After the Cabaret

  Greg looked at the address of Mrs Sarah Hamilton on the fax. A broad grin spread across his face. He remembered his first visit to Bruno. ‘Mrs Bulstrode. Mrs Bulstrode,’ he said aloud. ‘Oh, yes. Mrs Bulstrode. Yes, yes, yes.’

  He did not stop to change but raced from the flat and drove like a maniac through empty streets to 11, Cornwall Street. Somebody who had once owned that house ‘on the wrong side of the park’ had fallen on hard times and sold it to Bruno Lowenthal. That somebody had been involved in wartime espionage, had probably told the authorities what she knew about Adrian Pym in the 1950s when he had fled. Then she had gone to ground, hiding out to enjoy a happy private life.

  That somebody was still there, still living in the same house …

  Greg parked, went down the basement steps and banged heavily on the door.

  A tall, brown-skinned young woman of about his own age opened the door. She looked at him and smiled. ‘Bruno said you’d come.’ She nodded him in.

  There was an internal lobby, then a long room where a lighted Christmas tree stood. At a table, at which Christmas dinner had evidently been eaten and on which still stood cheese, fruit and the remains of a Christmas pudding, sat eight people, two couples in their fifties, and a young man who, by his appearance, seemed to be the brother of the woman who had let Greg in. Near the end of the table was an untouched place, with a full complement of knives, forks and glasses. At the head of the table was an old woman, bright-eyed, heavily made up and smiling. Beside her was Bruno, who stood up.

  ‘Welcome, Greg, we saved a place for you,’ he said.

  The old woman now also got up. She was wearing a black beaded dress. She held a gold-tipped black cigarette holder. Bright-eyed, wreathed in smoke, Sally Bowles cried, ‘Darling! I’ve heard so much about you! Come and sit down. Will someone open a bottle of champagne?’

  A Note on the Author

  HILARY BAILEY was born in 1936 and was educated at thirteen schools before attending Newnham College, Cambridge. Married with children, she entered the strange, uneasy world of '60s science fiction, writing some twenty tales of imagination which were published in Britain, the USA, France and Germany. She has edited the magazine New Worlds and has regularly reviewed modern fiction for the Guardian. Her first novel was published in 1975 and she has since written twelve novels and a short biography. She lives in Ladbroke Grove, London.

  Discover books by Hilary Bailey published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/HilaryBailey

  After the Cabaret

  All the Days of My Life

  As Time Goes By

  A Stranger to Herself

  Cassandra

  Connections

  Elizabeth and Lily

  Fifty-First State

  Hannie Richards

  In Search of Love, Money and Revenge

  Mrs Rochester

  Polly Put the Kettle On

  Mrs Mulvaney

  The Cry from Street to Street

  Miles and Flora

  The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  First published in Great Britain 1998 by Little, Brown and Company.

  Copyright © 1998 Hilary Bailey

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

  make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

  (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,

  printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

  publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication

  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  ISBN: 9781448209422

  eISBN: 9781448209439

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