In the Mouth of the Tiger (46 page)

We didn't have time to go ashore at Port Said or Suez, but nevertheless I did have an experience in Egypt that was unforgettable. We were in the canal somewhere between Ismailia and Al-Qantarah, where it is so narrow that the ship almost seems to scrape the desert sand. I had developed a headache (‘Too much reading about Egypt', Denis had said unkindly) and retired to the cabin. It was late afternoon, and suddenly the desert air reverberated with rolling thunder. I looked out to see thunderclouds and the horizon alight with lightning. Lying there, safe and warm in my bunk, my book on ancient Egypt on my lap, I suddenly experienced one of those leaps of the mind during which the purpose of the universe seems clear, and all of history just a breath away. Somewhere out there, I realised, lay the Sphinx, the Pyramids of Giza, the Valley of the Kings, Tutankhamen's tomb – emblems of Western civilisation standing at the very dawn of time. The thunder rolled on, deep and majestic, the drumbeat of ancient, unknown gods.

And then the rain. Hissing down in a white curtain, it blotted out the
canal, the desert, everything. I got up to close the porthole but paused, staring out into the watery grey. There were shapes out there in the desert. Tall ghosts of an ancient land, keeping pace with the ship. I shivered with superstitious awe.

As the rain eased they came into focus. A string of Bedouin on their camels, their heads down and tucked deep into their burnooses, completely oblivious of the vast ocean liner sliding past them in the rain. Truly, they
were
ghosts of an ancient land.

There was a fancy dress ball on the last night before we reached Marseilles. Our table had decided to attend as Cleopatra and her court, and Sarah had done a magnificent job dressing us all for our parts. She was Cleopatra of course, and Freddie was her Mark Anthony. Denis and George were Roman soldiers while the pink-cheeked clergyman and I were slaves. We met for a drink or two in the saloon before going up to the ballroom, half bashful, half rather pleased with ourselves because we
did
look good.

It was a memorable night. The music was marvellous, the supper superb, and the champagne French, cold, and limitless. The conversation sparkled as brightly as the champagne, even Sanders of the River unbuttoning enough to tell a series of ribald jokes that had the pink-cheeked clergyman struggling not to laugh out loud.

And then there was the dancing. Denis and I danced divinely, but when Freddie took me onto the floor I realised I was in the hands of an expert. He may have spent half his life as a Bengal Lancer, but he had found time amid the alarums and excursions of a soldier's life to learn to dance like a professional.

It was almost midnight when one of the radio officers found our table and handed Denis an envelope. ‘It is marked for immediate reply,' he said apologetically. ‘Shall I wait, sir, or would you prefer to come up to the radio room when you are ready?'

The table fell silent as Denis slit the envelope and spread the message form on his knee. He read for a moment, then handed the form to me. ‘I'll come up in a moment,' he said. ‘Give me about half an hour.'

The message was from Maxine Elliott:
My darling Denis stop Car will await you on arrival Marseilles stop Please stay longer than one day because we need to talk about so much stop Always, Maxine.

‘It doesn't mention Tony or me,' I said. ‘Are you sure we are expected?'

Denis frowned. ‘Of course you are expected.' He got up from the table abruptly, crunching Maxine's message into a ball. ‘I'd better get off our reply.'
The telegram had pricked the bubble of happiness around me and I felt a stab of anger towards Maxine. Or perhaps what I was feeling was insecurity. How dare this woman call my Denis ‘darling', and what on earth did she need to talk to him about?

‘Anything wrong?' Freddie asked.

‘Not a thing,' I said brightly, reaching for another glass of Bollinger.

I think I must have drank more than I intended, because at two in the morning I found myself being steered by Freddie along the promenade deck to the London Inn, the ship's teak-panelled coffee shop.

‘You are a very beautiful woman,' he said, looking deeply into my eyes. ‘A rose about to bloom.'

I suppressed a desire to laugh, and looked back at him wide-eyed over the top of my cup of Vienna coffee.

‘Where are you going to be in England?' he asked. ‘It would be nice if we could keep in touch.'

‘London,' I said vaguely. ‘Yes, it would be nice to meet up. You could teach me how to dance. I think you dance like Nijinsky. Or perhaps Fred Astaire.'

‘Where exactly in London?' Freddie pursued with exaggerated casualness.

‘Oh, we'll stay just outside London. Perhaps somewhere in Somerset. That's where I was born, you know.'

I knew I'd put my foot in it the moment the words were out of my mouth. ‘Just outside of London?' Freddie said incredulously. ‘Don't tease me, Norma.'

Denis and I had discussed the need for me have a story to explain why I was a stranger to England, and the story we'd adopted was that I'd left the country for Malaya as a small girl. But that didn't seem to cover the circumstances and I felt myself beginning to blush. ‘Did I say Somerset?' I asked innocently, groping desperately for the name of somewhere closer. Monopoly came to my rescue. ‘I meant to say Mayfair, or perhaps Park Lane. We're still a little undecided.'

Freddie shook his head. ‘You are being a cruel tease,' he said in a hurt voice. ‘Don't you want us to keep in touch?'

‘Why do you want to keep in touch?' I asked, opening my eyes as wide as I could.

‘Because I think you're about the prettiest girl I've ever met. And I'd like
to have a chance to get to know you better.' He stared at me over the top of his coffee cup. The compelling, candid eyes of a practised philanderer.

‘Have you fallen out of love with Sarah?' I asked innocently. ‘Is that why you are courting me?'

Freddie moved uncomfortably on his seat. ‘I love my wife dearly,' he said. ‘And I would never leave her. But times have changed, Norma. If two people feel attracted to each other these days, it's almost expected of them to have a discreet affair. It's one of the duties of our class, you know.'

I spotted Denis at the door of the London Inn, and gestured to him to join us. ‘Freddie was just telling me that it's one of the duties of my class to have a discreet affair,' I told him blandly.

‘Is this so, Freddie?' Denis asked, equally poker-faced.

Freddie cleared his throat. ‘I think you may have misunderstood me, Norma,' he said. ‘I was actually talking about the Hottentots. Or it may have been some other island people. A lady anthropologist, a woman called Mead, has just written a book about it all . . .'

Poor Freddie was rescued by Sarah. She swung laughing into the London Inn, a tall, handsome ship's officer on her arm, but made an abrupt U-turn on seeing us and collided sharply with a gaggle of Black Minstrels. One of the minstrels went over with a crash.

Denis raised a casual eyebrow. ‘No doubt one of your Hottentots, Freddie?'

I went to sleep happy but woke in the early hours. The wording of Maxine Elliott's cable still worried me, suggesting depths to her relationship with Denis that I didn't like. And the fact Denis had clearly not told her about me or Tony cut me like a knife. What if what Malcolm had said was true, and that Maxine really was a brash and blowsy American actress who had picked Denis up as a plaything? She'd certainly not like to see him with a wife and child in tow if that were true.

A chilling picture came to mind. We'd turn up at some garish Hollywood mansion to be met by a hard-faced woman in trousers with coral lipstick. She would stare down at Tony and me, her spoilt lip curled with derision. ‘Who are these people, Denis?' she would sneer, and in my imagination I saw myself blushing with embarrassment – almost more for Denis than myself.

Chapter Eighteen

I
n real life, Maxine Elliott proved very different to the person I had imagined. She was stout and motherly, and she advanced graciously to meet us under the portico of her Château de l'Horizon with concerned eyes on my face. ‘Denis should have told me earlier about you and little Tony' were her first words. ‘If he had I would never have let you escape after only a cup of tea.'

We had been met at the passenger terminal in Marseilles not only by Maxine's black Rolls Royce but by a small contingent of functionaries as well. There had been a man from Thomas Cook & Sons, and a man from the British Consulate, and we had cleared customs and had our luggage forwarded to the Nice–Boulogne Express before half the other disembarking passengers were even awake. On the dot of ten we clambered into the cavernous back seat of the Rolls and eased away from the kerb with the faintest, most patrician squeal of rubber tyres imaginable.

‘May we drive directly to the Château, Monsieur?' the uniformed driver had asked politely. ‘We have a luncheon hamper in the car so that you can eat as we drive.'

The drive to the Château de l'Horizon had taken over three hours, but it had given Tony a chance of a sleep and me a chance to prepare myself for the meeting. ‘She won't eat you,' Denis said as I had peered into my hand-mirror and adjusted my hat for the umpteenth time. A chilly morning had induced me to wear my grey serge suite with a small Russian fur hat, but as the day warmed I had begun to feel hot and a little overdressed.

‘How do you know she won't eat me?' I snapped irritably.

My first view of the Château had taken my breath away. Sprawled on the rugged coastline between Cannes and Cap d'Antibes, it looked more
like an affluent village than a house. Maxine must have been waiting for us because she appeared as soon as we pulled up under the portico, a curiously modest figure in a sensible tartan skirt and matching twin-set. A string of magnificent black pearls low on her breast was the only touch of ostentation she had allowed herself.

After our introductions, Maxine had handed Tony and me over to a silver-haired butler. ‘Domenico will conduct you to your room,' she said. ‘I know you aren't staying the night but if you have a small child it is nice to have somewhere to retire. Denis and I will be talking out on the terrace.'

Our temporary room was magnificent, with huge glass windows overlooking the sea. A basket of fruit and a platter of sandwiches stood on a low table, and fresh towels and soaps were arrayed on the bed. There was even a box of toys open on the floor, full of priceless things: beautifully enamelled toy soldiers, a miniature train set, a polished wooden yacht in full sail, even a hobby-horse with a flowing horsehair mane.

All Tony could do was to sit cross-legged on the carpet in awed contemplation of the treasures, his thumb stuck firmly in his mouth.

I had a wash and gave Tony some fruit, and was just wondering what to do next when Domenico tapped on the door. ‘Would Madame care to join Madame Elliott on the patio?' he asked.

I wish I could remember every moment of that afternoon. It seems to me, looking back, that I was closer on that afternoon to the reality behind Denis, to the ‘battleships' which Malcolm had said he could call upon, than I was ever to be again. Maxine was candid and frank, and opened windows I had not known existed. An image comes to mind: Maxine lounging back in her steamer chair, her hair ruffled by the sea breeze and her eyes sparkling with delight at the chance to talk freely of things I suppose some would have said were secret. The setting was superb. We were on a broad paved terrace that ran across the front of the Château with the swimming pool on a second terrace a few feet below us. It was a huge pool, and from it a splashing water-slide ran down to the Mediterranean twenty feet below. Beyond the pool were the blue waters of Golfe Juan and the picturesque promontory of Cap d'Antibes.

‘Denis used to love the slide,' Maxine said. ‘He and his friends would spend hours sliding down and tumbling into the sea. Then they would climb up – always laughing – and do it all over again. Oh, the joy of being young.'

Tony had been listening wide-eyed. ‘Can I try?' he asked, and Maxine leaned down and pinched his cheek. ‘Only if your Daddy says so,' she said.

‘And only if your Daddy goes with you,' I added. The morning chill had completely dissipated and the day was now quite hot. Denis levered himself out of his chair and whisked Tony high into the air. ‘Real chip off the old block, aren't you?' he chuckled holding him up at arm's length. ‘Come on, Tiger, let's get some bathers on.'

While Denis and Tony had the time of their lives careering down the slide to splash into the sea, Maxine and I sipped tiny glasses of iced crème de menthe and talked in the sun. As I have said, it was an extraordinary conversation. At first I was a little defensive, a little shy, but Maxine was so frank and charming that I found I had no alternative but to match her, confidence for confidence.

Within minutes I was telling her how Denis had transformed me from Nona Orlov/Brayer/Roberts, a little Russian émigré girl, into Norma Felice Elesmere-Elliott, an Englishwoman born and bred.

‘And who do you think I really am?' Maxine retorted. ‘I was born Jessica Dermot – Dettie Dermot to those who knew me. Even that was a sham – it should have been MacDermot but Grandfather dropped the Mac because the Irish had a bad name in New England in the middle of the last century.'

‘Where did Maxine Elliott come from?' I asked curiously.

‘I invented it myself,' Maxine said with relish. ‘Both the Maxine and the Elliott. Before me, there were no Maxines anywhere on earth. There are quite a few now – and whether or not they know it, they have all copied their name from mine. As for Elliott – well, it sounds nice, don't you think? Restrained but just a little bit colourful. They use it as a first name in the States.'

‘Do you ever feel a little bit awkward?' I asked. ‘I sometimes wonder if it's right just to invent a name.'