War Damage (9 page)

eight

T
HE CONGREGATION DRIFTED OUT
of Brompton Oratory and stood about in twos and threes. One mourner, then a second, walked out to the kerb and scanned the horizon right and left for a taxi.

‘I'm going straight back to the museum, kitten. I don't feel like hanging around, toiling over to the Hallams' and then coming back here again, it doesn't make sense and I've missed half a day's work already.'

Regine watched the retreating figure in dapper suit and bowler hat as he made off at a brisk pace. But now Freddie's brother-in-law, who had organised everything, simply drove away with his wife, Freddie's sister, Margaret, in a large black Austin behind the hearse, accompanying Freddie to his final resting place in Brompton Cemetery. The mourners were left rudderless in the Brompton Road.

Regine had wanted to invite friends back to Downshire Hill, but Neville had pointed out that they didn't know Freddie's more famous friends from the world of ballet. Better by far to let Vivienne take charge, even if her house was a bomb site.

John Hallam rounded them up. Regine found herself in a taxi, her thigh squashed against that of Roberto Miletti, the famous male character dancer. Charles sat on the pull-down seat opposite her. He looked out of the window in a silent trance as they drove up Park Lane, still lost, perhaps, in the funeral.

The inspector and his sergeant had stood at the back of the church all through the service in a pretence of respect, when really it was part of the investigation. They were watching, the hypocrites. Regine saw the sergeant smile at her, but ignored it. How dared he intrude on her private thoughts. The solemnity of the requiem mass had not consoled her. On the contrary, the mournful Latin cadences echoing up into the roof to expire in the shadowy vaults had intensified the gloom that suffused the church, and reminded her of the convent.

Roberto Miletti brought her back to the present. ‘We should have followed on to the cemetery anyway. That's where the taxi should be taking us, not back to Vivienne's.'

‘Freddie
hated
his sister.'

‘She looked as if she'd swallowed a toad.'

‘Well, she certainly married one.'

The taxi's other occupants seemed pleased to be done with the funeral, to be heading back to life after the baroque darkness of the mass. Soon Roberto Miletti was regaling his companions with filthy anecdotes about Freddie. Regine glanced at Charles as the bitchy comments flew to and fro, but, still staring at the passing traffic, he ignored the ribaldry.

‘Rather fun to have a wake in a bomb site,' commented Miletti, looking up at the scaffolded façade as they eased themselves out of the black cab.

‘Do come in,' said Charles, fishing his keys from a pocket. ‘You just have to think of it as post-war picturesque.'

It was the sort of thing Freddie would have said. In fact, Charles must have got it from Freddie, he couldn't have made it up himself.

Another taxi drew to a halt. Soon there was quite a crowd in the drawing room, picking their way over the torn-up floor-boards in the dusty hall, standing on the front step and spreading onto the pavement.

There was a camaraderie at such events; nothing like a funeral to reinforce your sense of being alive, as she knew from the war. But today it went beyond that, bordering on hysteria. Vivienne certainly seemed unusually vivacious as she held court on the sofa, while her husband passed among the guests pouring wine into glasses already emptied, and an untidy young maid proffered plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls and cheese straws.

Cynthia Johnson was standing by the window on her own, looking out at the street. Regine touched her arm. ‘I need to talk to you.'

The room was packed. Voices brayed to and fro. Knocks and bangs and the rasping sound of wood being sawed came from upstairs where, presumably, the builders were continuing their work, and added to the noise. The two women eased past the jammed bodies and walked out into the street, turning left towards Primrose Hill. Cynthia peered over the bridge. ‘You didn't tell me it was on the canal. Won't it be stunning when it's finished. I suppose they're doing it with war damage money.'

They walked on towards Primrose Hill. ‘That ballet crowd depresses me,' she said, ‘they're so … artificial.'

‘Oh, I think they're fun. And so glamorous.' But Cynthia, she knew, had never liked Freddie. He'd boomed into their little flat at the top of a house near Marble Arch when he came home on leave in 1943. ‘It was fun in New Cavendish Street, wasn't it?' said Regine. They'd lived together for less than a year, before Regine had settled for Neville, yet the light-hearted interlude, lost in time, lengthened in retrospect. War had made all pleasures more intense. Less so, perhaps, for Cynthia, who always looked the same in her white blouse and grey flannel suit, with her page-boy hairstyle, horn-rimmed glasses and no make-up. She'd watched in amazement Regine's procession of beaux, with their invitations to dinner, their black-market chocolates and relentless attempts at seduction. Cynthia's life had been so calm, but then, unlike Regine, she hadn't been trying to get over a broken heart.

Now Regine was the respectable married woman and Cynthia the mistress. But it was always the serious ones who fell furthest, who were too innocent, who didn't know how to protect themselves.

‘Is that all you wanted to talk to me about – reminisce about the war?'

Regine took her friend's arm as they crossed the road into the park. ‘You know the police came to see us. About Freddie. Well, I had to give them a list of all our guests. That Sunday. I tried to ring you the next day, but I couldn't get hold of you.'

‘I spent a few days with my parents,' said Cynthia. ‘I know you're dreadfully upset about Freddie, darling, and it does seems terrible to lose your life over a stupid theft. Personally I never – of course I only met him a few times really, once or twice at New Cavendish Street and then at your Sundays – I mean – I know he was a great friend of yours, you know I could never quite see what you saw in him. But I came to the funeral to support you.'

‘He was such fun.' Regine swallowed the lump in her throat. No tears at the funeral; the mass had been cold and impersonal, and she couldn't cry now, because she had to talk to Cynthia. ‘It must have been a robbery, but the police seem to be awfully interested in everyone who was at my Sunday. They know more or less the time it happened, because he was found quite soon. It wasn't much more than about two hours between the time he left us and the time he was killed. For some reason that's made them very interested in our guests that afternoon. They want to know what Freddie was doing during those two hours afterwards too, of course. He was in some pub, I expect, but they say he could have gone round to friends in the area. It could easily have been someone who wasn't there that afternoon, of course. It's ridiculous, actually.'

Cynthia looked no more than mildly interested, suitably serious.

‘Don't you see,' said Regine, thinking Cynthia was being quite dense, ‘they asked for a list of everyone who was there that Sunday. But of course I didn't mention
him
.' It was ridiculous that Regine somehow couldn't utter Ernie Appleton's name. ‘I mean, why did you bring him, why did he agree to come? I still don't understand.'

Cynthia didn't answer. She stared ahead as they walked slowly up the hill. Then she said: ‘I'm pregnant.'

‘Oh Cynthia! I'm so sorry – do you have an address?'

‘I'm having the baby.' Cynthia spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world, when of course it was impossible. She glanced at Regine and laughed. ‘Don't look so horrified! He hasn't any sons, you know. If it's a boy …' She strode forward. ‘I didn't say anything at first. I didn't even
realise
at first. I suppose I just wouldn't face facts. Then when I kept feeling so sick … I told myself it was some sort of bilious attack. But I finally went to the doctor. When he said I was pregnant I nearly fainted. But then I thought it could be the most wonderful thing, you know. And now it's over three months and I'm not feeling sick any more.'

Over three months! Already almost too late … ‘It would be the end of his career!' said Regine. The minister had been slightly larger than life yet at the same time smaller than imagined. And just
dull
! What on earth did Cynthia see in him? He'd talked quietly, stayed at Cynthia's side, and most of Regine's friends hadn't recognised him; he wasn't well known, although he was in the cabinet now, just a hard-working ex-union man, slightly bewildered by Regine's more flamboyant coterie, most of whom – apart from Alan Wentworth and the ultra-rightwing Jordans – had little interest in the Labour government and its tribulations.

‘He enjoyed the party. He doesn't normally meet people like that. It's good for him to widen his horizons.'

Cynthia must be mad. She was deluded.

Seeing the expression on Regine's face, Cynthia said: ‘You don't approve!' She looked boldly, confidently at her friend.

They were passing a park bench. ‘Let's sit down here.' Regine carefully arranged her new black dress so as not to crease the skirt. ‘It's not that I don't approve, darling, it's … I mean, are you sure he'll … will he …?'

‘Come up to scratch? I don't expect him to marry me, you know.' And now there was a hint of defiance. ‘Anyway, I haven't told him yet.'

Regine buried her fingers in her hair. ‘Mother of God, Cynthia!' There was so much to talk about, so many angles. But first she had to make Cynthia see that lies had already been told, sins of omission, that already the web of deceit was being woven. ‘The police don't know about him. I didn't tell them he was there. But I told them you were. I thought the closer I stayed to the truth the better. So they may want to talk to you. I don't know if they'll really interview all the guests – I very much hope they don't, but you have to be ready.'

‘Don't be cross.'

‘I'm not cross. I'm just worried for you. All I'm saying is, if the police do get in touch with you, you don't have to mention
him
.'

‘Of course, I understand, thank you for thinking of it.' But Regine could see that Cynthia wasn't interested in the investigation. ‘I'll live quietly in the country. I hate London anyway, all the bomb sites everywhere, one just wants to forget all that. I'm going to find a little cottage and then the baby will have country air and sunshine and good food.'

‘But how will you support yourself? Will he be able to give you anything?'

But watching Cynthia's face, Regine saw it suffused with an unfamiliar happiness. ‘I'll manage somehow – I've got a little money of my own, you know. And there are welfare benefits now, aren't there, and the family allowance.'

‘That won't get you far.' Regine pictured Cynthia the fallen woman, ostracised in some godforsaken English village.

‘I might even go back to the Vale of Evesham.'

‘For goodness' sake, Cynthia! Have you forgotten what they were like? They may have welcomed us because of the war effort and all that, but … that was the sort of village where witches were denounced in the seventeenth century – and probably much later. Most of them were pretty narrow-minded. Don't you remember how my awful landlord objected to my wearing trousers! He said it was against the scriptures, he actually quoted the Bible to prove how immoral it was. And the funniest thing of all was, he wouldn't speak to me about it, he took Sergei aside and talked to him!'

The trousers had symbolised what Mr Rawton hadn't consciously known, but which somewhere deep in his psyche he must have sensed: that she and Sergei were lovers.

‘But you used to say how idyllic it was, the happiest time of your life, you said,' protested Cynthia.

‘It was the war, wasn't it, and they knew we were doing important war work, I mean they were awfully kind and decent on the whole, but now the war's over places like that'll all revert to type.'

‘Oh Regine – and I thought you were the adventurous one.'

‘My adventures these days are of a different kind.'

‘You're happy with Neville.'

‘Of course I am! I've been good – oh, for ages. I take my marriage vows very seriously, you know.' What a tactless thing to have said! What about Ernie Appleton's marriage vows?

As if Cynthia read her mind, she responded fiercely: ‘So does Ernie, you know. He's devoted to his wife, but their – their love life isn't – his wife doesn't enjoy that side of marriage.'

‘Oh Cynthia! They
all
say that!'

‘But he loves me too – he says it's like nothing he's ever known. I've opened up whole new worlds to him, he says. You know he left school at thirteen – he's completely self-educated – he'd never been to a theatre.'