The Chandelier Ballroom (2 page)

‘Huh!’ was her response as she followed him at a distance down the extensive gravel driveway. ‘Stuck out ’ere in some old village, no wonder it was cheaper than you expected. What do we want with a place like this?’

He ignored her, in a world of his own now. To one used to a two-up-two-down terrace in Stepney Green, the frontage had taken his breath away, the eighteenth-century building having been tastefully added to at the rear in more recent years. There were three acres of grounds attached, but he was a Londoner, not interested in grounds. It was the house that drew him.

Three of the downstairs rooms facing front were absolutely huge, with high ceilings and tall, elegant, narrow windows, the room across the hall having a wider one with a spectacular bay. The moment he’d seen the place an idea had formed. A ballroom! The three rooms knocked into one and the wall of the hall demolished to make one large room, the stairs widened to a grand staircase descending spectacularly from the upper landing to the final result – maybe not as huge as some, but grand enough.

It had taken a lot of work, but the result was now big enough to hold parties and dances. He’d been a good dancer when young, so had Millie. They’d not danced in years, she grown broader and sloppier nowadays, had let herself go, and who’d want to take that dancing? Now he had his own ballroom, expensively papered in gold and blue, highly polished wood floor edged by soft blue carpet, two or three settees, elegant chairs, some small tables, a grand piano, space for a saxophone, double bass, set of drums – it would be a talking point among the fine friends he intended to make here.

Within weeks workmen had demolished the walls and made good, strengthened the ceiling, laid a new floor, the whole redecorated throughout. The narrow passage behind the room dividing the newer part of the house from the older had been renovated to include a cloakroom/toilet and had revealed a small sealed-up door, the handle long since lost.

He had prised it open to discover some four or five steps down to a small basement, dark and stuffy but dry. His first thought had been a priest hole, but there was no other way out, no window, nothing, just a few bits of rubbish, old cardboard boxes, revealed by the gleam of his torch – nothing of interest. Marks on the walls suggested racks had once stood there – an old wine cellar perhaps, but now unsavoury. The door resealed, papered over to hide its unsightliness, he had turned his mind to suitable lighting for his new ballroom. Something grand, spectacular was needed – a chandelier, the bigger the better, would make a huge impression on everyone who saw it, in addition to the expensive wall lights he’d had installed.

Today he’d found one in a London antique dealer’s shop, just what he had been looking for. Now he stood admiring it, mesmerised.

‘It is not exactly old,’ the man was saying with a slight trace of an accent he couldn’t place, probably Mediterranean or something. ‘But it is of genuine crystal, not of common glass, and this is why it is just a little more expensive. But good quality always reveals itself, Mr Buttyfield.’

Yes it did. Huge, impressive, suspended above him, its many graceful arms of fine brass supporting a double tier of crystal shades and electrified candles half hidden by swathes of glittering crystal drops, he could see it in all its glory gracing the high ceiling with its moulded central rose which matched the room’s elaborate cornice. Standing stock still, he continued to gaze up at it. It was absolute perfection.

The man was making an obvious effort to sell it as he beamed, ‘There is too an interesting ’istory attached to it. I think you would like to ’ear, Mr Buttyfield?’

Recovering himself, Race overlooked the mispronunciation of his name, eager to glean anything of interest that he might pass on to guests.

‘It is from a fine Knightsbridge apartment,’ the man went on eagerly. ‘It is said the owner, a wealthy middle-aged lady, lost all of her fortune in the very Black Thursday, the Wall Street Crash. At the time she is having a lover very much younger than she.’

He paused, waiting for Race to nod, then resumed, ‘Her fortune lost, her lover forsaked her, poor lady, she so devastated wanting only to destroy herself and from this very chandelier she tried to hung her sad body.’

Race couldn’t help half smirking. It was a lot of rot. ‘I’d have thought it wouldn’t have taken her weight,’ he said, trying not to sound too amused.

‘It did not,’ the man supplied eagerly, his customer’s scepticism going completely over his head. ‘It is quite ironic, for having dragged an armchair on which to stand to do the deed, the chandelier did not take her weight and she fell back on to the armchair and it fell down on top of her, killing her, so the story is told. The chandelier was not damaged at all for the armchair cushioned its falling down, but it killed her.’ He gave a small sympathetic sigh. ‘The most strange of ironies – the poor lady trying to kill herself, using of this very chandelier, but it is this very chandelier killed her!’

Having ended his lengthy tale maybe with his favourite punchline, he lapsed into silence, awaiting Race’s reaction.

For a moment Race gazed back at him then he broke into a loud guffaw. ‘A great story if it’s true. I could tell that to my guests. They’ll be well impressed.’

The man didn’t laugh. He looked hurt. ‘I assure you, Mr Buttyfield, I swear by the Holy Virgin it is true story.’

The man breathed the name so reverently that Race’s laugh of scorn died on his lips. He even felt goose bumps ripple along his arms and heard himself burst out impulsively, ‘I believe you. Yeah, fine. I’ll take it.’

The man knew his customer. As far as he was concerned, the story was true, but it did command a greater price by virtue of its very provenance. He grinned as his customer made no effort to bargain. ‘I will have it delivered, Mr Buttyfield,’ he said, quickly adding, ‘there will of course have to be a small delivery charge I am afraid,’ shrewd enough to know that not to charge for delivery would make him appear far too eager to sell and the customer feel he had been taken in by a glib tale.

But it
was
true. Even he had shuddered when he’d heard the story. Poor lady, looking for oblivion from loss and misery. Yet he wondered – had it been suicide she would have lingered in purgatory, never permitted into heaven. Instead the chandelier had killed her, but she had
attempted
to kill herself, so could it be deemed suicide? He hoped not. Sad lady, whoever she had been.

The finished ballroom looked wonderful – more than that, a revelation, enough to draw a gasp of admiration from anyone who entered. Centre stage, the chandelier hung in all its glory, even dimming the added splendour of the wall lights. Here he’d watch the wonder in the eyes of his many guests.

While demolition of the walls and the supporting of the now extensive ceiling were going on, with all the accompanying dust and debris, Millie had kept to the master bedroom, chosen for its wide veranda at the other end of the house above the lounge. ‘Away from all that bleedin’ dirt and dust and noise and mess,’ she’d said, though their old East End home had never been free of dirt and dust and noise and mess. Now she stood gazing around the new ballroom as he called it, the sneer on her face wiping the grin from his.

‘Ballroom?’ she spat. ‘A few rooms knocked tergether! An’ who d’yuh think’s gonna come? You don’t yet know that many around ’ere to ask.’

‘You’ll be surprised how many I know,’ he hissed, walking off to leave her talking to herself, her words following him faintly: ‘Bloody old fool!’

In the small library he poured a neat whisky to calm himself, swigging it down in one gulp. There were times he hated her. She’d done nothing but moan since coming here.

He was making himself known to quite a few people in the area and they were responding to their new neighbour. He had charm, made friends easily, had recently sent out invitations, gold-edged, to the Christmas party he intended to give three weeks from now, though it wouldn’t actually be on Christmas Day. People preferred to spend that with family. This year it fell on a Friday so the party would be Saturday, just when most were at a loose end, and he’d had more acceptances than he’d dared hope.

He intended to follow it the next week with a huge New Year’s Eve party. ‘And sod what she thinks!’ he said aloud into his empty glass before refilling it to drink more slowly.

From the start she’d not shown one ounce of enthusiasm for this place, for all his hard work getting it just right, still going on about it being too rambling, she feeling lost in all this space, how she missed the old friends and neighbours she’d known.

‘It’s like the back of beyond ’ere. They’ll never come ’ere and if I went back there they’d say that now we’re in the money I’m just showing off.’

‘If you feel that way,’ he’d told her, ‘you can always go back there to live on your own. I’ll set you up in a two-up-two-down. It’s up to you.’

But he knew that much as she moaned about their new wealth, she wouldn’t go and leave it all behind. She wasn’t that daft. But she refused to mix with those he was now getting to know. She seemed to enjoy being miserable, but it was embarrassing meeting men of some importance and their wives and her never with him.

This past six months he’d made it his business to acquaint himself with those that mattered. He was generous and they liked that. He’d learned to play golf and had got himself introduced into the golf club, and through it had met several local councillors and members of quite a few notable societies. He felt he was becoming respectable and respected – no one aware of his past, of course. He was starting to hold his head up in society, had improved his speech even more, though it had never been that bad. Millie of course persisted in remaining as Cockney as she’d always been.

‘I ain’t putting on no airs just to suit the toffee-nosed lot you like ter ’obnob with these days. I ain’t ashamed of me roots. Nor should you be.’

‘They’re nice people,’ he tried to tell her, but she wasn’t listening.

‘Bad enough living in this mausoleum of a place with no neighbours to talk to, at least none like I used ter feel comfortable with, without suckin’ up to the likes of them you call nice. At least I ain’t no hypocrite.’

No wonder she felt out of it, making not one move to improve herself since coming here. It irked. Here was he, needing to move on from his old life, and here she was, clinging like a leech to hers.

Wisdom told him not to drop his old mates too soon in case they felt themselves snubbed, looking to pull him down a peg or two. Him now being in the money, there was always the chance someone might see him as a soft touch for a few quid. Eventually they’d forget him. He was never a big-time crook and hopefully wouldn’t be missed.

Still prickled by Millie’s attitude to all his efforts with their new house, he drained his second glass and, slinging on a warm coat and scarf, stalked out for a drive around in his new Rolls to get some of the anger out of him.

It was still fairly cold after a frosty morning, though mid-afternoon clouds had gathered to hang low with the promise of a bit of sleet to come. Slowly his aggression subsided. Wadely was a nice area, not too far from London to feel isolated, but far enough away for a man to breathe clean air.

He might have chosen the west of London, but here seemed more suitable to his temperament. The East End was in his blood and he felt comfortable with the people of Essex. And he was proud of the house he’d bought, shielded from the road by trees to give it privacy from most of the houses that dotted the area. These were occupied by business people, professional men, families of some wealth.

He was starting to move in good company if only Millie didn’t hold him back. She’d been something of an obstacle for much of their marriage, apart from the first few years when she’d still been pretty and full of life. But by the time she’d reached thirty, her pretty looks had faded and she’d grown into a sour old nag.

Slowing the Rolls to a stop, he sat staring unseeing through the windscreen at the clustering trees of Wadely Woods while the car hummed gently. If they’d had children things would have been better. But she hadn’t wanted children, said they’d ruin her slim body, take away her looks. She had no love of children or for them. Babies bored her. She never peered into prams and cooed like lots of women did. It would have been nice to have had a son though. But that was life.

He’d hoped that coming here, starting to live the high life, would give her a lift, but it hadn’t and never would. He could see that now. He could see her being an utter wet blanket whenever he threw a party. He just hoped she wouldn’t end up ruining the Christmas one for him. If she did he’d kill her!

Fiercely he let the brake off and, stamping on the accelerator, shot off towards home.

After he’d stalked out on her, Millie heard his swift, angry footsteps cross the rear passage, the bang of the library door echoing through the house. For mid-fifties he was still agile, and anger seemed to make him even more so. She felt sympathy for anyone he aimed it at. He could pack a punch when he wanted. Not at her though, never at her. As soon as he got angry with anything she said he’d turn away, just as he had today, and stalk off. Sometimes she wished he would stay and see out his argument, but with her he always left whatever was on his mind unsaid.

She herself got satisfaction from a good slanging match. When she lived back home – even after all these months she still thought of Mayfield Street as home, with its dingy houses and friendly people – she would often have it out with one of them who’d upset her, although the falling out never lasted long. It was like that. Neighbours would be there the moment you were in trouble. If you needed something repaired, there was always someone to give a hand. People would pop in for a chat over a cup of tea, or if the weather was nice bring a chair out and sit outside the front door and chat while taking in the sunshine.

That sociable habit dated from when the places had first been built, though in recent years it happened less and less, which was a shame. In Wadely it had never happened, the idea unthinkable, neighbours all separated by their front gardens, closeted behind their own front doors, hardly knowing each other. Maybe there’d be a polite nod if they passed in the street, and men doing their front gardens would sometimes pause for a chat – that’s if they hadn’t employed a gardener – but no one paused on a corner for a friendly gossip like they would in Mayfield Street. Maybe if they met in some grocery shop or other they might pass the time of day, but that was all. She hated this place, yearned for the friendliness of Mayfield Street.