Sweet Poison (17 page)

He looked around him for a way of escape but saw none. The women at neighbouring tables looked cheap and he wondered how many of them were ‘professionals’. The men were pasty-faced monkeys jumping across the dance floor, throwing their partners about in some desperate imitation of gaiety. Whoa! he warned himself. He must not let his mood spoil the evening for his partner but he was too late.

‘You’re not enjoying this, are you?’ Hermione suddenly demanded.

‘Oh no, please, of course I am enjoying myself,’ he said hastily. ‘Let’s dance again. Isn’t this a rumba?’

‘No, look, the cabaret is starting. The singer they have got is all the rage. Afterwards, then we’ll go. I’m not sure I like this place as much as I thought either.’

She was right. Captain Gordon was climbing on to the little stage in front of the log cabin. He almost slipped and fell and Edward guessed his genial host had been drinking. When he had settled himself he announced that they were privileged to have with them tonight the American singing star – ‘the toast of Broadway’ – Amy Pageant. Edward had never heard of her and the polite applause suggested that neither had anyone else, but when she came forward out of the log cabin and began to sing Cole Porter and Gershwin he was bowled over. She had a low husky voice which spoke of regret and lost love in a way which appealed to him in his melancholy. She was also very beautiful. The lights had been dimmed and the singer was encircled by a ring of white light which followed her as she moved around the tiny stage so that her oval face above naked shoulders, ivory in the spotlight, drew every eye.

She sang ‘The Man I Love’ as if she were at confession but what reduced Edward to pulp was her rendering of ‘How’s Your Romance?’ from Cole Porter’s
Gay Divorce
, a show he had seen three times when it had been on in London a couple of years before. He was transfixed by the singer’s honesty which seemed to make each song sound as if she was making it up as she went along in order to give voice to her own thoughts. He hardly noticed that Hermione was trying to get his attention. ‘Let’s go,’ she was muttering. ‘Come on, I want to go.’

‘In a moment, wait a moment,’ he mumbled, pushing her hand away. Nothing would distract him from gazing at Amy Pageant. Her lustrous black eyes seemed to search him out in the darkness. He knew it was nonsense, but he was bewitched. Hermione was getting more and more agitated and began to pull at his arm so that even through his pleasure he was becoming annoyed. Really, the girl was very tiresome. Why couldn’t she let him alone to concentrate on this astonishing woman? When the singer finished Edward stood up and applauded vigorously, not something he had ever done before in a night-club. He normally hated making a spectacle of himself but on this occasion he was too excited to worry what anyone else thought.

As couples began to return to the dance floor, many throwing him amused glances as they did so, he turned to apologize to Hermione only to find that she had vanished. He wondered if she had gone to ‘powder her nose’ but when after ten minutes she had not come back he strolled across the room and asked one of the waiters where the ladies’ cloakroom was. He was directed towards the corner of the room. He pushed through a swing door and walked down a dimly lit corridor. When he arrived at the end of it he found a door marked ‘Powder Room’. He was rather at a loss to know what to do. He could not barge in to see if she were there and risk causing a scandal, or could he? After a minute or two when no one went in or came out he knocked and called Hermione’s name. There was no answer so he opened the door a crack and peered in. The room was quite empty but the furniture was scattered about as if there had been a tussle.

Edward returned to the dance room mystified and a little alarmed, hoping to see that Hermione had returned to their table, but not only was she not there but two strangers were sitting where they had sat. He was going to remonstrate with them but then thought better of it and went off to find Captain Gordon. That gentleman he ran to earth in a little office just off the dance room. He was drinking whisky and looked as though he had been doing so for some time. He was not pleased to see Edward but, perhaps remembering that he was the brother of a duke and might be good for attracting high-class clientele, tried to put on a welcoming smile.

‘Whisky, Lord Edward?’ he slurred, waving an almost empty bottle at him.

‘No, thank you. I say, have you seen the girl I was with? She seems to have disappeared.’ He felt every kind of ass admitting as much but what else could he do?

‘Miss Weaver? I thought I saw her with Mr Lomax during the cabaret. Maybe she has left you in the lurch,’ he said insolently.

‘Maybe,’ Edward said, trying to remain civil. ‘Can we find out?’

Captain Gordon smiled derisively and spoke into a telephone which seemed to connect with the front door. He said, ‘Caspar, will you come down to my office, please.’ He turned to Edward. ‘You may have noticed Caspar as you came in. He’s our doorman and “chucker-out”.’

Edward had. He was a gorilla of a man with a face like a cauliflower.

‘Ah, Caspar,’ said the Captain as the doorman arrived, huge in the tiny office, ‘Lord Edward Corinth wonders if you have seen his lady friend leave without him.’

‘Yus, sur,’ said the gorilla. ‘She got into a taxi along with Mr Lomax. She gave me a note, sur, for the gentleman.’ He dipped his ham of a hand into his pocket and came out with a crumpled piece of paper. Edward grabbed it. In smudged, childish handwriting Hermione had written, ‘Sorry. Have to go. See you, H.’

‘She gave you this as she left the club?’ Edward demanded.

‘Yus, sur.’

‘So why did you not give it to me earlier?’

‘She only juss give it me,’ Caspar said, aggrieved. ‘Anyways, she said to give it you when you asked.’

‘I see,’ said Edward who certainly did not see. ‘Well, thank you.’ He gave the man half a crown. It really was a bit thick being left by a girl like this even if she was as unstable as Hermione Weaver.

‘Deuced bad luck – losing the gel like that,’ said Captain Gordon, a touch of derision audible beneath his unexceptionable words. ‘Like the club?’ he inquired fatuously as Edward stood silent.

Edward roused himself to answer with an effort. ‘Very nice, a jungle in every way.’ As he turned to leave the place, he added, ‘Amy Pageant – she’s something special. Where did you find her?’

‘She’s good, isn’t she? Too good for us really, but she’s doing a favour for the owner – or the other way round, I’m not sure which.’

‘And who is he?’ said Edward casually.

‘Shouldn’t really tell you, I suppose, but seeing you’re a friend of the family in a manner of speaking I expect it’s all right: Lord Weaver – he owns the Cocoanut Grove.’

7

Saturday

Verity was too busy at the
Daily Worker
for a couple of days to pursue investigations into the death of General Craig, which in any case, she was inclined to think, were going to be a waste of time. She did not believe that the old man had died by accident but when it came down to it, how was she, a paid-up member of the Communist Party and therefore an object of suspicion to the police and most respectable middle-class Englishmen, going to prove it? She had no faith in the efficacy of Lord Edward Corinth, a sprig of a ducal house and by definition – at least by
her
definition – of no use to man or dog.

On Wednesday morning she found herself by chance very close to Tommie Fox’s parish church in Kilburn. She liked Tommie – a thoroughly good man by any standards – but normally they argued so fiercely about politics as to make close friendship an impossibility. Tommie was not a Communist. He called himself a Christian Socialist and he believed that at bottom all men were good. He considered it was his duty, as he put it, ‘to mobilize ordinary men and women for peace’. To Verity this was daft, and she told him so.

Running him to earth in the church hall she found the man of God wielding a paint brush against a huge sheet of card on which he was inscribing a slogan.

‘Is this for Saturday’s march through London?’ asked Verity, craning her neck to read what he was painting. ‘“Christian Socialists for Peace”,’ she read aloud. ‘Rubbish! Men aren’t peaceable by nature, not even Socialist Christians. For God’s sake, Tommie, surely history teaches us
that
if nothing else. Tribal warfare has always existed and always will. Tribes will attempt to dominate other tribes to distract their own people from dwelling on their woes and fighting among themselves. If you can blame someone else for the rotten time you are having you won’t blame the government. Simple. Look at the Christian Church: it has been responsible for more tribal conflict than any other movement. Didn’t Christ say something like “I bring not peace but a sword”?’

‘That’s very cynical, Verity,’ said Tommie, giving her a kiss on the cheek, ‘and please don’t use God’s name as a swear word. I have asked you before. I believe it is precisely your type of cheap cynicism which leads to war. If you expect the worst of people that’s what you’ll get. Bishop Haycraft is absolutely right in calling for everyone of all political and religious creeds to join together to march for peace. It’s going to be the most democratic movement of all time.’ Tommie waved his hands in the air in excitement. ‘We’ll show all those tired, corrupt politicians that they have to listen to the people for once. How I hate men like that horrible Peter Larmore, but even he believes that we should extend the hand of brotherhood to Germany and right her wrongs.’

‘Larmore? What’s he got to do with anything?’

‘You didn’t hear him on the wireless last night calling for Britain to play the honest broker between France and Germany? I did. It was inspirational. I must admit I had him down as simply another of those corrupt cronies of Baldwin’s but it looks as if I was wrong and proves my point that even the least promising among us has some good in him – or her,’ he added meaningly. ‘The next thing, we will hear Baldwin saying he is going to lead the only fight worth fighting: the fight for European peace.’

‘Stop preaching at me, Tommie, will you? Let me think – Haycraft? He was at the dinner at the Duke’s when that poor old man was killed.’

‘The warmonger General, you mean? The Bishop told me all about that. I can’t say I am too sad about it even if I’m not being very Christian. The man was notorious for his hatred of all things German. If he had had his way we would have invaded Germany as soon as they started talking about altering the terms of the Versailles treaty.’

‘So will Haycraft be on this march for peace on Saturday?’

‘He certainly will,’ said Tommie warmly. ‘He’s one of its leaders. What about you? I gather the Communists have not made their mind up if they will take part. Still waiting for instructions from Moscow, no doubt.’

‘Oh, do put a sock in it, Tommie,’ said Verity crossly. ‘Of course the Communist Party will be represented. We are the party for peace, in case you have forgotten it.’

‘Well, see you at Speakers’ Corner then,’ said Tommie mildly, going back to making his banner.

That Saturday, the first in September, was as warm as any day in August and there was a carnival atmosphere in the crowd which began to gather at the top of Park Lane as early as nine o’clock. There was much laughter and greeting of friends. Banners and slogan-bearing posters attached to makeshift boards and poles were compared: ‘Peace with Honour’, ‘Disarm for Peace’, ‘Pledged to Peace’. Most of those who were to march saw themselves as liberals but they represented a broad spectrum of opinion only excluding the far right and the far left. The Communist Party had to Verity’s disappointment and puzzlement decided Party members should have no part in bourgeois protest movements, but she and a few like-minded CP members decided to risk censure and march.

At eleven thirty, after several bracing speeches, the crowd gradually sorted itself into ranks and followed their leaders into Park Lane under the escort of a small force of Metropolitan Police officers. Verity walked with friends and fellow activists towards the rear of the parade. Tommie was near the front with Cecil Haycraft and three other bishops who were not afraid to take a stance on what many people felt was a political issue but Haycraft believed was a moral imperative. Their object was the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street where the leaders of the march would hand in a petition demanding international disarmament. It took almost three hours for the slow-moving procession to reach its destination. The marchers brought Piccadilly to a standstill, despite the best efforts of the police, before turning right into St James’s Street where old men in their clubs looked out of the windows, their moustaches twitching with indignation and apprehension. Was this the revolution, they wondered? But this was not a march against poverty and unemployment: the economy was picking up at last, at least in the south of England, and these marchers posed no threat to the representatives of capitalism or even to the landed aristocracy slumbering in their leather armchairs.

At Downing Street the petition was handed in, more speeches were made and then the march began to break down into small groups of friends and allies unwilling to go home immediately. Some stood about on street corners, others packed Lyons and ABC tea-rooms. Verity found herself near Tommie who invited her to come along with him and a few others to the Star and Garter just over Westminster Bridge. ‘I worked in a boys’ club near there when I was first a curate and I used to have a pint there afterwards to congratulate myself on surviving.’ He laughed but Verity suddenly realized what a good man Tommie was. He made fun of himself – a do-gooder trying to alleviate some of the worst effects of poverty but constantly seeing his achievements washed away by the sheer scale of the problem. When she said something to him about admiring his work, he said, ‘Oh, chuck it, Verity. I don’t know if I do any good. Maybe I ought not to try and make the intolerable tolerable.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, some of the suffering I have witnessed among the poor in slums literally in sight of the Houses of Parliament would make your hair curl. And yet, you know, they might be in the heart of Africa for all most MPs care. I think it is the indifference of the well-to-do rather than the ingratitude of the people we try to help which hurts the most.’