Liberty Silk (9 page)

‘Yes. That wasn’t elegant. But these girls
were
elegant, somehow.’ Baba looked speculative. ‘I guess a lot of sex went on in that villa. People were always flirting and dancing, and there was always music playing – the same tune was on the Victrola from morning until night – it was Noël Coward’s “Poor Little Rich Girl.”’

Sabu gave her his great smile. ‘Was she pretty? Your mother.’

‘Pretty’s the wrong word. She had . . . mystique, I guess you’d call it.’

‘What happened to her, Baba?’

‘I don’t know. Nobody ever told me.’ Baba looked down at her hand in Sabu’s and started to play with his fingers. ‘I was sent away to England, and that was the last night I remember ever having her all to myself. I spent a long time sitting on her lap by the bedroom window, watching the garden turn a darker and darker shade of blue. The moon looked so close that you felt you might unhook it from heaven if you could only stretch your fingers an inch or so higher. And sparrows were squabbling, and she told me that they were squabbling over who had laid the prettiest egg, because nobody had laid a prettier egg than the one I hatched out of. And then she read me the story of the Little Mermaid which I loved because it was so happy and so sad at the same time. And the next day it seemed to me that summer was over because the blue sea had turned grey, and the wind – the mistral – came howling down from the Alps. That was when I was told that my grandpa and grandma wanted to meet me, which was strange because no-one had ever spoken of them before.’

‘So that’s how you ended up living in London?’

‘Yes. But it wasn’t long before Grandma got sick of me, and sent me off to boarding school.’

A silence stretched between them, then Sabu said: ‘That was a companionable silence, wasn’t it? They always call them “companionable silences” in books.’

Baba laughed, then gave a shiver and said: ‘Let’s go and play snooker. It’s too cold to stay out here any more.’ She released Sabu’s fingers, then linked his arm, and together they strolled in the direction of the games room.

‘A companionable silence,’ continued Sabu, ‘means that we are soulmates. It’s funny, isn’t it? We come from such completely different backgrounds, yet here we are flung together by fate – the way Abu and the princess in
Thief
were.’ He looked up again at the grey sky where big clouds were, like them, scudding westward. ‘I wonder what the future holds for us, Baba? What do you hope we may find there?’

‘In America?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that we’ll find what Abu goes in search of.’

Sabu smiled. ‘“Some fun and adventure at last”?’

‘You’ve got it in one, Sabu. Some fun and adventure at last.’

Baba’s first abiding memory of Los Angeles was the fluted stone and chrome art deco buildings on Sunset and Wilshire – so modern! so sophisticated! – and her second was of a giant orange with a window cut in it to serve juice through. She was to find that such discrepancies in taste were commonplace in California.

She had been booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel along with Sabu, where she was to stay until she found a place of her own. On the way there, the driver pointed out landmarks: Grauman’s Chinese Theater where the stars’ hand- and footprints were immortalized on the forecourt, the Café Montmartre – ‘Where everyone goes to see and be seen’ – and last and most magnificent of all, the Gillette mansion which Gloria Swanson had bought when she was just twenty-three years old. Baba vowed that one day she, too, would live in a dream house like that.

The Beverly Hills was an extravagant, sprawling village of a hotel, and for two days Baba resided in style, looking down on the beautiful villas that lined the drives and avenues on the surrounding hillside. Sadly, her new home was at the other end of the spectrum to these opulent palaces. It was an apartment – not much bigger than her stateroom on the
Duchess
– but it had the advantage of being within walking distance of the studio. And there was a swimming pool in the garden! It was tiny, but for Baba any pool was synonymous with glamour.

The apartment also boasted a small kitchen, which meant that she could save money by catering for herself. Before the war, she and Dorothy had had fun experimenting with Countess Morphy’s eclectic cookbook,
Recipes of All Nations
, but in Hollywood, because she had to be mindful of her figure, Baba got by on cottage cheese, radishes and saltines while fantasizing about the countess’s Chicken Marengo and Pont Neuf potatoes. She’d read in
Screen Book
’s Lowdown Chart that Carole Lombard, who – at 5’ 5½” – was exactly the same height as her, weighed in at 112 lb, and Baba was determined to get there too.

ADÈLE WAS LEANING
against the blistered wooden door of the bistro on the ground floor of the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux as Jessie trudged by with a bundle under her arm. Jessie pretended not to see her, but she could hardly ignore the woman when she called out a greeting in her raucous accent. ‘Hey! Where are you off to with that bundle, Milady? The laundry? Or the pawnshop?’

Jessie paused. She knew that there was no point in maintaining her veneer of dignity. ‘You guessed right second time,’ she admitted.

‘Tch, tch, tch. Didn’t I tell you to come to Adèle if times got hard? Drop in here later and I’ll stand you an absinthe.’

Jessie gave her a pallid smile and continued on her way, past the red-sashed workmen and Arab navvies and the rag-pickers and vociferous hawkers and barefoot children chasing orange peel over the cobbles, past the reeking refuse-carts. Sometimes she felt as though she were walking through one of Pieter Breughel’s nightmare landscapes, and she wondered if ever again she would dally in Arcadian surroundings or stroll through Constable Country.

She stopped short as she rounded the corner onto the Rue Mouffetard. A small man, dark of hair and sallow of skin, was sitting on the terrace of a café nursing a pastis and talking animatedly to a handsome, saturnine-looking gentleman. She had no idea who the gentleman was, but she had met the small man before.

They had first encountered Count Demetrios in Siena, in the Pensione Saciaro – a former Renaissance palace. She and Scotch had arrived there one evening in the aftermath of an electric storm, and the gardens of the palace had been full of fireflies. Jessie had stepped out onto the balcony of her bedroom to admire the view, and caught sight of a little girl in a white frock performing dance steps on the lawn. She was humming a melody as an accompaniment to her dance, and when Jessie stopped to listen she realized that the song was ‘Greensleeves’. When the child had finished she dropped a curtsey, looked up at the balcony and announced in solemn tones: ‘An English song for a beautiful English lady.’

Jessie laughed and clapped her hands. ‘Thank you kindly,’ she called down to the child, and then Count Demetrios had risen from the bench on which he had been sitting and smiled up at her. ‘Good evening, Madame,’ he said, removing his hat and executing a neat bow. ‘Would you care to join me and my daughter for a refreshment?’

‘How did your little girl guess that I was English?’ Jessie asked him as they sat together at the wrought-iron table in the garden ten minutes later. She and Scotch had been exchanging pleasantries with him over a carafe of Chianti, and had found out that this middle-aged aristocrat was, like them, travelling through Europe on a painting holiday. He appeared to be a most erudite man, and was very impressed upon learning that Jesse had studied English at Cambridge.

‘Coincidentally, I myself am married to a member of a Cambridgeshire family, he told her.’

‘Your wife is British?’ said Jessie, surprised. ‘Is she here?’

‘Alas, no. She remains in Greece.’ The count shook his head sorrowfully. ‘She is unable to travel. She suffers from heart disease.’

‘Oh – how dreadful! She must miss you and her daughter terribly.’

‘Carlotta is, in fact, not our real daughter – although of course we consider her to be part of the family.’ He gazed fondly across the garden at Carlotta, who was kneeling on the path constructing a racetrack for snails from pebbles.

‘She is a remarkably beautiful child,’ said Jessie.

‘The face of an angel, indeed. But an angel with a tragic history.’ The count sighed lugubriously.

‘Oh?’ Jessie was instantly curious.

‘Yes, indeed. Her mother and her father – a dear friend – went missing at the beginning of the war, and the baby was taken to Greece where she was given over to my wife and my good self. The poor mite was suffering from malnutrition, but we nursed her back to health and have cared for her ever since.’

‘You’re clearly a good father to her, sir,’ observed Scotch. ‘She has exquisite manners.’

‘Aha! She can be a little minx, though, that Carlotta. And it is past her bedtime.’ The count glanced at his fob watch, then took up his cane and raised it to attract the child’s attention. ‘Carlotta!’ he called. ‘Desist from your snail racing and come and say goodnight to our new friends.’

The child looked up from her game and gave her angelic smile. ‘All right, naughty boy,’ she called back in her sweetly accented voice. ‘I’ll come in a minute.’

‘What did she call you?’ asked Scotch, amused.

‘It’s her nickname for me – and for any man she takes a fancy to,’ said the count. ‘She calls us all “naughty boys”.’ He knocked back the remains of his Chianti, rose to his feet and tucked his cane under his arm. ‘Carlotta,’ he said, in rather firmer tones. ‘Bedtime. Now.’

On the rue Mouffetard, Demetrios was sitting in half-profile with his back to her, but there was no mistaking his identity. The monocle, which magnified the glint in his hooded eyes. The hair sleeked back from his high forehead with pomade. The silver-topped cane that he customarily placed between his legs to lean upon as he spoke – all these affectations were present and correct, and all of them were familiar to Jessie.

She stood in a doorway, clutching her bundle to her chest. Demetrios had been good to her and Scotch, although there had been something about him that they had found unsettling. She remembered how she’d described him in a letter to her parents:

The Greek is a queer fish – very autocratic and yet artistic. He speaks familiarly about all sorts of people all over Europe and, we think, is an exile from Greece owing to political trouble.

But Demetrios had connections. He might be in a position to help Jessie now, find her some kind of employment that would pay well enough to liberate her from the hellhole that was the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux.

She studied him from her vantage point in the shop doorway. He looked prosperous, dapper, well-fed. His younger companion, too, looked prosperous, but unlike Demetrios, he was no dandy. If anything, his appearance verged on the negligent. The angle of his hat, the careless way his tie was knotted, the cigarette ash on his lapel were the sartorial equivalent of a Gallic shrug.

As Jessie watched, he rose to his feet and bade Demetrios farewell. Oh God, oh God – what should she do? Should she approach the count? Would he remember her if she did? She knew her appearance had altered almost beyond recognition. Weeks of a hand-to-mouth existence had robbed her of the bloom of a woman in love, the bloom she had taken for granted last month. She looked haggard now, she knew, even a little disreputable. Demetrios might find it embarrassing to be accosted on the street by a woman who at a push could be mistaken for a beggar.

The younger gentleman had moved off. Demetrios was settling up with the
garçon
. It was now or never. Jessie pinched her cheeks to lend them a little colour, adjusted the brim of her hat and raised her chin, then stepped jauntily out along the pavement.

Demetrios was retrieving his cane from where he had leaned it against the back of his chair just as Jessie drew abreast of him. ‘Count Demetrios!’ she exclaimed in a delighted voice. ‘What a pleasant surprise!’

The count turned, tucking his cane under his arm. ‘Mademoiselle?’ he said in a note of polite enquiry, then recognition dawned on his face. ‘
Mais, non! C’est Madame, naturellement
. Charmed to see you again.’

He executed a neat bow and extended his hand. Before she took it, Jessie saw the count’s sharp eyes flicker with interest, and knew he had registered her missing wedding ring. He scooped up her right hand and raised it to his lips.

‘How well you look,’ he said, gallantly. ‘Please – take a seat. Might you be so kind as to partake of a little refreshment?’

‘That would be delightful, Count,’ she said.

He raised a hand, snapped his fingers imperiously. ‘
Garçon! Encore ici, s’il vous plaît
. What will you have, Madame?’

Jessie sat down in the chair the waiter drew out for her. ‘A brandy and soda would be very welcome.’

‘
Deux fines à l’eau
,’ Count Demetrios told the waiter. Then he dropped into the chair opposite her and gave her a speculative look before leaning forward with both hands wrapped round the silver knob of his cane. ‘Well, Madame,’ he said, with an urbane smile. ‘It would seem that your circumstances have changed since we last met. Would you care to tell Count Demetrios all about it?’

‘SABU!’ SAID BABA
, picking up the phone. ‘I was just about to call you! Answer this for me. Who is the very successful star whose restless spirit of adventure took him to strange places?’

‘What?’

‘I’m doing a quiz in
Silver Screen
. I can win a Wittnauer’s watch worth twenty-five dollars.’

‘Forget about that. I’m calling with news for you. Ziggy Stein is looking for a new leading lady. A British one.’

Baba dropped her magazine. ‘No kidding!’

‘No kidding. Apparently he’s fed up with having to borrow English stars from other studios so he’s decided to create one of his own.’

‘How do I get to meet him?’

‘He’s giving a pool party tomorrow. I’m invited, and so are you.’

‘Sabutage! You angel.’