Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  “Whom shall I say is calling?” she called loudly from the door to the GM’s enclosed, half-glass office.

  “Matthew Gray.” As if jerked by a puppet-master, the entire staff looked up.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Africa.” Everyone sat up and put down their pens. If he wished to address his new staff, he certainly had their attention.

  Either the old lady or the GM was deaf, it would appear, though Matthew doubted this. The old girl was putting on a show. “Mister Gray from Africa,” she almost shouted as she threw open the half-glass door and beckoned Matthew into the only office in the company that enjoyed a carpet – a very old carpet, Matt noted, as he put out his hand to the startled man behind the desk. A lady in the corner of the room, obviously the protective secretary, was about to protest the intrusion when it was announced in an equally loud voice that everyone could hear, “Missus Holland sent ’im” The ‘H’ in Holland being pronounced with great emphasis.

  “And what can I do for you, Mister Gray? You wish to insure your house? Your car? We have very good personal line policies, and we always pay our claims promptly. Very promptly, Mister Gray. Would you care for a chair? Thank you, Missus Barton… Missus Barton is a little deaf. Her husband runs our mail room. The little area behind the filing cabinets.” Entwistle laughed at what he thought was a joke. “We don’t waste money on overheads at Threadneedle. Now what can I do for you, Mister?…” Mrs Barton closed the door to his office, shaking the cage.

  ‘Gray. G-R-A-Y. Matthew Gray. I would like to see your books.”

  “Ah, you must be from the government.” Unlikely with a South African accent, Matthew thought.

  “No. Mister Entwistle.” He had not taken the offered seat and now turned to look at the open plan office through the glass. Everyone was still looking up from their work. “Maybe it would be better if I spoke to the entire staff. Will you be kind enough to call them all together?”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Because I own the company and I intend to run it hands-on. And one of the first things we are going to do is to get to know each other and go through every file and every account book.”

  When Matthew turned back to him, all colour had drained from the general manager’s face. “We only have an audit once a year,” he protested.

  “Not anymore. Where are the accounts records?”

  “In the safe.”

  “Then you’ll be kind enough to give me the keys.”

  “I wish to resign.”

  “As you wish… I have no reason to be vindictive but I do wish to increase the company’s profits and salaries. Maybe it would be better if you told me what you have done, and that way we can keep it to ourselves. I have been aware of your twenty-five year old mistress for some months. In fact, I have had the pleasure of entertaining the young lady. I suspect her flat is rented in the name of the company, among other things. I would be obliged if you would give me your resignation in writing. Now. And while your secretary is typing it, she can make out one for herself.”

  “I wish to leave immediately.”

  “I have no problem with that.”

  When the letters were typed and signed, Entwistle began to clean out his drawers.

  “You can leave that. Anything of a personal nature will be returned to your home.”

  “There’s no fool like an old fool,” muttered A C Entwistle, as he prepared to leave the company he had joined in 1931.

  “Mister Entwistle?” said Matthew, as the two old people were leaving.

  “Yes, Mister Gray.”

  “You will go on early retirement, and an amount equal to ten per cent of your pension will be deducted to pay back what you have taken over the last many years.”

  “You won’t tell my wife?”

  “Oh, and Mandy has moved out of the flat.”

  “What will happen to Mandy?”

  “Fact is I gave her a job. The ten per cent was her idea. She’s a very nice girl. I won’t say all the things she said about you, but none were nasty. She did say you were kind. Hence the ten per cent.” Matt even felt sorry for the old man who had lost his job and his mistress, his meaning for life, all in the space of ten minutes.

  “Give her my love.” A C Entwistle closed his door for the last time and, with his head up and followed by his secretary of twenty-seven years, walked to the umbrella stand. He took his bowler hat and put it on his head, then he put on his raincoat and retrieved his umbrella. With the perfectly rolled umbrella on his left arm he offered his secretary his right, opened the outside door to the office and left with dignity, leaving Matthew feeling like a thief. Dismissal was not the kind of Christmas present he liked giving people. Maybe Mandy had been worth the price for A C Entwistle. He hoped so. Deflated, he sat down behind the GM’s desk and contemplated his next move. He counted the staff outside in the general office. There were eighteen, in addition to the man he could not see behind the filing cabinets. Right then he could have done with Sunny Tupper as secretary, but then the other, more vivid picture of her clouded his thoughts, and he put that idea out of his mind. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and he was not going to start anything before the new year. They were all looking at him and they were all his, for better or for worse. He looked at his watch. It was half past three. They all had to be told and the sooner the better. He stepped out of the small office.

  “I expected Mister Entwistle to tell you what was going on, but he has left the company at his own request, on learning I had purchased control of your company. Any others of you who do not wish to work for me may do the same, but I hope you will stay. My name is Matthew Gray and I come from South Africa, though my ancestors come from Scotland. On the second of January, I will take over running the day-to-day business with two of my associates, Mister Archibald Fletcher-Wood, an Englishman, and…” Matt stopped in his tracks. For the life of him he had no idea of Lucky’s Christian name. “And Lucky Kuchinski, a Pole.” He would leave the rest of that for them to work out.

  “The other two men will be running a new life company which will feed you short-term business” He wondered for a brief moment if he should mention the girls. “We will be moving to larger premises, though as yet I don’t know where. Now, as I go round, please introduce yourselves. I know Missus Barton and I believe Mister Barton is in our vast mail room behind the filing cabinets.” It was the best he could do for a stale joke, but the laughter came. His new staff were as nervous as he was, and he sat on the side of a front desk.

  “Your company has been bought by Jersey Island Trust, not a South African company, though I do have experience in that market, along with the Canadian, American, Australian and Hong Kong markets where Gray Associates operated for me in the past. That company is now owned by Security Holdings, a company with which many of you will be familiar, especially its English subsidiary. Please carry on as you were, and all of you have a merry Christmas… Missus Barton, where is the nearest pub you could recommend?”

  “The Green Man.”

  “Everyone is welcome to join me there when you are finished. Now let me shake all your hands, and then Missus Barton and her husband can show us where to find the Green Man, though I have a suspicion you all know exactly where it is.” This time the laughter was genuine.

  At the end of January the staff were moved to the second floor of Jupiter House and the ground floor was gutted by office renovators. Within two weeks, the walls were painted, offices created, carpets laid, and each underwriter, fire, marine and accident, installed in a front office easily accessible to the brokers needing additional lines to complete their Lloyd’s slips. Next to the underwriters was a plush reception area for Lion Life and Threadneedle Insurance, and behind the single desk, opposite the warm, colourful sofas that matched the rich maroon carpet, sat Chelsea de La Cruz. Her UK work permit had been granted the week before, pending the granting of permanent residence. Mrs Barton was heard to comment that not even she had looked that good in her youth.

/>   By the end of January, all the Gray Associates systems, methods and procedures had been introduced to the Threadneedle with surprising alacrity which had everything to do with Matthew increasing salaries by ten per cent across the board with, in addition, his old bonus system, linked to premium written and profit achieved in the three departments. Two of the old staff resigned under the new pressure of work and were not replaced.

  At the end of February, Matt invited small groups of brokers to cocktail parties in the reception area, where the Lion Life girls mingled with the brokers who would feed the Threadneedle with new business. Matt was not allowing the girls into the Life field until they were properly trained, with Archie and Lucky satisfied there would be no misinformation given to clients. Initially there were only four Life products to be sold, lifted with slight variation from Security Life in Johannesburg, Matt rationalising that they had his systems, so why should he not have theirs. The Life Company would be launched with extensive local advertising and a paid-up capital of five million pounds.

  On the first of February, Threadneedle’s capital had been increased by two million pounds by a rights issue, the rights only taken up by the Jersey Trust as the other shareholders had insufficient money. The underwriting capacity of the Threadneedle was increased by three hundred per cent, making it worthwhile for the young brokers to call when they were unable to complete their slips in the room at Lloyd’s.

  Matt estimated that Chelsea attracted half the visitors. The old underwriters started to dress smartly, and the Fire underwriter appeared with a nicely fitting toupee which sent Mrs Barton into a fit of giggles. By judicious prodding and a succession of half-pints of beer in the Green Man before the cocktail parties started, Matt had convinced her to visit a hairdresser of his choice at his expense, and her hair was turned a very smart silver. Her clashing make-up was also changed. When she returned, she had undergone such a metamorphosis that it was Mister Barton’s turn to chuckle.

  At the end of April 1967, the Lion Life girls were given carefully selected lists of potential clients, men working in the Baltic Exchange, the stock exchange and the merchant banks. In the month of May, from twenty-five well-trained girls, all of whom registered between seven and ten on the Richter scale, premium income from single-premium payments exceeded three hundred thousand, and annualised monthly premiums with an average life of twenty-five years was one hundred and eighty-nine thousand pounds. What some of the girls did in return, under the heading of customer relations, was their business and not discussed by directors. The girls had been warned that any publicised indiscretion would cost them their jobs.

  By the end of that year, both companies were causing Matthew to work fourteen hours a day six days a week. Matt’s alcohol intake was limited to four drinks an evening and, though his lunch guests thought he was drinking gin and tonic in his favourite restaurant, the owner poured from a special Beefeater bottle of gin that was full of pure tap water. He had never been so busy, even in Johannesburg, and enjoyed every minute of his days.

  Despite Lucky’s attempts, his charm had not worked on Chelsea and, even before the carpets had been laid in the renovated ground floor, Matt had found his own flat and moved in with Chelsea de La Cruz. Matt had written a careful letter to the girl’s parents in Villancoulos, and all thoughts of Sunny Tupper or Sandy de Freitas left his mind forever. The girl made no demands going off to the jazz clubs on her own if Matt was too busy with work. They had the ideal relationship until the end of 1967, when Chelsea met Luke Mbeki at a Soho jazz club off Greek Street and fell in love for the first time in her life.

  Luke Mbeki had been back from Lusaka for a month when he saw the black girl on her own in Chris Barber’s jazz club, where the music was traditional and the smooth notes of Chris Barber’s trombone much to Luke’s liking. Being the only two blacks in the room, they had drifted towards each other and Luke had asked her to dance, doing his own version of jive. They said little while they were dancing, the noise level being too high for extended conversation.

  “You want a drink?” Luke eventually asked her.

  “Sure. There’s a pub in Greek Street.”

  “I know. Used to come here a lot.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Zambia. You ever heard of Zambia?”

  “Sure, I come from Mozambique.”

  “What are you doing here on your own?” queried Luke.

  “My boyfriend works day and night. Owns an insurance company.”

  “Sounds old.”

  “He’s thirty-five and as tall as you,” smiled Chelsea.

  “Black?”

  “Not by skin colour but he’s African by birth and a lot else.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I’m only eighteen. Lots of time to fall in love.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “You ask a lot of questions,” laughed Chelsea, “Where do you live? What were you doing in Lusaka? Where do you come from?”

  “Port St Johns. That’s in the Transkei. My name’s Luke Mbeki.”

  Chelsea had gone cold. Even before he gave his name, she knew who he was and that the best thing she could do for herself was to get out of the club alone and never see Luke again. Her mind wanted to go one way, but her body took her up the narrow stairs beside Luke, and the calm waters that surrounded her life were whipped up into a storm, a storm that would rage around her, taking her eventually back to Africa and the horrors of war.

  When she resigned from Lion Life and moved out of the flat, Matt asked her if the new guy was nice and whether he would look after her properly.

  “He’s nice.” There was no point in denying that she had another man.

  “Do I know him?”

  “He’s not one of the crowd.”

  “Then be happy, Chelsea. Have a good life.” Matt shrugged, and went and got himself drunk for the first time that year. Once again he had been working too hard.

  There was always a price to pay for everything. The next day he phoned Archie and left him in charge of the business, catching a plane to Johannesburg and, after a short delay, the Air Rhodesia Viscount to Salisbury. Aldo Calucci met him at the airport and, by the time he reached the game farm on the banks of the Zambezi River, looking across the river to Zambia, Matt was feeling better. This time he had not given the girl even a small piece of his heart.

  The hunting camp had been built of pole and dagga, reed-thatched with a large boma in the centre where the small game was roasted over an open fire. At night, Aldo, with a .375 cradled on his knee, sat with his paying guests around the big fire that burnt whole trees, the trunks being pushed into the centre of the fire as they gradually burnt away. From the camp the hunter would have been able to lob a stone into the Zambezi River, but the slope up from the water was too steep for the hippo to charge. Acacia trees, flat canopies to the heavens, shrouded the camp at night and gave it shade during the day. Mosquitoes and tsetse were bad at dusk, but the wood-smoke offered some protection.

  Aldo had collected an American journalist from the same flight. Ben Munroe was writing a series of articles for Newsweek on newly independent African states, and he wanted an inside look at rebel Rhodesia. He had given hunting his excuse to get into the country, which was, of course, isolated from the rest of the world by mandatory United Nations trade sanctions.

  There were three other Americans in camp when the Land Rover returned. The camp had been well looked after by Mashinga, who had followed Aldo into his new enterprise. When they sat round the boma on Matt’s first night, London and Chelsea felt as far away as the moon. Above them the stars were bright in three distinct layers, a lacework of sparkling jewels.

  Matt had walked away from the fire to look at the night, having the urge to pray in his excitement at being home in the bush. The plop of the bream rising to feed on the river flies was exactly the same sound as was made by the mullet in the river at Second Beach. For a moment, with the slap of wet fish on still water, Matt was a small boy in Por
t St Johns with his father again, and none of the pain in his life had even begun. He walked away downriver carrying his rifle, to see the heavens without the dancing firelight dimming the wonder his eyes beheld.

  “You want eat food,” Aldo called in his thick, northern Italian accent and bad English. A hippo grunted from the water, while the tree frogs screamed from the acacia trees to his right, answered by frogs from the river, the symphony of a thousand castanets. Far away on the Zambian side of the river, a pack of wild dogs barked with the excitement of the chase, and a hyena laughed hysterically. Farther down river, in the pale, beautiful light of the stars, a sable antelope drank at the water’s edge, the tall, scimitar horns just visible in the starlight. A dove called in the night, and was silent.

  Hungry from the evening’s game viewing in the Land Rover with Mashinga, Matt re-joined the other men around the fire. With a hunting knife and a plate, he cut slices of the well-cooked bush pig and sat down on a log to eat. Aldo passed him a tin mug full of red wine from the Cape, and he gave his salute to the company and drank. The wine was better than any French vintage he had drunk in the City of London.

  Aldo smiled, showing white teeth. “The wine is good, Matt? Good to see you. Matt is my best friend. How is Archie? We old friends. All of us old friends. How you like my camp?”

  “The second best place on earth”

  “Where’s the best, London?” asked Ben.

  “Port St Johns in the Transkei. I was born there.”

  “Met a guerrilla leader in Lusaka who was born in Port St Johns.”

  “Luke Mbeki.” replied Matt, pushing pork into his mouth with his fingers. “He’s my twin. How is Luke? He avoids me.”

  “Twin? You want to tell us?” Ben looked sceptical.

  “You want to tell me you’re here to hunt and not to write?” Matt laughed.

  “Writers write. They can’t help it.”

  “Tell Luke when you see him he’s still my friend.”