Daisy Waugh - Last Dance with Valentino

Jack and I would spend hours together up in that overcrowded nursery. We would lie on the floor side by side, dismantling that wretched steam engine, and I would tell him stories about an imaginary England, a magical England, full of kings and queens and knights – oh, and of loving, living mothers and so forth – and nothing of the brutal, dowdy wartime England that I had left behind and barely missed at all.

When Jack was away with his father I used to feel quite bereft. I would mope about the house hoping for a chance to catch Papa alone, which I never did, and mostly feeling rather sorry for myself.

But he was not my only friend, of course. Madeleine and I enjoyed each other’s company. We used to reminisce about Europe – though her memories of Ireland and mine of London had very little in common. And we used to spend enjoyable stolen minutes, swapping tales of outrage about our dreadful employer. For the most part, though, Mrs de Saulles was so demanding, sending poor Madeleine this way and that, and winding her up to a point of such terrible tension, she rarely had the mind or the time to chatter. It wasn’t until later that we became close friends.

Mr Hademak, too, would occasionally pause from his nervous activity, and we would sit in the kitchen and discuss the ‘flickers’, as he still insisted on calling them. There was plenty for us to talk about, since – though back then I had only the faintest idea of what it might involve – I was already determined to forge some sort of career as a writer of movies. I told Mr Hademak so, and he was quite encouraging. He found an unwanted typewriter, which belonged to Mr de Saulles, and he arranged for me to have use of it, though only, he said, when Mrs de Saulles was out of the house, for fear the noise disturb her. We talked about that – my unformed dreams of the future. Mostly, though, it would be Mr Hademak doing the talking, telling me how much improved every film on earth would be if only the director had had the foresight to make Mary Pickford its star. He adored Mary Pickford to such a degree that I wondered sometimes where it left his beloved Mrs de Saulles.

The highlight of my life, of course, was when Rudy came by. And as her affair with my father continued (at some volume, I might add, especially when she knew Rudy was near) Mrs de Saulles began to summon him more and more, until there came a point when he would be at The Box almost daily. She told Hademak she was keen to have as many dance lessons as possible before her return to Chile – but the truth was, there was no return to Chile booked, and though Rudy came, day after day, Mrs de Saulles only rarely bothered to come down from her little tower, even to speak to him.

Rudy didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to know what game she was playing – and since she paid him well for his time I have to presume he was grateful for the money. He would sit on the veranda gazing out over that garden, smoking one cigarette after another, with the cries of his employer’s love-making echoing overhead.

At first, when he came from the city, I would hide away, too shy to let him see me. But then one day Jack and I were in the garden when Rudy’s car pulled up.

Jack began to dance about – he adored Rudy, as I imagined all children would. In any case I snapped at him to be still and he stopped dancing at once. He looked at me consideringly – long and hard. He said, ‘Are you in love with Mr Guglielmi?’

‘What? Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘All the girls are. My papa said. So I don’t see why you wouldn’t be.’

‘For Heaven’s sake!’

Jack ignored my plea to stay quiet, and bounded over the garden to greet him. I hung back, watching with some jealousy, I suppose, as Rudy’s face lit up. He threw down his cigarette, caught the boy in his open arms, with that peculiar grace of his, and tossed him high in the air. You could hear their laughter through the garden – over the grunts and groans oozing from other quarters . . . Oh, I’m exaggerating, of course. But the truth is, it was wonderful to watch them together: an unexpected blast of joy in that miserable, complicated household.

I had planned to slip quietly away, but Rudy saw me before I got a chance. ‘Aha! Jennifer!’ he cried. ‘I was hoping I would see you! But where are you going?’

‘I’m going . . . ’ Where was I going? ‘Well, I’m going to the house, of course. But I shall be back in a minute,’ I said. ‘I have to fetch something from the nursery.’

I saw Jack mumbling something into his ear, then Rudy nodding solemnly, smiling slightly, glancing back at me.

‘That’s all it is.’ Jack whispered loudly. ‘You see?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Rudy said – loud enough for me to hear it. ‘How extremely fortunate for me.’

At which point I’m almost certain I broke into a run.

Madeleine was in the hall – at a loose end for once. ‘Wait up!’ she said, delighted to find someone to gossip with. ‘Have you seen who’s here again, Jennifer?’

‘I have,’ I said.

‘Surprised you’re not out there. Batting your eyelids.’

‘Oh, be quiet.’

‘He’s handsome.’

‘I know it.’

‘And so does she .’ She indicated the tower boudoir. ‘Crazy bitch,’ she added, because she always did.

Madeleine followed me into the nursery and I suppose half an hour passed while she filled me in with details, some of which I could have survived without, regarding the conversation she had only that morning overheard between Mrs de Saulles and my father.

‘Though it wasn’t really a conversation, to be honest with you, Jennifer,’ she was saying. ‘More a series of grunts.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Yes, you do. And with me in the room, too! Good God, to look at them both – him an old man and her fragile as feather – on the outside . The crazy bitch. You wouldn’t believe they had it in them.’

‘Yes – well. The racket they make, I should think the whole of Long Island knows it by now,’ I said.

‘And there was me thinking, after a certain number of years, the mechanism stopped working. Didn’t you? A man as old as your father . . . ’

‘He’s not that old . . . ’

‘But the mechanism—’

‘Anything! Please! Can we talk of anything but my filthy papa and his ancient mechanism!’

We were laughing loudly, both of us, sprawled out lazily on the nursery floor. I looked up and there, standing side by side, were Rudy and Jack.

Madeleine gave a silly shriek.

‘Sounds like I missed an excellent beginning,’ Rudy said.

‘Not at all,’ I said, scrambling to sit up. ‘Actually Madeleine was being disgusting.’

‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘No, no,’ said I. ‘No no no.’

Madeleine guffawed.

‘Only Jack told me,’ Rudy said, ‘there was a steam engine up here, not working as well as it once did?’

‘Quite the opposite, Mr Guglielmi,’ gurgled Madeleine. ‘On the contrary. Ask Jennifer’s papa!’

How I longed to knock her out! Rudy looked for a moment as if he might be about to laugh himself – but then I suppose he saw the mortification on my face and thought better of it. He said, ‘Jack said he had a toy train that was broken. I thought perhaps I could fix it.’

‘And Jack is absolutely right,’ I said. ‘Madeleine—’ I looked at her, and almost – very nearly – started giggling myself. ‘How clever of Jack to remember. He and I have spent days trying to put the wretched thing back together. I’m not sure it can be fixed. Nothing we try seems to work . . . ’