‘Yes. With a woman called Elizaveta Maximilianovna Furst, in Queen’s Gate,’ I said.
‘Baroness Furst? I am amazed that old biddy is still going. At least she is teaching you Russian, not Georgian or Armenian. She offers those too. Her father, General Baron Furst, Furst von und zu Something or Other, I think he was styled, had a peripatetic life. Her first two husbands were Russian. Husband number three was Georgian. Number four Armenian. Number five Georgian again, but this time of the Atlantan variety.’
He laughed so hard that his laughter turned into a cough and the pain made him clutch his ribs.
‘And has she submitted you to one of her anti-Semitic tirades yet? The only people she hates more than the Jews are the Armenians. Once when we met in Piccadilly – what, ten years ago, I think – she was just divorced from number four. He was the honorary consul of El Salvador to the Court of St James, her Armenian of cosmopolitan upbringing. She said that there were no Jews in Armenia because the Armenians were the only people who got the better of them.’
‘We pretend that I am French but not Jewish,’ I said.
‘And she pretends she is echt Russian, the old hag. A great beauty in her time. You should have seen her in the 1890s.’
He was in a room shared with two Polish men, a Slavonic gathering. The Poles were younger and apparently in more serious conditions. One had a bandaged head, the other a leg in plaster, suspended from a pulley. They smiled painfully at my initial Russian efforts and returned to their own conversation when Monsieur Carr and I switched to French. We sat together for an hour, me holding his bandaged hand. A matron popped in from time to time to check on us all. The sky grew darker above the roofs.
‘We were planning a party for Easter,’ Monsieur Carr said, speaking as though in his sleep. ‘For the crew. To mark the start of filming. Orthodox Easter. Leigh and Olivier promised to come, as did Korda. I hope my ribs will have mended by then. I hope you will finally introduce us to your Vronsky. Everyone will be there.’
‘Vronsky?’ I repeated, confused by the analogy.
‘Your beau. Your pretty boy. I imagine him thus. An officer, a gentleman, a heartbreaker. And all the Egyptians worshipping him like Amun-Ra. I have the imagination of a Tolstoy, you see.’ He attempted another chuckle and winced again.
‘My son was in Palestine, but he always makes it sound as though his war was no different from his current job. Administration.’
Alex Carr materialised out of thin air again. His black Crombie was sparkling with rain and far too heavy for the promise of spring.
‘Whenever I step into any room, Father, you and this young lady seem to be talking about me, and it’s always the same. In the least flattering terms possible.’
‘And where is my grandson?’ The old man ignored his son’s comments.
‘At school, I am afraid. They have a founder’s day service this evening. Diana is going to bring him over tomorrow if you are not out by then. You are nothing but an inconvenience, Sergei Alexeievich,’ he said. ‘What were you up to when you fell?’
‘Feeding birds, I have to admit, and talking to them, like St Francis of Assisi.’
The son touched his father’s cheek with the back of his hand.
‘Don’t surprise me like this, Father, ever again. Mrs Whitelaw is too kind to you. I am not sure, if I were her, I would follow you to the four corners of London to find you bruised like this.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said, ‘I spent four years in a hospital, seeing injuries much worse than these.’
‘I envy my father,’ Alex Carr said. ‘You tell him your war stories and he refuses to share them with us, yet he shares mine à volonté, or so it would appear.’
We watched Monsieur Carr take his painkillers from the matron and drift to sleep. Alex Carr took a book out of his coat pocket and left it on his father’s bedside cabinet.
‘Ottsy i deti,’ he said to me. ‘Now that you speak the language. Fathers and Sons. Turgenev. He asked me to bring him something to read, though I don’t suppose he will. He said to make sure that, whatever book I brought, it had a nice binding. It’s just for the nurses, the old flirt.’
‘Poydem,’ I said, and then, not trusting myself with even a single word, I translated it into French. ‘On s’en va.’
He smiled, and offered his hand.
‘Da, poydem. Let’s go.’
The air in the hospital was thick with the smell of disinfectant and soup. There were marble tablets with a roll call of names on the walls along the corridor, the Great War memorials. British names, almost to the last, in a rapidly changing city. I looked for the Whitelaws. There was always one, on any list of those who died for the homeland.
Nurses walked past us carrying kidney-shaped bowls, thermometers, blood pressure monitors. A nun in a brown habit and a black veil hurried by, her rubber soles drumming on the stone floor, a long stretch of black and white terrazzo, her Franciscan rope belt keeping the beat of her footsteps.
‘I miss all this,’ I said as we walked down the flights of stairs to the hospital entrance. Suddenly and without quite knowing why, I burst into tears. They streamed down my face unstoppably – but noiselessly at first, so that Alex Carr did not notice them. Then he did.
‘What is the matter, Mrs Whitelaw?’ He froze on the step next to me. I could not answer. I did not know.
‘What is the matter, Albertine? Do tell me,’ he said, producing an enormous silk handkerchief from deep under his winter coat. I just stood there. People walked past, visitors, taking no notice. Perhaps we were not an uncommon hospital sight: a crying woman, a confused man. We could have lost someone, seen someone die.
‘All this,’ I replied. It made little sense but I couldn’t say anything more. It was as though some inner membrane had burst. A relief, and yet a kind of shame, came with the tears.
If Alex Carr was embarrassed, he did nothing to show it. He pressed his handkerchief against my eyes and face, as gently as he had pressed his hand against his father’s bruised cheek only moments ago.
‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘It will stop. Don’t worry. It will stop. Things will get better. Things always do.’
He sounded like someone who was used to promising that things would get better.
‘It was so awful, me breaking down like that,’ I said as we stepped out into the London evening. ‘I am so sorry.’
I collected myself, took his handkerchief and rubbed my eyes with it. Just then, he took the final step down and turned to face me again. His eyes were almost level with mine when he embraced me so firmly that I could feel his ribcage under the layers of clothing. A moment passed like that, then he released me and said nothing more.
11
The Russian Party
We were sitting in our back garden for the first time that year, Albie and I, surrounded by empty flower pots, inhaling the smell of drying soil in the afternoon sunshine. It was a Saturday, the day before the Carrs’ Easter party. The winter had seemed endless; then March brought nothing but rain, as though the year was trying to provide an example of the worst of British weather. Finally the sun burst through the clouds, timidly, like the first rumour of a distant summer. Albie had returned from work early – we lunched indoors, and then took the newspapers out.
‘Let’s just read,’ he said. ‘Let’s just stay here and read.’
He never said ‘at home’, always here. I was the same. Home seemed too far-fetched. There was nothing like chez nous in English. We did not read. Le Monde, The Times: the large sheets rustled on the table, teacups as paperweights. The kitchen window was open. From inside, the radio played Duke Ellington. No one was saying anything: not the two of us, not the continuity announcer – as though he too had abandoned the studio after a few introductory remarks, gone out somewhere and let the music play.
Earlier I had asked Albie if he would come with me to the party. There was the promise of a Russian Easter with its as yet unknown delicacies; the promise of film stars in a suburban
garden; an evening walk by the river after the party was over. Only the last seemed to tempt him. Albie was weary. There were so many gatherings, he complained, for which he dressed up only to spend hours listening to speeches or, worse, indulging in small talk. Men more senior than him brought wives along, he said, they had to. He would not make me suffer the tedium.
‘Not that there’s anything to be jealous of, Ber, you should never envy those women. Anyway, I’m thinking of changing my line of work,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking of donning the uniform again, joining a different regiment if need be, though I’d rather not. The Far East, perhaps. There are things brewing over there. The same fissures. The Chinese as well as and instead of the Russians. I’d like to look at the world through the cross hairs again, for clarity’s sake.’
‘And me,’ I asked. ‘What about me?’
‘Oh, Ber,’ he said, ‘there are married postings. And even if there weren’t, you might well be happier without me here. You don’t know …’
‘You must promise me not to talk like that, Albie. Anyway, promise not to leave me alone here.’
A magpie landed on the flat roof of the neighbouring house and emitted a short call that sounded suspiciously like an echo of my plea. Albie noticed it. He looked at the magpie, then at me.
‘I was just playing with the idea, Ber. Nothing concrete in the offing. You don’t know …’
He repeated the half-sentence but did not explain what I did not know. The world settled back into jazz. The sound of choir practice from the church in the square behind us floated over, like the top note of a musky scent.
Whether it was the almost forgotten warmth of the day, or the murmurs of the city beyond our small garden, Albie suddenly relented and said yes, why not, to the Russian party. Our conversations were often like that, sentences fading in and out, sometimes percolating through, nothing quite forgotten.
‘You’ve been working for these Carrs – for, what, almost three months now? – and I haven’t met them. It’s high time. Why not?’
A line of smart vehicles were parked on Alex Carr’s riverside drive when we arrived. Monsieur Carr’s house in Bedford Park, Diana had apparently decided, had too small a garden for a party. Her own, by the water, was more appropriate. We were ushered in and then immediately back out through the tiled hall. The lawn was cut in half by the high tide, yet even so it was more than big enough for the twenty or thirty guests who were already dotted around in clusters, glasses and plates in their hands.
Several men wore light grey pinstripe demob suits, not quite the right size in one or two cases: they looked as though they could be Alex Carr’s colleagues from the brewery. A few others were in bold checks that could not have come with any clothing coupons.
‘Transatlantic plaids,’ Albie said. ‘Those must be your film people.’ He had a set idea of the kind of cloth from which a gentleman’s suit should be cut.
The women’s dresses, light coats and hats came in many hues. They were bright and exuberantly patterned, as if yearning to say goodbye to the years of austerity. They looked like flowers strewn across the lawn and you could hear, even in the echo of conversations as we approached, that the women knew it and loved the effect they were creating.
The Thames rippled over the border of translucent grass. A lone swan floated under a willow tree, next to a half-submerged cast-iron bench. The conversation rose and fell against the lapping of the water and the sound of oars from the rowing boats midstream, the two clusters of sounds independent of each other, as though the party and the real world were separated by a thick pane of glass.
‘Heigh-ho,’ Albie said as he readied himself to shake unknown hands. He might have disliked such engagements, but he was obviously used to them.
I saw the tall figure of Alexander Korda speaking to Diana Carr, leaning towards her, spectacles in hand, as though he was trying to see her better without them. His black and white houndstooth suit produced the effect of an optical illusion, like a myriad of atoms in perpetual motion. With a white fur stole thrown over her shoulders, Diana looked more like a film star than any of her guests. She was wearing an emerald dress with a most unusual skirt. It was pinched at the waist and then as full as a crinoline, like the dresses shown in Paris by Dior only a month or two before. I had seen pictures in magazines, but I had not seen the cut on anyone before. The effect was both stunning and profligate – so much fabric for one dress. It made the narrow-skirted peplum dresses worn by most of the other women look mean; like a flowering camellia on a branch of tight, unopened buds.
I muttered the names of people I recognised to Albie while he was already stepping ahead, walking to greet Monsieur Carr. The old man was not difficult to spot: white-haired and unsteady, with a yellowing bruise on his face, propping himself against the back of a garden chair. He looked up at Albie, then past him, at me, realising immediately who he must be. He raised both hands and took Albie into his embrace, startling him into submission. I could not believe that my husband was hugging someone he was meeting for the first time.
Alex Carr appeared by my side.
‘Your husband is so young,’ he said. ‘So young, and so obviously an officer.’
I blushed. Albie was not much younger than Alex Carr but he was better turned out, effortlessly so. And there was no trace of visible unease about his socialising. Alex Carr, on the other hand, almost exuded unease. Not shyness so much as a desire to be anywhere but in this place; a discomfort that vanished when he was surrounded by his family. Before he materialised next to me, he had seemed to lurk in the shadows, under the trellises, pretending to busy himself, speaking to no one.
‘I avoid social occasions if I can help it,’ he said, as though he needed to account for his behaviour. ‘The how-do-you-dos, the what-do-you-dos. If I say that I work in a brewery people say how fascinating and they mean the exact opposite. Then they ask about Russia and say, again, how fascinating. But I don’t like to talk about Russia any more than I like to talk about my job. Sooner or later someone says how terrible. It tempts me to pretend I am a Communist. You don’t have much small talk either, do you, Albertine?’
‘Happy Easter, Mr Carr. Lovely day. Aren’t you, in fact, a Communist?’
He relaxed. We hadn’t spoken since the hospital.
‘We went to church this morning, as all good Communists do. Would you like a tour of the estate, while my father entertains your husband? They seem to have hit it off. You’ve more or less exhausted the grounds, but there is the castle behind you.’
He gestured over the sloping green apron and then towards the house. Gigi was showing Amur off to Elizabeth Montagu, who, alone among the women, wore a suit, a grey three-piece with wide trousers and a lilac pocket handkerchief. The dog stood on its back feet and placed its white front paws against Elizabeth’s thighs. Its muzzle and its long hair made it look like a Hollywood leading lady, a match for his mistress. I am sure Elizabeth was aware as she kept glancing towards Diana Carr. I turned to face Alex, to say yes, I’ll come with you, and nearly bumped into his wide chalk-striped lapels.
‘Me voilà,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
The door into the dining room was wide open. A long table was covered in rows of glasses. A maid had just brought in a tray of blinis and savouries and was arranging them on the table. There was a basket full of painted eggs, and around it bowls with salt, pickles, salad and red and white radishes. It was a pleasing enough display in the face of austerity and rationing, but there was nothing extravagant about the feast.
‘The produce comes from my workers’ allotments, a few hundred yards upstream,’ Alex said. ‘I don’t mean the salmon, of course, and I don’t mean my workers in any Russian, land-owning sense. We had a party at the brewery last week. Between two Easters, they called it, in my honour. A charity sale; no one does that sort of thing as well as the English, but you probably know that already.’
‘And you bought everything, by the look of it?’
‘Yes, as a matter of
fact. There wasn’t much competition for the radishes. I know my father promised you some caviar. He told me. There will be a bit of that later. From Petrossian in Paris, courtesy of my grandmother.’
He noticed my confusion.
‘I mean Miss Leigh. Another gift. She is too kind to us. Her husband’s secretary, a Russian woman as it happens, delivered two tins this morning when she stopped by on her way to Richmond. How excited Gigi and Diana were. I wish I could say the same about myself.’
We continued into the reception room next door. It was furnished with the same good taste: simple, measured and much more anonymous than Monsieur Carr’s rooms. The grand piano stood out, with its sheets of Russian music.
‘I am the pianist, I am afraid,’ Alex said. ‘My one extravagance. And I am not very good at it. I started learning as a child in St Petersburg, but always with the knowledge that I was not going to be a musician. It is a kind of meditation, when you play music without any ambition. It requires just enough concentration to take you out of yourself. And this is not an unfair replica of the piano we had.’
‘I wish someone had told me that twenty years ago,’ I said.
‘About the replica?’ He looked at me, puzzled.
‘No. About meditation. Playing music without ambition. The relaxing effect.’
He was still not sure what I was trying to say. He did not know about Arlette, her music, my refusal to play. It did not matter.
‘Mr Carr, Alex.’ I seized our moment alone and spoke to him in French for the first time that day. ‘I must apologise for my breakdown at the hospital. Seeing your father, perhaps; thinking that he might die.’
Alex Carr gave his shy little laugh, ha ha, like reading a script again, not really laughing at all.
‘Please don’t mention it. If I could help, if you’d like to talk, I am always here.’
‘I have forgotten how,’ I said. I imitated his laughter, involuntarily, but he seemed not to notice.
‘Forgotten how to what?’ Albie stepped into the room and echoed my final words, his French deliberately exaggerated so that he sounded like a joke Englishman at the reception of a French hotel.
Monsieur Ka Page 17