ten

ENDLESS WINTER: IT WASN’T JUST THE AIR, the streets that froze; human beings froze. Body, mind and feelings slowed to a halt. Moods were locked in ice, were as leaden as the skies, the skies darker than the stucco streets under snow. And the horror of Mavor’s death was ice-locked into my mind.

.........

Alan said: ‘Radu and Gwendolen are back from Paris. They’ve moved to Kensington. He’s invited us over to discuss the film. The thing is – he doesn’t want Colin along. What d’you think I should do?’

He stood in the kitchen, looking at me, half puzzled, half guilty, but longing for me to say it was all right.

‘Oh, Alan–’

‘I thought, you see, if we get a firm deal, I could sort of wangle Colin back in later.’ But he had that small-boy, hangdog expression.

‘I can’t say, Alan. You have to decide.’

We went, of course. I arrived first, straight from work. Ormiston Court was a newish apartment block behind Derry and Toms department store. There was an air of hushed somnolence in the carpeted foyer. A porter rang for the lift for me.

Gwendolen was wearing a violet-coloured dress that day. It draped across her bosom and diagonally over her hips, drawing attention to her sinuous body. She met me in the dark but wonderfully warm hall of the flat and led me into a large drawing room.

‘Ignore the Utility furniture,’ she said, ‘we’re renting it furnished, you see. It’s quite nice otherwise – there’s a decent restaurant and a swimming pool. And central heating; though of course with all these power cuts you can’t rely on it – it keeps going off.’

She sat me down by the window, which, veiled in netting, looked onto a courtyard garden, cold and still.

‘It’s a service flat – no kitchen, I’ll get Pauline to send down to the restaurant for tea. It won’t take long – they’re quite efficient.’

She sat near me and looked me over. What a strange, insistent smile she had. It seemed to hold some meaning that escaped me. ‘This cold weather’s terrible, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘Do you think it will ever end?’

I felt myself blushing – purely from awkwardness. I couldn’t think what to say. ‘I suppose it will sometime,’ I stammered out idiotically, uncomfortable in the beam of her blank gaze. I wished Pauline, whoever she was – the maid, I assumed – would hurry with the tea. I was hungry, as usual.

‘Do you manage to keep warm enough?’ she enquired. ‘It’s so difficult with clothes, don’t you think? I could let you have one or two things of mine, you know. We’re about the same size.’

I felt more embarrassed than ever. ‘But you’re taller than me,’ I stammered.

She sprang to her feet with uncharacteristic animation. ‘Talking of clothes – I have to show you what I bought while I was in Paris. There’s this new designer, Dior, a friend got me into the show, and the dresses were out of this world – full skirts, tight waists, a completely different line! Come into the bedroom, I’ll show you.’

The bedroom was curtained in deep rose damask to match the counterpane. The furniture was less spartan than in the drawing room and the dressing table was littered with cosmetics and big glass scent bottles. Gwendolen opened the wardrobe and pulled out a stiffly rustling evening gown. It was the most extravagant thing I’d ever seen: airforce blue, stiff ribbed silk with a corset-like strapless top and layers and layers of skirts, the silk belled out with tulle or organza in an incredible excess of luxury. She showed me the inside of the bodice, which was shaped with whalebone ribs and canvas lining, a structure unlike anything I’d ever worn.

She held the gown against herself. The subtle colour was marvellous with her dark hair, white skin and almost violet eyes.

‘And the new length for day is to the calf or even the ankle,’ she said. ‘A completely new look, it’s revolutionary.’

She handed the garment to me to hold. It was so stiff it was almost like holding a person, a doll, at least. I held it at arms’ length. It seemed to have a life of its own, as though it might whirl me into a waltz. The silk was cool to the touch as I grazed my fingertips over the bodice. Luxury – the thing life was so drained of – spoke from its every curve and drape. It was love at first sight.

She snatched it back from me. ‘Look, I’ll show you, I’ll try it on.’ For once she was animated. She dropped it on the bed and slid out of her dress. Underneath she was wearing only peach cami-knickers; she pulled apart the poppers that fastened them between her legs and raised her arms to lift the flimsy garment over her head, so that the whole of her smooth, perfect ivory body was revealed.

I was hideously embarrassed. I wasn’t prudish, but there was no need for her to flaunt her nudity like that! And now she stepped into the magnificent ball gown and I had to help her by doing all the hooks and eyes up at the back. It was all too personal and intimate. She did look stunning in the dress, though.

When she’d got dressed again and returned the gown to the wardrobe I felt it was like a fairy story doll. I imagined it coming alive at night, pushing open the cupboard door and emerging to perform a mechanical dance, like a figure from the Nutcracker ballet.

Gwendolen drew out some boxes from a drawer and sat beside me on the bed to show me her lovely lingerie. I still felt uneasy, for there was a lingering, oppressive hint of physical intimacy as insistent as the aura of artificiality faintly cast by her scent, L’Heure Bleue.

‘Why don’t you have this? I’ve got more than enough.’ And Gwendolen held up a ravishing slip of eau-de-nil silk trimmed with black lace.

‘It’s awfully kind of you, but I really couldn’t.’ It was acutely embarrassing; one couldn’t accept presents of that sort, it was not done, would be bad form.

She hurled the garment onto the floor. She looked really angry. ‘All right then. If that’s how you feel.’

I couldn’t think why it had annoyed her so much. Her sudden burst of rage was quite upsetting.

‘I’m sorry – please don’t take offence, it’s lovely, but …’

She stood up, paced up and down for a moment, then, as if the flare of anger hadn’t happened: ‘I think that’s Pauline with the tea.’

When we returned to the drawing room a dark, sallow woman, dressed in a badly bagged tweed skirt and a grey twinset, was setting out plates and cups and sandwiches. She hardly acknowledged us as she poured tea and sat down and Gwen didn’t introduce us, which was awkward, but I felt more at ease now I had something to do with my hands, and, after all, it was thrilling to be having tea with a film star. Perhaps Pauline was Gwendolen’s companion; I had an idea that actresses had companions – rather as the Queen would have a lady-in-waiting. She sat by impassively, with us but not of us. There was an awkward silence. Finally Gwendolen said: ‘You’re Stan’s secretary now! Are you enjoying it? I hope he doesn’t work you too hard.’

‘Oh no, quite the opposite,’ I said, ‘I’m enjoying it. Of course it isn’t – I mean I didn’t originally want to be a secretary.’

‘Yes – you said. You told me you wanted to be an actress.’

‘Of course.’ I felt myself blushing again. ‘I’m so sorry, how boring of me.’ But because I was nervous, I found myself rushing on. ‘I’d have liked to go to university too, but of course Daddy wouldn’t hear of that. He says it doesn’t matter for a girl. He thinks men hate bluestockings. My brother went up last year, after he was demobbed. He’s at Magdalen College. I try not to feel too envious,’ I said with a merry laugh. ‘There are acting opportunities there, you see. He’s in OUDS – the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Not that he wants to be an actor, later on, he’s reading law and then he says he wants to go into politics.’

‘Acting isn’t so wonderful,’ she said flatly.

‘How can you say that! You’re so lucky!’ I blurted it out without thinking. ‘You must have wanted to act, otherwise how did it happen?’

‘By accident really.’

‘A lucky accident,’ said Pauline. Her pale, thin mouth twitched in a little smile. ‘Fortuitous. Meeting Radu like that.’

‘I was working as an extra at a little film studio in North London.’

I wondered how Gwendolen had managed to avoid the call-up. Surely being a film extra hardly counted as part of the war effort, but I didn’t like to ask.

Another stilted silence; I wondered why Gwen so often made me feel uncomfortable, and suddenly I knew: she was shy. She didn’t know how to make conversation, wasn’t socially polished at all. It was a strange thought; you’d expect a film star, well, any actress, really, to be good at that sort of thing.

Luckily, the front door banged. Radu was home, bringing a hitherto missing vitality to our awkward trio. ‘Darling!’ He bent to kiss his star and then: ‘Wonderful to see you, Dinah.’ He kissed my hand. ‘But where is your husband?’

‘They should be here by now. They said five o’clock.’

And soon they did arrive. Radu was in a tremendously good mood. ‘We celebrate this evening, I think. I have good news about the film.’ He sprang to his feet again and went over to a drinks cabinet.

‘Hang on,’ said Alan, ‘I think we should have the discussion first.’

‘For sure – as you wish. Yes, this is better.’

Hugh had a title for the film: Be Still, My Heart. Alan made a face; he didn’t like it, but he kept quiet.

Hugh had also written a new ‘treatment’, which he outlined to them. The story was of a young woman – to be played by Gwendolen, of course – who’d escaped from a displaced persons camp by stealing the papers of a dead fellow inmate and assuming her identity. As she made her way to England she was exposed to many dangers and threatened by enemies, ranging from Nazis on the run to secret service agents, one of whom – Radu was hoping to get James Mason to play the part – fell in love with her and she with him.

I’d read Alan’s original version, which had had subplots and much more on the situation of displaced persons in Europe, in camps and so on. As revised by Hugh, the script seemed focused on romance rather than on the plight of refugees, and I could tell Alan wasn’t too happy with the way it had shaped up, but we needed the money badly and – more important – this was his big chance to get properly into films. I could see, too, that he thought Hugh was giving himself too much credit.

But Radu was delighted. When Hugh finished his outline of the narrative, the Romanian looked across at Gwendolen. ‘What do you think of this, darling? This is a wonderful part for you, I think.’

‘Yes – yes, it is.’ She didn’t even smile.

Pauline piped up unexpectedly, her coarse voice sounding out of place. ‘I think it’s the perfect part for you, Gwen.’

Gwendolen looked towards her. ‘Would someone do that? Steal another person’s identity?’

‘I think they would, dear, in those circumstances.’

‘It seems far-fetched to me.’

But Radu brushed this aside. ‘You do not understand, darling, how these people are desperate. Our film will show the world their suffering, what they have endured.’ He turned towards Alan. ‘And the good news I have is, I think we have secured the financial backing that we need. I hope. It was difficult, but I have done it; the last piece of the puzzle in place. Or very nearly. When I’m in Paris.’ He didn’t explain any further, but simply chuckled, delighted with himself. And I knew then that he thought he could do anything. He believed in his luck. He would make his own luck. He was a chancer, a gambler. ‘Only I am superstitious, unlucky to talk too much about it before all the details are settled. Don’t count your chickens! Isn’t that what you English say? I think soon we have a contract, a formal arrangement.’

Alan stood up. ‘Hugh and I need to think this over,’ he said. Hugh looked startled, but he stood up beside his friend. ‘I’m sure we can come to an arrangement, Enescu – but you understand, we need to think it through a little further. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

I was scrambling to my feet as well, in disarray, it was all so sudden, but Radu said: ‘Oh, you at least can stay for a little while? N’est-ce pas, Gwendolen? We have hardly spoken.’

Alan said carelessly: ‘Yes, why don’t you stay, darling? Hugh and I need to talk things over.’

I was happy enough to stay in the warm, softly lit room. Radu saw them out and when he returned: ‘Dinah – you will have a cocktail? Allow me to mix you a Manhattan. And then you must tell us about yourself.’

The cocktail was strong and soon I felt a little tipsy. By the time Pauline cleared the tea things away I’d embarked on the story of my life, prompted by Radu, who displayed a flattering interest in my secluded middle-class existence.

‘So your father is a lawyer? He has a dramatic role, I think. He speaks in court, he makes a dramatic speech, he is almost like an actor in a way?’

I thought of my father’s pronouncements at the dinner table. It was true. There’d been times – over Alan, say – when I’d felt I was jury and accused in one, being harangued across the exiguous Sunday joint, as if, like me, it had been reduced and shrivelled by the force of my father’s arguments, when in fact its size simply bore witness to food rationing. Yes – he was an actor. ‘In a way,’ I said, and couldn’t help smiling.

‘This is interesting. Gwendolen tells me your wish is also to act, so this is perhaps why.’ He laughed.

‘My father was part of the prosecution team at the Nuremberg trials,’ I said proudly – and perhaps also a little bit to test him, to see how he reacted.

Radu looked grave. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said quietly, ‘it is good these evil men have their reward, that they are punished.’ He leaned back, crossed his legs, lit a cigarette. Surely he wasn’t a Nazi! Colin must have been wrong about that.

‘But now is more important we talk about you. I can get you screen test, you know – I am sure the camera will love you – such cheekbones.’ His glance lingered on me. I felt embarrassed, yet at the same time there was a little surge of hope. ‘We make a part for you in our film.’

This was wonderful. I could hardly believe it. I stole a look at Gwendolen, wondering if she’d be jealous, but she was leafing through a copy of Vogue.

‘I am sorry Alan does not seem so pleased with the new treatment. I have been hoping we can all work together. Hugh and I have been talking things over. We think exactly along same lines. Your husband – I’m not so sure, perhaps you can tell me. He seemed he was the one in the middle, between his two friends. Unfortunately, Mr Harris is not right for this project, but I hope your husband will not find that an … obstacle, because now I have seen your husband’s film I should be sorry not to collaborate with him.’

‘You’ve seen Home Front?’ I hadn’t even seen it myself.

‘But yes, of course. I have arranged a special showing. It is very good.’

I felt myself blushing scarlet as I stammered: ‘Alan is very keen to work on another film. He’d do anything to get a script-writing job.’ Well – almost anything, I thought guiltily. I wasn’t sure if ‘anything’ would include completely ditching Colin. I hoped it wouldn’t. Then I realised I hadn’t said quite the right thing. ‘Of course he’d really love to work with you – he admired your film so much. He’s awfully talented,’ I went on rather desperately. ‘But he won’t compromise with commercialism.’

Radu laughed. ‘But my films are artistic – you know that. If they are also a box-office success that is an … an unintended consequence. But anyway, I’m sure we can make a collaboration, Alan and I, with Hugh as well, of course.’ His smile was dazzling. ‘It is my dearest wish.’

I was glowing inside from the cocktail, which I’d drunk rather quickly, and I didn’t refuse when Radu refilled my glass. He matched me, and became even more expansive, outlining his plans for a film about central Europe that would astonish with its passion and tragedy. One might have expected this to engage Gwendolen’s interest, but the strange thing was she seemed bored, seemed even to be becoming restless. I caught her looking at her watch, and I knew it was time to go home, to go toiling up the snowy wastes of Church Street to Notting Hill and murder mile, but I put off the moment of braving the cold, until Gwendolen smiled in that melancholy way of hers and said apologetically: ‘Darling – we have to go out soon.’

It was more than a hint. I knew I had to leave the warmth and face the elements.

‘Come and see us again soon, Dinah darling,’ said Gwendolen and kissed me on the cheek. Another little frisson of awkwardness. It was odd, all this kissing. My mother and aunts kissed one another in greeting and Mother also kissed one or two of her closest women friends, but I hardly knew Gwendolen. Perhaps film stars, actresses, were more demonstrative. ‘Oh – and I forgot to tell you, there’s a dinner dance here next month, at Ormiston Court. You will come, won’t you? We’re making up a party.’

Radu insisted on walking me down to the street. He wanted to wait with me for a taxi, but I insisted I’d take the bus. ‘There probably won’t be a taxi anyway,’ I said.

‘They are rare birds,’ he agreed, ‘but then so are the buses.’ He put an arm round my shoulder and marched me along the road to the bus stop. This made me feel most uncomfortable. While we waited he stamped his feet, folded his arms and beat himself with his hands to keep warm in his beautiful overcoat. ‘You are very lovely, Dinah,’ he said. ‘I should love you to be in my film.’

His dancing smile mocked me and yet it held a promise. I didn’t know how much to believe him. I peered anxiously along the High Street, wishing the bus would come. Radu’s whole manner was so flirtatious.

‘You would make perfect ingénue,’ he said.

I shook my head and tried to head him off. I had the feeling he was about to pounce – out here in the freezing cold, by the bus stop. And he did. His arms were like bands of iron round me. I felt his lips pressed against mine, his whole body too, through all our layers of clothing. He was trying to force my lips apart. I was trying just as hard to turn my face away, but I felt myself weakening. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he muttered. We were struggling. Any minute we’d fall on the slippery pavement.

‘Oh really, Radu!’ I managed to push him away and extricate myself. I laughed it off, it was so ridiculous, the two of us scuffling on the ice, but at the same time …

Just then, thank God, the bus came. Radu kissed my hand again and looked into my eyes. ‘We will meet again very soon, beautiful Dinah.’ And he waved me on to the bus as if it was entirely due to his goodwill that it had appeared at all.

I sat on the bus, and after all it wasn’t just absurd and ridiculous. I was shaking. It wasn’t so much that my dignity was in shreds. I wasn’t even feeling – how dared he be so cheeky. I’d responded. A great shaft of lust – and now a wave of shame and embarrassment flooded through me. I was obviously a nymphomaniac of some kind.

It was only when I got off at Notting Hill Gate that I thought how strange it was that no one had mentioned Titus all afternoon. It was as if it had never happened; as if he had never existed.

In the arctic cold the streets were empty. I walked along on the impacted ice, my fingers and toes aching, my face skinned with the cold. I heard steps creaking behind me. I looked back. A man in an overcoat trudged along behind me. He was walking faster than me, gaining on me with every step he took. I was nearly home. I tried to walk faster, but it was impossible on the icy pavements. I huddled on, head down. I reached our house. The moment passed. I despised myself for being so cowardly. I wasn’t an hysterical girl, after all. I was a married woman.

Upstairs in the flat Alan was at the stove, while Hugh watched from the kitchen table. A bottle of Algerian red stood open between them.

‘You stayed on quite a while. I’m making spaghetti with that tin of anchovies I got hold of on my way home through Soho yesterday.’ Then he looked at me more closely. ‘What’s the matter, Dinah? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

I couldn’t tell him about the man, because it was nothing. It would just make Alan fuss and not want me to go out alone. I unwrapped myself from the layers of outer clothing. ‘I’m tired,’ I said and poured myself a glass of wine. ‘This cold is killing me.’

Hugh said: ‘Anything interesting after we left?’

‘Not really. But he’s awfully keen to work with you both. Dead keen.’

Alan was stirring the spaghetti sauce. ‘It was Colin’s idea,’ he said in a low voice.

‘It was our idea,’ said Hugh firmly.

‘It was his idea first,’ said Alan, slowly. ‘And now he’ll hate the way it’s going to turn out. As far as he’s concerned it’ll be a travesty.’

‘Well, you don’t have to work with Radu if you don’t want to,’ said Hugh. ‘Anyway – it’s no good having an idea if it can’t be turned into a reality.’ Hugh smiled. ‘Rather like communism, really.’

Alan laughed, but he didn’t seem amused. ‘You’re right, of course. Of course I’ll do it – and it is Colin’s fault in a way for being so bloody-minded.’

So that was Colin – ditched.

I stole away to the bedroom without their noticing. I lay under the eiderdown in the dark, but I couldn’t stop shivering. I thought about the man who’d walked behind me in the street. I thought about Radu’s kiss. That was something else I couldn’t tell Alan about. Why did I feel so alone, when I was married? I cried, silently, for a little while, but then I must have fallen asleep.