by Alison Love
“I could refuse to accept it,” she said. “I could say that I wanted the house to be in your name.” Even as she spoke she felt the kick of rebellion in her stomach. Dickie left the house to me, why should I give it up?
Bernard shrugged. “What’s the point? We’d have to pay the lawyers to arrange it, it would complicate the whole business. Besides, it’s clear that Dickie wanted you to have the place. We ought to abide by his wishes.” He sluiced the last of his whisky about the glass and swallowed it. “You look worn out, my darling, you go on up to bed. I’ve got a mountain of paperwork in my study. Now the funeral’s over I’d better start tackling it.”
—
Lionel caught the train to Macclesfield the morning after the funeral; Penelope stayed for three more days before returning home. On her last night in London Bernard took her to dinner at the Ivy.
“Should we be going out so soon after Dickie’s death?” Olivia said as she and Bernard were dressing. “You don’t think it’s disrespectful?”
Bernard was fastening the pearls about her neck, and he glanced up in irritation. “Of course it’s not disrespectful. Don’t be petit bourgeois. Dickie wouldn’t have wanted us to weep and wail and shut ourselves away. You ought to know that, Olivia.”
He clicked shut the clasp of her necklace. Usually he would bend and kiss her shoulder afterward, but this time he turned snubbingly away to put on his waistcoat.
At the Ivy they ate salmon and roast duck and caramel profiteroles, which Penelope as usual poked and prodded with an air of dissatisfaction. She managed to eat it all, though, Olivia noticed.
“I thought we’d go to the Golden Slipper afterward, if you’re not too tired, Mother?” Bernard said. “Antonio’s singing there tonight. You remember him, he sang at Olivia’s party.”
“The Italian? Yes, I remember him. Rather an exotic young man.” Penelope sniffed as she stirred her coffee. “No, I’m not too tired, Bernie. As a matter of fact I’d welcome a little fun. This week’s been such an ordeal for me.”
The Golden Slipper was crowded, but the manager, recognizing Bernard, showed them to a table close to the stage.
“Look, there’s Iris,” said Bernard as he held one of the uncomfortable bronze chairs for Penelope. “Apparently she’s a great fan of Antonio’s. I’ve heard she comes here every week.”
He raised his hand to Iris, who waved languidly back. Olivia was afraid that he would ask her to join them but before he could do it the master of ceremonies announced Antonio. A shiver of anticipation ran through the room; evidently Iris was not the only person who came each week to hear him.
“He’s very good, isn’t he?” Penelope said with a judicious air, as Antonio began to sing “Tornerai.” “What do the words mean, Bernie?”
“It’s Italian for ‘you will return.’ The tune’s based on the ‘Humming Chorus’ in Madame Butterfly. Now hush, Mother. Listen.”
She’s smitten, thought Olivia. A handsome face and a heavenly voice, and dear snobbish Penelope is smitten. At that moment Antonio glanced toward them. Olivia saw recognition flare in his eyes. She remembered how solicitously he had wrapped his coat about her shoulders after Dickie’s death. The memory brought hot tears to her eyes. I can talk to Antonio, she thought. Antonio will understand.
—
Antonio had not expected the Rodways to appear so soon after Dickie’s funeral, and the sight of Olivia’s face, pale above the silk-shaded lamp, took his breath away; for an instant he lost control of the phrase he was singing. Afterward, as he threaded his way toward their table, he could feel his heart thump.
It was Bernard who greeted him, slapping his arm, calling for the waiter to fetch him a drink.
“How good to see you, Antonio. And you’re doing so well here, I’m impressed, you’ve clearly got a horde of devoted fans. My uncle would have been thrilled.” Antonio opened his mouth to offer condolences, but Bernard overrode him, a bluff cheerful juggernaut. “By the way, I haven’t forgotten about Dickie’s BBC friend. I’m planning to telephone him in the next few days, to remind him about you and Herr Fischer. It’s just that I’ve been preoccupied by my uncle’s affairs. Well, you can imagine.”
“Of course. Family business is always demanding. My wife went back to Italy three days ago, and there was so much to be done—”
“I thought that your family was settled in Soho?” Olivia said. She was wearing a dress of dark blue moiré, iridescent in the glimmer of the nightclub. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes, as though she had not slept. It made her look at once fragile and untouchable.
“Danila—my wife—wanted to go home to Lazio,” Antonio said. “She was afraid for our son. She thinks he will be in danger if there is a war.”
“When there is a war,” said Bernard. “There can be no doubt about that now. I’m sorry, Mother, I know you don’t want to believe it but it’s true…”
Penelope was not listening. Her lacquered head was tilted toward the band, which was playing a waltz: Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do?”
“Oh, Bernie, my favorite. Can we dance, do you think?”
“Of course, Mother, if you’d like to. Will you excuse us, Antonio?”
Antonio turned toward Olivia. “Would you like to dance, Mrs. Rodway?”
Olivia shook her head. “No, not really,” she said, and then, making an effort: “I am sorry about your wife, Antonio. You must miss her very much.”
“Oh, yes,” said Antonio. In fact he was ashamed by how little he missed Danila. In her absence his life had become much easier, without the quarrels, without the sleepless nights. “And it is strange not to see my son every day. I am afraid that when we next meet he will not know me at all.”
Olivia nodded, but she did not answer. Instead she said: “I thought that perhaps you might have been at Mr. Belvoir’s funeral.”
The remark surprised Antonio. It had not occurred to him that he would be welcome at so grand an event. “But there must have been dozens of people there,” he said. “If I had gone you would never have noticed me—”
Olivia made a fluttering movement with her left hand. It resembled a casual gesture of denial until she pressed her fingers to her lips, and he realized that she was on the brink of tears.
“Nobody talks about him, Antonio. Nobody talks about Dickie. They talk about the will, and how Dickie would have liked this or wanted that, but nobody talks about his death. It is as though it never happened. And yet we were all there—”
Her voice cracked. Antonio reached out and took her hand. “I know,” he said. “I was there too, I saw it.”
“I cannot bear it. It makes Dickie feel like a stranger—”
“It was you Mr. Belvoir wanted when he was dying,” said Antonio. “Nobody else. Remember that, Mrs. Rodway.”
Olivia’s eyes widened with a kind of rapture. Before she could speak, though, Bernard returned from the dance floor.
“Penelope’s just recognized an old acquaintance, she’s gone to say hallo,” he was saying when he noticed his wife’s tears, and his voice sharpened. “For goodness’ sake, Olivia, control yourself. You’re embarrassing Antonio.”
Olivia’s face closed at once, like a door. It shocked Antonio to see how quickly it happened. She must have been doing it for so long, he thought, learning to hide her desolations, her pleasures.
“Forgive me,” she said, and seizing her silvery evening bag she strode off toward the ladies’ room. Bernard stretched out his legs and emptied his glass.
“Ach,” he said, “women. There’s no comprehending them.”
For the first time Antonio felt dislike for Bernard’s camaraderie, his carefree assumption that any sensible fellow must share his views. He rose to his feet. “I had better go and prepare for my next performance,” he said. “Thank you for the drink, Mr. Rodway.”
“It’s a pleasure, Antonio. And we’ll see you next week, shall we? Herr Fischer is giving lessons at my house once more, he will be expecting you. We should conti
nue our normal lives for as long as we can, don’t you agree?”
When Antonio got to the tiny dressing room he found Iris there, perched on the edge of the table. Through the slit in her black dress she was displaying a long golden expanse of thigh. His heart sank. He did not have the will, the energy, to deal with Iris now.
“I’m sulking. Why did you go and talk to dreary old Bernard instead of me?” Iris slipped her arms around his waist, under his jacket. “I think I deserve a long erotic kiss as compensation. Come on, don’t be prudish, Antonio. You’re practically a bachelor now your wife’s left you.”
“She hasn’t left me,” said Antonio, “she’s gone back to Italy.”
Iris stuck out her lower lip. “If that’s not leaving you, what is?” she said, parting her knees to draw him closer. Before he could pull away Antonio heard the door open. It was Olivia. For a moment she looked shocked; then a smile crossed her face, a mocking smile, not a comfortable one.
“Oh! Signor Trombetta. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you,” she said, and with a whisk of her dark blue dress she disappeared.
The summer of 1939 was strange and electric; a sleepwalking summer, thought Olivia. War’s imminence stalked the city like the certainty of death: you knew that sooner or later it must come, and sometimes that knowledge blinded, deafened you, but you could not think about it all the time, it was impossible: you had to pay the grocery bills, you had to get your shoes mended, you had to sit in your sunlit drawing room and pour tea smilingly for visitors.
During that summer Olivia spent as much time as she could at Dickie’s house—now her house—in Sussex. She went alone, since Bernard was always occupied in London. Besides, he thought her visits unnecessary and told her so, irritably. The Ganders are looking after the place, he would say, seeing her stuff blouses and stockings and silk petticoats into her overnight bag, there is no need for you to go. If you’ll only wait a week or so I can come with you. Olivia did not argue but she went all the same, catching the glossy malachite train at Victoria, taking a taxi to the house from Lewes station. Once she was there she sat among Dickie’s pictures in his sage-green drawing room, she watched the plums ripen in his orchard, she tried to mix Negronis as he had mixed them. Her own solitude, her own freedom, delighted her, consoling her for the fact that Bernard was—or at least, Bernard seemed—too busy now to take her dancing. Olivia had not danced the tango since the night of her birthday party. She did not complain, though. She was afraid that her husband would think her shallow, to care about such a thing at such a time.
Bernard meanwhile had thrown his energies into civil defense preparations. He was agitating for a change in the strategy on air raid shelters. Londoners would need more protection than trenches or steel huts, or the shored-up crypts of churches. Why was the government refusing to open the underground stations, which would provide deep shelter for thousands? It was a scandal, a typical example of the few ignoring the many, and Bernard said so at every opportunity. Remembering Dickie’s intentions—and his fear of boredom during air raids—he also joined the ARP. Bernard had exactly the right qualities for an air raid warden: natural authority, along with the bonhomie to chivvy without giving offense. He was especially deft at jollying sullen householders into acquiring sandbags and stuffing up cracks to make good their blackout.
In this purposeful flurry Bernard was able, most of the time, to bury his grief over his uncle’s death. Olivia had been right. Bernard was hurt by Dickie’s decision to leave her the house in Sussex. He felt that Dickie was criticizing his behavior toward Olivia—unfairly, since it was too late now for Bernard to justify it. Deep down he felt the subterranean heave of jealousy. Perhaps his uncle had preferred Olivia, perhaps he had loved her more than he loved Bernard. That fear haunted him, tainting his memories of Dickie with the tang of betrayal. He would never have prevented his wife from taking possession of her property. Apart from anything else he had no appetite for the recriminations, the bald truths that would follow. Nevertheless, he felt a perverse and childish—but of course childish—pleasure, to think how the war would soon end her forays to Sussex. He pictured Olivia as a migrant bird, high crested, brightly plumed, strutting restlessly between the four brick walls of the Bedford Square drawing room. Well, she can stay there, he thought, as he pulled on his regulation ARP boots, ready to begin his long evening’s work.
—
On the morning of September 3 Filomena sat with her brother in the kitchen, listening to the radio. Unusually for a Sunday the BBC was playing light music, a selection of tunes by Sir Arthur Sullivan. It had been announced that the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, was intending to broadcast to the nation at a quarter past eleven.
“I wish that he would speak and get it over with,” said Filomena, fidgeting. She wanted something to occupy her, an onion to chop, a sock to darn, but it seemed disrespectful, out of keeping with the solemnity of the moment. In her dress pocket was the latest of the letters she had received from Stan. There had been three or four of them since he left London, robust cheerful letters, not very long; Filomena had the impression that he had struggled to write them.
“It won’t be long,” said Antonio. “It’s already five minutes to eleven.”
“Do you think we should wake Papa, to hear the broadcast?”
Antonio shook his head. “Let him sleep. He will find out soon enough.”
Two days before, Antonio had taken his father to the Italian hospital in Queen Square. The doctor, a clever overworked young man from Verona, diagnosed a chronic inflammation of the lungs. He needs rest, he said, his own eyes crumpled from lack of sleep. They both knew that the cure he proposed was impossible: at six the next morning Enrico would be in Leicester Square, opening the kiosk.
“This is horrible music,” said Filomena, and then: “What does your Mr. Rodway say about the war? Does he think that Mussolini will side with Germany?”
“Oh, the duce will do nothing. He will stay out of it until he sees who is winning. We will have to watch our step, though, Mena. Remember when Italy invaded Abyssinia, and people in the street called us traitors? It will be even worse this time.”
“But I was born here,” said Filomena, “I have lived here all my life.”
Antonio shrugged as if to say, It will make no difference. Filomena felt the crackle of Stan’s letter against her hip. He had known that war was coming soon, but he had no idea where he would be sent. The letter was signed, Your friend, Stanley Harker.
On the radio the music drew to a close. There was a brief, fraught, heavy silence. Filomena pushed back her chair.
“I can’t stand this,” she said, and she ran out through the scullery into the yard. The sun was shining. From the open windows about her she could hear Neville Chamberlain’s voice seep mournfully into the air. Filomena could not make out the words but she knew that they spelled the end of the familiar world.
—
“I don’t understand,” said Antonio. “Surely Mrs. Rodway is accustomed to traveling alone?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bernard, “but it is different now. You never know what may happen.”
They were sitting at the Lyons Corner House in Coventry Street, while a waitress in a stiff black dress brought them high tea. It was early in October, and still it seemed that the war had not yet begun. The theaters and cinemas were closed, and in the Regent’s Park zoo the poisonous snakes had been killed with chloroform in case they escaped during a raid, but there had been no bombs, no choking clouds of mustard gas.
“I would go myself,” Bernard went on, slicing across the white-filmed yolk of his poached egg, “but Herr Fischer has been summoned before a Home Office tribunal and I have promised to help him prepare.”
As soon as war was declared the home secretary, Sir John Anderson, had announced plans for dealing with enemy aliens. Tribunals would be set up across the country to assess whether or not they were a threat to Britain. Category A, the most dangerous, would be interned; the rest would be left
at liberty, though some—the doubtful cases—would be kept under watch, their movements restricted.
“Surely nobody can believe that Herr Fischer is dangerous?” Antonio said. “He’s a refugee.”
“Oh, it is a formality. Konrad is nervous, though. The hearings are held in secret, which is bound to put a man on edge. And the tribunal members will be the usual starched shirts: barristers, justices of the peace. The kind of Briton who thinks you can never trust a foreigner. You are fortunate, Antonio, that your great leader has declared his neutrality.”
“For the present,” said Antonio drily.
Bernard grinned and ate another luscious mouthful of toast and egg and butter. “Of course, there is no need for Olivia to go to Sussex, we employ a local family to look after the house. But you know what women are like. She insists that there are things only she can do. And I do not want her wandering the country alone. If there is an invasion the Germans could come smack through Newhaven. You would not have sent your own wife to Italy, would you, without the protection of your brother.” He pushed a plate of tea cakes toward Antonio. “Eat something, please, Antonio. You’re making me feel like a hog.”
Politely Antonio bit into one of the tea cakes, which he found bland and stodgy. “There must be other—more suitable people to escort Mrs. Rodway to Sussex,” he said. Someone of your own class, was what he meant. The thought of being alone with Olivia filled him with agitation. He had the feeling that he ought to do whatever he could to prevent it.
“Well, possibly,” said Bernard, “but Olivia likes you, Antonio. At least, she doesn’t dislike you, which appears to be the case with many of my friends.” He sighed, and drew the tip of his knife delicately across his second poached egg, allowing the bright orange yolk to flood out. “And it will only be for one night. I know your father is not in the best of health, but surely he can manage without you for one night?”
—
Olivia was infuriated by her husband’s maneuver. This might be her last chance to spend time alone in Dickie’s house, and she could see that pleasure being snatched from her by Bernard’s controlling hand.