at the open door, ready to step off, was a figure she would have hoped to see, if she could have imagined him. She gasped, and felt a little thrill of gratitude for this perfect sight to begin the day.
He was tall and dark and young, and wore a moustache. His uniform was topped by a long blue cape, with a braided collar and epaulettes, and a peaked cap. Beneath the cape were two perfectly polished black riding-boots. Soldier? Band-leader? Elspeth didn’t care. He stood on the step, looking eagerly toward the station, proud and happy, unconscious of the anachronism of his appearance, though not of its splendour. He smiled at her, with his eyes narrowed against the wind, a flirtatious smile of contentment with his smartness and his health and the freshness of the early morning, and Elspeth smiled back.
ln a moment they stopped, and the blue uniform flourished and disappeared, leaving her standing with her heart beating fast, the beat of a little girl with a crush. And she knew that she would never forget that brilliant snapshot, framed so perfectly in the doorway of her first European train.
4
Mickey leaned on the rail of the narrow balcony five floors above the street, and felt his mood brightening with the day. The pain at the back of his head was still there, but it was good to be off the train at last, and so far from all the ordinary things. Perhaps unplanned holidays were a good idea after all. In the room behind him the little sounds of unpacking suddenly stopped.
“Mickey? Mickey, honey? Do you think I’m going to need this?”
Without turning he said;
“No, I’d leave it at home if I were you.”
“Funny. Funny guy.”
“That’s me.”
It was the best kind of spring day now, clear blue sky and lots of it, with no tower blocks to get in the way. Indeed Vienna seemed to be a bit on the small side, in every dimension, for a capital city. Then again, the scale of the streets was deceptive, row upon row of big square buildings with roofs a size too small, giants’ cottages artfully converted to five or six floors for human use. The buildings were not the same height, but they were all of a piece, standing shoulder to shoulder with no gaps to be filled by the nasty little shops and foul alleys of central London. Yet there was nothing austere about this smartness. Most of the blocks sported some hint of baroque around the windows or the guttering, some little touch of wedding cake to brighten the façade. There was also, in the view from Mickey’s balcony, a fair sprinkling of Austrian flags, red, white, red, gathered, three at a time, in white mountings on the walls to advertise particular historical interest.
It was a jolly-looking place, dated but full of life, like an old lady who had kept her health and wits and sense of humour, and was generally described as ‘wonderful’. Mickey’s smile sagged a little then, as he thought of his mother, and then instantly, again, of London.
He turned at the sound of the doors to the balcony on his left being opened, and smiled hello at his father.
“All right in there, Mickey?”
“Yes, fine. I’ve left the unpacking to the little woman.”
“Very wise.”
Mickey smiled again and looked away. It was a joke he could have shared with any man.
“Lovely view,” he said.
“It’s just the city, you know. A view of the streets. Still, yes, it is rather fine in its way, I suppose.”
“Can you tell me about any of it?”
“Gosh no. Have a look at your guide book. I’d probably get it all wrong, what I think I can remember. That’s St. Stephens over there, of course. That big spire. The official centre of town.”
“What period?”
“Oh, all sorts. Quite a lot of the fabric must be new.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. Last time I was here it had a bloody great hole in its roof.” He looked away from the cathedral, and slowly across the close network of the streets. “Yes, quite a lot of this must be reconstruction after the war. They’ve done a good job, I must say. Not like Coventry, eh? Or London for that matter. A spot of common sense, you see. No stupid, knee-jerk rejection of the past and all its works. And they lost the bloody war. I don’t know.”
“It looks like it did before the war, then?”
“Well. . . Yes and no. It’s the same city, put it that way.”
A telephone rang through the sound of distant traffic on the breeze, and the old man turned without a word, and went inside.
“Hallo? Ja. . . Yes, speaking.”
Mickey felt the edge rub off the holiday mood. They had been there half an hour, and already someone was ringing his father, apparently in English. Business as usual.
He turned back into the room and found that Elspeth had deserted him for some reason. Clearly she would be back very soon, or she would have told him, so he was left with an indeterminate number of minutes to waste. He cast an eye over the helpful advice for visitors in seven languages, then opened the wardrobe. This was good for a laugh. His wife had turned him into an American, hanging up his clothes in the wrong combinations, tweed jacket with blue chinos, golfing jacket with cavalry twills. It wasn’t worth making a fuss about. He decided to have a bath, and reorganise the clothes as he dressed. He was just pulling on the chinos when she returned, and as soon he saw her he knew she’d found something exciting, extraordinary, something that had just absolutely made her day and brought her back to him hot and out of breath, full of energy and words.
“You should have taken the lift,” he said.
“Sure I did. I’m sorry I was so long, I just went out to get some cold cream—can you believe it? I forgot to pack cold cream—and it took just forever to find somewhere, and then the help didn’t speak English, and I had to wait—but then, on the way back here, I saw something—”
Mickey raised a hand.
“Don’t tell me. You found an old building.”
“Hey, don‘t make fun of me! This is really exciting.”
“OK, OK. Excite me.”
“Well there was this poster, OK? And it’s for this exhibit that’s on until May 1st, all about the civil war that happened here, when your father had to leave, back in 1934! I asked someone, to make sure I had it right. It’s the fiftieth anniversary, you know? Mickey we have to see that show. It’s really important.”
“Yes, fine, fine. Where is it?”
“It’s not in the centre of town. I copied down the address, I figured we could take a cab, maybe this afternoon?”
“This afternoon? For heavens’ sake, Pet, aren’t you tired? I just want to have some lunch and lie down on a bed that doesn’t move.”
“Hey, I didn’t come here to sleep. You know, we only have a week, and there’s a lot to see.”
With a groan, Mickey flopped back on the bed, and bathed his
