The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom Read online

  Valentino rose to his feet, pulling a comb from his trouser pocket. “Well, I will be on my way. No, I’m not going to the fascio tonight. I have other fish to fry.” He winked at his brother, who groaned.

  “Oh, God, Valentino. Who is it this time?”

  “You don’t expect me to reveal the lady’s name, do you? What do you take me for, a cad?” Valentino ran the comb through his hair, which was slicked with scented oil. “All I will say is that her husband works late at Bianchi’s restaurant, sometimes until one, two o’clock in the morning. The poor girl gets lonely and longs for company. Oh, how she longs for company. I cannot describe it to you, Antonio.”

  “I hope that you’re being careful, that’s all,” Antonio was saying, when he heard the flurry of footsteps in the corridor. It was Danila, who had come downstairs after settling the baby. In one hand she waved the envelope she had picked up from the mat.

  “It’s from Bruno! I recognize his handwriting. Filomena, there’s a letter from Bruno.”

  Filomena stepped from the scullery, wiping her hands on her apron. She took the letter from Danila and stared. The envelope looked as though it had passed through many damp, weary hands on its journey from Africa.

  “Open it,” said Danila, so impatiently that Antonio thought she would snatch the letter from his sister.

  “Perhaps Filomena would like to read it alone,” he said.

  Danila stuck out her lower lip. “Pouf! Why should she? Bruno is not one for writing love letters. It will be full of his news, that’s all. If she wants to read it by herself she can do it afterward.”

  “Maybe he is breaking off our engagement,” said Filomena, still without opening the letter.

  “I do not believe so for an instant. He is an honorable man, my cousin Bruno. You should not even think such a thought, Filomena. It is not worthy of you.”

  “No, you should not,” said Valentino, who like Danila was craning over his sister’s shoulder, eager to see the letter. “Who else would have you, eh? Come on now, Filomena. Open it.”

  Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper, covered in looped untidy handwriting.

  “Well,” said Danila, “what does he say?”

  In silence Filomena handed her the letter. Danila had been right: there were no endearments in it, nothing that made it personal. It did not matter if the whole family read it.

  “He is coming home! Why didn’t you say so at once? He has been injured, although the injury is not great, and he is coming home. That is wonderful news. Isn’t it, Valentino?”

  “Wonderful,” said Valentino, who was gazing at the sheet of paper with reverence: a letter from a fascist hero, sent from the furthest outpost of the new Roman empire.

  Antonio looked at his sister. Her eyes met his for an instant, gravely.

  “Aren’t you happy, Filomena?” Danila said it warmly, but there was something needling in her voice all the same. “Bruno is coming home. You must be so glad.”

  “Yes, of course I’m glad.” Filomena knotted the strings of her apron more tightly about her waist and took a papery brown onion from the basket. “And now I must make some soup for Papa, so that he has something nourishing for tomorrow, while I am at work.”

  “You don’t sound glad,” said Danila.

  “Oh, there is no pleasing some people.” Valentino put Bruno’s letter on the table and reached for his hat. “Take no notice, Danila, she’s always been a sourpuss. Well, I’m off. I’ll see you in the morning, Antonino.”

  Danila was still staring at Filomena, a hurt expression on her face, when there was a chuntering wail from the room upstairs. The baby had woken. At once Danila forgot about Bruno’s letter. The whole of her being was caught up in the baby, as though she were nourishing him with her soul as well as her flesh.

  “I thought he was settled,” she said, scurrying upstairs once more. “He cannot need changing, he must be hungry.”

  In the kitchen Filomena began to chop onions, the knife slamming against the board. Antonio heard her sniff.

  “Don’t cry,” he said, “it will be all right.”

  “I am not crying. It’s the onions.”

  “I daresay you have forgotten what Bruno is like, it has been so long, he is so far away.”

  “No,” said Filomena, “I remember him well enough.”

  “You’ll remember then that he is a decent fellow. You may not see eye to eye where politics are concerned, but he will be kind to you, you know that. Look at me, Mena. I am telling you the truth. You will learn to love him as a husband, I promise. And when we work so hard it is a relief, to have one thing in your life that is calm and settled.”

  Filomena’s mouth gave a twist that in a man Antonio would have called sardonic. “Yes, I am sure that you are right.”

  She turned her back and began chopping again. Antonio felt annoyed. He had done his best for Filomena. What else could she expect? Most brothers would do what Valentino had done: tell her to stop being foolish and to count her blessings. Without speaking he went upstairs to fetch his accordion.

  Danila was sitting on the bed, her blouse unbuttoned, the baby at her breast. His mouth was blind and greedy, like a newly hatched bird.

  “So the child was hungry, then?” Antonio said, removing the cloth that covered his accordion, to protect it from the moist black grime of the city.

  Danila frowned. “Your sister Filomena is a strange girl. Why isn’t she overjoyed that Bruno is coming home? I do not think she loves him at all.”

  “She is anxious. It is a long time since Bruno went to Abyssinia. And it will be a great change in her life—”

  “You should be stricter with her, Antonino.” Lately Danila had become more assertive, especially where Filomena was concerned, as though motherhood had increased her authority. “Who does she think she is? I did not complain when our fathers agreed that we should marry.”

  “That is different—” began Antonio. Then he stopped to think about what Danila had said. I did not complain. Why would she complain? She had loved him, she had wanted to marry him. Surely she had wanted to marry him?

  “It is because she was brought up in London, in my opinion. I am sure that your mother did her best, but it is not the same, it is never the same. I do not think that Filomena truly understands how Italian women should behave.”

  Danila cupped the baby’s head in her hand. She did it confidently, as though she had been feeding infants all her life. Antonio watched her. Through the days of their courtship she had been shyly adoring, as if she could imagine no higher destiny than becoming his wife. He remembered her downcast eyes, her timid smiles. Had they been—not false, of course not false—but exaggerated, designed to flatter his vanity? Suddenly Antonio saw himself as perhaps Danila saw him, a forked hairy grasping creature, like a satyr.

  “Danila,” he said, blurting out the words, “do you still love me?”

  Danila’s eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t be foolish. Of course I love you, you are my husband. I left my home to come and live with you.” She clasped the child to her shoulder, while with her free hand she tried to button her blouse. “But we have a son now. It is a big responsibility, we cannot carry on exactly as we were. Pass me that towel, will you, Antonio?”

  She was rubbing the baby’s back now to wind him, her movements firm and deft. Her very competence seemed to Antonio to shut him out, just as he had been shut out when she was in labor. He laid the towel upon his wife’s knee. Then he picked up his accordion and ran nimbly down the stairs.

  —

  La Rondine, the restaurant where Antonio sang twice a week, was managed by a thick-necked bull of a man called Giuseppe, nicknamed Peppino, who came from Naples. He was a communist. He claimed to have fled Italy ten years before because of persecution by the squadristi, the fascist paramilitary gangs, although Antonio suspected that there was a more ignoble motive for his flight, a vendetta of some kind. Peppino was notorious for getting into fights. More than once Antonio had had
to restrain him from throwing a punch, especially when the conversation turned to politics.

  Tonight the restaurant was quiet. By ten o’clock only a pair of tables was occupied, one by a love-struck couple, the other by a group of Englishmen, scruffy but well-spoken, who were discussing the invasion of Austria in jagged excitable voices. Antonio knew that neither set of diners would welcome his warbling “Isle of Capri” in their ears.

  “Perhaps I will go home,” he said to Peppino, who was standing at the bar beneath a luridly tinted photograph of the Blue Grotto. “I do not suppose there will be any more customers this evening.”

  “Stay and have a drink.” Peppino spoke mournfully, expecting a refusal. He lived in a state of perpetual homesickness. Unlike the Trombettas, he could not return to Italy for a summer’s visit, and since so many of his countrymen supported Mussolini he got no pleasure from consorting with them. Even the Italian social clubs, the waiters’ cooperative, the Dante Alighieri society, were barred to him. They all held their meetings at the Casa d’Italia now, and he would not step across the threshold of that accursed building.

  Peppino’s marmoset eyes touched Antonio. Besides, he did not want to go home yet. He took the grappa that Peppino gave him and swallowed it.

  Peppino looked surprised. “That is not like you, my friend. What has happened? Are you grieving or celebrating?”

  “You are not a married man, are you, Peppino?”

  “That is the problem, is it?” Peppino reached for the bottle once more. “In that case, drink long, drink deep.”

  Antonio felt the grappa shimmer through his veins. Through its haze he remembered Danila on their wedding day, fragile and shining as a piece of Venetian glass. Then he thought of how she did not like to make love in the baby’s presence, squirming in his arms, hushing him to silence. Was that how their life together would be from now on?

  Behind the bar Peppino was polishing glasses with a linen cloth. For a man of his great size he had unexpectedly deft fingers. “Your wife is from Lazio too, is she?”

  Antonio nodded. “She is a kind girl, a beautiful girl, I love her very much, but—I do not know—since our son was born she has changed. It is as though she thinks of herself as a mother first, and then as my wife.”

  “That is what happens,” said Peppino sagely. “That is what women are like. I have heard the same story many times. You should take a mistress, my friend. English women like you. I have observed it. If I were not such a sweet-tempered man I should be jealous.” He gave Antonio a wolfish smile, revealing his large pointed canines. “I would not mind finding an English woman for myself. A plump grateful one, with a nest egg to keep us both comfortable. I’d be happy to marry her. It would be no bad thing, in my opinion, to become a British citizen.”

  “What?” said Antonio. “You?”

  “Why not? I cannot return to Italy. And if Mussolini continues licking Hitler’s fascist arse we’ll soon see the mood in Britain change. We Italians will no longer be harmless, friendly folk: we will be the enemy.”

  “But we belong here. My family has been in London for more than seventy years.”

  Peppino shrugged and drank his grappa with gloomy pleasure. “It will count for nothing, believe me. In dangerous times people favor their own kind.”

  The amorous young man beckoned then, asking for a song. Antonio adjusted the strap of his accordion and began an Italian love song with a yearning melody: “Tornerai,” or “You Will Return.” He could hear his voice reverberate in the half-empty restaurant. One of the Englishmen, a fair-haired man, older and more smartly dressed than the others, turned in his chair to listen while his fellow diners gabbled on.

  “We are on the edge of a volcano. Think how quickly the Great War began. A fat archduke gets himself shot in Sarajevo, and the world blows up like a tinderbox. That is why, if we want peace, we have to rearm. We have to rearm at once.”

  —

  The love-struck couple left after Antonio’s song, but it was eleven o’clock before the table of Englishmen called for their bill. There seemed to be some confusion about paying: they began to slap their pockets, looking sheepish. In the end the fair man took charge. “I’ll cover the damage,” he said, shooing his friends toward the door. “Be off with you.”

  Antonio shouldered his accordion. Like it or not, it was time to go home to Frith Street. It was late; he would have to tiptoe into his cramped bedroom, so as not to waken Danila or the baby. He thought of the frowstiness of the room, the milky, faintly sour smell of the baby’s crib.

  “I enjoyed your singing,” the Englishman said, as he thumbed out coins. “Your voice is exceptional. Who is your teacher?”

  “I do not have a teacher, I am not a trained singer. I only perform in places like this, restaurants, dance halls—”

  “Oh, but you should train. With the right teacher you would go far. I’m a well-connected fellow, I daresay I could get a recommendation for you.”

  His effusiveness unsettled Antonio. He did not want to have to explain to a stranger—a wealthy, educated, English stranger—that he had no money for singing lessons.

  “Perhaps you would like another song, before you go?” he said, to change the subject.

  “That would be a great pleasure. Do you know ‘Core ’Ngrato’?”

  “Of course,” said Antonio. It was one of the tragic full-blooded Neapolitan ballads Peppino liked, that reminded him of home. He was just beginning the song when the door to La Rondine jangled open and two Italian men came in. One was in his thirties, a sallow swaggering fellow, the other a boy of about seventeen. Under their overcoats they wore black shirts.

  “We’re closed,” said Peppino swiftly.

  “I do not think so.” The older of the two pointed contemptuously to the glasses on the bar. “Two grappas, if you please. We want to drink a toast to the duce.”

  Antonio guessed why they had come. Peppino’s dislike of Mussolini was well-known in the Soho community. It was considered great sport—a rite of passage, almost—for young fascists to come and taunt him; Antonio had had to dissuade his brother, Valentino, from doing it. Sure enough the boy, lounging against the bar, began to sing the “Giovinezza,” the fascist anthem.

  “Salve o popolo d’eroi, salve o patria immortale.” His voice was loud and brassy. “Hail, nation of heroes, hail, immortal fatherland.”

  “Aren’t you going to sing too?” said the other man, glancing at Antonio. “You were warbling like a canary when we came in.”

  Peppino let out a gruff cry, and seizing the two Blackshirts, he banged their heads together. The boy shouted in triumph; then he snatched up the grappa bottle, ready to smash it against the bar.

  “Stop that!” said the Englishman, in a commanding voice. Rising from his chair he grasped the boy’s arm. At once the boy jabbed his elbow backward. It struck the Englishman hard in the solar plexus, and he doubled up with a groan, his knees buckling beneath him.

  “Santa Madonna,” said the older Blackshirt. At once he put a weighty hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him rapidly from the restaurant, leaving the glass door ajar.

  Antonio eased the fair man into a chair, where he slumped forward, wheezing. His face had turned cheesily pale.

  “We should call the police.” Peppino shut the restaurant door, flicking the sign belatedly to “Closed.” “It is an assault upon an Englishman, they cannot dismiss it as foreigners squabbling.”

  “Forgive me,” the fair man said, “but I am feeling rather giddy.” His voice was unnaturally precise, as though he were trying to be heard above the roar of a hurricane. “Perhaps you could loosen this…”

  Antonio undid his bow tie, then the studs of his collar. They were made of gold, small and disproportionately heavy. “You would be better off at home,” he said. “Let us find you a taxi.”

  The fair man was still struggling for breath. After a moment he said: “I suffer from asthma, quite seriously sometimes. If you would not mind accompanying me—it is not f
ar, and my wife will be at home to receive me. It would be a great kindness.”

  Peppino got the taxi, stepping into the street to hail it as if he were a constable arresting a particularly insolent felon. From the backseat Antonio watched the familiar lamp-lit streets spin past, Old Compton Street, Charing Cross Road, St. Giles Circus; then they were among the tall, dense, silent houses of Bloomsbury, set around their shadowy squares of lawn. High in the sky there was a crescent moon. Beside him the Englishman was breathing ponderously, as if he had only just learned how to do it and was afraid that if he paused, even for an instant, he might lose the knack.

  The taxi drew to a halt. Antonio helped the Englishman from the car, supporting his elbow as they climbed to his door. The curtains were drawn back in one of the upper rooms, and Antonio could see light spilling upon a wrought-iron balcony. He rang the bell once, twice, three times. At last he heard the scuffle of feet, the creaking of hinges. The next moment the front door sprang open, and he came face-to-face with the girl from the Paradise Ballroom.

  Olivia Rodway had spent the evening in the upstairs drawing room of her husband’s house, trying to read Anna Karenina. It was on a list that Bernard had given her, of the books that any educated person ought to have read by the age of thirty. She was enjoying Anna’s story but she found Levin—the character Bernard himself most admired—earnest and insufferable.

  Rising from the silk-clad sofa she rang the servant’s bell. She had been putting this off for the past half hour. Olivia was not accustomed to asking other people to make her pots of tea, bring her trays of supper. It seemed much easier to go to the kitchen and do it herself.

  “Yes, madam?” said Avril, the housemaid. She was a gaunt young woman, all chin and elbows. Bernard had inherited her from his mother, who had trained the girl herself.

  “I am ready for supper, Avril,” Olivia said, in a lofty voice. She knew that Avril idolized Penelope, who was a proper lady—she had been a debutante, ostrich feathers and all, before the Great War—and that nothing she, Olivia, could do would win the same devotion. If she was firm, Avril would call her snooty; if she was friendly the maid would despise her as weak.