by Wilbur Smith
The Managing Director hurried out of his office to greet Benedict and usher him in.
“How: are you, Mr. van der Byl? There’s tea coming now.” And he stood behind Benedict to take his coat.
The meeting lasted half an hour, Benedict reading through the weekly sales and cost reports, querying an item here, remarking on a figure with pleasure or displeasure as it deserved. Many people watching him work would have been startled. This was not the indolent playboy they thought they knew, this was a hard-eyed businessman coldly and unemotionally milking the maximum profit from his enterprise.
There would have been others who wondered where Benedict had found the capital to finance a business of this magnitude, especially if they had known that he owned the premises, and that Vee Dee Bee Agencies was by no means his only stake in the world of business. He had not received money from his father - the Old Man had not believed Benedict capable of successfully negotiating the purchase of a pound of butter.
The meeting ended, and Benedict stood up and shrugged on his overcoat, while his Managing Director went to the grey steel safe in the corner, tumbled the combination and swung the heavy door open.
“The shipment arrived yesterday,” he explained as he reached into the safe and brought out the can. “On the SS Loch Elsinore from Walvis
Bay.” He handed the can to Benedict, who examined it briefly, smiling a little at the painting of the leaping fish and the lettering Pilchards in Tomato Sauce”.
“Thank you.” He slipped the can into his briefcase, and the
Managing Director walked with him back to the Bentley.
Benedict left the Bentley in a garage in Broadwick Street, and walked through the jostle of Soho until he reached the grimy brick building behind the square. He pressed the bell opposite the card that read Aaron Cohen, Manufacturing jeweller, and when the door opened he climbed the stairs to the top and fourth floor.
Again he rang, and after a while an eye peeped at him through the peephole - but the door opened almost immediately.
“Hello, Mr. van der Byl. Come in! Come in!” The young doorman welcomed him in and locked the door behind him. “Papa is expecting you!” he went on as they both looked up at the eye of the closed-circuit TV camera above the wrought-iron grille that barred the passage.
Whoever was viewing the screen was satisfied, for there was an electrical buzz and the grille swung open. The doorman led Benedict down the passage.
“You know the way. Papa is in his office.” Benedict was in a shabby little reception room, with a threadbare carpet and a pair of chairs that looked like Ministry of Works rejects. He turned to the right-hand door and went through it into a long room that clearly occupied most of the top floor of the building.
Along one side of the room ran a narrow bench, to which were bolted twenty small lathes. Each machine ran off a belt from a central drive below the bench. The man tending the machines wore a white dust jacket, and he grinned at Benedict. “Hello, Mr. van der Byl, Papa is expecting you.” But Benedict delayed a moment to watch the operation of the saws. In the jaws of each lathe was set a diamond, and spinning against the diamond was a circular blade of phosphor bronze. As
Benedict watched, the man turned back to the task of spreading a fine paste of olive oil and diamond dust on to the cutting edge of each blade - for it was not the bronze that cut. Only a diamond will cut a diamond.
“Some nice stones, Larry,” Benedict remarked, and Larry Cohen nodded.
“All of them between four and five carats.” Benedict leaned close and examined one of the diamonds.
The line of the cut was marked with Indian ink on the stone.
Benedict knew what heart-searching and discussion, what examination and drawing upon the rich storehouses of experience had preceded the positioning of that ink line. It might take two days to saw through each diamond, so Benedict left the bench and moved on.
In a row down the other side of the room sat the other Cohen brothers. Eight of them. Old Aaron was a great breeder of boys. They ranged in age from nearly forty to nineteen years and there were a couple who were still in school and hadn’t yet come into the business.
How are you Mr. van der byl? Michael Cohen looked up as
Benedict approached. Michael was shaping a fine diamond, cutting it into a round using a lesser stone as a blade. A small tray beneath the lathe caught the dust from the two stones. This dust would be used later for sawing and polishing.
“A beauty,” said Benedict. These men were of the brotherhood, working with diamonds all their lives and loving them as other men loved women or horses and fine paintings.
He moved on down the room, greeting each of the brothers, stopping to watch for a minute the loving care with which the elder boys, master craftsmen each of them, were cutting the precisely angled facets that make up the perfect round brilliant. The fifty-eight facets - table, stars, pavilions and the others which endow a cut stone with its mystic “life” and “fire’.
Leaving them crouched over their wheels, so similar to those of a potter, he went through the door at the end of the room.
“Benedict, my friend.” Aaron Cohen came from his desk to embrace him. He was a tall thin man in his late sixties with a thick silver-grey mane of hair, round-shouldered from years of crouching over a diamond wheel. “I did not know you were in London, they told me you were in Cape Town.
Benedict took the envelope from his pocket and shook twenty-seven diamonds on to the blotter of the desk.
“What do you think of those, Papa?”
“Shu! Situ!” Papa patted his own cheeks with delight, and he reached instinctively for the biggest stone.
“I should live to see such a stone!” He screwed a jeweller’s loupe into his eye, turning to catch the natural light from the high windows, and scrutinized the diamond through the eyepiece.
“Ah, yes. There is a feather*, but small. But we will cut through it. Yes, we will take two gems from this stone. Two perfect diamonds of ten or twelve carats each, and perhaps five smaller ones.” More than half a diamond’s bulk is lost in the cutting.
“Yes! Yes! From this stone we will sell a hundred thousand pounds’worth of polished diamonds!” Aaron crossed to the door. “Boys!
Come see! I will show you a prince among diamonds.” And his sons crowded into the office. Michael took it first and gave his opinion.
“A good stone, yes. But not of the same water as the stone we had in the last batch. You remember that octahedron crystal-” “What you talking!” his father . “You wouldn’t know a diamond from a piece of gorgonzola cheese already!”
“He is right, Papa.” Larry joined in the discussion. “The other stone was better.”
“So the Big Lover argues with his father! Little shiksas with skirts up around their tochis you know all about.
Semi-transparent veinlike flaw.
t Very very slight imperfection.
Dancing the Watsui and the Cha-Cha. Yes! But diamonds you know from nothing.” This declaration precipitated a full-scale, family argument in which each of the brothers joined with gusto.
“Shuddup! Shuddup! Back to work all of you! Out, Out” Aaron broke up the meeting, driving his sons from the office and slamming the door behind them.
“Shu!” He looked to heaven. “What a business! Now we can weigh the stones.” When they had weighed and tallied the stones, and Aaron had locked them into the safe, Benedict told him: “I am thinking of breaking up the Ring.” Aaron froze and looked across the desk at
Benedict.
Between them there was always the pretence that their relationship was legitimate. They never spoke about the Ring, or where the unregistered stones came from, or how the finished gems were sent to
Switzerland.
“Why?“Aaron asked carefully.
“I am a rich man now. With my father’s money, and what I have made from the Ring and invested. A very rich man. I no longer need to take the risks.”
“Such problems I wi
sh I had. But perhaps you are wise
I would not think to argue with you.”
“There will be one or two more packages. Then it will be finished.” Aaron nodded. “I understand, he said. “Like all good things it must end.” It was a little after noon when Benedict parked the Bentley outside the mews flat off Belgrave
Square. He want to shower immediately he was home. In all the years he had lived here he had never grown accustomed to London’s grime-laden atmosphere, and he bathed or showered at least three times a day.
He sang in the shower, and then enveloped in a huge bath towel he left a string of damp footprints through to the lounge where he mixed a
Martini, and screwed up his eyes at the first stinging taste of the drink.
The phone rang.
“Van der Byl,” he said into the mouthpiece, and then his expression changed as he listened. Quickly he put down the glass and used both hands to hold the telephone receiver.
“What on earth are you doing here?” His tone of astonishment was not faked.
“What a wonderful surprise. When can I see you? How about right now - for lunch? That’s great! No, nothing I can’t put off - this is a pretty special occasion, you know.
Where are you staying? The Lancaster. Fine. Look, give me forty-five minutes, and I’ll meet you in the Looking-Glass Room on the top floor. Yes, ten past one. God, what a delightful - I’ve said that already. See you in three-quarters of an hour.” He replaced the receiver, swallowed the remains of his Martini and headed for his bedroom suite. This would make a good day into a truly remarkable one, he thought, as he quickly selected a silk shirt. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and grinned.
“The ball has really started bouncing your way, Benedict,” he whispered.
She was not at the bar, nor in the Looking-Glass Room.
Benedict crossed to the tall picture windows for a glimpse of one of London’s finest views across Hyde Park and the Serpentine. It was a smoky blue day, and the pale sun added bronze to the autumn shades of gold and red in the park.
He turned from the windows, and she was crossing the room towards him. His stomach swooped with delight for she also was pale gold with the coppery sheen of sun on her long legs and bare arms. The grace of her carriage was as he remembered it, the precise lifting and laying down of narrow feet on the thick pile of the carpet.
He stood quite still, letting her come to him. Heads turned all across the room, for she was a splendid golden creature. Benedict knew suddenly and clearly that he wanted this woman for himself.
“Hello, Benedict,” she said, and he stepped forward to take her hand in both of his.
“Ruby Lance!” He squeezed her long fingers gently. “It’s so good to see you again.” The use of her surname was the clue to the strength of his reaction. She belonged to the one man in the world that
Benedict most envied and hated. For this reason she was infinitely desirable.
“Let us celebrate with a little drink. I think the occasion deserves at the very least a champagne cocktail.” She sat with those long slim legs neatly crossed, leaning back in her chair, holding the stemmed glass with tapering fingers. Her hair hung straight to her shoulders, like some rare silken tapestry in white gold, and her eyes watched him with a catlike candour, a calm feline intentness that seemed to look into his soul.
“I should not have bothered you,” she said. “But I know so few people here.”
“How long can you stay?” He brushed aside the disclaimer.
“I must cancel my other arrangements.”
“A week.” She made it sound like an offer that was subject to negotiation.
“Oh, no!” His voice was mock distressed. “You can do better than that - we won’t be able to do half what I had planned in so short a time. You can stay longer, surely?”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, and lifted the glass an inch. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you.” Benedict agreed with emphasis. They sipped the sparkling wine watching each other’s eyes.
here others must wait weeks and months Benedict went in immediately as though it were This right. A smile and a murmured word, and theatre tickets were his or the doors of fashionable restaurants opened magically.
That first night he took her to the National Theatre, then for dinner at Le Coeur de France where a very famous movie actor stopped at their table.
(Hello, Benedict. We are all going on to the yacht later for a hit of a party. join us, won’t you?” And those legendary eyes turned to Ruby. “And bring your beautiful friend with you.” They ate breakfast under the awning on the after-deck of the yacht, eggs and bacon and Veuve Clicquot champagne, and watched the hubbub of dawn traffic on the wondrously smelly old Thames. Ruby was the only girl in the party without a fur to cheat the chill of the river dawn.
Benedict made a mental note of the fact.
On the way home she sat with those long legs curled under her in the seat of the Bentley, still sleek and golden despite the night’s exertions, but with the lightest touch of blue beneath her eyes.
“I can’t remember having enjoyed an evening so much, Benedict.”
She patted a tiny pink-lipped yawn. “You’re a wonderful companion.”
“Tonight again?“he asked.
“Yes, please,“she murmured.
he sensed an urgency in him, when she came down into the lobby of the Lancaster that evening. He came quickly to meet her as she stepped out of the lift, and the quiet assurance with which he kissed her cheek and took her arm surprised her.
They were silent as he snaked the Bentley through the evening traffic. Ruby realized that at the tips of her long tapered fingers, within touching distance, was a fortune such as she had never before allowed herself to dream about.
She was deadly afraid. A wrong move, even a wrong word might drive that fortune beyond her grasp for ever. She would never have a chance like this again, and she was afraid to move, almost paralysed with fear. The decision she knew she would have to make very soon would be fateful.
Must she encounter his advance with withdrawal, or must she meet it as frankly as it was inside.
She was so deeply involved with her thoughts that when the Bentley came to a standstill she looked up with surprise.
They were parked in a mews outside an expensive-looking flat.
Benedict came round and opened her door, and led her without protest into the flat.
She looked about her curiously, recognizing some of the art works on display in the entrance hall. Benedict took her through into the long lounge and settled her solicitously into the tapestry-covered chair which dominated the room like a throne, and suddenly her fear was gone. She felt queenlike in her control. She knew with certainty that this would all be hers.
Benedict stood in the centre of the room, almost a petitioner in his attitude, and he began to speak. She listened quietly, her expression showing no hint of the triumphant surge of her spirits, and when he stopped to wait for her reply she did not hesitate.
“Yes,” she said.
“I will be with you when you tell him,” Benedict promised.
“It won’t be necessary,” Ruby assured him. “I can handle Johnny
Lance.”
“No.” Swiftly Benedict crossed to her chair and took her hands, drawing her to her feet. “I must be there with you.
Promise me that.” Then it became suddenly evident to Ruby that the strength of her position was unassailable. Benedict needed her not for any physical reasons - but merely because she belonged to Johnny Lance.
Looking steadily into Benedict’s eyes she determined to test her intuition.
“He does not have to know about you,” she said. “I could arrange a divorce with him.”
“He must know about me. That’s what I want, don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see.” She was secure.
“It is agreed?” He could barely conceal his anxiety.
“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s agre
ed.” And they smiled at each other -
each completely satisfied.
“Come.” He led her almost reverently into his bedroom, and Ruby stopped in the doorway with a little cry of delight.
The double bed was a mountain of glowing fur in a score of shades ranging from soft pinkish cream, through beige and oyster, pale smoky blue to midnight and jet glossy black.
“Choose one!” he ordered her. “To seal our bargain.” She moved like a sleepwalker towards the bed, but as she reached the centre of the Khedive carpet Benedict called out softly.
“Wait.” She stopped obediently and he came up behind her. She felt his hands on the back of her neck, and she lowered her chin, shaking her hair forward so that he could unhook the clasp and draw down the fastening of her dress.
She stepped out of the dress as it dropped around her ankles, then waited passively as he carefully removed her brassiere.
“Now,” he said. “Try them on.” In her stockings and high-heeled shoes she went to the bed, subtly emphasizing the lilt of her movements, and took up the first fur.
Benedict was sprawled in the wing-back chair across the room as she glanced back at him. His face was gloating and flushed, so that his features seemed swollen and coarsened as he stared at her. She understood now that this was a form of ritual in which they were engaged. Like a victorious Roman general, Benedict was conducting his own personal triumph, reviewing the spoils and the plunder. It had no basis in sexual or physical desire, but was rather a service of worship to Benedict himself. She was the priestess of this rite.
Yet, knowing this, Ruby felt no resentment. Rather, she found herself excited by the cold perversity of the pageant.
As she paraded and postured, turned and swirled and flared the skirts of a wild mink, she was very conscious of his eyes upon her body. She knew it was perfect, and his scrutiny stirred her physically for the first time in her life. She felt her blood quicken and pound, felt her heart flutter within its cage of ribs like a captive bird, and her loins tighten like a clenching first. For her also the ritual was narcissistic satisfying her own deep emotional need.