The Sons of Adam

by Harry Bingham

  But Tom just shook his head. He wouldn’t say any more. Not yet.

  But one thing he knew was this: there weren’t many firms capable of meeting the requirements for the Italian contract. Norgaard was one of the leading contenders. Another one was Alanto Oil. Tom and Alan head-to-head. Tom and Alan in a battle for supremacy.

  Tom grinned again, but not warmly this time. Savagely. Even brutally. If this was a game, he was playing to win.

  126

  Ellis Island.

  Maybe now they’ve cleaned it up. Maybe now they’ve gone out into the North Atlantic and picked up an ocean gale and sent it screaming down the halls and walls and passages of the old immigration buildings until the place came to shine like it had been scrubbed with sea air and salt, and all the old smells had been rubbed out of it for ever.

  Maybe.

  Only more likely not. More likely the place still carries its smell of hope and anxiety; poverty and ambition; old oppressions cast aside; the stink of pork sausage, hard biscuit and dark European tobacco.

  Alan walked stiffly along the corridors, feeling out of place and awkward. He was still conscious of his row with Lottie and he almost felt obliged to find Tom in order to prove her wrong. Eventually, he got to the right door: one marked ‘James F. Galston, Immigration Records Officer’. Alan put his hand to the door and knocked.

  Galston was a foxy little man with quick eyes and a nervous mouth.

  ‘Yeah, sure, come in. Close the door, would ya mind? No, don’t worry. On second thoughts, leave it … No, better shut, I guess. Sure, closed. That’s it. Right. Great.’

  Galston’s office was little better than a cubicle with cardboard walls and a thin window set into an iron frame. The frame had corroded badly in the sea air and each time there was a puff of wind outside, the glass rattled.

  ‘You want coffee? I can get Miss Jennings down the hall to fix you some co –’

  ‘No, thank you, I’m quite all right.’

  ‘Hey, sit. Sorry. I should have said. Sit! I didn’t mean for ya to stand.’

  Alan took the cheap little folding chair on his side of Galston’s desk and moved some papers from it so he could sit. The chair was filmed over with the damp stickiness of the ocean. Alan sat. Something about Galston’s staccato brittleness actually made him calmer, less hurried, more businesslike.

  ‘Perhaps I should say why I came,’ he said smoothly. ‘As you know, I was given your name by a detective named –’

  ‘Oswald, right. Pete Oswald. Sure. Pinkerton’s. Right. Do a lot for them. When I can. Help ’em out. Good guys.’

  ‘Yes. I spoke with Peter Oswald. I’m trying to trace a man whose name in England was Tom Creeley. I believe he arrived here in Ellis Island some time late in nineteen eighteen or, more likely, at some point during nineteen nineteen. Pinkerton’s hasn’t been able to find him under his real name and we suspect he must have changed his name, most likely upon entry to this country. Now what I wondered was –’

  ‘Yeah, right, got you, regular type o’ thing. Search. British male, right? Entry nineteen eighteen, maybe nineteen nineteen. Say ’twenty as well. Don’t want to pin these things down too tight. Not unless you know. Right. For certain, I mean. You got a dob?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A dob?’

  ‘I don’t –’

  ‘Hey, sorry, shoulda said. Dob. Date of birth. Technical term. Use it a lot round here. Dob. You got one?’

  ‘Date of birth?’ Alan half-laughed. Date of birth was easy. It always had been. The 23 August 1893. It was his own date of birth; his and Tom’s; the terrible twins of Whitcombe House. Alan gave Galston the date, in the same even tone he’d used so far.

  ‘Right, OK, good. We got a dob. British male. Assumed name. Entry date known, only approximate, but we got something. It’s a heck of a search, yeah, a heck of a search. Did Oswald mention anything about … ? I mean, like … It’s a big one.’

  Galston’s nervousness had gone into overdrive. He had found a broken matchstick in the litter on his table and was sawing at something brown between his front teeth, whilst fidgeting nervously with his trouser leg with his free hand. He looked like a panicked starling. For a second or two, Alan stared at him, amazed. Maybe taking bribes was a cultural thing, something they knew how to manage better in Persia than here in America. Alan covered his smile with his hand, then said, ‘I understand this is beyond the call of duty. Of course, I’d want to reward you well for your effort.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, reward. Good way of putting it. That’s very straight of you.’

  ‘How much do you feel would be appropriate in this case?’

  Galston’s heart rate rose slightly until it entered the low nine hundreds. He sawed so hard with the matchstick that a bit of it broke off inside his gum, but his right hand was too busy with his trouser leg to do anything to get the splinter out. There was sweat on his forehead, though the room was barely even warm.

  And then Alan’s gaze travelled up and he saw it. Beyond Galston’s agitated shoulder. Through the thin window in its rattly frame. Beyond the broad swathe of water where the chilly Hudson joined a cold Atlantic. The Statue of Liberty, torch raised, looking out to Europe, with her promise of a new future, new hope.

  Suddenly, Alan knew Tom had seen this sight. He didn’t know what had driven Tom away from Europe. He didn’t know why Tom had changed his name, changed his country, hidden from the truest friend he’d ever had or ever would have again. Alan simply knew that Tom had been through this port, that he’d seen that sight, that he’d taken that promise of liberty to his heart.

  ‘Perhaps five hundred dollars would be sufficient,’ he said in a distant voice, his attention still focused on the view beyond the window.

  ‘Five hundred bucks? Five hundred … ? Five Cs … ? You wanna … ?’

  Alan smiled. In Galston-ese that was a positive yes – and no wonder, since Alan had probably overpaid five times over.

  But he didn’t care. He didn’t even look at Galston, so captivated was he by the sight of that noble statue. It was in that moment that he knew for the first time, as a matter of absolute certainty, that Tom was alive and that he, Alan, was going to find him.

  127

  Bard was woken up by a kick on the sole of his boots. He blinked himself awake to find Tom and Marinelli, already best buddies, laughing down at him.

  ‘Hey, guys!’ he said, swatting ants away from his trouser leg with his hat. ‘You get anything fixed up?’

  Marinelli grinned. His face was badly scarred. Any oilman would instantly recognise a man who’d been caught by a bad oil blaze. His white teeth looked oddly out of place in his red and black complexion. ‘No, no. Not any-thing, we get every-thing fixed up.’

  Tom was over by the De Soto beating grey Oklahoma dust from the rear seat. ‘We better get going, Lyman. We gotta go by Gianfranco’s place.’

  ‘You’re coming back with us?’ said Lyman, in surprise. Even by Tom’s standards, it was fast work getting a man to leave his job, home and family all at the drop of a hat.

  ‘No, no, not with you. Not all the way. Only to the stazione.’

  ‘The stat-see-oh-nee?’ said Lyman, copying Marinelli’s pronunciation. ‘The railroad? Either of you guys gonna tell me what’s going on?’

  Marinelli laughed again and looked across at Tom, who nodded.

  ‘I am going on holiday,’ he said. ‘To Roma. I stay in a nice hotel. I throw some nice parties. I make some friends.’

  Bard was totally confused now. He looked at Tom, a little angry at the way his boss was playing with him. ‘You wanted a ginzo to send on holiday?’

  Tom laughed. ‘In Italy, Lyman, a good friend is a talkative friend. Right, Gianfranco?’

  And it was in that moment, for the first time, that Bard understood what his boss was doing. His boss was a genius. A double-crossing bastard maybe, but a genius for sure.

  With a man like that bidding for the Italian contract, they almost literally coul
dn’t lose.

  128

  ‘I’m sure Mrs Montague said to meet you in the West Wing, sir,’ said the matron. ‘Maybe she meant in amputations.’

  The matron scurried around, looking for Lottie. Alan followed.

  Lottie’s hospital was now fully operational. The once-derelict factory buildings now hummed with busyness. The place smelled of clean sheets and medical alcohol and fresh air blowing in from the Thames outside.

  As Alan chased after the matron, he saw ward after ward. Most of them were set aside for veterans of the war: the pale-faced boys that had fed the British Army’s insatiable need for troops. There were men here who’d had limbs amputated in the war now being fitted for artificial limbs. There were others being treated for damage to eyes, ears, lungs, or throats. There were shell-shock survivors whose suffering was being taken seriously, in some cases for the first time. The British Army had cared for these men to the best of its ability a dozen years back, but the need for care was never-ending and the army’s medical budget wasn’t.

  ‘Perhaps it must have been the East Wing after all,’ said the matron.

  Alan followed slowly. She was wrong again. Lottie wasn’t in the East Wing, or the West Wing, or any of the wards in between. When they finally tracked her down, she was in a lung damage ward tucked away to the north.

  ‘There you are!’ said the matron.

  Something about her tone was unconvincing. Alan shot her a glance, in time to catch a look passing between the two women. Alan understood it. The game of hide-and-seek had been prearranged. It was Lottie’s way of making sure that Alan – finally – saw her hospital properly for the first time.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lottie, when the matron had left. ‘I definitely said the North Pier. Quite clearly, I’m positive.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’ His tone was touched with sarcasm.

  Lottie glared at him and pushed past him to a small room marked ‘LINENS’. The room was full of wooden racks, on which was stacked all the linen of the hospital: bedsheets, pillowcases, aprons, gowns, caps, dressings, bandages. Lottie folded her apron and put it away. Alan leaned against the racks and smelled the odours of starch and clean laundry. Lottie turned, but made no move to leave the room. When she spoke, there was a warning note in her voice.

  ‘You’ve never seen the hospital before. We’ve been fully open for five months now and you’ve never done a proper tour.’

  He opened his mouth. ‘I’ve been –’

  ‘Of course you’ve been busy. So have I. So too has everyone here. So has everybody in the world. But you could still have come.’

  ‘Yes … Well, it looked most efficient. Most impressive indeed.’ Alan played with the white belt of one of the aprons that hung down from its place above him.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a pompous ass!’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘If you don’t like it, you should damn well say so, not start speaking like some horrid little municipal inspector.’

  ‘Well, of course I like it. I –’

  ‘Really?’ Lottie was angry now. ‘Then why is it you’ve never come to look? Properly look, I mean. And why when you do come, do you start speaking as you never do normally?’

  ‘Well, maybe I don’t like it!’ cried Alan. ‘Maybe I don’t! The hospital is all very well, but I never see you these days. You’re always busy. Always rushing somewhere or other. I sometimes feel as though you’ve left the family completely.’

  ‘I’ve left, have I? Me? You have your oil business, your trips overseas, your constant worrying over a brother you haven’t seen for all of fifteen years, and I’m the one who’s left, am I?’

  Lottie put her hand to her head. She still had on the white nurse’s cap she liked to wear while touring the wards. She yanked the cap off hard, accidentally pulling out a hairpin and releasing a long auburn strand of hair, which fell to an inch or two above her shoulder. She brushed it angrily away. Something in the gesture made Alan remember the girl he’d fallen in love with a decade and a half ago.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For shouting just now. I didn’t –’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! For just a moment I thought you were going to say something sensible.’

  Alan’s anger flared again. He opened his mouth, but she waved him down.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about you shouting,’ she interrupted. ‘It was all those months of not shouting that I minded. If you are upset about something, you should jolly well say so.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I am,’ he said, suddenly glimpsing a ray of light, suddenly hoping that maybe Lottie was about to compromise. ‘I mean you have been awfully busy. Of course I admire your work here, but –’

  ‘But nothing. If you admire it, then live with it. I shan’t give it up. I shan’t work here any less than I want to.’

  Alan swallowed. ‘That’s your final word?’

  ‘Of course it is. It’s time you accepted that the woman you fell in love with during the war is the same person who’s involved here now.’

  ‘So much has changed.’

  ‘Really? Has it? Look out there.’ Lottie swept her hand at the world beyond the linen room. ‘The war isn’t over for those men. It isn’t even over for you. You dream about it. You feel obliged to chase the ghost of poor old Tom Creeley. Do you want to know the reason why you hate my hospital?’

  ‘I don’t hate it.’

  ‘The reason is because you’re still caught up in the war. You haven’t escaped. And you won’t escape until you acknowledge as much.’

  129

  Tom rolled sideways off Rebecca. He was panting and sweaty. She still had her eyes half closed, her arm still cradling his naked back. One of the utterly unexpected things about Rebecca was how much joy she took in lovemaking. Tom had never known a woman who gave herself more completely to the experience. He almost felt jealous of the depth of her feeling.

  He groped for a cigarette. The bedroom was the only place he smoked them now and though Rebecca didn’t usually smoke, after lovemaking was an exception for her as well. He lit cigarettes for them both.

  She opened her eyes and propped herself up. Her hair was a dark and tangled halo on the pillow. Her breasts were unselfconsciously free of the sheets. She took the cigarette but didn’t inhale at once. She gazed at her lover, then lifted her head to kiss him sensually one more time on the lips, hand tucked hard round the back of his neck. She sighed happily one more time and let herself sink back.

  For the first few weeks of their lovemaking, back in California ten years before, Tom had steadfastly refused to ask Rebecca about her previous partners. But he could never lose the thought. She’d slept with hundreds of men, perhaps as many as a thousand. The thought had tormented him. When he’d made love with her, he’d flung himself around like an acrobat, hoping that she’d tell him he was the best, that no one made love like him. She’d said nothing of the sort. Their lovemaking had become painful to Tom, and Rebecca’s expressions of satisfaction had seemed wooden and conventional.

  Then Tom could stand it no longer. He’d asked her outright. She’d been angry. ‘Make love? Make love? I didn’t make love with anyone. Not in all those years. Not once. I had sex. I got paid. I can’t even remember one single night that meant anything to me.’ She’d told him to stop treating sex like some kind of bedroom gymnastics and he’d slowly calmed down. Their sex had got better, but it had never really become sublime until those fondly remembered nights in the little cottage on Mrs Elwick’s farm. Since then, it had been constantly wonderful. Sometimes quick, sometimes slow. Sometimes passionate, sometimes tender, sometimes with so much laughter that they ended up falling off the bed and giggling helplessly on the floor.

  They smoked in silence. Rebecca watched Tom. Tom thought about work and the Italian contract, which was obsessing him. Bard’s man, Marinelli, was already set up in Rome. He’d been given enough money to stay in a good hotel, to throw extravagant parties, and
had already secured good friends in the Secretariat of Fuel and the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade. Marinelli had already dug out most of the details of Alanto Oil’s intended tender offer. Tom was now preoccupied in finding ways to go one better.

  The absolutely crucial ingredient of any bid was the price involved. All the oilmen knew that they’d have to beat the prices offered by the previous contractor, Shell. The question was, by how much? Tom reckoned most of his American competitors would pitch in at two to three cents less than Shell. The million-dollar question (and, as a matter of fact, the question was worth very much more than that) was what price Alanto would offer. The question made Tom tense up. Though he had one hand curled behind Rebecca’s shoulder, his attention was absent, his touch wooden.

  ‘You are an evil stinking pig,’ said Rebecca meditatively, ‘and I think I shall never sleep with you again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were thinking about work.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Don’t deny it or I might feel obliged to bite you.’

  ‘I was thinking about work. You’re right.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Everything. Everything about you. For instance –’ She held her cigarette between her index and middle fingers and raised it to her mouth. Her posture shifted subtly and became more masculine, a careful imitation of her husband, but her mouth still held the looseness of sex and her eyes were soft. ‘This is how you smoke when you’re still thinking about making love.’ She held the pose a moment to show him, then changed. She sat more upright. Her eyes went smaller and harder. She held the cigarette between finger and thumb with her other three fingers curled over the top. She dragged hard on it, and tapped the ash away with a brisk, dismissive gesture. ‘This is how you smoke if you’re thinking about work, and then only if it’s not going well.’

  Tom laughed. He was always transparent to his wife. ‘Yeah. We’ve got a big deal on in Italy. It’ll be worth a lot if we get it.’ He scratched his nose.