The Nightingale's Nest

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘My word, is it Mrs Griffe?’ He took my hand and then stood back, as if about to dance with me. ‘May I say you look quite charming?’

  ‘Thank you.’ I brushed at my skirt self-consciously, it’s new.’

  ‘New it may be, but that dress has been waiting for you all its life. I hope Ashe appreciates it.’

  ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Yes indeed, you run along. Well I never . . .’ I felt his eyes following me as I walked out. I lifted my head and lengthened my stride, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to swing my hips as Louise did.

  When I arrived at Twelve Soho Square, Parkes was emerging from the lift.

  ‘Afternoon, madam. Just taking something up.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Parkes.’

  I felt his appreciative glance scanning my dress, my shoes, the tonte ensemble. ‘Going somewhere this evening, madam?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Have a nice time.’

  ‘I will.’

  He was, I knew, being a shade too familiar, but it didn’t trouble me. Parkes was so young, and handsome, and soft-spoken, it was impossible to take offence. He was how I imagined Dorothy’s Jimmy Doyle – able to charm the birds from the trees. To charm and be charmed was something new for me, and like sweet wine it coursed through my veins and made me quite light-headed as I rose in the lift to Ashe Enterprises.

  As I emerged John Ashe was in the room to my left, and the door stood open. On seeing me he came out, smiling and unhurried.He turned to close the door behind him, and I heard the click of a key in the lock. But those few seconds were enough for me to gain an impression of a room dark and rich as the other rooms were pale and plain; a space like an animal’s mouth, silky red and black and fleshy pink, with something in the centre which I could not make out – a mysterious monolithic object, draped in black cloth.

  I could tell, as we went into the small office and I prepared to take dictation, that he had noticed the way I looked, but rather to my disappointment he said nothing. I began to think that our exchange about the shoes had been an aberration, one of those things I should banish from my mind and never refer to again, even in my own head. But two hours later, as I was about to leave, he came out of the white room.

  ‘Mrs Griffe, I have to tell you – you are a picture of elegance.’ He inclined his head slightly in a manner both courtly and knowing, as if in acknowledgement of an understanding between us. ‘Have a pleasant weekend.’

  ‘Thank you. Goodnight, Mr Ashe.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Outside, Alan was waiting for me in the usual place. He rose, smiling, but had learned not to greet me too warmly while we could still be seen from the building. This time, however, whether due to the clothes or the compliments or both, I was seized by the impulse to show off, and flung my arms round his neck.

  ‘Hey! This is nice!’ Baffled but delighted he returned my embrace, I planted my mouth on his and for a long moment we were fused together. When we separated he was almost gasping.

  ‘What a treat! And Pamela, you look wonderful! Where on earth shall we go that will do justice to you?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ I said, ‘anywhere at all.’

  As we walked away, with Alan’s arm about my waist – a waist that seemed smaller, somehow, in that sleek, cloud-coloured dress – I glanced up at the window and saw John Ashe staring down at us. In spite of the distance between us, our eyes met. He didn’t move. It was I who looked away, but I could feel the intensity of that stare, like a pinpoint on my back, all the way along the pavement until we turned the corner.

  Edward Rintoul and Bob Sullivan had arrived at Crompton Terrace over the weekend, and the house was full of booming male voices and heavy footsteps. Sullivan was in his early thirties, a handsome, fair-haired, open-faced man, with brilliant blue eyes, who looked as if he should have been playing baseball rather than painting. His appearance served to remind me all over again, as the ‘clerks’ had done, that creativity, like lightning, was no respecter of persons. It could strike anyone, anywhere. The only artist of my acquaintance who looked, to me, as an artist should, was Suzannah. I wondered where she was, and how she was faring. She and I had gone to work for Ashe, in our separate ways, at about the same time. It would have been interesting to compare notes.

  One impression I received very clearly at that time was of the strong feelings Christopher Jarvis had for Sullivan. He quite simply adored him. His eyes shone when Sullivan walked into the room, and rested on him every second he was there. He smiled even more readily than usual and was exceptionally appreciative of beauty, elegance, the comforts and adornments of life. It was obvious that all his senses were heightened and intensified. He radiated happiness, which made him a pleasure to be with. Even Amanda seemed in no way diminished by his feelings, but enhanced – he was much more attentive than usual, and she prettier as a result. Try as I might, I could not equate his behaviour with the ‘muckiness’ so darkly referred to by Darblay. I noticed no sign that his feelings were reciprocated; Sullivan demonstrated nothing that was not consistent with a normal, relaxed, social friendship. It was an instance of unrequited love being strangely complete in itself.

  I would never have mentioned this to Dorothy, but she could be relied upon to do so, and without making any bones about it, either.

  ‘Sir’s cheerful then, with his new beau.’

  ‘Dorothy!’

  ‘Don’t say you haven’t noticed, Mrs G, not much gets past you.’

  I mumbled something and she gave me a sardonic look. ‘Who cares, as long as he’s happy? She doesn’t seem to mind, never does, so why should anyone else?’

  We left it at that. For all Dorothy’s cheeky talk, she had lost her holiday shine, and looked tired. When I asked her about the weekend’s trip to Brighton, though, her face lit up with a gentle glow quite unlike her usual bright, saucy grin.

  ‘We had such a lovely time. And Jimmy’s boss gave him a couple of hours off in the middle of the day so we went on the beach and had a paddle, and an ice cream.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I said. But her remark brought home to me the fact that Dorothy was undertaking the regular train journey to the south coast with her hard-earned money to keep company with a young man who was working most of the time; and whose work consisted, by its very nature, in advertising his attractions.

  She held something out to me. ‘Want to see a picture?’

  ‘Yes please, I would.’

  It was one of those posed photographs you could pay for in a booth on the pier. The two of them had poked their heads through holes in a board in order to look like a couple in Edwardian dress, riding on a tandem. Dorothy was in a well-corseted top and striped bloomers, her delight and hilarity plain to see. But between bowler and stiff collar I saw that Jimmy Doyle was not the curly-headed, dark-eyed Irish boyo of my imaginings but had pale hair and eyes, a narrow, fine-boned face, and a secretive smile. It was the face of a young man altogether more subtle than my preconception, and all the more disturbing for that.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said. ‘You were having fun. I held out the picture, but she didn’t take it.

  ‘So what do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you – it’s very good of you.’

  She sucked her teeth impatiently. ‘Never mind me – what about him, Jimmy?’

  I wanted to say: What does it matter what I think? But didn’t wish to appear dismissive. I knew I could often be unintentionally brusque and this was one – perhaps the only – occasion when Dorothy was vulnerable to offence or, worse, injury. To please her, I took another more considered look at the photograph, and then laid it on the table between us.

  ‘You were right,’ I said, ‘he is handsome.’

  ‘Not what you thought, though, eh?’

  Even with her heart laid bare, she was bright as ninepence. I had to admit it:

  ‘No.’

  She picked the photo up and gazed at it. ‘He’s one in a million.’

  ‘S
o are you, Dorothy,’ I said.

  ‘Me?’ She laughed incredulously. ‘Give over!’

  To spare her embarrassment, I didn’t pursue it, but I did hope she would remember.

  ‘What do you do,’ I asked, ‘when he’s not free?’

  ‘I help out,’ she said proudly, adding with a touch of her old dash: ‘He smiles at the girls, I smile at the boys. He says I’m a real asset.’

  ‘I’m sure you are! He should give you a percentage.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take his money,’ she said, ‘I like doing it, so it’s cheap at the price.’

  What a treasure Dorothy was, I thought, and what a wonderful wife she’d be for some lucky fellow. I could only hope that Jimmy Doyle, who held her heart in the palm of his faithless hand, appreciated what a gem was in his possession, or had any idea what to do with it.

  The next day, Tuesday, I arrived at Ashe Enterprises to find John Ashe about to go out. I don’t know why I should have been surprised, except that it was unprecedented. I had become used to an almost unvarying routine – settling myself at my desk, his emerging from the white room shortly afterwards, the twenty minutes or so spent on dictation, even the silence while I got on with my work which, while I could never have described it as companionable, no longer unsettled me.

  ‘I’d like it if you could give me some more of your time this evening,’ he said. I noticed that, though polite, this was not framed as a request.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied.

  ‘I have to catch a train at five thirty, so I’ll be brief if you don’t mind. When you’ve finished here, there are some books that I’d like collected from two clubs. Pick them up after six o’clock if you would and deliver them to my home address in Kensington. My wife’s in and will be expecting you. Take a taxi for the evening and please go home in it afterwards. You can charge it to me.’

  Ashe was never less than calm and courteous, and seldom if ever raised his voice, but this was the closest he’d come to being curt. I knew that outside circumstances and not I were the cause of the curtness, but even so the ‘if you would’ and ‘please’ were the merest token civilities. I had my orders.

  ‘I’ve written down the various addresses for you, and left them on your desk.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you on Thursday as usual, then.’ He made to leave, but turned in the doorway. ‘I’m not expecting anyone. Simply lock up when you leave.’

  When he’d gone I leaned over my desk to look out of the window. The Hispano-Suiza, which had not been there when I arrived, was drawn up outside. The black bodywork and silver chrome gleamed like silk; the stork’s beak was a golden dagger in the sun. I saw Parkes get out, and a second later Ashe appeared. Parkes opened the rear door, stood smartly while Ashe climbed in, closed it softly but firmly, and returned to his place behind the wheel. The car glided away.

  I sat down. The place became even more silent now that I was the only person here, but the silence was quite different. Before, it had always been stilling and intense, as though Ashe’s presence weighed heavy on the atmosphere. This evening it was thinner, lighter – it breathed, like the rare emptiness of Seven Crompton Terrace. I picked up the piece of paper on the desk and read the addresses: the White Flamingo Club, Greek Street; the Apache Club, Romilly Street; and finally Hall House, Three Piedmont Gardens, Kensington. The names I was to ask for at the nightclubs were Mr Miles Easter and Mr Charles Swynford-Hayes respectively. So I was going to meet Piggy! And, very probably, Felicia.

  I put the paper down. The time was ten to five. Only a few letters lay on my desk, all requiring no more than standard replies. Like a sleepwalker, without conscious decision, I got up, went into the hall, and turned the handle on the door of the white room. It was not locked. I opened it wide and went in. Everything was exactly as it had been the first time I saw it, except for the flowers. The snarling red blooms had been replaced with huge waxen lilies whose sweet scent was quite overpowering. I had no idea who changed the flowers; it was not something I’d been asked to do. Perhaps Felicia arranged for them to be brought, or one of Ashe’s other female visitors.

  I crossed to the desk, and round to the far side. My legs shook slightly with the guilty thrill of what I was doing. Slowly, I pulled out his chair, and sat down. Only then did I look up at Felicia.

  The photograph was one of gauzy, film-star perfection. Felicia seemed to be sitting below the camera and to be leaning slightly forward and upwards, to emphasize the length of her swanlike column of throat with its choker of pearls. Her sleek dark cap of hair formed an elfin point on her forehead and a smooth curl on one cheek. On the other side it was swept back to reveal a small, perfect ear from which hung another pearl in the shape of a teardrop. Her eyes were large and heavy-lidded, her closed mouth a cherry-dark Cupid’s bow, her expression cool and curiously blank. She might have been any age from eighteen to thirty-eight. Felicia Ashe was a hothouse plant, gorgeous but cultivated, unnatural, and – in her photograph at least – without a scintilla of self-doubt. Even though I could, in a split second, have leaned forward and turned the photograph on its face, I would never have done so. I wouldn’t have dared. And when I finally looked away, I felt as if I were averting my eyes not from a man-made object of paper, glass and silver, but from a real woman, who had stared me down.

  I replaced Ashe’s chair precisely as I had found it, smoothing the small indentation from its leather seat even though I knew he would not be back for at least a day. Irrationally I found myself thinking that whatever I did he would know where I had been and what I had done – that he had designed this still, white room to register every movement, every sound. My face in the mirrors looked hectic and scared – perhaps the glass concealed cameras and my gross intrusion would be recorded?

  As I closed the door behind me my skin prickled with anxiety and I wiped my palms on my skirt.

  There wasn’t enough to do to fill the time between now and six o’clock, but I didn’t like to leave my post early. I busied myself going through the already well-organised filing cabinet. At five to six, just as I was preparing to leave, the phone rang. The sudden, loud summons after more than two hours of silence was startling, and my heart was thumping wildly as I lifted the receiver.

  ‘Hello – Ashe Enterprises.’

  ‘Is that – excuse me – is that Mr Ashe’s secretary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Griffe.’

  ‘Speaking. Who is that, please?’

  ‘It’s Felicia Ashe here.’

  ‘Oh!’ Felicia’s image rose up before my mind’s eye. ‘Mrs Ashe – hello. I was just about to leave.’

  ‘Of course you were . . . I wanted to make sure you knew where to come.’

  ‘Mr Ashe left an address. And he said I should take a taxi, so—’

  ‘So you are perfectly in command of the situation. As you always are, I’m told.’

  ‘ I don’t know about—’

  ‘I’ll expect you in about an hour, then, shall I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  The phone her end went down with a click. I replaced the receiver. In spite of the coolly civil tone she had used, I knew I had been knocked about by Felicia: patronised by a past master. The effects of her assault were like little soft bruises all over me. As I covered the typewriter and prepared to leave the office I knew that she had not been in the least concerned about me or my ability to find Piedmont Gardens. Still less was she impressed by my organisational ability. She had been checking up on me; seeing that I was where I was supposed to be, and ensuring that I arrived on time so as to cause the least disruption to her smooth running life.

  Because both the clubs were so close I decided to walk there, and pick up a taxi afterwards from the cab-rank on Oxford Street. The entrance to the White Flamingo was easier to find than that of the Apache, only because it was at pavement level. I rang the bell, announced myself to a male voice over the intercom and was admitted. Inside ther
e was a narrow hallway with what I took to be a cloakroom, currently shuttered, to my left, and ahead of me stairs leading down to the basement. Above the brass handrail, the wall was lined with a series of photographs of what I took to be famous people, one or two of whom I recognised. The same man’s voice called:

  ‘Come down, I won’t keep you!’

  I descended the stairs, which wound down in two long curves. At the bottom was a low-ceilinged room elaborately decorated in a tropical-island motif with palms, parrots on swings and murals depicting vistas of improbably turquoise sea and silver sand. The bar had a palm-thatch roof and stacks of coconut shells. A little yellow-faced monkey scampered around on the bar, attached to a stand by a thin chain on its collar. I ventured a guess that later on, in the soft glow of table lamps, the decor would be effective. But now, lit harshly from above as two men set out chairs and ashtrays, it looked vulgar. Mr Easter, a slim, dapper man in a striped suit, walked towards me across the small dance floor, two large books and a folder under his arm. He held out the books, but when I took hold of them he didn’t relinquish them, asking instead:

  ‘You are John Ashe’s secretary, I sincerely hope? It’s more than my life’s worth to let these go to the wrong person.’

  ‘Don’t worry, that’s me. Mrs Griffe.’

  I had no means of identification, but fortunately he took my word for it.

  ‘Fine, fine, fine . . .’ He let go of the books and waved a dismissive hand. ‘There you are then. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got work to do, can you see yourself out?’

  I excused his rudeness on the grounds that he was obviously nervous – not of me, but of what, or who, I represented.

  It only took a few minutes to get from there to the Apache Club, which was just as well because the books were heavy. I was glad that Alan and I had located the entrance on that earlier evening. Here, the door was opened by a stout man in shirtsleeves. His fine, frizzy hair had receded to reveal a great expanse of domed, freckled forehead, at present covered with a sheen of perspiration.