And now came Raymond de Guise.
If they knew what kind of ruffian I really am, they’d turf me out on my ear. Even so, the wonder of climbing these stairs, where dancers so much greater than he had once trod, was exhilarating. No matter how many ballrooms and palaces he visited, the wonder of it still touched Raymond. That’s how I know I’ve never really belonged, he thought. Somewhere inside, I’m still Ray Cohen, standing on a street corner at night on lookout while his brother and friends clamber through some broken window . . .
The club was serene this afternoon, though two men in velveteen waistcoats were seated by the small corner bar, locked in conversation with Almira – the manageress who, if history had followed a different path, might now have been sunning herself on the ramparts of some palace in Persia. Almira recognised Raymond almost as soon as he stepped through the doors. Her black eyes gleamed at him and she directed him to a table in the corner, where a middle-aged man with distinguished silver hair and moustache waxed into perfect spirals was nursing a plate of the most succulent rabbit cassoulet.
Raymond approached slowly, snow sloughing off his grey overcoat. The diner looked up and his face, with its otherworldly blue eyes, opened up in the warmest smile. He stood and, when Raymond extended a hand, the man pulled him into a warm embrace instead. When the elder man let go of him and directed him to sit, he felt the tears of a young boy pricking in his eyes. He had not known how much he needed this.
‘Georges,’ he began, ‘I’m grateful to find you.’
Georges de la Motte summoned Almira for an extra glass, and himself poured Raymond a measure of the darkest, richest Merlot. This he placed in Raymond’s hand, folding Raymond’s fingers around the glass stem himself. ‘Drink, my boy,’ he said gently.
So Raymond did. The wine had a warming effect. Its taste was an intoxicating mixture of red grape and cinnamon – something exotic, and of the east. He let it penetrate every corner of his body. For the first time, in a long time, he felt his muscles relax as he sank back into the chesterfield.
Georges de la Motte had just celebrated his half-centenary and, although it was showing in the silvering of his hair, he still retained that fey, otherworldly air that had first struck Raymond so many years ago. Raymond supposed Georges would have been his own age back then. There had been so much to admire in the seventh son of a French baron who’d picked him up from the taproom floor, set him on his feet and recognised, in the youngster, something of himself. Raymond had learned so much from him – not just the nuances of the double reverse spin, nor the imperceptible changes to his posture that would better create elegance in the ballroom, but of gracefulness and poise in larger life as well. It was this stability that drew Raymond to his mentor now.
‘Raymond, my boy. You look like you could use an old friend.’
Raymond nodded. He did not want to seem weak in front of his old mentor, but something inside him was lost, something inside him was spinning apart. ‘I’m grateful for it,’ he replied. ‘Georges, I need your help.’
Georges’ voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I told you before, Raymond. I’m here for you, whenever you need me. When you need a friend, send for de la Motte. Do you hear me?’
Raymond whispered, ‘Yes.’ Then, his voice more broken still, he added, ‘Thank you.’
‘There are no thanks needed, Raymond. It’s been too long already. Two old warriors of the ballroom like us? We should be meeting every few months to drink fine wine and relive old glories. You’re fortunate I’m in London,’ he continued, making a steeple of his fingers. ‘I received your letter, but I’m here for a precious few days.’
The truth was, Raymond hadn’t expected a reply. Two days ago, he’d sent word to the Académie des Artistes and sat back in the little Holborn flophouse where he’d been laying his head, and was surprised when, the following morning, a letter came by return, from the hand of Almira the manageress.
‘I’m en route to sunnier climes, my boy. Casablanca and El Jadida. Marrakesh and Tangier. Society extends thus far, and my presence has been requested. Well, who am I to say no?’ He opened his palms in a resigning gesture which his upbeat eyes hardly matched. ‘I’ve been in London for the early festive season. The Christmas dances. The tea parties in Kensington and Knightsbridge. Lord Crosby’s daughter came out this summer. They hosted in her honour.’
‘You didn’t stay at the Buckingham?’
Georges de la Motte did not always take a suite at the Buckingham when he was in London, for there were too many lords and ladies eager to provide him a bed for the evening – and yet to see him stepping out in the Grand on the rare times he called the Buckingham home was one of the great joys of Raymond’s life. Mentor and protégé, on the same ballroom floor; was anything ever as sweet?
‘It had been my plan. I would have put in a call to Mr Charles. But then a certain rumour started to surface that put me in a rather thorny position. Could it be, I wondered, that Raymond de Guise had truly been . . . exiled from his ballroom?’
Raymond trembled. A week had passed since he walked out of the Buckingham, his head held high in defiance of all the eyes that bored into him. Defiance, even, of Nancy Nettleton – for who else could it have been to give up his secret, to let Maynard Charles know who he truly was?
Nancy, he thought, with such great pain. Alone in that Holborn lodging, he’d thought about her so many times. In his dreams they were dancing again, just the two of them in the little studio behind the ballroom.
After a time, when Raymond had not stopped quaking, Georges commanded him to look up – and Raymond, because inside he was still a lost little boy, did as he was told. There was something comforting in being back with Georges. Ever since he had followed him across the continent, Raymond had felt safe with him. I would have followed him into Hell, he thought, just as long as Hell had a ballroom.
‘I’ve seen this malady before. You’re in love, aren’t you, boy?’
Raymond’s trembling ceased as Georges’ words took him by surprise – was it that obvious? He had hardly admitted it to himself.
‘Yes, it’s written all over you. You’re in love and your head’s hardly in the ballroom at all! You’re in a spin, boy. But love will do that to a man. It isn’t for nothing that the ancients used to call it a madness.’
Love, thought Raymond. How easy it was for Georges to read him! And yet . . .
‘It’s more than that, Georges. It’s . . .’
How to describe it? If anyone in the world would understand, it would be Georges de la Motte. Georges had reinvented himself too. He too had cast off the expectations of his family to embrace the world of the ballroom. He too had tolerated the slurs from his brothers, the damage to his family’s reputation. He too had drifted so far from them that, if ever he returned to the family estates, it was not as a prodigal son but as a stranger.
Georges leaned across the table and took Raymond’s hand. ‘Boy, you’re suffering, aren’t you?’
‘I did fall in love, Georges. I know you warned me against it. A champion only has one love, and that’s the love of the dance. But—’
‘Tell me, boy, can she dance?’
‘She has some talent,’ said Raymond wistfully. ‘Captured young, perhaps she might have danced. She is no Hélène. Her left leg holds her back, but she has . . . something special. Her body might never be a champion, but in her heart she knows music. I was ambushed, Georges, in the Midnight Rooms. They broke me. She’s been helping put me back together. And now she’s betrayed me.’
‘Oh, Raymond,’ Georges said tenderly, ‘you’re mixed up. Why the Midnight Rooms? You needn’t go there. You’re a greater dancer now.’
‘I don’t know if that’s true,’ he replied, and there was an air of genuine discomfort, real desperation in his voice. This was, Georges decided, about so much more than a girl. ‘The dances there, they’re . . . alive, Georges. They’re changing and growing and living – so much more than any we perform in the
ballroom. It reminds me of when I was a boy. Going to the Brancroft with my father, to the Vaudeville. I’ve been ignoring it for so long. And then . . . then there’s Nancy. I spent so many years roman-cing the guests in the Grand. The princesses and duchesses and ladies of means. Then this summer my family sent me a letter. I met Nancy Nettleton. Everything changed. I thought I wanted to be Raymond de Guise, but . . .’ Raymond hesitated. Then, he blurted out, ‘Georges, what am I to do?’
‘It’s a conundrum, boy.’ Georges touched his hand again, and it was enough to return Raymond to the scrawny little boy Ray Cohen used to be. It was good, he reflected, to have a father of sorts. To have somebody who understood. ‘The last thing you must do is beg. Should you beg to return, you’ll lose their respect. You will never have pride of place in the ballroom again unless they respect you – and unless you respect yourself.’
‘Respect. Yes, that’s it, Georges. I don’t respect them. I can’t. You’ve heard, of course, about Cable Street?’ Georges’ face paled at the mention of it, as if he was finally realising something about his protégé sitting in front of him. ‘The British Union of Fascists marched through my old streets. They ransacked the place. My neighbours, my family, they went out to barricade the roads . . . and the police came at them with batons and truncheons and horses and fists. And only nights before, there I was, courting the same bastards in the Grand. Dancing for their pleasure, while they talked of driving people like me out of the country. Every night, I’m there in the ballroom. Lord Edgerton brings them in for exquisite dinners in the Queen Mary. They have the ear of Mr Baldwin and Mr Chamberlain and all of the rest – everyone who’d sell this country down the river, broker a peace with the worst of humankind. And me? I dance to smooth the path of their ambitions . . .’
Georges softly said, ‘Politics has no place in the ballroom. You used to know this, Raymond.’
‘Edgerton’s turned the Buckingham into his own little embassy. Maynard Charles has rolled over and let him do it. German dignitaries fly in from Berlin and Munich to take meetings there. So many English aristocrats clamouring to take meetings with them. My brother fell upon the barricades. And all while I waltzed.’
Georges called Almira with his eyes, and she sashayed over to take his empty plate. Once she was gone, his blue eyes took in all of Raymond. ‘I know your problem, Raymond. I can see which way you’re pinned. The fact of the matter is you still haven’t decided who you are. Raymond de Guise or that irascible young Ray Cohen I picked up off the barroom floor, so many years ago.’
Raymond drained his glass. Beads of red clung in the stubble which had grown freely, without care, in the days since he’d been banished. ‘My heart says one thing, but sometimes my head says another. There are two worlds inside me. They’re . . . getting closer.’
‘If that is truly the case, Raymond,’ de la Motte said, and for the first time there was a great sadness in his voice, ‘then you’re not a dancer at all – and all my work with you has been wasted. A dancer is in perfect alignment: head, heart, body and mind – it’s all the same to the dancer. The dancer is whole. If you’re not giving your entire being to it, you’re not giving a thing. I know this more than any.’
‘They have one of Edgerton’s connections dancing the demonstrations now. He can’t put one foot in front of another.’
‘If that’s the case, then the Grand is yours for the taking. Christmas is nearly upon you, Raymond. The masquerade at New Year. Without King Edward in the ballroom, well, Maynard Charles will need all the glamour he can find. He can’t rely on somebody untested. He’ll need the hotel in the society pages. He’ll need to make the ball everything it was going to be and more. For that he’ll need you. Why should the crown princess dance with anybody less?’
The King, thought Raymond. I’d thought so little about the King. But Maynard Charles wouldn’t have me in his ballroom, not after everything I said. Without the King, what is New Year at the Buckingham to be?
Raymond pictured the ballroom at New Year, the dancers moving in formation, hidden behind their lavish masks. He imagined himself there on the dance floor, the starlight chandeliers glittering all around. There, on the balconies and tables around, stood the supposed great and good: the Queen of Norway, the crown princess, standing abreast with her benefactors and hosts. Lord Edgerton. Graf and Gräfin Schecht. Oliver White. Astors and Londonderrys and Sir Oswald Mosley himself.
How could you just stand by and let all that continue? How could you be a part of it? How could you care so wholeheartedly about dancing and not about any of this?
Under the table, Raymond’s hands had turned into fists.
No. Whatever happens, whatever the fate of the Buckingham Hotel, no matter even what Georges believes, I cannot sit idly by . . . I am going to make them pay.
Chapter Twenty-six
THE GLITTERING LIGHTS OF THE chandeliers were like exploding stars. She gazed at them and the room spun and all was music and all was dance.
The ballroom might have been thronged, but Vivienne Edgerton was in a world apart. She knew some of the socialites were staring at her, but what did she care? Her lips were sweet and sticky from the cocktails they’d brought her. Her nose and throat burned from the powders she’d imbibed. She danced.
Then, suddenly, she was up and away. A pocket of time had been snatched from her. Where it had gone to, who knew? She heard someone calling her name and looked up to find herself in the great reception hall, gazing up at the enormous Norwegian fir, decorated with a thousand burning candles. The tree seemed to throb, growing bigger and then fading as she stared. She heard her name again, looked around and saw the faraway face of Mr Simenon considering her zealously from the reception desk. She gave him a dainty little wave, threw back her head –
– and then, suddenly, she was in the guest lift, draped over the arms of the attendant in his royal blue suit with golden brocade. He stood still as a statue, because to touch the daughter of Lord Edgerton was a crime punishable by immediate expulsion. She decided she would test it. She ran her arm up his arm. She touched the line of his jaw. She picked herself up, just enough that she might plant her lips on his unmoving cheek – and then she was in some other hallway. She could feel her heart pounding in her breast. She had a big heart, didn’t she? She did. She knew that she did, because she could hear it drumming louder and louder and louder. So loud was it beating as she staggered up the hall – where was her suite? Wasn’t she on the right floor? She raked her hands along the other doors as she stumbled along.
Then, the world turned again. This was her room. She was certain of it. She reeled around the four-poster, past the doors of the open armoire, and sank to her knees to upend the contents of the very bottom drawer in her dresser. Her heart was as loud as the oceans now. Its beating was all she could hear.
She threw the undergarments from her drawer aside. And there, at the bottom, her little vermillion pouch, the one she kept for nights just like these, where somehow she just couldn’t get enough. Inside were two more little phials. She emptied both into the palm of her hand and, cupping it gently, lifted the powder to her face.
Her heart beat with the strength of a thousand thoroughbred horses. Then the world exploded in a fountain of colour and light.
*
Nancy awoke to discover she’d been crying in her sleep. In waking life you could be as strong and defiant as you were able, but in dreams . . . that was where you were exposed. She picked herself up and noticed the half-written Christmas letter she’d been composing for Frank.
This was to be her first Christmas without family around her. Frank’s too. The first Christmas with their father gone. And here I am. Miles from Frank. Miles from anywhere. The tinsel in the halls. The glass and paper angels. All of it was so beautiful, but none of it could compare to the decorations she and Frank made together every December.
What she wouldn’t give now to get the ingredients together and make a batch of gingerbread wi
th Frank. They were always his favourite. Mine too. None of the Buckingham’s finest confectioneries could ever compare.
She could not forget the way Raymond had refused to look at her as he stormed out of the hotel, and she knew she never would. What is the Buckingham, anyway, without him in it? What’s a hotel without the people you love? It felt empty.
Nancy reached for a rag and blew her nose, dabbed at her red eyes. He’s gone. He wasn’t the man you thought he was anyway, she told herself. You came here alone. You can do it alone if you have to . . .
Mrs Moffatt, Mrs Whitehead and the rest of the housekeeping crew would give her no quarter if she could not control her emotions. So she dressed quickly and rinsed the tears from her face, ready for breakfast.
After breakfast, Nancy turned out the stores on the first floor, filling the trolleys that the other girls marched off into the hotel interior, and – once she was done – she made haste to the fifth floor, where she was due to join Mrs Whitehead clearing out the Pacific and Continental suites. Mrs Whitehead was already half-finished polishing the brass rails of the bedstead in the Pacific when Nancy arrived.
‘You might turn to the Continental,’ she began, now standing on the tips of her toes to run her feather duster over the French armoire. ‘The Holsteins should have already landed.’
Nancy nodded and, giving a curtsey as she turned, she returned to the hallway.
The Continental was one of the Buckingham’s finest: a long barrel of a suite, with the bedroom at its apex, a half-moon lounge and a second separate study – or dressing chamber, as the occupants directed – off to one side. Consequently, preparing it for new guests often felt a Herculean task. But Nancy didn’t mind. A singular task like this was one you could lose yourself in; hours might whistle by as she took care of its every nook and cranny, distracting her from all that was on her troubled mind.
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