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Martin reaches across the table and takes her hand. Suddenly, he feels much younger than the two-year age gap between them, less experienced. The only time he has been to Europe was when he was a schoolboy and he stayed in Zermatt at a posh hotel with his parents. She has seen swastikas daubed on the walls and helped rescue a Jewish painter.
‘I wish I could have met him,’ he says.
She opens her bag and takes out a handkerchief, blows her nose, then brightens.
‘We’re going to miss the curtain if I carry on like this any longer.’
‘Come then, my love.’ Martin kisses her hand and waves for the bill.
There is a play to be seen, friends to meet, songs to be sung. The crisis in Europe can wait.
‘Nancy, darling!’ a voice calls out across the packed room.
Martin watches as a tall, dashingly handsome man advances towards them. Something about his face seems familiar but Martin can’t place him. The only thing that is clear is that he is no stranger to Nancy.
‘Michael!’ Nancy holds her cheek out to be kissed.
Instead, he gives her a boozy kiss on the lips. ‘You look gorgeous as ever.’
Martin scowls. Nancy blushes. ‘Michael, this is Martin Preston. Martin, meet the incorrigible Michael Redgrave.’
Martin’s eyes widen. The famous actor! He stares at Nancy, impressed by this new side of her he has not seen before.
‘So, you’re taken already?’ Redgrave gives a crestfallen look. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to find myself another redhead.’
He is about to turn away, when a bosomy woman swathed in what looks like a Turkish robe sashays across the floor towards Redgrave, like a Spanish galleon.
‘Dorothy!’ Redgrave hugs her. ‘Murdered anyone recently?’
‘Scores, darling.’ The woman pulls a wry grin, tips back a G and T.
‘Nancy, allow me to introduce you to the doyenne of crime fiction.’ Redgrave’s baritone booms across the room. ‘Dorothy Sayers. Nancy Whelan. Martin Preston.’
Martin bows slightly and holds out his hand. His uncle, Robert, has spoken warmly of the great detective writer and Martin has read all the Lord Peter Wimsey books. ‘I’m a huge fan!’
Sayers sizes him up. ‘Steady on, you’re sounding like an American.’
Martin feels embarrassed for a moment. Then laughs. Nancy joins in as Miss Sayers tips back the rest of her G and T, kisses Redgrave on the cheek, then heads for her seat.
It’s a tiny space for a theatre: just one half of a pub. The audience sit at tables, so close they almost touch the stage. Others stand at the back. Blue smoke hangs in the air. Waitresses weave in and out of the chairs. There is laughter; conversation; the camaraderie of the boards.
The programme is titled Ridegway’s Late Joys, after the theatre’s founder, Peter Ridgeway, and consists of various song and dance acts introduced by the ‘Chairman’, a plump, rosy-cheeked man with a huge handlebar moustache. An all-male chorus in black tie and tails sing a song called ‘Strawberry’. It’s all very camp, and British. Next, a curvaceous blonde in a sparkly leotard, boots and feathers on her head, croons a song called ‘La Di Da’.
‘Isn’t that Peggy Rutherford?’ Martin whispers to Nancy, pointing at a woman two tables along.
Nancy raises a finger to her lips, as the highlight of the show begins: ‘Tell Your Father’, a Cockney ballad about the perils of alcohol, performed by the well-known singer, Meg Jenkins, who appears on stage wrapped in a black shawl, looking lugubrious.
By the end, the whole audience is singing along with the chorus. Clouds are gathering over Europe, but London is determined to enjoy herself.
They only just make the last train home. Martin pays for seats in first class and, as it’s so late, they are the only passengers. They are both a bit the worse for wear and almost immediately fall into each other’s arms, kissing until their lips are red and swollen, as empty stations slip by under a gibbous moon. By the time they reach Beaconsfield it’s past midnight. Luckily, Martin has left the Bomb there and in a few moments they are racing through the moonlit lanes.
‘Fancy a nightcap?’ Martin suggests. ‘I don’t want this night to end.’
‘Perhaps a quick one.’ Nancy smiles. ‘My mother will be waiting up for me, I’m sure.’
There are no lights on as the Bomb crunches to a halt on the gravel outside Whichert House. Martin gingerly lets them in by the back door then puts his fingers to his lips and takes Nancy’s hand and tiptoes towards the living room, feeling like a conspiratorial child about to steal some chocolate.
The living-room fire is still glowing in the grate. Martin puts on another log, takes Nancy’s coat and switches on the lamp by the fireplace, then searches for something to cover the lampshade. He picks up a shawl, drapes it over the lamp, plunging the room into shadow.
‘Better not set Aunt D.’s shawl on fire,’ Nancy jokes.
Martin pours two nightcaps, then goes over to the gramophone, takes a record from its sleeve, lays it on the turntable and drops the needle. There’s a brief hissing, then a piano refrain, light and delicious, like champagne. Little trills on the high keys; the plunk of a double bass; a strumming guitar; warbling trumpet. Fats Waller. Today’s musical theme.
Her waist is smaller than his encircling hands, and he feels for a moment she’s so delicate she might break in his arms. But she presses into him, emboldened by the promise of a shared future, not fragile or porcelain, but a flesh and blood woman dancing in his arms, laughing uproariously as he mimics Fats Waller’s throaty growl.
Everybody calls me good for nothing
Because I cannot tell the distance to a star
But I can tell the world how wonderful you are
I’m good for nothing but love
Night and day they call me…
Nancy holds her finger to her lips, worried they might wake Aunt D.
‘…good for nothing,’ Martin croons.
‘Yes, yes!’ she repeats with him, hamming it up with Fats, laughing.
Then she pulls his face towards hers and kisses him hard on the mouth.
CHRISTMAS EVE 1938 (#ulink_3433d06b-b057-5667-88fd-b7776516421c)
Whichert House (#ulink_3433d06b-b057-5667-88fd-b7776516421c)
The weeks have raced by with a scramble to finish end of term essays, a round of boozy Christmas parties and the final hockey matches. But, finally, it’s the vacation again, he’s back in the bosom of his surrogate family at Whichert House and, most importantly, he can see Nancy almost every day.
But, as a cloud of snow sprays from the tyres as the Bomb screeches to a halt outside Blythe Cottage, he doesn’t feel his usual heady sense of anticipation. Instead, his nerves are as taut as piano wire. The time has come to introduce Nancy to his famously unpredictable mother.
All the way from Wiltshire, after picking her up from her nursing home, Molly had been nothing but negative about the person Martin now cares about more than anything in the world; the person who, as he walks towards Blythe Cottage, its windows and gables picked out with fresh snow, appears at the door ensconced in a fur muff, with fur glove warmers and a fur-trimmed coat, like a character in a novel by Turgenev, then races down the path and into his arms.
‘What do you think?’ she says, doing a little pirouette in the snow.
‘You look enchanting.’ He kisses her. ‘Ravishing.’ Kisses her again. ‘Bewitching.’
Laughing, they clamber into the Bomb. Even though it’s cold, he’s got the top down. It’s only two miles. ‘Don’t expect too much, carissima,’ he says, honking at a lorry. ‘She’s a terrible snob and likely to go on the pot about the von Rankes, Uncle Robert . . . ’ He rolls his eyes and laughs.
He has explained the convoluted genealogy typical of an upper-class British family and even drawn a family tree: how his mother is Robert Graves’ half-sister, from their father’s – Alfred Percival Graves, also a poet! – first marriage; how Robert is from the second marriage, to Amelie von Ranke. ‘She loves that von!’ he says, shifting gear. ‘Even though, as someone recently reminded me at a family funeral, we’re really only . . . half-Graves.’
He glances over at Nancy. How will his fiery redhead handle his mother? Will Molly be rude and condescending? It’s enough to make him turn the Bomb around and escape back to the middle-class comforts of Blythe Cottage and Peg’s knitting needles.
‘I brought her a gift.’ Nancy pulls a small parcel out of her bag, beautifully wrapped in pink tissue paper.
‘A book?’ Martin reaches down and touches her leg tenderly. ‘You really are determined to educate us, darling.’
‘Well, you are only a half-Graves.’ She reaches over and kisses him on the cheek. He revs the Bomb, so the Riley’s eight-cylinder engine throbs beneath them.
The driveway at Whichert House is lined with Chinese lanterns that glow in the murky half-light of an English winter day. As they walk inside, he sneaks a kiss, then straightens up, shoulders back, like a soldier about to go on parade. ‘Ready?’
The family is gathered in the living room. A Norway spruce stands in the corner of the room. A log fire roars, casting a reddish light on the wood-panelled walls and ceiling.
‘Mother, I’d like you to meet Nancy Claire Whelan.’ He touches Nancy’s waist as reassurance.
Molly reaches out a black-gloved hand. She’s swathed in a heavy, dark velvet dress, the sort of thing Martin associates with séances or midnight mass. A rope of enormous pearls hangs between her equally impressive breasts. She raises an ivory-handled lorgnette to her eyes, and peers at Nancy as though she is some exotic, and rather dangerous, animal. ‘So this is the girl who has you all topsy-turvy?’
‘It is, indeed!’ Martin’s arm is secure around her now, where it belongs.
‘Martin has told me so much about you . . . ’ Nancy enthuses.
Molly doesn’t reply but looks Nancy up and down again, like a trainer appraising a racehorse. Martin has the queasy feeling that, any moment, she will ask to see Nancy’s teeth.
‘Darling!’ Roseen rushes forward to rescue them, kisses Nancy on the cheek. Since their brief encounter in the pub in Knotty Green in October, they have become fast friends, meeting up in London for drinks, going to the theatre, or taking long walks through Kensington Gardens. ‘You look chic as ever.’
‘I love those colours on you.’ Nancy admires Roseen’s black and grey outfit. ‘You look like a Cubist painting!’ She hugs Roseen then moves along to Aunt D.’s two unmarried sons, Tom and Michael.
Nancy has caught glimpses of the two brothers in her visits to the house. But this is her first, formal introduction. Martin has prepped her, explained how, though they are in their thirties, they both still live at home. How Michael has Down’s syndrome and can’t work, except to help in the garden or fix machines; how Tom, the elder brother, commutes to London to the family law office with Uncle Charles. And how adored they both are by Aunt D. and the rest of the family.
Tom tilts his head, like a heron, then shakes her hand, formally. ‘Happy Christmas.’
Michael steps forward. His face beams, innocent and eager to please; his glasses are as thick as the bottom of a whisky bottle. He pumps her hand. ‘You smell . . . like roses!’
There’s an awkward silence. Tom glowers at his brother. Then everyone bursts out laughing. Everyone except Molly, that is.
‘Michael, that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.’ Nancy kisses him on the cheek.
Martin watches her move among his family, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. The people he loves most in the world all together in the same room.
‘Nancy, dear, come and warm yourself by the fire.’ Aunt D. pats the Chesterfield next to her.
‘Bubbly?’ Uncle Charles, her husband, holds out his hands, palm up, like an Italian priest offering communion wine.
‘Bloody Mary for me, Charles.’ Molly’s voice is loud, stentorian.
Martin frowns at his mother.
‘What will you have, darling?’ Martin whispers in Nancy’s ear.
‘Oh, just something light.’
‘I’ve got a delicious elderflower cordial,’ chirps Aunt D. ‘From last summer’s crop.’
‘Sounds divine.’ Nancy settles back in the cushions, crosses her legs.
‘Martin tells me you work in London.’ Molly stares at Nancy, like an explorer who has just discovered a new species of beetle. Uncle Charles hands her the Bloody Mary. ‘You did put Worcester sauce in, Charles?’
Nancy smooths the front of her skirt. ‘I work for an insurance company.’
‘Insurance?’ Molly’s voice rises with incredulity. ‘You mean, in an office?’
‘She’s a secretary, Mother,’ Martin interjects. ‘To the manager.’
‘I see.’ Molly peers at Nancy even more inquisitively.
‘She studied in Grenoble and Munich . . . ’ Martin jumps in.
‘Rather wasted in an insurance office, isn’t it?’ Molly’s silver bracelets jangle as she lifts her drink to her mouth. ‘And what about your parents? What do they do?’
‘Mother, it’s not an inquisition . . . ’ Martin protests.
Nancy touches his hand. ‘He’s a civil servant. With the Inland Revenue.’
‘A taxman?’ Molly makes it sound like something unpleasant she has just found in the garden: a slug, or a pile of dog poo.
Nancy sips her elderflower cordial and tries to smile. ‘When we lived in Dorset, he used to cycle round to Thomas Hardy’s house to do his taxes.’
‘How fascinating!’ Aunt D. twinkles.
‘Hardy was a terrible grump.’ Nancy laughs.
‘No wonder!’ chimes in Tom. ‘After writing all those tragic novels.’
Molly stares into her empty Bloody Mary glass. ‘I heard from Robert!’ she announces. ‘You know, of course, my brother is Robert Graves.’ She jangles her bangles at Charles for a fill up. ‘They’ve fled to Majorca. Robert’s in a terrible state; hates France; hates London; says if there’s a war, he will emigrate to America.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Pennsylvania or somewhere ghastly like that.’
‘That’s patriotic!’ Martin jibes.
Molly frowns. ‘Well, he did do his part in the last war, as you know. I’m sure you’ve read his work, Nancy.’
‘He was even declared dead, wasn’t he?’ Nancy fiddles with her drink.
Molly frowns at her, but Uncle Charles grins. ‘Yes! There was even an obituary in The Times! Robert had great fun sending out letters to everyone after he got back from France, saying that reports of his demise had been greatly exaggerated.’
Everyone laughs heartily except Molly, who merely smiles, like a cat that has just got the cream, then turns to Nancy. ‘Do you have anyone famous in your family?’
12 FEBRUARY 1939 (#ulink_5418d4ab-e6a7-5b74-a42c-6ff5a50609a4)
Oxford (#ulink_5418d4ab-e6a7-5b74-a42c-6ff5a50609a4)
