here she is again,’ he said briskly, ‘in spirit. That’s enough. Turn on your little recorder and let’s go on. You have your career to consider.’

  Greg placed the recorder on the table and shot Bruno a quick, intense look, as if by catching the old man unawares he could work out who he was, and what approach he was taking. He knew – just knew – that there was more to Bruno Lowenthal than met his eye. His glance did not escape Bruno, who smiled knowingly, as if he had guessed what Greg was thinking. Sitting in the restaurant, with its view of the park, Bruno’s cracked, precise voice went on: ‘This park used to be full of barrage balloons. The ropes securing them were all over the place – you’d fall over them in the dark. Sometimes the balloons were on the ground, huge and white. It was completely dark at night, of course, because of the blackout. The whole city was dark. We lived by looking up, I suppose, at the moon and the stars, the searchlights – and the aircraft overhead. Often, you would see the swastikas painted on their sides. People made love in the park, on the grass with the bombers going overhead.’

  Greg smiled. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ the old man said. ‘When I thought Briggs wouldn’t find out. You could meet anybody in the dark.’ The old blue eyes took on a gleam. ‘Yes, well,’ said Bruno, in a more practical tone, ‘it was a long time ago. Now, where were we? Ah, when the Blitz began …’

  Chapter 15

  ‘The battle of Britain was over then – all those dull little places with dull names, Ramsgate, Hastings, Bromley, Orpington, had been bombed. The people would look up and see the planes fighting just above the trees, lower sometimes. They called it hedgehopping. And the average life of a Spitfire pilot in those days was, they said, three weeks. The attack on the cities was still to come. But before that, and before La Vie en Rose was due to open, Sally arrived suddenly at Pontifex Street one evening with her luggage, an officer of the Free French Army and a mattress. There was an attic upstairs, just a room about twelve yards square with a sloping roof and a skylight and two very small windows, high up. You had to climb a ladder to get up to this room. And Sir Peveril Jones, who, you will remember, was our landlord, had told Sally she could have it. She was moving in.

  ‘When she arrived Briggs and Pym were there having a drink. I was cooking supper. Briggs fought back. “You can’t possibly stay. There’s only one bathroom,” he said, and instantly phoned Sir Peveril at his secret War Office number. He was on the phone to Sir Peveril when Julia came in, making a fuss also. She didn’t know Sally well, but I don’t think she wanted to be associated with Sally in people’s minds. It was a matter of her reputation. After all, Julia was having an affair with Sir Peveril, who had a wife and several young children tucked away in an old manor house on the Welsh borders. Sally, though, was open in what she did – she never had an ulterior motive. Julia believed that if Sally was about, people would connect them, call them both tarts – and Julia was being very careful for she wanted to marry Sir Peveril and be Lady Jones of the Elizabethan manor house.

  ‘But it was Briggs who made the most fuss. He raised his voice to Sir Peveril, which showed how angry he was because Sir Peveril was much senior to him at his office – and his landlord.

  ‘I only heard Briggs’s end of the conversation, naturally, but it sounded as if Sir Peveril was determined. He told Briggs that Sally would be singing at La Vie en Rose and would need a base nearby, and that, as you could say, was that. I thought at the time that Sir Peveril must have some old connection with Cora Blow and that that was why he gave Sally permission to stay in the attic at Pontifex Street. Briggs went on arguing but then he had to stop. He was achieving nothing, except to annoy his landlord – a generous landlord, I might say. He charged little rent, paid readily for repairs and breakages and probably Mrs Thing’s wages. He was not a man to upset.

  ‘While this was going on Sally and the French officer were humping her mattress upstairs and Pym was lying there in a chair with his shirt off and a glass in his hands, looking quite detached. He’d brought home some tough in the uniform of the Foreign Legion, a brute with no neck and frightening eyes who was sitting on the sofa drinking and looking round him like a murderer. Then Briggs had to end his call, because Sally came in with her Frenchman. The Legionnaire started telling the story of an incident in North Africa where the Legion had gone to punish a village for some act of defiance. It ended with torture and massacre. He was a dreadful man. Briggs listened with horror, Pym as if the man were telling a story about going to buy a newspaper. Then I seem to think we all drank some whisky and many people arrived – Charles Denham, who was a novelist, and a young Air Force officer, Ralph Hodd. And there was a man from SOE who had been at Eton with Briggs, and a cousin of Julia’s and her friend, who were both WAAFs in uniform, and Geoffrey Forbes, whose name you may remember. He also became famous later, not in a good way. I had prepared dinner but I could see how the evening would end. I went upstairs and began to move things out of the attic, a broken chair and so forth, and sweep the floor.

  ‘When I came down the ladder Sally was coming out of the bathroom, wearing an evening dress
I knew belonged to Julia. Well, that meant trouble. By the time she got back into the room Pym had said something to make one of the other girls cry – he could be very cruel. Julia, of course, began to complain about her dress. “But I’m going dancing,” Sally was saying, “and you said you were staying in.” Julia was telling her that that was not the point, but I don’t think Sally could see it that way. As this went on the French officer sat down at the piano, which was an impressive Steinway, and started to play Chopin. The Legionnaire got up, grabbed at the WAAF who wasn’t crying and started to swing her round the room, holding her very close and bending over her as if they were in some working-class cabaret. I don’t think she liked it. And so the evening went on, with people coming and going – a vase was broken when Charles Denham tried to rescue the WAAF from the Legionnaire without success, so Sally broke in between them and went on dancing with him while the young woman fled upstairs.

  ‘I can’t tell you what that atmosphere was like, always, at Pontifex Street,’ Bruno told Greg. ‘You would have had to have been there. We were young, young as you are, Greg, we were facing a war, we didn’t know what would happen – we thought we would probably die. Our fathers had died in millions in the Great War, why should we do any better? And everybody, nearly everybody, was doing secret work.’ Bruno shrugged. ‘You can’t describe it. I’ve forgotten it myself. Just sometimes, when I pass a building, perhaps, or hear a certain piece of music, do I remember. Anyway … anyway …’ His voice trailed off.

  Then he said, ‘I went to sit in the kitchen. I was fed up. I was supposed to look after the household. This was my contribution. But it was a nightmare. No one helped. No one thanked me. My relationship with Briggs, who had saved me, got me into Britain, describing me as a servant, was terrible. I had no status in the country, no friends, no relatives, no certainty. And I had lived in Germany until nineteen thirty-five. I knew very clearly what would happen if the war was lost. I was sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring the noise – they had the gramophone playing now – and people were coming in and out. I felt very low, very depressed. Then Briggs came in. He said only, “I’m going upstairs. I’ve work to do.”

  ‘There was a crash, and laughter and the doorbell rang again. There were feet on the stairs and cries of welcome. A very handsome young man put his head round the door, “Alexander!” he cried. “Where’s Loomie?”

  ‘“I really don’t know, Casimir,” said Briggs.

  ‘Then in came Charles Denham and sat down at the table with a sigh. Briggs said to him, “Charles, I’m heading upstairs. I’ve work to do,” but Charles replied, “Gerda’s staying in Gloucester with her aunt.”

  ‘Gerda was his lover, but she was married to an American diplomat and would not leave her husband and children for him.

  ‘“Rotten for you,” said Briggs, but without much concern in his voice. He turned to leave the room.

  ‘Charles halted him. “No,” he said. “Listen, Briggs, do you know a man called Jonty Till?”

  ‘“No, I don’t think so.”

  ‘“I’ve got a suspicion he’s Gerda’s latest.”

  ‘“That’s no good, if it’s true.”

  ‘“You couldn’t find out for me, could you?”

  ‘“Me? Why?” asked Briggs, astonished.

  ‘“Well, you’re supposed to be a spy.”

  ‘“My dear Charles, first, I’m not a spy, and second, even if I were, what makes you think I’d spend the Government’s money hanging about outside Gerda’s house to see what she’s doing? I suppose you’d want me to wear a false beard.”

  ‘“Oh, God, I’m so unhappy. It’s the uncertainty. If only I knew. I’d rather have the truth, whatever it was.”

  ‘“I shouldn’t think you would,” Briggs said. “If you knew for certain this Till character had supplanted you, you’d feel even more unhappy. Look, Charles, what with there being a war on I really must go away and look at my papers.” He added, “Have you asked her about Till?”

  ‘“Yes. She said there was nothing between them.”

  ‘“I suppose she might anyway.”

  ‘“Quite. I think I’ll go and see if there’s anything to drink.” Denham got up and swayed out of the room.

  ‘Briggs said, “Oh, my God. Doesn’t he realise? I think it’s escaped him we’re fighting a war against Hitler and his fascists.”

  ‘Sally, bright-eyed and red-cheeked, was in the doorway. “But how nice it would be if someone helped – the Soviet Union, for example,” she said. Because, of course, Stalin and Hitler had signed a pact which meant that Russia wouldn’t fight.

  ‘“You know the party line,” Briggs said sternly. “But what I’d like to know is how you persuaded Sir Peveril to let you have the attic.”

  ‘“I didn’t persuade him at all, darling,’ Sally said. “I just rang up and asked him and he was an absolute sweetie and said yes, of course I must move in if I wanted to. He’s a darling, but honestly, Briggs, I do hope we’re all going to be great friends here and get along like a house on fire, with never a cross word between us.”

  ‘“I hope so, too,” said Briggs, “but I’m not optimistic. Still, while we’re chatting, Sally, do tell me, what did you do with your baby? Leave it on a bench at King’s Cross?”

  ‘“Don’t be so utterly foul, Briggs. The baby’s in the country with my family. My old nanny’s gone back to help.”

  ‘“If anyone asked me for my advice,” Briggs said deliberately, “I wouldn’t recommend them to hand over another child for her to bring up. Not after you.”

  ‘“Aren’t you a bastard, Briggs?” Sally said. “Nanny Trot’s absolutely wonderful. I think it’s horrible to say things about a person’s nanny.” She turned to the young officer with whom she had arrived. “Pierre, sweetie, I’m desperate to get out of here. Shall we go to the French, darling?’ And they disappeared.

  ‘“She’s going to be such a nuisance,” Briggs said, and went straight upstairs to do his work.

  ‘Not long after that I saw Pym and the Legionnaire staggering up the stairs together. Pym had his hand in the back of the Legionnaire’s trousers. I wondered how much work Briggs would get done. Briggs and I slept in the larger bedroom upstairs and Pym’s bedroom was at the end of the passageway. Julia had the room further along, between Pym’s and ours, opposite the bathroom, but that was all right. It was Pym and Pym’s boyfriends – pick-ups, really – who were the problem.

  ‘I think that before war was declared the flat had been rented to a young couple who kept it as a base for when they wanted to come to parties and other things in London, and it was consequently well decorated and furnished. As time went by, of course, standards declined.

  ‘I went and sat down in a chair by the window. The WAAF who had cried had fallen asleep on the sofa. The other was searching in a cupboard for gramophone records. Then she started dancing with Hodd, the RAF officer. Sally and her French officer were still there – they had not gone out. The music stopped and I heard her saying to Charles Denham, who was standing by the fireplace, “No, Charles. It’s not Jonty Till. It’s his brother, Vernon. He and Gerda spent a weekend together in Scarborough – everybody knows.” She never had any tact.

  ‘Meanwhile Pym had rolled downstairs, in a pair of jodhpurs, and was rummaging in a cupboard for a bottle. He straightened up, holding it. “Scarborough – funny place to go,” he remarked. “And, Charles, I hope we’re not going to hear of any more of those tired old suicide attempts of yours.”

  ‘Charles crossed the room and tried to punch him on the nose, but only hit his cheek because Pym turned his head aside at the last moment. Charles tried again. A girl in a beret who had just come in screamed. Someone pulled Charles away. It wasn’t hard. Pym staggered off upstairs. Then everyone who was left woke up the WAAF and we all went off to the French pub.

  ‘We rolled through the dark streets singing, “You stepped out of a drain. You looked quite insane. That’s why I loved you—”

  Bruno sat quie
t for a moment. He cleared his throat and went on. ‘Then La Vie en Rose tried to open. There were more cellars behind it and these became useful later on during air-raids – we’d sit on the old empty casks Cora had kept there since Edward VII’s time, or on a carpet on the floor or in a set of dining chairs she had cleared out of the hotel in the twenties. It was quite luxurious compared with the tube stations or the cramped air-raid shelters in people’s gardens.

  ‘You entered La Vie by going down the steps from the street into the basement. The main entrance of the hotel was next door. Once down there you banged on an unpleasant purple door with whatever you had in your hand, the women used to take off a shoe sometimes to hammer with. Then at some point someone would open up, Cora, perhaps, or Vi – or one of the band or a guest, even. One night young Hodd, a bit the worse for wear, was beating on the door crying out in an Irish accent, “Will you open up in there, for the love of God? What does a man have to do to get a drink round here?” Then the door opened and he was looking straight into the face of an air vice-marshal, who just said, “Thank God you’re not in uniform, Squadron Leader,” and let him in. Of course, Hodd was in uniform.

  ‘The legend went that one day two girls in evening dress, looking for their boyfriends, had the door opened to them by Winston Churchill, who said gallantly that if they couldn’t find who they were looking for they’d be welcome at his table – where his private secretary, a cabinet member and a general were sitting.

  ‘The rules for membership of La Vie en Rose were the same as the rules for staying at the Bessemer. If Cora liked you, you got in. If she didn’t, you stayed out. The room was very small, rectangular, only about twenty-one feet by fifteen, with a bar at the back, next to the stairs, a tiny platform at the other end, hardly big enough to take the band, which usually consisted of a piano, saxophone and a couple of drums. There was just enough room on this dais for Vi or Sally, who worked in shifts. Apart from that there were ten small tables, crammed together and in front of the platform a tiny space where you could dance – almost. People were jammed together on busy nights but in places like that they like to be crowded together.