by Peter Rimmer
Sitting with men twenty years his senior who treated him as an equal was one part of his satisfaction. The other part was keeping out of the war but doing as much business with the British War Office as possible. If other people wanted to use his explosives to kill people, that was their business. He was getting rich, and he wanted a long life to enjoy his wealth; heroes’ memories lasted a very short time after they were dead. Anyway, he told himself to placate the niggling feeling he was rationalising, he was too important to the British war effort to be sent to the trenches like his brother. Walter had rushed back to England from Australia to join the same regiment he had fought with in the Anglo-Boer War. What was it about men who always wanted to fight! Now his children were fatherless and Albert was sending Walter’s wife money, a woman he had never met, and never intended to meet if he could help it. What did they think life was all about? Poor Walter. His wife now suffered. Not Walter. Heroes! Bloody stupid… Then he brought his mind back to the long bar at the most exclusive club in Johannesburg and tried to put the war out of his mind. Poor Walter would never drink another glass of beer.
It was the speed of the change that made Tina Pringle smile. She had turned seventeen on Guy Fawkes Night the month before. A year before that she had been helping her mother around the small house and wondering what would come of her life. Barnaby, she knew, was beyond her reach, however much fun they had had together as kids. She had left the board school at fourteen without much listening to what the teachers had to say. With a little stretch of her imagination, she said she could read and write but had never read a word since leaving school. Adding and subtracting left her flummoxed.
Barnaby had not been her first, not that he had done it in the end, which she thought was rather a shame. Once a year the fair came to Swanage. The bloke that ran the horse rides for the kids in town had been in her mind since she was ten. He had done her down behind the horsebox when she was thirteen. He was lovely. A big bloke. Everything was big. Dark too. Probably a gipsy but who cared. He was lovely, lovely. She knew she had something all the boys wanted, but she teased more than she shared. Flashing her big tits, giving ’em a smile. It was all fun. She was sexy, not pretty, and that was going to be her ticket into the real world. But like most of her bright ideas, nothing had come of it until Albert came home, brother Fred caught them in the act, and Albert bought her ticket to Africa on a big boat.
She and Albert told everyone she was nineteen. The old housekeeper had been given the sack, poor dear, and Tina was running the house with eleven servants. The house in Parktown on the ridge looked out to the distant bush and had been bought for a song by Albert when the mine owners ran out of gold. She, Tina Pringle, was mistress of the great house, and if one thing was clear, she was not going back to England. In her new clothes and hair dressed in the fashion, young Barnaby was the last thing on her mind. She was going to make something of herself and marry a rich man. Tantalising sex appeal and youth were all she had but in a mining town with little competition, it was enough. No one questioned her Dorset brogue or asked her to spout off about politics or the war. The men had their eyes fixed on her bosom, not her brain. In a crowd of newly rich, the English language was mangled more often than not. She was at home. Powerful. In possession of something all of them wanted.
When Albert came back from the Rand Club, there were already six men paying court to his sister and it made him bloody laugh. With Tina running his new house, Albert was suddenly the most popular man in town. As he walked into the room to greet his guests, the German artillery found the range of the British reserve trench, and Jack Merryweather, without any control, voided his bowels.
The combination of Tina Pringle and free drinks was irresistible. Within three minutes of Albert being home, the doorbell rang from the marble hall and a young man strode into the sitting room. Albert had never set eyes on him before. Within thirty seconds he had a drink in his hand and a position to the left of Tina. This stranger had poured his own drink with familiar ease. Before Albert could find his wits the same doorbell rang again. A man of about fifty strode into the room and poured himself a drink. The man had just joined the crowd around Tina when it happened again. Mostly Albert was in his office or the club at sundowner time. Drinking alone, he found himself an outcast in his own home. The man of fifty, having had a good look down the front of Tina’s dress pulled away from the crowd.
“Your first time?” he asked Albert.
“In a way, I suppose it is… Who are you, if I may ask?”
“Lightfoot. Benny Lightfoot. I’m an American. And who are you? Do you know anyone here?”
“Just Tina.”
“That’s right. We all are here to visit with Tina.”
“Isn’t she a bit young for you?”
“Who cares?… Excuse me. That’s a friend of mine just come in… You want me to fill your glass? That first one hit the spot.”
Albert was not sure whether to laugh or throw the man out on his neck. He chose to laugh. His sister was having a good time. Maybe one of the men in the room was rich. He liked the idea of a rich brother-in-law. Booze was cheap, so the money did not bother him. Working on the principle that if you can’t beat them, join them, Albert refilled his drink, took a swig, and joined the circle clustered around his sister. She was as cool as a cucumber. The clothes he had bought made her look the nineteen she said she was. Albert doubted if their mother and father would recognise the youngest of their children.
“Oh, it’s Albert. Home early, love. Some of my friends come to visit. Everyone say a big hello to Albert. He is my brother. He’s the one what owns this ’ouse. Say cheers! It’s ’is booze too. He is a bloody darlin’, isn’t he? Cheers, Albert.”
Only the fifty-year-old had the decency to look embarrassed. Then the one-way conversation picked up and everyone turned their attention back to Tina. Albert was again left on his own. The fifty-year-old put his glass down on the grand piano and slunk out into the hall. Albert heard the front door open and close. They knew their way out as well as in. The price of being rich, he tried to tell himself. If there was one thing he had found out in life, the moment a man had money, everyone was trying to get it off him. And rich men were popular so long as they stayed rich. On that note he was confident. As fast as Serendipity Mining and Explosives made artillery shells, they were being blown to pieces in France. The ammunition trucks left his factory for Durban every day. Then the Royal Navy escorted them all the way to France. Only one of the ammunition ships had been sunk by German torpedoes before it arrived. The explosion had sunk a Royal Navy frigate riding alongside. They were working three shifts at the factory. What was the cost of a few bottles of Scotch, he asked himself? Without being noticed, he went outside through the small doors onto the long veranda that looked down from Parktown Ridge. What the hell! Tina was enjoying herself. Maybe even some of the men in the room were going to join the war. By the time the sun began to sink into the African bush, Albert was halfway to being drunk. And it was a Friday. When he went back into the room to refill his glass and join the trivial conversation surrounding his sister, there was another woman standing halfway into the room. She was enormous. Fatter than anyone Albert had seen. The chin was completely lost in the rolls of fat around her face. Even her feet were swollen in her shoes.
The apparition saw him, broke into a broad smile and waddled towards him across the big room.
“Darling. How wonderful to see you. Give your Lily a big hug.”
The cruise for Lily White had been a disaster. She had booked and paid to go around the world first class. It took just one day to know she had made a mistake, even with the fancy clothes she had bought in Cape Town to help disguise who she was. The accent she had tried to cultivate so hard let her down with a thud. The looks that had kept the men on her side for so long were gone. The bosom that Jack Merryweather had liked to wallow in was all of a piece. Chin. Stomach. Bosom. All the same thing. So she ate. Morning, noon and night. For three months she ate. Helpi
ng after helping. Breakfast. Lunch. Tea. Supper. She waddled up from her cabin four times a day. By the time the ship brought her back to Cape Town, she had doubled her weight. Largely, for the whole journey, no one had spoken to her. She was the largest invisible being on board ship. The worst thing was that when she thought through her problem, she knew any alternative would not be any better. She had had her life. Not even one man tried to get to know her money. She was just too fat to even get a peck on the cheek.
At the end of the voyage, she had sat around in Cape Town doing nothing other than eating. Sometimes she read the papers. She even watched the share price of Serendipity. At the end of her tether, and fearing for her life, she had finally taken the train to Johannesburg. Even walking ten yards was a strain on her heart.
The first word that came to Albert Pringle’s mind was ‘Shit!’ Instead, he put on a big smile and tried unsuccessfully to give Lily a hug. She had obviously run out of money in a year and had come begging. Sallie once again had been right. The trust for Lily set up in 1913 for just this eventuality would solve their problem. Lily would always have an income and not be dependent on their charity. They would be rid of her.
“How did you find out my address?” he asked having floundered in the fat.
“From the prospectus,” smiled Lily, feeling better for the first time in months.
“What prospectus?” said Albert, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Serendipity Mining and Explosives. I put my money from the Mansion House into your company. I still have all the shares.”
“We didn’t see your name as a shareholder. How many shares do you have?”
“Ten thousand. One per cent of your equity. I put it through with my bank as nominee.”
“Jack Merryweather did the same thing but we found out the real owner of the shares. Anything one per cent or over we wanted to know who we were dealing with. Our chaps in London were very good.”
“My real name’s Lily Ramsbottom. Now you recognise my shareholding. Give us a drink, love. A stiff one! I really need a drink! Nice house. Nice view.”
“Of course. Of course. What would you like? Well, I should know. Scotch. Yes. A Scotch.”
“Don’t look so bloody relieved, Albert. Sallie was right to put my money from the sale of the Mansion House in a trust. She may have been a damn good bookkeeper stopping others stealing my money. But she weren’t a patch on Lil. I had to put up a cheque for twenty thousand pounds to get my shares remember. How do you think I got that? From the whorehouse! Just in case, so to speak. Don’t look so aggrieved. You did all right. Blimey, anyone would think I was a thief. Sallie could stop the others stealing but not me, see.” Then she began to laugh, making the fat roll around her body. “I may be big but I’m not stupid. Whatever you two thought.”
“Where are you staying, Lil?”
“Right here. My bags are in the hall. The trunk’s at the station. Who’s the centre of attention? Now that one would have made us money.”
“She’s my sister, Lil.”
“Sorry, Albert. It’s just me. Always had a good eye for a whore. Which reminds me. Where’s Sallie?”
“At home. We work together but don’t live together.”
“Sounds like you don’t like that, Bert my boy. She is class, our Sallie. Man who marries her will be real lucky.”
‘I know,’ thought Albert and went off to pour Lily a Scotch. “There’s no pleasure without pain,” he said quietly. Poor Lil.
Being more shrewd than clever, Tina had watched the altercation and read the picture right. The madam had come back into their lives. She got up and walked away from her entourage. She never listened to what they said anyway. She just liked being the centre of attention. The crowd of men fluttered and followed in her wake.
“My guess is you’s Lily White. I’m Tina. Bert’s sister. The men can introduce themselves. I’m no good at names. Now, why don’t you and I go out on the veranda for a natter? You are staying with us? Good. There are more bedrooms in this house than the whole of Corfe Castle, the bloody village, not the bloody ruins.”
Lily looked back, checked the line of vision from where Tina had been sitting to the hallway. Then she smiled. The girl had seen the bags. She was good. Better to join a potential enemy at the start.
Left on their own, within a minute, all the men were talking about the war.
Sallie Barker put the telephone back on the hook feeling sad. Friends, like husbands and wives, so often outgrew each other. One went ahead, one went behind. Poor Lily. What were they going to do with her? They were the last of her friends, she was sure of that. By the sound of it, no one had thought it worth their while to take her for a ride for her money. The idea of Lily White now transformed back into Lily Ramsbottom and twice the size she had been at the start of her world cruise was frightening. Could a body sustain so much fat and not break in the middle? The woman was still rich but even that did not seem to have helped. And having once been able to flick a finger and any man would have come running! Did the woman have herself to blame? Or had life left her in the lurch with only food for comfort? And then Sallie remembered again being taken in by this woman when she herself had been at the end of her tether. Sometimes owing friendship was the most expensive debt in life.
The house was run by a manservant and his wife. The man, that others in Europe would call a butler, gave her the power to eject any man who thought they could take advantage of a woman who lived on her own. Bill Hardcastle had been a boxer. His nose was fat and flat on his face and the hands that so delicately opened her front door were the size of hams. She paid him handsomely and he looked after her well. A bodyguard would have been a better description of his job. Molly, his wife, was the cook. The rest of the servants were black. When she went out at night, Bill drove the Bentley that Sallie had bought soon after the outbreak of war. The car was her only toy, her only extravagance other than the house. Both were designed to tell the male world she was rich in own right, the house and car visible signs of success. They were the solid face of wealth that every business needed as a façade. People liked doing business with the rich. They felt financially comfortable with the rich. It was all a lot of show-off nonsense so far as Sallie could see but she knew it was essential if they were to continue to succeed. And the car, yes, it did give her a nice feeling.
“Mr Hardcastle! We’re going out. There’s a crisis at the Pringle household. Put the roof down on the car. I wish the rains would break. It’s so stuffy.”
The reality was far worse than the phone call. Lily was obese. Hard to look at as human. A freak that spoke from a mound of flesh, blotched red skin, eyes sinking into oblivion, arms the size of a big man’s thighs, hair listless. And when she sat down she took up most of the sofa.
“How are you, Lily?”
The good-looking woman, Jack Merryweather’s mistress, who had taken her into the Strand Street house when she was desperate, did not reply. Sallie’s attempt to kiss Lily on the cheek had been thwarted by the woman’s belly. Lily had flopped back on the sofa and both Sallie and Albert wondered how she was going to get up again. Sallie was glad Bill Hardcastle was sitting in the car outside. The eyes, half submerged in the flesh, began to ooze tears. Tina had gone off with some of the men for dinner at the Grand Hotel. They were alone, the three of them who together had made the first fortune from a whorehouse. There was no longer any point in pretending. Sallie found the tears flowing down her own face. Unless something was done quickly, Lily was better off dead. There was only one way to save the woman crying silently on the sofa, Sallie told herself. Love and care. Lots of love and lots of care.
She walked across the room through the hall and called up Bill Hardcastle.
“This time it’s my turn,” she said going back to Lily. “You’re going home with me… This is Bill Hardcastle. He’ll help you into the car. It’s food, Lily. We are going to stop the food. None of the Boers who came out of the British concentration camps at the end of the A
nglo-Boer War was fat. You’re going on a diet after I’ve spoken to a doctor.”
“You’re a true friend, Sal.”
“Will you do what I tell you?”
“I’ll try.”
The sofa lurched back as they brought Lily to her feet. Bill Hardcastle had her firmly under the left elbow.
Lily had stopped crying. With Bill on her left and Albert on her right, with Sallie coming up behind, she hoped no one had seen the small sign of triumph in her eyes. People, she thought with satisfaction, were so easy to manipulate. If she had been an actress they would have made her a star. And losing some of the weight was not such a bad idea anyway. She was going to enjoy herself being looked after. She hated being alone. She would persuade the trustees so carefully put together by Sallie to sell the safe investments. She would buy as many of Serendipity shares as possible. She would tell them it was her way of reciprocating, of showing her faith in their ability. Then she would ask for a seat on the board of directors. Everything was going to be all right.
By the time Lily was fitted into the open tourer, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She wondered if the doctor would have some pills to stop her feeling hungry. Then she went to sleep, with the cool breeze playing on her face.
The suitcases were strapped to the back of the car on the rack. Over in the bush, it was thundering. Fork lightning cut the warm air as far away as the eye could see. It began to rain big drops as Bill Hardcastle drove up Sallie’s driveway.
By the time they pulled and pushed her out of the car, Lily had the tears oozing down her face. There was no doubt in the mind: she should have been an actress. Within a week she would have them all at her beck and call. Far better than first class on a boat with a shipload of snobs. Far better than the hotel in Cape Town that was only interested in her paying her bill. As she waddled into her new home she thanked her lucky stars. When Sallie Barker had pitched up on the doorstep after Herr Flugelhorne had done his deed, Lily had taken her in as a future asset for the whorehouse. Not the financial manager she had so successfully become but as a whore. The girl would have made them a fortune.