After the Cabaret (21 page)

‘Excellent,' said Greg.

‘One more thing, though. I doubt if Pym let you go without some personal message to me.'

‘That's so,' Greg said awkwardly.

‘Spit it out, Mr Phillips. My back is broad.'

‘I'm afraid he said that you mustn't think that you personally would escape unharmed if he released the documents in his possession to the world's press.'

Sir Peveril took this in, though his expression did not change. ‘He's an old man and he's desperate,' he said. ‘Russia can't be a pleasant or comfortable place for a man in his position. The old regime owed him a debt. This one does not. Personally I doubt if he has anything important to communicate. It's a weakness of old men to think the minutiae of the past will excite people. In fact, for a later generation there is nothing more boring than the details of old battles.'

His manner was so easy that Greg half believed him. But he couldn't help thinking that if Pym had hard evidence from the Soviet side of wider involvements in pro-Soviet espionage by the great and the good of Britain – even down to Sir Peveril, a man who sat on many boards and public bodies, who had been a trusted adviser to a previous prime minister – then there was likely to be a big scandal. Pym and Forbes had fled in the fifties, Briggs's early Communist affiliations and war-time work had been mentioned much later, just before his death. And he, Greg, had just heard Bruno Lowenthal say on tape that he thought Theo Fitzpatrick had been running Pym as a spy, which meant that he, Fitzpatrick, could have been acting as a double agent during his posting in Washington. It all sounded seedy and suspicious. Of course, it was all over, as dead as the Gunpowder Plot – but there had been a nest of spies at Pontifex Street, in a house owned by Sir Peveril. Sir Peveril's girlfriend, whom Bruno had said later became
his wife, had lived there during that era. If Sir Peveril had known nothing of the activities of his tenants he had been massively deceived. If he had known, and had chosen not to say what he knew, then he'd been either stupid or a traitor. This, Greg concluded, was an affair over but not over. It could not be unimportant to everyone or he wouldn't be here, having lunch at Sir Peveril's invitation. He ventured a question: ‘Do you think in the end Pym will be able to return?'

‘It's been discussed,' Sir Peveril said. ‘It might be possible on purely humanitarian grounds. He's a sick man, after all. And perhaps there have been enough old Nazis living here since the end of the last war to make an old Russian spy, in the present climate, seem more acceptable. History's taken a new turn since Adrian Pym thought he could make a difference.'

‘Didn't he betray a lot of people, though?' Greg asked. ‘Whole networks were rounded up in Eastern Europe and he was responsible for quite a few deaths and deportations. Wouldn't there be an outcry?'

‘The dogs bark but the caravan moves on,' Sir Peveril remarked comfortably, yet he eyed Greg a little coldly.

Greg backed off. ‘I guess so,' he said. ‘I guess now no one will care much.'

‘Of course,' said Sir Peveril, ‘he may not get through the winter – I may not. We're all in the hands of the gods.' He smiled, but with no real pretence of friendliness. ‘All this is a far cry from Miss Bowles, eh? To whom you're trying to get back. Tell me, have you fallen in love with her yet?'

‘No, sir, I haven't.'

‘Biographers generally end up loving or hating their subjects, so they tell me.'

‘I wonder which is best?' Greg said, and sensing that Sir Peveril was bored with him, he finished his meal, declined coffee and stood up.

Sir Peveril saw him down the steps of the club and Greg headed for the Mall then into St James's Park. There were few people about and he stood under a tree looking out towards the lake. Sir Peveril had gone back for coffee, brandy and then, if Greg knew anything, to make a few strategic phone calls in the matter of Adrian Pym.

‘A far cry from Miss Bowles,' Sir Peveril had said, and Greg hoped to God it was.

He did not know that he was standing under the same tree where, so long ago, back in 1943, a girl and a soldier had been alone together for the first time.

They sat on Eugene's greatcoat under the tree, looking up at the stars, the weaving beams of searchlights, the huge white barrage balloons moving gently in a warm, early summer breeze.

‘I've never been so conscious of the skies,' Sally said.

Eugene propped himself against the tree. ‘Well, here I am leaning against a mighty British oak.'

‘I think it's a beech,' Sally said.

‘I'm from New York, how would I know? Right. A mighty British beech, at the heart of the great British empire, with a very pretty girl.'

‘Now you're in, we'll win,' Sally said.

‘I wouldn't be too sure,' Eugene told her. He was a clerk on a US Army base in Norfolk. ‘They sent us five hundred left-foot boots last week. It looks like we're planning to surprise the enemy into surrender by hopping into battle.'

‘I don't think you should be telling me these military secrets,' Sally said.

A drunken soldier fell over Eugene's foot, got up and said, ‘Sorry, mate.' He peered at him. ‘I couldn't see you in the darkness,' he added, and went off laughing.

Eugene said to Sally, ‘I wish you people wouldn't keep on saying that. At first it has a certain charm, then it gets tedious.'

‘It's true I can hardly see you,' said Sally.

‘I can see
you
,' said Eugene, looking at her.

‘Well …' said Sally.

‘OK,' said Eugene, taking her hand. ‘Tell me about yourself.'

‘You first.'

‘Eugene Clark Hamilton, named Clark after my late uncle, my mother's only brother, who suffered an ugly fate in Georgia. We live in Harlem, in New York. I have a brother and sister. My father is a historian and my mother trained as a singer, but gave it up when she married.'

‘What did you do before you started collecting left boots in East Anglia?'

‘I was an artist. I keep the rent paid by illustrating books, mostly children's books.' He added, ‘I'm twenty-eight and unmarried, though I've had my moments. And you?'

‘I've had my moments too,' Sally admitted. ‘Quite a few.'

‘That's strange. I thought night-club singers led quiet lives.'

‘I'm in love with a man who's a hero,' Sally declared.

‘Where's the hero now?' Eugene asked calmly.

‘No one knows. It's too secret.'

Eugene laughed.

‘Don't mock,' Sally cried, off her guard. ‘Everybody always laughs.'

‘Who laughs?'

‘The people I live with. They're all very brilliant people in intelligence.'

‘Well, I only deal with the stores,' said Eugene. ‘Your story's turning into one of those complicated British ones, which you're supposed to understand by being something brilliant in intelligence. Does it get any clearer, or shall we find a place to have coffee?'

‘It's so nice here. I wish they'd bring it,' said Sally, standing up. ‘Still I suppose it's a bit damp. I'm a Communist, by the way. Do you mind?'

‘Some of my best friends are Communists,' said Eugene.

‘Did you know Harry Saunders?' asked Sally.

‘Sure. He wanted to marry my sister,' said Eugene.

‘No!' Sally exclaimed. ‘I met Harry in Spain.'

They began to walk out of the park, still hand in hand.

‘What were you doing in Spain?'

‘I wound up trying to nurse. I was hopeless at it, though.'

‘Like you are at everything?' Eugene asked her.

‘Sort of.'

‘That's what I thought.'

They walked through the silent streets, looking for a taxi. Eugene was staying in a low-grade hotel near Paddington Station. But when Sally invited him back to Pontifex Street he said no, he had to start back at five a.m., adding, ‘I don't think I'm brilliant enough. I might walk in and they'd challenge me to a game of chess.'

In Piccadilly Circus Sally ran into the road to stop a
cab, but the cabbie, looking from Eugene to Sally and back, refused to take them. ‘He's over here to help us, you know,' Sally told him indignantly.

‘Help himself to our women,' the cabbie said, and drove off.

‘You bastard!' Sally cried after him.

‘I guess I'll walk,' Eugene said.

‘Are you sure you don't want—'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘It's been a pleasant evening. I hope we'll meet again. Look, there's a taxi. Get in and go home.'

Sally did, feeling stronger and more hopeful than she had for a long time, though the feeling ebbed during the next few days. She did not see Eugene for a month and then, one day, he was at the club again.

When she came in that night Briggs, Pym and Bruno were sitting with Sir Peveril Jones – and at the table with them, looking quite at ease, was Eugene. She stepped straight up and struck a pose, hip out, ‘
Salut, les mecs
,' she growled.

‘
Et merde à tout le monde
,' Pym growled back, louchely. He stood up unsteadily and they moved to the space in front of the band, which was tiredly playing a Latin American number. It was as if they were all asleep. Pym and Sally swung into an Apache dance. Pym, with the genius of the drunkard lifting his stride in the part of a Paris gangster, flung Sally about with skilled abandon, pushing her away then hauling her to him in a firm and sexual embrace. The band livened up and moved into a more suitable tempo.

Briggs looked on, his face expressionless. Bruno glanced at Eugene, who was smiling.

On the dance floor Pym swung Sally right round and then clasped her to him, where she remained, body to body, as if glued there. Then he staggered and nearly
fell over. ‘That's me done for. Besides, people will start talking,' he said. Then he put his face close to hers and said, ‘What are you playing at, dear?'

Sally snapped at his nose, which was dangerously close, and he reared back in alarm. She laughed.

Back at the table Sally said, ‘Hello, all – hello, Eugene. What are you doing here?'

‘I came to see you,' he said.

‘That's awfully nice of you,' she replied crisply. ‘But I'm afraid I'm working. I'm on in about two minutes.'

‘I guess I can still watch you.'

‘That's what they pay me for. Well – here I go.'

She went to the stage. As she sang, more people began to drift in. Cora came over and said to Pym, ‘I hear you got the sack, dear. Bad luck.'

‘I'm fixed up again now. Thanks.'

‘That's right, dear. I'm sure you'll always bob to the surface like a cork.' She turned to Eugene, ‘You're an American soldier, are you? Jolly good. What do you do?'

‘I'm making a fortune selling off Army stores,' he told her.

‘You'll soon be in action, dear,' she encouraged him. ‘You look able-bodied enough to me. Gawd,' she said, ‘Sally's rotten tonight, though. I thought we'd touched bottom months ago, when she was so depressed, but this is worse.'

It was true, alas, that Sally's voice had deteriorated even further than usual that night and her manner was both lacklustre and aggressive. Even her timing was off.

Where music and art were concerned Briggs was a man
of sensitivity. Now he agreed, wincingly, with Cora that Sally did not seem to be on form that evening. ‘Something on her mind, perhaps,' Cora said. She turned to Eugene. ‘I suppose you've heard the best, really. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, the trumpeter fellow.' What had carried Cora through fifty years of successful meetings with all kinds of people was natural good nature and a brilliant, erratic capacity to pick up information and apply it socially. Eugene appeared to understand her. He said ‘I've heard some of them, yes. This is a different style, cabaret. I don't know too much about that.'

‘Well, you won't learn it here, tonight,' Cora said bluntly. ‘And the other girl, Vi, she's off because her little brother's got chicken-pox. I ask you! Oh,' she said, standing up, ‘excuse me. There's Hugo de Belvue. I'll bring him over. He needs cheering up. They're very stiff, these Frenchmen.'

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.'