Last Dance with Valentino

Then the music stopped, and we were returned to earth. Mr de Saulles, with glassy-eyed determination, stepped forward to dance with Miss Sawyer; Mr Guglielmi melted away, ignored by everyone, except Mrs de Saulles, who didn’t take her eyes from him – and even before her husband and Miss Sawyer had reached the centre of the room Mr Hademak was at the Victrola, setting the needle to the start again.

Before long most of them were dancing – at least, in a manner of speaking. The chubby duke stood swaying, all alone, his glazed eyes roaming over Miss Sawyer; the waxy man and the trouser girl were clasping each other tight, rocking one way and another in a grim effort to respond to the beat or perhaps simply to stay upright. And then the yellow couple joined them, and a few others, until, of all the guests who remained awake, only Mrs de Saulles and my father remained seated. He was leaning towards her, imploring her; she gazed steadfastly at Rudy. My father leaned closer, imploring harder still. She barely bothered to shake her head. Poor Papa. Women adored him, usually, at least at first. It was painful to see, and I looked away.

Rudy – Mr Guglielmi – stood slightly apart, in the corner of the room closest to where I was. I watched him watching them; he looked thoughtful, I remember – perhaps even a little melancholy. And then suddenly he spun away from them all, and the next thing I knew he was walking directly towards me.

I jumped, flattened myself further into the frame of the house. As he stepped out through the french windows and onto the veranda I could feel the breeze of it on my face – I could smell his cologne. He passed me, crossed to the edge of the porch, leaned a shoulder against the trellises and, looking out over the moonlit garden, pulled out a cigarette.

I could hear my own heart beating. The sound of my shallow, panicky breath was half deafening to me. It seemed inexplicable that he couldn’t hear it, but he gave no indication. So, trapped between wall and open french window, and horribly conscious of the moonlight shining on my pale dress, I could do nothing but stand and watch.

I watched him pull the cigarette lighter from his pocket. Watched the flare as he put flame to cigarette, watched as he inhaled and exhaled and the smoke floated out into the night. I watched him and wondered how such a very simple act could be so imbued with grace that it became quite mesmerising. He was mesmerising.

He sighed, and it was all I could do not to burst from the shadow right there and throw my arms around him. Actually I might have done – he looked so horribly melancholy, standing there, except I heard footsteps.

A woman’s footsteps, light and hurried, coming from the side of the house whence I had crept what felt like such an age before. I could do nothing but squeeze myself closer to the wall and pray – something I rarely did, even then.

I guess I needn’t have bothered, so fixed was she on her goal. It was clear to me from the instant Mrs de Saulles appeared that I might have been an almighty elephant and she wouldn’t have noticed it. She tripped up the steps onto the porch, full of purpose, and from the expression on her face she seemed a different woman. Still beautiful – without doubt. Nothing could ever change that. But all the wistfulness, all that hollow helplessness, the languid, aristocratic boredom, was gone. She looked angry. She burned with it.

She paused just before she reached him. She stood behind him, directly between the two of us, with her back to me, and seemed to compose herself for a moment; she unclenched her little fists and emitted one of her own little feather-light sighs.

‘Rudy?’ It sounded tentative.

‘Aha!’ he said, without quite turning to her. ‘So – after all – you are still speaking to me? I didn’t imagine you ever would again. Not after last time.’

She took a tiny step closer to him, put a small white hand onto the shoulder of his black evening coat. ‘Oh, don’t be mean to me, Rudy darling. Please.’

He didn’t say anything.

‘Only I was wondering . . . ’ there was a break in her voice ‘ . . . I was wondering if you had reconsidered.’

A long pause. He took a deep pull on his cigarette and tossed it out into the darkness. ‘I have considered and reconsidered. I have lost count of all the different views I have taken of the wretched thing,’ he said at last. ‘And you know it. Blanca . . . ’ he turned to look at her, finally ‘ . . . I would love to help you but—’

‘Oh, yes . . . Always but.’

‘But what can I do? What can I do? In any case, the world knows it already. Look, now! The two of them are entwined like lovers and there is a roomful of guests to look on. Why – of all people – why do you ask me?’

‘Because . . . ’ she said, edging further in ‘ . . . because, Rudy, you are my only friend.’ He looked at her, fondly, I think – and yet unconvinced. She was standing very close, so close they could feel each other’s breath, I’m sure; so close he could have kissed her at any moment. He looked, I think, as if he wanted to.

I felt horribly jealous! Even then. And (I admit) entirely riveted, too. Part of me could hardly believe my good fortune to be walking in on such intrigue – and my first night in a new place! The other half wished the world would swallow me. There was a long pause between them and I noticed his expression soften. He ran a fingertip along her bare arm – as if he’d done it many times before – and he smiled. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘you have a new “friend” every fortnight so far as I can tell.’

‘Don’t be horrid.’

He didn’t say anything.

Gently, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. ‘You don’t believe me,’ she murmured, ‘but, Rudy, you are my only true friend. In all the world,’ and it sounded for a moment as if she might be about to cry.

‘I am trying to believe you, Blanca,’ he replied, briefly touching her dark hair. ‘I should love to believe you. Or – no, I don’t mean that. I mean to say – I should love to believe that we were even friends at all . . . ’ Gently, he stepped away from her, so she had no choice but to take back her head. ‘Only I’m not even certain you understand what is meant by the word.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘In any case you have friends everywhere, Blanca. Lovers, friends . . . Wherever you are. People fall at your feet. The English gentleman this evening, the portrait painter, for a simple example. He can’t take his eyes off you. And I know you will deny it but even your husband – he looks over to you even while he is dancing with Joan.’

She waved it aside. ‘You don’t adore me, though,’ she said.

He laughed aloud. ‘Self-preservation, Blanca! I know you well enough. In any case,’ he added, ‘I’m only the dance tutor. It’s not my place to adore you.’

‘One can adore a woman from any place. From her bed, in particular. I seem to remember.’

‘Yes, perhaps.’ He pulled out his cigarette box. She watched him tapping on it nervously. I watched him, too. ‘I want to help you,’ he said. ‘Of course I want to help you. Except I’m convinced you only ask me as a sort of – test. A proof of your power, as a woman. Regardless of what the consequences to me may be.’

‘Oh, Rudy, that’s ridiculous.’

‘Only because I won’t fall at your feet, like all the other men.’

‘You fell into my bed!’

‘We fell into your bed together. And it was hardly – frankly – it was hardly as if I were the first. Or the second. Or the third . . . ’

‘But you were!’

‘Ha! Which, Blanca?’

Her lip trembled. ‘You are too revolting,’ she whispered – and he seemed to relent a little. He stroked her hair again, with affection and tenderness, until she recovered.

‘I am poor, and Italian, and an immigrant. Your husband, with half Tammany Hall behind him – he would cause nothing but trouble for me. Have me thrown in jail. Have me returned to Italy. God knows . . . ’

‘Don’t be absurd, Rudy,’ she said carelessly. ‘Of course not.’

‘At very least,’ he said, ‘I will lose my job. You know it.’

‘Does our friendship mean so little to you, then? That you wouldn’t even sacrifice that?’

‘I would sacrifice it and much more – and for any friend – if I believed it was truly necessary. But it is not. There are so many others, with nothing to lose, who would be perfectly willing – Ruth, for example. She would do it for you! She adores you! And she’s richer than Croesus. Your husband couldn’t harm her. He wouldn’t want to and he wouldn’t dare. Why don’t you go and ask her – now? Right now, while your husband is still dancing?’

‘I don’t want—’ she started angrily, but stopped herself. Sighed a small sigh, light as little feather. ‘Rudy, darling Rudy, you are mistaken. Ruth is not a friend! I despise her! I despise them all! You, Rudy, are my only friend. Whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not. Tell me – truly – who else can I ask?’

‘We go over it again,’ he sighed, ‘but you don’t listen. I said to you last time I could write a list of ten or more names. And I will even ask them for you. They would be willing to give evidence for you . . . People who have nothing to lose by it, who would be more than happy to help.’

She continued in the same pitiful voice as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I am alone, Rudy, far away from my family . . . far away from everyone I love . . . And I know you know what it is to be alone. You have told me so. You know what it is like to yearn for home . . . ’

‘I do.’ He sounded weary.

‘And you have seen me crying my heart out . . . ’

‘I have.’

‘And yet still you refuse me? Even though you understand my torment . . . and the others don’t . . . Oh, I long for my home, Rudy. I am sick for it. You don’t have children. You can’t imagine . . . how a mother feels.’

He gave a burst of laughter. ‘What on earth does that have to do with it?’