The Debutante (18 page)

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Just thinking.’

‘If you need something … I mean if you don’t feel well, I can call someone.’

She stood up. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

Walking on, she plucked a gallery guide from the nearby information booth and headed into the next room, moving out of visual range of the security guard. It was the main contemporary gallery with high vaulted ceilings, bright skylights and clean white walls. It reminded her of New York; positive, bold and absolute.

She took a seat on one of the benches in the centre and opened the guide, looking for what she had come to see, room 32, the work of Cecil Beaton. Digging around in her handbag, she unearthed an old packet of mints. Sucking hard, its sugary sharpness cleared her head.

She had so many memories of the free public galleries in London. The Wallace Collection, the Tate, the National Gallery … How many Sundays did she spend as a little girl walking through them, holding tight to her mother’s hand, killing time? Waiting for her father to wake up from where he’d passed out on the living-room sofa and go out again to
the pub. Waiting for it to be safe to go home. So they trailed around galleries and museums, anything free; her mother trying to be light and cheerful, as if it were just a wonderful educational adventure that she’d planned all along for their Sunday afternoon. But despite the circumstances, something penetrated. Within the walls of these glorious institutions, Cate was transported. She came to view art, and painting in particular, as something sacred; a refuge against the unpredictability and chaos of life.

She used to visit the galleries alone in New York. Her favourite was the Guggenheim. She’d sit in front of the massive Pollock paintings for hours. She loved how angry Pollock was; how unrestrained. Here was a religion she could believe in — one that gave voice to all that was unknowable, irresolvable and truly holy. She dreamed of one day sitting in front of one of her own paintings, hanging on the wall opposite; of finding her place among what she believed in most.

But then she met Derek Constantine and he redirected her vision. ‘That Pollock is flaking. Its value diminishes every day. Besides, he died a drunk.’

His words sliced through her. He died a drunk. Even the painting was dying, peeling slowly away. The nobleness of art, its smooth promise of marble-like immortality, was as transient as everything else she held dear. It too was vulnerable to the caprices of time.

She couldn’t look at it now without thinking that something was missing, that it was cracking and fading away before her very eyes.

‘We can do better than that,’ he promised.

London was a city of pasts, histories, shadows and sneering social subtleties. New York was going to be the blank canvas on which she’d create a new life; a new persona. He’d show her the way; guide her through the pitfalls.

But she’d tripped and fallen anyway.

Getting up again, Cate searched through the winding rooms, heading deeper into smaller, more intimate annexes. The paintings gave way to black-and-white photographs, mounted against dark walls. At last, she found it. Room 32. The work of Cecil Beaton. Society portraits and film stars, dating from the early 1920s through to the 1970s, lined the walls. Edith Sitwell gazed imperiously, Wallis Simpson conquered, and her husband the Duke of Windsor looked wistfully into the distance as if the camera were a subject too lowly to be acknowledged. There was Winston Churchill winning the war, Marlon Brando sulking, Salvador Dali clowning about… Douglas Fairbanks Jr smouldering and the twin sisters Viscountess Furness and Mrs Reginald Vanderbilt, two bodies with the same striking face, mirroring each other with eerie symmetry.

Cate stopped.
Four Debutantes.

There she was. Diana Blythe. She must’ve been all of seventeen, a child. By far the most striking of the four girls, she was dressed in the traditional long white gown of the coming-out ball. She had a young, hopeful, impossibly beautiful face.

A debutante. It was another world, full of beautiful society princesses in floaty pristine gowns.

A little further on there was another portrait, this time of Irene and Diana lying head to head on a lawn, sunbathing. Diana’s blonde hair contrasted with Irene’s dark curls. They were laughing, eyes closed.

There was also a portrait of Irene, alone, stiff and formal, when she was newly married.
The Honourable Irene, Lady Avondale.
She was wearing a dark serge suit, a pillbox hat and a fox fur. She could only be in her early twenties but already she was sophisticated and serious; an up-and-coming pillar of society.

And then there was another. Diana ‘Baby’ Blythe, dressed as Venus — a rather staid, arty shot. Swathed in layers of sheer fabric, the curves of her figure showing provocatively through, only just hidden by careful lighting. Gone was the girlish naivety of the earlier photos. She had the direct, unnerving sexual energy of a Hollywood starlet and the unearthly, sculptural beauty of a goddess. The caption underneath explained: ‘This portrait was considered far too daring and explicit to be displayed when it was first taken and remained in the gallery’s archives for almost sixty years. It is one of the few nude portraits to be taken by Beaton. Diana “Baby” Blythe was a famous society beauty whose high spirits and unorthodox ways gained her quite a reputation before her mysterious disappearance in 1941.’

High spirits and unorthodox ways. Here she was all but naked. The boldness of her stare was overwhelmingly erotic.
And yet there was something self-conscious about the whole exercise. Perhaps it was that the rather staged conceit of Venus was unworthy of her naturalness and warmth.

Later, in the shop, Cate purchased some postcards of the Blythe girls, slipping them into her bag. It was nearing five.

Heading out, she crossed the street to St Martin’s Lane, lined with famous theatres — the London Coliseum, the Duke of York’s, the Albery. So little had changed about them since the time the Blythe girls sat, enjoying musicals and comedy reviews in their crowded, smoke-filled auditoriums. She wandered down Cecil Court, a narrow passageway between St Martin’s Lane and Charing Cross Road, lined with specialist second-hand bookshops. Rare first editions were displayed in the windows and outside bins were piled with prints and books, inviting passers-by to browse.

One stall had floral and fauna prints, another fashion plates, a third old political cartoons. There was something irresistible and comforting about the nostalgia of the past. Cate stopped, leafing through the various wares.

Browsing among the political section, she pulled out one of the framed cartoons. It was from 1936. It portrayed a handsome gentleman in black tie with a glamorous young woman in evening dress. They were entering a theatre and saluting another equally fashionable couple at the bar, while a portly, elderly couple looked on in confusion. ‘It’s all the rage!’ the wife explained to her husband. The caption below read: ‘Dress Circle Fascists.’

Fascists?

Cate took the cartoon into the shop. A chime on the door rang as she entered. It was a narrow, dark establishment lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases; its shelves sagging with dusty volumes. Boxes and prints were stacked high on every available space, while at a desk in the back an elderly gentleman was reading the
Independent,
drinking a steaming mug of tea.

He looked up. ‘May I help you?’

Cate handed him the cartoon. ‘I wondered if you could tell me anything about this. I don’t understand it. What’s it about?’

He peered through his glasses, examining it closely. ‘Yes, well, it appears to be a joke about a certain class of political thinker in the early 1930s. As for the couple, I’m fairly sure they’re meant to be socialite Anne Cartwright and the right-wing conservative MP James Dunning. He was very outspoken in the years before the war. And she had all sorts of dubious political leanings, veering from communism to fascism. He was interned for a while when war broke out.’

‘Interned? Why?’

‘For being pro-German. Unfortunately, it was very fashionable to have fascist leanings during those times — from Mosley to the Mitfords to the Cliveden Set.’

‘The Cliveden Set? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘The Cliveden Set was a name made up by the communist newspaper
The Week.
They were supposed to be, though no one’s really quite sure, a sort of 1930s right-wing think tank. All upper class, all friends of Nancy Astor,
Viscountess Astor to you and me. They used to meet at her home, Cliveden. It’s a famous hotel now. You may remember it from the Profumo affair. Between the wars they were incredibly influential in both politics and public opinion. Apparently they were in favour of the appeasement of Hitler and maintaining friendly relations with Nazi Germany at all costs. The group included Geoffrey Dawson, the editor of
The Times,
Phillip Kerr, Edward Rothermere —’

‘Rothermere? As in Lord Rothermere?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. He eventually became the American Ambassador. At least for a while.’

‘And these people were fascists?’

‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘no one really knows any of it for sure. It was a complex time. Made more complicated by the involvement of an entire set of hedonistic young people whose experience and idealism were naive to say the least. But the press loved them. So people like Anne Cartwright with her pick-of-the-week politics were prone to a great deal of publicity, both good and bad.’

Cate looked at the cartoon again — at the wide-eyed young woman in the evening gown.

‘What happened to her?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘The war came. The party ended.’

‘Your history’s very impressive,’ she admired.

‘Well, this is my specialist subject. And otherwise,’ he grinned, ‘if you don’t know the story it’s impossible to get the joke. And I like a good joke.’ He handed it back to her.
‘So —’ he cocked his head to one side — ‘would you like a bag for that?’

Cate smiled. ‘That depends.’ She took out her purse. ‘How much?’

‘Five pounds.’

He put it into a brown paper envelope and she slipped it under her arm.

‘Thank you. And thanks for the history lesson!’

‘What are old men for?’ And he gave her a wink.

She walked back out on to Cecil Court.

Here was a dark seam to Baby Blythe’s world that she hadn’t even realised existed. Under the parties and glamour, a powerful current of political extremism tugged like an irresistible undertow. Had she fallen prey to such fashionable ideas?

Weaving her way down towards the Strand, Cate negotiated the crowds around St Martin-in-the-Fields, and headed towards Holborn.

She was missing something, she was sure of it. Something obvious yet important; right in front of her eyes.

If only she could go back to Endsleigh, just once more, she might see it more clearly. Especially to that extraordinary gilded room. Had it been her imagination or did it have an eerie calmness, a sense of expectation about it? As if it were holding its breath.

As if it were waiting for someone.

Rachel had gone home early, complaining of a headache and Jack was alone in the office. He checked the notes again from Endsleigh. Cate’s handwriting, careful and neat in the earlier pages, had deteriorated. He frowned, trying to decipher the description and match it with the best photograph for the catalogue. He’d been working diligently all day. His shoulders ached from hunching over the computer. Normally he would do most of it at home, delivering the finished product on a disk by courier.

He didn’t usually spend this much time working in the office. He knew it. Rachel knew it. But neither of them commented on it. She didn’t even bother to tease him, which was telling. They both understood what he was doing — throwing himself in the way of Fate; upping his chances of seeing Cate again. But it hadn’t worked. She hadn’t been in all week. And instead of enjoying the solitude of his own routine, he spent his days waiting; poised for the moment when the door opened and she walked in.

And then what would he do? What would he say when he finally saw her? He was resolved in some vague way to be nicer to her. But there was no plan.

He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and concentrated again on the notes in front of him.

‘Regency commode, mahogany with white marble top, turned supports … stripped bare …’

Stripped bare?

What was that about?

He looked at the corresponding photographs. Here it was — a perfectly ordinary piece. He was certain he hadn’t said anything about it being stripped bare. Above it, in the photo, hung a mirror. Just visible in its reflection was the curve of her shoulder, a bit of blonde hair.

Pushing his chair back from the desk in frustration, he stood up and, opening the back door, stepped out into the small courtyard between the buildings, stretching his cramping legs. He would finish this today, even if he had to work late into the night. Then he would go home and stop mooning about like a fool.