by Maggie Ford
‘I’m sure I know you, my dear, both you and your husband. Didn’t I meet you at some party in London? I forget whose, but it was at a party, I am sure.’
‘I can’t recall,’ said Geraldine, now more in command of her wits.
‘Well, I certainly know you from somewhere.’ Enquiring their name and being told, the china-blue eyes opened wide in triumph, the red lips parted to reveal small, perfectly white teeth. ‘Of course! Geraldine and Tony! Yes, of course I’ve met you. I still can’t remember which party it was, a house party I’m sure, but which?’ She gave a little shrug and turned to look up at Tony, pointing a finger of recognition at him. ‘You’re the jeweller, aren’t you?’
What that statement meant with particular emphasis on the jeweller, Geraldine wasn’t certain. But apparently his reputation had gone before him even here.
She had begun to feel forgotten as the beautiful young woman stood up to extend a hand towards Tony who promptly took it.
‘I’m Diana Manners. Not the Diana Manners, daughter of the Duke of Rutland, now Lady Diana Cooper.’ She gave a tinkling laugh. ‘I wish I were as famous, but I’m not, just happen to have the same married name as her maiden name. I was married to someone called Billy Manners but he died last year. Now I’m fancy-free, you see, so I came out here to soak up the atmosphere and find my feet. I’m mostly known as Di.’
Tony still had hold of her hand but was looking bemused. Geraldine spoke up quickly from where she still sat on the ground. ‘I think I can get up, darling.’ She was feeling even more of a fool sitting here. ‘Darling, can you help me?’
Di Manners turned back to her, but speaking to Tony, ‘I think she ought to go back to the boat to rest. You never know, it might be heatstroke, and one has to be careful. I’d get a doctor to look in on her if I were you.’
It was almost as if she wasn’t there, or too far gone to comprehend if spoken to directly. ‘I’m fine,’ she blurted out. Struggling to her feet, she made a play at brushing down her dress, adjusting her sun hat, looking for her parasol, but the change from sitting to standing made her stagger a little.
Both Tony and Di Manners grabbed her arms. ‘We must get her back to the boat,’ instructed Di, ‘then I expect she might have to spend a day or two in the hotel we’re all going to when we reach Luxor.’
Luxor was on the other side of the Nile. The more expensive rooms, one of which Tony had paid for to Geraldine’s concern that he was spending far too much on this trip, looked directly across the river and the golden cliffs of the Valley of the Kings, each morning made even more golden by the rays of the rising sun. The reverse was seen at sunset, the cliffs black against a dying light, the temples of Luxor and Karnak watching the sunrise depict the afterlife of those buried there and proclaim the death of the worldly body.
Why such thoughts should invade her mind as Tony, with this young woman’s help, got a driver to take them back to the boat, she didn’t quite know, except that her mind was still in a whirl. Waiting for the rest of the company to return, the three of them sat with her leaning against Tony, a thumping headache now making her want only to lie down and sleep.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said, ‘now that me Tony’s here.’ She felt too out of sorts to care how she sounded, until she saw that quirky little smile come to the woman’s lips once again and could have bitten her tongue, showing herself up again. ‘If you want to go,’ she ended lamely.
‘No, I’ll stay,’ came the ready offer. ‘I’ve had enough of milling about among barren rocks in full sunshine. I’m happy to stay.’
Geraldine saw a look pass between her and Tony that her befuddled mind saw as kindness and concern on the woman’s part and gratitude on his, no doubt wondering how he would ever have managed her on his own.
Chapter Twenty-one
Egypt was six months ago now and great chunks of it were beginning to fade from her memory. Only those moments of special note stood out – that first sight of Cairo with its crowded thoroughfares and its smells and all that. The journey there she still remembered vividly but not a lot of the trip down the Nile that despite parties every evening did become a little bit too much of the same old thing as the days flowed slowly on like the river itself. Only the odd snatch of memory of some village lingered, a certain tree or two, some portion of bank somewhere or other, a young girl, a child of about eight years old, driving a couple of huge bullocks with a stick as she walked confidently behind them, they obeying her every command.
What she recalled most vividly was the way she’d passed out in front of dozens of people who unlike her were quite unaffected by the heat, and coming back to consciousness to find a young woman who actually knew her bending over her.
What had the woman really thought of her despite her attractive smile? Had she gossiped about her later? And how many people had witnessed it and hurried forward to offer help, discussing the incident long afterwards, debating if she were in fact normally poor in health?
She hated the mortification of having made such a fool of herself, even after all this time with a damp and cold English October crowding in on her, often with not even Tony’s company to soothe away the shame of it. But he seemed always off somewhere, making an excuse not to take her with him.
They still went to nightclubs, dancing until all hours and having fun with the people they knew, went to the theatre on occasion, had gone once to the cinema to see the acclaimed film The Ten Commandments. But there had been no summer holiday, Tony having spent far too much in going to Egypt.
Geraldine knew he was short of money and struggling. How could he have been so silly as to put someone in charge of his shop while they were away? She hadn’t queried it then, being so excited at aping the wealthy. There had been no complaints about the man, a friend, he’d put in charge, but he’d had to pay him an exorbitant wage, taking up any profit there had been, and of course while he was away there was no other work done.
In fact it recently reached her ears that those he dealt with hadn’t been too happy and, in the words of her informant, a spidery little woman named Kate who owned a nightclub and was herself involved in all sorts of shady goings on, were leaning on him so that he was spending endless time away endeavouring to make up for it and ingratiate himself once more into their good graces. Without what he did for them, it was obvious the shop on its own, with its large overheads, would never keep himself and her in the style they’d grown used to.
‘He should have spoken to them first,’ said Kate darkly, as they sat together in a corner of her nightclub, Tony having disappeared somewhere into a back room with his cronies, not saying why, but she guessed, either to play cards or discuss something she wasn’t meant to hear.
‘People aren’t very happy with him at the moment, you know. But don’t despair, darling, it’ll all come out right if he behaves himself.’
Geraldine gazed at the unglamorous figure seated across the table from her, spidery fingers toying with a small glass of absinthe, a tatty velvet cape draped about her skinny shoulders, a dowdy dress hanging on her thin frame, the sharp eyes in a sharp face regarding her with a meaningful glint. The look had all the semblance of a gun pointed at her and Geraldine shivered.
The woman had strong links with the underworld, knew everyone, did questionable deals, had bribed the police when necessary, even though in the short time of owning this club, an ill-lit basement beneath Gerrard Street and a far cry from law-abiding places like Quaglino’s or Sovrani’s or Lett’s, it had still been raided by them several times. They’d have had a field day were they to know all that took place behind the front the club presented. People came here solely to enjoy the possible danger of a raid so that she still managed to bounce back, aware of all that went on as well as she was aware of the back of her own skinny hand.
Gazing at the dingy surroundings, Geraldine thought suddenly of the easy life she had led before her marriage. They had been dingy too but not like this. There had been dignity in such dinginess, people str
iving to make a better life from it. She too, with little money, had had to work often nine hours a day, Saturday morning included, to make ends meet on piece work. But the stress of that life could never compare to the stress of this one, hobnobbing with society, and not such high-class society at that, not what she had once imagined herself as being part of.
It had got worse these days, she left alone while Tony stayed away far more than the demands made on him seemed to warrant. But she realised he needed to make money. His excuse was always plausible: a business dinner, no women allowed; a card game he’d been asked to take part in; a business meeting that might go on late into the night; and of course that pressing need to spend sometimes a whole night working at his smelter.
‘Big job,’ he’d say. ‘Very important. Can’t let people down. I’m going to make bloody good money on this one.’ And so on.
He’d been quite distant ever since Egypt and that faint of hers – attentive, yet something had been lacking. In fact he appeared not to be unduly worried by his long absences from her. Even when she was confined to her bed in the hotel for two days with a thumping headache, though he had been attentive and full of concern for her, she’d detected a longing to get away, to carry on enjoying himself.
People had felt sorry for him stuck there with her, had invited him to spend a few hours with them, to take his mind off it, and leave her to rest! He’d asked if she minded. ‘Just this once,’ he’d said, and she, feeling guilty, had urged him to go along.
The once had become twice, then three times, but how could she complain when he’d paid out so much money on this trip, and there was she ruining everything for him. To venture out of doors in that heat would have been even more disastrous. The following day they’d journeyed back on the boat, she doing her best to join in the fun but eventually having to retire earlier than anyone else, Tony staying on just so as to appear sociable and so it had gone on, returning to Alexandria by train, then boarding the ship home.
The Bay of Biscay hadn’t been so kind on the way back, not savage but rough enough to make her in her delicate state faintly seasick and again Tony had joined in the general pleasures without her, being sociable, the couple they’d most made friends with, Vivienne and Ronald Fairfax, and who had previously taken him under their wing after her touch of the sun, only too pleased to have his company, just as they also had included the one female on her own on this trip, Diana Manners.
Kate’s voice floated back to her. She heard her say, as the woman leaned forward in a confidential manner, her nasal voice dropping in volume, ‘Look, darling, I don’t often say this to people, but you have a little talk to your Tony, my dear. Tell him to be careful what he’s doing.’
‘Why?’ cried Geraldine, alarmed by her tone.
Kate straightened up. ‘No reason. No apparent reason. Just a feeling, dear.’
Draining the milky-looking absinthe in its glass, she stubbed out the Abdulla cigarette she’d been puffing all the while, and stood up as several people, chattering and laughing, entered through the curtained door. Small uneven teeth were revealed in a warm smile in their direction, and not glancing again at Geraldine, her eyes trained solely on her customers, she added in passing, ‘Just watch it, dear, that’s all.’
Geraldine gazed after the woman, now with those who’d come in, two couples in evening dress, all four exuding wealth and obviously members, speaking with her as though she were a queen. Kate had that effect on all who knew her, commanding attention despite her notorious lack of glamour.
But Geraldine’s thoughts were not on the little cameo. What had Kate been intimating? What was she supposed to watch? Tony? What was he up to that she’d not been told of? Was he in trouble or likely to be? What did Kate know that she didn’t?
Stubbing out her own cigarette beside the still smouldering Abdulla in the ashtray she got up, suddenly angry – with Kate, with Tony keeping her in the dark, with her life, with something she so often felt was missing in it. Hurrying over to the cloakroom girl and grabbing her evening coat from her, she swept out of the ‘43’ Club to hail a taxi, leaving Tony to his own devices. She needed to escape, just for a while. She needed to be somewhere where she wouldn’t be forever on tenterhooks about what could happen to Tony and to her life. She needed to find some sanity.
There was only one place. She fled to her parents. No doubt they’d receive her coolly, as always, but she was used to that now. Even that would be a breath of fresh air, the lesser of her two problems, and she needed time to think. Her plan was to ask if she could stay there overnight or even a couple of nights, she’d see.
At home she left a note, saying where she’d be, that she needed a break from their constant social round that lately was wearing her down, just a short rest, then she’d be back. What Tony would think of that she did not much care. At the moment it seemed her life must constantly revolve around him. Well, let his revolve around her for once, if only for a brief while.
Hilda Glover stared in bewilderment at the small overnight bag. ‘What you up to?’ were the first words to come from her mouth although she’d already interpreted the reason for its presence.
Her daughter stood on the broken pavement below the single doorstep as though expecting already to be evicted from there. ‘I just thought I’d pop over to see you.’
‘Just pop over,’ Hilda repeated woodenly, nodding as she spoke. She couldn’t help feeling sceptical, this daughter of hers with her high and mighty attitude towards them, seeing herself above those roots she had once been part of, staying away not for weeks but often for months on end but whenever something wasn’t going right, there she’d be on the doorstep looking for a bit of sympathy. What was it her Jewish neighbour often said? ‘Kids – they want you, you live only around the corner, they don’t want you, suddenly your house is the other side of the world!’
How true that was in Geraldine’s case. She thought handing out a few expensive presents, like when she’d got back from Egypt, made it all right. Well it didn’t!
She’d had no time for Gel’s stories of the lovely time she’d had, boasting about it as if she’d become one of the aristocracy. She’d let it all go over her head, unimpressed, seeing it more like money being slung out of the window just so’s she could show off. That last visit was five months ago. Gel hadn’t been nigh or by since.
No doubt she’d brought lots of nice things with her this time like she always did when finally deciding to come here, looking to vindicate another long absence, and that would put it all right. Well, it didn’t!
If she popped round even once a fortnight, like Mavis who had to cart three kids with her every time, she’d have felt more disposed towards her. Even Wally came more often and you don’t always expect boys to do that all that much, they working, caring for a family. Even Clara, just a daughter-in-law, came regularly with her baby, Vera, now seven months old. Gel had seen that baby just the once to her knowledge, when she was a month old. Seeing her, Gel had immediately wiped her eye, while trying to hide it, over the baby she’d lost.
Crocodile tears, that’s all they were. She should know the cure without having to be told – knuckle down to reality and get stuck in to trying for another one. But as she saw it Gel was having too much of a good time to have a baby, or else didn’t want to spoil her nice figure. No, her with all her money, she preferred going here, there and everywhere – abroad!
Hilda felt a sneer rise up at the word. What was wrong with this country? What was wrong with Southend, or Margate or even Eastbourne? They all had nice scenery and could be warm if you went the proper time of year and if you were lucky. It was still the same sea you saw which went all the way round the world so why go all that way to see it, throwing away good money you probably couldn’t really afford? No doubt about it, being in the money had turned her daughter into a right snob.
She didn’t begrudge Gel her fine life, was glad to see her settled so well, but she’d never liked Gel’s husband, jumped up little maggot, and wha
t he was had rubbed off on her daughter – snobs, the pair of them, she, silly cow, thinking she knew which side her bread was buttered, not realising the butter itself was rank, spoiled by her so-called fine living.
Hilda stood her ground. ‘So what’s it this time, ’ad a bust-up wiv yer ole man?’ She deliberately made her cockney accent more pronounced, and dig that into you, you jumped-up la-di-da!
‘No, Mum. I just thought I needed a break from everything.’
‘And thought yer’d ’ave it ’ere, wiv us, yer dad and me.’
‘No, I just wanted ter come and see you.’
Just wanted. Well, well! It was nice to hear that tinge of Cockney in her voice still, but the pleasure was marred by a slight suspicion that Gel was putting it on so to speak, the other way around so to speak.
‘So what’s the attaché case for?’ she asked.
She saw her daughter blink quickly. ‘I wondered, to save rushing off back home, an afternoon visit being so short after all this time’ – so she was aware how long it had been – ‘I might stay the night and go home tomorrow. We could have a longer time together. It’ll be nice.’
Nice! Fully expecting to stay the night, just like that, after all these weeks, no, months of silence with not even a note, and so blinking matter of fact with it too.
It wasn’t right to feel like this. She loved Geraldine as much as she loved all her children; it was just that she wasn’t demonstrative by nature. She would have thawed more towards her, if only Gel would thaw towards her in turn instead of taking her for granted, turning up only when she fancied to. Where was the warm, loving daughter who’d been brought up to have a care for her parents?
‘We’ll see.’ She stepped back. ‘Yer’d best come in then, ’adn’t yer. Standin’ ’ere on the doorstep in the wet.’ For it was beginning to rain a little.