One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

  ‘It’s not Christmas morning.’

  Somewhere, far away, the bells of St Stephen’s Tower were tolling. ‘It is,’ said Nancy, ‘so open it! I want to see your face.’

  Raymond’s hand trembled as he worked at the ribbon. Why are you so nervous? he asked himself. But he already knew. There was something on the tip of his tongue, something that he wanted to say.

  The crêpe paper came apart and fell to the ground at his feet. Inside, there was a little wooden box, decorated with spirals and swirls. It smelt of beeswax. Raymond had no idea what he was looking at but he smiled all the same; it came from Nancy, and that was all that mattered.

  ‘Well,’ she beamed, ‘open it again.’

  Together they perched on the end of the bed and Raymond opened the varnished box. Almost immediately, a motor started whirring. The box rumbled in his hands as, from its centre, two uniquely sculpted figurines arose: two dancing figures, holding each other in a classical pose.

  ‘A music box.’ Raymond grinned, and listened to the melody. ‘A Viennese waltz.’

  Nancy smiled. ‘It’s Christmas. It had to be elegant. I didn’t think a cha-cha would do.’

  ‘I love it,’ said Raymond. ‘I . . .’

  He fell silent. Was Nancy mistaken, or was he embarrassed? There’s something on his mind, thought Nancy.

  Raymond produced a gift, wrapped in scarlet paper and finished with a bow. ‘For you, Nancy.’

  She unwrapped it gently, not wanting to tear the paper, until she had revealed a black taffeta evening gown. She unrolled it, held it up against herself. It’s so unforgettable. Something Hélène would wear. It had exaggerated peaked sleeves, sheared down the centre and puffed up to perfection.

  ‘For when we go dancing. Because, we are going dancing, Nancy, you and I. Might be we disappear off to the Hammersmith Palais, down to Margate, to Brighton – somewhere they don’t know us. Somewhere where we can be us. Away from Buckingham eyes.’

  Nancy was too full of emotion. ‘I love it,’ she whispered.

  ‘There’s something I have to say.’

  Nancy was caught off-guard. ‘You don’t have to say it again. You already said it. I know you’re sorry, Raymond. I know what you were going through. You don’t have to—’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  Nancy froze. Something’s happened, she thought. Maynard Charles or Vivienne Edgerton . . . Something’s wrong. ‘Raymond, what is it?’

  Raymond leaned forward, clasping Nancy’s hands. ‘Nancy, the last few months – I think they’ve taught me more about life than any before. The world’s changing. There’s something coming – something . . . dreadful, or magnificent, something that’s going to change everything. It’s happening about us now . . .  But Nancy, my eyes have been opened—’

  ‘Raymond,’ she said with a tremble in her voice, ‘you’re frightening me. What is it?’

  Raymond drew her to him and kissed her, long and hard.

  ‘It’s that I love you. Here and now I love you, and that’s never going to change.’

  *

  There were two separate Christmas mornings in the Buckingham Hotel. Across the hotel the guests would rise before eight and make their way to the dining rooms, where Christmas breakfast – a spectacular continental affair of extravagant pastries, succulent cheeses and cured meats – was waiting to be served. But for all those who worked at the Buckingham, Christmas morning began in the pitch hours of night. Outside, London slept on – but here in the Buckingham, ranges were being warmed, tables were being laid, boilers were being stoked and a flock of turkeys pre-basted with butter and sage. For the guests, Christmas was a luxury; for the staff, it could feel like a forced march through the snow.

  The alarm clock trilled and Raymond reached out to silence it. As he rolled back into place, he realised that the space beside him was empty. He squinted up. Nancy must have been so in tune with the rhythms of the Buckingham that she had stirred moments before the alarm. She was already sitting on the bedside, pulling her apron over her pinafore.

  Raymond picked himself up, draped his arms around Nancy’s shoulders. ‘Not yet,’ he said teasingly. ‘A little longer?’

  ‘Raymond, I can’t. Mrs Moffatt will be waiting. It’s Christmas . . .’

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Raymond. ‘But if you can’t rest on Christmas Day, when can you?’

  Nancy slapped his wandering hands away and pushed him back onto the bed. ‘There are two worlds in the Buckingham – you dancers might waltz between them, but you can’t deny it. Christmas Day is for those who can afford it. For the rest of us, Christmas has to wait till the work’s done.’ She was almost at the door when she turned back; the sight of him lying there was enough to make her face glow in a smile. How strange life was, and how quickly it could change. ‘You won’t be as smug this afternoon, when I’ve hung my shoes up for the day and you’re still entertaining guests in the Queen Mary.’ She rushed back to his side, planted her lips tenderly over his.

  The clock on the wall read a quarter to five.

  ‘Merry Christmas, my dear Raymond,’ she whispered.

  *

  Raymond did not lounge for long. As soon as Nancy had vanished, he rose and paced the length and breadth of his quarters. Then he began his routines: stretching first his legs, then his back, then his arms, his shoulders, his neck. The press-ups were for the strength in his arms; the sit-ups for the core muscles that directed the dance. The squats and stretches he performed were the same exercises that Georges had shown him all that time ago. He had stuck to them like a religious rite ever since. If Nancy were still here, and if he had dared ask, he would have performed each stretch with her balanced over his shoulders – anything to make sure his body was right, that he was strong enough to show the dancers in the ballroom what they had been missing.

  The sweet scent of Nancy was still on his bed sheets. After he had finished his routine, he reclined for a moment on the bed and remembered her. It was, he decided, the most miraculous thing. Somebody who knows who I am, every last inch of me, for better and worse. Somebody I . . . love.

  When, at last, the sun was shining its pale winter light across the Buckingham Hotel, he dressed in his smartest day suit and brogues, turning himself into the gentleman he most certainly was not. As he studied himself in the mirror, he wondered if his mother, his aunts and Artie were keeping to the old traditions today: turkey at noon, and then drinking in the social club through the afternoon, all crowned off with an argument of epic proportions. There was, he admitted, a part of him that wished he was there. If he looked at himself askance, he saw Ray Cohen; if he looked at himself face on, he was Raymond de Guise. Perhaps, after what he and Artie had done, they’d even expected him to be there – back where he belonged. He’d sent word, just as Maynard Charles had asked. He’d delivered the banknotes, made a promise that there was more to come – that all Artie had to do was get on with the business of being alive, and that everything would be all right. He hoped it had bought them a good Christmas – good enough to keep Artie out of trouble, at any rate. But a little piece of him still pined for the snow falling over the rooftops of Whitechapel, the dirty footprints snaking up and down the Commercial Road.

  Raymond shook off the feeling and strode out of his quarters and into the golden lift. Nancy might have been working since long before dawn, but she was not the only one who had to serve the Buckingham this Christmas Day. The Grand Ballroom would be closed until evening, when the Archie Adams Band was due to play its Yuletide extravaganza, but until then Raymond had other duties to perform.

  Mid-morning, and the Queen Mary was a hive of activity. The champagne breakfast was served but, everywhere, the diners remained – and here they would stay until the clocks tolled noon and Christmas luncheon was served. Raymond hovered in the doorway, watching the diners. In the heart of the room was the ceremonial serving station where the first of the Christmas turkeys would be carved by Maynard Charles. Many of th
e diners here were day guests, descending on the Buckingham for lunches and dinners – the whole of the Brazilian embassy had turned out at the management’s invitation to celebrate the season – but Raymond saw staying guests among them too: Mr Perez, the star of the Parisian stage; Belikov and Blokin, the Russian playwrights who, it was rumoured, were personal friends of the old king.

  Maynard Charles bowed between the tables and, as Raymond sashayed through, they met alongside the sweeping mahogany bar.

  ‘Time to employ that characteristic charm of yours, Mr de Guise. Fraternise, my good man.’

  Raymond looked around the room. Archie Adams was holding court at a table where guests were enraptured to hear stories of his time in the hotel bars of New York and New Orleans. It did not surprise him to find Nathaniel White in attendance at the neighbouring table. The odious young man, with his blond hair styled in a magnificent flourish, was dressed in a silver waistcoat and sitting alongside his father and a collection of men from the German embassy on Belgrave Square. Maynard Charles tipped his head towards them and whispered, ‘You’d do worse than fraternise there, Raymond. Consider that an order.’

  Raymond held himself tightly. ‘Mr Charles, it’s Christmas—’

  ‘Be that as it may, we are still at work. And, now that you know what manner of work I am bound up with, you might consider lending your assistance.’ He kept his voice low. Maynard Charles, Raymond was beginning to understand, was a man who could keep a secret. Raymond wondered what other secrets the private man might have kept. ‘My colleagues will know the ambassador came here, and who he came with. I must give them something. And Billy Brogan is not here to undertake his duties for me. So do your best for me, Raymond. There’s a good chap.’

  There was a seat alongside Nathaniel, and Raymond slipped into it. He was practised at hiding his disgust, and – in spite of Nathaniel’s razor glare – quickly found ways to charm his way into the conversation. There was snow in the Black Forest, the ambassador was saying. Berlin itself was a picture of perfect white. The Berliners and the British, Nathaniel’s father interjected, they were not so very different. And Raymond – in spite of himself – found himself agreeing, if only for something to say. Raymond had been to Berlin. He had danced in the ballroom at the Hotel Adlon with its dramatic elephant fountain and grand piano in the lobby. ‘The ballroom there is a marvel of mahogany and marble,’ he said. ‘And the dancing girls . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ the ambassador grinned with a gleam in his eye, ‘nowhere in the world are there dancing girls as in Berlin.’

  In this way, an hour and more passed. The champagne was in full flow. Raymond could feel himself light-headed already, though trying to remain alert to the exchange of information. Then, suddenly, silence spread like a wildfire, from one table to the next. Raymond looked around, following the eyes of his fellow diners.

  At the back of the hall, the doors to the Queen Mary service kitchen opened. A procession of waiters marched out. Then, as if on military parade, they formed a guard of honour along which the head waiter and his second-in-command appeared, bearing the first of the enormous Gloucestershire turkeys on a silver platter. A rousing cheer went up from the nearest tables, and the turkey was taken to the centre of the room, where Maynard Charles stood with his carving knife at the ready. Raymond watched as he sliced through the golden skin, revealing the moist flesh underneath. Then, all at once, the ceremony was complete. While all eyes were on Maynard Charles, the waiters had returned to the kitchen – and now they flocked out, bearing platters and plates, trays on which champagne glasses were fizzing and overflowing. Somewhere, a cork popped, arcing out over the diners. Somewhere else, Christmas crackers were pulled, revealing slim silver wristwatches and golden cufflinks within. The air around Raymond was heavy with the scent of butter-basted turkey, the salt of bacon wrapped around fresh sausages, the sweet tang of cranberry sauce. He had forgotten what it was like to eat quite so handsomely, and his love for the Buckingham Hotel was suddenly renewed when a steaming hot plate was laid down in front of him. Raymond felt a sudden flush of pride at all the hundreds of people devoted to keeping the Buckingham alive. Maynard Charles was right. The Buckingham can’t wane. The Buckingham can’t fall. Too many of us depend on it.

  He looked up. Nathaniel White was pontificating to the ambassador and his staff on the intricacies of the double reverse spin and his elevated place in the ballroom – but Raymond looked straight past him, over the heads of the other diners, to the very doors of the Queen Mary itself.

  He felt as if his heart would stop.

  There, hovering in the doorway, stood his brother, Artie. Their mother, Alma. Aunts May and Rebecca lingered behind. They look as out of place as Lord Edgerton would in the markets on Cable Street, Raymond thought. Or Maynard Charles grifting scrap metal in the yard with my old man. They were gazing with faces crinkled up in nerves, Artie shifting from foot to foot in awkwardness. It isn’t many of us who can slip from one world to another . . .

  Raymond was still staring at them when he felt fingers drumming on his shoulder. So frozen was he that, at first, he did not turn around. The sheer incongruity of seeing his family here in the Buckingham had rooted him to his seat – so that he only looked up at all when he felt the moist breath in his ear, and the words, ‘Get rid of them, Raymond, and do it without anyone noticing. Do it now.’

  He looked up. He had almost been able to feel Maynard Charles’s whiskers tickling his ear. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he said to the table – and then, braving their inscrutable glances, he marched across the Queen Mary and, throwing his arms open as if to embrace them, ushered his family back out of the room.

  In the hallway outside, Raymond stopped dead.

  ‘What are you . . . ?’

  ‘You look like you seen a ghost!’ crowed Mrs Cohen. ‘A ghost at that feast of yours. Well, did you think we was going to forget you on Christmas Day, Ray? After what you done for Artie? After what you done for us? Well, we were all sitting there – Artie, your aunts and me – and we thought . . . Christmas is for families, Ray. We ought to be together. Your pa always sorted you brothers out when you was fighting. What would he have thought of the way we been carrying on?’ She paused. ‘Well, Ray? Aren’t you gonna invite us in?’

  Raymond looked over his shoulder. He fancied he could still feel the glaring eyes of Maynard Charles boring holes in his back. Through the portholes in the door he could see that somebody was making a speech.

  He ought to have been there too. Raymond should have been waltzing between the tables, putting on a performance every bit as flamboyant and dramatic as his demonstrations down in the ballroom.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t take you in.’

  Artie’s face turned to thunder. ‘I thought we’d got an understanding, Ray? I thought we was good . . .’

  ‘No,’ Raymond grinned, ‘I won’t take you in there, but I won’t go back either.’ He opened his arms, directing his family back up the corridor, to the reception hall. ‘Come – there’s somewhere else, but you’ll have to hurry. Mr Simenon’s sloping around here somewhere, Artie. You remember the last time you met Mr Simenon?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Artie, ‘that he couldn’t keep a Cohen boy down.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Raymond with a smile, ‘but let’s not tempt the fates, shall we?’

  *

  The doors of the housekeeping lounge opened wide and into the chaos of music and drinking stepped Raymond, his brother at his side.

  The housekeeping was finished for Christmas Day. The porters were left with so little to do – for Christmas Day was the one day in the year when guests neither arrived nor departed from the Buckingham Hotel. The chambermaids, the laundry staff, the members of the Archie Adams Band not grand enough to take their places in the Queen Mary; all were here, where the glasses were overflowing with whatever cheap alcoholic delights the grandees in the Queen Mary could not withstand. In front of Raymond and his family was a sce
ne more reminiscent of the Midnight Rooms than the Buckingham Hotel itself. A small contingent from the Archie Adams Band, led by Louis Kildare and his soaring saxophone, were playing something that sounded, to Raymond’s ears, like American swing. On the tables, pushed against the walls, Sofía LaPegna and her friends were dancing, baring their ankles for all the room to see.

  ‘Artie,’ he said, ‘Ma, Aunt May. Rebecca.’ He opened his arms wide. ‘You don’t want to be up there with ambassadors and doyennes. Where’s the fun in talking politics and high society with that lot of old toffs? No, you want to be here. Welcome,’ he beamed, ‘to the beating heart of the Buckingham Hotel . . .’

  Raymond watched them fan out, his mother and aunts reticent to join the hubbub, Artie’s eyes drawn slavishly to Sofía LaPegna and the rest, shimmying up on the tables. He had the most disorientating feeling of his worlds colliding; the whole of the Buckingham Hotel seemed different somehow. For a moment, panic ripped through his body – with just a few words his family could bring the truth of Raymond de Guise crashing down around him. But he shook himself – if you couldn’t trust family, who could you trust? He watched as Artie took a swig from one of the bottles left on display, then spun himself in a circle to capture the hand of one of the kitchen girls. Moments later, he was spinning her around. Raymond had quite forgotten that Artie was no slouch on the dance floor; Stanley Cohen, he remembered, was a part of them both. And here was his ma, drawn into conversation with one of the housekeeping mistresses. Aunts May and Rebecca were already stripping off their coats and looking for partners with whom to dance.

  Raymond beamed, giddy as a man who’d been drinking champagne since before breakfast. He’d spent so long denying he had any family at all. Was it possible he’d been wrong, all this time?

  And was Artie charming Sofía LaPegna already?