Something Wicked

by David Roberts

  ‘Not really a secret. It’s just that we wanted to keep quiet about it until Verity – Miss Browne – is better. We don’t want to tempt fate.’

  ‘Of course, I quite understand. I will tell no one.’

  Bruce-Dick, who had been listening, added his congratulations. ‘There have been rumours,’ he said coyly, ‘but we’ll be as quiet as the grave, won’t we, Alberta?’

  It was possibly this rather unfortunate mention of the grave which made Black say, ‘It’s a lonely, worrying business for Mary and, I imagine, for Miss Browne. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they find a cure . . .’

  He looked genuinely distressed and Edward felt for him. ‘I know . . . it’s wretched.’

  Any friend of Jack Amery had to be suspect but he was prepared to keep an open mind as far as Roderick Black was concerned. Over rather indifferent mock-turtle soup followed by over-cooked beef washed down by watery claret they talked about the impending regatta. This, rather than Wimbledon or Lord’s, was Bruce-Dick’s passion and, encouraged by Black father and son, he became rather a bore about it. Harry, who had obviously done his homework, was able to keep his end up as his host recalled past regattas and records were rehearsed and argued over at – for Edward at least – tedious length and detail.

  Guy was modest about his chances of winning the Diamond Sculls, or the Diamonds as he called it. He explained that there was an American by the name of Joe Burk from Penn Athletic Club who was said to be unbeatable.

  ‘I saw him on the river yesterday as a matter of fact. He’s very fit and very fast,’ he said ruefully. ‘And don’t forget, there’s also Habbits. I’ve never seen him scull badly and on a good day he can beat any of us.’

  ‘Habits?’ Edward queried.

  ‘L. D. Habbits of Reading,’ Guy laughed, ‘though, I suppose inevitably, we call him “Bad Habits”.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Edward said smiling. ‘And why is he so good?’

  ‘I don’t know, he just is. Mind you, he has very long arms.’

  ‘That helps?’

  ‘Yes. Normally when a man stands with his arms stretched out sideways, he’s as wide as he’s tall. If your arms are longer than normal and you stretch wider than your height you have greater leverage and, if you are strong enough to keep it up, then you go significantly faster. The instant the blades are covered, the whole weight must be lifted from the stretcher and applied to the oar handle and must stay like that until the hands come into the chest. I’m sorry, I’m being a bore.’

  ‘No, certainly not,’ Edward reassured him, impressed by his enthusiasm and scientific approach to the sport. ‘And do you name your boat? I mean, I know Trinity – that was my college – always call their boats Black Prince.’

  ‘Some are given names and some aren’t, there’s no rule. I always think that an eight pounding upstream with blades flashing is one of the most exhilarating sights you could ever hope to see.’

  ‘What is good rowing?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Well, to get pace, it’s what happens between the strokes that matters. A boat that wins is one that travels faster when the blade is out of the water so a good “finish” is essential. A prolonged feather against the wind and a lightning entry of the blade into the water is what makes the difference.’

  Guy’s eyes blazed and even Harry smiled. Guy Black was clearly a young man to reckon with.

  After dinner, Bruce-Dick asked the men if they would mind joining the ladies for coffee and to try some quite passable port. Edward had the feeling that he preferred not to risk an all-male inquisition although what he might have to hide he could not imagine. No one objected so they returned to the drawing-room. Guy, blushingly, invited Sybil to walk with him in the garden and she agreed, lowering her eyes and giving a shy nod.

  Inevitably, the conversation among those left behind turned back to rowing and the regatta. Roderick Black had been a ‘useful oar’, as he put it, in his youth but now subsumed his own ambition in his son.

  Taking Edward to one side, he said, ‘I don’t know whether Miss Browne mentioned it but I took her and Mary on the river.’

  ‘Indeed, it was most kind of you. She told me how much she enjoyed it. You picnicked, I gather, on Mr Amery’s lawn?’

  ‘Yes, that was tactless, I’m afraid. I had forgotten that Miss Browne was on the opposite side of the fence – a Communist, I mean. Do you know him?’

  ‘I do,’ Harry broke in. ‘We saw something of each other in Kenya.’

  ‘You were in Kenya, Lord Lestern? What a small world! I used to have some business interests there.’

  ‘But that’s not where you met Jack Amery?’ Edward asked.

  ‘No, I met him through his father, in the House.’

  ‘But politically . . .’ Edward probed.

  ‘Politically, he is to my right. There’s much about Sir Oswald Mosley I admire but he’s gone too far. I’ve told Jack that but he won’t listen. Were you involved with the film he was making in the colony, Lord Lestern? What was it called?’

  When Harry told him Edward had the impression that Black knew its title but did not wish to appear too intimate with Amery.

  ‘He’s rather a wild young man, is he not?’ Bruce-Dick said, disapprovingly.

  ‘Do you know him too?’ Edward asked, intrigued.

  ‘Not really but I see him sometimes on the river. He rows well but he won’t put his back into it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Black said, ‘he was wild at Harrow. He was always doing outrageous things and whenever the police raided the Hypocrites Club, the ’43 or the Blue Lantern there were always Harrow boys there, usually including Jack. Discipline was very slack at the school at the time – so his father told me,’ he added as an afterthought, again, perhaps, not wanting to look as if he knew Jack well.

  ‘At least there’s no politics in rowing,’ Edward remarked.

  ‘I wish that were true,’ Black replied. ‘You obviously don’t remember but there was an almighty fuss last year when the victorious eight from Rudergesellschaft Wiking gave a Nazi salute in the Stewards’.’

  Everyone looked glum for a moment.

  ‘I say,’ Edward said, as though he had just thought about it. He took out the photograph Harry had found in Amery’s bedroom. He had intended to show it to Bruce-Dick to see what he made of it but why not show it to Black as well? Presumably, he had never been into Amery’s bedroom so he would not have seen it before and would not know its provenance. ‘I found this photograph in an album belonging to a friend of mine’, he lied. ‘I borrowed it because it showed some of the Kenya crowd and I’m almost sure . . . that is Jack Amery, isn’t it?’ He pointed to a face in the back row.

  ‘Yes, that’s him, all right,’ Black agreed. ‘It must have been when he was making Jungle Skies.’

  Bruce-Dick had got out his monocle and was examining the photograph. ‘Surely that’s Peter Lamming?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Harry and I thought. It must have been taken – when? – fifteen years ago?’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Bruce-Dick asked. ‘I just remember he had that extraordinary year at Henley when he won the Diamond Sculls. It must have been just before he went out to Kenya. What did The Times call him? Of course! The Diamond Boy.’

  ‘He died – malaria, I believe. He’d only been married a year. A tragedy,’ Edward answered him. It suddenly struck him that he did not know for sure how Lamming had died.

  There was an awkward silence until Bruce-Dick moved on to talk about the regatta which began in two days’ time.

  ‘The first day’s always the best,’ he said. ‘There are so many races – never a dull moment. There are always one or two very close ones whereas on the last day the finals can be something of an anticlimax.’

  ‘And Guy is in with a chance of lifting the Diamond Sculls? You must be very proud,’ Edward said to Black. ‘May I ask,’ he continued, turning to Mrs Bruce-Dick, ‘are he and Sybil engaged? I hope I’m not being impertinent but they seem so well su
ited.’

  He knew he was chancing his arm but he was interested to see what reaction he would get and, damn it, he’d had to confess to being engaged to Verity. Perhaps ‘confess’ was the wrong word, he thought guiltily. Mrs Bruce-Dick seemed hardly able to answer him but eventually murmured that there was no engagement.

  The party broke up early. Guy was sticking to a strict regime which involved no alcohol, early nights and two hours on the river early in the morning when most of Henley was thinking about breakfast. Bruce-Dick, too, had a busy day ahead of him. During the regatta, Phyllis Court was completely booked out and there were parties every night. As they left, he touched Harry on the arm and said in a low voice, ‘Dashed sorry about the time it has taken to get you a membership here. I think I can say you won’t have to wait much longer.’

  As they strolled back to Turton House, their path illuminated by the light of a full moon, Harry was cock-a-hoop. ‘It’s all thanks to you, old boy. Can’t say how much I appreciate it. You know, I might stay in England after all. It’s not such a bad place once those toffee-nosed friends of yours stop acting as if my presence left a nasty smell under their collective nose.’

  Edward pooh-poohed the idea that he had played any part in getting his friend into Phyllis Court but privately he offered up a prayer that Harry would not do anything outrageous and get himself thrown out. The people who mattered in a place like Henley were much stuffier than in Kenya. In Happy Valley, you could get away with murder if you were moderately discreet but not in England and certainly not in Henley.

  The regatta was held from Wednesday 29th June to Saturday 2nd July. The first day was blessed by a cool breeze and high cloud, ideal for rowing. There had been a brief shower in the early morning but that hadn’t put anyone off and by midday the Stewards’ Enclosure and the Phyllis Court stands on the other side of the river were almost full. The Committee chairman, Lord Desborough, was well pleased. Along the booms that marked out the course, a host of small boats – mostly punts and rowing boats but including a few slipper launches – nuzzled one another for a view of the first heats. Two by two, like the animals entering the Ark, eights, fours and pairs dipped their gaily painted oars in the river, glacially calm but for the occasional wash from some large motor launch.

  Along the course, progress boards recorded the state of the race. It was almost cruel, Edward thought, to watch two eights rowing their hearts out. Parallel at the start, one would forge ahead of the other – and once an eight was a length ahead, it was rare to see it overtaken. At the winning post, the dejection and exhaustion of the losers was in stark contrast to the elation of the winning crew. He remembered a coach telling him at Eton that he always exhorted his crew to row well even if the other crew seemed to be drawing ahead. ‘If you remember to row well,’ he opined, ‘you are much more likely to win than if you panic and try to row faster.’

  ‘And if you still lost?’ Edward had asked.

  ‘Then at least you will have given pleasure to those watching who know what it means to row well,’ was the somewhat Through-the-Looking-Glass response.

  ‘Which end do you pole from?’ Verity had asked as Edward tucked her into the punt Bruce-Dick had kindly lent him.

  ‘At Cambridge we pole from the flat end,’ he told her, ‘but at Oxford they pole from inside the punt.’

  ‘How absurd you men are!’ Verity giggled. She was feeling very much better and, when Edward had suggested watching a few of the races from a boat, she had been excited. She had never been in a punt before and enjoyed being so close to the water, sliding, swan-like, across the river. She began to understand the popularity of punting with young men as she lay back and studied Edward. From below, his beak-like nose and strong chin were more than usually evident. Each time he pushed against the pole, his biceps bulged, obliging her to admire his athletic physique. He had taken off his jacket but refused to remove the Old Etonian tie Harry had lent him. When she scoffed at him, he told her he felt underdressed without one and that, outside Eton, Henley Regatta was one of the few places it was quite legitimate to wear it. He knew he ought to be wearing a cap or a straw boater but he had never been a member of a rowing club and didn’t want to pretend he was something he wasn’t.

  Edward didn’t know a great deal about the sport but he was particularly keen to see if Guy could do anything in the Sculls. As he, rather skilfully he thought, attached the punt to a boom without falling in, he noticed an acquaintance, George Bushell, who – according to the programme – was the regatta’s official photographer. Bushell had his apparatus in a launch and was positioning himself to record the first race.

  ‘George . . . I say, George!’ Edward called, inviting a disapproving look from a man in the neighbouring punt.

  Bushell looked round to see who was calling his name. ‘Corinth! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a rowing man.’

  ‘I’m not – just an interested spectator.’

  ‘Can’t stop and chat, old boy, but here – let me take a picture of you and your lady.’

  Without waiting for permission or introductions, he took his photograph. ‘Come to the exhibition on Friday,’ he shouted as his launch moved off. ‘In the Stewards’ tent . . .’

  They returned to terra firma for a late lunch and, as the band played, ate smoked salmon and drank champagne. It really wasn’t what a good Communist should be doing, Verity told herself, but she suddenly realized that she didn’t care a damn. For the first time in months she was happy. Without being aware of it, she found that she had lost her faith in the Communist Party – not in Communism but in the apparatus of Communism. Like a Catholic who no longer went to Mass, she felt guilty but defiant. She was hearing from friends back from the war who wrote to her or visited her that the Party had intensified its efforts to destroy its allies. SIM, the Servicio de Investigación Militar, the Republic’s secret police, was now nothing more than a branch of Stalin’s NKVD. Many of Verity’s old friends and comrades had been ‘liquidated’. Conscripts – mostly boys of sixteen or less – were now trying to halt Franco’s inexorable advance. It was murder on a grand scale.

  ‘And is the “Old Coll” on display today?’ she asked Edward with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘Indeed. At four o’clock, if you care to look at your programme – in The Ladies. It should be a good race against Trinity College, Dublin.’

  ‘The Ladies? That’s wonderful! I had no idea there were women rowing at Henley.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, V,’ he said crossly. ‘Of course there are no women’s eights. It would be physically impossible. It’s the Ladies’ Challenge Plate.’

  ‘I don’t see why . . .’ She saw his face and decided not to pursue the matter. Why shouldn’t women row? They had proved themselves in other ‘male’ sports but she recognized that this wasn’t the moment to speak her mind. It amused and annoyed her that Edward – in common with all men of his class as far as she could see – talked about our school, university or regiment long after ceasing to be a member of whichever institution was being discussed. It confirmed her view that the English – she did not know if were true of the Scots or the Irish – held tight to their authority and their place in society by tweaking on one string or another, like a skilled harpist, to obtain the desired effect. ‘Everyone’ knew someone you knew – that is if you had been born into a certain class.

  She had noticed that, when Edward met a stranger, the conversation almost always began with the weather but that was not what was being discussed. After a sentence or two, he would know precisely what class the new acquaintance belonged to and even the school at which he had been educated. Once, provoked by Verity, he had admitted that he was more relaxed with other Old Etonians although, of course, he had friends who had been educated at other schools and at no school at all. It was as if, with a fellow Old Etonian, there was a sub-text or hidden language that made communication easier and so many things could be taken as read without having to be put into words.

  ‘So wh
at are the prizes?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Some very impressive silverware,’ Edward said, a trifle pompously. ‘The cup for The Ladies is . . .’

  ‘I meant prize money.’

  He looked shocked. ‘There’s no prize money. We are talking about a gentleman’s sport, I’m glad to say. I hope you aren’t going to ask where you can place a bet on a race.’

  Verity ignored his sarcasm and persisted. ‘So they race their hearts out for the honour of it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Edward sounded surprised. ‘What did you think?’

  Had he thought about it, he might have concluded that Verity was definitely feeling better if she was up to ragging him.

  They decided to watch Eton and Trinity College fight it out from the stands. She was surprised to find Edward became quite agitated. It wasn’t until the last half of the race that he could see through his binoculars that the two crews were neck and neck. As they drew towards the finishing line, the crowd lost its inhibitions and began to shout and applaud. This seemed to release something in Edward. To Verity’s amazement, she watched him shouting himself hoarse for his old school, applauding enthusiastically as Eton won by a whisker.

  ‘Bad luck, old chap,’ he said to the man next to him who wore the black-and-white striped tie of the Dublin University Boat Club. ‘Your chaps did jolly well. Just up against a better crew, I suppose.’

  His neighbour scowled and went off mumbling under his breath.

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’ he appealed to Verity. ‘I was just trying to be polite.’

  That first day of the regatta was almost perfect and Edward looked back on it with some pleasure even though it was tarnished by what happened later. He met friends and acquaintances from Eton and Cambridge and enjoyed jawing about the old days. To a man, they all expressed surprise at seeing him at Henley and delight that, at his age, he was becoming a rowing enthusiast. Verity was quickly bored by all this back-slapping but her day was saved by the unexpected arrival of Kay Stammers who had been knocked out of Wimbledon in the second round. Verity found her on her own in the tea tent looking morosely at the river and eating strawberries and cream.