It was paradise – of a sort – thought Hélène as she allowed Louis to take her by the arm.
*
The only reason Billy Brogan could keep pace with Nancy as she hurried along the now barren market row, past the Blue Posts public house spilling out its drinkers, was because she kept stopping to give her stubborn leg a moment to rest. Up ahead, from a little doorway sandwiched between two closed shop fronts, music spiralled up from a dark basement staircase. She hovered, ten yards away, just . . . thinking.
Billy Brogan had no need to think. The moment they’d come along the open thoroughfare of Carnaby Street, he had known where they were going. By now, the revellers on Carnaby Street had been few – only the after-hours drinkers at the Tatty Bogle had been putting up a racket – but here, off the Berwick Street market, there was no denying the music in the air. It was loud and it was wild and, above all things, it was infectious.
‘You don’t want to go down there, Nance,’ Billy said, catching up with her at the door. ‘It’s all ruffians. Drinking and dancing and . . . why, intoxicating themselves with whatever they got to hand.’ Billy neglected to tell her how he knew this. How on earth did you say ‘this is the place I come and collect special packages for Vivienne Edgerton’ and still seem the kind of estimable young gentleman Nancy Nettleton might want to be associated with?
‘Nance, come on. It’s a dance club. That’s all . . .’
Nancy had already taken her first step on the stairs. Something was drawing her down. It was not just the need to know what Raymond and Hélène were doing here, together, and if they were lovers. No, Nancy thought, it was something more than that.
She wanted to dance.
‘Come on, Billy. You’re only young once.’
And I’m hardly young any more, she added privately. Twenty-four years old, and at risk of being either an old maid or a chambermaid for the rest of my life! Better to grab on to life and do things than wither away, follow the rules, and rot. ‘Come on, Billy! Let’s live a little!’
By now she was already halfway down the stairs. She had worked herself up so much that she knew she would have gone on alone, but at last she could hear Billy Brogan clattering after her. That stilled her pounding heart a little. She was brave, she thought, but she still wanted him here. He ought to see this too.
In the end, it was only Billy’s presence that made the doorman allow them in. When Nancy appeared, he looked her up and down and seemed to find her wanting in some way. Then Billy sloped up behind her and the doorman, his eyes opening in what Nancy thought might even have been recognition, shrugged his enormous shoulders and opened the door.
The sound, the scent, the taste in the air – it came towards Nancy like a tidal wave, almost bowling her over.
She was grateful that Billy was at her side. For the people who spun and jived in front of her, perhaps this was an ordinary night – but to Nancy it was another life entirely. The smoke in the room gave the bustling dance floor a haze. The dance floor, built from sprung wooden floorboards, was the heart of the room. Two girls were kicking their legs in time to the music roaring out of the alcove at the very head of the room. This cacophony must have been what it was like to sit in the very middle of the Archie Adams Band – only these musicians played with so much more urgency, so much less grace. The music was strident and, though Nancy was certain she’d heard this number in the ballroom itself, here it felt different, somehow, newer and more energetic.
She stumbled forward. Somebody was coming through the doors behind them and instinctively she reached out for Billy Brogan’s hand. Together, they were swept further into the club. Billy didn’t mind. The chance to wind his fingers into Nancy Nettleton’s hand was not likely to come around again, so he made sure he held her tight as he led her into the room.
A young man and his lover had been drinking dark liquor in one of the alcoves on the furthest side of the dance floor, and Billy spied them as they got up and fought their way down to the dance floor itself. ‘Come on, quickly!’ he said and, still grasping Nancy by the hand, plunged between the dancers. The revellers did not seem to notice. They parted and came together again, and soon Billy and Nancy were safely ensconced in the alcove, the black walls on either side dampening the music and dancers so that they could almost hear each other speak.
‘Shall I get us some drinks?’
‘What?’
‘I said, shall I get us some drinks! Nance?’
Nancy nodded. She was nervous letting Billy go, but she was hypnotised too. The band had moved into a different number. ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’, the new Louis Prima number. The dance floor, which had momentarily calmed as the band switched songs, came alive again.
She stared.
She found her own feet tapping.
She saw Raymond de Guise.
He was there in the thick of the dance floor, spinning Hélène Marchmont around, catching her and spinning again. Gone was the elegance and grace she had come to know. He still held himself as confidently, he still owned the dance floor in spite of the dozens of others whirling past him, but there was something free – something more fun – about the way he moved too. Revelling. Raymond de Guise, star of the ballroom, was a nightclub reveller now. Nancy was captivated. Then she saw the look on Hélène Marchmont’s face. Austere, glacial Hélène Marchmont – Ice Queen of the Buckingham herself – was beaming from ear to ear.
It shouldn’t have knifed her like it did, but there was no denying the envy Nancy felt at seeing the way they were dancing together. She was certain: the girls were right. What Hélène and Raymond were compelled to hide in the sophisticated surroundings of the ballroom must have felt right, here in the Midnight Rooms. You’ve been a foolish girl, Nancy. He was teaching you to dance. That was all. Just look at them! They’re perfect together. From the same standing. From the same class in life. They’ve probably been in love for years and years – and here you are, a little country mouse still, thinking you’re something special. She carried on staring. Even now, their hands were . . .
Billy tumbled back into the alcove, bringing with him two tumblers of an amber liquor that smelled quite vile. Nancy had seen the village boys tramping through the village on a Friday night after drinking too much of their home-brewed beers, and the thought of drinking alcohol at all had always turned her stomach. But she took a sip now. It burned and she recoiled, but she went to take another.
‘Take it slow, Nance. This is wicked stuff.’
Wicked was exactly the word. Nancy put the glass down and her eyes were drawn back to Raymond and Hélène. The number was coming to an end and, at last, their bodies came apart. Only then did she find she could relax. You foolish, foolish girl! she thought. You didn’t come to London to get yourself in a lather over some man you barely know. You’re smarter than this, Nancy Nettleton!
In the relative quiet between the songs Nancy could hear glasses being smashed in one of the neighbouring alcoves, somebody barking drunken insults at another. The girls on the tables had stopped jiving and looked suddenly stranded, up above all of the rest. Nancy opened her mouth as if to speak – but then the band-leader stood up. ‘Now for something completely different!’ he announced, into the crowd. The crowd lifted their glasses and cheered, as if in unison.
Then the music began and it was quite unlike anything Nancy had ever heard.
*
Hélène took Raymond’s hand. This, she decided, this is what we came here for! The atmosphere in the Midnight Rooms was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. The smell of smoke would be in her hair for days; her ears rang already with the racket that the band put up. Their music was trapped and echoed in all of the many vaults around the edge of the stage – it did not soar and glide like it did in somewhere as vast and well designed as the Grand – but somehow that did not seem to matter. It was wild and different. It did not need elegance and grace. And now . . .
The music changed again. There came a time, each evening, whe
n the Archie Adams Band threw in their own version of a Latin number, something to excite the Carmen Miranda enthusiasts in the ballroom. But what Archie and his orchestra played could not hold a candle to this.
The music started slowly but quickly sped up. The Latin rhythm was unmistakable. It infected every movement of the song. On the dance floor, the dancers quickly found their feet. This is it, thought Hélène. The rhumba . . . The music was bringing more and more dancers onto the floor. She felt hot bodies around her, pressing in ever more closely.
She had seen so much already. The dancers here had been holding each other in classic ballroom poses, and yet they skipped more frenetically across the dance floor than they would ever have done in the ballroom. Now they clasped each other more tightly, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek. If the tighter frames made the girls in the Midnight Rooms nervous, they did nothing to show it. In fact, thought Hélène, they appeared to positively love the opportunity to entwine themselves with the gentlemen at their sides.
Hélène and Raymond held on to each other, and launched into the rhumba with glee.
The box stepping was fast, much faster than anything with which they were familiar, but they had no problem keeping up. But the box step was where the similarity to the waltzes of the ballroom ended. The rhythm quickened and slowed. Across the dance floor, hips moved sensually, along with the music. Ankles flashed. Bare arms caught the candle lights. Then, the couple dancing alongside Raymond and Hélène seemed to separate from the rest. The girl threw her head back, and a moment later she had leaped up, locking her legs around her partner’s waist as he turned. A rapturous cheer went up from the sides of the room. Then, as they came out of their spin, the girl was set back down again and the dance continued, as seamlessly as if her feet had never left the ground.
Hélène thought she had never seen a more incredible thing. Dancers in the gilded world to which Hélène Marchmont belonged did not do this.
There’s a different world down here. It isn’t all men in frilly evening shirts holding you stiffly as you let them lead you across the ballroom. It isn’t all having to be prim and proper and demure to men who know less than half what you know about dance. Down here, I can be myself.
She looked at Raymond. His eyes had the devil in them. Temptation . . .
There was no need for words. Both knew what the other wanted to do. A move like this would have been sacrilegious in the Grand, but after so many years dancing for the rich and the powerful, it was a relief – no, more than that, a need – to dance without a care in the world. To remember what had drawn them both to dancing. Hélène nodded. They danced on. And then – without quite knowing she was going to do it – Hélène too was up, with her legs wrapped around Raymond’s waist as he turned and turned and turned again.
Some of the other dancers had stopped to watch. The crowd parted around them as they moved together, lost in a world of their own.
But then, suddenly there was the sound of glass smashing and everything changed.
*
Nancy was the first to see it. A man – six feet tall, with shoulders almost as broad – had leaped out of the alcove next to where she and Billy were sitting. It took him a second to push through the girls swaying to the Latin rhythm on the edge of the dance floor, and another second to paw his way through the dancers turning their hypnotic box steps on the floor itself. By the time Billy had realised what was going on, the first punch had already been thrown. The man, with his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal dockland tattoos up and down his forearms, was carving Raymond de Guise and Hélène Marchmont apart, bellowing at them.
The band played on.
Through the music, Nancy heard the man screaming: ‘Thought we wouldn’t recognise you, Ray? Thought we’d have forgotten your face? You’ve been seen in the neighbourhood, mate. But you’re not welcome, you understand? None of your lot are welcome.’
A clenched fist connected with Raymond’s jaw and he went whirling backwards. The couple who had been dancing behind him were the only thing that stopped him crashing to the floor. By accident they caught him and set him back on his feet – but, by then, the brute had readied himself for another unrelenting strike. He brought the back of his hand across Raymond’s jaw, then drove the other clenched fist into his stomach. Raymond doubled over, dropping out of Nancy’s sight. In the crowd, Hélène Marchmont screamed.
Only then did the bandleader realise what was going on. The music ended sharply, in a chaotic mess of trombone and dying tenor horn.
In an instant, Nancy was on her feet. Billy cried out – ‘Nance, no!’ – but, if Nancy heard him, she paid it no mind. She staggered through the dancers flocking away from the dance floor. In their haste to get away from the tumult, they seemed to have formed a cordon blocking her path.
‘Raymond!’ she screamed, but Raymond was not the one to hear. Hélène Marchmont looked around, saw Nancy, and her face creased in surprise.
Nancy wasted no time. This was not the moment to care about whether Hélène and Raymond were lovers or not. She forced her way through the wall of dancers, just in time to see Raymond fall beneath another clenched fist. Then the huge man was on top of him, pounding at his face. Between each blow he took a breath, as if to ready himself. And all the while he was crying out, spittle flying from his lips.
‘You and that brother of yours, the whole goddamn rabble of you. You’re up and out of our streets, you understand? You Cohens was always the worst of it. When you weren’t out thieving and grifting, you were still taking the work from the rest of us. Well, time’s up, Ray. Dance yourself out of this one. There’s ten thousand of us going to march on Sunday. There’s nothing your lot can do to stop it. The Home Secretary his self is sending guards to protect us. You and that thieving, filthy Jewish brother of yours are finished . . .’
The thug had brought his arm back for one final punch. Beneath him, Raymond was lying dazed on the floor. Nancy sprang forward – and, in the same moment she did, Hélène reached out and grappled with the thug’s arm. The motion took Raymond’s attacker by surprise. He flailed backwards, his fist caught Hélène Marchmont’s face, and she too plunged to the floor.
From the crowd, Nancy heard an aghast cry. ‘This has gone too far!’ somebody growled. Two men – who until now had spent the night ostentatiously dancing, like peacocks trying to attract a mate – waded out of the huddles on the edges of the room. By the time they reached the man, who still straddled Raymond, Louis Kildare too had extricated himself from the crush. He picked Hélène up, wrapped his arms around her.
‘Get off him!’ one of the men cried out.
The thug just shrugged. ‘You friends of his?’
‘Not friends. Just good people. This is a dance club. You want to brawl, you—’
‘Oh,’ the man said, with the barest flicker of a smile, ‘a brawl is it?’ He stood up, leaving Raymond on the floor, and called out to the alcove where he’d been sitting. ‘Boys, we got some heroes sticking up for this sewer rat. This Yid. Want to show ’em a thing or two, or should I have all the fun myself?’
Nancy saw Raymond try and pick himself up. His face was a mask of scarlet and black. He was coughing up blood; one of his teeth had been knocked out. She took a step, as if to go towards him – but, too late, for already more men were kicking their way down to the dance floor. They looked so unmistakably like the brute who had just pulverised Raymond that she could only assume they were his brothers – and every bit as degenerate.
‘Stop!’ she cried out as they brushed past, trailing the odours of whisky and sweat and smoke. ‘Somebody, stop them!’
She could see faces in the crowd, looking nervously at one another. Some of the dancers were already crowding the doorway, making haste to get out of the Midnight Rooms altogether. The band remained on the stage, with nowhere else to go – but, as the thug’s brothers arrived, the bandleader – a black man with thick coils of hair and an immaculate beard – stepped out in front of his upright
piano and ceremoniously removed his smart silk jacket. ‘Not here!’ he cried out. ‘Not in the Midnight Rooms. This is a good place. This is for music. This is for dance!’
The first blows landed. The bandleader vaulted down to join the fray. Soon the rest of the band had ditched their instruments to fight at his side. Seeing what was happening, some of the remaining dancers in the room were emboldened. They charged back to the dance floor – and Raymond was lost behind the new press of bodies.
Nancy felt Billy grappling with her arm. ‘Nance,’ he said, ‘we got to go.’
‘But Billy! It’s Raymond. What if he—’
‘We can’t be here, Nance. We can’t help him.’
‘They weren’t speaking sense,’ Nancy gasped. ‘They called him Cohen. His name’s de Guise. Billy, they got the wrong man!’
Billy wrenched her around. ‘I said I’d get you here safe, and I’ll get you out of here safe as well. We’ve got to get back . . .’
Through the madness of bodies grappling with each other, Nancy caught another glimpse of Raymond lying prostrate on the floor.
As the crowd closed back around him, she saw him mouth one final word.
‘Run!’
It was the final encouragement Nancy Nettleton needed. As the fight erupted behind her, she raced after Billy Brogan, back to the barren street market and the moonlit Soho streets above.
Chapter Seventeen
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT, BERKELEY SQUARE was becalmed. Billy brought Nancy within sight of the hotel’s lights and there they said their goodbyes. ‘But I’m going to need my coat, Nance. I got to get back to Lambeth and the cold’s setting in.’
Billy was helping her out of it when he caught her look. ‘Nance, are you—’
Nancy cut him off, ‘Was he . . . dead, Billy? Did they . . . ?’
Billy took her by the shoulders. ‘Not dead, Nance. Louis Kildare got him out of there. You can stake your last shilling on it.’
The cold of this September night was more bitter than Nancy remembered. A wind curled across Berkeley Square and chilled her to the core.
One Enchanted Evening Page 15