He got in. The woman already in the car leaned over to kiss him. It was Violet Harrington.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘Aren’t you going to say thank you?’ She was wearing a peacock blue dress with short sleeves. Her bare brawny arms touched his.
‘Thank you, yes, I didn’t realise–’
‘When I saw you were in real trouble I thought, I’m going to try to get him out of it even if it does cost money. When a friend’s in trouble money doesn’t matter.’
‘This is a different car,’ he said inanely.
‘I’ll tell you a little secret. There was a takeover bid for Harrington’s companies. A handsome offer. I can afford anything I like now, Tony.’ She placed a hand on his and he saw that there was a new diamond bracelet round her wrist. She indicated the neck of the chauffeur, who was separated from them by a glass partition. ‘Including Meakins. I think it’s a bore to drive yourself about when you can be driven.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Home. To Burncourt Grange. Everything’s arranged.’ Her hand on his was hot and faintly moist, but the rings beneath the flesh were hard. ‘You can leave it all to me now. You don’t have to worry about anything.’
You don’t have to worry about anything. The seat was soft, immensely luxurious. He closed his eyes.
PART FOUR
How The Dreams Came True
Chapter One
They were married within a fortnight. There were no guests, no reception, not even a notice in The Times. ‘We’ve got each other,’ she said. ‘We don’t need anybody else.’ He started to write a letter to Widgey and then tore it up. She belonged to the past, and he felt such a revulsion against the past that he could not bear to do anything that brought it back to him.
We’ve got each other: but the truth was, as he quickly realised, that she had him. He was not the squire of the village but a kept plaything. The servants – there were four of them, as he had imagined, although only two lived in – treated him with barely concealed insolence. No doubt Meakins had told them about the trial, or they had seen pictures of him in the papers. Meakins himself, a spare man with slicked-down hair, had a slightly twisted lip which made his expression appear to be fixed in a sneer, and his manner had a familiarity which made it seem always that he was on the verge of asking some intimate question, like whether Mrs Harrington, now Mrs Jones, was a good lay.
About this there was in a sense no question. He was expected to be on duty at night, often in the morning and occasionally in the afternoon. It might have been like the paradise promised to believers by Mahomet, but in reality these encounters made him feel like a stallion condemned to endless servicing of a single mare. There was also something profoundly unsatisfactory to him about the form of their love-making. He closed his eyes and thought of Jenny, but the contrast between her almost angry dominance and the whimpering eagerness of Violet as her shuddering bulk lay beneath him was so disagreeable that he tried instead to make his mind completely blank.
He would have felt better if there had been any sign that she meant to carry out the promises she had made in the days before their marriage. On the second day after his release he had suggested that they go abroad. She bit into her breakfast toast and nodded. Her Pekinese eyes were bright.
‘I still can’t believe this is real. That prison hospital–’ He left the sentence unfinished. In retrospect the hospital seemed horrific, whatever it had been like at the time.
‘Poor boy.’ She snapped off another piece of toast, crunched it up. ‘It was lucky I decided to help, wasn’t it?’
‘I owe everything to you.’ The words were true, although they seemed merely dutiful. ‘I ought to get away. People talk.’ He was aware already of the servants’ attitude.
‘Not if we were married.’
‘You’re sure you want–’
‘Ever since I first saw you.’
‘We could go abroad for our honeymoon. To Venice perhaps.’
‘Don’t you like it here?’ He said truthfully that it was a wonderful house, but he meant really that it was wonderful to be waited on, to have the cook inquire in the morning about what they would like for dinner, and to order tea by ringing a bell.
‘Then that’s settled.’
Within a week of their marriage he knew that he had made a mistake. He should have seen to it that the tickets to Venice were bought before the ceremony, he should have made a firm arrangement about a monthly allowance. He realised too late that he had failed to realise his potential value and had sold himself for nothing. When he spoke of the honeymoon abroad she said that she hated travelling and that just to be with him was honeymoon enough for her. He had spent the last of his own money on an eternity ring, which seemed a nice symbolic touch, and he waited for her to say that they would have a joint bank account which he could use, but she said nothing of the kind. At last he raised the matter at what seemed an appropriate moment, after one of their afternoon sessions.
Her hand, with all the rings on it, including now his eternity ring, stroked his arm ‘Smooth. Not much hair on your body, is there? Harrington was a hairy man.’
It was not easy, but he said it. ‘We’re husband and wife. I ought to have my own bank account. Or a joint one.’
Her hand moved, touched his nipples, then moved down to his stomach. In her brown bulging eyes he saw nothing of what he looked for, but only greed and pleasure. ‘Kiss me.’
He knew that this was not what she meant, but with an effort he did as she wanted. As she lay back afterwards, panting with satisfaction, she said, ‘Five pounds a week.’
He was about to protest, even to strike her. Then he saw that she would enjoy this too, and that protest would be useless.
Within a few weeks he knew that he was trapped in a net from which there was no escape. The Grange was a mile outside the village of Burncourt, and the village itself was in the Dorset countryside five miles from the nearest small town. She had told him that the Rolls was to be driven only by Meakins, but there was another car, an old one, and in this he went out two evenings a week. He spent his allowance on drink and an evening meal. It was very much like life with the General, except that he was paid less money. Violet said nothing about these evenings out, until one night he took the Rolls. Driving it gave him less pleasure than he had expected, because he had a schoolboy’s feeling that there would be trouble when he returned. He came back slightly drunk to find her waiting for him.
‘I told you that the Rolls was to be driven only by Meakins.’ He had rehearsed a scene that began something like this, and he should have said now that as her husband he would drive any car he wished. In fact he said nothing. When she held out her hand for the keys he gave them to her. ‘I have told Meakins to keep the garage locked up in future. There is another thing.’ She had a glass of brandy in front of her and invited him to have some. He shook his head. She spoke slowly, savouring the words and watching him.
‘You were tried and acquitted. But I remember that you admitted that you were ready to plan with that woman to kill her husband. I think I should tell you that I have made a will leaving my money to charities. Not to you. Do you understand me?’ Her painted mouth curved in a smile. ‘Of course it’s possible that I might change my mind.’
Looking at her fat fingers twisting the stem of the glass as though she might break it, he knew what she felt for him was not love but hatred. She spoke as though she read his thoughts.
‘You remember that afternoon in the car? I haven’t forgotten. I told you, didn’t I, that I usually get what I want.’
She put down the glass, got up and walked out. That night he slept in one of the spare bedrooms. In the morning he heard the maid who lived in giggling with one who came daily, no doubt telling her that husband and wife were occupying separate rooms. He went for a long walk through the woods that were part of the estate, and wondered whether any thought of Violet’s death had crossed his mind. Perhaps he could withhold his services, a male Lysis
trata? But he knew that his persistence was no match for hers, and that this was a fantasy. He sat on the grass in a clearing, broke up some small twigs and said aloud: ‘I could leave her, I could just walk out.’
Yet he knew that this also was not possible. Something had been destroyed in him by those weeks in the prison hospital. The mainspring of his being had broken, so that he could not seriously contemplate either resisting her or leaving the undoubted comfort in which he lived to face the world again without money. He had no confidence any more in his ability to charm old Generals or to please women, and he shuddered at the thought of selling insurance again. He was imprisoned in this house as effectively as if he were in a cell. Two nights later he went back to her bedroom.
He had given his address to Hussick, and it was a week after this that the letter came. He stared unbelievingly at the cheque and then read the relevant lines of Hussick’s letter. ‘…happy to say that we were able to obtain a refund on the air ticket you booked to Caracas…cheque for this amount is enclosed…’ The cheque was for a hundred and forty pounds.
At lunchtime that day he said to Violet, ‘I shan’t be in this afternoon, I’m taking the car. Not the Rolls.’ She looked at him smiling, and he felt it necessary to say something more. ‘I thought I’d go to Cerne Abbas. I believe it’s very pretty.’
‘It is.’ She crunched celery. ‘You didn’t ask if I wanted to come. You’re looking very nice.’ Her smile broadened as she saw his expression. ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t. What is it, a girl?’
He was able to make his denial all the more convincing because it was true.
‘I wouldn’t mind. You can take the Rolls if you like. It might impress her.’
You’re very sure of me, he thought as he said that he didn’t want the Rolls, you know I’m caught. Her desire to touch him was something he had come to know and hate, and he had to restrain himself from flinching when she patted his shoulder as they got up from the table.
‘If you’re a good boy, Tony, you won’t find I’m unreasonable.’ The bitch, he thought as he drove away down the drive, the bitch thinks she’s got me but she hasn’t. The feeling of elation lasted as he parked the car at the tiny Burncourt Road Station and bought his first class ticket, lasted even half the way to London. It was succeeded by a depression which deepened as the train approached Paddington Station. He had drawn a hundred pounds from the bank and it was in his pocket, but what did it give him but an illusion of freedom? He could stay away from her until the money was spent, but after that what could he do but go back? He looked at himself in the railway carriage glass and was slightly cheered to see that he was still a very good-looking young man. ‘You can decide what to do when the time comes,’ he said to this young man. ‘What you need first of all is a good strong drink.’
From Paddington he took a taxi to the Ritz. There he settled down with a vodka-based drink called a gimlet, drank it quickly and ordered another. He could feel the horrors of Burncourt Grange peeling away from him. He had got away and he would stay away, at least for that night. Ought he to telephone Violet and tell her so?
‘Tony,’ a voice said. ‘It is you.’
A girl stood beside the table, smiling down at him. She wore dark glasses as she had done long ago. Fiona.
Chapter Two
Fiona. It seemed natural that he should use her assumed name, that she should sit down at the table and let him buy her a drink. She sat there opposite him with her slim legs crossed, wearing the dark glasses, and he knew suddenly that his luck had changed and that he was being given a chance to alter all the decisions that had been made so disastrously in the spring. When he thanked her for writing she simply smiled. She had changed, she was now totally at ease, a quite different figure from the nervous girl who had come into this bar carrying her suitcase.
‘Are you still with Carlos?’
‘For the moment.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He’s an awful bastard.’ She raised the glasses briefly and he saw a bruise round her left eye. Then she lowered them again. ‘However. He’s in Bristol opening up a new place. I’m on my own.’
‘Come with me, Fiona.’
‘To your flat? At Marble Arch?’ She smiled and he smiled back, although impatiently.
‘It’s important. Don’t you see I’m lucky, meeting you means I’m lucky. I want you with me when I play.’ It was true, he could feel the luck in him. First the money coming from Hussick, then meeting her again, it had to mean that he was lucky.
‘To play.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘The bank always wins, you said so yourself.’
‘Not if you’re with me.’
‘You couldn’t go to one of Carlos’ places. One of his boys might know you. Anyway I couldn’t come with you, he’d slay me.’
‘There are other places.’
‘Yes.’ She contemplated him for a moment. ‘You’re a born sucker, you know that? I want another drink.’
He ordered one and then tried to get over to her somehow the seriousness and the importance of it. ‘For a gambler there’s a time when things are right, you understand? I can’t tell you how I know it, but this is the time. If I make a real killing I’ll never play again, I shall go away, get out of England.’
‘Alone?’
‘It doesn’t have to be alone.’ She merely smiled.
They went to a club she knew in the Edgware Road called the Triple Chance. It was early, and there were only a dozen people in the club, half of them playing blackjack and the rest roulette. He bought chips for the whole of his money. She shook her head when he offered her half of them.
‘I never have any luck.’
‘You’ve got to take them. Don’t you see, we repeat it all, just the way it was.’
‘You’re a nut.’ But she took the chips and they sat down at the table. The croupier was a brass-haired boy with a broken nose. Tony began to play a modification of the Rational system. Fiona bet on the first dozen and then on the last, with occasional bets on red and black. After half an hour he had won a little, she had lost half her chips. The time was eight o’clock.
‘When do we knock off work? I’m hungry.’
‘We’ve got to stay here.’
‘Like hell we have.’ She pushed the rest of her chips towards him. He was alarmed.
‘Don’t leave me, Fiona. Please. Give me another half hour.’
‘All right, but I’ll tell you something. You’re not going to get very lucky playing that way. If you finish fifty pounds up you’ll be doing well.’
What she said was true. The Rational system is designed to give a regular but small profit. If he wanted to win a lot of money he would have to abandon systematic play. He began to bet à cheval, and put five pounds on the numbers 3 and 4. Number 3 came up at odds of eighteen to one. He repeated the bet and put another five pound chip between numbers 13 and 14. Number 13 came up. He enlarged the bet to include all numbers with 3 in them. In five minutes he had won five hundred pounds. His mind was quite blank. He could not have said why he pushed all the chips on to a carré of the numbers, 13, 14, 15, 16, which would pay out nine to one.
The brass-haired croupier shook his head. ‘Two-fifty limit.’
Fiona spoke fiercely to the croupier, pointed to a bald man sitting next to her. ‘He’s been betting over that.’
‘On pair and impair, madam. That’s different.’ His stare at her was mocking, an insult. Tony felt incapable of speech.
‘If you’ve got a limit like that, you should put it up.’
‘It’s on the wall, madam. Behind you.’
Tony began to take back some of his chips. ‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t break my concentration.’
‘To hell with that. It does matter. Where’s the manager?’
‘Do you want the manager, sir?’ the croupier asked Tony.
He was about to say that he didn’t, when the manager appeared. He was a willowy man with a long face. He wore a purple dinner jacket and a lilac dress shirt
, and he smoked a black cigarette in a white holder. His voice had the drawl of an Oxford aesthete in the Twenties. ‘Something the matter, Bob?’
Bob told him what was the matter. He said languidly to Tony ‘Very happy to accommodate you.’
Did he want to bet five hundred, the whole of his money? He no longer knew. His hand moved uncertainly towards the chips and it was Fiona who gripped it. The broken nosed boy spun the wheel.
The ball rolled about and came to a stop. ‘Sixteen,’ the croupier said. ‘Red. Even.’ His glance met that of the Oxford aesthete, who removed his black cigarette from the holder and stubbed it out. The chips, black, red and white were pushed across the table.
‘Leave it,’ Fiona said fiercely. ‘Leave it. Now.’
He got up from the table.
Chapter Three
Because he had known that he would win, that he must win, he was able to take it all coolly. And the same coolness marked his further actions, for he knew exactly what had to be done next. For three-quarters of an hour they drove about London in a taxi, looking for the place that he knew must exist. She sat with him in the taxi, overwhelmed. ‘Five thousand pounds,’ she repeated over and over again. ‘You’ve won five thousand pounds.’
‘Four thousand nine hundred. I had a hundred to start with.’ In the end they had to drive out to London Airport. It was Thursday night. He made a reservation for two on the Saturday morning KLM flight to Caracas. Because it was late they gave him a reservation slip instead of the tickets, and he paid the money.
She turned down the corners of her mouth when she heard where they were going.
The Man Whose Dream Came True Page 22