Chapter Twelve #2
Mosley must have seen the shock on Kick’s face, because he shook his head – a tiny shake – at Diana, and said smoothly, ‘My wife jokes, of course. Although –’ thoughtfully ‘– it’s true that our cause appeals to a great number of Catholics, who understand instinctively, as we do, that there is right and wrong in the world, and that sometimes it is a matter of what we feel more even than what we think.
’ He paused and looked for a long time at Kick.
‘Catholics are clever at understanding that there is only so far that logic can take us. That sometimes feelings lead us to know things that mere logic cannot. Don’t you agree?
It is this same sense of trust, of faith – may I call it the discipline of faith?
–’ Kick nodded, even though she didn’t know exactly what she was nodding at ‘– that Catholics understand.’
He talked fast, but picked his words with care.
Kick could feel him doing it – considering one, then another, discarding, choosing.
‘The truth is, we feel certain that, just as Rome supported General Franco in his crusade against communism, so Rome will support Germany.’ He paused.
Was he waiting for her to agree? How strange it was that he talked of Catholics as though they were different to simply people.
‘But I suppose your father knows a great deal more?’ Again, that inviting pause.
‘Perhaps one day he might make it possible for me to exchange these views with Cardinal Pacelli.’
‘I’m sure he’d love to,’ she said, thinking of her parents’ delight in showing the cardinal around New York, introducing him to their friends and in turn meeting with his acquaintance.
Mosley smiled. Which made Kick remember that she was the ambassador’s daughter, and that for all her hosts’ charm there was no such thing as idle conversation.
The wine at dinner must have made her fuzzy.
‘I mean,’ she temporised, ‘someday, if the cardinal ever visits England …’ How much simpler things had been in America, where she needed only to think about sports and lessons and who to go to the ballgame with.
‘Darling, why don’t you show Kathleen Mildred’s puppies?’ Mosely said, as though reading her uncomfortable thoughts. Mildred was Diana’s whippet. ‘They are in a basket in the bedroom.’
Diana swept Kick, Debo and Unity upstairs to a room upholstered in shades of peony silk that was so voluptuous as to be positively lascivious, with a bed so large it was impossible, looking at it, not to think of the things that might happen there.
Remembering Mosley’s hot, wet eyes, Kick found herself blushing.
When she looked up, Diana was staring at her, an amused smile on her face.
‘Would you like to hold one?’ she said, of the puppies. ‘Mildred is such a perfect angel, she will not mind. They are the softest little creatures you can imagine. Like stroking baby mice.’ She deposited a puppy in Kick’s lap.
‘Like velvet,’ Kick said.
‘You know,’ Diana said as she handed a puppy to Debo, who immediately began kissing its nose, ‘we think it’s a jolly good thing that your father should have been sent, and that he should have brought so many of his wonderful family.
We all admired – so much! – how well you managed as hostess in the beginning, before your mother arrived. ’
Kick felt a wonderful rush of feeling at the thought that she had been seen – watched and observed and approved of.
‘We do hope you will feel at home here,’ Diana continued. ‘And that you know you can come to us for anything at all you might need, even the tiniest thing. You do feel that, don’t you?’
Kick, locked in the beam of those headlamp eyes, nodded; warm and flattered by the interest of this beautiful, glamorous woman whom she heard spoken of in tones of near-reverence. ‘We will,’ she said solemnly. ‘I will.’
‘Why,’ Diana said, as though such a thing had only occurred to her, ‘you might come to one of Mosley’s rallies. You have no idea how they worship him. I do think you would enjoy it. The girls could bring you.’ She inclined her head towards Debo and Unity.
‘They are ever such a rip,’ Unity said. ‘You’ll see.’
Kick stammered something, unwilling to commit, unsure how to avoid – her father would never allow it, or would he?
Obviously he and Mosley had similar views on war – and she knew her mother would appreciate his words on the church and the discipline of faith – but did that mean she could attend rallies?
Oh why must everything be so complicated? She sighed.
Again Diana was quick. ‘Let’s go out,’ she said. ‘A nightclub. Café de Paris? I’m sure it’s simply filled with lovely things beginning with B.’
Unity looked cross. ‘Why is everyone talking in a code I don’t understand.’
Mosley saw them to the club in a taxi but didn’t come with them.
‘Better I don’t,’ he said, tilting Diana’s face up towards him and kissing her.
Kick looked away quickly, face prickling with embarrassment, so that she was looking quite the wrong way when he came to say goodbye to her and was flustered as he took her hand.
The chill neon of the Café de Paris sign above them flickered and in its ghostly light Mosley looked as though drawn in charcoal, the thin black dividing line of his moustache and his black eyes picked out stark in the white of his face.
He bowed gracefully. ‘So nice to meet you.’ He lingered over nice. ‘See you again.’
Without him or Envers, Diana was almost cosy. She found them a table – by staring so hard at two young men seated together that they hastily got up and offered their places, at which Debo laughed and said, ‘Ever the hunter, aren’t you?’ – and ordered Champagne.
‘Ghastly crowd,’ Diana said cheerfully, looking around. ‘Last year’s debs and a smattering of the demi-monde. I don’t know why they call it the Café de Paris, far more like the Café de Croydon.’
Unity went to ‘look for pals’.
‘Tell me more about your brothers,’ Diana asked Kick. ‘We have only the one. Curious lot, brothers, aren’t they? I think poor Tom was surprised to find he wasn’t actually a girl when he was seven or eight.’
Kick threw her head back and laughed. ‘I don’t think Joe and Jack have ever been in any doubt,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m the one who had a hard time understanding that I wasn’t the same as them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Able to run as fast, play football, sail, all the things they did that I wanted to do.’
‘Kick is a frightful tomboy,’ Debo said.
‘Everyone’s a tomboy compared with you,’ Diana said with a smile. ‘What about now?’ she asked Kick. ‘Do you still want to do everything they do?’
‘Oh yes. And more. All the freedom they have …’
‘To do what?’
‘Whatever they want,’ Kick said simply. ‘Go where they want, meet who they want. Do anything, be anything.’
‘It is unfair,’ Diana agreed.
‘Diana is a great believer in equality,’ Debo said with a smile. ‘She has all sorts of ideas.’
‘Mosley has them too,’ Diana said.
A man approached them and after reminding Diana that they had met – ‘at the Astors’’ – asked her to dance.
‘Lord, no,’ she said, turning cold and languid where she had been warm and funny, so that the man blushed – Kick could see his ears turn red even in the dim light – and retreated.
‘How mean you are,’ Debo said lightly.
‘How absurd they are,’ Diana retorted.
After that she fell silent, smoking and looking around with eyes so large they seemed to absorb all the light, leaving less for the rest of them.
Unity came back with a girl in a tight pink dress and they both laughed immoderately at what seemed like private jokes.
‘Whatever happened to Ratular?’ the girl in pink asked.
Ratular, Kick knew, was Unity’s pet rat, often brought to parties and balls where he would sit on Unity’s lap or run from one arm to the other along her shoulders.
‘He’s alright,’ Unity said. ‘I need to find him a dear little lady rat friend so they can have sweet babies.’
The girl shrieked. ‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Of course I would. Why not? I’d rather more rats in the world than more people. Rats are jolly intelligent and ever so sweet. Most people are simply frightful.’
‘You are funny, Unity,’ the girl said.
But Kick didn’t think Unity was joking. She sounded perfectly serious. Even more so when she said fervently, ‘Some people – some peoples – are especially frightful, much more like vermin than dear, sweet rats.’ What did she mean? Kick wondered.
‘Not now, Unity,’ Diana said with a frown that creased her thin eyebrows.
Kick was bored and wanted to dance, but no one asked her.
She hoped it was because Diana had scared them all away and not because they didn’t want to dance with her.
She realised that she had been counting on Billy being here.
Had been keyed up with the anticipation of running into him.
Now that he wasn’t, she felt tired and strangely flat.
Just as she was about to say she wanted to go home, Debo nudged her.
‘I spy with my tiny eye, something – someone – starting with B …’ She jerked her head up towards the balcony that curved around the room, finishing in two staircases that descended in a double sweep behind the bandstand.
Sure enough, there he was, leaning over the balcony rail with a cigarette in his hand.
He saw her immediately. Just as she was wondering how to play it – should she pretend she hadn’t seen him?
Be deep in conversation with Debo? Or better still, a man?
– he waved over and began to make his way along the balcony to the stairs.
Behind him a girl in a white evening dress – Irene, Kick saw – started after him, then looked down.
She too saw Kick, and screwed her face up in irritation.
‘I say.’ Billy arrived at their table. ‘How jolly.’
‘Billy, darling,’ Debo said. ‘Will you have Champagne?’
‘No, for I should only have to drink it.’