by Peter Rimmer
Guiltily, Jack took the pair of spectacles and half propped them on his nose.
“They’re plain glass!” he exclaimed.
“Exactly. In a whorehouse, it’s better not to look too pretty.”
“I wish you would stop calling it a whorehouse.”
“And who was the one for telling me the truth?”
“And what are you going to do with your money? The way you just said it, Lily is going into the hotel business, not you.”
“No, we’re not. Albert and I are going into the mining business. To compete with the man two tables away who thought he could buy my body for ten thousand pounds.”
“Wow, that really is a lot of money now I think of it.”
“How much would you pay, Jack? Or rather how much would you have paid those six years ago when I was nineteen?”
“Not a penny.”
“Why?” she said, looking annoyed.
“Because you are not a whore. Do you hate the rand baron?”
“Not at all. I envy him. And when I envy I don’t want to destroy the other person. Most people are just jealous of the wealthy. Want to see them lose their money so they can all be poor together. I want to be as rich. I want to be a rand baroness, Jack. Only, of course, I can’t. Albert will be the front.”
“But you said he’s very clever. Going a long way.”
“Some people are marvellous employees and lousy employers. They have to be directed. They don’t have the new ideas. They are not creators. Albert is like that.”
“And you are a creator?”
“Haven’t done too badly so far as a runaway.” The eyes were still hard but the smile was soft.
All the way back on the boat to England, Jack toyed with the idea of visiting Mrs Barker rather than writing Sallie her mother’s address. Waiting for the ship to sail from Cape Town, he had stayed at the Mount Nelson Hotel and used his time to put a long-distance phone call through to Ernest Gilchrist in Colombo, having remembered the name of the tea merchant. The telephone company had found the telephone number but in the end, and despite a person-to-person call, Jack sent a wire asking Ernest to cable Mrs Barker’s address to the Mount Nelson Hotel; Jack had grown bored sitting in the manager’s office waiting for the connection that never came. The day before the boat sailed, he had his information.
Jack had caught the train the day after the lunch in the Langham Hotel. There was no point in staying any longer. The untied strings were tied. Lily repulsed him covered in fat. Albert had not said a word, tongue-tied despite his new-found education. Sallie was as hard as nails. And none of them needed his help. The last thing would have been to cable the mother’s address to the Mansion House and leave it at that.
The boat arrived at Southampton. The address in his pocket was Plaitford, only a few miles from where his ship had docked which made up his mind for him. Having nothing much better to do, Jack hired a taxi and gave the man the address.
Spring was in full bloom, the trees bursting their buds and flowers in the hedgerows. Jack enjoyed the drive and the English countryside. His trunk had been sent up to London by goods train. The small grip next to him on the back seat carried his shaving tackle and what he would need for a night in a hotel if the task he had set himself took longer than expected. The train to London left at three in the afternoon. His hope was to reconcile mother and daughter. He rather liked doing what he supposed were good deeds.
The address led them to a small mansion hidden from the road by tall trees.
“I want the tradesman’s entrance,” said Jack to the driver.
“Are you sure, guv?”
“I’m sure, thank you.”
The tradesman’s sign pointing off the main driveway was quite clear soon after they entered the grounds. When they stopped, there was a butchery van unloading an order. Mrs Barker was supervising the packets with great authority, ticking them off against a list in her capable hands. Jack rather thought the business sense of the daughter had come from the mother; no tradesman was going to under-deliver to this mansion, he thought with a nervous chuckle; the woman intimidated him for some reason.
“I may be here for some time,” he said to the driver. “Please wait. That will be your tip.” He gave the driver a five-pound note, which was far too much but he didn’t want the man driving back to Southampton if he thought his fare had run off without paying.
“I don’t understand the tradesman’s entrance, guv,” the man said, licking his lips at the large white folded banknote.
“There are lots of things we don’t understand in life. You can keep the meter running. I don’t wish to be stranded.”
Jack got out of the taxi and walked towards Mrs Barker, who ignored him. He waited for the order to be checked, feeling sorry for the butcher. The butcher was obviously below Mrs Barker in the pecking order of things. Then she looked up at Jack where he stood five yards away, waiting patiently. If there was any recognition in her mind it did not show on her face.
“What do you want?” she asked rudely, and Jack wondered if he would have received the same reception had he come through the front door of the mansion. Probably not, he guessed rightly. She might have even claimed to recognise him after all her hard work on the SS King Emperor trying to marry off her daughter to a rich man.
“To speak to Mrs Barker.” She looked at him sharply, having recognised the well-educated accent of the upper class. “We have met before. Fact is, I once bought you supper with Ernest Gilchrist and your daughter. Ernest kindly gave me your address. My name is Jack Merryweather.”
“He’s in Ceylon.”
“So I discovered when he led me in a roundabout way to your daughter’s address in Johannesburg. Fact is, I lunched with your daughter last month and she asked me to find out your address.”
“Why does she wish to know my address?”
“To send you money.”
“She enticed that poor man. He was a good man. Mrs Flugelhorne got what she deserved.”
The back door was open and Mrs Barker marched off into her domain, slamming the door in Jack’s face.
“You earned an easy fiver,” he said to the driver when he got back into the car. “With a bit of luck, I can still catch the three o’clock to London.”
“What was all that about, guv?”
“Just about everything. Murder. Retribution.”
“Cor blimey.”
“Exactly.”
When Jack got back to 27 Baker Street, the letter from Rhodesia was waiting for him on the silver tray where it had been placed by his manservant. The bills and commercial correspondence were left in the study. Visiting cards and personal letters were to be placed on the silver tray in the small entrance hall of the house. Jack was still annoyed at having called on Mrs Barker rather than writing her Sallie’s address. Never before in his life had anyone slammed a door in his face. But then again, he told himself, it was the first time he had visited a house through the tradesman’s entrance. Jack could still be amazed by people who refused to believe what did not suit them. He rather thought Mr Barker had done the right thing by killing himself whether or not his business had gone bust. Consoling himself with the fact that people still had to live with themselves despite what they did wrong in life, he put the Barker family out of his mind once and for all. He had done his best. It was not good enough. But he had done his best.
“At least I wasn’t bored,” he said picking up the letter, not recognising Harry Brigandshaw’s writing. The note was brief, the old cable to the point.
“It seems those two women wish to haunt me,” he said out loud. “Stuck in the mailbox for those years. Poor Sallie. The gods were not with you.” Then he shook his head, walked into his sitting room and poured a large amount of whisky into the waiting crystal glass. This time, he did not even bother squirting a slosh of soda from the syphon into the glass.
For no reason whatsoever, a cold shiver ran through his body, as if someone had walked over his grave.
T
he sale of the Mansion House went through quickly. Sallie had discreetly put the business on the market as she concluded everyone with money thought they could run a restaurant, a bar and a whorehouse. She rather thought most men were familiar with all three of them, which made them feel comfortable and competent; all they had to do was pay their money and reap the profit. Sallie wished the buyer the best of luck. She had her money in the bank. The first big gamble had paid off. Never again would a business of hers be illegitimate.
Lily had gone off on a world cruise before deciding what to buy with her money. They both waved her goodbye at the railway station.
“Do you think we will ever see her again?” asked Albert.
“No. Some man will have that money off her before she reaches New York.”
“What will she do then?”
“Who knows? People find a place somewhere or they die. Always other people have made Lily her money. Men. Jack Merryweather. You and me. None of us owes each other anything. It was a business partnership. Who the hell knows, Albert? Maybe she’ll meet a man on the boat who likes fat women. I believe the Turks are like that.”
“I hope you’re wrong about losing her money.”
“So do I… We will both have to sell our houses.”
“Whatever for? I like my house.”
“We need the money. There’s going to be one hell of a war in Europe. Everyone at each other’s throats. The Americans, the Germans, the French; they have all envied the British Empire for too long. The Americans talk about freeing our colonies for egalitarian reasons but the real reason is they can only do business with them without British interference. Kick out imperial Britain, bring in the imperial dollar. The Germans covet our possessions. The French and English have hated each other for centuries, though this time for fun we are going to be on the French side. Balance of power to stop Germany. They need us, we need them. The Germans made a mess of everything in 1870… The Americans will try and trade with everyone. There’s going to be one big world war, according to the financial papers I read. Despite the Boer War, I think here the generals, Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, will side with the British Empire. They have found which side their bread’s buttered. Smuts, in particular, has been so feted by the English he’s besotted with the attention of so many royals. Flattery. Nothing like a bit of flattery. He’s joined the big club… Now, Albert Pringle: it’s time we went for lunch. We will each pay half of the bill which is the way I want it for the rest of our partnership.”
The train carrying Lily had run out of the station leaving the platform empty. Sallie took off her glasses and tossed them in the first dustbin.
“Why did you do that, Sallie? You always say never waste money.”
“I don’t need them anymore.”
“You can see properly now!”
“I always could. Before lunch, I’m going to the hairdresser and then I’m going to buy myself some clothes. Oh, and there is something else I never told you. There are two sets of books.”
“You’ve been stealing!”
“In a kind of way. Hiding would be the better word. It cost something when I sold the business, as the second set of accounts show a higher profit and would have valued the business for more than we got. Lily is her own worst enemy. I have created a legal trust for Lily Ramsbottom from which she can only draw the interest. Your share of the skim is in a separate bank account that can only be drawn upon with your signature. You will see for the last five years there are only credits, including half-annual interest on the balance. It represents your twenty per cent of the skim. Lily’s sixty per cent is in the trust. Lily will never go hungry. She was more than good to us… Do you think I did the right thing?”
“You said she would have to settle for a Turk.”
“I wanted you to understand why I hid the trust from Lily. She may not come back to Johannesburg. But one day she’ll be asking us for money. She’ll say we owe her one, which we do.”
“You think of everything.”
“Over lunch, I want to tell you about our dynamite factory. There are two shareholders at present. One is an industrial chemist and knows how to blow things up; the other is a fool. Inherited his money. Couldn’t run a brewery selling free beer. He is the one you and I are going to buy out and then refinance the company.”
“I thought we were going into mining?”
“We are. The factory sells explosives mainly to the mining industry. When the war comes they’ll want a lot of explosives to blow up people instead of rocks. I want a new factory ready within the year. Why we have to use all our money now.”
“What happens if it doesn’t work? If the other man wasn’t such a fool?”
“Then we go broke. Where we started, Albert. What’s the difference?”
“Can’t I keep my house?”
“No. And we’re not going to go broke. You just start reading everything you can find on dynamite. Detonator caps. Safety precautions at explosive factories, if you can find such literature, which I can’t. Every piece of knowledge in the world is in between the covers of books. Someone said that years ago.”
By the time Sallie joined Albert at the restaurant in the Langham Hotel, there was no resemblance to the girl who had run the accounts at the Mansion House. The very pit of his stomach ached for what he knew he would never have. They were business partners. She had made that quite plain.
“There is always a snag in all good things,” he said, getting up from his chair as she sat down.
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Sallie.”
“You can stop that right there,” she snapped. “I may not have told you in as many words but after that fat, farting German raped me, men and sex frighten me. Don’t even let your mind think down that road or our partnership stops right now.”
“Then why the clothes? The new hairstyle?”
“It will give me power. Power over men, and I like that.”
Like Jack Merryweather had done early in the day, Albert Pringle shivered as if someone had walked over his grave.
“Did you ever hear from Jack about your mother’s address?” he said after a moment.
“Not a word.”
4
July 1913
The Ninth Earl of Pembridgemoor, Peregrine Alexander Cholmondeley Kenrick, woke from his dream under the wild fig tree on a tiny island in the Okavango Delta. For a moment he was not sure where he lay, while the tears rolled down the deep crow’s feet from his eyes into the grey-white bush of his unkempt beard. Above in the tree, the birds were singing, strange birds for the first moments from his dream, and then he remembered and tears followed tears from the small blue eyes. The fleshy mouth was open, caught by a ray of the African sun through the tangled branches.
The tree was full of birds and all of them were singing their separate songs, the sound of different calls mingling in a symphony of sound. By the shallow water, the two donkeys grazed the lush grass that, without the thousands of rivulets sinking into the Kalahari sands, would be gone, left to die in the dry red dust of the desert. The swamps, Peregrine called them, rioted throughout this lost Garden of Eden, the Okavango the only river in Africa he knew to flow inland and disappear into the sand; other rivers, like the Nile, meandered into the sea giving their pure sweet waters to the fish; Peregrine the Ninth thought that was rather a pity.
The rivulets, five feet deep at the worst, surrounded his island with a tree topping the central mound, the water so pure and clear, so good to drink, he could see every detail on the bottom; the reeds, tall at the water’s edge, were to the height of a man’s shoulder; the thicker forest was across the thirty feet of water, where a tall island dominated the great river on its last flow as the waters dispersed over mile after mile into the thankful desert that drank and drank. Peregrine could hear the elephant moving on the big island, the tall, tangled trees keeping them from his blurred vision. His small leathery hand came up and wiped away his tears. He had dreamed of his long ago.
He had first run away to France, the rough rude winter channel testimony to his father’s wrath. He was twenty years old, and educated to tell others what to do in far-flung colonies or, when his time came, to inherit the great estate that had belonged to his family for centuries. For all intents and purposes, he was penniless with not even the skill to steal. None of them had been on his side, not even his mother. They – and that meant all of them, his brother, his sisters, both families, and with some help from his father’s purse – had conspired to send her away, out of his reach, out of his life, and when she was gone he was meant to do what he was told. Looking back he wondered if the whole performance, the pride, the pain, the sheer longing, had been, along with his wandering life, fruitless, wasted, sometimes mellow, sometimes sad, mostly alone. Well, he had told himself a thousand times, he had burnt his boats, and there was no going back, not even when he read in the paper his father was dead.
The family had put notices in many newspapers around the world. The estate was entailed, and despite his father’s better wishes, would always belong to the eldest son, the head of the family, the holder of the title. While leading Harry Brigandshaw on a wild-goose chase looking for the last gold of King Lobengula, he had chanced to read a piece of old newspaper used to wrap the crystal glasses they drank from when the sun went down. His father was dead at the age of ninety-five. He no longer needed guile to drink good whisky. He burnt the piece of paper on their fire that night. Going back was out of the question. It was far too late, he told himself.
She had seduced him, a virgin. There had been no wicked uncle to take him south to London, to pay an older woman. No older brothers, he was the eldest. And she had probably known exactly what she was doing. Having caught his eye, she called his body in the woods. From then on Peregrine was besotted with the girl. Still was, with her memory. His father, he suspected, like many fathers before him, had been right. There had even been some patience in the beginning.