After the Cabaret by Hilary Bailey Page A

no pain. ‘But here she is again,’ he said briskly, ‘in spirit. That’s enough. Turn on your little recorder and let’s go on. You have your career to consider.’
    Greg placed the recorder on the table and shot Bruno a quick, intense look, as if by catching the old man unawares he could work out who he was, and what approach he was taking. He knew – just knew – that there was more to Bruno Lowenthal than met his eye. His glance did not escape Bruno, who smiled knowingly, as if he had guessed what Greg was thinking. Sitting in the restaurant, with its view of the park, Bruno’s cracked, precise voice went on: ‘This park used to be full of barrage balloons. The ropes securing them were all over the place – you’d fall over them in the dark. Sometimes the balloons were on the ground, huge and white. It was completely dark at night, of course, because of the blackout. The whole city was dark. We lived by looking up, I suppose, at the moon and the stars, the searchlights – and the aircraft overhead. Often, you would see the swastikas painted on their sides. People made love in the park, on the grass with the bombers going overhead.’
    Greg smiled. ‘Did you?’
    â€˜Sometimes,’ the old man said. ‘When I thought Briggs wouldn’t find out. You could meet anybody in the dark.’ The old blue eyes took on a gleam. ‘Yes, well,’ said Bruno, in a more practical tone, ‘it was a long time ago. Now, where were we? Ah, when the Blitz began …’

Chapter 15
    â€˜The battle of Britain was over then – all those dull little places with dull names, Ramsgate, Hastings, Bromley, Orpington, had been bombed. The people would look up and see the planes fighting just above the trees, lower sometimes. They called it hedgehopping. And the average life of a Spitfire pilot in those days was, they said, three weeks. The attack on the cities was still to come. But before that, and before La Vie en Rose was due to open, Sally arrived suddenly at Pontifex Street one evening with her luggage, an officer of the Free French Army and a mattress. There was an attic upstairs, just a room about twelve yards square with a sloping roof and a skylight and two very small windows, high up. You had to climb a ladder to get up to this room. And Sir Peveril Jones, who, you will remember, was our landlord, had told Sally she could have it. She was moving in.
    â€˜When she arrived Briggs and Pym were there having a drink. I was cooking supper. Briggs fought back. “Youcan’t possibly stay. There’s only one bathroom,” he said, and instantly phoned Sir Peveril at his secret War Office number. He was on the phone to Sir Peveril when Julia came in, making a fuss also. She didn’t know Sally well, but I don’t think she wanted to be associated with Sally in people’s minds. It was a matter of her reputation. After all, Julia was having an affair with Sir Peveril, who had a wife and several young children tucked away in an old manor house on the Welsh borders. Sally, though, was open in what she did – she never had an ulterior motive. Julia believed that if Sally was about, people would connect them, call them both tarts – and Julia was being very careful for she wanted to marry Sir Peveril and be Lady Jones of the Elizabethan manor house.
    â€˜But it was Briggs who made the most fuss. He raised his voice to Sir Peveril, which showed how angry he was because Sir Peveril was much senior to him at his office –
and
his landlord.
    â€˜I only heard Briggs’s end of the conversation, naturally, but it sounded as if Sir Peveril was determined. He told Briggs that Sally would be singing at La Vie en Rose and would need a base nearby, and that, as you could say, was that. I thought at the time that Sir Peveril must have some old connection with Cora Blow and that that was why he gave Sally permission to stay in the attic