Before I Met You

22


1920




ARLETTE RECOGNISED ONE or two of the faces that were currently staring at her. She recognised both a girl whose name was Anna and a man whose name was Charles as members of the band of carollers from that night before Christmas Eve. The rest of the group swirled overwhelmingly before her eyes, all young, loud, bright-eyed with names like Virginia and Magenta, Claude and Francis, an amorphous mass of glamour and chatter. She had come with Gideon and met ‘the rest of the gang’ at a club in Windmill Street called the White Oleander. She could never before have imagined herself in such a place. First of all, the general environs of Soho, a shabby, dirty place, urchins running through the night-time shadows, muck-strewn pavements, a deep stench of rotting vegetation and unwashed flesh and general putrefaction. The buildings were small and packed tightly together, like the grimiest, most secret corners of Old St Peter Port, where sailors flashed their tattoos and breathed out fumes of old brown rum and chewing tobacco. And here there were prostitutes; blatantly, unashamedly, showing themselves to the street, in gaudy clothes and with faces smeared with make-up, and a lady with breasts so large they seemed almost to be swallowing her whole.

The door into this club had seemed at first to be not so much an entrance as a trap door, located in a basement and with rickety wooden steps leading down to a dark cave of a room, lit around the walls with flickering gas fittings. But now, through a gold curtain and into the main body of the club, Arlette felt thrilled by the place, by its walls hung with gold, its tables set around a small stage draped with red velvet, lamps on every table and waitresses dressed as Greek goddesses. Upon the stage a smiling man with brown skin and shorn afro hair strummed at a double bass, held to his side like a dancing partner, and a woman with bright blond hair and a bugle-beaded evening gown ran her fingers up and down the keys of an upright piano.

The party had been shown to a small booth, all red velvet and gilt. Arlette was squeezed between Gideon and the girl called Anna, and one of the toga-wearing waitresses was unloading a tray of cocktails onto the table. Arlette had ordered an Americano, Leticia’s drink of choice and still the only cocktail she could name. It arrived with a shiny red cherry on a stick and a small bowl of dark-skinned olives.

She had by now spent three afternoons in Gideon Worsley’s studio and felt quite comfortable in his company. She felt, in fact, that he was not nearly as interesting or mysterious as her first encounter with him might have suggested and that he was, despite his top-hat-wearing ways and his eccentric cottage by the river, really a rather conventional young man, the type one’s mother would approve of.

His circle of friends, though, appeared to be anything but conventional.

Anna, who sat to her right, was wearing a silk kimono and talking very loudly of her job as a life model.

‘A life model? What is that exactly?’ Arlette asked her.

‘It is a person who removes every last stitch of their clothing and stands stark-hooter naked in a room full of artists for hours on end.’

Arlette widened her eyes and Anna laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘how else is an artist meant to learn how to draw the naked form? Imagine the world if no one had ever removed their clothes for an artist before. No Rubens. No Renoir. No Alma-Tadema. These people did not paint from their imaginations, you know.’

‘And are you paid? For your, er, work?’

‘But of course! Well, I am hardly going to put myself through such physical hardship for nothing, am I? And it is hard work, you know. Cold, cold rooms, not moving for an hour or more, sometimes in the most extraordinary poses. Once, with my legs wrapped around my neck, like a necklace,’ she laughed. ‘A human pretzel, no less!’

Arlette did not know what a pretzel was, but smiled and laughed appropriately.

‘I could barely walk normally for a week after that! Although I was indeed paid extra. And you, Arlette – tell me about you.’

‘Oh, well, there is really nothing to tell.’

‘Oh, poppycock. If there’s one thing my twenty-four years on this earth have taught me it’s that there is always something to tell. Where are you from?’

‘Guernsey,’ she replied. ‘In the Channel Islands.’

‘Oh, yes, I know Guernsey. I went there once, as a child for my summer holidays. A glorious place.’

Arlette felt a bubble of warm feeling rise up through herself. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how lovely. It’s rare to meet anyone who knows of the island.’

‘And how long have you been in London?’

‘Well, only a few months. I arrived in September. And I’m staying with my mother’s best friend in Kensington.’

‘What’s her name? The friend?’

‘Leticia Miller. The Millers.’

‘Yes. Of course. I know the Millers. Abingdon Villas?’

‘Yes!’

‘A wild family! By all accounts.’

‘Well, yes, they are, rather. How do you know them?’

‘My mother was at Oxford with Mr Miller. Back in the days when women at Oxford were rather a novelty. Back in the days when my mother was rather a novelty. And Leticia was the loveliest thing, apparently. When Anthony Miller brought her around, jaws hit the floor, fights ensued, but he stuck to his guns and he got her. And now they have a heap of wild children and a huge ungainly house, and Mr Miller is nowhere to be seen.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘That would not happen to me, let me assure you. I never want to have children. No. I shall spend the rest of my life being fêted and adored by a dozen different men. I shall keep myself in small rooms, neat and tidy – no need of teams of staff just to keep it from falling into squalor – independent and reckless. That is how it will be for me. I will not be like my mother with her tired body and her faded eyes, and her house full of things that need to be cleaned, and furniture needing to be rotated, and a husband who looks upon her much as one would look upon a particularly hard-wearing and reasonably attractive chiffonier.’

‘I will wager a week’s wages on you being married and pregnant before your twenty-seventh birthday,’ Gideon interrupted.

‘Firstly, Gideon Worsley, you do not earn a week’s wages. You do not, in fact, earn anything, as far as I can tell. And secondly, no, it is you who will be married and tied down to a hundred screaming brats, gasping for air in some gigantic mausoleum in the countryside, forced to work for a living and easing your woes with a large whisky for your breakfast!’

Gideon laughed. ‘That may well be true, Anna, my beautiful friend, but we will all, each and every one of us, revert to type as the reality of middle-age begins to dawn upon us. It is all well and good to live this way now. We are young. We are free. But as the spectre of thirty begins to loom, which of us would want to find ourselves with all our friends lost to another way of living, alone in some hovel with no one to care if we have aches or pains, to bring us a hot toddy when we have a head cold, to tell us of being young and being modern? Which of us would want to set ourselves in aspic, in one glorious golden moment, and never ever experience the other golden moments of life, beyond mere youth, of family and growth and love and –’

‘Nonsense,’ retorted Anna. ‘Who said anything about aspic? I am talking of absolutely anything but aspic. I am talking of the freedom that childlessness would bring. To travel the world. Experiences we cannot even begin to imagine at our young age. We came so very close to losing our freedom. Our liberty. It was nearly snatched away from us. Who in their right mind would tie themselves down with matrimony and a household to run? Who would not want to take our freedom, the freedom that our boys and men laid down their lives for – my cousin, your brother, Gideon, darling sweet Edwin, all those men, all that blood, all that war – so that we can do as we please? No, I shall not use that expensively bought freedom to do as my mother and her mother and her mother before her have done. It is the greatest gift and I intend to use it well.’

Gideon shrugged. His smile had dropped at the mention of his brother. He said, ‘Well then, if the ultimate freedom is in doing as we please, it will please me to marry well and to have at least four children.’

Anna smiled and clutched Gideon’s hand inside hers. ‘You are the sweetest man. And the woman you marry will have married well also. But look after her. And no running away to Belgium. Keep her on a pedestal.’

‘But of course,’ said Gideon. ‘It is my job to put women on pedestals. That could never change.’

‘And what about you, Arlette?’ Anna turned to her. ‘Are you the marrying kind?’

Arlette laughed. It felt like only five minutes ago she had been a child, and then there had been four years of war and she had come out of the other side of that with no firm ideas about what sort of adult she might like to be. But as she looked at Anna, her handsome face, her vermilion lips, her upright posture and the glint in her eye of fierce intelligence, it struck her that she would like to be like her, just like her. She smiled and said, ‘No. I’m not sure that I am.’

Anna looked at her with surprise and smiled. ‘Good,’ she said simply, ‘good.’

And Arlette’s heart sang.





23


1995




THE BOOK ANTIQUARIAN had approximately three strands of hair, one the colour of rancid butter, one a dark Jamaican ginger and the last one pure white. All three strands had been lovingly pasted across a bald, age-spotted pate. His face hung from his skull in folds and his mouth was loose and overly wet-looking. He spoke with a nasal twang and used a pince-nez to examine the book he held in his hands.

‘Amazing,’ he said, ‘totally incredible. Where did you find this?’

He said this accusatorily as though he suspected she had stolen it from the bed-stand of a wealthy dowager that very morning.

‘It was left to me,’ Betty said, ‘by my grandmother.’

He nodded and put the pince-nez back to the bridge of his wizardly nose.

‘It’s a second edition. Nowhere near as valuable as a first edition, of course. But still, not inconsiderable, except ... oh dear ...’ He turned the frontispiece over and stared disconsolately at Arlette’s handwritten inscription. ‘Was your grandmother famous?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Shame. Inscriptions from people of note can actually add to the value of a book. But this,’ he ran a finger sadly across Arlette’s immaculate handwriting, ‘this rather detracts, I’m afraid. But still, beautiful, beautiful book. I could sell it for you in a flash.’

Betty gulped and looked at him curiously yet innocently, as though the value of her grandmother’s heirloom could not be of less interest to her.

‘Yes, I could put this out for you; ask about forty, forty-five pounds for it?’

Betty gulped again. The exact price of the hairdressing appointment she so badly required. But she had not come here to sell it, she had come to see if it held any clues.

‘Little Miss Pickle,’ said the man, closing the book gently and running a finger down the spine. ‘Who’s that? Is that you, then?’

Betty shook her head. ‘No. It’s a bit of a mystery. There’s someone called Clara Pickle mentioned in her will, but nobody in the family knows who she is.’

‘Sounds almost wistful, don’t you think?’ The man held his pince-nez at an angle and eyed Betty almost fondly. ‘Almost like she’s writing to someone she hasn’t seen for a long time. Or maybe someone she never saw at all. When did she die?’

‘About two months ago,’ she said, somewhat vaguely, thoughts crowding her head.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Fascinating. I do love the inscriptions. They always tell a story. Pickle,’ he smiled. ‘I wonder who she was ...’

‘I was hoping there might be a clue. In the book,’ she asked hopefully.

He turned it over, back to front, looked at it again and said, ‘Sadly no. It could have come from anywhere.’

Betty took the book away with her, clutched tightly to her chest inside her shoulder bag. It held no clues to the identity of Arlette’s benefactor, but she was one hundred per cent sure that Arlette had fully believed that Betty was one day going to put it into the hands of its rightful owner. Whoever the hell she was.

The fur, the book, the name and address of a man in South Kensington.

Betty had assumed these were all random: a hastily assembled group of things that bore no relationship to one another. But now she was not so sure. Now she was remembering the Arlette of yesteryear, the sharp-as-a-pin Arlette, the woman who did not bear fools gladly, who cut a swathe and made a fuss and always got exactly what she wanted. The essence of that woman had still been there in September 1988 so it stood to some kind of reason that these items all bore some relationship to one another. That she had put them there for a reason. Without the folded piece of paper and the inscription they were just a coat and book. But with them, they were clues. She had spent too long finding her place here in Soho, and she knew now, without a shadow of doubt, that it was time to get serious, time to find Clara Pickle.


She forced the twenty-pence piece into the slot at the sound of the man’s voice. ‘Hello, is that Mr Mubarak?’

‘Yes, this is. Who is this please?’

‘My name’s Betty Dean. I came to see you a few weeks ago. I was asking about a man called Peter Lawler.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I have not forgotten you! What can I do to help you?’

‘I was wondering ... you said that Peter Lawler had gone to hospital when he left his flat. Can you remember which hospital he was at? And, if possible, when this was?’

‘Oh, yes, that is simple. I remember because I went to visit him. And it was a terrible journey. Out in Fulham somewhere. Two buses and it was the coldest day since records began, and on the way home I had to wait nearly fifty minutes for my return journey and it was one of those miserable days that stamps itself in your head, permanently.’

‘Fulham?’ she asked, trying to curb her impatience.

‘Yes, it is the big hospital there. The Charing Cross Hospital.’

‘In Fulham?’

‘Yes. I do not know why it is called this, but it is. And it was January. I remember that. The Arctic freeze. The whole world was cold. January 1985.’

‘And what ward was he on?’

‘Well, it was his liver. It was the drink. So, now, what would that be called ... I used to work in a hospital, I should be able to remember this ... Oh, yes, hepatology. He was on the hepatology ward.’

Betty smiled and popped another twenty-pence piece into the phone. ‘That’s totally brilliant. Thank you.’

‘You are still trying to track him down then? This mystery man?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m really hoping he’ll be able to help me with another mystery. If he’s, you know ...’

‘Still alive, yes, that is not at all certain. But listen, I am so glad you called. I had been hoping that you might because after you went the other day, I found his original rental agreement. I can tell you two more things about him. Do you have a pen?’

Betty caught her breath. Why hadn’t she called earlier? ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘I can tell you that his old address was Flat 2, 23 Battersea Park Road, London, SW11 2GH. I can also tell you that his middle name was John. Peter John Lawler. Did you get that? Peter. John. Lawler. Is that useful?’

‘Yes!’ said Betty. ‘Yes. That’s brilliant. That’s absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much.’

‘And remember, Miss Dean, I am here at your disposal should you have any more questions or needs or problems. At your disposal.’

‘Thank you, Mr Mubarak. Thank you. That’s really kind of you.’

‘Not at all, my dear. Not at all.’


Number 23 Battersea Park Road was a dry cleaners called Smart’s, and the entrance to the flats above was up an alley that ran behind the parade of shops. Betty felt rather nervous as she turned off the main road and into this dead end of overflowing paladins and grimy back windows. She rang the doorbell and glanced warily around her while she waited. Eventually a voice came to the intercom. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, I’m looking for someone who might know someone who used to live at this address? A Peter Lawler?’

The voice on the intercom went silent, but Betty could hear them breathing.

‘Hello?’

‘Yes. Hello. Sorry. Who is this?’

‘My name’s Betty. I found Peter’s name and address in my grandmother’s possessions. I think he might be able to help me find someone. I was wondering –’

‘Wait,’ said the voice, ‘wait there. I’m coming down.’

Betty turned away from the door and faced the alleyway. A black cat appeared from behind an upturned milk crate and scurried past her nervously. Then the door behind her was unlocked and she found herself face to face with a middle-aged woman with fiercely dyed black hair and a baby in her arms. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’m Liz, I used to be married to Peter.’

‘Oh,’ said Betty, ‘I’m Liz too – well, sort of. I used to be. I’m Betty now. Nice to meet you.’

The woman’s face softened. ‘I think I might be able to help you,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come in?’

She followed the woman called Liz up a scruffy flight of stairs and into a claustrophobic living room overlooking Battersea Park Road. The woman put the baby down on a play mat and offered Betty a drink. She left the room and returned a minute later with a cardboard box in her arms.

‘That’s my grandson,’ she said, sitting down with the box on her lap and nodding at the baby. ‘Zac, the love of my life.’ She smiled fondly at the baby and the baby kicked its legs at her with excitement. ‘I have him every Tuesday and every Thursday. Don’t I, my lovely boy?’ The baby kicked his legs again and Liz sighed happily and then turned to the contents of the box in front of her. ‘So, I’ve been waiting for this moment,’ she said, ‘half-expecting it. This was basically all I got after Peter died ...’ She stroked the cardboard box absent-mindedly.

‘Oh,’ said Betty. ‘Peter’s dead?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘Well, I thought he might be. I got this address from his old landlord. He told me he’d been very ill.’

‘Yeah. Very ill. We were already divorced then, been divorced for ten years, but he never met anyone else and this was the last place he lived before he moved out. I was still his next of kin. It was me who they called when he passed away.’

‘What was it, in the end?’

‘Emphysema. Of course. Stupid bastard. Had so much. Chucked it all away. When I met him he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. Couldn’t believe he wanted to be with me. But then soon realised the looks were just a frame, the picture was a mess ...’

‘So, what’s in the box?’

Liz snapped herself from her sad reverie and looked down. ‘Oh, yes, this is all the paperwork from his last unsolved cases, the ones we couldn’t send back, the ones without addresses.’

‘Unsolved cases?’

‘Yes. Peter was a private detective.’

‘Oh! Wow! Really!’

‘Yes, I assumed you’d have known.’

‘No. Had no idea. I found his name and address in my grandmother’s coat pocket. After she died.’

‘Your grandmother. I see. What was her name?’

‘Arlette Lafolley.’

Liz flicked through the green cardboard folders in the box. ‘Lafolley, Lafolley ...’ she muttered to herself. ‘Ah, here.’ She pulled a folder free. ‘I remember this well, another one with no address.’

She passed it to Betty.

‘What was he doing for her?’ said Betty. ‘Do you know?’

‘Well, trying to find someone, I’d imagine,’ Liz replied. ‘That was what Peter did. He tracked down missing people. Usually for legacies.’

Betty squeezed the bulging file and then peered inside it. A photograph wallet from Boots, photocopied listings from Yellow Pages, a vintage photo album smelling of old paper and mildew, and a programme for a jazz concert featuring a trio called Sandy Beach and the Love Brothers. She pulled it out and read it. They were three handsome black men, with gelled-back hair and tuxedos, one holding a double bass, one brandishing a fiddle and the other with a clarinet. They had played a concert at a club called the White Oleander in Windmill Street on Thursday 8 January 1920. Betty could feel the glamour bristling from within this record of a long-dead moment. She opened the programme and read the copy.


Sandy Beach and his Love Brothers, Bert and Buster, are all members of the world-famous Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Tonight, we welcome them in a rare arrangement as a trio to the White Oleander. So, for one night only, sit back, sup up, relax and let Sandy and his Love Brothers take you on to the dance floor for a night you’ll never forget!


‘Wow,’ she said softly.

‘Anything interesting?’ asked Liz, snapping Betty back into real life.

She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Can I take these? Take them away and look at them at home?’

‘Oh God, yes, absolutely. Please. I just wish everyone would come and take their files. I hate having them here. All those unfinished stories, all those incomplete lives.’

The baby began to grumble and Liz got to her knees to pick him up from his play mat and brought him to the sofa.

‘So,’ she said, ‘your grandmother. Any idea who she was trying to find?’

Betty glanced down at the programme on her lap, at that luscious suggestion of post-war decadence, of mink stoles and hackney carriages, of cigarettes in holders and feathered headdresses. She sighed. ‘Someone called Clara Pickle,’ she said. ‘That’s all we know. Clara Pickle. Used to live in Soho. A total mystery. Arlette never even came to London.’

‘Oh,’ said Liz, kissing the top of her grandson’s head and smiling drily, ‘you never really know a person until after they’re dead. That’s when it all comes out. All the stuff they locked up in boxes. All the secrets, all the lies. That’s when you really know the truth.’

Betty smiled and gripped the folder to her chest. She wondered how true that might be.





24


1920




ARLETTE COULD NOT entirely tell if she was drunk or not. The night had been so extraordinary, the atmosphere so other, the company so eclectic and the music so stimulating, so unlike anything she’d ever heard before, that she could barely remember what her life had felt like before she’d walked into the White Oleander three hours earlier. She had been drinking Americanos, slowly, sip by sip, not downing them like some of Gideon’s friends, but still, she’d had at least three, maybe even four.

‘Come on,’ said Gideon after the band had finished their musical set. ‘Let us go and congratulate the musicians. Come with me!’

‘We can’t do that!’ cried Arlette.

‘Whyever not?’

‘Well, because they must be so tired after their performance. Surely.’

‘No! Of course they won’t be! They’ll be full of energy long into the night, I’m sure. Come along!’

She picked up her glass and followed him from their booth and towards a curtained area to the side of the stage. Gideon peered through and then beckoned Arlette. She ran her hand down her hair and paused for a moment. It had been remarkable to her to see these men, even from a distance, with their skin as dark as the night and their teeth as large and as white as sugar lumps. She had never before, beyond the occasional fleeting glimpse of a brown-skinned sailor, by the light of a gas lamp in a St Peter Port alleyway, been at such close quarters to a negro. And not just a negro, but three negros, all from the Caribbean. She felt breathless with nerves as she followed Gideon behind the curtain and into a small lounge where the three musicians sat with their ties loosened and cold beers in their hands.

‘Gentlemen,’ Gideon began, ‘congratulations. Really, that was quite, quite tremendous.’

‘Why, thank you, sir, we’re glad you enjoyed it.’

The accent! Arlette could barely breathe. It was an accent laced with palm trees and calm blue seas; it was the most exotic thing ever to have passed through her ears.

‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gideon Worsley, an artist. And this is my very good friend, and my current muse, Miss Arlette De La Mare.’

‘Good evening. My name, as you probably know, is Sandy Beach,’ the singer said, getting to his feet and shaking Gideon’s hand. ‘This here is Bert, and this here is his brother, Buster. It is nice to make your acquaintance. And yours, Miss De La Mare.’ He bowed slightly and Arlette blushed violently. She had no idea how to respond. She was overwhelmed by this man and his skin and his accent, and the smell in this room of freshly boiled sweat and sickly pomade. She had been left mute with exhilaration. She wanted to touch him, see what his skin felt like against hers. She wanted to say something impressive and unforgettable. She wanted him to talk for ever, in that soft voice, tell them things about coconuts and flying fish, coral reefs and hummingbirds. Instead she stood and stared, not at him, but at some indistinct point behind him, looking, she was sure, as if he was of no interest to her whatsoever. She felt the atmosphere turn and knew immediately it was because of her, but still she could find no words inside her head or persuade her eyes to look upon his. Instead it was left to Gideon to fill the air.

‘You’ve had quite a year, by all accounts,’ he opened. ‘The Royal Albert Hall and the King himself, no less. How I wish I had been invited to attend that performance. A friend of my parents was there and said it was quite the most exciting thing they had ever seen. Unforgettable.’

‘Yes, I must say, London has taken us to its heart. I’m not sure any of us anticipated such a warm reception.’

‘Well, it’s a tonic, isn’t it? Just what we all need after these long dark years of war. And your sound is really quite remarkable. So new. So fresh. So ... so ... thrilling.’

‘That’s so very nice to hear,’ said Sandy Beach. ‘We do aim to please.’ Sandy Beach smiled and there were those teeth again, teeth that bore little resemblance to the mean off-white pegs that sat unhappily inside the mouths of English people. His teeth looked happy. His whole demeanour spoke of contentment and good health.

‘Mr Beach, you’ll have to excuse my candour, I have had more than one or two gin-and-its tonight, and am probably speaking more freely than I would do under normal circumstances, but my eye has been taken irresistibly by your bone structure. So strong, so fierce. I paint faces. I have, I am proud to say, painted the exquisite face of Miss De La Mare amongst many, many others, and I wonder – and of course I presume the answer to be no – but I wonder if you would consider sitting for me, some time, at my studio in Chelsea?’

Sandy Beach smiled and laughed. ‘Oh, Mr Worsley, it embarrasses me somewhat to say, but you are not the first painter to ask me to sit for him. I have been asked, what, brothers ...?’ He laughed and turned to Bert and Buster, who laughed in response.

Bert sighed and said, ‘Oh, this must be the twelfth time that Sandy has been asked to sit. But why not? I mean, look at him. He is such a very, very beautiful man.’

All three musicians broke into a laughter then that sounded to Arlette’s unaccustomed ears like music rolling across warm white sands.

Gideon laughed too, but Arlette could tell he had been thrown off course by the unoriginality of his request.

‘Listen, though,’ said Sandy Beach, ‘I will make you a deal, young man, because I can see that you are a good soul and I like your hair. And also, I have the next three days off and nothing else to do. So I will come and sit for you, if I can ask for the privilege of sitting with this beautiful young lady at the same time.’

Arlette gasped and finally managed to pull her gaze from the wall behind Sandy Beach and directly into his eyes. They were dark, dark brown with a faint phosphoric wash of yellow, framed with lashes like chenille, and bulging slightly from his skull as though, independently of his body, wanting to suck in the world. She looked away again and he laughed.

‘Miss De La Mare, I am sorry, I did not mean to embarrass you. It’s just, you are a rare beauty, that is plain to the eye, and if I am to give up one of my only three free days this month then I need something more inspiring to look at than your good-natured friend here. And can’t you just see it?’ He made a frame from his hands. ‘Black and white, ebony and ivory, my full features against your fine bones. What a joyous, miraculous contrast that would be. What do you think, Mr Worsley. Am I right? Or am I right?’ He laughed again and Gideon laughed, but Arlette saw his uncertainty.

Suddenly she felt overcome with a strong sense of conviction. As she had imagined herself when Gideon had asked her to model for him, in his garret with the wilted wild flowers and the emaciated cat, she could see herself once more, entwined with this man, this famous musician, his black skin against hers, the sound of barges passing down the Thames, the scratch of Gideon mixing his watercolours, the exotic smell of Sandy Beach in her nostrils, the thrill of doing something so far from anything she’d imagined she might once do when she was just a young girl on an island she thought she’d never leave.

‘Oh, no, Mr Beach, I’m not embarrassed,’ she said as lightly as her excitement would allow. ‘I think it’s a marvellous idea. And it would be an honour to pose with you. Truly.’

Gideon looked at Arlette, surprise playing along his full lips, and then immediately he turned back to Sandy Beach and clapped his hands together. ‘Wonderful!’ he cried. ‘That really is quite wonderful. Miss De La Mare, when would you be free to come to my studio?’

‘Saturday,’ she replied breathlessly. ‘I have no commitments on Saturday.’

‘Well, then,’ said Gideon, his hands still clasped together, ‘Saturday it is. Here is my card, Mr Beach. Come at twelve.’

‘Two,’ said Sandy Beach, ‘I’ll come at two.’

‘Yes,’ said Gideon, ‘of course.’

They left then, back through the velvet curtain and into the last red-hot embers of the nightclub.