Last Act Read online

  “Oh, thank you!” The fresh but lifeless bread was just what she wanted. Washed down with her first sip of champagne it seemed the best food she had ever tasted. Presently, letting him refill her mug, she protested. “I shall fall asleep again.”

  “It will do you good. I’ll wake you went we get there. Besides”—he refilled his own mug—“I am a selfish brute. You will not get nearly your share.”

  Cold paté, coleslaw, cold chicken … She ate them all, gratefully, even gnawing the chicken bone. “Cold, cold, my girl … But she was feeling better by the minute, what with the food and the champagne. I, who am dying, am alive at last, she thought. I shall make the most of it. Oh, God, how I will sing. Oh, Carl, how grateful I am.

  Schann was pouring a last trickle into her mug. She voiced a vague protest. “Are you sure you had more than half?”

  “See how much better you feel. You do not like the sweet? No, nor do I.” He reached over to take her tray. “One could do better with cement, I always think. Now, finish your drink and sleep again. I promise I will rouse you when we are near Zurich.”

  “Thank you.” She would have liked some coffee, which was now being brought down the aisle, but it seemed ungracious to object, and, besides, it was extraordinarily restful to let herself go with his kindness. Her head, like the plane, hummed faintly, pleasantly … Once again she slept.

  The airport bus was as swift and efficient as Herr Schann had promised, but just the same it was twenty past one when they reached Zurich station. “You have your ticket?” Herr Schann picked up her suitcase.

  “Yes. But—your luggage?”

  “I’ll see you to your train and come back for it. You most certainly should not be carrying this.”

  “You are kind.” She fell into step beside him and they made their way through the crowded station to the departure board.

  “Track 8,” he said. “This way. You will need to be at the front of the train.” He hurried her through the gate and down the long platform, where people stood expectantly, luggage ready, awaiting the train’s arrival.

  “There.” He put down her bag. “This should be just right. Will you promise to ask someone to get it up the step for you?” A quick glance at his watch. “I could just catch my local.”

  “Of course. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “It’s been a pleasure.” He hurried away down the long platform and she found herself ungratefully glad to be alone at last, free to anticipate her adventure, to imagine Lissenberg.

  “Liechtenstein?” A loud, enquiring English voice a little further down the platform. “We are right for Liechtenstein?”

  “Ja, ja,” said a uniformed official, then burst into a flood of German of which Anne, suddenly alert, picked out only one word, “Sargans.”

  But that was all wrong. She remembered the travel agent explaining that she needed the express that went along the north side of the lake, for her stop at Schennen where she caught the bus up the Lissenberg valley—not the southern route by Sargans. The uniformed official was making his dignified way along the platform towards her. “Mein Herr?” And then, quickly, as he paused, her German entirely deserting her, “For Lissenberg, here?”

  “Aber nein!” He looked down at her anxious face, then at the station clock. “Quick!” He picked up her bag and set off at a round pace along the platform, while she almost ran behind him. At the gate, he shouted something in the direction of track 4 and turned that way without a pause. Following him breathlessly, she saw a train already standing there, doors closed, platform empty, poised, as it were, for flight.

  But they were expected. That shouted appeal had had its effect. An official stood with the nearest door open. She was almost thrown up into the train, her suitcase pushed up after her. She had only time for a heartfelt “Vielen danke” before the train moved off. Breathing fast, she pushed her suitcase into the open carriage, saw with relief that it was almost empty, and subsided on a hard seat. Then, anxious again, she leaned forward to ask the young man sitting opposite: “For Schennen?”

  “Ja.” He returned to his newspaper.

  Gazing out the window at the featureless suburbs that might have belonged to any European town, Anne sighed with relief at the narrow escape, and bafflement at how it had happened. Herr Schann had been so kind, so reliable … A horrid doubt struck her. Lissenberg … Liechtenstein. The names so alike. Could she possibly have said Liechtenstein instead of Lissenberg? After his first question, they had not discussed her journey further. An easy—a nearly disastrous misunderstanding. Idiot that she was, champagne-filled fool, not to have rechecked with him before they set out on that rush across the station.

  But at least, by a miracle, and the kindness of that Swiss official, here she was, regaining her breath slowly, on the right train. She sighed, settled more comfortably in her corner and picked up her bag, noting as she did so that the catch had slipped open as it often, maddeningly, did. If there had been time, she would have bought a new one. Reaching for her comb—she must look as shaggy as she felt—she stopped, horror-struck. Where was her purse?

  It must be there. Though the catch did slip, the bag was so designed that things did not fall out. Or—never had yet. Searching feverishly through its three compartments, refusing to believe what was already obvious, she racked her brains to think when she had last had the purse. On the plane? No. Herr Schann had insisted on paying for their drinks. But, surely, she would have noticed its absence when she tidied up before they landed? Her baggage check had been with her ticket in the front compartment of the bag and there, thank God, the ticket folder still was, along with her traveller’s cheques. But the purse—she had to face it—the purse was gone, and with it all her cash, her bank card, Carl’s telephone number, carefully written down on a piece of paper, just in case, and the covering note for her traveller’s cheques.

  She remembered now. She had opened her bag at Zurich airport, expecting to need the baggage check, but as usual the luggage had been cheerfully handed over without query. If the bag had been open ever since, some thieving hand had had its chance. What in the world should she do? For the moment, nothing, except curse her own carelessness and wonder what size station Schennen had. Would there be anyone there who would help? It was, after all, an international junction of sorts. Perhaps there would be an English-speaking station master to whom she could appeal. She got out the travel-folder again and checked that there was a half hour’s wait for the bus. The station might be in the centre of the town. She consulted her phrase book and found the phrase for “Where is the police station?” But would she understand the answer?

  The guard came down the aisle, inspecting tickets. “Do you speak English?” she asked, as he handed hers back.

  “Englisch?” He shook his head and hurried through into the next compartment before she had time to try him in French. So much for that. She looked at her watch. Almost an hour before the train reached Schennen. It was out of the town now, running along the side of the lake. Water, cool grey under a grey sky, and on the far side, mountains. Bright green pastures, at first, then the dark of pine trees and beyond and above—in the far distance—bleak, brown-grey escarpments rising to the gleam of snow.

  She shivered. It had been cold in Zurich. It was cold on this train. Idiotic to have thought Lissenberg would be warmer than England, to have expected the sun to shine. But by now this whole enterprise seemed idiotic, doomed to disaster. Her voice would go again; she would become inconveniently, unconcealably ill; Carl would be furious with her, and would have a right to be. Unpardonable to have come here without telling him the truth. She had not even taken out travel insurance. It seemed a waste of time—it never covered illnesses you had already. And naturally there had not been time to get the official form that would have entitled her to free medical care in Lissenberg. Fool … fool, and fool again. She blinked back tears of pure anger and gazed unseeingly at a gabled beerhouse by the lake.

  A tinkling bell announced a refreshment t
rolly. The champagne had left her parched with thirst, and it was small comfort to think that even if she had not lost her purse, her English money would be useless here.

  “Fräulein?” The young man on the seat opposite leaned towards her as the trolly approached. “You will let me have the pleasure of buying you a beer?” He spoke in German, but slowly and carefully, so that she could understand.

  “Oh, thank you!” It was just what she needed. “I mean,” she paused. “Danke schön.”

  “Ah, so you do speak German?” He leaned out into the aisle and bought two squat dark bottles of lager and two paper cups.

  “No, alas.” Her headshake underlined the words.

  He shrugged, pantomiming disappointment, and poured the fizzing lager carefully into her cup. It was curious and heartwarming, she thought, accepting it with a smile of thanks, to have men going out of their way to be courteous to her again. It had not happened, somehow, for a long time.

  The train had left the lake now, and was running up a valley. Brilliant green pastures on either side had mild, beige cows grazing, and an occasional ox-cart. Higher up, more pastures were defined by dark woods, with here and there a wooden chalet. The road ran along beside the railway line here, both of them hugging the floor of the valley, and she was surprised to see a long convoy of military lorries. But of course the Swiss took their neutrality very seriously indeed. She leant back in her seat. If the peace conference was a success, the world might breathe a little more easily. It would be good to be taking however tiny a part in trying to make it succeed. She felt better again, calmer, ready to face the problems of Schennen and her lost purse.

  With a sudden, black rush, the train was in a tunnel. Lights came on belatedly and she saw the young man opposite beginning to gather himself together. She looked at her watch. Not time for Schennen yet, and she was sorry to see him go, when the train emerged from the tunnel into a small town running up the hillside to its surprising onion-domed church. On a further crag, the ruins of a castle straight out of Walter Scott served as a reminder that this must always have been one of the ways war would threaten the peaceful Swiss valleys.

  She smiled goodbye to the young man. Less than half an hour now before they reached Schennen. She got out her phrase book and soon found herself wishing she had bought a dictionary. It was amazing how phrase books always contrived not quite to provide the phrase one needed. And people in opera seemed to encounter such different kinds of problems. In the end, “Do you speak English” seemed still her best bet. Surely someone at Schennen station must do so?

  But when she saw it, her heart sank. The station building itself was just a large chalet beside the line, and the town she had expected seemed to consist merely of a row of cottages stretching away down a country road. She had pushed her suitcase to the carriage door and was relieved to see an elderly man waiting to get on. With the best smile she could muster, and a kind of multilingual apology, she handed him down her suitcase and followed it as he pushed past her without a word.

  Well, no wonder. It was pouring with rain in Schennen. If this was Schennen and not merely its station, stuck, for convenience, out in the deep countryside. Even the chalet-style station, set by the track, looked formidably far away, since she had been at the very back of the train, which was now rolling away, cleared by an official who returned to shelter without so much as a glance in her direction.

  Rain was beginning to soak her hair and penetrate her thin coat. Her suitcase was standing in a puddle. Picking it up, she saw that down near the station another alighting passenger had been met by a uniformed man who was picking up first-class-looking luggage. For Lissenberg? Probably. She tried to hurry, the suitcase a ton weight. “Excuse me …” They took no notice, moving towards the station. “Bitte!” This time it came out louder, but won her merely a glance and a shrug from the chauffeur.

  Useless. She bit back tears and paused at the welcome shelter of a kind of shed which turned out to be the bus stop. At least it had a time-table which confirmed that the last bus of the day for Lissenberg left in half an hour, and a little open waiting room with a bench, a view of the mountains, and nothing else. She pushed her suitcase into an inconspicuous corner, pulled a headscarf out of her bag for her already drenched hair, emerged from the shelter and prepared to run for the station, and possible help, then drew back just in time as a car roared up the turning from the road and pulled to a skidding stop outside the shelter, missing her by inches.

  3

  “Verzeihung!” He was out of the car in a hurried tangle of long, jean-clad legs and waving arms. “Fräulein, ich bin …”

  “You nearly killed me,” she interrupted angrily. “And I don’t speak German.”

  “I sure did!” His lapse into Anglo-American amazed and relieved her. “Next time you bound out of a hole like a chipmunk, look both ways, huh? How was I to know you were hiding in there like a—like a—”

  “Chipmunk,” she said coldly.

  But he had turned away to survey the deserted, rain-drenched platform. “Late again!” He looked ruefully at a huge watch on his wrist. “And cut out again by the look of it. Did anyone else get off the train, Niobe?”

  “How d’you mean, Niobe?” She sounded as cross as she felt.

  “You’re wet enough,” he explained.

  “Of course I’m wet!” Aware of rain seeping through her coat, she backed into the shelter, nearly tripping against a standpipe with a tap and mug. “Yes, someone did get off.”

  “And was met?” He clicked his heels, pulled himself ramrod straight and touched an imaginary cap. His teeshirt, already dark with rain, said “Oxford” in huge letters. His long, curling dark hair was beginning to stick to his skull. “It’s raining,” he said, as if making a great discovery. “And I’ve missed another job. You’re not”—he looked her up and down, without hope—“you’re not by any happy chance wanting a taxi to Lissenberg?”

  “I certainly am.” It was too good to be true. Well, of course it was. “But I’ve no money.”

  “My luck.” He shrugged ruefully. “But I’ve missed my fare—I’ve got to go back just the same, so, what the hell! Besides, the bus is late today. You’ll die of cold waiting here. Did no one tell you we wear raincoats in Lissenberg?”

  “You don’t seem to.”

  “Oh, I’m …” He hesitated. “Immune. This your bag?” He moved past her into the shelter to pick it up. “Diogenes! Have you been carrying this?”

  “As little as possible. But,” she protested again as he opened the boot, “I really mean it. I’ve got no money at all. I lost my purse.”

  “Careless.” He swung the suitcase into the boot. “And all the more reason why you need a lift into town. The bus takes hours anyway. Stops at every cowshed and cabbage patch. You’re much better with Uncle Michael. I’m more reliable than I look. And I drive better. You’d best sit in the front. I don’t make passes much, and if we turn the heater on you might be almost dry by the time we get there.”

  “Lovely!” But once again she hesitated as he held open the rather battered car door for her. “Only, someone’s meeting the bus.”

  “Then OK.” He put a firm brown hand under her elbow and pushed her in. “So we meet the bus too and someone will know to meet his friends here another time. He might even pay me.”

  “I expect he will.” She subsided gratefully on to the car’s seat, grateful to be taken over by this surprisingly positive young man.

  “Better than she looks, eh?” He slid in on his side and started the engine. “You should see the opposition. Shines like a hearse and runs like one. Just the same …” He let in the clutch, and the car moved silently forward. “The boss is going to be furious with me for missing Signor Falinieri. Time-keeping never was my long suit.”

  “Falinieri? The conductor?”

  “Right. You know him?” He swept the surprisingly powerful car left into a rain-drenched village street, then turned to look her over. “What are you, anyway? High brass, mid
dle brass, secretary? We have the lot in Lissenberg right now.”

  “I sing.” She felt the welcome warmth of the heater begin to creep around her knees.

  “Ah!” He gave a brief, friendly toot of the horn, swung out to pass a donkey buried under a huge load, and turned to smile at her. “Natürlich. The mysterious understudy. The unknown British beauty. And Herr Meyer left you to die of cold at Schennen. I’m surprised at him. And Alix with a sore throat too.”

  “Alix?”

  He laughed. “Forgot my manners, did I? We don’t go much for dignity and surnames and all that in Lissenberg. We’re all cousins, more or less. The sooner you learn that, the better you’ll get on. The others never seem to, but you look as if you might have some sense, when you’re dry and got your wits about you.”

  “Thanks!” She must not quarrel with this useful source of information. “What do you mean ‘the others?’” she asked.

  “Why—all of them. The foreigners our Rudolf has let loose on us.”

  “Rudolf? Who’s he?”

  This time his laugh rang a little harsh. “Our lord and master. The Hereditary Prince Heinz Rudolf of Lissenberg. I’ll spare you the rest of his names, not to mention his titles and honours. They take several lines in the guide book. He wrote it himself, when he still thought Lissenberg would make it as a tourist attraction.”

  “And won’t it?”

  “He thinks not. Or—only on the grand scale. Not just tourists, but International Tourists, in capital letters, and a damn great international hotel to match. Our beer houses aren’t good enough for them. No, ma’am. Got your passport, or did you lose that too?” He slowed the car at a corner and she saw a straight stretch of road leading to a bridge with a barrier across it. “Customs. Such as they are. Anything to declare except the beginnings of a cold?”