His attitude and that of his companions said they were in for a long stay. I found a seat at a tiny table, waved the key in front of the harried waiter to prove my room number, and we were off.
Three times over the next couple of hours I left my table to go admire the fountains or use the Ladies’; three times I came back to a new place, each one closer to my targeted group. I never looked bored, never looked lonely, never gave the least indication that I was uncomfortable with being by myself. I ordered drinks from the waiters, smiled into the flashes of hotel photographers, and nodded encouragingly at the band. I put on an attitude of contented self-sufficiency, as interested in my surroundings as any South-Seas anthropologist was in her tribe. Twice, I even took out a tiny note-book and wrote something down.
The most difficult part of the act was the young men who came buzzing like wasps around a lunch-tray. None of them knew me, since I had kept my face firmly tucked beneath my hat during the day, but all of them pretended to. Why do young men never believe that the world will go on nicely without them? A dozen times before midnight, a figure in a dinner jacket would appear in my field of vision, make clever conversation, and linger for a while. It was, in part, because I wore my wedding ring on my right hand, but even shifting it over did not dislodge the persistent. My second table-move and trip to the Ladies’ was the only way I could free myself of the attentions of one particularly drunk and disbelieving baronet.
However, when I wandered back into Chez Vous, a couple was rising from the very table I wanted, and my programme of patience and bland ruthlessness paid off: the table was mine before my rivals could claim it.
I moved the chair a few inches, enabling me to see the dance floor—and more important, giving my target a clear view of my profile. I asked for another glass of Prosecco (of which, truth to tell, my palate was growing a bit tired) and concentrated on the dance floor with an academic eye. The table behind me—tables, rather, since several of them had been pushed together as the numbers swelled—was raucous, but unlike most by this hour, the merriment they gave off was not merely drunken blare. Actual conversation was being made—or attempted, at any rate—and although none of what I managed to catch was particularly profound, nonetheless it sounded a considerable step up from the gossip and back-biting I had heard amongst the beach chairs.
I smiled to myself, at the thought that this was the table I might actually have chosen to join, were I left to myself.
Perhaps that smile was what did it. The Gioconda sensation on my face had scarcely faded when a chair scraped back and I saw a figure rise to his feet and move in my direction. Just before he reached me, I stretched out an arm for my little bag on the table. My fingers worked its ornate clasp, slipped inside, began to draw back—only to have a hand with a sleek gold cigarette lighter appear before my face. A flame snapped to attention. I looked at it, then let my eyes travel up the slim, beautifully tailored arm to the shoulder and face framed by dark curls with sun-burnt ends. I summoned the enigmatic smile.
“Terribly sorry, I don’t smoke.” So saying, I finished withdrawing my arm, and waved back and forth the little note-book with its delicate silver pencil clipped to the cover.
His face was priceless. He let the flame detumesce. The table behind me erupted in laughter, but before he could turn away with embarrassment, I laid a hand on his sleeve. “It was very kind of you to offer, though. Thank you.”
His flush faded, and after a moment, he gave a grudging chuckle. “Well, I can see you drink. Buy you one of those?”
“Thanks, but I’m married.”
“That’s all right.” The flush returned as he realised how that could be taken. “That is, I’m not—look, I was asked to see if you’d care to join us. If you’re tired of sitting by yourself, that is…”
I took pity on him. “Who is doing the asking?” I half-turned, to run a quick eye across the gathered strangers as if anticipating a known face among them. Thank heavens, there was not.
“Miss Maxwell.” When I did not respond with the proper awe, he ventured, “Miss Elsa Maxwell?”
“I don’t believe I know a Miss—wait. Elsa? Does she happen to be American? From San Francisco?”
“That’s her.” He beamed, pleased as punch to have hit the ball at last.
I swivelled again to survey the gathering. Every set of eyes was focussed on our little tableau, even those who had been facing the opposite direction. This time, I permitted my gaze to pause on the face of the unlikely woman at the centre of the group’s regard.
She stuck out like a bull in a herd of antelope: an unlovely woman in her forties with a large nose, three chins, untended hair, and a pair of huge and hideous diamanté earrings. She wore an exuberant sequined dress that made her bosom look vast, and a smear of carmine lipstick that might have been put on in the dark. But in that unfortunate face were a pair of dark eyes that saw every person and thing in the room. I felt her gaze eating up all the details of my life, seeing through the act, seeing beneath the assurance to the outsider—and caught myself: that gaze was a tool. The woman would know nothing about me that I did not wish to give her.
I turned to tuck away the note-book and pen, then permitted the young man to guide me around the conjoined tables. He proudly handed me over to his American hostess, who summoned a chair to her side and patted its seat. I perched on the cushion, and put out a hand. “You’re Miss Elsa Maxwell? Of San Francisco?”
She was clearly accustomed to being recognised, but was less prepared for the second half of my question. “Originally, maybe. Not any longer.”
“I believe our mothers worked together during the War, raising money to buy aeroplanes for the RAF.”
The sharp eyes took on a degree of warmth, and more than that, of humour. “If your mother managed to get some money out of mine, she musta been a powerful talker.”
“I think she may have been more interested in your mother’s energy than her cheque-book.”
Elsa Maxwell laughed—and that was all it took for Mary Russell to become one of the Lido set.
I was very glad that the mask I wore was so close to the face beneath: somewhat aloof, rather sardonic, impatient with idiots, and with a clear, academic interest in everything around me. I was also glad I hadn’t tried to suggest I was a lesbian: those Maxwell eyes would have seen through that in an instant, and rejected me out of hand. Because—as I was soon to learn—Miss Maxwell was amiable with the shallowness of those around her, and only mildly impatient with drunks, but when it came to fakery, her rejection was scathing and absolute.
I would also learn that once a person had made it into Elsa’s good graces, they were intimate friends for life.
The night passed in a blur of the powerful, the talented, and the simply beautiful. I danced, I drank, I even flirted (mildly, and a touch nervously: who knew when Holmes’ face might appear amongst the crowd?). To my surprise, I had fun. Near to dawn, the band packed away its instruments, yawning waiters began to trade the night’s linen for breakfast settings, and Elsa Maxwell’s dozens of intimate friends drifted away to their rest, separate or together.
I got to my feet, numb and dishevelled, yet more content than I would have believed possible at the end of an all-night affair. I squinted out over the still-dark ocean, and wondered how long I should have to wait until the vaporetti started crossing the laguna.
I adjusted my drooping bandeau and held out a well-mannered hand to the lady in the sequins—who seized my arms instead and gave me a smack on the cheek with her garish smear of lipstick. “See you around?”