'Thank you.'
The boy went out, and Elene sat down heavily. She was disoriented, as if in her own home she had found a door to a room she had not known was there.
She noticed a photograph on the marble mantelpiece, and got up to look at it. It was a picture of a beautiful woman in her early twenties, a cool, aristocratic looking woman with a faintly supercilious smile. Elene admired the dress she was wearing, something silky and flowing, hanging in elegant folds from her slender figure. The woman's hair and makeup were perfect. The eyes were startlingly familiar, clear and perceptive and light in color: Elene realized that Billy had eyes like that. This, then, was Billy's mother-Vandam's wife. She was, of course, exactly the kind of woman who would be his wife, a classic English beauty with a superior air. Elene felt she had been a fool. Women like that were queuing up to marry men like Vandam As if he would have bypassed all of them only to fall for an Egyptian courtesan. She rehearsed the things that divided her from him: he was respectable and she was disreputable; he was British and she was Egyptian; he was Christian-presumably-and she was Jewish; he was well bred and she came out of the slums of Alexandria; he was almost forty and she was twenty three. The list was long.
Tucked into the back of the photograph frame was a page torn from a magazine. The paper was old and yellowing. The page bore the same photograph. Elene saw that it had come from a magazine called The Tatler. She had heard of it: it was much read by the wives of colonels in Cairo, for it reported all the trivial events of London society-parties, balls, charity lunches, gallery openings and the activities of English royalty. The picture of Mrs. Vandam took up most of this page, and a paragraph of type beneath the picture reported that Angela, daughter of Sir Peter and Lady Beresford, was engaged to be married to Lieutenant William Vandam, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Vandam of Gately, Dorset. Elene refolded the cutting and put it back.
The family picture was complete. Attractive British officer, cool, self-assured English wife, intelligent charming son, beautiful home, money, class and happiness. Everything else was a dream.
She wandered around the room, wondering if it held any more shocks in store. The room had been furnished by Mrs. Vandam, of course, in perfect, bloodless taste. The decorous print of the curtains toned with the restrained hue of the upholstery and the elegant striped wallpaper. Elene wondered what their bedroom would be like. It too would be coolly tasteful, she guessed. Perhaps the main color would be bluegreen, the shade they called eau de NO although it was not a bit like the muddy water of the Nile. Would they have twin beds? She hoped so. She would never know. Against one wall was a small upright piano. She wondered who played. Perhaps Mrs. Vandam sat here sometimes, in the evenings, filling the air with Chopin while Vandam sat in the armchair, over there, watching her fondly. Perhaps Vandam accompanied himself as he sang romantic ballads to her in a strong tenor. Perhaps Billy had a tutor, and fingered hesitant scales every afternoon when he came home from school. She looked through the pile of sheet music in the seat of the piano stool. She had been right about the Chopin: they had all the waltzes here in a book.
She picked up a novel from the top of the piano and opened it. She read the first line: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' The opening sentences intrigued her, and she wondered whether Vandam was reading the book. Perhaps she could borrow it: it would be good to have something of his. On the other hand, she had the feeling he was not a great reader of fiction. She did not want to borrow it from his wife.
Billy came in. Elene put the book down suddenly, feeling irrationally guilty, as if she had been prying. Billy saw the gesture. 'That one's no good,' he said. 'It's about some silly girl who's afraid of her husband's housekeeper. There's no action.'
Elene sat down, and Billy sat opposite her. Obviously he was going to entertain her. He was a miniature of his father, except for those clear gray eyes. She said: 'You've read it, then?'
'Rebecca? Yes. But I didn't like it much. I always finish them, though.'
'What do you like to read?'
'I like tecs best.'
'Tees?'
'Detectives. I've read all of Agatha Christie's and Dorothy Sayers'. But I like the American ones most of all S.S. Van Dine and Raymond Chandler.'
'Really?' Elene smiled. 'I like detective stories too-I read them all the time.'
'Oh! Who's your favorite tec?'
Elene considered. 'Maigret.'
'I've never heard of him. What's the author's name?'
'Georges Simenon. He writes in French, but now some of the books have been translated into English. They're set in Paris, mostly. They're very.. . complex.'
'Would you lend me one? It's so hard to get new books, I've read all the ones in this house, and in the school library. And I swap with my friends but they like, you know, stories about children having adventures in the school holidays.'
'All right,' Elene said. 'Let's swap. What have you got to lend me? I don't think I've read any American ones.'
'I'll lend you a Chandler. The American ones are much more true to life, you know. I've gone off those stories about English country houses and people who probably couldn't murder a fly.'
It was odd, Elene thought, that a boy for whom the English country house might be part of everyday life should find stories about American private eyes more 'true to life.' She hesitated, then asked: 'Does your mother read detective stories?'
Billy said briskly: 'My mother died last year in Crete.'
'Oh!' Elene put her band to her mouth; she felt the blood drain from her face. So Vandam was not married!
A moment later she felt ashamed that that had been her first thought, and sympathy for the child her second. She said: 'Billy, how awful for you. I'm so sorry.' Real death had suddenly intruded into their lighthearted talk of murder stories, and she felt embarrassed.
'It's all right,' Billy said. 'It's the war, you see.'
