One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

Or, at least, that was what had been promised. Maurice Archer had heard his fellow seamen talk about the bite of a London winter, the taste of tap water, the way the English deep-fried their fish until it had been sapped of every ounce of flavour, but in his mind London was a city of golden boulevards and royal parks, where his darling Noelle might take tea with the Duchess of Kent, or be invited to the weddings at Westminster Cathedral – or where, when he wasn’t being fanciful, his sons and daughter might work hard and grow up to be wealthy, secure individuals, with houses and families and prospects of their own.

  Living in London day in and day out was a different matter. That first winter, when he was working on the railway and the Spanish flu – which had already laid waste to so many – returned for a valedictory tour of the city, first Noelle, and then all three of their children, were taken to their beds. Maurice looked in on them after his shifts had ended each night and the thought preyed on him: is this it? Is this what I brought my children to England for?

  Even after they were recovered, the fear that this had all been a dreadful mistake remained. He might have returned, then. There were ships taking families like his back to the islands from which they came. People couldn’t stand the weather, or they couldn’t stand the dreary, smog-soaked city – or they couldn’t stand the way some Englishmen crossed the road so they wouldn’t have to brush shoulders as they passed, asked for their glasses to be changed at the free house on Brixton Hill, in case a black man had touched it. But his youngest son, Joseph, had barely been three when they took to the oceans together; was it right to uproot him again? And his daughter, Samantha, beautiful Samantha . . . At nine years old, she was his princess. She’d seen snow for the first time that winter and never was there a more magical thing.

  And then there was Sidney. Sidney who, thirteen years old in the year they set sail, had taught them that the cold and dark did not matter, that there were things to love about this new world of theirs. Sidney who, in spite of the scornful looks from some of the other boys along Brixton Hill, had woken every morning with a grin on his face, dressed eagerly for school and made friends. And all because of that battered old trumpet of his . . .

  Maurice Archer was laying the trumpet back in its case, the same case with which Sidney had trotted off to lessons every Saturday morning, when Noelle brought Hélène into the room. Sternly, he wagged his finger. ‘Hélène Marchmont, I thought you’d vanished off the face of this planet.’

  Hélène presented him with the flowers, but kept the rag doll to herself. As he accepted them, he grinned and took her by the hand. ‘You’re still a picture. Isn’t she a picture, Noelle?’

  Noelle was busy arranging a tray with a teapot and saucers, all the best china brought out for their visitor, so she only rolled her eyes at her husband and grinned, ‘You always say it and you’re always right’, before shuffling out of the room.

  Maurice was a big man, in height as well as girth. To see him alongside Noelle was to imagine that a pixie had married a giant. He had big, brawny forearms and hands that made the cups and saucers his wife had laid out look like toys. His whiskers were tufts of white and he kept them solely because his wife told him not to, because it entertained him to see her cringe away when he went to kiss her goodnight.

  ‘It’s good to have you, girl. Here, get off those feet. You’ve come a long way.’

  There was not a place in the world that felt more like home to Hélène. Her own parents might have had that palatial house off the seafront in Rye, but this basement flat in Brixton seemed, to her, the world entire. The photographs on the wall, the mirror bought at the second-hand market, the towers of beer mats Maurice and his sons had collected from their visits to the local free houses. All of these were like holy relics to Hélène. Never mind the four-poster bed in the room at Rye. She wasn’t welcome there any longer – and, even if one day they condescended to take her back, she wouldn’t give them the time of day. Here, Hélène thought. Here is home.

  Maurice was clearing a place for her on the sofa, when Hélène spoke. ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Samantha has her. They’re in the back bedroom. Don’t think you need to ask, Hélène. This is your house too. We’ve said that from the start.’ Maurice paused and smiled gently. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Be on with you!’

  Hélène held onto the rag doll and turned sideways to squeeze along the cluttered hallway, past the kitchen and ‘master bedroom’ and to the little box room at the end.

  Samantha, tall and slender and wearing a dress that Hélène recognised well – it had been a cast-off from the Buckingham wardrobes, dutifully re-stitched – was standing with her back to the door, looking down into a simple wooden crib. Baby Sybil must have been awake, for Hélène could hear her cooing with delight when Samantha’s finger darted in to tickle her beneath the chin. For an age, Hélène hung in the doorway, just listening to those sounds. Soon, Samantha leaned in to take hold of the baby.

  ‘May I?’ asked Hélène, and the voice of Samantha’s father came echoing down the hall: ‘Tell her she doesn’t need to ask!’

  Samantha stepped aside. Sybil was fourteen months old already – and, goodness, how she’d grown! Hélène felt her heart break a little at that. How long had it been since she’d seen her? A whole month? But that was an aeon to a baby. The hair that had once been wisps on top of her head had turned into black waves, and when she saw Hélène she hoisted herself onto her feet at the bars of her crib. Her cheeks still had the roundedness of the baby she’d been, and yet her face was changing. She looked half a little girl, half a babe in arms.

  ‘Hello, little one,’ said Hélène, lifting her. ‘Remember me?’

  She did. Or perhaps it was the rag doll with which she was presented, making her eyes light up.

  ‘How’s she been?’

  ‘Lord, she’s kept me up nights and nights. Sleeps in the day and wants to get up and dance all night long. It’s lucky I’m not cleaning down at the cinema any more. They let me go. Seems I clean too good. We were finishing so early they decided to let one of us go!’ Samantha’s laughter was the best thing about her. They didn’t laugh like this in the Buckingham. There they just opened their lips and tittered, or raised a glass in an appreciative smile. ‘Hélène?’

  Hélène had been lost, cradling Sybil. ‘She’s beautiful . . . as ever.’

  ‘She has her father’s eyes,’ said Samantha.

  She did. They were eyes of the darkest brown, and yet they still seemed bright and alive.

  ‘I was trying to settle her when you walked in. Her grandpa out there decided he’d entertain her with the bloomin’ trumpet, and right before bedtime too. She loves it of course. Just like her father!’

  Hélène nuzzled the baby’s neck. Babies – they always had the most wonderful smell. Somewhere beneath the coal tar and talcum powder there was the smell of innocence. Hélène loved that. She thought it didn’t matter what happened out there in the world, not when you held a baby and breathed in all of that beautiful, unspent life. The newsreels were full of the Germans overturning old treaties. Nights of violence in Hamburg and Berlin. The war intensifying in Spain, and none of it with an end in sight. But here, with Sybil, all of the madness melted away.

  ‘Do you want to take her?’ Hélène asked.

  ‘You bring her,’ said Samantha. ‘She wants you, Hélène! I can see it in her eyes. She wants her mama.’

  *

  Noelle had not been planning a great feast, but she was the sort of woman who could make a family banquet out of tinned fish, pickled eggs, and whatever other odds and ends she found in the larder. The things this woman could do with spices were incredible, unknown to even the most daring of the Buckingham chefs. They had brought such otherworldly flavours with them from the Caribbean; the thought of Lord Edgerton, or Graf Schecht, or any of the rest tasting Noelle Archer’s rice and peas brought Hélène untold delight.

  Before they ate, they clasped their hands so that Maurice could sa
y grace. ‘For what we are about to receive,’ he whispered, ‘may the Lord make us eternally grateful.’ Then, as he did every night, he raised a glass. ‘To Sidney!’ he declared. ‘Gone, but not forgotten.’

  ‘To Sidney!’ they all agreed – and, as glasses were raised, Hélène pressed her lips to Sybil’s brow and repeated the words gently in her ear. ‘To your daddy . . .’

  It was still strange to hold her. Hélène felt stabs of guilt whenever she admitted it to herself, but every time she came to the Archers’ home it took her an hour, two, sometimes a whole day to start feeling like a mother again. It isn’t that I don’t want to be here, little girl. You must know that. One day, I’ll tell you it all. How I fell in love with your father. How he fell in love with me. About the day I realised I was pregnant and how panicked and elated we were, all at once. Well, we had to concoct a plan, didn’t we, Sybil? I told my own parents but they near disowned me . . . and all because your papa was black. And a black musician no less! Could anything be any more disgraceful? Well, what other plan was there? I tricked Maynard Charles into resting me from the Buckingham – I told him I was headed to California, to finally try my hand at the silver screen. He took some convin-cing . . . but the idea of an actual movie star gracing his ballroom and all it might do for the Buckingham’s reputation finally swayed him. And I came here and I had you, my baby girl, the only thing that matters in all of the world, and . . . if it hadn’t been for what happened to your father, well, I’d have lived out my days here, as a mother.

  But life has a funny way of destroying the best-laid plans, doesn’t it, Sybil?

  Dinner had been served around a little wooden table in the living room. Hélène held Sybil, who reached out eagerly for whatever was on the plate, while Maurice regaled them with the stories his fellow railwaymen had told him – the drunk city barrister found asleep on the platform at Euston, who’d woken and thought himself on trial – and Samantha told Hélène every last detail of Sybil’s past weeks: the babbling sounds she made every morning; how she pointed bossily at whatever toy she wanted; which lullabies were her favourite this month, and which would prompt a maelstrom of tears.

  As if on cue, Sybil starting babbling now. ‘Dadadadadadadadadaaaa!’ she chanted. Every bit as musical as your father.

  It doesn’t feel right, does it? Not to know these things myself. Not to have lived and breathed every second of it. Thoughts like these could drive Hélène to madness, but all it took was for Sybil to reach up and play with her hair, and all those worries faded away. Love did not fade. Love had crossed vaster distances than these before. And it isn’t for ever, Sybil. I’m going to find a way that it doesn’t have to be for ever. But what would Maynard Charles say if he knew the truth? A child born out of wedlock . . . and of mixed heritage at that? Maynard Charles might countenance black musicians in his orchestra, but if he knew one of them had fathered the secret child of his star dancer? Well, the Buckingham is only the Buckingham because of what people think of it. He’d protect that reputation at any cost, even if it meant getting rid of me – and then where would we be? If I couldn’t send money back here every month, what would become of us all?

  Baked apples and cinnamon were already being served by the time the front door opened and in bouldered the Archers’ youngest son, Joseph. Not yet twenty years old, Joseph was small and slender, with the same tight curls of hair as his mother. As he crashed through the door, he was singing to himself, a song Hélène did not know.

  ‘Hélène!’

  He was barrelling over to plant a kiss on Hélène’s cheek when Noelle slapped his hand away. ‘Wash first, young man! Hélène, you don’t know where he’s been . . . but I do. You been hanging round those clubs again, boy?’

  ‘Ma, I’m telling you, there’s work there.’

  ‘Work!’ Noelle muttered darkly, as Joseph strode off to wash the grime from his hands. ‘That boy’s been laid off more times than I’ve had hot dinners.’

  Joseph reappeared, dragging a chair behind him to join them at the table. Soon his plate was being piled high with rice and peas, salted fish, little potatoes rolled in butter and a single pickled egg. ‘They got me relaying a floor.’

  ‘You don’t know how to lay a floor.’

  Joseph shrugged, his mouth already full. ‘I know how to do what I’m told.’

  Hélène grinned. ‘Where are you working, Joseph?’

  ‘They call it –’ his eyes sparkled – ‘the Midnight Rooms.’

  Hélène’s eyes darted up.

  ‘Our Joseph finds himself a citizen of Soho,’ Maurice chipped in, with more than a smirk. ‘Been out dancing, have you, boy?’

  ‘I got a good pair of dancing feet.’

  ‘And they let you dance in there, do they?’

  ‘Pa, you don’t know a thing. A place like the Midnight Rooms doesn’t care where you come from. As long as you got the love for the music. That’s right, isn’t it, Hélène?’

  ‘You want to stay away from the Midnight Rooms, Joseph,’ Hélène said. ‘Mark my words, it isn’t the place Sidney used to speak of . . .’

  She hadn’t told Raymond as much, but it had been one of the reasons she was so eager to go. Louis and Sidney had played in the Midnight Rooms more times than either could remember. Even years after he’d left the clubs behind and devoted himself to Archie Adams and the band, Sidney had spoken of the club as a wild little paradise where music and dance ruled the roost.

  ‘It’s the place, Hélène. The place! There’s girls there dancing the rhumba. They’re on the tables dancing the cha-cha. Have you ever cha-cha’d, Hélène? They have contests, every Saturday night. Finest dancers. There’s champagne. They treat you like royalty. I’m going there tonight, Hélène, if you—’

  Noelle smiled indulgently. ‘That’s enough of that. Hélène’s got other things to do tonight, haven’t you, love?’

  In her lap, Sybil started to babble again. ‘Dadadadadadadadadaaaa!’

  ‘You can keep your Midnight Rooms.’ Hélène grinned. ‘There’s only one place for me. But Joseph . . . be careful there, won’t you? We . . .’ How much to tell them? she thought. But then she decided: they’re my family. I should tell them it all. ‘We went there, me and Louis and Raymond, my partner in the ballroom. I guess we wanted to see what it was like. The rhumbas and the cha-chas, everything Sidney had loved. I wanted to see it for myself. To see where Sidney started out. And, well, for a time it was everything I hoped.’ She paused. ‘Then everything went wrong, Joseph. Some men charged in and mobbed Raymond. They wouldn’t stop. He’s back at the hotel, broken and trussed up. They’re making me dance with some . . . juvenile they’ve brought in from the Imperial.’ Hélène could hardly keep the disgust from her voice – but here, surrounded by people she loved, she had no need to. ‘So watch yourself, won’t you?’

  Joseph beamed. Picking himself up, he planted a single kiss on Hélène’s brow, then leaned down to tickle Sybil’s chin. ‘See how good a mother you are, Hélène? You worry about me like I’m your own son!’ He laughed. ‘I’ll be careful, Hélène.’

  ‘It isn’t just the club though, is it, Joseph? It’s . . . the whole world. One of my dancers at the hotel, her brother has vanished in the horrors in Spain. There still isn’t any word of him. And now the riot in the East End? It doesn’t feel . . . right out there.’

  ‘Still no word from the King either,’ chipped in Joseph’s father. ‘Will he give up Mrs Simpson or give up the throne?’ He paused. ‘The world has always been full of uncertainty, Hélène. It will never be any other way. But keep your focus, keep thinking on what matters most – that baby, right there in front of you – and you’ll be all right.’

  Soon it was time for dinner to end. Hélène lifted Sybil and tidied her up; Joseph reappeared in a green checked jacket, with peaked lapels and only two buttons on its breast and – despite the hoots of embarrassment from his father – disappeared out the front door with a flour
ish. Noelle worked her magic in the kitchen, while Maurice swept the rug. And, through it all, Hélène felt as if she was a world away from the Buckingham, the trials and tribulations of guests and concierges and hotel management.

  ‘Time for me to get some sleep,’ announced Samantha. ‘Richard will be back from shift soon enough. Ma, Pa, goodnight. Lovely to see you, Hélène. And –’ her eyes dropped down to the baby Hélène was still holding – ‘night night, Sybil.’

  Hélène took Samantha’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and Samantha looked at her and replied gently. ‘Never say that again, Hélène. You’re family. You both are.’

  At last, it was only Hélène and Noelle still up. In Hélène’s arms, Sybil looked forlornly around, as if searching out Samantha. But I’m here, Sybil. Your mama is here. Then her face opened in an enormous yawn, revealing a mouth full of tiny white teeth.

  ‘Well, somebody’s sleepy. Do you want to put her down, dear?’

  Hélène was hesitant. ‘Isn’t it silly,’ she said, ‘how nervous one can get?’

  ‘You dance for princes every night. How could a little thing like this make you nervous?’

  Because, Hélène thought, she matters so much more.

  With Sybil still lolling in her arms, Hélène squeezed down the hallway to the little nursery at the end. Behind her, Noelle sang a ditty to herself as she tidied everything away. In one of the flats above, a pair of young lovers were arguing. Through the walls, Hélène could hear the sound of the BBC news buzzing out of the wireless, news of Germany and Spain – and, of course, the daily bulletin about King Edward and the glamorous Mrs Simpson. But here, safe in the nursery, everything was still.

  Hélène did not want to put Sybil down. She clung on to her until her own feet were tired, simply breathing in her scent. Then, at last, she bent over the rail and laid her down in the crib. After that, she gazed over her for the longest time, humming a lullaby whose words she felt certain she’d forgotten. But the melody came naturally – and so too, Hélène remembered, did motherhood. It was a wonderful feeling. Each time she came back, she was afraid it had slipped through her fingers – but life was lived for stolen moments like these.