Daisy Waugh - Last Dance with Valentino

‘Well, perhaps I could – ah!’ He spotted the components, strewn across the table, and right away settled himself before them.

And so the four of us wiled away a little time, with Madeleine and me on the floor, Jack on my lap, and Rudy at the table, with his back to us, bent intently over his work. We talked of this and of that – of nothing, really. I don’t remember a word of it. But I do remember Madeleine, as Rudy worked away, slotting together small pieces of metal – I can see Madeleine now, pulling a face at me, rolling her eyes and pretending to swoon.

Jack said, ‘Mr Guglielmi, poor Madeleine is coming down with something pretty serious.’

He didn’t look up. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t really think so, Jack . . . ’

Rudy moves like a cat. You don’t hear him when he approaches. And he sees things when he doesn’t seem to be looking. Hardly reasons to fall in love with a man, I know. Nevertheless, when he said that, as cool as anything, and without even turning around, I remember even Madeleine blushed. Afterwards she always pretended she disliked him.

The steam train was put back together in no time. Too quickly. I believe that short half-hour, with none of us saying anything much, was the happiest half-hour I could remember. His voice, the faint smell of his cologne, his quiet concentration, the warmth of his presence – they softened the edges of the world for me. I could have stayed there for ever, with the boy on my lap, and Madeleine sulking, and Rudy, so very much there with us and yet so peacefully abstracted. I was in Heaven.

The weeks passed, and then the months. Christmas came and Christmas went. Rudy was at the house a great deal. Sometimes he would come by train, and Mr Hademak would pick him up from the station. Sometimes, though, much to Jack’s delight, he would arrive in his very own auto, and the two of them would spend happy hours playing with it. In any case, however he came, he would always seek us out.

It wasn’t entirely simple, however. Mr Hademak said he didn’t approve of Rudy ‘as a man’ (so he told me over tea one afternoon, though God knows quite what he meant by that). He was certainly very jealous of Mrs de Saulles’s affection for him.

On the other hand, Mr Hademak was undoubtedly fond of young Jack, and knowing how cheerfully he and Rudy played together, I am certain he would have been willing to overlook his disapproval. The problem (once again) was with his mistress. She, who never troubled to entertain the boy herself, who expected Rudy to sit indefinitely and wait, day after day, until she emerged from her sex-den to receive him, who barely acknowledged that I lived under the same roof with her, had ordered Hademak to ensure that the three of us be kept well apart: not simply Jack and Rudy, mind, but Rudy and me too.

‘She is worried what influence Mr Guglielmi might have,’ Mr Hademak told me, without quite looking at me. ‘Not just on the Little Man but on you, too, Miss Doyle. She has your best interests at heart.’ I remember laughing aloud when he said it. Mr Hademak chose not to react.

Her ruling meant that when the three of us were together, our meetings were always a little intense, and always conducted in whispers or at far corners of the garden, out of earshot of the house. Neither Jack nor Rudy nor I ever referred to the illicit nature of our lovely secret get-togethers. Needless to say, it only cemented our friendship further.

Not that Rudy and I were ever alone. In fact, since that first magical night on the terrace, we had not touched. We had barely spoken without young Jack being present. And yet there was a connection between us. Not simply – not only – of desire, but of tenderness, too. Oh, it seems so absurd and vain, seeing it written down here. Anybody who read these words would laugh and remind me that the very essence of Rudy is his magnetism. It is who he is; a man who has made half the world fall in love with him. And yet I know it was not imagined. I know it, because for all the long years when he was lost to me, it was this – this powerful, unspoken tenderness between us – that I could not give up on, that would never release its hold.

One evening, my father sought me out. He came to my room – something he had never done before. When I let him in, he sat himself morosely on the edge of my bed and gazed silently out of the window. I noticed he had lost weight – and heard myself asking if he was happy.

‘What?’ he said. ‘Happy? What an inane question, darling girl. Am I “ happy ”? Is that what you asked?’

‘I mean to say . . . are you miserable, Papa? You look quite miserable to me.’

‘Never been happier, Lola, my love! What about you? Do you like it in your new home? How do you find America?’

I told him I liked it very much, which was almost true, and his shoulders seemed to droop a little.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Excellent. Yes, it is. Rather splendid. Isn’t it?’

I agreed that it was, and then we fell silent.

‘She’s terribly lovely, you know,’ he said.

I sighed. ‘Oh, Papa . . . ’

‘I know you probably think she’s—’ he began.

‘No, I don’t. I don’t think anything, Papa.’

‘Don’t you?’ He seemed disappointed. He looked at me and smiled. ‘Nonsense. Tell me, Lola. What do you think?’

I hesitated. But not for terribly long because, of course, I was itching to tell him. ‘Well, Papa,’ I said, ‘if you’re sure you want to hear. Since you have asked me, I will tell you. Actually I think she is—’

‘Oh, God! ’ He ran both hands through his hair, and kept them there – half humorous, half not so humorous. Half desperate, I think. ‘Actually. Second thoughts, old girl. Don’t tell me! Don’t want to hear! Shouldn’t have asked.’

But by then it was too late. I couldn’t stay silent. ‘Papa, I see you getting thinner,’ I persisted. ‘You have lost weight. Have you noticed it? You have lost weight, and you look so wretched half the time—’

‘I can see you’re not taken with her. But the thing is—’

‘The thing is , Papa—’

‘I am absolutely head over heels in love with her.’

‘No, that isn’t it. The thing is , Papa—’

‘Don’t want to hear it. Don’t want to hear!’

‘Why? Because you know it already! You know quite well what I’m going to say!’

‘Know what? I know nothing of the kind.’

‘She is exploiting you, Papa. She is using you for her own ends.’

‘Using me? Using me! ’ He laughed aloud. ‘But I am perfectly useless!’

‘Because – Papa, you can’t be completely unaware of— I mean to say, for reasons of her own, Papa, you are not uppermost – by which I mean Rudy – that is, Mr Guglielmi . . . ’

‘Rudy? Rudy? Ha!’

‘Mr Guglielmi . . . ’

‘I see I should have been keeping a better eye on you, my friend . . . ’

‘She has him hanging about the house, while the two of you are— Oh, God! She wants him to go to the divorce court for her, so she can take Jack with her back to Chile, and Mr de Saulles, who loves the child so much better than she – he will never see the poor boy again.’

‘Yes! And I have said I would do it for her!’

It silenced me. Silenced us both.

My dear, darling father had the grace to look at least a little shamefaced. ‘I thought we might all go to Chile together,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you think, Lola? Sweetheart? Jack and his mother, and you and me? You seem to get on so well with the boy. Don’t you think? It might be rather fun.’

I said nothing.