The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  To Dad, who loves his books.

  Always my best encourager.

  PROLOGUE

  1 April 1922

  Hans told himself he had no less right than any man to enter the Ritz. At twenty-five years old, he was a fellow of fine looks and high education: two attributes alone which surely meant he belonged there. He had fought in and survived the World War and had received the Iron Cross for his valour. By these and any other measure he was exceptional. Yet now that the Ritz signage, so discreet it was unreadable from the other side of the square, had become impossible to ignore because he was standing beneath it, his nerve failed him. It had never failed him once in the trenches.

  To his horror he found that he simply could not go inside the Ritz. Disgraced by this cowardice, he made to move on – until he took hold of himself. He stood so that he might be thought to be viewing Napoleon’s column, but of course, he was not. He was viewing the famous Hôtel Ritz and dreaming of the elegant life that was lived at the heart of it; a life as secure and serene and as comfortable as a life lived curled in the womb; a life that didn’t belong to him, Hans Metzingen, the handsome nobody from defeated, humiliated Germany. But it could be his, if only he would go inside.

  Hans lit a cigarette, one of three that remained in his crumpled packet. He had no money for more. He had set precious francs aside for weeks to pay for the drink he fantasised buying from the bar; a drink he could almost taste now. A chauffeured car pulled up to the curb while he smoked, steeling himself to try again. Uniformed men spilled from the hotel entrance to see to the car’s occupants. The rear passenger doors opened and feminine feet, clad in silk stockings and high heels, connected with the pavestones as the men took hold of their gloved hands, helping each lady emerge. There were four women in all, weighted with jewellery and furs; chic cloche hats bowed in a huddle while they lit cigarettes in holders.

  There was a willowy blonde, effortlessly soignée; an aristocrat. Next to her, a shapelier red-head, blousy and loud; American perhaps. Then a tiny brunette, coarse-mouthed and cheeky; so quintessentially Parisienne. And finally, an elegant older woman, nominally in charge of the others. She was a woman Hans recognised: a soprano from the Palais Garnier, and not a French woman either. What was she, Hans wondered, English? Or something else still?

  The women regarded him with practised eyes, as women everywhere will regard a good-looking man, even a German one. Hans’ masculinity was all that he had to offer them; his handsome face and his Teutonic size. He stood that little bit taller, stronger, holding his cigarette just so. He did not look away from them. What would they take him for, he wondered. A guest? A gigolo? He could be either if they asked. The four pairs of feminine eyes appraised him slowly, appreciatively. Then they looked right through him to the doors.

  The Ritz men brought the luggage around while the women moved as a group to the entrance, aware of Hans following them with his eyes. First one, then two, then three of the women passed through the doors, lit by the chandeliers’ glow from the lobby. Only the cheeky Parisienne lingered; she had dropped something. Before he could even give thought to it, Hans had the door for her, and then the dropped object, too. It was a little lip rouge encased in gold. Hans gave it back, his hand a giant German’s hand and hers a precocious Parisienne child’s. She smiled at him, brilliantly; a film star’s smile. He felt a stirring in his gut and knew that his desire was returned.

  Hans caught his reflection in the door: his shabby evening suit, bought fully two years before the war, ill-fitting on his frame; his too-worn shoes that no amount of polishing could restore for the holes; his bluntly hacked hair, cut fast and uncaringly and cheap; his expression of shame that he ever thought such an adventure possible.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  A Ritz man was standing behind him with a trolley of luggage.

  ‘I’m sorry – what?’

  The man winced at his despised accent. Hans watched the Parisienne move further inside.

  ‘Are you a guest here, Monsieur?’ The Ritz man didn’t smile because he knew the answer.

  Hans saw the little brunette become enveloped by her friends, as others called out to her from the bar. She belonged here. She spun around a last time to flirt with him over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in a pantomime of the Ritz man’s shattering question.

  ‘Are you a guest here, Monsieur?’ The man had a badge pinned to his lapel. Hans read it: Claude. He looked no older, no better than Hans himself, and yet his question said otherwise. ‘You are not, are you, Monsieur?’

  ‘No,’ said Hans. ‘I am not a guest, no . . .’

  Hans did not imagine the contempt he saw in the other man’s eyes, and with it the unspoken response: ‘And you never will be, kraut.’

  Hans was holding the door for a servant and was thus made lower than the low. The trolley of luggage rolled past him as Hans stood aside. His dream was just like any other dream.

  At the point of awakening, it was gone.

  PART ONE

  Intuition

  1

  22 April 1940

  Polly’s first suspicion that something was wrong came when she returned from the lavvy. The door to the first class compartment now wouldn’t open to let her inside again. She stood in the corridor, confused, with the French Riviera rushing past the train windows while she rattled the door. ‘Aunt Marjorie? Have you locked this?’

  ‘Is that you?’ Her aunt’s voice from within sounded anxious, on edge; a different Aunt Marjorie from the one Polly had left minutes before.

  ‘I’m back from the loo, do let me in again.’ Polly thought she heard the compartment window being hauled open.

  ‘Just a minute, dear,’ called her aunt.

  Polly looked up and down the empty passage, as if someone might come along with an explanation. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘Nothing. I won’t be a moment . . .’

  Yet Marjorie was doing something because the door stayed closed. Polly took a step back as if contemplating taking a running kick at it. ‘Is there someone in there with you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course there isn’t,’ Marjorie assured her. Yet she still sounded stressed.

  ‘Then let me back in. I feel silly out here.’

  Polly heard the window fall shut again with a thud. Then her aunt opened the compartment door, flushed in the face and wiping dust from her eye, but otherwise smiling as if nothing was amiss. Her Marcel-waved hair had come loose from its pins. ‘What on earth were you doing?’ Polly asked, astonished, coming inside. ‘Sniffing the sea breeze? Your hair looks like a chimney brush, Auntie.’ She laughed, resuming her seat on the banquette opposite Marjorie’s and picked up one of her aunt’s fashion magazines.

  ‘What’s the fuss, can’t I open a window if I want to?’ Marjorie objected, adjusting her silk day dress where it had bunched. She patted at her hair. ‘I was hot. And then I wasn’t. So, I shut it again.’

  This disingenuousness rang false. Polly frowned at her.

  ‘Polly,’ said Marjorie, evenly, before her niece could say it, ‘nothing is wrong – we’re on our way to a lovely long stay in Nice, and I know you’ll adore it.’

  Yet she locked the compartment door again, firmly. Then she poured herself some chilled champagne from a bottle she had clearly ordered and opened while Polly had been gone.

  Polly blinked, finding this indulgence theatrical. ‘But why do you want us shut in here so suddenly? You didn’t before.’

  Marjorie seemed on the verge of forming a particular reply before thinking the better of it. She sipped her champagne.

  Polly tried again. ‘Did someone come in here and upset you?’

  Marjorie shifted in her seat. ‘Why in heaven would anyone come i
n without an invitation?’ She fiddled with her green Hermès handbag, slipping her fingers inside.

  Polly felt herself at a loss. This was only her second day in the company of her beloved aunt – the aunt who had hitherto only existed in cherished letters sent from exotic locales to Polly’s decidedly unexotic locale in Sydney, Australia, where she had lived her whole life until Marjorie had sent money for her passage to France. With every hour in Aunt Marjorie’s presence, Polly was becoming more aware that the aunt she had thought she knew well from her letters didn’t quite match the woman of reality. She was funny and glamorous, certainly, just as she had always seemed in her letters, but she was also harried and secretive, as if Polly’s arrival from Australia was inopportune, even though it had been Marjorie who’d arranged the journey when Polly’s father had died.

  ‘I’m not a child anymore,’ Polly ventured, tentatively. ‘You can tell me when there’s something making you uneasy, Auntie.’

  ‘You’re sixteen and still very much a child,’ Marjorie responded. Then she softened. ‘Nothing’s making me uneasy, dear, and I know it’s good fun, but you must stop being so dramatic.’

  But Polly could see something was making Marjorie very uneasy indeed. She held her aunt’s look, peering into her depths, but the older woman simply held her gaze. ‘Is it Hitler?’ Polly wondered, for want of anything else.

  Marjorie actually laughed at that, which Polly would have found comforting ordinarily. ‘Who’s been saying such silly rubbish to you?’ her aunt asked her.

  ‘No one. The war is in every newspaper headline.’

  Marjorie grew annoyed again. ‘We’re perfectly safe from Hitler all the way down here on the Riviera.’

  Polly remained firm. ‘If it’s not the war, then it’s something else.’

  Marjorie chose to gaze out the compartment window. Her hand grasped and ungrasped something hidden in her bag. Then she turned back to her niece and said, ‘I’ve had a life, Polly.’

  ‘Well, of course, you have.’ Polly smiled. ‘And I’ve so enjoyed reading about it in all your wonderful letters.’

  Yet Polly was thrown by a flash of fear in her aunt’s eyes before Marjorie suppressed it. ‘And it’s been a very good life,’ her aunt went on.

  ‘A marvellous life. You have always inspired me.’

  ‘Quite a lot of it couldn’t be put in my letters . . .’

  Polly couldn’t conceive why Marjorie was telling her this. The shadow of her aunt’s fearful look stayed in her mind, making Polly feel fearful, too. Then an image of her late father came unwelcome to replace it and she picked up the magazine to force away her old grief at his loss. ‘You drive me mad, you really do,’ she said, making an effort at lightness.

  Marjorie smiled, brightening again. ‘Appalling words to hear from one’s own blood.’ She laughed.

  ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Auntie.’

  ‘I know.’

  Polly idly thumbed the magazine. ‘And I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done since Daddy left us.’

  Marjorie reached out and patted her hand.

  Aunt and niece fell silent under the rumble of the Riviera train. After a minute, Polly glanced up from the pages to see Marjorie looking from her own silk dress to Polly’s childishly pretty ensemble.

  ‘What is it?’ said Polly.

  ‘I should have let you wear something more sophisticated,’ Marjorie said. ‘You’re growing up very fast, Polly.’

  ‘Let me?’ Polly scoffed. ‘This is what I chose to wear, Auntie, from a very limited wardrobe, I assure you. And I’m sixteen, remember, not twenty-six.’

  Marjorie squinted at Polly in the reflected Mediterranean glare from the window. ‘It’s a lovely cardigan, of course it is, but still. And then there’s your hair.’ She mused, ‘Perhaps it’s time to wave and colour you.’

  ‘If you think I look mousy and plain,’ said Polly, feeling sensitive, ‘then please say it.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant at all. You’re really very pretty.’ Marjorie got up from her banquette and sat next to Polly, and as she did, with a jolting shock, Polly saw what her aunt had been clutching inside her handbag. Made of ugly, black metal, the sheer incongruity of such a thing being in her aunt’s possession at all caused Polly to miss the implication of it. It was as if she couldn’t process the very idea of Marjorie owning a gun, and so she didn’t, at least not at first.

  Marjorie, oblivious, kissed Polly on the forehead. ‘I know from your own lovely letters how badly you long for adventures, Polly. I felt just the same when I was your age, you know. It’s why I left Australia. I wanted fame and fortune on the stage.’

  Polly stared, then blinked, trying to glance inside her aunt’s bag again. But the bag had closed now, and somehow the shock stopped Polly even putting it into words. ‘Were – were we even talking about me longing for adventures?’

  ‘We should be,’ said Marjorie. ‘We have certainly talked about it in our letters.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go to a school here,’ said Polly. She felt as if she had bizarrely become two people: the one who had not seen the gun and could carry on with the conversation, and the one who had seen it and who now couldn’t say anything at all.

  ‘Life is your school now,’ Marjorie told her.

  ‘Are we just going to travel through France?’

  ‘Oh, so you don’t like France now – after barely two days?’

  ‘I love it,’ said Polly, and she meant it. ‘I’ve studied the language and history since I was eight – I believe in everything France stands for.’

  Marjorie raised an eyebrow. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘That you should even need to ask, Auntie,’ said Polly, incredulous. ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity, of course – the foundations of modern democracy.’

  Marjorie smiled at her niece’s romanticism.

  ‘I’m very happy to live here with you so long as I might do something that has purpose,’ Polly told her. She looked around at the excessive comforts of the first class compartment. ‘Does all this have purpose? I don’t think it does very much.’

  Marjorie seemed to be thinking.

  Polly tried to remind her of what she’d expressed so often in her letters. ‘I want to do something meaningful. Something positive. Especially with the war. Oh, I know nothing terrible has happened to France yet, but it might – otherwise why call it a war at all?’

  Marjorie’s fingers hovered at the catch of her bag again as Polly watched.

  ‘What you’re saying, I think, is that you’d like a career? Just like I had.’

  Polly considered this. ‘Yes, I very much think that I would like a career. I would like to be something, just like you were when you sang at the Paris Opera. It could be the perfect way to do good.’

  Marjorie fell quiet once more and Polly made to return to the magazine. But when she glanced at her aunt again, the older woman was gazing upon her with a look of deepest and most profound love.

  Marjorie sniffed, emotional. ‘My heavens,’ she whispered, ‘we’re so very alike, aren’t we?’ Marjorie cleared her throat. ‘Of course, I’ve long known that we are peas in a pod from our letters. How could we not be? The women in our family have always been the ones to wear the trousers.’

  Polly didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Here’s a proposal then,’ said Marjorie. ‘Once we’re settled in Nice, I promise we’ll solve you.’

  ‘Like a crossword puzzle?’

  ‘We’ll turn your dreams into some proper plans. You could become a journalist perhaps? You’re so articulate for a girl your age.’

  Polly felt her excitement rise a little. ‘Could I do that, Auntie?’

  ‘Why not? I have friends who work at magazines.’

  Polly looked doubtful. ‘Fashion magazines?’

  ‘Is there any other kind? They could give you advice.’

  Polly regarded the frivolous cover of L’Officiel in her lap. ‘Do you really think it’s me?’
<
br />   ‘Perhaps not right away, but in time. Anything’s possible when you’re young and impassioned. Let’s listen to your heart, dear.’

  Polly went to say yes, that of course she appreciated the idea of this very much, but then she realised that she was being distracted. The schism that had divided herself ended. ‘Why do you have that gun in your handbag, Auntie?’

  Marjorie froze at the question, exposed. Then she managed to say, ‘You mustn’t worry about that.’

  ‘No?’ Polly wondered, disbelieving.

  Marjorie shut the bag tight at the clasp and placed it on the banquette at arm’s-length. Then she took a second glass from the drinks shelf and poured some fresh champagne in it, before handing it to Polly. ‘Here’s an adventure for you,’ she told her niece. ‘Why don’t you take a little sip?’

  ‘Is that all you’re going to say about it?’

  Marjorie looked at her levelly. ‘For the moment, yes. Now, try some champagne.’

  Polly couldn’t help but stare at the tall, tulip-shaped glass of gold in her hand, with the beads of bubbles erupting from the bottom and winding all the way to the surface, reminding her of a game of snakes and ladders.

  Polly sipped. It was neither sweet nor sour, and weirdly dry in a way that left no remnant of itself once it slid down her throat. The champagne tasted nothing like she had expected.

  ‘Nice?’ Marjorie asked.

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  This was clearly a good answer.

  ‘Champagne never is at first. Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, child.’

  ‘I’m not in a hurry,’ said Polly, putting aside the glass. ‘Please tell me about that gun.’

  But Marjorie wouldn’t. ‘The things we want most never come soon enough,’ she said, wistful, ‘and then when they do, they’re gone all too soon . . .’

  This just made Polly cross. ‘Why don’t you want to answer me?’

  Marjorie kissed her again and finished her own glass. ‘I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, I promise. When we make proper plans.’

  Marjorie cupped her cheek. ‘You really mustn’t worry. I’m taking care of everything. You’ll see.’