Chips was there, with Duff and the ambassador, who wore white tails.Chips introduced her – ‘Ambassador Kennedy, you remember my sister-in-law Brigid’ – and Kennedy said, ‘Of course, how do you do?’and gave her hand a firm shake.He looked expectantly at her, lips peeled back over his big white teeth as though waiting for an answer, so Brigid said, ‘Jolly well, thank you,’ but her voice came out too high and she felt gauche.Kennedy looked disappointed, and as though he might say something else.
‘Drink this.’Chips handed her a cocktail and the ambassador turned away.
Brigid took the drink with relief.Duff gave her a sympathetic look but stayed silent.There didn’t seem anything more to say so she clicked her fingers for Bundi and walked to one of the large windows, open to the evening air.She stood looking out into the garden that shrank even as she watched, retreating steadily as it veiled itself behind the blackout curtain of night.
‘Spencer-Churchill?’she heard Duff say, jerking his head towards the ceiling.
‘Yes indeed.How quick you are,’ Chips said, pleased.‘I commissioned it specially.He worked on it for many months.’
‘What is he to your Winston?’Ambassador Kennedy asked.
‘Nephew,’ Duff said.
‘And an artist, not a politician?’the ambassador said thoughtfully.‘Churchill also paints, I believe?Maybe he too should allow himself to retire and pursue it.More painting, less politicking.’He looked at them, eyes veiled behind his spectacles.
‘Churchill is the greatest statesman we have,’ Duff said calmly.‘The fact that he won’t retire, can’t, while all this is going on is proof of that.’
Chips looked panicked, and Brigid nearly laughed out loud.She wanted to remind him how much more blunt Duff could have been, how uncareful.
Honor and Maureen came in together: Honor large and flushed in red, Maureen like an icicle, Brigid thought, cool and elegant in palest blue satin that trailed along the floor after her.Behind them, after a beat, came an older woman, whippet-thin, in yellow, and a tall girl wearing a black dress picked out with white flowers that was almost the mirror image of Brigid’s, only hers was of shiny silk, with a tulle underskirt that rustled.Her hair was brushed back off her face and pinned to frame it.And yes, she wore lipstick.
‘Mrs Ambassador!Kathleen!’Chips moved smoothly forward, making introductions, handing around drinks, cigarettes, pulling forward a chair for Mrs Kennedy and, finally, bringing Kathleen over to where Brigid still stood by the window, scratching Bundi’s heavy golden head.
‘How do you do?’she said politely to Kathleen.
‘Oh, I do great,’ the girl assured her.‘Just great.’She looked around.‘Isn’t this room neat?And the weather!I don’t know why people say England is a damp country when since I have been here there has been just the most glorious sunshine, day after day.’No wonder Ambassador Kennedy had found Brigid’sJolly well, thank youinadequate.‘Anyway,’ the girl continued in a rush, ‘you must call me Kick.Everyone does.’
‘Why do they?’Brigid asked, careful to sound as though finding out were the least important thing in the world to her.It was a trick she’d learned from Maureen.
‘I think it’s not meant to be a compliment,’ the girl said with a laugh, wrinkling her nose.She had blue eyes that flashed in her tanned face.They weren’t blue like Guinness blue, Brigid thought; that pale, almost ethereal colour.Kathleen’s – Kick’s – were deep, almost inky, like flax or cornflowers.She had even white teeth, a big nose and a firm jaw.She wasn’t beautiful, Brigid decided, not at all really, but she was sort ofconcentrated.As though, squashed inside one person was enough energy, opinions, lively expectation to do two.‘I have the most terrible habit of kicking off my shoes everywhere I go.Probably I’ll do it right here, in a little while.Why, I was at a weekend party at Hatfield only last week and some of the boys took all my left shoes and hid them.’
‘I was meant to go to that party,’ Brigid said quickly, reflexively.‘But I had another party to go to.’Then she blushed for being so childish.
‘Well, I wish you had,’ Kick said warmly.
‘What did you do?’Brigid asked.‘About the shoes?’It was, she thought, just the kind of mean trick those boys would play.She knew the ones – Eton-and-Oxford-educated, heirs to estates and ancient titles; the kind of young man who could do no wrong in Chips’ eyes, but who could be – where they felt encouraged by a person’s timidity or lack of place in the world – thoughtless, even mean.
‘Why, I wasn’t going to let them see I cared, so I walked around in two right shoes for the whole time, one black and one white.’She burst out laughing.‘I limped a bit, but that was OK.’
Brigid, who had planned on looking pained and polite and walking away, found herself laughing too.‘I’m sure they thought you wonderful,’ she said kindly.
‘I think one of them asked me to marry him,’ Kick said with a grin, ‘but the next day I couldn’t remember which – don’t they look the same, some of those fellows?– so I said nothing about it.’
Brigid burst out laughing again.She had never heard anyone talk like this girl – a mix of audacity and deprecation that meant you had no idea what she might say next, but you waited eagerly all the same.
‘WhereisElizabeth?’Chips asked then, loudly, fretfully, consulting his watch.The dinner gong had gone a second time and still there was no sign of her.Fritzi had arrived, impeccable in his dinner jacket, and was being made much of by the grown-ups, as Brigid thought of them, over by the fireplace.
‘Probably passed out,’ Maureen drawled.‘I saw the cocktail tray being brought up to her quite some time ago.’
Chips winced.
‘I’ll go and knock on the door,’ Brigid said.‘Perhaps she can’t hear the gong.’
‘Everyone can hear the gong,’ Chips said.‘I had it designed purposefully that they would.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Kick said.The girls set off together, Kick chattering happily as they went.She admired everything they saw, the paintings, statues, rugs, even lamps.‘You know, I was scared half to death to come here,’ she said as they rounded the top of the stairs and set off towards the Yellow Room.
‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ Brigid said.
