After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  Even before Sally’s set had ended, a small party had got itself together. Charles Denham had turned up, with his American mistress, and the stiff Frenchman had seated himself, though he was rather pointedly not speaking to a French sailor whom Pym had resourcefully pursued into the gentlemen’s WC, and brought back, smiling, to the table. Vi had also appeared, having arranged for her neighbour to look after Jack. With Charles Denham’s delight at the presence of his elusive mistress, and Pym and the sailor’s satiated pleasure, the atmosphere round the party’s two tables was genial and sexy. Other factors contributed to the good mood. The war was going better; there was plenty of gin; Cora was in a good mood.

  Only Sally was at odds. She sat as far away as possible from Eugene, between Pym and Bruno, and said loudly, ‘It’s hardly worth bothering tonight. There’s nobody here. I think I’ll go home in a minute. Vi, you can do the songs.’

  Vi, though, got from Eugene the information that he could play the piano and persuaded him to accompany her in a couple of numbers, ‘A Fine Romance’ and ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. This gave the musicians a rest and the clientele a much-appreciated change from them. Eugene and Vi sat down to genuine applause and requests for more. Sally stood up abruptly and said, ‘I’m going home. I’ve got a terrible pain in my stomach.’

  ‘Bile, I should think,’ Briggs was heard to say.

  Sally, retreating fast, was also heard to say, ‘Miserable old queen.’ But Eugene, who had taken up her abandoned gas mask, which she was using as a handbag, had risen and was after her.

  He caught up with her in the street outside and said, ‘I’ll see you home.’

  ‘I’m all right on my own. I’m not a baby.’

  ‘What are you going to do when you get there anyway? Slam doors and shout, “I hate everybody, especially myself? What’s the matter?’

  ‘What do you care what’s the matter?’

  ‘I like you. You’re nice.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ cried Sally, stopping in the middle of the street. ‘Why? I’m horrible. What’s the matter with me? Why am I such a bitch?’ And she burst into tears.

  Eugene held her. ‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. It’s all right.’

  They kissed. He led her back to Pontifex Street, where they went to bed, and so Sally’s affair with Eugene began.

  ‘I’m still in love with Theo,’ she told him, in the middle of the night. ‘He’s the only man I’ve ever loved.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Eugene said.

  ‘He loves me, too,’ she said.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Eugene told her.

  ‘As long as that’s clear,’ Sally said warningly.

  ‘It’s perfectly clear.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  In the kitchen next morning Eugene, usefully making coffee, asked Bruno, who was scrambling one egg with flour to make it go further, asked, ‘Who’s this Theo?’

  ‘Theo’s a bastard,’ said Bruno, arranging Briggs’s breakfast tray.

  ‘That was the impression I got,’ Eugene responded.

  Bruno poured some of the coffee into Briggs’s cup. ‘Do you want a spoonful of this egg?’ he said generously.

  ‘No. I’m an overfed American,’ Eugene answered.

  Bruno picked up the tray and in the doorway turned and said, ‘Don’t let her make you give her up.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to,’ Eugene said firmly.

  Chapter 39

  ‘He loved her, you see,’ said Bruno on Greg’s tape.

  Greg and Katherine were sitting in front of the gas fire at Everton Gardens, silently listening to Bruno’s version of Eugene and Sally’s affair. Katherine sat on the floor, her brown hair against Greg’s knee.

  ‘But I don’t think,’ the voice went on, ‘that Sally could understand that kind of relationship. She’d come from a cold home. She lived among those cold, clever people at Pontifex Street. She’d known a lot of men, probably too many, and given them what they wanted, taken what she thought she wanted. Her heart was another matter. I don’t think her heart had ever been involved – I don’t think she knew what that was. Greg, you have to live a long time with those kind of people to understand what isn’t there, the vacuum, the heart of darkness. That’s a phrase from Conrad, you will recognise it, you are an educated man. Conrad was a Pole, you will know that too. That is how he could see that void. Poor Sally. Eugene drew her, you know. I have the picture somewhere. When I find it I will show you.’ The tape ended, with a click.

  ‘Phew!’ said Katherine. ‘He is opening up, isn’t he?’

  ‘He opens and shuts like a clam,’ Greg told her.

  At that moment the phone rang. It was Bruno. He had more to impart. ‘Can you meet me at di Angelo’s, near the park – say, tomorrow? I’ll buy you lunch.’

  ‘You must let me—’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Di Angelo’s, tomorrow then.’ Greg put the phone down. ‘Tomorrow! That’s great!’

  ‘You’re hooked, aren’t you?’ Katherine observed.

  ‘He makes sure of it,’ Greg admitted. He ruffled Katherine’s hair and she moved her head under his hand, like a cat, he thought, an expensive brown cat, a Burmese. ‘I wonder if he found the picture he mentioned. I guess I’d be one of the first people, maybe the only person, who’s seen it since the Second World War.’

  ‘I’d love to see it, too. Will he let you photograph it?’

  ‘Who knows? He makes all the rules.’

  They met at the Italian restaurant, which was not far from where Bruno lived. They ordered their food and Bruno said, ‘So, you’ve seen Pym and now Sir Peveril.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘The cast is growing bigger – yes?’

  ‘It’s not making the story any simpler,’ Greg told him.

  ‘And what did Sir Peveril say?’

  Greg looked at him carefully.

  ‘Come,’ Bruno urged. ‘I’m an old man, harmless, curious – indulge me.’

  ‘Sir Peveril’s an old man,’ Greg said. ‘But I have the impression he’s not harmless. Any more than you are. Look, Bruno, I keep thinking I’m getting into the wrong areas.’

  ‘Sir Peveril is old. He wants to keep old secrets. He has nothing to do with you or the world you live in. He is living in the past, which has changed, and changed again, and will go on changing while he sits in his comfortable country house, thinking and brooding and counting his medals and honours.’

  ‘He thinks Pym can disgrace him,’ Greg said steadily. ‘Tell me, Bruno, why do I keep on imagining I’m being sucked into something?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Or do you see the book you will write as a passport into the CIA?’

  ‘God forbid,’ Greg told him, tucking into his pasta.

  ‘You seem different,’ observed Bruno. ‘Has something happened to you?’

  ‘No. Well, my girlfriend’s with me.’

  ‘That always makes a difference. Is she an American?’

  ‘No – Katherine’s English. I met her when I was at Cambridge, six years ago.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Bruno encouragingly. But Greg told him no more.

  Instead he said, ‘Pym’s saying he has papers concerning relationships between the Soviet authorities and British spies which he’s obtained by bribery from Soviet secret files. This is what Pym told me in Moscow to tell Sir Peveril. Now, he phoned Sir Peveril and Sir Peveril phoned me and when I passed on the message Sir Peveril didn’t like it. Sir Peveril hinted that Pym would be brought back home, that the process had already been started, regardless of his threats.’

  Bruno’s fork stopped half-way to his mouth. He was silent, thinking.

  ‘Screw it, Bruno,’ Greg said. ‘What is this? You know, don’t you, what this is all about? Are you involved? Does Pym know something about you? Could he hurt you?’

  ‘Thank you for your concern but no,’ Bruno replied, in a formal, dismissive tone.

  Greg looked at him for a moment, then said, ‘Dammit, Bruno, you’re not being fr
ank with me. How do you think this makes me feel? I see Pym, Sir Peveril sees me, I tell you, then I guess you’re involved, but you won’t say how. What am I supposed to feel? Foolish or what? I’ll tell you I do feel foolish, very foolish.’

  ‘If it comes to an exchange of information,’ Bruno pointed out, ‘you’re still in my debt. I’m telling you about Sally, a lot about Sally. You’ve told me one little thing about an old spy and suddenly you’re angry. I have the picture of Sally I told you about. The picture Eugene drew.’

  ‘No!’ Greg said.

  ‘But yes, here it is. I’m going to take it to the framer’s this afternoon.’

  He bent down, picked up the briefcase beside him, opened it and handed Greg a picture about a foot square, drawn on cartridge paper, mounted on cardboard, with a protective sheet of tissue paper over it. This he handed to Greg.

  Greg lifted the tissue and found himself staring down at the face of Sally Bowles in 1943. It was a simple line drawing in black ink of a young woman in thick trousers and a long coat, with a vaguely military cut. She had a sack on her back, held by one hand and was looking half over her shoulder, as she must have been looking at the artist as he drew her, irate, but laughing in spite of herself. Her three-quarter face was a pale oval, she had strongly marked black eyebrows, frowning, a short nose, a wide slash of lipsticked mouth, a heavy dark fringe.

  Greg felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. ‘She was a beauty,’ he said, awed. Here was the woman about whom he had been researching, drawn by the man who had loved her, so long ago. ‘Oh, God!’ he said.

  ‘She was a postwoman then. The picture looks as if she didn’t want to be represented so,’ Bruno said steadily. ‘She would have preferred, no doubt, a glamorous image, something like the woman Marlene Dietrich came to represent eventually. But Sally wasn’t like that. Not even beautiful, really. She was, in any case, more attractive in motion, Sally, that was the point. You like it?’

  ‘I love it,’ Greg told him.

  ‘Good. When it’s framed, I’ll give it to you.’

  ‘No,’ Greg said, shaking his head. ‘No, Bruno. It’s too good to give away.’

  ‘It means nothing to me,’ he said. ‘But I think it does to you.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Greg said. ‘You certainly can.’

  ‘I’ll give you the appropriate papers, the provenance,’ Bruno told him.

  ‘Do you think he had talent, Eugene? I’m no judge of these things.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I believe he did,’ Bruno replied. ‘Briggs certainly thought so. He knew Eugene’s work, you see. There were some paintings but more book illustrations. That was why he was so quickly accepted by the Pontifex Street set. When Eugene came to the club Briggs had already heard of him.’

  ‘What happened to Eugene?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Bruno said.

  ‘I guess the US military could help me there. There could be records.’

  ‘There could be,’ Bruno agreed. ‘Give me the picture,’ for Greg was still holding it. Reluctantly he surrendered it.

  ‘So, a little more of our story. We must speed it up now,’ Bruno declared.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’m an old man,’ Bruno said, which sounded to Greg like an evasion. ‘Let’s talk a little more of Sally, then I must go to the shop. Some of Fiona’s silly mistakes still need attention.

  ‘Eugene managed to get to London quite a lot that summer, to be with Sally. But he still kept on trying to get posted.’

  Chapter 40

  ‘It was difficult for the black troops, always. They were in separate regiments, obviously, and commanded by white officers. Many of the white troops resented them. When they were posted near small towns they had to go into town on separate days, the black and white units. There were many fights. The sight of British girls going around with black soldiers drove some of the other Americans mad, especially the Southerners. And Eugene guessed right when he said the policy was to keep the black regiments away from combat, in case they came out as heroes. Different from Vietnam, eh?’

  ‘Pretty different,’ Greg agreed. ‘So Eugene wanted to be a hero?’

  ‘I don’t know. As he saw it it was a fight for democracy. That the US Army was not democratic he had to accept. Anyway, that summer was Eugene and Sally’s time. There were raids, yes, and the war went on. But it was summer, and that matters a lot when you’ve no fuel and clothing is scarce and you can’t light the streets. Summer, I suppose, became as it must have been in Elizabethan times, a time of sunshine, warmth and freedom.’

  ‘Time for lovers?’ Greg said.

  ‘That, too. Of course, the bombing intensified because of the long, light nights.’

  Chapter 41

  Eugene and Sally went to stay at an old manor house in a village near Cambridge. This belonged to someone Sally knew who was at that time code-breaking at Bletchley.

  In the four-poster bed one morning Eugene stretched and murmured, ‘Why isn’t this place filled with evacuees?’

  ‘Hunter must have pulled some strings,’ Sally said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  They got a punt and drifted down the Cam. Sally lay with her arms behind her head while Eugene, in uniform, got the hang of the punt pole. Later, he made her punt, while he drew her. There were some disapproving stares at the tall, fit-looking American soldier drawing the short woman in a straw hat and cotton dress, who was punting them along.

  On a bank they lay down. ‘Ah,’ said Sally lazily, under a tree. ‘This beats delivering the post to houses that were bombed the night before.’

  ‘It certainly beats life as a clerk under Captain Smith.’

  ‘Think you’ll ever get into the war?’

  ‘Not if the US Army has got anything to do with it. The military plan is to have the Negro troops spend the war fighting the Dixie boys on our side. Same enemy, only in uniform in a different country. If there’s a spot on the battlefield where some garbage needs cleaning up, that’s where we’ll go. What will you do after?’

  ‘After?’

  ‘After the war.’

  Sally looked up, through the leaves, at the blue, blue sky.

  ‘Continue the struggle?’ he suggested.

  ‘I suppose so. The struggle goes on.’

  ‘And on – and on. What about a little private life?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  He laughed. ‘You don’t know? Maybe you really don’t.’

  ‘I’ll become a celebrated cabaret star and come to New York to visit you. You’ll be a very, very famous artist. We’ll both be very, very sought-after.’

  ‘But still simple and unaffected?’

  They kissed.

  On the dark train back to London they held hands secretly under Sally’s coat. ‘I nearly love you,’ Sally whispered in his ear.

  ‘Ssh,’ warned Eugene. He pointed at the notice on the carriage wall: ‘Careless talk costs lives.’

  When they got back to Pontifex Street Pym was there, alone, drunk and in a bad mood. Eugene, about to leave, stood near the doorway. ‘They’ve all gone out to hear Vi at La Vie. She’s got a new song and the old saxophonist’s disappeared and there’s a new chap, an invalided-out soldier. He’s lost a leg, but he used to play the saxophone with one of the big West End dance bands. And he’s still got two arms.’

  ‘Cora never told me.’

  ‘You haven’t been around much, have you, Sally? And there’s a bit of news about Claudia Stein,’ Pym added.

  Suddenly Sally became very pale. ‘Is she alive?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. She’s working outside Berlin at Kummersdorf-West. It’s a research institute.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Find out for yourself,’ Pym said suddenly and aggressively.

  ‘I must go, Sally,’ said Eugene.

  ‘By the way,’ Pym said, ‘Theo’s back. He’s in La Vie with the others.’

  ‘What?’ cried Sally. ‘I’ll go there.’ And she pushed past
Eugene and was off. He stared after her.

  ‘Don’t worry, old man. She probably wants to see him about the baby,’ Pym remarked from his chair.

  ‘What baby?’ asked Eugene.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pym luxuriously. ‘She hasn’t told you about the baby?’

  Chapter 42

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me you had a baby?’ shouted Eugene. ‘A baby, for God’s sake. How come you didn’t mention your baby? A baby!’ he continued disgustedly. ‘Theo Fitzpatrick’s baby, whoever and whatever the hell he is!’

  ‘Don’t you talk like that about Theo,’ yelled Sally.

  They stood in darkness outside a dance-hall in the Strand, from which came the sounds of music. Nearby, a couple were embracing against a wall. Two soldiers passed them, hurrying into light and clouds of smoke.

  ‘To hell with Theo. What about the baby?’

  ‘Shut up about the baby,’ cried Sally, who was very upset about Theo.

  On getting downstairs at La Vie she’d searched for him with her eyes – and found only the usuals, including Briggs and Bruno, in his ambulance-driver’s uniform. There was no sign of Theo. Briggs had explained he’d gone to Chequers, for a high-level secret conference, and would be leaving immediately afterwards. A plane had been laid on.

  ‘Going where?’ Sally had asked.

  ‘It’s hush-hush,’ Briggs had told her, tapping his nose.

  ‘Did he leave a message?’ she’d been forced to ask. Briggs had just shaken his head.

  ‘Well, if you don’t care about this baby, I guess I don’t have to,’ Eugene declared.

  ‘Let’s go in and dance,’ said Sally. So they did.

  The band was loud, the crowd of dancers huge. There were women in bright frocks, though some wore ankle socks due to the lack of stockings. There were soldiers, sailors, airmen and uniforms of every description and nation. There was a haze of smoke above the dancers. Under a notice sternly saying ‘No Jitterbugging’ couples flung around, jitterbugging.