The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (30 page)

The tadpoles had grown since she last came to the pond. Nina lay on her stomach and poked at them with a stick. Several were half-frogs now, short legs sprouting from the buds of flesh along their bodies. She watched as they winnowed clumsily through the scum at the pond's edge. The water smelled thick and dank.

“Nina! Where are you?”

It was Aunt Min. She was calling in English, which meant that she was cross. Nina hesitated. She was not supposed to go near the pond by herself. She could come out right away and be scolded, or she could stay here and pretend she had not heard. If she hid for long enough Aunt Min would get anxious, she would think something bad had happened, and when she found Nina she would be too relieved to punish her.

“Nina! You can hear me, I know you can. If I have to come and hunt for you there'll be trouble.”

This time there was an edge to Aunt Min's voice. Reluctantly Nina clambered up. She had got green pond slime on her dress, viscous against the yellow stripes. It was on her legs too, a great streak of it next to the rubbery white scar where she had fallen in some gravel when she was three.

Aunt Min was standing on the terrace beside the back door. She wore a flowered cotton overall, her dark hair tied up in a scarf. “Just look at you. I thought I told you to keep away from the pond. You're as grubby as a Gypsy.”

“Gypsies are really called pikeys,” Nina said, trailing her stick behind her. “Fred the gardener told me.”

“Not in this house they're not.” Aunt Min threw the stick aside and hustled Nina indoors. “Now, into the bath with you, and then you can have supper in your pajamas. It's early to bed tonight. We've got a long day tomorrow.”

“Why?” said Nina. “
Perchè, Zia Mena?
”

“You know why. We're going to London to see your father.”

The bath was very deep, with ornate feet like claws. Sometimes Nina imagined that it was a giant bird and she was riding it, like the roc that carried Sinbad the Sailor.

“I don't want to go to London,” she said. “I'd rather stay here. Can't we stay here instead?”

Aunt Min took no notice, but whipped Nina's dress over her head. “At least you haven't got pond muck in your hair. That's one thing to be thankful for.”

Nina's hair was dark and curly, inclined to tangle. Whenever it was washed she screamed like a banshee. It's just as well we don't live in Soho, Aunt Min used to say. The neighbors would think I was beating you. Aunt Min often talked about Soho: narrow higgledy-piggledy houses, the smell of cigarettes and fried onions, music and chattering late into the night. She had taken Nina there once, excitedly pointing out this doorway, that little café, but to Nina it seemed just an ordinary row of closed-up houses, not a magical place at all.

The enamel of the bath was scratchy with lime scale. She thought of her father, his mustache that tickled when he kissed you, the gentle wheeze when he spoke. He was a writer, quite a famous one, he got his picture in the papers. Whenever he saw Nina his eyes would skew sideways, as though there was something wrong with her face and he could not quite bring himself to look at it.

Nina watched the slime on her legs dissolve in the bathwater. “Aunt Min,” she asked, “why doesn't Papa like looking at me?”

Aunt Min did not answer, but reached for the flannel and the cake of Pears soap. Nina thought the question must have been rude, or else impossible. She was always being told that her questions were impossible.

In silence Filomena dunked the flannel in the bathwater. “It is because you remind him of your mother,” she said at last.

There had been
no sense of foreboding about Olivia's departure, that day in July. If anything, she had been excited about going to London. Filomena had helped her pack, fetching out the smart clothes she hardly ever wore in Sussex, the chiffon blouses, the well-cut suits, a couple of evening dresses.

“Perhaps we'll go dancing,” Olivia said, holding up one of the dresses. It was of damson satin, subtly reflecting the light. “I haven't set foot on a dance floor for months.”

Filomena smiled. They led a quiet life, punctuated by occasional visits from Bernard; it was not surprising that Olivia got restless. Sometimes she would push back the chairs and wind up the gramophone, and she would dance the tango in the sage-green drawing room. Filomena and Nina used to watch her enraptured as she twisted and spun across the floor. It was not the same as dancing in public, though; Filomena could tell that from Olivia's face.

“Do you think Nina will miss me?” Olivia said suddenly, clutching at the dark red dress. Filomena took the question to mean, Is it wrong of me to leave her?

“Nina will be all right,” she said as she tucked some rolled-up silk stockings into the open suitcase. “It's just for a few days, Mrs. Rodway. She'll hardly notice that you're not here.”

A flicker of relief crossed Olivia's face. “You're right, Filomena. She's only three, she won't notice I've gone. And I'll be home again before she knows it.”

It was Bernard who had asked Olivia to go to London. Penelope was coming to stay. He had told her he would be too busy to entertain her, but she had insisted, and now Bernard was afraid that she would feel neglected.

“I'll only make it worse, Bernard,” Olivia said when he telephoned. “You know that. She'll sulk because she hasn't got you to herself.”

Bernard harrumphed. He still disliked it when his wife criticized his mother. “Well, perhaps, but at least you can keep an eye on her. Penelope thinks that now the Allies have invaded France the war's as good as over. She doesn't understand that London's a dangerous place. I don't think she believes that doodlebugs exist.”

That summer the Germans had unleashed a new weapon upon southern England: flying bombs, or V-1s, known as doodlebugs. Several had landed in Sussex, and they were wreaking havoc in the capital. They struck by daylight when the streets were crowded; the engines would fall silent, and moments later a ton of high explosive would descend.

“Besides,” Bernard said, in a different, wistful voice, “I want to see you, my darling. I haven't seen you for weeks.”

On Olivia's first evening in London they went dancing, not to the Golden Slipper but to another nightclub close to Piccadilly. Bernard tipped the bandleader to play “Dark Eyes,” so that Olivia could dance the tango in her plum-colored dress. She danced more wonderfully than ever, Bernard thought, as though she were making up for lost time. Nobody in the nightclub could keep their eyes from her.

The following day Penelope arrived. Just as Olivia had predicted, she was annoyed to find that she would not have Bernard to herself, and she sniffed and pouted, complaining about the food, the stuffy weather, Olivia's poor housekeeping. To keep the peace, Bernard took them both for lunch at the Savoy, Penelope's favorite. In the taxi to the restaurant Penelope would not stop needling Olivia. Why on earth was she spending so much of her time in Sussex? She had a nanny for the little girl; surely her place was with her husband? That was what Penelope would do, in her situation. Olivia grimaced. She knew perfectly well that if she had decided to stay in London Penelope would be sniping at her for neglecting her child.

“Filomena has war work to do, she cannot always care for Nina,” she said, with careful serenity. “Besides, she is my daughter. I want to watch her growing up…”

They had reached the Savoy now. Bernard paid off the taxi and led them toward the hotel entrance, set back from the Strand. He was halfway there when he heard the drone of a V-1 in the sky.

“Quick!” he shouted, as he swung behind a sheltering pillar. “There's a doodlebug. Take cover!”

Penelope, on the pavement, was fussing with the seams of her stockings. “What? Don't be so silly, Bernie—”

Olivia plunged toward the pillar. As she dived she grasped Penelope's elbow, trying to drag her to safety. Penelope resisted, her high heels braced stubbornly, like a horse.

“For God's sake, Mother,” snapped Bernard. Leaping forward he seized her arm and hauled her against the wall. The violence of his lunge threw Olivia off balance. She felt a terrible lurching, struggling to save herself, knowing she must fall. Above her the V-1's engine cut out. There was a flash, a crash; then silence.

Olivia was killed
at once; probably, Bernard said, she knew nothing about it. That was what he told Filomena, in an unnaturally calm voice. Filomena asked what to do. Should she bring Nina to London, or did Bernard intend to travel to Sussex, to tell his daughter what had happened? There was a silence on the telephone as though Bernard had not thought about this at all. Oh, he said, I think you should talk to her, Filomena. It will be better coming from you.

Filomena had watched her own mother die, but she had no idea how to break such news to a three-year-old child. In the end she took Nina on her lap and explained that Olivia had had an accident, she had been hurt, too badly hurt for the doctors to help her, she would not be coming home again. Nina sucked her fingers, as she always did when she was thinking.

“Has she gone to heaven?” she asked at last.

Filomena seized gratefully on the question. “Yes, that's right. She's gone to heaven. And she's watching over you, Nina, to keep you safe.”

Nina gave her a slow thoughtful look, and Filomena did not know if she believed this comforting vision or not. Afterward she did not talk about her mother. Instead she would tiptoe through the empty rooms in Dickie's house, peering behind the sofa, pulling back the curtains. Sometimes she would say, tentatively, Mama?, as though she did not quite dare to hope for a reply. She began to wet the bed, a habit she had outgrown months before, and often she would wake in the night, howling and shivering, unable to speak. When this happened Filomena took her into her own bed, until warmth and company lulled her to sleep once more. Those nights gave Filomena a primitive sense of satisfaction. Surely you could not do anything in your life more worthwhile than to comfort a bereaved child.

She remembered it now, as she poured herself a whisky and soda in the sage-green drawing room. She had put Nina to bed, and she was savoring the peace before the onslaught of their trip to London. It was a pity, she thought, that Bernard had not seen his daughter in the months after Olivia's death. He sent Filomena money, generous amounts of it, and every week or so he telephoned, but it seemed there was no question of a visit. By the time he finally came to Sussex the damage had been done. Bernard was a stranger: “that man,” Nina called him, no matter how Filomena corrected her. As for Bernard, he had tried to hide it, but Filomena had seen him stiffen when he first glimpsed Nina's face, thin and beaky, with Olivia's eyes.

She took a mouthful of whisky, feeling it burn pleasurably against her throat. Nobody in Frith Street would have allowed her to drink whisky: not her father, not her brothers, not Bruno, if she had married him. Bruno had gone back to Lazio after the war, with Mauro and Renata and the baby. As for the kiosk, the lease had been sold to a returning Cockney in his demob suit, and the money shared within the family.

Filomena looked around the drawing room. Over the years she had come to think of it as hers, with its russet curtains, its chrome-tipped decanters, the gaudy stage designs upon the walls. She had her nest egg of money, she had her job caring for Nina; after the havoc and grief of war her life had apparently righted itself. Even the loss of Stan Harker had grown easier to bear. She could remember his face calmly, tenderly now, without having to push the memory away.

Yet tonight she felt uneasy. It seemed to her that uncertainty stalked the house, sniffing warily at the corners, like a fox. Nothing lasts forever, thought Filomena. You ought to know that by now.