Lose Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part Two)

by Evie Blake

  Still, for all of its intimidation – the noise, the crowds and the sheer vastness of this city – London excites Maria. Even walking down a bomb-ravaged street seems like such an affirmation of life.

  They had been lucky in Venice, the treasures of the city protecting them from any significant bombing raids. She remembers only once seeing an attack on the docks. She, her mother and Pina had climbed on to the roof of their apartment, despite Pina’s reservations. Yet they had been perfectly safe, just like her mother told them they would be. The bombers dived almost vertically, pinpointing two big ships down at the docks. It had been like watching a spectacular firework display as the ships exploded, the only damage to the city a few broken windows.

  London is a different story. Maria can see quite clearly how the city has suffered. She tries to imagine what it must have been like, hiding down in the filthy underground night after night to come up one morning and find that your house, street, neighbours have disappeared. And yet the people she sees on the streets of London in 1948 do not appear broken. They won the war. The spirit of the British got them through the Blitz. Maria finds this national pride fascinating; she remembers from her childhood the hatred her mother and Pina felt towards Mussolini, and their shame at Italy’s alliance with Germany. They said that this was not their Italy, especially when Jewish people started to be victimised.

  ‘Italians were never racists!’ her mother had declared roundly. ‘What is that idiotic man dragging us into?’

  Her mother had done everything she could to undermine Mussolini and, after him, the Germans, but never openly, always covertly. She helped as many Jews as she could – not just Jacqueline – either to escape or hide. She risked all of their lives by doing so, yet they were lucky. Not once did Maria’s mammas fall under suspicion for the Germans never took Belle and Pina seriously. They were just two middle-aged women, dressed up in eccentric costumes, taking pictures of tourists – and, during the war, countless Nazis – enjoying the sights of their city.

  Maria pauses at the crossing. She takes the envelope from her coat pocket and unfolds it. She looks up at the sign on the street corner: Ebury Bridge Street. The directions her mother wrote for her describe a little street off this one. She is nearly there, at last. Her back is aching from all the long hours of travel, and she is sure she must smell a little. She is longing for a wash.

  She turns down the street and begins to count the house numbers. Jacqueline lives at number eighteen. The street is so very different from the wavering passageways of Venice. It is a straight line of red-brick houses, all more or less the same.

  She stands outside number eighteen: her new home. The building is much grander than she expected. Well, from the outside at least. Its red-brick façade is punctuated by tall windows. She counts four floors. The front door is faded dusty blue, with a black lion’s head as the door knocker. A lion, how English, she thinks. She walks up to the front door, her lips a little dry. She hopes that Jacqueline is home. She has no idea who else lives in this grand house.

  A few seconds after her third knock, the door is opened by a scrawny-looking young man, with wild, wiry hair. He looks at her suspiciously, not a hint of a smile, his face obscured by his round spectacles and thick moustache.

  ‘Yes?’

  Maria coughs, composing her best English into a sentence. ‘Good afternoon,’ she says formally. ‘I am looking for Miss Jacqueline Mournier.’

  ‘She’s not home,’ he says. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am . . . I am . . .’ she stutters, unnerved by his directness. ‘My name is Maria Brzezinska.’

  ‘Polish?’ His tone is interrogative. ‘You don’t look Polish.’

  Maria begins to feel a little annoyed. What right does this young man have to question her?

  ‘Can I come in, please? I can wait for Jacqueline inside.’

  The young man cocks his head on one side and continues his ponderings on her nationality, as if she hasn’t spoken. ‘You’re not English,’ he says, ‘I can tell. So, where are you from?’

  Maria sighs inwardly. Already she is being asked her country of origin. She has not even been in London twenty-four hours.

  ‘I am Italian.’

  All of a sudden, much to her surprise, the young man flashes her a smile. It transforms his face. If he were to lose the spectacles and the moustache, he could be quite handsome, Maria thinks.

  ‘Me, also,’ he says in Italian. And, leaning forward with a flourish, he takes her case from her and ushers her into the house. ‘Welcome, Maria Brzezinska,’ he says. ‘Let me introduce myself. My name is Guido Rosselli and I am a neighbour of Jacqueline’s.’

  Despite the grandeur of the exterior of the house, inside it is another story. The hallway is lit by one bare bulb that flickers intermittently, making the place seem creepy and uncared for. There is no carpet in the hall, just brown linoleum, much worn, and the wallpaper is peeling with damp. There is an odious smell, not just the damp but something rotten and penetrating. Maria can’t help but take out her handkerchief and bring it up to her nose.

  ‘Sorry about the stink,’ Guido says. ‘I am afraid it is our only English resident, Mrs Renshaw. We have asked her not to boil her cabbage for too long but she seems immune to the smell. I think she is trying to boil every last bit of goodness out of it. I cannot imagine what it must taste like.’

  Guido leads her up three flights of stairs before pausing on the third landing and pointing to a door behind him. ‘This is where I live,’ he tells her.

  She nods, waiting, not knowing what to say. She is suddenly overwhelmed with shyness. She is not used to talking to boys.

  ‘Jacqueline is not here at the moment. But she said, if you turned up while she was out, to let you in.’ He takes a key from his trouser pocket and waves it above his head. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Just one more flight of stairs to the top.’

  On the top floor – Jacqueline’s landing, Maria supposes – the gloom of the house seems to have lifted a little. She can see a small skylight above their heads, with a square of sky above them. It is a tiny pocket of blue and yet it is some colour, at least. The boiled cabbage smell is not so strong up here, either.

  Guido unlocks the door of Jacqueline’s apartment and leads the way inside. They are right under the eaves of the house, and Maria immediately walks over to one of the windows. Below her is London, ravaged and ruined from the Blitz and yet still thriving. She can feel the industrial hum of it below her and it excites her. Such a different energy from Venice, a city that floats in and out of time; London feels like it is marching forwards, wounded and yet heroic.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Guido asks her stiffly, in English.

  ‘What about some English tea?’ Maria ventures.

  Guido shakes his head apologetically.

  ‘Sorry, I believe Jacqueline has run out of tea at the moment. Everything is still strictly rationed here. Tea is actually a luxury and it is easier to get hold of coffee, as it’s not so popular with the English.’

  ‘In that case, thank you; a cup of coffee would be lovely.’ Maria takes off her hat and places it on the sideboard, along with her gloves and handbag.

  Guido disappears through a side door, Maria guesses, into the kitchen. She looks around her mentor’s living room. It is quite bare – unsurprisingly, since Jacqueline is a refugee. On the run for most of the war, her childhood home had been destroyed when she finally made it back to Bordeaux. Yet, despite the room’s sparseness – one table, two chairs and a shelf of books – Jacqueline has managed to add something a little exotic to her flat. On one of the walls is an impressive painting, vibrant with colour. Maria wonders if Jacqueline knows the artist; that would be just like her. On the other wall is a series of black and white photographs of dancers. Maria studies them, scrutinising their faces. In all of them, the dancers are in costume and heavily made-up, and she struggles to recognise Jacqueline. Their postures are in opposition to any traditional ballet pose. In one image, sh
e sees a woman in footless tights, barefoot and wearing a long top, her head hidden by a scarf, adopting the pose of a tree, both her arms hanging out from her body, one with the hand pointing down, one with the hand pointing up. On the floor in front of her, two other dancers are on their backs, legs in the air, bare feet flexed, reaching out for the tree figure with their arms. It is almost ugly, the images of the women earthy and vulgar compared to the pretty photographs of ballerinas Maria is used to seeing.

  The door behind her clicks open and Guido returns with a coffee pot and two cups on a tray. He carries it over to the sideboard, the cups clinking on the saucers. Maria watches the tray shaking in his hands, and she struggles not to rush over and grab it off him, but she doesn’t want to insult him. He places the wobbling tray down and Maria can’t help noticing that his hands are still shaking. She looks up at his face again, fixed in concentration now he is pouring the coffee. Despite the moustache, he only looks about two or three years older than her. She wonders what he is doing here in London.

  ‘So, where are you from?’ Guido asks her as he hands her a cup of coffee with shaking hands.

  It sploshes over the side of her cup, but she politely says nothing, sitting down on one of Jacqueline’s chairs and holding the cup and saucer in both hands. ‘Venice.’

  Guido’s eyes light up. ‘I went to Venice as a little boy,’ he says, ‘with my mother and my father . . .’ He pauses, looking away. ‘Before the war.’

  ‘And where are you from?’ Maria asks him.

  ‘I am from Milan,’ he says. ‘But right now I am a student at the university of London.’

  ‘What are you studying?’

  ‘Physics. My father sent me to England before the war . . . He was a scientist himself and he could see that my passion lay in that direction, so he sent me to school here in England. And then the war broke out and I couldn’t get home.’

  ‘And have you been back since?’

  He takes a large gulp of his coffee and scowls at her. ‘No.’

  The fierceness of his response silences her. Maria can feel herself colouring with embarrassment. She doesn’t know what to say to this young man. She wishes he would leave her alone to wait for Jacqueline.

  ‘She told me to welcome you.’ Guido suddenly says, as if he is reading Maria’s thoughts. ‘We are friends,’ he adds, by way of explanation.

  ‘Thank you,’ Maria replies curtly, still not knowing what to say. Guido Rosselli’s eyes are blinkered behind his glasses, impossible to read.

  He gets up suddenly and slides his cup and saucer on to the tray. ‘We understand what it is like to be a stranger,’ Guido says, ‘Jacqueline and I. We are the same.’

  He turns his back on her, walks over to the window and clasps his hands behind his back. Maria can see how narrow he is – his shoulders, his back, his hips – as if he has not fully broadened into a man yet.

  ‘No family left –’ he spins around – ‘so we make our own family here. Everyone in this building is some kind of abandoned soul . . .’

  The words flow out of him, now.

  ‘Mrs Renshaw, for instance: her whole family was taken out one night during the Blitz. Husband, mother, children . . . She still can’t understand why she was spared. That’s why we don’t really mind about the cabbage. You have to make allowances, you know, if you live here.’

  Maria nods. The intensity of Guido Rosselli makes her feel uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to know about the other people in this house. She doesn’t even want to know about him. She has a feeling he has a sad and sorry past and she is not ready to hear his tale of woe. She is tired and dirty. She just wants a bath and some rest while she waits for Jacqueline. She wishes all of a sudden that she had stayed home in Venice. She isn’t like her mother, Belle, although she had thought she might be. She is no adventurer. She is more like Pina, keeping the home fires burning.

  ‘And, on the second floor, there is Monsieur Leduc.’ Guido gives a short hard laugh. ‘Wait until you meet him!’ he exclaims, thrusting his hands in his pockets and pacing the room. He seems to have forgotten that she is still there as he races on. ‘He loved his France so much he sacrificed all, and yet he has to live in London. Explain that to me?’ He puts his head on one side and stares at Maria, yet he is not looking at her, but through her.

  She shifts in her seat. ‘Excuse me, Guido, but where is the bathroom?’

  ‘Oh!’ He jumps as if awoken from a dream. ‘You have to go back down the stairs to the next floor. It’s the door next to mine.’ He shoves his hand through his thick hair, looking distracted.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maria picks up her handbag and escapes down the staircase and into the bathroom. She feels a little queasy. She holds her belly and breathes in deeply, trying to steady her fluttering stomach. She is desperate to take a bath or wash, but she can’t be too long, so she cleans up as best she can. There is only one small towel and she has no idea who it belongs to. She washes her hands and splashes water on her face before reapplying her make-up. She puts too much rouge on her cheeks and scrapes it off again with her handkerchief. She glances up at the mirror. She looks tired and hot.

  Her mother and Pina are always telling her how beautiful she is, how like her father with her dark blue eyes, pink cheeks and curly hair. But she thinks she looks like a scarecrow today. She would rather she had inherited her mother’s chic – her silky black hair and porcelain features – not these wild locks and rosy cheeks. She doesn’t want anything from her father, she thinks bitterly, since he never seemed to have had any interest in her. She has never expressed these feelings to her mother, for Belle talks about her father as if he was some kind of God. But Maria has often seen the way Pina’s expression hardens when there is mention of Santos Devine, and her face tells Maria that her father was not such a great man.

  Maria pulls out her comb and attempts to tame her hair. It just will not obey her, no matter whether she tries to straighten it or curl it into a style of some sort.

  As Maria climbs back up the stairs to the apartment, she can hear voices. Her spirits lift immediately. Jacqueline must be home. She opens the door and, sure enough, there is her dance mentor, the woman who taught her to dream.

  ‘Maria!’ Jacqueline exclaims, sweeping her up into a tight embrace. ‘My darling Maria.’ She showers her cheeks with kisses as Maria looks over her shoulder at the curious expression on Guido’s face. ‘Welcome, my dear. Welcome to London.’

  Jacqueline pulls away and surveys her protégé. ‘Oh, you have grown so much more striking since I last saw you. Isn’t she such a beauty, Guido?’

  Maria feels her cheeks flaring deep crimson. She casts her eyes down at the floor. ‘Really, Jacqueline. I am the same; just a little bigger.’

  ‘Yes; it has been how long? One, nearly two years, my darling, since I last saw you. But you are no bigger – not at all. You have lost all your puppy fat. Now you really look like the dancer you are.’ Jacqueline stands with her hands on her hips, smiling with satisfaction. ‘I cannot wait to present you to Lempert.’

  Maria feels a knot of apprehension inside her stomach. ‘I haven’t had a proper dance teacher since you left, Jacqueline.’

  ‘He will understand,’ she says, patting Maria’s shoulder and speaking confidently. ‘He trusts my judgement.’ She whirls around the room, collecting up Maria’s abandoned cup and saucer and placing them on the tea tray. ‘Now, you must tell me all about your darling mother and Pina. How are they? They must have been sad to let you go.’

  Maria feels awkward in front of Guido. She doesn’t want to talk about her mother and Pina in front of this stranger. ‘They are well,’ she says. ‘They send their love.’

  Jacqueline nods happily. ‘You know, Guido –’ she turns to the young man – ‘I owe my life to Maria’s mother, Belle, and her friend, Pina. They hid me during the war.’

  Guido narrows his eyes at Maria. He doesn’t look so impressed, although he says, ‘That was very brave of them.’r />
  ‘Yes, it was . . . but you should meet these women. They are . . . just . . . incredible.’

  Maria is mortified. ‘They did what any decent person would have done.’

  ‘But there are not so many decent people in the world,’ she hears Guido say under his breath.

  ‘Now, my dear,’ Jacqueline says, bustling Maria across the living room, ‘I’m afraid I am a little short on space, so your room really is in fact the old airing cupboard, but it was either that or the living room floor, and I thought you would like some privacy.’

  Jacqueline opens up a little door to reveal a tiny room, no longer than her height. It is empty, apart from a mattress on the floor, made up with sheets and blankets. There is a slatted shelf and, above that, a tiny skylight.

  ‘I left it uncurtained. I thought you’d like to see the stars at night.’

  ‘It’s perfect, Jacqueline,’ Maria says politely, although she is a little horrified by her confined quarters. She has always disliked small spaces.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Guido speaks up, ‘but I must say goodbye for now. I have some work to do.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thank you, Guido, for entertaining Maria for me. Would you like to eat with us later?’

  ‘I am afraid not,’ his face is earnest with regret. ‘I have a paper to write . . .’

  As soon as they are alone, Maria finally feels herself relaxing. Why does the company of men always make her tense? As soon as she is with women, she is at home.