After the Cabaret (18 page)

There was a silence. Then Bruno said flatly, ‘You'd better come over. Bring some oranges and lemons.'

Greg made his way down Holland Park Avenue and turned into the street where Bruno lived.

As he waited for him to answer his door, a woman in a mac and headscarf was putting something in a dustbin in the basement. She turned and went inside her flat, followed
by a huge black cat, which had bounded down from the pavement through her railings.

Bruno, wheezing, opened the front door. He was wearing a long, elaborate red dressing-gown with black frogging. He led the way slowly upstairs and, on gaining his sitting-room, sat down heavily in his chair.

‘Can I get you anything?' Greg asked.

‘Can you make a hot toddy?' Bruno asked.

Greg went into the immaculate small kitchen next to the room where Bruno sat. He returned to the room with a steaming jug of whisky, lemon slices, sugar and honey.

‘You'll join me?' Bruno said.

‘Just a small one,' said Greg.

Once again he was sitting opposite an old man, drinking at an unusual hour of the day, not knowing quite what was going on.

Bruno drank a draught of the toddy and then asked, ‘So, how's Pym?' He was evidently hoping for bad news.

‘Pretty sick,' Greg said. ‘And frail. He lives in a dignified old building near the Pushkin Museum. He's attended by a Russian soldier in a worn-out uniform.'

‘He'll have fallen on his feet as usual,' Bruno commented. ‘Tell me, why didn't you say you were going to Moscow?'

‘It was a sudden impulse. The brother of a friend was going. He had some influence in the visa department. It seemed too good to pass up.'

‘So you thought you'd go and find things out for yourself?' asked Bruno.

‘That's what I'm here for,' Greg said laconically. He
felt that Bruno was annoyed that he'd gone to another person for information, as if his puppet was getting out of control.

‘And?' prompted Bruno.

Greg told him.

‘You should have spoken to me first,' Bruno told him. ‘There's a lot you don't know.'

‘And some I might have known, if you'd told me,' Greg responded coolly.

‘I'm keeping many secrets, yes,' Bruno said reproachfully. ‘But not all mine – few of them mine, in fact.'

Greg opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but Bruno went on, ‘I'm a little upset with you. You go without saying, now you're back, and Pym has conned you into agreeing to do something you should not do, which no one wants you to do and which will not advance your interests in any way. Believe me when I tell you that. And you, I suppose, have given your word so you must do as you promised.'

‘Well, no, I don't,' Greg admitted. ‘At first I thought I should. Now I see I've told a very tricky character I'll do something for him, without knowing exactly what the results will be. I don't know if I should go ahead.'

‘You're here on a visitor's visa, I suppose. This could get you thrown out,' Bruno observed. ‘Then where is your book?'

Greg looked at him steadily. ‘The thought had occurred to me.'

‘I'm glad,' Bruno told him. ‘Luckily the Americans are like the Germans, direct and not ashamed to act out of self-interest and say so. Here, it is different.' He began to
cough in a fit that moved his whole body and seemed about to tear him apart. It ended, and he lay back weakly.

‘Have you seen a doctor?' Greg asked.

But Bruno, swallowing toddy, just shook his head. He recovered his breath and said, ‘That fool? No. A cold is a cold. So – you've decided not to do what Pym asked?'

‘That's right,' said Greg. ‘But what I really wanted to ask him was if he knew where Sally Bowles was, if she's alive. There's no record of her death at Somerset House.'

‘Why would Pym know, in Moscow?'

‘I guess there isn't much Adrian Pym doesn't know.'

Bruno nodded. ‘All right. Now you're here, turn on that machine – I suppose you have it with you – and we shall go on with our story.' The old man spoke for more than an hour, then declared he was tired and wished to sleep.

Greg said goodbye and left. He felt better for having decided to forget Pym's requests.

However, when he got back to his flat he discovered that Pym was still pulling strings. He had been transcribing what Bruno had told him, when his phone rang. He answered it, and heard a woman's voice say, ‘Is that Mr Phillips?' When he agreed that it was, she informed him that Sir Peveril Jones was on the line.

Then came a man's voice. ‘Mr Phillips? I'm Peveril Jones. I hear you've been abroad and come back with a message for me.'

‘Well, yes, sir,' Greg agreed uncertainly. ‘I've seen Adrian Pym and he did ask—'

‘Good, good,' Sir Peveril broke in. ‘Let's not discuss it over the phone, shall we? I wonder, would it be too much
trouble for you to have lunch with me at my club one day? We could talk it over there. Are you free at all this week, perhaps?'

Greg, who was free of any social engagements and too off-guard to come up with a good excuse, agreed to meet him on the following day. He put down the phone, realising that not only had Pym outmanoeuvred him from Moscow but that Sir Peveril had railroaded him here in London. Very well, he thought, he'd deliver Pym's message. Then it would be over.

Seconds later, Katherine called. She had arranged to get away – could she stay at the flat? Could she ever! Of course, Greg told her. It was strange, though. It wasn't love any more. So what was it? Sex? Friendship? Maybe they were both lonely. He went back to Bruno's tapes.

‘By nineteen forty-two America, thank God, was in the war. With that and the German disasters in the Soviet Union, the situation seemed less desperate. But still men died; still there were air-raids. At home we were getting shabby because, as clothes and household things wore out, we were not allowed enough coupons to replace them. We were short of food and fuel. It was dark. Singapore was taken by the Japanese and Malta withstood heavy bombing. Here we were tired.

‘There were bad rumours about what was happening to the Jews. The transports to the concentration camps had begun.

‘I got a job, driving an ambulance for St George's Hospital. They called up all unmarried women – they could join the services or take over the jobs the men weren't doing and Sally was delivering the post. There was soon a scandal when all the mail for the Belgravia district went out stamped with a crude hammer and sickle. Several residents,
including a general from the Boer War and a relative of the King, complained. Sally was held to be implicated in this.

‘Anyway, one day in the early part of the summer I had been on duty for thirty hours with one two-hour break. I came back dog-tired in the afternoon and there was Sally fast asleep in her uniform on a sofa, her bare feet with painted toenails dangling over the edge – and very dirty. I went upstairs to my little room, lay down and fell asleep. As I did so I anticipated Briggs coming in unexpectedly, finding me and complaining about my sleeping in my uniform with my shoes still on but, then, what did I care? We were all so tired. We would have killed, sometimes, for sleep.

‘I remember thinking, what would happen if Hitler pulled out of Russia and invaded? What was there to stop him? Then I was asleep, but not for long because suddenly there was this terrible noise of shouting in the corridor outside. Now, Pym and Briggs were supposed to be away doing secret work in the country, Julia was in Egypt with Sir Peveril – so why was Sally shouting, outside the bathroom door, “Come out of there, you bastard! For God's sake, don't use all the hot water. We're filthy. Come out, you mean bastard, or I'll come in and kill you!”

‘And I was so angry at being woken, at the thought that someone was in the bathroom taking all the hot water that I got up and ran out. There was Sally, hammering on the bathroom door and ordering me over her shoulder, “Break this door down! Just break this door down! He can't have all that water.”

‘I was so mad that I stood back and kicked the lock of
the door. And Sally shouted, “Bruno's breaking the door down!”

‘And then, just as I was aiming another kick and asking Sally, “Who's in there?” a voice said, “Bloody hell,” in an indignant way and the door opened. There was Theo Fitzpatrick, looking annoyed, dripping, with a towel round his waist. Behind him, a huge bath of water steamed – you were only supposed to have five inches of water in the bath, to be patriotic and save fuel.

‘Sally shouted to me, “Come on!” and pushed past Theo. She started stripping off her clothes. I went past him too – he was astonished – and at the sight of all that wonderful hot water I took off my clothes too. She jumped in and I jumped in after her. Oh, the joy of it! The water, of course.

‘Sally and I did have something in common. We both loved cold, clever Englishmen. It's true that in a close relationship Sally – even I – would have been what they called “too much” for them. But, Christ, Greg,' Bruno burst out, ‘whether it was sex or love or whatever it was, anybody, everybody was “too much” for them. What the rest of the world called love, they called too much for them.

‘Then Sally started grabbing about for the soap and wailing, “Oh, God, Bruno. I've thrown him out of the bath. He'll never forgive me. What do you think I should do? Oh, Bruno.” She grasped part of me I might as well not name and said, “Oh, darling, so sorry. Just a mistake. Vast apologies. Please, darling, give me your advice. What can I do? Do you think he'll hate me now?”

‘Theo's voice then called from the doorway. “I've taken a pair of Briggs's pants. Is that all right?”

‘“Not the silk ones!” I shouted from the bath. I was afraid of Briggs.

‘“Don't worry. I'll square it with him.”

‘“Oh, God, the man I love, in Alexander Briggs's silk drawers.” Sally groaned. “I can't bear it – it's so erotic!” She plunged out of the bath. “Theo!” she cried, running naked from the bathroom. When I emerged, there were sounds from Briggs's bedroom. I was horrified – as I've told you, I spent most of my nights in the dressing room next door, unless summoned by my master, and even then he'd often send me back when he'd finished with me. And now this desecration, as you might call it.

‘Downstairs the kitchen was in chaos. Breakfast had consisted of the last egg, tea and plum brandy, which Theo must have brought with him. And, of course, broken glass all over the sink, draining board and much of the floor. I set to work to clear up before going back on duty again, worrying about Briggs coming back without warning to find his silk underwear gone, and his bedroom occupied. Sally and Theo did not emerge.

‘I went back on duty. That day from a flat down by the river they pulled out twins, dead in their cot, which had been smashed by a falling ceiling. The parents, who had survived, stood outside the ruined house sobbing. The woman had their cat, a big tabby, in her arms and her tears were plopping down into the animal's fur.

‘Funnily enough, though it wasn't funny really, the raids weren't so bad after that for a week or two.

‘And Theo was back. At that time he was officially in the Army, but only loosely attached. We knew, or thought
we knew, that earlier he'd been in Yugoslavia helping the partisans there. The plum brandy, with its Serbo-Croat label, certainly supported this theory. Now he was on leave, awaiting orders, he said. During the early summer of ‘forty-two he courted Sally, not that he hadn't won her many years before – and again, and again – but still, he courted her.

‘So there were a few weeks of another of Sally's honeymoons.

‘The group at Pontifex Street became one huge party based on the Gargoyle Club, or La Vie, and ending up in the early hours back at the house with armfuls of bottles.

‘That was about when Sally and Theo would often make an appearance. Sally had to get up early for her job, and was still performing at La Vie, but she and Theo spent a lot of the day making love in her room. Briggs didn't like it, but surprisingly he made few objections. I always thought he and Theo had a peculiar relationship. At the time I believed it was based on something from the past. Now I wonder if Theo was Briggs's spymaster, his controller.

‘So Theo and Sally were there, laughing, talking and making love until the early morning, and then Theo, who needed little sleep, would be up again at nine or ten, ready for a good talk with Briggs or, more likely, Pym, who was always late in the morning with a hangover, and anyone else who had stayed overnight. Geoffrey Forbes was often there and Charles Denham, with a Bohemian sort of girl who was after him and often caught him when his romance with the American woman was even more on the rocks than usual.

‘You'd get up in the morning, as often as not, fall over a
kit-bag left at the top of the stairs, bump into some confused soildier or sailor in only his trousers, who was trying to find the bathroom, walk down and find that the sitting room contained three or four sleeping figures, go into the kitchen and hear these extraordinary conversations between Theo, Pym, Briggs, Forbes and Denham going on, about rows in the cabinet, partisan activities in Greece, strikes in the coal mines. It was very indiscreet. It was a ferment. “One-word answers to this question please,” Theo said once, to an audience of Briggs, Pym, a Polish airman who had shot down thirty German planes, and Sally, back from her early delivery. “What will you do when Hitler wins the war?”

‘Pym replied, “Drink,” and Briggs, “Organise.”

‘The Polish airman replied, “Return.”

‘“Sally?” Theo asked, turning to her.

‘“Loot,” she responded, adding, “The shops, darling, for clothes and shoes.”

‘As the latest Mrs Thing came through the door – her name was Wendy Buck – Theo said, “What will you do when Hitler invades, Mrs – er—?'