With a tremendous effort of will, he locked Dinah away and went to his sister’s ambulance station. She was sitting outside, working on a drawing from her sketching the night before. He came up behind her. ‘That’s very dramatic. Full of energy.’
Without looking up, she said, ‘You know, I can catch the way they make themselves at home, the sharing, the detail of their living under ground. But not their good humour or their patience at being on top of each other, the foul air, the disgusting conditions. Putting up with all that.’ She’d spent the night in a packed tube station; people had paid a 1d. fare, gone in with bedding and mattresses and refused to leave. Still looking at the drawing, she put her pencil down and sipped from a mug of tea. ‘Thank God you’re here. You know we’ve lost the flat?’ She looked up. ‘My God, Peter. You look at death’s door. What’s happened to you?’
‘I’m quite all right now. I was caught in the open by a bomb and had to be dug out and spend a few days in hospital.’
She took his hands. ‘Should you be out? You’re so pale and so thin. Your eyes are so dark.’
‘I’m fine. Really. I was a week in hospital.’
‘Which?’
‘The Canadian. They took a lot of bomb cases to relieve the London hospitals. Waffles with everything. I want to hear about the flat.’
‘Let’s go into the common room. We can have some tea and a fag.’
‘Can we talk?’
‘No one here just now. They’ve taken the ambulances south of the river.’
****
‘A huge bomb took the side off the block and then a delayed action blew it all up. I was on duty. Madame went to an underground shelter when the alarm sounded. The professor had gone out.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Oh my dear—’
He put a finger on her lips. ‘I know.’
‘Poor Peter. How terrible for you. I am so very sorry.’
‘A lot of water had flowed under the bridge—’ He bit his lip.
‘Poor Peter.’ She went round and held him. ‘Give me your mug. I’ll get us some more tea.’ When she returned, she asked, ‘Had you seen her?’
‘I came back to London on the Friday and was blown up in the raid on the Saturday.’
‘The police said they had no idea where she’d been living, why she had no identity papers, or why her grandfather should have killed her. A complete mystery.’
‘He was pretty well mad, wasn’t he, after being detained? Perhaps he feared invasion. It could be any day.’ He looked away. ‘Is everything in the flat gone?’
‘The fire destroyed what wasn’t blown up.’
‘The safe was supposed to be fireproof.’
‘It survived but the explosions must have blown it open. The remains of my jewellery were there. The firemen brought them out with a few papers.’
‘The gun? The Mauser?’
‘No sign of it. Some strange French keys and a notebook I’ve kept.’
‘Had Dinah rung him, do you know?’
‘He had a phone call that made him clasp his head and shake it from side to side. Madame whispered it was a woman. Ho, ho! His past catching up with him, I thought.’
‘Could it have been Dinah?’
‘I didn’t hear. He marched up and down the flat muttering to himself in German. Then he asked if he could make a call. He went into the hall and closed the door. Anyway, we had the first air-raid. I went on duty. Apparently he slipped out during that gap between the two raids. Madame didn’t realise he’d gone.’
‘Do you think he could have taken the Mauser?’
‘It was in the safe.’
‘You said he was always watching.’
‘It felt like it. And Madame kept her papers there.’ Veronica had taken Madame in. ‘She’s totally shaken up by it all, poor soul. Veronica offered me a room, but I’m bunking here for the moment. I might snatch a weekend with her. What are you doing?’
‘I’ve a hotel room. I’d rather you left it there, just for the moment. Did you know the Russians have released Mother at last? She’s on her way to Istanbul.’
‘Lady V. told me. Father will be so happy. The uncertainty was killing him.’
‘Perhaps they’ll come clean with us now.’
****
He rang Nick. ‘Pat’s?’
‘Blitzed.’
‘The young lady model?’
‘Blitzed.’
****
They met in the Dingo. ‘Any chance of a post-mortem?’
‘To see what?’
‘If the bullets that killed them were fired from the Mauser.’
‘Reasoning?’
‘As I understand it, the police reported two bullets fired from that gun. If they meant two gone from the full magazine, I fired twice at Steiner in Pornic. Then it wasn’t fired again.’
‘Nothing more than that?’
‘Her grandfather not only received a call, presumably from Dinah, he then made one or more. Dinah’s call upset him badly. He held his head.’
‘Assuming you’re right, why did he take the Mauser?’
‘Protection?’
Nick sucked his pipe and drank some wine. ‘What did you say this was?’
‘Emu. Colonel Ponsonby’s favourite tipple.’
‘More than one use, I imagine. Peter, you and I could see it your way. I don’t think for a minute the boys in blue will go for it. Apart from anything else, it would mean exhumation—and at a time like this. But the fact is we can’t say why we want a post-mortem, not without tipping our hand. And if there were a post-mortem and you were right – it was another gun – well, all we’ll have done is alert the opposition to no good purpose. There’s little or no prospect of the police looking into it.’
‘Leave it?’
‘My dear old chap, pursuing this won’t bring her back. But we aren’t leaving it. You’ve probably caught them out. Spotted something for us to think about—and all the more reason for you to watch your back. Don’t forget your friend Steiner. I can’t raise a big hoo-ha about him, but he seems to have vanished. Dead or alive.’
Peter nodded. ‘Thank you. You’re right, of course.’ He raised his glass. ‘Still, I’ve been wondering if I should ring Burenko. He said to call him, and I should thank him for my mother’s release.’
‘You won’t get him. Not long after the bombing started, he returned to Moscow – for a holiday, though he went by one of their merchantman.’ He indicated with his eyes. ‘I see your Colonel Ponsonby’s taking up a forward position.’
‘Just the man.’ Peter saw Nick out. ‘I need a word with the colonel. I want to introduce someone to him.’
Nick paused before leaving. ‘Can you get a few days in the country? Forgive me, but you’re really not looking yourself.’
Part Five: Strange Joy
The gallery was shut, the blinds down. At least it was in one piece. Nearby Oxford Street and Regent Street had suffered heavy blows. He went round to the back door. Shuttered. The bell sounded as if it was ringing in an empty building. He walked until he found a working phone box and called Rozalia’s flat, letting it ring. Then he tried Lady Lewis’s. The maid answered. He explained that he had a letter and a message for Lady Lewis to be delivered in person. Could she receive him? A short pause. Lady Lewis would be pleased if he could come as soon as convenient.
He took the third taxi. The journey lasted longer than he expected. The driver explained that his route had to be a bit roundabout: after the previous night’s raid, blocked roads everywhere. An ill wind, Peter thought.
****
In her sparsely furnished drawing room, Lady Lewis was sitting with Rozalia on a deep couch upholstered in faded rose tapestry. As one they were coming to meet him, each taking a hand, and leading him back to the couch to sit between them.
‘Lady Lewis, I particularly wanted to thank you for your very great kindness in asking your banker in Berne to help me so unstintingly and for all the help he gave me, quite invaluable.’ He felt very tired – was thi
s what the hospital doctor had predicted? – but went on, ‘When I left, he asked me to bring this letter and a message for you. I apologise for their being a little delayed—’
‘But you were lost underground, buried alive,’ Lady Lewis broke in. ‘And restored to us by a dog. A young Frenchwoman’s dog.’ Lady Lewis opened her handbag and took out the Express cutting. ‘This was wrapped round some shopping. Rozalia saw it and knew. A miracle.’
Rozalia was stroking his hand, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I knew something terrible was happening to you. Some ordeal. You were just there, so faint but in torment.’ Her fingertips were pressing lightly on his brow. ‘Then the darkness lifted. You were there. And when your friend Nick rang—’
‘They had taken me to the Canadian hospital.’ With her touch on his brow, a budding sense of peace.
Her fingers traced a pattern across his forehead. ‘There is still pain.’
‘There is still whisky.’ Lady Lewis rang for the maid. ‘Whisky and sandwiches. The whisky now.’ She held his wrist and felt for his pulse in a practised manner. ‘Your army friend rang Rozalia late on the Sunday with the one word: “Napoleon”. Invasion imminent. We collected our emergency cases and left. After three days, nothing happened, we returned.’ She released his wrist. ‘Mr Hill, forgive me if I say how truly terrible you look. It shocks me. Is anyone taking care of you? Where are you living? I know your own flat has been blitzed.’
‘Please do call me Peter. If you’ll allow me, I must give you your banker’s message.’
When he had completed his mission, he lay back, drank his whisky and listened to the two women talking across him. Lady Lewis’s driver would take him to his hotel. He would put some things together and the driver would then take him to Rozalia’s flat where he would stay with her and her father until he looked like a human being again, in Lady Lewis’s words. (It was outside the main target area and the block had a good shelter.) The gallery was temporarily closed and Rozalia working on the next exhibition from the flat. He should keep the hotel room, Lady Lewis instructed him, as they were in such short supply.
‘But you’ll stay with us for as long as you can.’ Rozalia made a little moue. ‘How soon do you have to return to your post?’
He pulled himself up. ‘I have to report in a week or so. But then I’m not expecting anything too strenuous.’
‘You can help me plan the exhibition. “London Under Fire”. Their first drawings and paintings by the official artists. We might also have some photographs. Is that your sister I saw on the list of artists?’
‘Ella’s an official artist. I was looking at some wonderful drawings she’s just done of people sleeping in the tube. Perhaps she could come and show you.’
****
How much better he was looking, Ella told Rozalia. His eyes were back to normal, or nearly, his pallor quite gone, the lines almost smoothed away. ‘Thank you so much for taking him in.’
‘Your brother has been through an ordeal, but he has survived and will emerge stronger.’ Rozalia’s eyes were big and bright.
‘Rozalia is a sorceress.’ Though his energy was returning by the day, anguish, reproach, anger, puzzlement, all still racked him. Dinah was a black and white snapshot, indistinct, grainy. If he could have stood at her graveside … but Podger had been told that she and her grandfather had gone into a communal grave and understandably he didn’t want to show too much interest.
‘Ella, let’s see your portfolio.’
‘May I look at that Matisse first?’
It was, Rozalia apologised, the sole painting. The rest of the collection, her father’s life-long favourites from Paris, was stored now in Wales.
‘And the Cépin sketch? I’d hoped Ella could see it.’
‘Sketches. They’re all here – from them my father could never be parted. And he’s looking forward to showing them to you both.’
‘Will he tell us their story?’
‘You must hear it.’ She looked from Peter to Ella and nodded.
****
Rozalia’s father came in while Ella was going through her drawings, some worked up, some as she had snatched them – all immediate, vivid, leaping off the page to capture life in the streets and shelters during and after the bombing. As she lifted out the sheets, here were the men, women and children of the blitz with their small possessions. Here were their moments of warmth and humour, fear and anger, loss and bewilderment. Here they slept in rows, swathed in blankets or newspaper. Here they started up awake, listening to the bombs fall. As she took out more, here was the grim dawn, with communities bereft, lost in desolation and confusion. Here were the police, officials and volunteers, wrapped in fatigue, frustration and bafflement. Here were the fire and ambulance crews, set in determination, staring with exhaustion.
‘My dear Miss Hill, these are astounding. You have opened yourself totally to the scene before you. Life has flowed directly from street and shelter to your pages.’ Mr Gutmannov held each one, searching it. ‘Such energy, such understanding, such a grasp on reality. It will be an honour to show your work, if you will allow us the privilege. A glass of champagne to celebrate your achievement?’
‘I feel rather ashamed to have found so much inspiration in these horrors.’ Ella was looking pleased but abashed at his praise. ‘Thank you.’
‘Rozalia tells me I am to show you my small Cépin collection.’
‘And give us the story behind them, if you would,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve been intrigued since I saw the sketch you left at the gallery and Rozalia told me something of its history. Cépin and this woman who inspired such passion. Who was she?’
‘I will tell you what I know. Yes.’ Father and daughter exchanged a look Peter could not read. Gutmannov raised his glass to Ella and went to his room.
He returned with three framed sketches and a larger picture that he propped up with its back to them. ‘The pièce de résistance, or should I say de musée. You know, if I am left with only a small part of the Paris pictures, these will be among them.’ He filled their glasses. ‘The potentially great artist on the verge of his career – the bravura brush-stroke, the sensibility, the dawning vision, the passion. I knew the seeds of greatness were there, in waiting.’ He raised his glass to the collection and drank.
‘He called himself Paul Cépin. Originally from Kharkov, in Ukraine. His father a Russian and a rope manufacturer, I believe. Paul was sent to St Petersburg to study medicine. But the city on the Neva was then a cultural furnace, smelting the future. He was drawn in, discovered modernity, tried his hand at poetry, realised he could never reach the heights, discovered his true gift while painting scenery for a cabaret. The cabaret owner – he had publicly renounced all bourgeois aesthetic practice – introduced Paul to French culture and he was off. He said to me once that Les Fleurs du Mal had drawn him to Paris like a scrap of iron to a magnet. He began to paint seriously. His family swallowed their disappointment and sent him a small allowance.’
The room was quiet. In the far distance, anti-aircraft guns fired a ragged salvo. There had been no warning alarm. Ella picked up one of the sketches – the one Peter had seen in the gallery – and studied it. ‘I’m humbled. So assured. So economic.’ She cocked her head from side to side as if trying to catch the sketch at another angle. ‘Captivating.’ She kept her eyes on it.
Gutmannov handed Peter another sketch and took the third for himself, studying it as though for the first time. Rozalia went to look over Peter’s shoulder. The three were similar: charcoal and pencil sketches of the woman in front of the long window.
‘Dashed off within minutes of each other. His regular model.’ Gutmannov fell silent.
Peter asked, ‘How did you meet him?’
‘I heard him speaking Russian in a café. He looked starving. I talked to him, bought him a bavette and a glass of wine. He invited me to see his work.’
‘You invited yourself surely, dear Papa.’ Rozalia laughed. ‘Don’t you always?’
‘I
n our business you do not find chances, you make them, dear child—’
Another rule of life, thought Peter. In his flat above them, Ponsonby would certainly approve.
‘Let’s say I saw at once here was a talent to be nurtured. I set about it. Then, Bozhe moi, my God, he fell in love. In love—and with his model.’ He paused to study the sketch again. ‘I thought: “Cépin’s accursed. Obsessed with some street woman he’s brought to his studio.” But then I met her. She was different. That became clear at once. I made inquiries and found she was known and in demand.’ His eyes searched the sketch. ‘A fine figure. Perfect for modelling. Not conventionally beautiful, you understand. Nor plain—certainly not. Nor jolie laide. Pretty, yes, at some angles. But – the point was – utterly compelling. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. Some force of character. To be plain, some raw sexual power.’ He glanced apologetically at Ella, who raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Cépin worked obsessively trying to pin that down, destroying every effort. The stove was stuffed with torn up studies. She came and went from his studio. She had other artists. She was trying to paint. She had, shall we say, a full life. When she wasn’t there, he could do no other work. He drank.’
A sustained burst of anti-aircraft fire from the park below the mansions stopped him. The windows rattled. Ella shuffled her drawings into the portfolio. ‘Should we go to the shelter?’
‘We haven’t heard the siren, have we? The porter will know.’ Rozalia went to the house phone. Returning, she paused as the batteries let fly another barrage. ‘He says no siren and the shooting will end soon. It’s practice. They’ve brought in a load of new guns.’ She looked at Peter. ‘Your colonel hasn’t gone down: he usually leads the way when he’s here.’
‘“Don’t be afraid of leading the way” is probably one of his rules of life. I’ll add it to the list.’
‘You must inscribe them for me. I will hang them above my bed. Papa, go on. What of her?’ She paused. ‘What of Hélène?’
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