‘When you first saw me,’ he said, ‘you thought you had known me before. Am I correct?’
‘Something like that,’ I replied.
‘We have met twice before,’ he said. ‘The second time was ten years ago in Luxor, when I was staying at the Winter Palace and joined your uncle’s party at a picnic amid the ruins of Karnak—’
‘I don’t remember,’ I cried.
‘You had climbed on to the feet of Rameses II and were throwing hard-boiled eggs at your friend Van Hopper.’
‘I don’t remember,’ I repeated.
‘Nor do I expect you to remember the first time,’ he said. ‘You were five years old and sitting in the office of the superintendent of an orphanage in Manchester.’
I was so agitated, so astounded that he had known me before I had known myself, that I jumped up and would have seized him by the shoulders if he hadn’t pushed me away and warned that if I didn’t compose myself and remain seated he wouldn’t utter another word. I did as I was told; there was something of the lion tamer about him as he strode back and forth, stabbing the air with one finger as his clawed mouth spat out the facts.
‘I was instructed by your uncle’s lawyers to make enquiries into your background. You had the right name and nothing else. You had been brought to the orphanage by a man called Mellor, landlord of the house you had previously lived in with your mother. The two rooms on the back of the ground floor were occupied by a wealthy spinster named Barrow who had £1,600 invested in India stock and a considerable sum in an account with the Salford and Manchester City Savings Bank. She also owned the leaseholds of both a public house and a barber’s shop. Under her bed she kept a tin trunk containing never less than £400 in gold. It was evident she had no need to live in such squalid surroundings, but it was thought she’d become addicted to alcohol and been obliged to leave various other premises on account of it. Miss Barrow had taken a particular fancy to you and when your mother died of influenza, one week after your third birthday, she took you in, neither the landlord nor the authorities raising any objection.’
Here, Scurra paused, presumably to see if I was about to raise an objection of my own, but I held my tongue. Most of what he had told me, save for Miss Barrow being the proprietor of a public house, I already knew of from Jack’s newspaper cuttings.
‘In summertime, eighteen months later, Miss Barrow became ill with stomach pains and took to her bed. Her upset was first put down to a piece of fish that had gone off and then to the unwholesome gases rising from the river below her window. In September, having been seen by two doctors on four occasions, she grew worse. During her last days she suffered from continuous vomiting and diarrhoea, her one comfort derived from the closeness of the child she insisted on keeping beside her in the bed.’
He paused again, but I looked at him steadily enough. By the matter of fact way in which he catalogued such dreadful details I was more than ever convinced he must be a lawyer.
‘Two months later the landlord and his wife were arraigned on a charge of murder and Mellor found guilty of putting arsenic, obtained from the soaking of fly-papers, into the Valentine’s meat-juice his wife had so assiduously spooned into their lodger. He was hanged at Pentonville. As your name had featured in the trial, though only in one sentence in one London newspaper, enquiries were set in motion to find you.’
I gathered he had finished, for he looked at me expectantly. Noticing my shoe lace was undone, I bent to tie it.
‘A fortunate turn of events,’ he said. ‘Don’t you agree?’
I uttered not a word. He urged me to take a sip of the whisky but I shook my head; my thoughts were jumbled enough. Now that he had spewed out all he knew he appeared irritated by my silence. He yawned, took out his watch and expressed surprise at the time. ‘I’ll leave you now,’ he said, ‘perhaps we shall meet at dinner,’ and strode to the door. Opening it, he hesitated, then turned to look at me. He said, ‘We are like lambs in the field, cropping the grass under the eye of the butcher who chooses first one then another to meet his requirements. On our good days we have no thought for the tribulations fate may have in store for us – sickness, mutilation, loss of reason, death—’
‘What did I look like when I was five years old?’ I interrupted. ‘Was I small for my age?’
‘Average. Your head was shaved to discourage lice.’
‘What did I say? Did I mention my mother?’
‘You asked after Miss Barrow and a toy horse she had given you.’
‘I have no recollection of the horse,’ I said, but the door was already closing behind him.
Some men shy away from society when life deals an underhand blow. That’s not my way; I need people to restore my spirits and could scarcely wait to join the others for dinner. In Scurra’s company it was necessary to contemplate the exquisite darkness of the world, and though not melancholy by nature I had been touched by shadows. It wasn’t that he’d been overly brutal in his summary of my past – he had, after all, omitted to mention that my mother mouldered in a public grave – rather that he’d been less than sensitive in regard to my infant self. It wouldn’t have cost him much to invent a gleam of intelligence in the baby-blue eyes beneath the shaven scalp.
I was in my dressing-gown preparing to bathe when the steward knocked at the door. In my haste to get rid of him I was foolishly quick in pardoning him for not securing the porthole earlier. He took advantage and loitered over his task. Glancing at me curiously he remarked that an infusion of cold tea was very good for swellings. I jumped to the conclusion that my eyes were puffy and spun him a yarn about an unaccompanied dog having run off with my newspaper. ‘I ran the full length of the ship in pursuit,’ I said. ‘The wind made my eyes water.’
‘Possibly the dog was a retriever, sir,’ he replied. Taking my evening clothes from the wardrobe he laid them out on the bed. ‘Certain winds,’ he continued, ‘are considered to have a detrimental effect on both man and beast. Under their influence the most peaceful of men have been known to lose control and act in an uncharacteristically energetic way. It happened to me once on the Mediterranean run. By inclination I’m what one might call timid, yet come the mistral I set about the ship’s doctor with a poker and laid him out cold, and all because I took a sudden dislike to the way he sprinkled sugar on his pudding.’ Here, he was about to empty the pockets of my day coat when I remembered the note to Wallis and shouted out for him to leave things alone, at which he pursed his lips, put the whisky tumblers on to a tray and flounced from the room.
I realised what he’d been raving about when I caught sight of myself in the glass. Obviously Hopper had told no one of the outcome of the racquets game and all and sundry of the scrap in the dining room. Emptying the pockets of my tweed coat and transferring the contents to my evening jacket, I rang the bell repeatedly. When at last McKinlay arrived I apologised for my brusqueness, handed him a dollar bill and asked to be brought a jug of cold tea. He thanked me and took his time in returning.
I spent a good half-hour bathing my forehead, with disappointing results. It was just as well I’d been prevented from delivering my letter to Wallis; my brow had begun to bulge and the skin circling my eye was unmistakably foxed with purple. Just as I was thinking the worst of McKinlay, imagining he’d deliberately mixed too little tea with too much water, he came in and gave me a black satin eye-patch to wear. The effect was pretty dashing.
I arrived in the foyer in time to hear the bugle blow for the serving of dinner and was at once a focus of interest, not all of it friendly. My piratical appearance was taken as proof positive of my part in the fracas over the mental stability of Kaiser Wilhelm and Molly Dodge’s mother. Kitty Webb took my side. When Guggenheim swept past with an ill-concealed glance of disapproval, I heard her say, ‘Benny, it wasn’t Morgan. Sweet Jesus, he wasn’t even there.’
Lady Duff Gordon thought she was behaving like a brick in going out of her way to greet me. ‘Morgan,’ she cried loudly, ‘now the evening can begin.’
When I held her gloved hand in mine she whispered, ‘Boys will be boys, but this particular boy must be more careful than most of causing offence.’ There wasn’t time to ask her why.
Wallis and Ida Ellery were seated at Melchett’s table. The band was playing something from The Chocolate Soldier as I approached. My heart beat like a drum when Wallis looked up and smiled. I felt she could read me like a book and was thankful for the circle of black satin attached to my face; one eye at least would remain a blank page.
I had sat down and was still rehearsing what I might say to her when Rosenfelder, followed by Ginsberg, rushed into the restaurant. The tailor was looking very dapper, hair sleeked back behind his ears, a jewelled pin stuck in his shirt front. ‘Scurra has struck a bargain,’ he called out as he bustled further down the room to join the Duff Gordons’ table. From this distance he continued to communicate with me by means of sign language, hands clasped in prayer, mouth open like a Swiss yodeller. I took it he meant that Adele was going to wear his dress when she sang.
When I turned back from him I was staggered to find Ginsberg seated opposite. Melchett looked uncomfortable but neither of the girls seemed put out. Far from appearing chastened, Ginsberg was as cocky as ever and proceeded to monopolise the conversation. He maintained I was lucky not to have lost my sight and that Hopper should be shot for going on to the racquets court half sober. ‘No wonder he’s lying low,’ he said, which was rich coming from him.
Wallis was affable towards me and even went to the lengths of pressing my foot with hers, though that was when Ginsberg said something asinine about one of the Taft cousins and knocked a glass over. Not that she was really listening. Much of the time she either gazed round the room or stared at the door. If Ginsberg hadn’t been so boring I might have thought she was waiting for someone. When he asked if she was prepared to bet on our time of arrival in New York – he’d been down to the purser’s office and learnt we’d covered 386 miles since yesterday lunch-time – she turned on him. ‘Not all of us are so eager for the voyage to end,’ she snapped.
She looked awesomely beautiful, eyes like brown velvet, cheeks tinted rose, a little blue vein palpitating in the hollow of her throat. In my head I pretended I’d delivered the note and that she and I had met on the promenade and come to an understanding. When dinner was over she would first allow me to take her into my arms on the dance floor and after that – but here, such a picture flashed into my mind of what would happen in the after that I was seized with a fit of trembling so intense that the spoon in my hand clattered against the sides of my pudding dish. Only Ida noticed, and being kind, feigned she hadn’t.
‘You’ll be interested to know,’ Ginsberg said, addressing me, ‘that Scurra holds equally fierce views on the beastly properties of anything German.’
Melchett groaned.
‘And he speaks from experience. His lip was damaged from the recoil of a Mauser rifle.’
‘He was bitten by a parrot,’ I said. I was distracted by the sight of Rosenfelder mounting the orchestra rostrum. He spoke to the violinist who nodded then shooed him away with his bow.
‘You’re both mistaken,’ Wallis said. ‘I happen to know Scurra was gored by a bull in Cadiz.’
At which moment the band finished their piece and a hubbub of shushing arose from the Duff Gordons’ table, whereupon Rosenfelder, climbing on to a chair, called for silence. He was only partially successful, in that Mrs Brown of Denver had evidently just delivered the punch line to one of her risqué stories; a bellow of laughter from the gentlemen at her table obliterated his opening words.
‘. . . in half an hour in the Palm Court,’ he concluded, stabbing his cigar in that direction, and beaming clambered from view.
‘What’s Rosenfelder blabbing about now?’ asked Ginsberg.
‘He’s organised a recital,’ said Wallis. ‘A lady called Miss Baines is to sing for us.’
I was surprised she was so well informed and wondered if she knew that the ‘lady’ in question was travelling steerage. Not wishing to ask her outright, I observed instead that it was strange we hadn’t known of Miss Baines’ existence before now. Wallis gave one of her enigmatic smiles and said that most things were strange, and none more so than men.
When she and Ida went off to the powder room, Melchett, spotting Molly Dodge at the Carters’ table, declared he was going over to enquire whether she was feeling better. ‘She was terribly upset earlier on,’ he said, and added for Ginsberg’s benefit, ‘Which is hardly surprising, is it?’ Ginsberg didn’t bat an eyelid. At Melchett’s departure he moved chairs and sat beside me. In spite of putting his mouth to my ear he spoke in such a low voice that I had to strain to hear him. ‘Good news,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve heard on the grape-vine that the fire’s almost out.’
I hesitated, then asked, ‘Do they know what caused it?’
‘Insufficient hosing down of the coal,’ he said. ‘I guess they were in a hurry on account of meeting the departure date.’
I’d never really looked at him properly, certainly not at such close quarters, and was astonished at how pale his skin was and how crimson his mouth in comparison. He drew back slightly and studied me in return. ‘You don’t seem convinced,’ he said.
Of course I shrugged him off and made light of the whole thing, but I’m not sure he was fooled. My feelings towards him were thoroughly ambivalent; on the one hand I detested him and on the other – well, I already knew he was pretty confident, which is not to be scoffed at. That day beside the Thames, when he’d thrown himself down on the grass after I’d challenged him to a fight, he’d shouted, ‘What on earth will it prove if I knock you out?’ It was his assumption that I’d be the loser, rather than the other way round, that had got through to me. It was damnably irritating, of course, but still impressive. I began to wonder whether I shunned him because everybody else did, and for the same reasons; we instantly detect in others those faults most common to ourselves.
A large crowd gathered in the Palm Court after dinner. Lady Duff Gordon saw to that, rounding us up like so many sheep. Nor were we allowed to sit where we pleased, the tables having been removed and the chairs rearranged in front of the flight of stairs leading up to the mirrored doors of the a` la carte restaurant. To the right of the stairs stood a three-pronged candle stand, five foot in height, topped with virgin candles. The orchestra sat below the stairs and to the left.
I must say Lady Duff Gordon was right in thinking Rosenfelder had a touch of the showman. He didn’t call for silence but simply stood there, arms outstretched, as if gathering in the voices. When it was almost quiet he mounted the steps, lit the candles, turned, signalled to a steward who waited by the doors into the foyer, and the next moment the electric lights went out. There was an immediate hush. Lit thus, magical with leaping shadows, the stair landing took on the aspect of a stage. Bowing, Rosenfelder announced he had the honour to present, straight from the Opera House in Paris, Miss Adele Baines. Dramatically he strode left, to the swing doors opening on to the enclosed promenade, and pushed them wide. A blast of night air tore at the candles and sent the flames rippling. The buzz of conversation started up again, though not so loudly as before. A dog, similar to the one who had pounced upon my letter, turned round and round on the Axminster carpet and subsided, muzzle on paws. Several women could be heard complaining of the cold. A figure appeared in the doorway and suddenly there was no sound at all save for a unified intake of breath.
She was dressed in Japanese costume and wore a black wig above the chalk-white mask of her face. Tippy-toeing, as though her feet were bound, she advanced to the centre of the landing. She appeared sightless, for the eyes beneath the painted lids were so pale in colour as to be invisible, and there she waited, divinely tall, her two hands pressed to the silken breast of her poppy-red kimono. Then the orchestra began to play.
I’d seen productions of Madame Butterfly on many occasions in London, Madrid, and New York, and always found the story unconvincing and sentimental. Wh
o can believe that a woman, and a Japanese one at that, is capable of such passion? I’d certainly not expected to be disturbed by Adele’s interpretation of Cio-Cio-San. I had regarded her behaviour of the day before, when she had run towards the rail, as nothing more than a calculated piece of play-acting performed for the benefit of Scurra, but now, as she sang in candlelight, I saw it differently. It wasn’t just her voice that moved me, though that was pure and thrilling enough in tone, nor the contrast between the chill and doleful mask of her face and the burning intensity she brought to the hackneyed words, but rather the realisation that she had indeed been prepared to die of love.
Un-bel dí, ve-dre-mo, le var-si un fil di fu-mo . . .
Sul l’estremo confin del mare
Poi la nave appare
Vedi? E venuto . . .
Here, she looked towards the swing doors, one hand clutched to her heart, the other pitched against the air as if pressing back a joy that threatened to overwhelm her. An astonishing thing happened; we too turned to glance in that direction, and in spite of the darkness it was possible to believe she glimpsed that dazzling uniform against the deep blue sky . . .
I do not run to greet him. Not I!
I rest upon the rise of the hillside
and there wait . . .
Now she was faltering a little, caught betwixt ecstasy and despair–
Wait for a long time, never tiring
of the long waiting . . .
And I did know then, suddenly and dreadfully, how cruelly she had been kept waiting, for hope springs eternal, as they say, even though the one who waits, be it a woman on a hillside or a child swinging its legs on an orphanage bench, already divines that the mandate of heaven is lost and the waiting must last for ever.
When Butterfly had finished – He will call, he will call, my little orange blossom . . . tiente la tua paura, io son sicura fede l’aspetto – and we’d clapped our hardest and roared for more – Adele declined – the electric lights came on and the tables were put back in place. Almost at once, what we had felt faded and nothing remained of the experience save for three wisps of smoke spiralling from the blown-out candles. The orchestra struck up a turkey-trot and Molly Dodge inveigled Melchett on to the dance floor.
Every Man for Himself Page 10