After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘How does Simon Ledbetter come into the story?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Common knowledge. Didn’t they tell you? The guy who originally owned the house and left it to Simon bought it for his retirement from some top Whitehall job. He was a relation of Simon’s, so it’s said, but really his boyfriend. Bloke died, left it to Simon. But, way back, he’d been involved with all these spies – the dead bloke, that is, the owner of the house. He was cleared, of course, but what does that mean? Mum read me out the obits over the phone when he popped off. It was big news round here at the time. I’d tell you his name but I can’t remember it. Anyone round here could tell you, though.’

  Greg was silent and thoughtful. Who was this man who’d left Simon his house? Hadn’t the woman, Julia, called him Allie? Was that when Simon Ledbetter had made an excuse to go home? And he had Eugene Hamilton’s drawings on his wall, but he hadn’t mentioned it. Allie. Alexander Briggs. Greg’s heart sank. The man who’d owned Simon’s house had been Briggs. It had to have been him! Christ! Oh, Christ, he thought desperately. He caught Roger’s eye.

  ‘Thinking?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Greg said. ‘In a big way. And getting nowhere. But life goes on. Should we be getting back?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got to drive Mum and Sis home,’ Roger said.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Greg said. ‘I’ll take you. You insured for me to drive? Is it far?’

  ‘Only two miles. And I wouldn’t mind if you did, thanks very much. I’ve a few black marks on my licence already,’ Roger told him. ‘OK, let’s go.’

  As they walked back across the quiet village green Greg began to feel depressed. Anger might have been easier, but he couldn’t manage it. Only depression.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Katherine asked him, as they came in.

  ‘In the pub,’ Greg said neutrally. He had realised Katherine must know about the house, about Briggs. But she hadn’t told him.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, Roger was planning to drive his family home, but he’s had too much to drink, so I’ve volunteered. Should I go back for the car first and drive you and Simon home?’

  But Katherine said she and Simon would be able to get back to Chapel Manor Farm together when they wanted to leave. ‘Don’t settle down with Roger,’ she warned. ‘He’ll have you drinking till dawn.’

  The road to the Wellses’ led straight from the village. In the car Greg enquired, ‘Mrs Wells, Roger was telling me Simon inherited the house from a friend. I don’t suppose you remember his name?’

  ‘Briggs,’ she said. ‘He was called Alexander Briggs.’

  As Greg drove on into the darkness, she added, ‘I met him a couple of times, with Simon, at Christmas, like now. He’d bought the place to retire to so he wasn’t here much. Then he died just before he was due to move in permanently. Rather sad. Of course, he left the house to Simon.’

  ‘What did he retire from?’ Greg asked.

  ‘He was something very high up in the Civil Service,’ explained Mrs Wells. ‘He was knighted. He worked very closely with the prime minister, whoever it was at the time.’

  ‘What was Briggs like?’ asked Greg.

  ‘I didn’t know him well. He was tall and thin and very dignified, a sort of touch-me-not attitude.’

  ‘I’m asking,’ said Greg, ‘because his name has cropped up in the research for the book I’m writing. I didn’t realise he had anything to do with Simon Ledbetter.’

  And Roger’s voice came from the back of the car. ‘Whoops.’

  ‘What, Roger?’ asked his mother.

  ‘I just said, “whoops,” – awkward territory.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Greg. ‘That’s the impression I’m getting.’

  They had arrived at Roger’s mother’s house. Roger opened the gate. Greg parked the car. He said he wouldn’t come in, and refused Roger’s offer to drive himself back to the village. ‘I think I feel like some exercise,’ he said.

  Roger got him a walking-stick from the hall, ‘You never know,’ and they parted. ‘Good luck, old man,’ said Roger, looking at him with friendly concern. Drunk as he was, he had evidently noted that Greg was upset by the revelation that Briggs had once owned Chapel Manor Farm. He added, ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Greg, and set off down the cold, quiet road. There were hedges and fields on either side. An owl hooted.

  That explained the pictures, he thought. They’d probably been acquired by Briggs during the time Eugene was seeing Sally.

  But nothing else was explained, he thought, striding through the darkness. The least of it was why his host hadn’t told him about the Briggs connection when he had first heard what Greg was doing. What was more important was why Katherine hadn’t told him. How long ago had she realised that her uncle was living in a house left to him by a man who had shared Sally’s war years? From the outset – when he had first written to her saying he was coming to Britain and why? Or had it been later, after he arrived and started talking to Bruno Lowenthal? However long it had taken her to put two and two together, she must have known when he went to Russia to see Pym, must have known when they came down here. But she had said nothing.

  Greg took a swing at a bush with Roger’s stick. Well, shit, Phillips, he said to himself, face it. You’ve been conned. And the big question is, why? And when you and Katherine started sleeping together again, was it because she liked you or because she was just trying to find out what you were doing?

  He needed to have it out with her immediately. It wasn’t a very attractive idea, on Christmas Eve with the prospect of Christmas Day stretching ahead. But he was not prepared to wait. He wanted the whole thing out in the open, however much it hurt – and he was getting the idea it might hurt a lot.

  Back at Chapel Manor Farm he found Simon and Katherine in the drawing room, by the fire. Katherine looked up. ‘Did you get them back in one piece?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, they’re nice people,’ he returned.

  ‘You took quite a liking to Roger, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, though he’s a little bitter about things. Perhaps he has reasons.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Simon agreed. ‘Though Julia often describes him as an animal.’

  ‘That’s hard to imagine.’

  ‘I can see him getting drunk and falling over the furniture,’ Katherine said. ‘Perhaps the animal she meant was a big clumsy dog. Do sit down, Greg. You look uneasy standing there.’ Greg opened his mouth to speak when Katherine added, ‘By the way, there’ve been phone calls – on Christmas Eve! All about your friend Pym.’

  Greg poured himself a drink and sat opposite the fire. ‘Roger told me in the pub there’d been an announcement he was being allowed back. Who phoned?’ Greg asked.

  Simon said, ‘Well, as you’ll know, this house was left to me by a former friend of Pym’s, Alexander Briggs.’

  Greg mentally congratulated the pair of them. Very good, very neat. They had guessed that by now he’d most likely have discovered that Simon had inherited the house from Briggs, and their strategy was to pretend they thought he’d known it all along. If he said he hadn’t, they’d express amazement. They’d say, but surely – but they’d thought – but hadn’t Katherine—? Suddenly, he began to wonder if he was being paranoid, if perhaps Katherine and Simon had genuinely thought he knew about Briggs. But what about Eugene’s pictures? Meanwhile Simon was saying, ‘I had to tell them there weren’t any letters or papers. I sent everything like that to Briggs’s sister when he died.’

  ‘Who wanted the documents?’ Greg asked.

  ‘The Foreign Office.’

  ‘On Christmas Eve?’

  ‘That’s always the way with civil servants. Forty years of inactivity and then a flurry on high days and holidays. I told them I’d sent everything on. There wasn’t much here, a few personal letters, a set of notes for essays about some painters Briggs was thinking of writing after his retirement. There may have been some documents in the London flat, I d
on’t know, but the flat and its contents went to his sister.’

  Greg’s eye went involuntarily to the grate, where the fire burned, as if he could see letters and documents going up in flames. Simon’s eye followed his. ‘What’s it all about?’ Greg said.

  ‘God only knows,’ Simon said. ‘Pym’s returning and the bureaucrats are getting their knickers in a twist, egged on by the spooks and watchers, who are short of work now.’

  ‘I suppose Pym’s arrival will delay your book, Greg,’ said Katherine.

  ‘I doubt it,’ he said calmly. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Won’t you want to hear Pym’s side of Sally’s story?’

  ‘Sure,’ Greg said. ‘But I’m not prepared to put everything on hold until he’s prepared to speak with me, which could be never.’

  There was a silence. ‘You don’t find that approach a little unsatisfactory, knowing there’s further information to be got and going ahead anyway?’ came Simon’s voice.

  ‘You’re implying my attitude is unscholarly,’ Greg replied. ‘And I have to agree with you, in a way. But I’ve made the decision to deal with what material I have, not wait for Pym’s revelations at some unforeseen time in the future. I’m assuming there’s a strong possibility there will be no comment from Pym. From what he told me in Moscow he was trading his return here for his silence.’

  There was an uncomfortable pause. Greg felt the room chilling and sensed than Katherine and her uncle wanted to continue to talk without him. Suddenly, he felt violent anger. Here was a lovely girl, beautiful and clever, his girlfriend, plainly wanting to spend the rest of the evening, Christmas Eve, talking to this elderly man about long-gone events that did not concern her, her life or her future. And he had started to think that perhaps he would be part of that future, she part of his. What a sucker. She’d been deceiving him all the time. He was sure of it. And why had she brought him here in the first place?

  ‘Another drink, Greg?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll get along to bed.’

  ‘I’ll be up in five minutes,’ she said.

  Greg turned in and lay waiting for her. At least here, in bed, he’d have her to himself and be able to ask her about when she’d realised he was dealing with people who had known Briggs.

  Katherine did not come up to bed five minutes later, as she had promised, or in ten, or in fifteen. Almost an hour later Greg drifted off to sleep, conscious of the little pile of brightly wrapped Christmas presents on a table by the door, winking at him as he lay alone in bed.

  Chapter 49

  Late on Christmas Eve Bruno Lowenthal was alone in his pleasant flat at 11, Cornwall Street, though all too conscious of the others in the house. He could hear his tenants’ damned record-player in the basement – even though he was two floors up – the damned Threepenny Opera blaring out, all harsh chords and coarse German voices. What a choice for midnight on Christmas Eve. ‘Ach,’ he heard himself say in fury. If he weren’t so busy he’d go downstairs and complain. But he must get on, time was running out. He had rewound the tape he had been making for Greg and now pressed the button, pleased to find that he had operated the recorder correctly and that his own voice was coming out.

  ‘Greg, I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas now, though I’ve just had a phone call which makes me wonder if you are. Surprises, eh? Pym coming back after all these years. And you staying with Simon Ledbetter! What a coincidence, eh?

  ‘Well, Greg, I’m beginning to think a biographer can be like a scientist – you know the theory, I expect, that the scientist himself, in doing the experiment, changes the result.

  ‘Before you arrived Pym was safely away in Moscow where he’d been for forty years and where everyone thought he’d die and never trouble anyone again. And an old man would not have expected to have been rung up on Christmas Eve by one of Sir Peveril’s minions, warning him not to say anything to the press and not to try to get in touch with Pym, which is what has just occurred. I have to tell you, Greg, that before you came here, as far as I know, Sir Peveril didn’t even know where to find me, which made us – made me – very happy.

  ‘I bought this piece of equipment when I heard the news that Pym was returning. You’ll have noticed I’m speeding up. All right. I’ll tell you the truth. When we first met my plan was to give you just enough to satisfy you, not enough to reveal too many secrets. Not now. Now is the time for the truth. I think it’s important to get the story over with before the trouble starts. I think there will be a bit of trouble, Greg. There always is when Pym’s about. He comes into the next part of the story in a horrible, grotesque way. But I mustn’t interrupt myself. I must keep going from start to finish. And you owe me fifty pounds for this recording device, by the way. I bought it for your sake and I think you’ll find it’s worth the money. I’ll get Fiona to drop the tapes over to you when I’ve finished. She won’t mind – she has no life, poor girl.

  ‘I must tell the whole story because when he returns Pym may start talking – and he lies. He will lie or tell the truth according to what will bring him the most advantage.

  ‘Perhaps the real truth has some value, even if it is an old truth told about a world that exists no longer, to a world that no longer cares. Truth is much like peace and motherhood, when you think of it – we all support them until it gets a little inconvenient. Then there are a thousand reasons why they don’t matter so much. Just as there are a thousand reasons for telling a lie. People seldom have to explain why they told the truth.

  ‘Well, I’m growing tedious in my old age but you, Greg, will never have heard a “Communist truth”, in other words, a lie, nor did you ever live in Hitler’s Germany. Now that was a place for lies …’

  He trailed off, then began to speak again.

  ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, that you came here as an ambitious young man with a project you saw as only half serious – it was a career move, you’ll admit that, I’m sure. And how your very presence seems to have stirred up all those old things that were lying quietly at the bottom of the pond.

  ‘But – you’ll be impatient and I’m worrying about how long the tape will last, so let’s return to the past, to Sally’s marriage which is not a long story, God knows.

  ‘Well, Theo began to take Sally out again. Pontifex Street thought little of it. We had seen Theo’s returns and courtships before. Then one evening, early, we were sitting quietly, listening to some music, when in came Sally and Theo, and Sally opened her eyes and arms wide and said, “Darlings, you’ll never guess. We’re engaged!”

  ‘This astonished everyone, but we all congratulated her and Briggs was kind enough to open a bottle of champagne he had been saving. Theo phoned his wicked old father, who was sitting in his crumbling castle in Ireland, drunk, I suppose. Sally put off making the call to her family. Then the happy pair went off to La Vie to tell Cora.

  ‘After they’d gone Briggs said, “I don’t believe this. Why?”

  ‘“It must be the baby, Gisela,” Julia said.

  ‘“Ha, ha,” said Pym, and he turned on the gramophone again.

  ‘Cora came in not long after, in a beaded dress, and sat down comfortably. It was a surprise because Cora was not one to drop in. And she said, cheerfully, “I expect you’ve heard the news. Isn’t it lovely?”

  ‘“Incredibly lovely,” said Pym.

  ‘“So nice for Sally – everything she ever wanted, a dream come true,” she said. “I shouldn’t be surprised, though, if her fortune doesn’t come into it somewhere.”

  ‘Briggs said, “Ah,” and Pym opened his eyes wide.

  ‘“Yes?” he said, getting ready to enjoy himself.

  ‘“Well,” Cora told us, “this is the story. I had it from a general. Geneviève Jackson-Bowles, you see, was one of three daughters. Her sister Madeleine married a doctor or a surgeon called du Tour, whom nobody had ever heard of, and then the second sister, Clothilde, married an industrialist, a self-made man of no family. Socially, all three girls’ marr
iages were a disaster, of course – but Jerome Vincent, Clothilde’s husband, was very successful and also very wise. In nineteen thirty-nine he put the bulk of his money in a bank in Switzerland. He was a patriot, but he understood Hitler and wasn’t confident that the French would be able to withstand him. And a year later he died. About a week or so ago, so did his wife, Sally’s aunt. They were childless,” she said. By now Pym was laughing loudly. Cora ignored this. She went on, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Clothilde hasn’t left her nieces and nephews a lot of money. Perhaps Sally doesn’t know yet, but I wonder if Theo has got wind of it?” And then she, too, started to smile for Briggs was grinning and Pym laughing his head off. Julia was looking rather annoyed at the thought of Sally’s being an heiress. Briggs, though, said, “Poor old Sally. Theo is a vile deceiver. However, at least she’ll be able to afford to replace the champagne.”

  Bruno continued, ‘So Sally was rich. Her mother phoned next day to give her the news. Geneviève was angry because she and her sister Madeleine might have expected to get Clothilde’s money. Even worse, Sally’s sister Betty had been left nothing. It seemed Clothilde had changed her will after Sally’s mission to France and had left her money only to Sally and her two cousins, Benoît and Charles. All were, as she put it in the document, fighting for France. However, the money was in Switzerland and the will in occupied France, so for a long time there was nothing. Sally said that she’d split the money with Betty, or give it all to her mother if Geneviève felt so strongly about it.

  ‘In the meantime, though, Sally’s father advanced her enough funds to buy a house immediately. Sally bought a fairly run-down place in the unfashionable area people then called “south of the park”, the park being Hyde Park, of course. Theo was displeased. He would have preferred getting a short lease on a smart flat in a smart area. But Sally told him she had Gisela to think of and that a flat wasn’t suitable. He sulked, but I think he decided that this was no time to start a fight with an heiress and must have thought that he could eventually persuade Sally to get something better.