by Morris West
‘What do I do now? Go dance in the streets?’
‘He also sends a suggestion. If you want to contest Cassidy’s seat at the by-election, you’ve still got time to nominate. He’d almost guarantee preselection.’
‘Not interested.’
‘Why not? Do you want to be an expatriate all your life?’
‘I wouldn’t want to end up like Cassidy.’
‘Cassidy made one big mistake – he never got the gall out of his system.’
‘Drop it, Arthur, please!’
‘Just as you like. Don’t forget the car. See you!’
I put down the receiver and went in to see the General. He folded the newspaper carefully and then announced with equal care: ‘I came to offer my profound sympathies to Miss Larsen and to yourself. A terrible affair. It robs her of a father. It robs the country of one of our most brilliant military men. Not to mention the other distinguished citizens.’
I thanked him and told him I would convey his sympathies to Laura, who was still in shock and under medical care. Then he reminded me of my promise.
‘You did say, Mr. Gregory, that you would stand behind the share purchase offered by the late Mr. Melville.’
‘I did, General, and I shall be happy to honour that promise. However, I should like you to consider another suggestion. I have decided to dispose of all the Cassidy interests in Chao Phraya Trading and eventually in all other South-East Asia trading companies. I am advising Miss Larsen to do the same with the Melville interests. It is clear that these enterprises are best managed by indigenous shareholders. As you know, all of them are very profitable – and all of them could do with some drastic housecleaning to purge out criminal activity. So, if you are interested, I should be prepared to offer you all our shares at book value. You could buy them on margin and pay for them over a period of, say, five years, out of the profits of the company…’
He thought about that for a while, then he smiled.
‘It could be interesting, Mr. Gregory. Yes, very interesting indeed. I may need a little time to consider, and then to put the funds together but, in principle, yes, I should like to begin a negotiation.’
‘My lawyer arrives from Sydney tomorrow night. I can put the two of you together and let you work out a deal. You don’t need me here for that. I hope to leave on Monday. I have to call into Zurich on the way. Would you like me to visit your granddaughter?’
‘It is a kind offer, Mr. Gregory; but in all the circumstances I think it might be better to keep the two families separate. So much water has flowed under the bridges and children love to ferret out mysteries. I’m sure you understand what I mean.’
‘Perfectly, General. By the way, will there be an inquiry into the accident?’
‘Oh yes, a big one. Our navy is dredging and diving for wreckage. Our aviation experts will be examining every scrap of evidence… but it is hard to say what they will conclude. We are not as expert in these things as the Americans or the Europeans. On the other hand, we are not obliged, as they are, to make constant announcements to the press. So, yes an inquiry; but little hope of a conclusive finding. I saw it happen. The aircraft just blew apart in the air.’
‘Sabotage?’
‘Possibly. We have a small but active cadre of dissidents, mostly of the far Left; but their usual trade is banditry, not sophisticated operations such as this would have had to be. My own view is that the accident was due to some simple but fatal defect or oversight in maintenance. Anyway, it is done. I have been summoned to the conference of the General Staff to discuss new appointments. A way has been opened now for my long-delayed advancement… What does the proverb say, Mr. Gregory? “When one man dies, there is always another left smiling”… Please call me when your lawyer is free. I look forward to a talk with him.’
When he had gone, I made my way upstairs to check on Laura. She was awake but still drowsy with the sedatives. I sat down on the side of the bed and combed back the hair from her face. She reached out to touch my cheek.
‘What am I going to do, Martin?’
‘I’m going to suggest you go back to Sydney and pick up your work at the Melmar. It will give you a base and an activity while your father’s estate is being sorted out. Arthur Rebus will be here tomorrow. If you like and trust him as I do, I’d recommend you appoint him your attorney of record and let him handle things on your behalf. He’s astute and he doesn’t frighten easily. My guess is he’ll create an enclave of interest that none of your father’s associates can invade.’
‘I wish you could be with me too.’
‘I can’t. You know that; but if you want me to act for you in London, or recommend people there, I’ll do it gladly.’
‘Thank you. Do you love me, Martin?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I love you too. So why didn’t it work for us? Why didn’t we just toss everything away and run for the hills? We could have, you know.’
‘We couldn’t. Let’s not kid ourselves. There was too much history to cope with.’
She nodded sleepily.
‘Too much old-country. Too many old feuds to poison things. I never knew how much hate was in my father until I found out what he had done to you. If you’d killed him in the car, it would have been easy to forgive you.’
This was getting too close to a grimmer truth. I closed her lips with my fingertips and played the old game that I had played with my children: ‘I’m pulling the curtains over your eyes.’ She asked me what time it was. I told her it was nearly midday. I would come again to see her after lunch.
‘Can I sleep in your room tonight? I’m frightened here.’
‘Of course you can. We’ll dine there. At sleep-time, I’ll give you your tablets and tuck you in.’
I waited a few moments longer and then tiptoed out. Miz Burton held me at the door to ask what plans were being made for the staff. I told her she and the masseur could probably leave for home whenever they wished. If they needed funds, I could draw against Melmar’s holdings in Chao Phraya. She asked what was happening with Laura. I told her she would probably return to Sydney. Miz Burton looked at me as if I were a weevil in a biscuit. She said, ‘I don’t understand you, Mr. Gregory. I don’t understand you at all. The girl’s head over heels in love with you… Still, it’s none of my business.’
I agreed it wasn’t and decided that it was time to take a swim and watch the fillies by the pool. It was a lot less dangerous than falling half way in love or trying to stop a once-good marriage falling apart.
That night was the last time Laura and I slept together. It was a strange loving; quiet, tender, almost passionless, yet deeply comforting to us both. In one of the long, wakeful moments between midnight and dawn, Laura said, ‘Martin, I want to give you some advice.’
‘About what?’
‘When you get home, you must take your wife to the bedroom and tell her, very quietly and very lovingly, that there are no questions, no explanations. Yesterday is dead. There’s only today and tomorrow and you want to share them with her. That’s all you say. Then you take her in your arms and make love to her in the best way you ever made it together.’
‘It sounds great – but what if she doesn’t want it like that? What if she says no, she hates me and doesn’t want me to touch her ever again?’
‘She won’t.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I know how I’d feel if I’d jumped over the broomstick with a young lover and then found I’d been set up to alienate my husband and farm him off to another woman. I’d feel shamed and small and dirty like a ragamuffin on a street corner. I’d want to explain, but I couldn’t; no words would make any sense. I’d be willing to abase myself before my husband, but that wouldn’t help either, because I wouldn’t be his mate any more, but a bond-woman working out a debt… You have to trust me, Martin. This is love talking… And, for God’s sake, I’m giving you back to another woman!’
‘I do trust you, my love. It’s Martin Gregory I
can’t rely on.’
‘Martin Gregory’s fine. He just got himself lost for a while chasing after Charlie Cassidy’s ghost.’
Once again, my hasty tongue almost betrayed me. I wanted to ask what Cassidy had meant to her and how he had been as lover and whether she had any caring left for him. I wanted to tell her that it was I, the man with clean hands, who had compassed her father’s death. I wanted to know whether then she could find it in her heart to forgive me. I didn’t ask, thank God. I drew her close and cradled her in the crook of my arm and wondered how I could ever endure to be without her. But, when morning came, she was better. There was colour in her cheeks and a new light in her eyes and she demanded to be taken shopping for silks and rubies and a princess ring and all the shopworn novelties of the curio shops.
After that, she made me buy her lunch on the garden terrace so that we could watch the river traffic while we ate. Then we found a space at the poolside and swam and sunbathed and drank rum punches until the evening wind came searching down the river with a flurry of rain in front of it.
That night she slept alone in the Royal suite. I sat late in the downstairs bar, talked to a pair of business girls from Manhattan who offered to make up a threesome for five hundred bahts each. It seemed an expensive piece of nonsense when, two blocks away, there were brothels stacked three floors high with women. So, I sat out in the foyer waiting for Arthur Rebus to arrive.
He was good for us both. His dry, crusty humour made us laugh and cut our giant fears down to human size. Laura liked him. She respected his cool business judgment. She agreed to his suggestion that she resume work and let him act for her with her father’s attorneys.
He had good news for me, too: the probate application in Cassidy’s Australian estate was proving simpler than he had expected. The files were in order, the schedules accurate, due taxes had been paid. He also managed to teach the General a few lessons in the art of genteel haggling. After only three hours of discussion, a book value on the shares had been settled, a transfer date set, and the General had agreed to a three-year payment period at a handsome rate of interest. Which all went to prove, as Rebus succinctly phrased it: ‘The joint stock company was designed by gentlemen to fleece the suckers in all languages, and nobody understands it better than the British or runs it closer to the line than the Australians.’
He told us that the Chinese Government had invited him to Beijing to teach a seminar in British corporate law and he thought he might accept, ‘before the Americans get in and plant too many heretical principles’. He thought, too, he might work out a strategy for disposing of the other Cassidy instruments at a handy profit to the trust. By the end of his three-day sojourn he and Laura were warming to each other, while I was beginning to feel a few pangs of jealousy.
When the time came, we rode together to the airport; they to take the Thai flight to Sydney, I to fly Swissair as far as Zurich. Our farewells were strangely anticlimactic.
Arthur Rebus said, ‘I’ll call you each week to report progress. Think about coming home. There’s work to be done there. Good luck on the domestic front and, remember, bite your tongue!’
Laura held me for one last, precious moment and whispered, ‘The doors are closed, remember? Lock them and throw away the key.’
Then she kissed me and turned away. Arthur Rebus took her arm and led her off to what was grandiosely called ‘The Captain’s Lounge’. I had to accost three giggling girls before I discovered that first-class passengers on Swissair took pot luck in the public waiting-room, where the air-conditioning had broken down.
I landed in Zurich at seven o’clock on a morning of driving sleet and slushy pavements. I went straight to the offices of Horstman and Preysing, who turned out to be two youngish gentlemen, very starchy, very correct and singularly unimpressed by the amount of money of which they were custodians.
They received me with impersonal courtesy. They asked to see my passport and my driver’s licence. They confirmed that I was indeed their lawful delegate in the Rotdrache trust and that I did indeed have access and operating rights over the trust funds. Then they demonstrated the trust deed and I learned for the first time that the beneficiaries were…
‘Any institute, society or foundation having as its aim works of charity, social betterment, the redress of injustice or inequity, which, in the opinion of the trustees and/or their lawful delegate or delegates from time to time appointed, shall merit the support of the trust, save only that if at any time during the life of the trust Martin Gregory shall divorce his wife Patricia Anne Gregory (née Cassidy) and shall marry, lawfully and according to the canons and rites of the Roman Catholic Church, Laura Lucia Larsen (née Melville or Melitense) the said Martin Gregory and the said Laura Lucia Larsen shall become joint and unconditional beneficiaries, with reversion of benefits to their offspring per stirpes… Should the trust determine before such marriage takes place, all the assets of the trust shall devolve to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, to be used in his absolute discretion for the promotion of the Roman Catholic Faith in the Commonwealth of Australia.’
I folded the deed and handed it back. Mr. Horstman coughed and said, ‘It is, of course, an unusual document, not the sort of thing we would recommend for our clients; but Mr. Cassidy was, as you know, an unusual man.’ Mr. Preysing added a small rider: ‘It is our view that the trust is open to challenge, since it constitutes a direct provocation to disrupt a stable and legal union in which children are involved. So, if you would like us to examine this aspect for you…’
‘Thank you, no. I don’t want Charlie’s money; and I’d hate to think I’d deprived him of his passport to heaven. I’ll help you to run the damn thing, of course, and we’ll see if we can’t do some good with the funds.’
‘On that point,’ Mr. Horstman coughed again, ‘we are directed to hand you a personal communication from the late Mr. Cassidy. He wished us to deliver it on the day you assumed your duties as our delegate.’
It was a holograph note in Cassidy’s emphatic script. It was dated a month before his final visit to London. It said:
Dear Martin,
See what you missed? Of course, being Martin the Righteous, you’ll tell yourself you wouldn’t touch dirty money with a forty-foot pole; but you’ll happily play Lord Bountiful and dispense it to the poor and needy.
So, I’m giving you fair warning. There are more con-men in the charity business than there are in politics. When you take over, I’ll be up there – or down there, depending on which cosmogony you use – enjoying every minute of your discomfiture, as you try to sort out the sheep from the goats.
It’s the nearest I can get to a no-win situation for you, sonny boy; because you sure as hell made one for me and I’ll never be able to get out of it.
The back of my hand to you!
Cassidy
I tore the note slowly into little pieces. Mr. Preysing handed me the wastepaper bin and a deadpan comment with it.
‘We do have a shredder, Mr. Gregory; but sometimes one does need the satisfaction of a really destructive act. Is that not a fact?’
I agreed that it was. The problem was that my act and Cassidy’s had been irrevocable and continuous, a plague of malice let loose upon our little worlds, spreading out like windblown spores across the frontiers. It was time – long past time – to call a halt once and for all.
I bade a hasty farewell to Horstman and Preysing, flagged a taxi on the Bahnhofstrasse and made it to the airport just in time to catch the midday flight to London. The moment I cleared immigration and Customs, I was in a flat panic. I dared not go home. Pat wasn’t expecting me until the next day. I had forgotten to call from Zurich. The children would not be out of school until next evening. I feared I might lose all control the moment Pat opened the door.
So, I took a taxi into London, intending to go to my office, dump my briefcase, orient myself a little and then head for home. Instead, just as we were coming up to the Natural History Museum, I had a sudden, unex
plainable impulse. I told the driver to turn into Exhibition Road, take me round Hyde Park and then to the Jesuit Church at Mount Street.
When we got there, I asked him to wait. When he demurred, I offered him a run back to Richmond and a ten-pound tip on top of his meter fare. A true-blue Cockney, he had his grumble first and then agreed to wait. He did, however, offer me a piece of theological advice: ‘You don’t have to hang around, you know. If God knows everything, you don’t have to give him a big spiel about the price of fish, do you?’
It was still early in the afternoon, but the church was dim and cheerless in the winter light. I knelt in the last pew, where Cassidy and I had sat on the night of his first and last supper in our house, the night he killed himself in my car, the night our marriage began to turn sour.
He had soured a lot of things for me before then. I could not believe that the Church Cassidy belonged to, the one he helped to run, hand-in-glove with the Cardinal, was the one I believed in. I couldn’t believe that the wrongs of Ireland were the only wrongs in the world, and that marriage was made in heaven only if you said the right words in the right place in front of the right minister – and you were damned for ever if you got the formula wrong. So I quit; we all quit, because I wouldn’t accept that Cassidy and his ilk had somehow pre-empted the Keys of the Kingdom.
But then I remembered the look of him on that last night – the yellow skin, the sunken eyes, the backside too bony to sit on. When I remembered his wry gesture of resignation – ‘One of the Almighty’s little jokes… It’s small comfort He’s offering’ – I was ashamed of my graceless and grudging hospitality, my stubborn insistence on an amends that he was incapable of making. I hoped that his Maker had given him a warmer welcome than I on that bleak winter’s night that seemed an age ago and yet was scarcely a month away. Suddenly, my eyes were prickling with unbidden tears – for him, for me, for Pat, for Laura and my children whose faces I had almost forgotten.