three

ALAN AND I HAD OUR FIRST BIG QUARREL outside the Communist Party HQ. Covent Garden seemed an odd place for the Communist Party to have their headquarters, I thought, as we picked our way over the cobbles, trying not to slip on the packed snow or trip on potatoes and broken orange boxes. I’d passed through Covent Garden from time to time – after we’d been to the Charing Cross Road bookshops, once to the ballet – but I’d never guessed that Communists occupied the ordinary-looking building on the corner, across the street from Moss Bros, who hired out evening clothes. It was just another office block, and it seemed incredible that behind its façade lurked that secret, mysterious entity, that shadowy – shady – organisation: ‘The Party’ – as Colin referred to it, as though it were the only political party.

We waited for Colin outside. Alan stamped his feet and banged his gloved hands together. He’d wrapped his woollen scarf, which I’d knitted him, right round his mouth and jaw, and was wearing a wide-brimmed black hat. I huddled into my musquash. My toes had gone numb.

A man in a heavy overcoat and a homburg hat hurried out, followed by a woman in belted tweed. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ She sounded suspicious, as though we were spying on ‘The Party’. Her hair, permed into ringlets, sprang out stiffly, like iron filings, from a dark green beret.

‘Colin Harris. He’s expecting us.’

The woman looked us up and down in appraisal. ‘Why don’t you wait inside? It’s unbearably cold out here.’ There was a pile of Daily Workers in a bin outside the door. She handed us one. ‘You could read that while you’re waiting.’

I smiled. ‘Thanks. We often get it from Colin, actually.’

‘Do you?’ The woman hesitated. I thought she might be sizing us up as potential recruits. But her companion, who had walked on, called back.

‘Come along, Doris. We’ll be late.’

Alan watched them go: ‘Doris Tarr,’ he said, ‘I remember her. It was her job to recruit intellectuals, the workers by brain. Thank God, she didn’t recognise me. Ugh, so patronising and proselytising.’

‘What does proselytising mean?’

He looked down at me with a kind smile. ‘Always trying to convert you, get you to sign up to their beliefs.’

‘Colin doesn’t do that.’

‘That might be because he’s having problems,’ said Alan, darkly.

‘I don’t think he thinks I’m worth arguing with. He thinks I’m stupid – or just some flighty deb you’ve unfortunately got mixed up with.’ This actually wasn’t what I thought at all, and the moment I’d said it, I couldn’t think why. Perhaps I was wanting to quarrel.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Communists believe in female equality.’

I’d been planning my next move for some time, and this seemed a good moment to grasp the nettle. ‘I’m going to get a job. I’m sick of moping about the flat all day. And it doesn’t make sense, we haven’t any money, we’re broke.’

I wasn’t sure how it had happened in the first place. While I was still at the Ministry, I’d discovered an amateur theatre group in Notting Hill. They’d given me a small part – that was how I’d first met Alan. After I’d holidayed with Mother in Devon, I’d meant to start looking for a job, but by that time Alan and I were talking of marriage. Three months later I found myself married and a housewife and somehow in the meantime I’d dropped out of the theatre group, which folded anyway.

The government was desperate to get women back to work; their posters begged women to train as nurses or teachers or go into factories. Nursing and teaching didn’t appeal to me at all. I really only wanted to be an actress, but my father completely squashed that idea. No daughter of his, etc. My headmistress, Miss Pennington-Harborough, had said I was Oxford and Cambridge material, but Dad wasn’t having that either. No, it was secretarial college for me, but I didn’t much care for the idea of a secretarial job either, now the war was over.

Alan and I had discussed it, in a desultory sort of way. When I first met him he’d even said he might be able to get me an acting part in a film, but now we were married I had a feeling he liked me being at home. The flat was small, but still took a lot of cleaning, rations had to be queued for, it all took such ages, or perhaps I noticed it more, now the cold meant we were going out less.

‘What d’you intend to do?’ enquired Alan in a neutral tone of voice.

For the moment it was just about money, not an acting career: ‘I thought – something in publishing. Or possibly … with a magazine.’

‘You can’t just walk into that sort of work. You need experience.’

‘I have to start somewhere.’

‘You could start by helping me. I need someone to type out my manuscripts.’

So that was it. ‘You mean as your unpaid secretary.’ I was surprised how angry I was.

It was one of those blazing rows that ignited from nothing. We were shouting at each other by the time Colin appeared.

‘What’s up?’

‘He doesn’t think I should get a job.’

‘I didn’t say that!’

We rowed furiously as we walked towards the Charing Cross Road. Finally when we reached the corner, it was Colin’s turn to shout: ‘Oh do shut up, both of you! Of course you should get a job. There’s no place for ladies of leisure in the post-war world. That may be what your mother expected, Dinah, but things are different now.’

As if I’d been the one who wanted to stay at home! I was speechless with impotent fury.

Swiftly, though, my rage leaked out into bleak desolation and I was left as flat as a deflated barrage balloon. Who was this man I’d married? He was a stranger, I didn’t know him, didn’t understand him. And he didn’t love me, he thought only of himself, his career. And all those promises of a film part – just a cheap seduction technique.

Leicester Square tube was nearby. ‘I’m going home,’ I said. I began to walk away, but he put his hand on my arm to pull me back.

‘Dinah! Don’t be ridiculous.’ For a second I believed he was contrite, but all he said was: ‘You’re behaving like a spoilt child.’

I stood there, hanging my head, mulishly silent, fighting tears.

‘Oh, do come on,’ said Colin. ‘We’ll be late. We’re meeting Hugh and the Enescu gang at some seedy little club Colman belongs to in Mayfair. For God’s sake, let’s get it over with, try and make Hugh see sense.’

‘Please, Dinah.’ Alan’s voice was a little kinder now. I gave in, ungraciously. At that moment I’d honestly rather have been on my own, in the flat, having a good cry, not having to cope with the strain of keeping up with all these older people. They had such large, bulky plans, careers, obsessions – structures so large I couldn’t get past them, couldn’t get out into some space, some freedom, a place where I could have my plans, not fit in with them – with him all the time.

Alan hailed a taxi. That was another problem – we hadn’t any money, but we took a taxi whenever we saw one, especially now it was so cold. Fortunately for our finances they weren’t that frequent.

Now as we rattled along, Colin said: ‘We need to know a lot more about Enescu. How did he get the money to make House of Shadows, for example?’

Alan shrugged. ‘The fact that he got it is surely what matters.’

The taxi turned into a narrow street off Piccadilly. Colin muttered: ‘I’m sure I saw him hanging around the Athénée Palace in Bucharest with all the bourgeois riff-raff.’

Alan stooped to climb out of the taxi: ‘Are you saying you know more than you’re letting on?’

Colin shrugged, but he looked at Alan very hard.

‘Well, keep it to yourself for the time being. Don’t mess up this meeting. I mean it. Don’t.’

Hugh was waiting for us in the tiny foyer and led us upstairs. The rather odd trio – possibly a ménage à trois, I suddenly thought, how very sophisticated – were seated at the far end of the room in a warm twilight of soft beige carpeting and tapestry fauteuils, tinted mirrors and vellum-shaded wall lights. I’d expected a more masculine sort of place, with leather and wood panelling, not this boudoir.

‘Like a tart’s flat,’ muttered Colin. That shocked me. How did he know?

The men stood up. Enescu actually kissed my hand! Stanley Colman clicked his fingers to bring the barman over to our table. There seemed to be a wide choice of drinks; no shortages here.

I sat and watched and listened – as Stanley Colman was doing. The Romanian seemed to like Hugh’s idea for a feature film about refugees. Colin sat stonily silent as Enescu outlined his vision of a dark, romantic film, the tragedy of central Europe in the aftermath of war.

Finally Colin spoke: ‘I still think a documentary would reveal the truth more clearly.’

Radu smiled winningly. ‘But fiction is truth, really, it is just as true as reportage,’ pronouncing the word in French. ‘What do you think, Stan? Would you put your money on a documentary?’ A sly move, I thought, bringing in the money man like that.

Stanley looked from one to another of them. ‘I’ll be frank with you,’ he said. ‘I haven’t even dipped a toe in the water, and I don’t know if I will. To begin with I was interested in the cinemas – the buildings themselves. I didn’t understand the link between the distributors and the actual theatres at first. But J Arthur Rank has that all sewn up – he owns the Odeons and the Gaumonts. The next thing is – well, how is this country going to compete with Hollywood? Things don’t look good financially. And documentaries – is that what people want? Radu’s right. All very well in the war, kept people’s spirits up, that sort of thing, but now – don’t you think the audiences want a bit of colour in their lives? A bit of escapism? Refugees – is that going to take people out of themselves? You know something? People don’t like refugees. They don’t want to hear about all the suffering in mittel Europa, they’re too busy grumbling about the electricity cuts and the meat ration.’

Hugh was delighted; it was just what he’d said. ‘Exactly. We’ve been through all this, and I thought we’d agreed.’

Colin sipped his whisky in silence. Then, unexpectedly he turned to Enescu. ‘How did you start in films? There’s no film industry in Romania.’

Enescu smiled modestly. ‘I have been very fortunate,’ he said. ‘I was able to work abroad, in France, and before that in Berlin. With UFA. This was before the Nazi time, of course.’

‘You must have been very young.’ Colin hardly bothered to hide his scepticism.

Radu smiled. ‘Indeed,’ he said modestly, ‘I was very fortunate,’ he repeated.

There was an awkward silence. Alan was looking apprehensive.

Colin was staring at him. ‘When did you actually leave? How did you escape?’

Enescu’s smile never wavered. ‘Oh – this is a long story, very long. You don’t want to hear the history of my life, I think.’

‘On the contrary.’

‘Please, Colin.’ Alan frowned at his friend. Colin shrugged and looked away. I wondered what really was wrong. Colin so touchy; I couldn’t believe it was just about what sort of film they were going to make.

Hugh turned to Radu. ‘Perhaps we can flesh out the ideas a bit.’ He was clever, making the storyline sound less exaggerated and at the same time selling himself, referring to his wartime experience at the Crown Film Unit. Radu liked it, I could see. Alan nodded approvingly, although Hugh wasn’t giving him enough credit for the success of Home Front. Colin sat stonily silent.

I got the feeling that Gwendolen was just bored by the whole conversation. Soon she stood up. She wore a close-fitting black dress with coffee piping, and a black and coffee turban hat. Her leopardskin coat lay abandoned on an empty chair. She walked over to one of the mirrors, removed the turban and shook her pageboy hair over her face, before smoothing it back again and replacing the hat. Stanley watched her.

I stood up too. ‘D’you know where the lavatory is?’

‘I need the powder room myself.’ Again that hoarse voice with a metallic edge to it, not an accent, nothing you could pin down, just a rusty edge to it, the way blood tastes of iron, the way iron smells of blood.

In the stuffy little dressing room I stared at Gwendolen staring at herself in the glass. She took out her compact and powdered her face.

‘Nice to get away from the men for a few minutes, don’t you think? They are so boring. Even your husband, dear, and he’s quieter than the others. Don’t you think? Talk, talk, talk, and all getting us nowhere.’

‘I thought the story for the film sounded rather exciting.’

Gwendolen smiled her slow, world-weary smile. ‘Oh … so far as that goes. I can tell you already exactly what will happen. Radu will get money for his film, he’s probably going to New York soon to talk to his distributors over there, but he won’t get the money from Stanley. That boy isn’t serious – he’s too busy buying up bombed buildings, he’s making a fortune, he won’t want to risk it investing in some crazy film idea. He knows Radu’s been successful so far, but the movies are far too risky for him. It’s just that he likes hanging around with arty people, he thinks we’re all frightfully bohemian, he loves all that.’

‘I thought it was because he’s in love with you,’ I said boldly.

Gwen smiled. ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you, although you seem such an innocent. But in love … that’s a bit of an exaggeration,’ and she gracefully shrugged away the idea of an admirer. ‘He’s trying to educate himself. Those East End Jews have a touching faith in learning and culture, you know.’

‘I didn’t know he was Jewish.’

‘Oh darling, of course he’s a yid! You are green, aren’t you? Anyway, never mind about him, I’m just telling you – your husband and his friends, they shouldn’t expect any shekels from that direction, they’re wasting their time. They should get some money from the government and make documentaries about the welfare state, the new post-war Britain.’

Her dismissive tone hurt me. In spite of the quarrel I utterly believed in Alan, and rushed to his defence. ‘Alan’s really talented, you know. His wartime film was a huge success.’

Gwendolen smiled faintly: ‘It’s a difficult, difficult business, the movies. And the economy’s in such a mess, you know. These awful Labourites dragging everything down.’

That startled me. Everyone I knew supported the Labour government – apart from my father, but that was different and to be expected.

‘Don’t you …’ I began, but my own ideas were so unformed I didn’t want an argument. I stared at my reflection. I looked like a scarecrow compared to her. My hair just grew and fell about my face in messy curls. Even my lipstick, so carefully applied (blot three times and press your lips together), looked amateurish. I wished I were twenty-five, an ideal age.

‘Anyway,’ said Gwendolen, ‘who wants to talk about politics. Tell me what you’re doing with yourself.’

‘I want to get a job,’ I said. ‘Well – what I really want is to get into the theatre, but … well, we haven’t any money just at the moment, so anything really.’

She looked at me via the mirror – two reflections and a single gaze. ‘I see. Yes.’ She smoothed her glossy hair and replaced her hat for the second time. ‘I remember you said you wanted to act. You should talk to Radu. He might be able to get you something. I’ll mention it to him if you like.’

‘Oh, would you? That would be marvellous!’ She’d said it before, and nothing had happened, but this time surely she’d remember!

She continued to stare in the mirror, looking at herself now. Then: ‘We’d better be getting back. They’ll be wondering where we are. Might even send a search party.’ And suddenly she laughed, a jarring laugh and rather coarse, out of keeping with her graceful, stilted movements. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. ‘You know, you should visit me one afternoon. Radu and I are off to Paris soon, but after we get back … come and have tea. I’m resting at present. I get quite bored – and if Radu goes to New York I’ll be all on my own.’

New York – Paris – it all sounded so exciting. ‘I’d love to.’

The men hardly looked up when we returned. Enescu was holding forth. Stanley sat a little back from the group – as he had when we’d met them before, but the other three were clenched round Enescu. His melting brown eyes would have charmed anyone – he really was persuasive. ‘And then you see – I imagine this wonderful dream sequence. It will be this wonderful surrealist dream, when Gwendolen imagines what her new life might be – and then perhaps it will turn dark and she will remember the nightmare that was.’ His hands were as voluble as his words as he sketched his ideas.

‘Surrealism? What’s that? I don’t understand all that stuff,’ interrupted Stanley. ‘Sounds a bit phoney to me. But then I’m ignorant about these things.’

Only Hugh could have explained an artistic movement to a self-confessed philistine with such exquisite good manners; he didn’t once sound patronising. The property developer listened doggedly. ‘Not much money in experimental films, I should have thought,’ was his only comment when Hugh had ended his exposition.

‘And for this sequence I have found a wonderful artist –’ He paused. Alan stiffened. Hugh looked strained. ‘You must know him – Titus Mavor.’

Colin exploded. ‘Mavor! Are you insane?’ He swivelled round towards his two friends. ‘Did you know about this? The last person on earth I’d ever work with!’

Gwen looked on, expressionless. Hugh tried to calm Colin down.

‘He did some scenery and stage sets for the leftwing theatre movement before the war – the Unity Theatre – it’s not as though he doesn’t have some experience.’

‘I know that, you bloody fool!’ Colin was in a towering rage.

Unexpectedly Gwendolen spoke. ‘They say he’s destroyed himself with drink, darling. He may not be capable …’

‘I’m afraid that is true, Radu,’ said Hugh, placating. ‘Drinks like a fish – hardly does any work these days.’

If he’d hoped to head Colin off, he failed. ‘Surrealism is the absolute end. Bourgeois rubbish. But that’s not the point. Mavor’s a degenerate–’

Radu sprang to his feet. He was angry now. ‘You’re crazy, crazy, stupid anglo-saxon moralists.’ He walked off angrily towards the bar.

Stanley Colman came to the rescue. ‘What about going for a spot to eat at the Café Royal – how about that? My treat.’

We all jumped at the idea with relief. Only afterwards, much later, did it occur to me that it might have been a plot – that Radu might have put Stanley up to it, knowing that Titus Mavor spent most of his time at the Café Royal, even when he was broke.

‘Dinah and I will go on ahead to get a table.’ Stanley Colman smiled at me in the friendliest possible way.

This was startling. Why me? Downstairs the porter rang for a taxi – another taxi! Such incredible extravagance, all these taxis! And for such a short distance! But then it was so cold. It was so cold and the pavements so slippery.

‘Shouldn’t we wait for the others? I mean – four of us at least could get in one taxi …’

If I hadn’t felt certain he was sweet on Gwendolen, I’d have wondered if he wanted to get me alone in order to try something on. If I’d imagined getting married would put a stop to that sort of thing, well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was quite used to it now, and knew how to deal with it. But the way he smiled told me that while he found me an attractive young woman, I had nothing to fear. He was entirely respectful. ‘I’ve had enough of their arguing, frankly. And I thought perhaps you had, too.’

It was nice of him to have noticed my discomfort. All the same, I hoped the others would join us before the taxi arrived, for I felt shy with this stranger, although I couldn’t help quite liking him, even if he was a spiv. Anyway, the taxi came and the two of us were driven along Piccadilly. I remembered Mother’s advice concerning men: get them to talk about themselves.

‘How did you come to be in the property business?’ It came out as both prim and intrusive, but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘I was wounded early on in the war, never saw active service. It happened during training, literally shot myself in the foot. Sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it? But in a business sense I have to admit it was a lucky break.’ He smiled sideways at me. Shooting yourself in the foot was suspiciously like dodging the call-up, or rather, getting out of it. My companion seemed almost to read my thoughts, for he continued, ‘On the other hand, doesn’t look good, not to have seen action. It can give the impression you’re a bit dodgy – that you wriggled out of it somehow.’

My face felt hot, I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

‘I don’t think you and your friends have met many people like me, have you,’ he remarked, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I suppose you were just about old enough to be called up for war work, but …?’ His voice trailed off into a question.

‘I worked at the War Office the last year of the war, I was a secretary. I saw life then,’ I said.

As he talked I was trying to pin down his accent. It wasn’t common, wasn’t cockney, but it wasn’t public school either. It was also difficult to guess his age, but it came as a shock when I found out he was only the same age as Alan and the others – he somehow seemed older, and even more grown up.

‘The war shook everyone up, but now things’ll revert to type, whatever the government does. It’ll take a while, but when things have settled down … mind you, it’ll still be a different world, but not in the way your friend supposes. There ain’t going to be no soviet utopia.’

‘You mean Colin?’

‘All of you – not much idea how most people live. Take me. I left school at fourteen, left school on the Friday and started work on the Monday. My first job was with a landlord. My boss–’

But we’d arrived. The cab drew into the kerb, Stanley paid, and we slid across the frozen pavement and into the Café Royal. I’d been there before, of course, but I had a feeling it was Colman’s first visit, although he appeared cool enough.

‘I’m not really properly dressed,’ I said, aware of my shabby old black jumper and tweed skirt, but Stanley brushed that aside. ‘A fur coat is always good. And no one will notice once you’ve sat down.’

We were shown to the room at the back. I sat beside him on the red velvet banquette. Stanley looked round, taking in the Edwardian opulence of the place, the cloudy gilt mirrors, the mahogany, overripe, yet at the same time faded. I watched the drinkers and diners. Even if they weren’t famous writers or artists, they acted and dressed as if they were. It was all so glamorous.

Stanley ordered me a sherry, and as I sat beside him waiting for the others, I was happy and excited, my row with Alan forgotten. I looked round. ‘I say, look over there: there is Titus Mavor.’ I recognised him at once.

Stanley looked across the room. ‘How convenient,’ he said with an enigmatic little smile. ‘Well then, when the others arrive, they can ask him to join us, can’t they? That’ll please Radu – and … well, depending on how he behaves it might settle the issue anyway.’

I wished I hadn’t pointed him out. ‘Oh no, don’t let’s tell the others,’ I said quickly, ‘Colin’s so touchy about him – we don’t want another row. Let’s just hope they don’t notice him.’

Stanley looked at me. ‘Not much chance of that, is there?’ He was right.