One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

  ‘Vivienne. Call me Vivienne.’

  It seemed improper somehow, but if that was what she wanted, it was what Raymond would have to do.

  ‘Come then, Vivienne. Show me what you have.’

  Just this one time, thought Raymond nervously as Vivienne stepped towards him, closing her body with his and holding out her hand. All you have to do is dance with her once, satisfy whatever curiosity she has for the ballroom and be done with it. She’ll have moved on next week. There’ll be some new fascination.

  It felt wrong, sliding his arm around the waist of Lord Edgerton’s daughter. Lord Edgerton might not have been the one who hired and fired, but as head of the board, a single withering look or an idle comment could spell the end for anyone in the Buckingham’s halls. Raymond had seen it happen. There had once been a porter who brushed Lord Edgerton’s case up against a banister rail on his way to the Atlantic Suite – after that incident; never to be seen again. A waiter too slovenly or a concierge too unwilling – Lord Edgerton demanded perfection, and those who could not supply it were suddenly damned. Raymond could only imagine what might happen should rumours of any improper relations with Lord Edgerton’s stepdaughter spread around the Buckingham. He already knew how quickly a rumour could spread – particularly among the chambermaids. A rumour about him and Vivienne would be damning, and for a time he held her at a distance – but Vivienne was no timid, meek little thing, and when she sensed his reluctance she straightened up, staring him directly in the eye. She was instructing him, Raymond thought, so he tightened his hold. ‘Just mirror me, Miss Edgerton. You’ve seen it done so much . . .’

  First he stepped into her, and then she stepped back. Then he slid sideways, guiding Vivienne as she did the same.

  ‘Look to your left, Miss Edgerton. Try not to look at me.’ Raymond allowed himself a fleeting smile. ‘Tempting as it might be.’

  It was simple, to begin with. Just rhythm dancing, to get them started. Raymond had brought out a gramophone from the dressing room and it crackled with ‘The Winter Serenade’. In simple steps, they crossed the ballroom, turned, and came back. He danced her to the heart of the room and held her there. Then he danced her around. He thought: she can do this. She might not be a natural, but she’s studied it, she’s seen it, her body’s warming up to the music.

  ‘Miss Edgerton. Let me . . .’

  He stepped into her, planting his leg between hers. She was too close – he could feel the touch of her thighs against his – but he directed her all the same. ‘I’m going to stay here, on this spot, Miss Edgerton. Use the weight of your body. You’re to step around me. Watch, like this . . .’

  It wasn’t the most complicated move in the ballroom repertoire. It took balance and it took commitment and, if you were going to get it right, it took elegance as well. By rights, Vivienne Edgerton ought to have stepped effortlessly around him so that they might dance back across the ballroom floor. And yet, moments later, her foot entangled with his. She tried to right herself, but it was too late; gravity had taken her. Raymond caught her, lifted her back to his side and, once they had found their rhythm again, he urged her into the movement once more.

  This time Vivienne concentrated too hard. She’d let the music carry her along, but now she fought against it. So intently was she staring at her feet, trying to make them do everything she instructed, that she didn’t think about the rhythm of the music at all. Then, everything happened at once. The music seemed to speed up. Raymond shuffled around. Vivienne’s left foot tried to follow, but smashed into her right. Suddenly, all was a chaos of windmilling arms and legs – and Vivienne Edgerton would have crashed into the ballroom floor, if Raymond de Guise hadn’t been there to catch her.

  Vivienne let out an exasperated howl.

  ‘Try it again, Miss Edgerton. There’s no humiliation in not getting it straight away.’ Raymond stopped. Her eyes were downcast, looking anywhere but at him. ‘Miss Edgerton?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Raymond, would you not call me by that name! I’m Vivienne. Vivienne. The Edgerton came along and replaced a name I was more than happy with and . . .’

  Vivienne ripped herself out of Raymond’s hold, clattering across the dance floor to the place where the gramophone sat. In a moment she had silenced it. Then she threw herself, like a toddler in a tantrum, into one of the chairs propped up against the wall. For a moment, she kneaded at her eyes, as if she might cry – but the thought of smearing the Maybelline eyelash darkener she’d painted around her eyes gave her pause. She simply looked up, despairing, at Raymond instead.

  ‘Why can’t I do it?’

  ‘Vivienne, you’re too hard on yourself. A ballroom dancer isn’t born overnight – certainly not a great one. And . . . you’re not without talent, Vivienne. You have grace and you have poise and . . . what you lack, you don’t lack in your body. You lack it up here –’ he touched the side of his head – ‘in the mind. You need to calm yourself. You need to breathe. You need to know: it doesn’t matter if you go wrong.’

  ‘I am calm,’ Vivienne snapped, with rising resentment. Her New York accent became so much more pronounced when she was angry.

  He could see her hands shaking and her eyes darting into every corner of the Grand. He wanted to be delicate with her. He wanted to help. It was just that she made it so damn difficult.

  ‘What does it matter anyway?’ Vivienne groaned. ‘I could be the most talented dancer in the hotel and they wouldn’t welcome me here! Not to dance. Not as anything more than a . . . a curiosity! I could surpass Hélène Marchmont. I could go to Paris and eclipse them all in the Parisian tango. I could create new pivots and spins, dances the world has never seen – but I wouldn’t be able to do anything with them, and all because of who I am. Or who he is.’ She spat the word as if it was a curse. ‘Lord Edgerton. My stepfather. I’d bring shame on him, on his whole damn dynasty. Can you imagine – me, Vivienne Edgerton, telling him I’d no interest in inheriting and being married off . . . because all I wanted was to tango?’

  Raymond was silent. Then, with a deep breath, he uttered words he hoped he would not regret. ‘Miss Edgerton. Vivienne,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’ve only one thing to say to that.’ Then, with a wolfish grin, he added, ‘That’s absolute rot.’

  Her cat-like eyes glared.

  ‘Do you know who taught me to dance? Georges de la Motte. Perhaps you’ve heard the name? I won’t bore you with the details. The story is long and I’ve told it often enough. Georges belonged to a barony, down in the very heart of France. If there were still kings and queens on the continent, why, his father would have been in line – distantly, perhaps, but still with the blood coursing through his veins. Georges might have grown up to inherit one of the barony’s estates. But instead I met him at a ballroom in Brighton, where he became champion. He was grander than you or I, grander than anyone in the Buckingham Hotel, and yet he danced among us. And . . .’ Raymond was hitting his stride now. He took Vivienne by the hand, raised her back to her feet. ‘There is an old friend of mine, from my dance hall days. Mr Warren Sykes. I’m certain you’ve heard of him! Born in a Bristol slum, and now the reigning champion of England. He’s danced with princesses, Miss Edgerton. His father was a fishmonger.’

  He could feel Vivienne relenting somehow, softening in his arms. Yes, this is it, he thought, there’s a chance she might even understand. His arm slipped around her waist and his palm pressed against hers, so that they might suddenly be ready to dance again. ‘The best dancers come from low and from high. When you dance, the rest of the world can be forgotten. You know how the rest of the world works. The high stay on high and the low get on with things as best they can. But here? Here, where there’s music and there’s dance. Vivienne, don’t ever let another soul make you think otherwise. Here you get to be what you want to be – no matter what your father might say.’

  Slowly, they danced. Raymond stepped forward, so that his leg was between hers again, and she piv
oted around him. Perhaps her body and mind were finally aligned, because for the first time she was able to sail around him without stumbling.

  ‘You see,’ he whispered, and there was a very real sense of pride flurrying through him, ‘you can do it.’

  Finally, her cheeks flushed red and she whispered, ‘It’s those chambermaids and concierges and . . . It’s all of them, looking at me, knowing who I am. I didn’t ask to be his daughter. I barely asked to come to the Buckingham Hotel. And . . .’ She paused. ‘Can’t we dance in private, Raymond? I want to dance where no one else can see.’ She held him tighter. He was surprised to find her fingers were threaded through his. ‘We could dance in my suite. It’s big enough, if we clear a space. Would you . . . want to come to my suite, Raymond?’

  Her words had begun running together, and now they petered into silence. They stopped mid-pivot and she hung, frozen in time, in front of him. She looked up. Her green eyes were wide and open. Raymond could smell the scent she was wearing. Chanel, he thought. Her eyes glittered. Her ruby lips opened . . .

  No, thought Raymond. No. She was looking at him expectantly, as if a man had never said no to her before.

  Raymond stepped back.

  The music went on, but the dance was over.

  Soon the silence had become uncomfortable. When she was hanging in his arms, Vivienne Edgerton had seemed . . . human, he wanted to say. Fragile. Exposed. But now her lips had closed, her eyes were sharp, her arms were folded. She looked at him with her jaw clenched and every muscle in her body taut and rigid.

  ‘Perhaps that’s enough for today, Miss Edgerton?’

  Vivienne swallowed a sob. Then suddenly she was off, marching across the dance floor to snatch up her ball gown from where it was draped on the balustrade.

  After she was gone, her footsteps echoing as she clattered up the marble walkway out of the Grand, Raymond sat back and closed his eyes. His heart was beating a panicked rhythm. Surely that wasn’t what she’d come here for? Giving Vivienne Edgerton what she wanted when she asked for tutoring was one thing; giving her what she wanted when she looked to place her lips over his was quite another. If he had kissed her and the hotel found out, well, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be dancing with the Crown Princess of Norway on the same dance floor as King Edward himself at the Masquerade Ball this New Year. He’d have been dragged into Maynard Charles’s office and summarily dismissed. No, he’d done the right thing, he was certain of that.

  The look on her face as she’d fled from the ballroom was emblazoned on his eyes. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He hadn’t meant to embarrass or insult. But one thing was certain, when you danced with Vivienne Edgerton, whether you resisted her or did everything that she said, you were dancing with disaster either way.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE MAN WHO STEPPED INTO the Red Lion Hotel on High Holborn was dressed in the finest bespoke woollen overcoat, with an Austin Reed black bowler hat perched on the top of his head and a walking cane tipped in brass at his side. Minutes after he crossed the threshold, the doors opened again. The man who emerged was dressed in a jacket of brown leather – and, though the cap he wore kept hidden the same unruly black hair, it was crushed and worn and had seen better days. The polished black brogues he had been wearing were stuffed into an army-issue haversack, the same as the rest of his finery, and in their place he wore a pair of tan workman’s boots with steel caps in their toes. He kept his head down, fearful that he might be seen.

  Then, slinging the uniform of one life over his shoulder, Raymond de Guise stepped aboard the omnibus heading east and watched as the porcelain palaces of Holborn and St Paul’s turned into pavements teeming with bankers and clerks – and from there into the tumbledown red terraces of the East End.

  The street markets were in full throng along the Whitechapel Road. Market sellers hawked their wares – green apples, ladies’ scarves, breads and flowers and rack upon rack of new clothes. Afternoon was not yet paling to dusk, but the doors were wide open at the Blind Beggar and from inside came the sound of the Irish fiddle. It almost made Raymond want to stop and put on his dancing shoes – but this was not the right part of the world for him to start twirling about a stage, so instead he kept his head down. All of life was here. Irish voices mixed with Polish and Russian and more. The smells, so different from the smells of the Buckingham at night, were intoxicating. Somebody was frying fat sausages on a griddle.

  Soon, Raymond left the markets and found himself standing outside one of the noble red terraces. At least, it had once been noble. Now its upper windows were boarded up and the chimney stack was fallen, and the yard out front was a briar patch where nettle and thistle grew wild. Raymond looked up at the sad facade, and felt suddenly conspicuous.

  He steeled himself. It was the middle of September, the trees across London were turning to russets and reds, and he had known since Mrs Adelman’s visit at the height of summer that he would have to come back here soon. Her message had been stark and simple – your brother is coming home – and, after that, she said no more, no matter how much Raymond had asked. The only way you’ll find out anything is if you . . . go back, she’d said – and with that, Raymond had left.

  Now, with a heavy heart, he knocked on the door and waited for it to open.

  The woman who presented herself was plump and round, with a face that, though drawn in lines, still radiated kindness. Her fingers were encrusted with a dozen different rings – and her expression, when she considered the man standing on her doorstep, was one of elation mixed with surprise.

  ‘Hello, Ma,’ said Raymond.

  ‘Ray Cohen, you layabout! Get yourself through these doors. But give your mother a kiss first, boy!’

  Raymond, who towered a foot and more over his mother, had to stoop to get into her arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and smelled the familiar scents of tobacco and carbolic soap.

  ‘May!’ his mother called as she dragged him bodily through the door. ‘Rebecca! Get yourself into the lounge this instant. Our Ray’s come back. Won’t somebody strangle one o’ them chickens?’

  *

  An hour later, the chicken – which had spent its day idly pecking at the grit in the scrubland that passed for a garden out back – was broiling in a pot with leeks and carrot from the market, and Alma Cohen was busy kneading dumplings while her son took the last of the evening light.

  The garden had gone to seed since Raymond last visited this place – but three years could transform a world many times over. The truth was, it had first fallen on hard times much longer ago. When Raymond was a younger man, this garden had been a highlight of the terrace. His father had green fingers and the sunflowers Raymond himself had helped sow could grow as tall as your head. Raymond still remembered how proud his father had been of those flowers. But then had come that terrible year of 1929 . . .

  The Depression might have caused panic for those in their city homes, who went to work in their suits and ties, but it was people like the Cohens who really suffered. All across the East End, gardens were upended, new vegetable patches created as people determined to survive. Now, the vegetable patch that had once been his father’s pride and joy – and the family’s salvation – was a wasteland of fallen masonry, knee-high grass, thistles and the chicken coop, patched up so often to keep the foxes out that it now looked like a fortress. The last of the day’s sun was spilling over the chimney stacks of the houses that backed on to this. Somewhere, somebody was bawling at their loved one; the voice flurried up and filled the air between the houses.

  ‘So,’ his mother said, calling out through the kitchen window as Raymond knelt down to tempt one of the marauding chickens with a seed, ‘you got our message, did you?’

  Raymond’s eyes darted up at the upper storey of the red brick house. Is he up there? he thought. My brother? He looked for the net curtains twitching; if he was being watched by that errant brother of his, there was no sign. But then Artie Cohen was a s
ecretive sort. It was secrets that had divided them, in the end. Secrets which had kept Raymond away from home, living a second life, for such a long time.

  ‘You’re as crafty as you ever were, Ma. You might have sent a letter.’

  ‘Up to that hotel o’ yours? And risk some post boy opening it up and spilling your precious secret? No, Ray. You mightn’t think much about us these days, but I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how ashamed you is . . .’

  Raymond tried to ignore the attack. She was goading him to say something, just so she could start a fight, but he was determined to rise above it. ‘Who is she, this Mrs Adelman?’

  ‘She’s a lady.’

  Raymond shook his head. His mother was as vexing as ever. ‘This much I understood.’

  ‘I been cleaning for her, if you must know. Scrubbing her carpets and getting elbow deep in her latrine. She has a townhouse down on the river. It was her husband’s, but now he’s gone. Well, we had that in common, me and Mrs Adelman. I’d been cleaning her unmentionables all summer long before we got to nattering one night. It was her that suggested it. That she might go up to the old Buckingham and seek you out. Mrs Adelman had a son too. Lost him in the War – so when she heard about my two boys, neither one of them seen their mother for years, well, she was mortified on my behalf. So I told her – go on up there, but he doesn’t call himself Ray Cohen no more. No, he fancies himself Monsieur de Guise . . .’

  ‘It’s my stage name, Mother.’

  Real name too, thought Raymond – though he had long ago decided he would not tell his mother of the day he’d filed the papers with Somerset House and had his new name officially recognised. His ma would think it a slight, an insult to her dearly departed husband – and she did not deserve that. How could she possibly understand a world like the Buckingham Hotel – where, if Maynard Charles were to see a lowly name like ‘Ray Cohen’ on his accounts each month, questions would be asked? To be taken ser-iously as a man of consequence, Georges de la Motte had once told him, one needs to inhabit the role – even when one is not in the ballroom. It was advice a younger Ray Cohen had taken to heart.