The Girl in Berlin (4 page)

She had learned to put things in perspective. In those first days you couldn’t plan; mere survival took up all your time and energy. Was that why she’d stayed, hadn’t fled? Colonel Ordway had told her of a scheme, the North Sea Scheme, that could get her a job in England. But her father had moved them back to the East, which made it more difficult. His threats and bullying had frightened her.

Now, however, she had a plan.

four

O
NCE A WEEK TOMMY’S
nursemaid, Mary, arrived from Camden Town on the dot of nine and set Dinah free to spend the day at the Courtauld Institute. The first time Tommy saw her leave his face turned beetroot. There was a moment’s silence, like when the V2 dropped, as he apparently stopped breathing, before the explosion of yells. Alan’s horror at the sight of his son in paroxysms of rage and despair had led him to tell Dinah to give up the whole idea of the Courtauld. That was their second worst row ever. Dinah didn’t know quite how she’d won. In fact, she hadn’t won, she’d simply run away, leaving solid Mary to calm father and son. It was the first time she’d ever directly flouted her husband’s wishes.

Once she’d disappeared, it was out of sight, out of mind for Tommy, as Alan had had to admit, but ever since then Dinah had been careful to slip away while Tommy wasn’t looking, to avoid a scene. That didn’t stop Alan from reverting regularly to the subject of Dinah’s Mondays at the Courtauld. (He didn’t dignify them with the term ‘work’.) He never objected in abstract or moral terms, did not on principle disapprove of working mothers. It was more along the lines of: ‘I don’t understand why you keep it up. Surely you have enough to do here at home? I’m earning a good salary now. You’ve got your friends,’ and lately, ‘now Reggie has the twins …’

Sometimes Dinah suspected that Alan was jealous of the Courtauld, or, more likely, its director, Dr Anthony Blunt, whose assistant she liked to think she’d unofficially become. Alan did not admit to jealousy, of course, and in fact he was not jealous. It was rather that it had simply never occurred to him that Dinah could possibly have any needs or aspirations that did not revolve directly around his own and, now, that extension of himself, Tommy. But Dinah stood her ground and continued quietly to work at the Courtauld, with the not-quite-defiant reminder to herself: I can’t just be a housewife.

Today, however, as Dinah walked down Fitzjohn’s Avenue from Hampstead to Swiss Cottage, where she would catch a bus to Portman Square, she was not thinking about Alan or Tommy at all. She was puzzling over Colin’s reappearance. He’d seemed so tense, so anxious and worried, not that there was anything new about that. He’d always been tense and nervy, and when she’d known him before, he’d had reason to be, but he hadn’t been defeated. Last night he had seemed just that: as if it was all too much, the stuffing knocked out of him. And he’d looked shabby in a different way from his bohemian disarray of old. But perhaps that was just due to conditions in Germany.

And then to disappear without saying goodbye … Tommy had woken her soon after six and by the time she got downstairs, Colin had gone, leaving just the blanket and eiderdown neatly folded. Poor Colin. He always seemed to run into bad luck. He was one of those for whom nothing went right … ‘I was born under a blighted star’ … who had said that?

He’ll find his own level, Alan had said with careless complacency as they’d lain in bed discussing their friend on the sofa downstairs – though it was all a bit awkward, the stuff about a job.

At least, thought Dinah, walking down the hill, Colin had found a girl. It was rather a pity she was German, but if he succeeded in bringing her home to England then he had every
chance of settling down and making a happier life for himself. Surely it couldn’t be too difficult, not now? Dinah decided to write to her father, a prominent lawyer, to ask his advice. He’d know exactly what Colin ought to do.

The Courtauld Institute was a temple, a shrine. Every Monday when Dinah crossed the threshold, she thrilled to its atmosphere, which from the very first day had taken hold of her. As soon as she’d walked up the magnificent double staircase rising to the rarefied realms above she’d known this was the place for her. It was a place of freedom and at the same time of dedication. And over it all presided the great geniuses – Michelangelo, Poussin, of course, and Raphael. They were tangible presences in Portman Square, not ghosts, but living members of this community devoted to their art.

The arrival of Tommy had interrupted her degree, but Dr Blunt had kindly allowed her to ‘intermit’ and from time to time encouraged her to return as a full-time student. ‘You don’t have to come in every day, you know.’ Dr Blunt had also suggested she take time off from library duties to attend lectures at least. Don’t give it up completely, he’d said. Meanwhile she worked in the library under Miss Welsh, but she also assisted Dr Blunt, by checking references and clearing copyrights.

In this way she felt she was still part of the great enterprise that was the study of Western Art. Art had become a passion and she was determined to pass her love for art on to Tommy, above whose cot she’d pinned coloured photographic reproductions of
The Birth of Bacchus
and
Landscape with Diogenes
, both by Nicholas Poussin, the artist to whom Dr Blunt had devoted so much scholarship.

Alan had laughed when she put them up. ‘Is Bacchus really more appropriate than the Infant Jesus?’ Not that Alan was religious or anything like that, but in some ways, Dinah was
discovering, he was more conventional, or was becoming more conventional, than when they’d first met. But then he’d added kindly: ‘At least it’s not Walt Disney.’

The Courtauld Library would have looked out over the square, had not its long windows been obstructed by its metal bookcases. Miss Welsh always wore gloves, whether to protect the books or her hands was not clear, or perhaps the gloves simply signalled her conception of the Institute as a kind of ongoing social event. Her manner was that of a hostess rather than a keeper of books. Fresh flowers appeared every day and cakes or buns and tea were served in the afternoon.

Dinah usually stayed until five, but her fellow library assistant, the Hon. Cecily Barrington-Smith, seldom put in a full day’s work, pleading more pressing social engagements. Cecily had been a debutante and done ‘the Season’ the previous year, but had yet to find a husband, although Dinah – who might have been forced into debdom herself had it not been for the war – had always assumed the whole purpose of being a deb was to meet eligible young men and end up with an engagement ring. Cecily and Miss Welsh discussed these matters in murmured conversations from which Dinah was excluded. Miss Welsh had hinted that she disapproved of someone lucky enough to be a wife and mother even entertaining the idea of paid work. Actually, Dinah was not paid, but she hadn’t told Alan that.

It did not occur to her that Miss Welsh was jealous of her privileged relationship with Dr Blunt, Miss Welsh being only one among many women at the Courtauld, young and middle-aged, who simply adored the Director. Dinah, on the other hand, was not in the throes of a crush, but simply liked and admired Dr Blunt for his dedication to art and for his good-mannered kindness towards her. Nor did Dinah flatter herself that Dr Blunt was especially interested in her. He just wanted her to have the enormous benefit of studying at the temple of
art he’d virtually created, and you simply could not exaggerate what he’d brought to the Courtauld.

This lunchtime Dinah found her friend Polly and together they made for the nearest ABC teashop. They’d started out at the Courtauld together, but Polly was now a postgraduate.

Dinah deeply admired Polly’s perfectly achieved, bohemian Juliette Greco look. Her dark, pageboy hair was cut with a fringe, her white shirt had the collar turned up and she cinched in her black, drainpipe trousers with a wide red belt. Her nail varnish was invariably perfect. Life with Tommy meant you were always somehow untidy, nail polish an impossibility.

‘I was in the laboratory this morning,’ said Polly, ‘it’s absolutely fascinating. You can see where an artist has made alterations.’ She described the developing X-ray techniques that could penetrate layers of paint. To Dinah it was strange and thrilling that the appreciation of art could take on aspects of detection and that after hundreds of years it might be possible to learn a new truth, X-ray an artist’s intentions, his mistakes and his changes of mind, or even the economy with which he’d re-used his canvases.

The waitress cleared their plates and Polly asked for coffee. ‘Do you think one can care
too much
about art?’

‘Why on earth do you say that?’

‘I was just thinking – it’s almost as if it’s like a religion to Dr Blunt, you know. And I feel it myself. I’d almost rather be here than anywhere. Yesterday evening I went to the cinema with David and you know I found myself thinking, tomorrow’s Monday, tomorrow’s Monday and I was more excited about getting back to work than about spending the evening with David. Yet he’s my fiancé! I’m supposed to be in love with him. The film wasn’t very good, of course, but all the same …’

‘Nonsense, Polly – of course we all love art. It’s Dr Blunt’s lecture this afternoon. Are you going?’

‘It’s been cancelled.’

‘Cancelled?’ Dr Blunt’s lectures were an event. He never cancelled them.

The director’s lecture was a high point of Dinah’s week. Now an afternoon in the library stretched drearily ahead.

‘He’ll be back tomorrow, I think. Perhaps he’ll give the lecture on another day, later in the week or something.’

‘But I won’t be able to go to it then,’ wailed Dinah. ‘You’ll let me borrow your notes after, promise.’ But the day was ruined by the disappointment. And it did seem extraordinary. What on earth could possibly have led Dr Blunt to do something as drastic as cancel his lecture? It was, as he put it, an immoveable feast.

They returned to the Courtauld together and Polly followed Dinah into the library. Miss Welsh stared in refined horror at Polly’s drainpipes. Her faint frown conveyed the idea that a woman in slacks was an appalling inversion of the natural order. Dinah returned to her re-ordering of the books in the medieval section.

Dinah had intended to report back to Dr Blunt about a reference he’d asked her to look up. His absence was even stranger in that he’d particularly asked for her to have the information ready for this Monday. Disappointed not to speak to him about it, she gave the reference to his secretary. Then, to compensate for the disappointment, she decided not to stay on, but to visit her friend Reggie in Kensington.

Seated on the top deck of the 73 bus, travelling west instead of north, she thought of Alan, rising steadily up the ranks of the BBC features department, and soon destined, he felt sure, for television. He had contacts. ‘That’s the future, Dinah, it’ll be back to making films.’ He’d again be doing what he’d done in the war, making brilliant documentaries. She was so pleased for him. He was so talented. And surely he could find some sort of job for Colin?

Dinah’s friend, Regine, who was now – finally – Mrs William
Drownes, opened the door herself. She looked, if anything, more bohemian than ever these days, her red hair longer and more consciously pre-Raphaelite. But since the birth of her twins she’d been looking a bit too thin, even haggard.

‘How are you feeling, Reggie?’ asked Dinah as they sat down in the drawing room with their tea and cigarettes.

‘Having twins at my age is no joke,’ said Regine. ‘Thirtyseven is just too old for children.’

‘Oh, Reggie, but it was worth it, wasn’t it!’ Dinah knew it had been difficult, with life-threatening complications, and three months later she hadn’t fully recovered. There’d also been The Scandal, of course, which, if such a thing were possible, had been even worse. And the twins had arrived such a disgracefully short time after her marriage.

‘How are they? Can I see them?’

‘If you like. Later. Nanny’s feeding them at the moment.’

Reggie had a real nanny, referred to simply by her surname, Holt, with a proper grey uniform and a round felt hat, not just a Mary, who was Camden Town Irish. Nanny Holt frightened Dinah, who didn’t think Tommy would have got on with her awfully well, but of course Nanny Holt did everything the proper way, and would have considered Mary – and Dinah herself – dreadfully lax and lacking in routine.

‘Now tell me what’s going on at the Courtauld,’ and Regine leaned forward, more animated now. ‘William’s heard some rumours.’

Dinah shook her head, frowning, puzzled. ‘Nothing’s going on. Why should anything be going on?’

‘I’ve no idea, darling, it’s just that one of William’s authors – he’s written some book about being in the intelligence in wartime, well, it’s a thriller, actually, but William says it’s based on real life – well, he was hinting at … I don’t know what, really. Dr Blunt used to be in intelligence, of course. In the war.’

‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘Oh, darling, but then you’re not much good at gossip, are you.’

‘He did cancel his lecture today.’

Reggie was one of those women who somehow acquired lots of husbands. There was a mystery about her first, pre-war one, met in Shanghai. Then, while still married to her second, she’d no sooner taken a job at Drownes, the long-established publishers, than she’d ensnared or fallen for (according to your point of view) the son and heir. To the conservative hierarchy of the firm, this was more than enough to cast her as the scarlet woman. To make matters worse, her second husband had caddishly divorced her, citing William Drownes as ‘corespondent’, something that was simply not done, when he should have behaved like a gentleman and faked a weekend in Brighton with a prostitute to give Reggie grounds for divorcing
him
. It was appalling for a man to drag his wife through the courts as an adulteress and harlot, even if she was the guilty party. Almost everyone condemned Neville Milner as vindictive and small-minded, but that didn’t help Reggie, who had to leave her job and languished for months in a moral no man’s land, a fallen woman, living in sin, until the decree ‘nisi’ finally became ‘absolute’.