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?’
‘All I ask is that you attest to something in a courtroom which you know to be true . . . Is it so much to ask?’
Her small white hand was back on his shoulder. She was edged so close to him, and in the long, warm silence that followed, I swear they might have kissed. But just then a loud voice came from the drawing room: ‘Blanquita? . . . Blanca, darling? . . . Anyone seen my wife?’
‘She’s on the loggia with the wop,’ we heard His Grace declare, ‘having a smoki-poo or some such . . . Wish I could persuade her to have a smoki-poo with me . . . ’
A moment later, in time for Rudy and Mrs de Saulles to step apart, her husband was at the french windows. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ignoring Rudy and not noticing me, still flattened between window and wall, barely two foot away from him, ‘why don’t you come dance, sweetie? I should so love to dance with you.’
‘I’m very tired,’ she said.
‘Just a quick dance?’ he said, stumbling slightly, as he stepped towards her. ‘Please? With your admiring husband . . . who so entirely admires and adores you?’ He was very drunk.
She turned away. ‘I’m not certain I can imagine anything I should like to do less,’ she said. ‘Besides, I can see Joan over there, looking awfully hopeful. I’m convinced she’s longing to dance with you again . . . ’
And with that she hurried away, leaving my employer and his not-quite-guest in uncomfortable silence. They looked at one another, Rudy with some dislike, I think, Mr de Saulles with something much closer to anger. He hesitated, as if on the point of saying something, but then seemed to think better of it. Without another word he spun around and followed his wife’s path back into the house.
And still I stood there. Rudy turned back to the position he’d taken before Mrs de Saulles had interrupted him, and snapped open his cigarette box. It glinted in the moonlight . . . I watched again as flame and cigarette connected, as the light of the flame played on his face, and the smoke rose from his lips. I watched him gaze out into the darkness, deep in thought. And once again I was amazed by him – his elegance and grace.
After what felt an unendurably long pause, during which I’m quite certain I neither moved nor breathed, he suddenly said, ‘It’s all right, by the way – you can come out now. It’s quite safe.’
I didn’t. I clung to my wall, and to the forlorn hope that he might perhaps have been talking to someone else. But then he turned and looked directly at me. ‘I’ll step away from this spot, shall I,’ he said, ‘to a spot over here, where we can’t be seen? Come out and tell me why you’ve been standing there all this time.’ He smiled at me. ‘Spying on us . . . ’
‘I wasn’t spying.’
‘What else could you call it?’
‘I was stuck.’
‘Ah.’
By then he had travelled to the far end of the veranda, out of view of the french windows. He turned and beckoned for me to join him there so, with some reluctance, I edged from my hiding place to be beside him . . . And we stood in silence, quite close to one another, with the music from the Victrola seeping out through the warm night air, and with me wondering at nothing, in spite of all I had just witnessed, but the richness of his voice . . .
He seemed to be waiting for further explanation and I felt an irresistible urge to fill the delicious silence with some of my habitual babble.
So I told him the truth – something I always do when I’m nervous (I still do it today, despite quite strenuous efforts to break the habit). I explained how I’d come down from my room because I had wanted to watch the dancing . . . and I might easily have finished it there, except I didn’t. I told him everything about how mad I was for the new type of dancing – and about how I’d read a little of Miss Sawyer while I was still in England, and about how I had always longed to see a real tango, danced by the professionals, and about how I thought he and Miss Sawyer were the most fabulous, most magical dancers I had ever set eyes on. ‘I was going to watch you from the garden,’ I said to him, ‘but then I realised the windows were open and I could get a better view from the porch, and – I’m so sorry, truly – very sorry, Mr Guglielmi. I didn’t hear a word you and Mrs de Saulles were saying. Not a word.’
He smiled. ‘Your hearing is damaged?’
‘By which I mean, that is, not a word that made the slightest bit of sense to me . . . In any case, it has nothing to do with me. I am sorry, but there was nothing I could do. First you came out and then she came out. And then he came out ... And I was utterly trapped . . . ’
He asked me my name after that and I told him. Jennifer. Jennifer Doyle from London. ‘My father is the portrait painter in there. The one who can’t remove his eyes from Mrs de Saulles.’
‘No one ever can,’ he said grimly.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. ‘It drives her quite mad if we aren’t all head over heels in love with her,’ he said.
‘Well,’ I replied carefully, ‘then I suppose my father is keeping her happy.’
He glanced at me. ‘It’s hard for her. To be here. So far from family . . . ’
‘I’m
