Before I Met You (36 page)

‘It has been a long time, hasn’t it?’ she said.

‘I wanted to see you before,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t like to
intrude
. You’ve seemed very much involved these past few weeks.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I feel I have been on a different planet. A completely different world.’

He looked at her curiously. ‘Has it been a nice world?’ he enquired.

She looked at him then with shining eyes. ‘Oh, Gideon, it really has been the most unexpected and beautiful world. I …’ She tried to say more but her words got caught up with her tears.

Gideon stopped and stood before her. They were outside the London Palladium on Argyll Street where a small queue was forming for a variety show. Arlette allowed Gideon to draw her head into his shoulder, not wanting strangers to witness her tears.

‘Oh, sweet Arlette,’ he soothed. ‘He has your heart. Doesn’t he?’

She nodded into the rough fabric of his overcoat.

He turned himself back towards the direction of their journey and kept her held close to him as he steered them east, towards Bloomsbury.

‘When does he return?’ he asked.

‘Four weeks.’

‘Oh, four weeks. That will speed by in a blur, my dear.’

She sniffed and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It absolutely won’t. I can assure you of that.’

‘Listen to me,’ he said, mock-sternly. ‘I am your friend and I will make
sure
that the next four weeks pass by in a blur. If you’ll allow me, Miss De La Mare, I will keep your mind occupied and your heart warm. If you’ll allow me I will do everything I possibly can to make sure there are no more tears.’

She smiled at him. ‘And how do you propose to do that, Gideon?’

‘Just say you’ll allow me.’ He squeezed her tight against him.

She considered the offer. She had intended to spend the next four weeks sobbing and fretting and becoming worryingly thin. She had intended to spend it sitting by the front door waiting for the postman to come. But now she had been offered an alternative, and she had to say she found it rather appealing.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will allow you to
attempt
to distract me. But I reserve the right to be utterly miserable if I so desire.’

‘But of course,’ he smiled. ‘That is your prerogative.’

‘Good,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘So, shall we begin?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘Well, I had intended to write some letters tonight.’

‘Letters to whom?’ he demanded, aghast.

‘My mother.’

He considered this for a moment with one fingertip against his bearded chin. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Well, it is for you to decide, but I intend to head from here to a poetry salon in Russell Square where they have promised home-made ginger snaps and fine sherry. And possibly an appearance from Mr Siegfried Sassoon.’

Arlette raised her eyebrows and Gideon cleared his throat and continued, ‘From there I am due to meet my eldest sister, Rebecca, for drinks at her apartment in Knightsbridge. She has just returned from a trip to
Hollywood
.’ He paused and let his
words
sink in. ‘Where she dined with
Lionel Barrymore
. Amongst others.’

Arlette’s breath caught. She thought of her mother, alone in the big house on the cliff, waiting for a letter of a decent size. And then she thought of herself again, as a girl, staring out to sea, wondering what might become of her. She had arrived, somehow, dead centre of another social tornado. She could not turn her back on it.

‘Fine,’ she said, ‘yes. I’ll come with you. But I shall need to be home before midnight.’

Gideon beamed at her. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Of course. I will guarantee it!’

‘Well, then, we must hurry,’ she said, taking his hand in hers, ‘I must change into new clothes and do something with these flowers.’

Gideon smiled widely and mischievously at her, and together they ran, breathlessly and exuberantly, hand-in-hand, through the streets of London towards her Bloomsbury apartment.

Arlette’s landlady popped her head out of her sitting-room when she heard them thundering up the stairs together a few minutes later. Miss Chettling was a single woman of around fifty with a cloud of white curls and a twinkle in her eye. She loved having the two young women in her attic, always keen to talk to them about their lives and their adventures, always admiring their clothes, their hairstyles, borrowing the latest style magazines from them and sighing with delight when she handed them back. She was also mainly deaf, which was most beneficial in regard to spiriting boyfriends in and out of their rooms at ungodly hours.

She smiled at Gideon and said, ‘Good evening, young man. Good evening, Miss De La Mare.’

‘Good evening, Miss Chettling. May I introduce my friend, Mr Gideon Worsley.’

‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Horsley.’

Gideon tipped his hat and then removed it. ‘Likewise, Miss Chettling.’

‘I’ve heard you,’ she hissed conspiratorially at him, still smiling brightly.

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Chettling?’ Gideon smiled down at her questioningly.

‘Up and down the stairs. All times of the day and night. I hear you come and go. I know you think you’re being very quiet, but you’re not.’ She let out a small peel of laughter then and covered her mouth with her fingertips, girlishly.

Gideon smiled at her uncertainly.

Arlette cleared her throat. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’d better be on our way. We’ve got dozens of parties to go to and we mustn’t be late.’

‘No!’ agreed Miss Chettling overbrightly. ‘No, you must not be late. Off you go.’ She patted Gideon’s arm and, using the low conspiratorial voice again she said, ‘I don’t mind, you know. They’re modern young women, you know. They pay their rent on time. I like my house to be busy.’

Gideon looked at her fondly and said, ‘Yes, indeed. Indeed, indeed.’ Arlette pulled him firmly by the arm, up towards her room. ‘Must go. Lovely to meet you,’ he called out to the landlady, before they both ran helter-skelter up the stairs, laughing so hard it hurt.

‘She thinks I’m Godfrey,’ Gideon said, once they were safely behind Arlette’s door.

‘It does appear that she does, yes.’

‘So, clearly, she has not been introduced to Godfrey?’

Arlette smiled wryly. ‘No, indeed not.’

‘Hmm,’ said Gideon, sinking into the settee.

Arlette looked at him crossly. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘What?’

‘“Hmm”? What do you mean by “hmm”?’

‘I mean nothing by “hmm” …’ he countered.

‘Well, I think you’re lying. I think you do mean something by it.’

Gideon narrowed his eyes. ‘I find it strange,’ he started, carefully, ‘that Godfrey has been visiting you in your rooms for ten weeks and not encountered your charming landlady, yet I have met her on my first visit.’

Arlette bridled gently. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it has always been at a much later hour. I have not wished to disturb her.’

He looked at her sceptically.

‘Are you suggesting, Gideon, that I have not introduced my beau to my landlady because I am in some way
ashamed
of him?’

‘Absolutely not.’ He looked appalled at the suggestion. ‘No. No, no, no. I just merely
wondered
, I suppose, how it has been taken beyond the narrow confines of our perfect little world. Your …
affiliation
with a gentleman of a different hue.’

Arlette drew her shoulders up and glared at him. ‘What nonsense,’ she cried. ‘Godfrey is not a gentleman of a different hue! Godfrey is a world-famous musician, the best clarinettist of his generation. He is educated and well read, he is far far cleverer than me.’

Gideon put up a conciliatory hand and smiled patiently. ‘Arlette,’ he said, firmly but gently, ‘you’re not listening to me. I would not refute a word of what you have just said. I am as awed and impressed by Mr Pickle as you, my dear lady. He is clearly an impeccable gentleman and a man of great depth and talent. I merely wonder …’ He paused, looking for words that would not enrage Arlette any further. ‘Beyond this world,’ he waved his arms around the room, ‘beyond the liberal, colourful bubble in which we conduct our lives, how do you see a future with Godfrey? How would the rest of the world, the grey, the closed-minded, view your pairing? What, for example, would your mother think?’

Arlette felt a pain to her chest then, as though she had been
slammed
hard with the handle of a broom between her ribs. She put a hand to the spot and rubbed it absent-mindedly. ‘My mother is neither grey nor closed-minded,’ she murmured.

‘No, of course not. Of course not. And it was discourteous of me to suggest that she was.’

Arlette sat then, next to Gideon, feeling the wind had been taken out of her entirely. Her mother was not grey or closed-minded. This was true. But then her mother had seen nothing of the world beyond the shores of her small island. What would she think of Godfrey? And what would she think of their babies? She thought of the dusky, lurking sailors in the backstreets of St Peter Port as foreign and other-worldly, as if they had come down from the moon. And as different from Godfrey as it was possible for two people to be. And then she thought of the whispers and the stares in the perfumery at Liberty, one of the few times she and Godfrey had walked together in daylight hours. She thought of the woman with her mouth knitted together with disapproval and her vow to shop at Lilley and Skinner.

‘Gideon,’ she said after a moment, ‘I understand your concern. But love will be enough. Love will be enough.’

Gideon looked at her fondly, fraternally. ‘Yes,’ he said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘Yes, I’m sure it will.’

43

1995

THERE WAS A
note in the mail catcher on the back of Betty’s door when she got home that night. It was in John’s handwriting and for a split second Betty felt her heart race with anticipation. And then she remembered that last night she had had sex with Dom Jones and that this morning John Brightly had seen her coming home with her knickers in her handbag. She sighed and picked the note out.

‘Betty,’ it said, ‘Alex wants you to call her. She’s got news. J.’

She felt a curious wave of disappointment engulf her. Five days ago she and John had been bonding over pints in his scruffy members’ club. Two days ago he had put his hand to her cheek and told her she was capable of anything. She’d been slowly pulling apart the bars he surrounded himself with and had been about to find a way in. But now he was pulling the bars closed again. Now he was leaving dry, impersonal notes in her mail catcher. And she had no one to blame but herself. She crunched the note into a ball and threw it angrily across the hallway.

On the fire escape she pressed in Alexandra’s number and listened to an answerphone message. She almost hung up, but then she heard Alexandra say, ‘and if that’s you, Betty, meet me
Friday
night at Jimmy’s, Frith Street. I’ll be there from eight.
So
much to tell you.’

Betty looked at the time on the display of her mobile phone. It was seven thirty. Then she looked across the courtyard towards the back of Dom’s house. It lay in darkness. She sighed and brought her knees up to her chest. Dom had sent her a text message earlier. It had said: ‘I’m off to a secret location with the band. Back on Friday. Take care. D x.’

She hadn’t known quite how to take this. She was pleased, in a way, that he’d thought to let her in on his plans. But crushed that he hadn’t alluded in any way to what had happened the previous night. But still, she thought, they both knew what had happened last night. What had happened last night had been good. But he was a rock star and she was his nanny, and really, whatever happened next was moot.

44

1920

‘ARLETTE!’ LETICIA SKIPPED
across the drawing room, a tumbler clutched in her hand, and drew Arlette towards her in a quinine-scented embrace. ‘Happy birthday, darling girl. And you must be Gideon.’ She drew Gideon down from his lofty height to embrace him too. ‘Joyful to meet you.’

She was dressed from head to toe in white lace, with a white lace headband, and strings of sparkling diamonds around her neck.

‘Here, champagne,’ she pulled a passing waitress towards her gently by the elbow and plucked flutes off her tray for them.

‘Thank you, Mrs Miller,’ said Arlette, taking the glass, ‘and thank you so much for throwing me this wonderful party. It really is so generous of you.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Leticia, still smiling up at Gideon with a kind of girlish wonder. ‘The least I can do for Dolly’s girl. How she must be missing you. And besides, Lilian
insisted
on sharing her party with you. She adores you, you know. You’re the big sister she never had.’

Arlette smiled and said, ‘Well, it is mutual. I always dreamed
of
my mother giving me a baby sister. And I love Lilian as my own.’

Leticia beamed and turned to greet another arriving guest.

The house had been decorated to look like a Japanese garden. The tables were dressed with branches of cherry blossom, lanterns hung from the ceilings and the waitresses were wearing kimonos and Geisha make-up. The dress code was White and Yellow. Most people had played it safe and dressed in white, but some guests had chosen the more challenging option and come dressed as various slightly grotesque characters from
The Mikado
. Arlette herself was dressed in a white satin bias-cut dress with a knife-pleat skirt that fell to her ankles, and silver sandals. Her hair had been set into waves in the salon at Liberty, using hot irons turned the wrong way round, and she looked, according to Gideon, ‘like a creature from the silver screen’.

‘Arlette!’ screeched Lilian, from the other side of the room. ‘You look spectacular!’

Lilian was dressed as Pierrette, and looked adorable in big-eyed clown make-up and a billowing white romper suit.

‘Happy birthday, little one.’ Arlette kissed her on her cheek, which smelled of greasepaint and rouge.

‘And to you. I can hardly believe that it was a year ago that we first met. Do you remember? Mother had made you one of her terrible drinks and you were almost cross-eyed with it. And you were wearing some awful green suit, I recall,’ she laughed.