Raymond’s fork clattered to his plate.
‘I don’t remember you grafting when they caught you ripping up railway sleepers, Arthur.’
‘That was my graft!’ Artie snarled. ‘And you’d have known it too, if you hadn’t run away like you did that night.’
The night Artie was caught, Raymond thought. Ripping up railway sleepers for their old man to sell. Artie had gone out that night in ’31, expecting his tight-knit gang to come with him like they always did, thick as thieves they were, and where one went the others always followed. But a vicious fight over the rightful owner of some stolen goods had left Artie on his own. Ray had promised he’d be there that night to help Artie lug the heavy railway sleepers onto the barrow and cart them away. Only, when it came down to it, Ray’s conscience got the better of him. This was no life to be proud of. He asked Artie to stop, to leave the sleepers and get out of a life of crime, once and for all. When his brother flatly refused, a bitter argument ensued and Raymond had stormed off to go to meet Georges de la Motte. And that was the same night Georges unexpectedly chartered a boat to take them to Paris and the ballrooms out there. By the time Raymond got word, the trial was over and Artie was already in his prison cell. The guilt stabbed him sharply, even now.
‘Didn’t even come back, did you?’ Artie snapped, jabbing the air with the tip of his knife. ‘Just carried on gallivanting around Europe with that ol’ lad of yours, while they tossed me in prison and threw away the key. Did you come and visit me once, Ray?’
‘I tried to, that month after Pa passed on. You just stayed in your cell like the little boy you’ve always been.’
‘You ain’t even said sorry—’
‘I’m not your keeper, Artie. What you did that night, it wasn’t on me.’
‘A promise is a promise, Ray. We’re blood. If I’d have had someone looking out for me, I’d have known to scarper long before those coppers come on in . . .’ Artie paused. A look of delight had appeared on his face, and he said, ‘Pa was disappointed in you, you know. The way you left me hanging like that, the way you sold me down the river. You off forsaking the family while all of the law was ranged up against us.’
Raymond felt his fists clenching. Don’t let him know it, he said to himself. He’s goading you, that’s all. Stanley Cohen wasn’t a criminal for the love of it. Artie was always too small-minded to know it – but for Pa, thieving and robbing was just a means to an end. All he wanted was to rise up and out of this poverty. He was proud to see me off to Paris, to Berlin, to Madrid and St-Tropez. I was doing what he wanted all of his life. I was getting out . . .
‘See, me and Stanley Cohen,’ Artie went on, ‘we weren’t like father and son. We was like brothers. He did a stretch in Pentonville. I did a stretch in Pentonville. Like I say – brothers. Is it perfect? No. But was he proud of it? You can wager your last penny on it, Ray. I shouldn’t have got caught that night. I shouldn’t have scrapped my way through my sentence, and earned those extra years for it an’ all. Hell’s teeth, I shouldn’t have called the judge what I called him – though he deserved every bit of it, and more. But at least I was honouring the old man. At least he understood.’
But Raymond thought: I am honouring him. I’m honouring him in my own way. I’m dancing for him, every night I’m out there. Oh, I do it for myself and I do it for them as well – those who’ll come to watch me, or dance with my arms around them . . . But I do it for him as well. He’s there every time I take a step. But how would they know any of that? They, who only remember him for all the thieving and fencing he did when he wasn’t in the dance hall. What he did down the yard, or what he did in the markets after nightfall . . .
‘If you was really honouring him, you wouldn’t be dancing in that hotel o’ yours. You’d be fleecing them for all they’re worth. All them counts and countesses floating through that ballroom while people round here don’t have two pennies to rub together. You shouldn’t be dancing with them. Leave that to one of the younger fellas, the more dashing fellas, while you’re up in their rooms, robbing their jewels. Well, what are they to you, Ray, really? If they knew who you were. If they knew what you were. There’s Jewish boys coming into these streets from Germany almost every week now, runaways with not a thing but what’s in the packs on their backs. That’s your cousins, that is. That’s your people. And that Buckingham, well, it’s home away from home for those sods driving ’em out of their own houses. You ought to have your hands in every strongbox in that hotel.’ Artie had thrown his head back with mirth, but now a new look came over his face. ‘What do you think, brother? Come back to us Cohens – all this de Guise nonsense can be the perfect cover. You keep ’em busy in the ballroom while I filch through their rooms. All I need’s a set of keys. We can spread the good stuff around, help a few folks out down here – and if we keep a little for ourselves, well, that’s only right as well. Consider it a commission.’
The fire that had ignited in Raymond’s belly wasn’t dying down. ‘You honour Pa in your own way, Artie. I’ll honour him in mine, you hear?’
Then he was on his feet, kicking his chair to one side, and stalking out to the garden, where the light of a silver moon beat down.
*
Some time later, when the chill was really settling in, Raymond heard the kitchen door open – and out his mother stepped.
For a time she just stood beside him. The chickens set up a racket at her approach. Somewhere, in one of the neighbouring gardens, a fox pricked up its ears.
‘I’m sorry, Ma,’ Raymond began. ‘I didn’t come back to cause trouble.’
‘It’s been the same with you boys since you was small.’
Mrs Cohen folded her arms across her breast. At first Raymond thought it was just so that she could keep in the warmth, but there was a hardness here too. Her expression was as set as granite.
‘It isn’t that I haven’t wanted to come back.’ He cautioned himself before continuing, because he was not sure that his mother would understand. ‘It isn’t that I haven’t thought about you all. But ever since Pa died, it’s like . . .’ He knew me, Raymond thought, but none of you do. He understood that a man can get on in the world, go places, if he’s got talent enough. That it doesn’t have to be the old ways of doing things. That Artie needn’t have gone down the same road as our father. Pa was a crook, but only because he needed to be. And . . . ‘Pa would have been proud of me, Ma.’
‘It’s easier to leave than to be left behind, Ray. That’s the way it’s been ever since there’s been people.’ She paused. ‘Artie isn’t a bad soul. But to see you, Ray, up there in a different world, different name, forgetting about us all . . . You know what that can do to a soul?’
Raymond snapped, ‘You act like it’s a betrayal. And all because I’m using what talent I have, using it to make something of myself. What would you rather? That I went the same way as Artie or that I danced?’
‘Oh, it isn’t the dancing,’ Mrs Cohen went on – and here her voice became venomous for the very first time. ‘Your father liked a dance. There’s plenty round here going down to the Social and the rest. Or taking a trip up west to go to one of those clubs down in Soho, where they’re dancing all those exotic dances. Bodies rubbing up against each other, hot and sweaty, where everyone can see!’
Raymond pictured those places. It had been so long since he’d danced in a club. Being back here made him long for it. He would have loved to have been able to visit them one more time with old Stanley Cohen.
‘No’ his mother went on, ‘that isn’t the betrayal.’ She paused. ‘But you? Up there, with your Lord Edgertons and the lot of them? Who’s been in your ballroom this summer, Ray? Danced with Unity Mitford again, have you? Taken dinner with the Londonderrys, have you? Oh, it isn’t that they’re rich and it isn’t that they’re snobs, looking down on all of us. If you wasted time hating because of money, why, you’d hate every bastard out there. No, it’s . . .’ For a moment, she paused. ‘We n
ever took you boys to the synagogue, Ray. Didn’t seem the thing for your father and me to do, though we were both of us dragged along when we were small. And I’ve no love lost for some of my people. But when my own son clasps hands with those who’d wipe us off the face of this earth? When he presses his body up against those who’ll be in Germany the very next night, pressing those same bodies up against murderers? That’s what breaks a mother’s heart, Ray.’
‘It’s dance, Ma. You leave the rest of the world outside the ballroom. You put your dancing shoes on, and nothing else matters.’
‘It matters, boy. It always matters.’
Raymond reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Ma . . .’
‘Do you know, when you turned up on this doorstep, I thought you might have been coming home to make amends. Dance all you like, Ray. Dance here and dance there. Travel the world going to your competitions. Do whatever makes you happy. But to throw your lot in with the sort of people who’d round your family up and drive them out? To dance with those taking champagne with Oswald Mosley and his union? Those fascist bastards . . .’ Mrs Cohen shook off Ray’s hand and marched back across the yard. In the light of the doorway, she looked back. ‘You know a fancy thing or two, Ray, but you don’t know a thing about family,’ she spat.
Yes I do, thought Raymond as he watched her go. He thought of Hélène Marchmont and Sofía LaPegna, Sebastian Grise and Stefan Sylvester, before they stepped out onto the ballroom floor. Billy Brogan the hotel page, Michel Cotton from the ballroom’s bar, Mrs Moffatt. The new girl Nancy Nettleton came into his mind, lingering after the other images had faded behind. I know the meaning of family. But it isn’t here. It hasn’t been here ever since my father died . . .
Chapter Twelve
THE HOUSEKEEPING LOUNGE, TUCKED BEHIND Mrs Moffatt’s office, was already thronged by the time Nancy arrived at dawn. Coming here always made her feel nervous – if you wanted to fit in as a chambermaid at the Buckingham, this was the place to do it – and today her heart was beating like a panicked bird.
Rosa and Ruth had arrived early to lay the long tables, and Nancy joined the girls as they found their places. A big pot on a counter held the morning’s porridge, and rack upon rack was filled with bread and toast and yesterday’s pastries, no longer fit for the guests of the Buckingham Hotel but more than adequate for those who toiled in its service. What was rubbish to a lord was a delicacy to an underling – but that, Nancy silently observed, is England all over. The Buckingham Hotel just shows England up for what it really is. She could feel her stomach grumbling. At least this was a good sign. After so many days of not eating because she was so fearful about anybody finding out it was her in the Grand, she was starving. Perhaps the fear was beginning to dissipate.
This morning, Mrs Moffatt kept her girls waiting. Nobody would eat until Mrs Moffatt had delivered her morning address. Some of the girls were starting to mutter their discontent when the doors opened and Mrs Moffatt stepped through, leading the team of gentlewomen housekeepers behind her. Each one of them looked as imperious as the last.
‘Miss Nettleton,’ Mrs Moffatt began, in her brusque business-like voice.
She knows, doesn’t she? Somebody told . . . Beneath the table, her knees started knocking. All of her life, every ambition she had, flashed in front of her. All of it squandered, for something as silly as an illicit trip into the ballroom.
‘Your turn with the tea. Do the honours, won’t you?’
Relief flooded her body. ‘Right away, Mrs Moffatt.’
As she got up to begin pouring, she heard Rosa titter behind her, ‘Right away, Mrs Moffatt. Two sugars, Mrs Moffatt. How do you take yours, Mrs Moffatt?’ The Lancashire accent Rosa was putting on was a knife in Nancy’s side, but she was too startled to look around.
Why are they being so snotty, all of a sudden? Because they saw me talking to Raymond de Guise?
Mrs Moffatt began, ‘Girls, we have much to do today. Charlotte, Maureen, Flo, Mrs Whitehead is going to take you to fifth to prepare the Atlantic for an honoured guest. Agatha, Edie, Vera – you’re on third and fourth. Rosa, Ruth, you’ll be in the ballroom with Nancy. The rest of you, listen out for your name. We have much to do . . .’
Nancy found her seat again, but all of a sudden the porridge and toast, honeys and preserves, thick butter, pastries and clotted cream didn’t seem so appetising. But you have to eat, she told herself. What would you have said to Frank if he refused to eat before going down to the mine for the day? You’d have caused chaos with him if he’d not finished his plate! ‘You need to stay strong, Frank. You need to look after yourself.’ Well, listen to your own advice, Nancy Nettleton.
It was one thing looking after her little brother. When there was Frank to look after – Frank’s bed to change, Frank’s meals to make, Frank to walk to the end of the lane so that he could join the other children for school – Nancy had barely thought about herself. But this was the new life – and that meant being kind to herself too.
Mrs Moffatt announced the end of breakfast with a simple clap of her hands and the girls cleared the table and hurried off to their stations.
‘Nancy. A word, if I may?’
Nancy’s heart raced again. Does she know, or doesn’t she?
Mrs Moffatt bade Nancy to sit beside her and folded a hand over hers. ‘You’re on edge this morning, Nancy. Is everything—’
Nancy spluttered, ‘Everything’s fine, Mrs Moffatt. I’m—’
‘Tired,’ Mrs Moffatt said, nodding her head sagely. ‘Yes, it can get you like that, when you’re a new girl. It’s important you look after yourself – and not just for the hotel. I need my girls fit and healthy, Nancy.’ She rummaged in her pocket and produced three barley sugar sweets, wrapped up in wax wrappers. ‘Keep them with you,’ she said, ‘pop one in when you feel like you’re starting to flag.’ She beamed and, together, they stood back up. ‘You’ll get through this, Miss Nettleton. I can see it in you. You’re smart and willing and, if you’re a little rough around the edges, that’s nothing as compared to some of the girls I’ve had with me over the years. You and the Buckingham Hotel, you fit each other like hand and glove.’
*
It had been two days since the ballroom closed its doors and, since that moment, Nancy, Rosa and Ruth had been dedicated to polishing numerous pieces of chandelier. With tubs of silver polish and diluted cider vinegar, they worked in procession: one vast dust sheet spread out with the pieces of chandelier waiting to be doused in vinegar and wiped clean; another laid out for the pieces to dry, before being gently massaged with polish and reassembled. As the new girl, Nancy was stuck at the front of the production line. She wondered if the smell of cider vinegar would ever be washed out of her nostrils, her fingertips, her hair.
‘Look, Rosa,’ said Ruth. As Nancy and Rosa looked up, Ruth grabbed a broom from its prop on the wall. Then, holding it as tight as a lover, she twirled across the empty ballroom floor. It was a simple two-step, the sort anyone who’d ever been to a dance hall might dance, but she put her own flourishes in, rocking the broom back and forth as if it was swooning in her arms. ‘Madam!’ she declared, in a perfect imitation of the King’s English.
Rosa spluttered all over the chandelier clasp she had been polishing. ‘Give over, would you? If Mrs Moffatt comes back . . .’
But Ruth continued twirling around, dancing some wanton tango up and down the ballroom floor. On the other side, one of the carpenters elbowed his workmate in the side and cried out, ‘Here’s Hélène Marchmont herself!’
Rosa whispered, ‘I’d give anything to be Hélène Marchmont and have Raymond de Guise all to myself . . .’
Nancy’s eyes shot up. ‘Hélène Marchmont . . . and Raymond de Guise?’
‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Two folks as beautiful as them. Bound to happen, isn’t it? They hold each other almost every night anyway. And do you think you can dance with someone like that if you’re not a little bit in
love?’
‘I don’t know,’ chipped in Ruth. ‘Raymond de Guise hardly ever leaves the Buckingham. Not unless it’s to one of those tea parties, or he’s invited to some toff’s wedding. But Hélène Marchmont? Now, that’s different. She’s off, out of here, every chance she gets! Like she’s got somewhere better to be.’
‘Double life,’ said Rosa. ‘She’s probably lead dancer at the Imperial. Choreographer at the Savoy.’
‘Nothing as ordinary!’ Ruth crowed. ‘She’s got a lover somewhere, you mark my words. A lovely doomed affair, like you get in the magazines. Oh, I can just imagine it, can’t you? She jumps in a taxicab every second she gets, and then she’s up in some Bloomsbury mansion or out at some country estate.’
‘Why keep it a secret?’
One Enchanted Evening Page 10