On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

11

Antonia was talking like a tour guide as she drove the Bentley up Portland Place and into Park Crescent. The route they were taking, she informed Rose, had been built by John Nash as a triumphal drive for that randy old swank the Prince Regent, all the way from St James’s Park through Regent Street and Portland Place to what was planned to be a royal pleasure pavilion in Regent’s Park. The Crescent had been conceived as a circus, but the funds ran out, so it was cut off halfway, and of course the pleasure pavilion was given the axe as well. Most of Nash’s beautiful terraced houses had now been taken over by embassies, clubs and businesses. Antonia’s was one of the few still in use as a private home.

All this was lost on Rose. Her thinking had stopped at two death certificates, one with Barry’s name on it, the other blank.

She’d been so preoccupied with what had happened in the past ten days that she’d failed entirely to see where it might lead. Barry’s ‘accident’ had been a brilliant remedy for her troubles. Antonia had made it seem simple, doing what was necessary as if it were a common courtesy, like sharing an umbrella. Now, with the same serene indifference, Antonia was planning something else, and Rose was expected to join in. You can’t share an umbrella without walking together.

The car door slammed. Antonia was already out and making an exaggerated gesture to Rose to follow.

‘Come on. You need some strong coffee. You’re looking more and more like that God-forsaken woman on the poster.’

‘Well, the inquest was no picnic.’

Rose followed her between the twin columns at the entrance and up white steps into what could have passed as a set for one of those frothy films about the high life made to distract audiences from post-war austerity. She didn’t believe real people lived in such opulence. You could have held a dance in the hall. The corniced ceiling was high enough to house two crystal chandeliers. There was a crimson carpet. Satin-striped wallpaper. An oval mahogany table with a silver tray for visiting cards.

Antonia tossed her fur coat over a chair. ‘Hector insisted we furnish it in Regency. He’s so hidebound. When we’ve got rid of him I’m going to strip it bare and start again. I want white walls and huge abstract paintings. Do you like Ben Nicholson?’

Rose missed the question. The skin at the back of her neck felt as if something had crawled across it.

‘The painter, darling.’

Her legs started to shake. If she wasn’t to make a complete idiot of herself she had to stay upright and mouth some words that would keep Antonia talking about the house. ‘Who did you say?’

‘Ben Nicholson.’

‘He’s a painter, is he? I can’t say I’ve heard of him.’

Antonia reached around Rose’s shoulder and gently helped her off with her coat. ‘Sweetie, you should never admit such ignorance. What you should say is, Nicholson’s all right, but I prefer Stanley Spencer or Paul Nash or — who do you prefer?’

Rose’s thoughts were still in turmoil. Name an artist. Any artist. She couldn’t. ‘I don’t know anything about modern art.’

‘Christ Almighty. Then you should definitely meet Hector. He thinks Picasso is something Italians eat. Make yourself at home in the sitting room — second door — and I’ll see if he’s in yet. He was supposed to be having lunch with a French professor. Ten to one he’s sleeping it off.’

‘Antonia, don’t disturb him on my account. I’m sure there’ll be another opportunity.’

There was a pause.

‘The opportunity is now, my flower. It’s got to be faced.’

She grasped Antonia’s arm. ‘Just a moment. I’d like to get this clear if you don’t mind. What exactly has got to be faced?’

Antonia made light of it. ‘Did I make him sound like an ogre? Don’t worry — he’s the one who should look out.’

Rose didn’t pursue the question. Mentally she was reeling. She stepped into the room Antonia had indicated. It was as large as her own kitchen, sitting room and passage knocked into one. The dominant colours were blue and white. A tall clock startled her by chiming the quarter-hour. The date 1765 was painted on it in gold. Sets of china and silver were ranged about the walls in display cabinets. Waist-high Chinese vases that she took to be Ming stood on either side of the fireplace, where a white Persian cat was staring at the flames. It raised itself, arched, yawned and came to rub its head against her legs.

She stooped to run her fingers through the fur, wanting urgently to find some way of calming her nerves. She tried marshalling the few facts she’d learned about Hector: the meeting with Antonia on the steps of the air-raid shelter; his civilian status in the war; the death by drowning of his wife, whose name Rose had forgotten. To which could be added his ignorance of modern art and his lunch today with a French professor. And the evidence all around Rose that she had never been so close to real wealth.

Antonia pushed open the door. ‘Just as I thought. He says he wants black coffee. How about you?’

‘Coffee would be nice. Can I help?’

‘No, I want to show off. We had a couple of servants until two weeks ago, a married couple, Irish. They took exception to something I said and walked out in a huff. Getting replacements is the very devil. However, I’ve learned how to make coffee, so I don’t miss a chance to impress visitors. You can come and see the kitchen if you like.’

Rose stopped in the kitchen doorway and put her hands to her face. ‘Oh, Antonia!’

‘What’s that? My fridge?’

It stood on stilts, a humming white cabinet of monumental size with a door like the front of a bank vault that Antonia needed two hands to unfasten and swing open. Rose gasped in awe at the intricate arrangement of shelves and trays inside, the Perspex storage boxes, the ice compartment and the place for bottles. For the moment her terrors were suspended.

‘You like?’

She gave a start. Her nerves were in no state for surprises. Possibly the small man at her shoulder — who could be no one else but Hector — hadn’t meant to startle her. He was so short that he’d slipped under her protective radar. She looked into a fleshy, smiling face framed in unruly reddish hair. Alert, brown intelligent eyes. Small, even teeth. A quite low-pitched voice with a strange intonation.

‘You can order one from me. In production next year.’

Antonia slammed the fridge door. ‘For Christ’s sake, Hector, she lives in a matchbox. Rosie, this impetuous little man is my husband.’

Hector was unperturbed. Whether or not he understood, he treated her remark as a recommendation. ‘Yes, I take orders now. Quality vacuum cleaners and fridges. Take the work out of housework. The only thing you hear from GEC, Prestcold, any of those companies is, fridges are on the way, worth waiting for, coming soon. Me, I take orders. How often do you wash your clothes? Soon I have a washing machine on the market better than anything in America. How do you do?’

They shook hands. He must have been ten years Antonia’s senior, possibly more. Redheaded people carry their age well.

Rose was trying hard to place the accent. She hadn’t expected a foreigner.

‘I’ve never seen such an amazing fridge.’

‘You like to see my high power vacuum cleaner?’

Antonia put a restraining hand on Hector’s shoulder. In her heels she was cruelly taller than he. ‘Hec, my cherub, you’re boring my friend already. Why don’t you take her into the sitting room and talk about something unmechanical while I brew up my delicious coffee?’

Out of earshot in the sitting room Rose confided to Hector that after all she would be interested to hear about his work.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘I thought so.’ He pulled two chairs together and gestured to her to be seated. ‘Antonia has heard it many times before. It’s not news to her no more. You know, Rosie, engineering is in my blood. My father he had the first motor car in Prague. When I was still in short trousers he showed me how to strip. You understand?’

‘Take the engine to pieces?’

‘And assemble again. Clever boy, oily fingers, I went to technical school. Worked in a motor car factory seven years, made enough ackers to kiss my father goodbye, go to America. Detroit. Bloody hard work. Making automobiles by day, aeroplane parts by night. I worked six to midnight for a small guy starting up. Four, maybe five hours sleep, but no matter. This was one hell of a good time to be in aero-engineering. I had a brilliant idea for a carburettor nobody thought of. So my friend says, Hec, why don’t you give up making automobiles and be my partner? Half-share in the business. We shake hands and sign a paper. In two years, big profit. Big expansion. I expanded, too. Don’t smile. I mean I got married. Maudie, a sweet girl from Detroit who wanted only one thing — to get the hell out of there. So I told my partner the problem. He bought me out and we sailed to England. 1931. Mauretania.’

‘Romantic.’

Hector winked. ‘Good business, too, Rosie. Plenty of customers for aero parts. I made the best carburettors Britain ever saw. I started a small factory in Surbiton, handy for Vickers. In seven years I had customers all over. I built factories in Birmingham, Southampton, Oxford. Many orders. Then the war came along. Aircraft production went crazy. Lord Beaverbrook cried out for carburettors. Everyone wanted carburettors. A. V. Roe, Vickers Supermarine, Handley Page, Fairey.’

Hector was warming to his story. The cat made a run for the door as Antonia came in with the coffee.

‘Has he bored you stiff with his carburettors, darling? He talks about them the way other people talk about their operations.’

‘I find it fascinating.’

‘Liar. You don’t have to stand on ceremony with us. Hec, do something useful and hand round the biscuits. I bet he hasn’t said a word about your unhappy experience. You’re all dressed up in black and he hasn’t even asked why. You’d have to arrive in a hearse for him to take any interest and then he’d have the bonnet up to look at the carburettor. Hector, my friend Rose lost her husband last week, and when I say lost I mean he fell off the platform in the tube.’

‘The tube. Oh, Jesus. Six hundred and thirty volts.’

‘See the way his mind works?’

‘It doesn’t offend me.’

Rose smiled at Hector. To be fair, he’d looked distinctly concerned when he spoke of all those volts. If there was offence to be taken, it was at being invited to discuss his shortcomings in front of him as if he were deaf or stupid. He may have been socially out of step, but he had energy and honesty. She liked the disarming way he’d told his story, without the pretended modesty that most Englishmen seemed to feel was necessary when speaking about their achievements. He’d earned his fortune through hard work and enterprise and wasn’t ashamed to say so.

Now for some curious reason he was looking at Rose with awe.

He refused to be intimidated by Antonia. He found a way of excluding her just as blatantly as she’d talked over him. ‘I feel close to you, Rosie. You and I, we both had the same experience.’

Antonia thrust a cup of coffee towards Rose. ‘He means his wife had an accident, too. Careful how you drink this stuff. It’s out of a bottle. I won’t blame you if you spit it out.’

She took a sip. ‘It’s not at all bad.’

Hector held out the biscuits. ‘These help to disguise the taste. She drowned, my Maudie.’

‘How dreadful.’ In common decency she felt obliged to react as if she hadn’t heard the information before. She just hoped Antonia wouldn’t take her up on it.

‘It was in a swimming pool. In the war I had this country house in Hampshire for weekends. Nice grounds. Nice pool. Long way from Portsmouth and Southampton. Pretty safe from bombing. Our friends came sometimes. Maudie liked to give parties.’ He glanced across at Antonia, which was a mistake because she slickly took over the story.

‘She’d had a skinful, and that’s no exaggeration, darling. She’d been on rum and peppermint, of all things. She couldn’t have swum a stroke if she’d tried.’

‘Did anyone see what happened?’

‘Most of us were on the terrace dancing to the gramophone. One of the staff spotted her lying on the bottom soon after midnight. Six feet down.’

‘Six feet six.’

‘There speaks the engineer again. Hector, dear, you shouldn’t say things like that. It gives an appalling impression, as if you didn’t care. Of course we both know that couldn’t be further from the truth. It wasn’t his fault she was so depressed.’

Hector gave a nod. ‘Time to change the subject, eh? Rosie, do you like to cook?’

‘Well, when I could get eggs and things, yes.’

‘We can get plenty. Butter. Sugar.’

Antonia sighed. ‘There you go again.’

‘What’s wrong now?’

‘Rosie’s going to think we’re on the black market, that’s what’s wrong. The fact is, Rose, that I’m the world’s worst cook, so we generally go to restaurants. I never get through my ration books.’

Hector grinned. ‘Biggest fridge in London. Bugger all in it.’

He got a glare from Antonia.

Rose laughed. Why take offence? She and Antonia had heard plenty worse in the old days. She was suddenly aware how much those few minutes with Hector had relaxed her. She’d been terribly strung-up before.

She smiled happily. ‘I don’t blame you. I’d bloody well eat out as well if I could afford it.’

‘Why don’t you come out with us, then?’ Antonia suggested.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean that.’

‘Don’t be so coy. We’d like your company, wouldn’t we, Hec?’

‘But of course! Tomorrow?’ His sharp eyes shone at the prospect.

She was ambushed by their solidarity. ‘I couldn’t possibly before the funeral. Perhaps later in the week?’

‘Saturday.’

Soon after this was agreed, Hector had to answer the phone. Antonia got up.

‘You look all in, darling. I’ll drive you back to Pimlico.’

In the Bentley, Rose tried to launch a bland, undemanding conversation.

‘I love your house.’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Antonia didn’t pause. She came straight out with it. ‘What do you think of my husband?’

The tension clamped Rose again like pincers. What was she expected to say? ‘I didn’t realize you’d married a foreigner. He’s so different from most Englishmen.’

‘God, I hope so!’

‘He made me welcome.’

‘He would, so long as you listen to his tedious life story and coo at intervals. I’m sick of it. It drives me up the wall. That and his vacuum cleaners.’

‘Do you think he knows?’

‘Of course he does. He’s so full of himself that he doesn’t give a shit.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sweetie, I’m not fishing for sympathy. I didn’t waste any on you, did I?’

Rose looked away, not wanting to go into what Antonia had done in lieu of sympathy. ‘Doesn’t it get dark early now? It’s not even five o’clock.’

‘I want an end to it.’

‘A divorce?’

‘No chance of that. It’s against his religion. He’s a Catholic. Doesn’t go to church or eat fish on Fridays, but when it comes to divorce, he’s unshakeable. It’s against God’s law. That’s how he was brought up.’

‘Have you asked him? If it doesn’t mean so much to him now, perhaps he’d see his way to giving you a divorce.’

‘What use is that to me? I’d lose everything and have to pay the costs.’

‘Why?’

‘I’d be the guilty party, wouldn’t I?’

‘You mean...?’

‘You know what I mean. Let’s face it, Rose. I’ve got a lover. To put it in legal claptrap I’ve committed adultery on a number of occasions. No prizes for guessing the name of the fascinating man.’

‘Does Hector know?’

‘He turns a blind eye. The only way it would come to his attention is if he found us at it in his precious fridge, or doing something naughty with the vacuum cleaner.’

‘There may be other grounds. Has he ever been cruel to you?’

‘Hector?’ She found this amusing.

Now Rose had started, she felt obliged to continue. ‘Is there any chance that he’s been with someone else? There must be plenty of designing women who’d fancy a man with his money.’ She wished immediately that she’d kept her mouth shut.

‘Like I did, you mean?’ Antonia let the question hang in the air just long enough to give Rose a wrench of embarrassment, then dismissed it. ‘No, darling, no vultures circling overhead. I’d know.’

Mercifully the conversation stopped for the traffic at Piccadilly Circus. When they’d crossed to the Haymarket, Rose changed to a different tack.

‘I’d be glad if you’d put me down in Victoria Street. I’d like to get these documents to the undertaker.’

‘Whatever you want, my dear.’

‘Thanks.’

Antonia added, ‘By the way, I shan’t be coming to Barry’s funeral.’

‘That’s all right. I didn’t expect you.’

‘It doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest.’

‘I know.’

‘And no disrespect meant to Barry.’ She slowed for a traffic light. ‘It’s a burial, I take it?’

‘Yes. Just a few people.’

‘Brompton Cemetery?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor old Barry. Grounded at last.’ The light changed to green. ‘I’m going to have Hector cremated.’