Mr Rosenblum's List

by Natasha Solomons

  He looked pitiful sitting in his wet things with water streaming down his cheeks. Sadie was not used to him like this; he was the one with the ideas, the one who took care of things. The optimist. ‘What about the house?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Is it mortgaged?’

  Jack sat up. What was she suggesting?

  ‘Yes. I took out a little one, to help with cash flow.’

  ‘So you can take out another?’

  Jack hesitated. ‘I could. But I have nothing to pay it back with. And the bank will want the business loan repaid in a few months. It’s a big risk, doll.’

  Sadie tried to understand. She was unused to thinking about finances. ‘If we don’t take out another mortgage on this house then we cannot finish the golf course?’

  ‘No.’

  Sadie sat down on the stone floor and peeled off her wet stockings, setting them to dry on the hearth. She studied her toes, thinking hard before she began to speak. ‘The course will be the greatest in England. There will be white doves and strawberry fields, streams filled with golden fish. It must be finished. You said so yourself.’

  Jack stared at his wife in amazement. ‘If the course does not make money and we cannot pay back the mortgage, we will lose the house. Do you understand that, darling?’

  She met his blue eyes and nodded.

  Later that evening, Jack found himself in his study and composed his weekly epistle to Bobby Jones.

  Dear Mr Jones,

  I can’t help wondering if you get my letters. Or if you do, whether you even read them. While I would never presume to criticise (and this is intended with humble admiration) you really ought to reply to letters. It’s very un-British not too. But after all, I suppose you’re an American and so have to be excused.

  Today, my wife surprised me. We’ve been married for a long time, Sadie and I, and we’d fallen into bad habits. I don’t mean the leaving of socks on the bathroom floor and forgetting to close the chicken coop (though there is that too). I thought I’d lost her years ago, and then she came back to me.

  I’m in a spot of bother over the golf course (boring finances and what have you). We sat together and worked out all the sums. Providing that the course is finished in time for the coronation and that we get fifty members (at the price of one guinea each), we should just get by. I’ll have a golf course yet, Mr Jones!

  Your servant and fellow golfing enthusiast,

  Jack Rose

  PS: You really should pay a visit to this corner of Dorset – widen your horizons.

  The next morning the rain stopped, the men returned to work and Jack showed them the damage. Basset shook his head ruefully, ‘A’ways knew there wis bad drainage in them fields. A’ways knew.’

  Jack’s optimism had returned – every time there was a disaster he met it and now even Sadie had faith in his vision; he was five feet three inches of warrior-golfer. He was not like those unfortunate fellows in the books by Mr Thomas Hardy – he did not believe in fate; rather, one had to make one’s own good luck. His position on the hillock by the fifth hole had been swept away, so he ushered the men to the point just above the landslip. He balanced on a tree root and swept his arms out wide, motioning to the landscape below. The breeze toyed with his wisps of hair, picking them up so that they floated around his head like a white halo. His battered greatcoat – five sizes too big – hung around his ankles and his eyes shone with inspired purpose. He looked rather like an Old Testament prophet to the Dorset men, who gazed at him curiously as the morning sun glowed in the east.

  ‘Disaster has struck and still we stand firm! We shall not be dissuaded from our purpose, we men of England!’

  Curtis grumbled appreciatively and Basset, Ed and Mike all spat on the ground, a sign of their approval. Jack rocked precariously on his tree root.

  ‘We must continue apace! Full speed ahead! No effort will go unnoticed or unrewarded. I need plans. I need suggestions. I need inspired thought for how to mend and move forwards.’

  He leapt onto a molehill before the gathered men and gazed at them expectantly. They stared back, unsettled by this demonstration of feeling and faith. Curtis was the first to speak.

  ‘If you doesn’t mind me sayin’. I think we ran into difficulties, cos we went against the land ’imself. We needs to follow ’im more. Smooth out this mess for sure, but less diggin’ and movin’ of earth.’

  He pointed to the fields below and suggested alterations to the run of the course, taking advantage of the natural hazards of the land, so that only the greens were to be smoothed and levelled. Jack listened rapt. It was true – while he no longer wished to demolish the side of Bulbarrow as he had in the early days – he was still cutting into the land too much. He hated Wilson’s Housing Corporation and their wretched concrete bungalows spoiling the meadows, but was he not as guilty? He had not listened properly to the dictates of his own fields.

  In the distance the work continued on the new houses. They looked like teeth, rooted in muddy gums, decided Jack with a shudder. Curtis’s plan seemed like a good one, but Jack realised it was flawed: if they stuck to it and worked ten hours a day, seven days a week, then the course would be finished by the end of August, but that was still too late. He watched the men, as small as mice from this distance, labouring mightily on the concrete houses. He needed them for his golf course. ‘Basset, Curtis, Mike. We need to poach some Wilson men,’ he said quietly.

  Basset flicked a butterfly off his lapel. ‘We needs more than that. I ’as got a plan.’

  At midnight, Jack met Curtis, Basset, Ed, and Mike at the bottom of the lane by the signpost known locally as Charing Cross. The night was smuggler’s dark, useful for their purpose; all the lights in the village were out and the only sound was that of a badger snuffling around a dustbin, whose clattering made Jack jumpy. He felt distinctly nervous about what they were going to do and hadn’t been able to eat any dinner. His stomach growled.

  ‘What the bloomin’ heck were that?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Right, ‘ead count,’ said Basset taking charge, ‘There’s five o’ us here.’

  ‘Well, ’ow many is there supposed t’ be?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I ent sure. Five wi’ a bit o’ luck.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Is everyone ready?’

  There was a chorus of ‘ayes’ and the party headed down the hill into the blackness. They stole through the village until they reached the fork leading to Wilson’s Housing Corp. The building site was half a mile down the road, situated on the outskirts of the parish. The men walked quickly, Jack panting to keep up with their swift strides. They stopped outside the entrance to the construction site. The large wooden gates were padlocked and a sign reading Keep Out was stapled to a post. Jack gave a worried huff, and thought for a moment that he could see words forming – streaming forth from his mouth in vapours, ‘Don’t do it. Go Home … .’

  ‘Be ’ere in minute or two,’ whispered Basset, exuding confidence.

  Jack stamped his feet to keep warm and pulled his coat around him. He could only see Curtis by the twinkling of his eyes; one green eye gave him a conspiratorial wink. There was rustling in the bushes behind them and Jack jumped, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

  ‘All ready,’ hissed a voice.

  A moment later, two figures appeared from the shadows and Jack could make out a slim man wearing a dented trilby hat and a stocky fellow sucking on a pipe, both men’s faces illuminated by the glowing embers.

  Basset took charge once more, ‘Right you are. Mr Rose-in-Bloom this ’ere is Freddie Wainwright and Matt Baxter. They is workin’ for Wilson’s but would like very much to join us in our endeavours on the Pursebury Golf Course.’

  Jack smiled cautiously in the darkness and silently shook hands. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a brown envelope.

  ‘The bonus we discussed.’

  ‘Thank ee.’

  There was a ji
ngle as Freddie produced a set of keys and proceeded to unfasten the padlock.

  ‘Is there no security?’ Jack wondered in a low voice, worrying about even being on an operation like this.

  ‘Oh shouldn’t think so,’ answered Matt, with a casual toss of his white-blond hair, which shone in the gloom.

  Jack thought that perhaps they ought to have checked this minor point first, and bit down on his lip – this couldn’t be good for his heart. He was sure weak hearts ran in his family, or maybe it was Edgar Herzfeld’s family – he knew they ran in somebody’s. There was a click as Freddie eased off the padlock and swung the gates open. They squealed horribly and Jack shuddered. If there was anyone here at all, they must have heard that racket. But no one came. One by one they slipped into the still yard. It glittered with machinery: there was a small crane, cement mixers, towering poles of scaffolding and a small army of diggers. Half concealed in the shadows like a glowering beast of mythological power was the Mechanical Digger. It was the Dragon of St George, its bulk hidden in the darkness and its vast outstretched claw slumped against the wall.

  ‘Is it sleeping?’ Curtis hissed softly.

  Freddie dangled the keys, ‘Aye, till I use these.’

  The others observed from a distance as the young man leapt up into the square box cab and turned on the engine. It stuttered, then gave a low roar and crept forward.

  ‘Best move, he’s not terribly good at reversin’,’ advised Matt.

  The men stood flat against the fence and watched the creature crawl backwards on its metal legs. Jack was enthralled – he had not seen one so close before, and was at once horrified and amazed by its grotesque bulk. These were the things that did the work of thirty men. Jack felt a pang of conscience – this was a bit too much like stealing for his blood (list item thirty-three: the Englishman is scrupulously honest). Which was why, unbeknownst to the others, he had brought another envelope with a touch more cash. He scanned the yard for somewhere to stash it, spied a makeshift cabin and determined this to be the site office. While the digger entranced the others, he crept up the rickety steps and shoved his envelope underneath the door. Now he wasn’t stealing, only renting.

  ‘Mr Rose-in-Bloom!’ hollered a voice.

  Jack stood up quickly, banging his head on the door handle.

  ‘Don’t you want to ride in ’im?’ Freddie called across the yard, apparently abandoning all attempts at secrecy.

  Jack saw that all the others had crammed into the machine: Freddie and Matt sat on the seat, Basset, Ed and Mike hung out the windows and Curtis was perched on the roof, like a strangely shaped hat. Jack waved and hurried over. Basset reached down and pulled him up with a strong arm.

  They had to shout to make themselves heard above the machine’s racket. It could only creep along and Jack believed he could have gone faster if he were participating in a three-legged race. He was balanced precariously on the running-board at the side of the cab, and only Basset’s restraining arm stopped him from tumbling onto the tarmac. Sweat trickled along his spine. He wondered that they had not been caught and fully expected at any moment the bells of a police car and for a Black Maria to pull up and cart him away. The others would be all right. He would be the one to go to prison – he was the Jew and the boss and would be blamed for corrupting these good English men. He considered whether it would be undignified to be sick.

  ‘And we’re ’ere,’ said Basset, giving him a friendly pat on the arm.

  Ed climbed down and swung open the gate leading to the bottom field, but the space was just too narrow and the digger tore one of the poles clean from the ground, leaving an unsightly scar along the metalwork. No one apart from Jack seemed in the slightest bit concerned. The beast was quieter in the field, its metal claws made less noise on the earth than the road. The yellow headlights cast a sickly hue upon the bulrushes and made a false moon shimmer on the pond.

  Freddie was the only one who knew how to drive the beast, so Basset explained to him what needed to be done. Jack stared in awe as it dug a huge hole in the rough and deposited a tree, roots and all, into the chasm. The men gathered around the monster in the murk, clutching their hats and shaking their heads in respect.

  ‘See how much stuff he can carry.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. Fifty bloody horsepower,’

  ‘Fifty. My God. My God. Never thought I’d see the day.’

  ‘An’ they do bigger ones, too.’

  ‘Bigger’n him? Be bigger’n God.’

  ‘Is it a pulley system?’

  ‘Nah. A cable. Makes ’im a bit unwieldy, not so fast, like.’

  ‘He really is some-att.’

  ‘It’s a nice mustard colour,’ added Jack feeling left out.

  Under Basset’s direction, the machine manoeuvred the hillside back into place. The land was removed from the fairway and piled piece-by-piece upon the spot where the fifth hole used to be. Jack and Curtis sat on upturned buckets by the ponds and watched the machine work in its own pool of artificial light. While the others were entranced by the sheer power of the contraption, Jack was disconcerted. He was used to machines in his factory – great electric looms that wove the carpets and vats of industrial dye. He had imagined the countryside to be a rural idyll, free from the clamour of mechanisation. Unthinkingly, he took the flask Curtis proffered and took a hefty swig, ‘Change, I suppose, has to come everywhere.’

  Curtis stared through half-closed lids, his lined skin looking like chestnut bark in the gloom. ‘Aye. He comes alrigh’ whether we wants ’im or not. I remembers the days afore t’ railways. Back in them days, every village had ’is songs an’ each one were a bit differen’ than ’is next door. Then, one day trains come, like bleedin’ griffins, an’ Dorsit isn’t jist Dorsit no more, but a piece of big England. Them trains puffin’ along tracks from Lon’on an’ Bris’l brings all new stuff from the music halls. In one week – jist seven days an’ seven nights – no one sings the ol’ songs anymore. In fields at harvest time they doesn’t sing “Ol Linden Lea” no more, but “Down the Lambeth Walk” and “Pretty Lil Polly Perkins o’ Paddin’ton Square”. An’ now no ones remembers them old ’uns ’cept me. An’ my singin’ voice is worse than a one-legged badger in a bear pit.’

  Jack had no reply for the old man and only wondered how long it would be before this place hummed with traffic. The digger was growling up the hill once more with a ton of earth and stone clenched in its jaws.

  ‘It’ll still take time for the ground to heal,’ murmured Jack.

  ‘Aye, ’ee can move the earth but ’ee can’t regrow that there grass,’ said Curtis, with a slow shake of his head.

  Jack glanced to the east and saw that there was the thought of dawn in the sky, and behind him a wren began to chirp. That was it. He scrambled to his feet, offering Curtis a soil-stained hand.

  ‘Come on. It’s time.’

  Jack walked briskly up the rise to the others, with Curtis bleary-eyed, trying to keep pace. Feeling rather brave, Jack stood in the path of the machine and, waving both arms wildly, forced it to come to a stop.

  ‘Eh, what you do that fur?’ wondered Basset crossly.

  Jack pointed at the sky. ‘It’s dawn. We must take it back.’

  Basset studied the east sceptically. ‘Got least an hour.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t yer want some of them bunkers? ’Ee could dig you some in a minute. Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘My uncle was Morris. And no bunkers. I don’t want that thing tearing out chunks of earth. We must take it back right now.’

  Jack was resolute; he stood very upright and looked Basset in the eye. The other man met his gaze and then shrugged.

  ‘What ever yer wants.’

  Basset whistled and signalled towards the road. In the cab, Freddie stuck up his thumb and the machine began its slow descent towards the lane.

  Jack walked beside the digger as it crept along the road. The metal treads clattered horribly against the hard surface making him wince;
he had studiously avoided trouble for more than fifty years and here he was actively inviting it – he could not be less invisible than he was at that moment, walking slowly next to a giant yellow mechanical digger.

  It took him a moment to realise what was up. Dawn glowed rosy in the east and the air was full with the chattering of birds. A cockerel crowed in the distance and was immediately answered by another nearby. That was it. He could hear the birds: the digger had stopped and its vast engine had fallen silent. Up in the cab, Freddie fumbled frantically with the keys. Curtis tugged on Jack’s coat, ‘Don’t look so worried, everythin’ll be jis luvely.’

  Jack swallowed hard as the window rolled down on the cab.

  ‘Out o’ juice,’ announced Freddie.

  ‘I’ll get the spare can,’ said Matt and climbed up to rummage around behind Freddie’s seat. ‘Ent ’ere.’

  ‘Aw shit.’

  ‘This is it. I’m going to prison,’ said Jack and turned white.

  Nimbly, Freddie climbed down and joined the others. They were at the bottom of the hill by Charing Cross. The nameless signpost creaked ominously. The hulking digger looked out of place, marooned in the middle of the road and blocking the narrow lane in both directions, its yellow sides brushing the hedge.

  ‘Let’s jis leave it here. Leave key’s in ’im an’ bugger off,’ suggested Matt.

  ‘Suppose some one nicks ’im?’

  ‘Won’t budge will ’ee. No juice.’

  ‘Well that’s settled then,’ said Basset and marched up the lane.

  The others muttered assent and began to follow, until Jack was left alone beside the machine, ‘Don’t go. We can’t leave it!’

  ‘Come on,’ called Basset. ‘Nothin’ yer can do. Wilson’s‘ll be along in a bit.’

  Jack stared at their departing backs as they sauntered up the hill, then with a final glance at the stationary digger, he trailed after them, as the red fingers of dawn streaked the morning sky.

  The machine had done a splendid job clearing the debris from the fairway, but the green still needed to be levelled and reseeded and the tee rebuilt. The eighth and ninth holes had not been started and the seventh was not quite finished. All in all, there was a mountain of work still to do and Jack vetoed absolutely the illicit borrowing of any more machinery – they must continue by hand; a course of action made easier by Freddie and Matt bringing with them another dozen men from Wilson’s Housing Corp. Sadie ordered rose bushes from Dorchester and planted them in clumps around the ponds and along the edges of the hazards. She threw seeds for wild flowers – scarlet poppies, cornflowers, love-in-the-mist, pink-rimmed daises and cowslips – amongst the grasses in the rough. Jack faithfully recorded their progress in his weekly letter to Bobby Jones.