Solitaire

by Graham Masterton

  Barney gave him a tight smile. ‘Tell me about Ascher and Mendel, in Antwerp,’ he asked him. ‘Do you think they’d be up to cutting a 350-carat diamond?’

  By six o’clock on Wednesday evening, Vogel Vlei was all decorated and lit for the Blitz’s first party. Twenty hired kaffirs lined the driveway with smoky torches to guide the carriages around to the front of the house, and Michael stood at the door in a footman’s costume which Barney had borrowed from the Kimberley Dramatic Society. Inside the hallway, all the lamps were lit, and the floor had been polished until it seemed as if the guests were walking through to the drawing-room on the utterly still meniscus of a lake. There were black waiters with wide white grins and white gloves, and a string quintet of five doleful Boers whom Barney had first met in his kopje-walloping days in Dutoitspan. There was champagne, and South African wine, and there were more handsome women that Kimberley had ever seen together in one place at one time, at least since the French whorehouse had opened on Kopje Street. The talk was of diamonds, and of last year’s British annexation of the bankrupt state of Transvaal, and of Cetewayo, the Zulu king. The accents were English, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Australian, and the laughter was very loud: it was not often that Kimberley saw such a grand occasion, and most of the less illustrious guests were effervescent with delight that they had been invited at all.

  There were some conspicuous absentees: gentlemen and ladies whom Sara had particularly invited, and who had courteously but firmly declined. Sara had only been here a week, and she was not yet aware that the ‘billiards-room chaps’ of the Kimberley Club did not accept social invitations from Jews, or coloureds, or anyone else whose accent and background weren’t quite up to the expected mark, don’t-chi-know. She was not yet aware that Barney was not actually a member of the club, nor that it was only her own stainless social grace that had led most of her middle-class English guests to accept her invitation and shake out their old-fashioned tailcoats for the sake of one of the Chosen.

  There were some eminent guests, though – mostly diamond dealers. Cecil Rhodes had come over, and before the buffet dinner he stood stiff and wavy-haired in one corner of the fireplace, tugging intermittently at his starched white cuffs and trying to make silly conversation with a tiny woman in a fringed dress whose laughter would have peeled a Jerusalem artichoke at ten feet. Barney knew how uncomfortable Rhodes felt with women – he had seen him in their earlier days together, escorting girls around the reverberating wooden floor of the Kimberley Dance Palace, his back straight and his chin held so high that he looked as if he were composing a patriotic sonnet as he danced, or thinking about diving off a cliff. Rhodes had always chosen the plainest women to dance with, and once he had fulfilled the duties on his card he had always rushed immediately home.

  Alfred Beit was there, dark and shy, casting an expert financier’s eye over Barney’s house and possessions. Sir Joseph Robinson, now Mayor of Kimberley, put in a brief and disagreeable appearance just after eight, because he obviously felt it was his civic duty to drink three glasses of Barney’s champagne and eat five of his smoked antelope canapés and not talk to anyone, except to grunt, and blow crumbs off his straggling moustache. Francis Baring Gould had almost turned down his invitation, but changed his mind at the last moment, and arrived with a saucy young Dutch girl who was not his wife. Edward Nork was there, making a considerable effort not to drink too much champagne too early, in the company of the brightest new star at the dramatic society, a soft-faced young girl called Fanny Bees. Harold Feinberg came, proudly escorting his French girl.

  Sara was delighted. This was not quite Durban; but then Durban was not quite Capetown; and Capetown was not quite London. It was far more glittery and social than she had expected, though, and she went bright-eyed from guest to guest, as tall and elegant as a swan in her white satin dress, trimmed with white feathers, and she received their compliments and their congratulations with joy. Barney watched her, smiling, and nodded his head to Edward Nork to point out how happy she was.

  By eight-thirty, there was still no sign of Joel, even when the guests went through to the buffet. Joel had emerged from his room from time to time during the past two days, but he had been thinner and sicker and less steady on his feet than Barney had ever seen him – even when he had been recovering from Sir Thomas Sutter’s surgery in Durban. He spoke as if his mouth were always dry, and his eyes appeared to roam around the room in search of something that he might have forgotten. He had shaved only once in three days, and there was a sickly odour about him which made even Nareez wrinkle up her nose as he passed.

  Barney knew what was wrong; or at least he had a pretty good idea. And he had throught seriously about ending Joel’s agony by telling him what he suspected. But Joel’s destiny was his own. Joel had decided to live his life this particular way, and he had come to this self-imposed Purgatory of his own free will. Over the years, he had hurt Barney too often and too cruelly for Barney to want to relieve his suffering now.

  Barney had no intention of remitting his pain.

  Gentleman Jack had seen how calm Barney had suddenly become, and how he had stopped searching for the diamond, and Barney’s calmness frightened him so much that since Sunday he had made any excuse to avoid him, particularly when Barney made his regular morning visit to the diamond mine. Barney said nothing: he would decide how to punish Gentleman Jack when the diamond at last came to light.

  During the buffet, Harold Feinberg came over and said, ‘I believe this is the best party I’ve ever been to. And what a charming hostess Sara has turned out to be.’

  ‘Thank you, Harold,’ said Barney, taking a chicken roll from the table, and popping it into his mouth. ‘I’m delighted that so many people came. Even if they did come out of curiosity, and nothing else.’

  ‘You’ve, er – you’ve found the diamond yet?’ asked Harold, glancing around to make sure that nobody could overhear them.

  ‘I have some ideas,’ Barney told him, offhandedly, with a smile that was deliberately vague.

  ‘What ideas? You mean you know where it is?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Harold. ‘Barney, listen, this is important.’

  ‘Of course it’s important,’ said Barney.

  Just then, through the open double doors of the dining-room, at the turn of the staircase, Barney saw the tip of Joel’s cane, and then Joel’s feet, in shiny black kid evening shoes. Step by step, Joel made his way down to the hallway, and Barney watched him with detached pity and with sharp regret; but not with sadness. What Joel was suffering now was entirely his own fault.

  Harold said, ‘This could turn the whole industry on its back. You know that, don’t you? And it won’t help you, either, when you’re trying to buy up so many claims, all around you. The price will shoot up like a skyrocket.’

  Barney did not once take his eyes off Joel, as his brother made painful progress through the hall and into the dining-room. Harold turned around once or twice to try to discover what Barney was looking at; but it did not occur to him that Barney was reserving all of his concentration for his own brother.

  Joel looked like a corpse which at the very last minute had refused to be buried, and which had heaved itself out of the casket, and back to the banquet. His whole body appeared to have dislocated itself, and he dragged himself along by means of a complicated ritual with his cane, which involved shifts of grip and tilts of balance. He was only thirty-four, but he could have been a man of seventy.

  ‘You’ll promise to tell me, won’t you,’ said Harold. ‘You won’t go off half-cock and take the diamond straight to Capetown?’

  ‘Harold, I’ll tell you,’ Barney soothed him. ‘Now go back to the party and enjoy yourself. You worry too much about things that haven’t even happened yet.’

  As Harold left, Sara came over and took Barney’s arm, and kissed him. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Everybody’s so kind. I don’t know why Kimberley alarmed me so much, whe
n I first came here.’

  ‘It’s a hard place,’ said Barney. ‘But the people here are only people, that’s all.’

  ‘I met that nice Mrs Forsyth,’ Sara enthused. ‘She was telling me about the monthly ladies’ evening they have up at the Kimberley Club. I’d love you to take me to one! I’m sure I could outshine all of them!’

  ‘Maybe next month,’ said Barney.

  ‘But you must! If we’re going to live here, we must socialise. Particularly now that you’re going to be a millionaire!’

  Barney took his eyes off Joel for a moment, and stared at Sara in bewilderment. ‘Who said I was going to be a millionaire? I’m nothing like a millionaire! I only wish that I was.’

  Sara looked flustered; like someone who has made a scene with a stranger in a restaurant in the belief that the stranger was trying to walk off with their coat, and then discovered that it was not their coat, after all – that it had a different label, and unfamiliar gloves in the pocket, and that it even smelled like somebody else’s. ‘The diamond will make you a millionaire, won’t it? That’s what you said it was worth.’

  ‘Sara, I don’t have any diamond. If it exists, it’s still hidden. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘But you know where it is. Or don’t you?’

  ‘Who told you that I know where it is?’

  ‘Nareez. She was talking to that kaffir called Gentleman Jack.’

  Barney slowly turned back to keep an eye on Joel. Joel was leaning against one of the buffet tables now, with a small private kraal of champagne glasses, downing drink after drink in steady succession, and muttering to himself.

  ‘What else did Nareez tell you?’ Barney asked Sara.

  ‘Nothing. She just said that Gentleman Jack was worried, because you’d stopped searching for the diamond; and if you’d stopped searching for it, you must have discovered where it is.’

  ‘Quite an efficient spy you have, in Nareez.’

  ‘It’s not spying, in my own house! How can it be? You should have told me yourself!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barney, ‘maybe I should.’

  ‘Of course you should! You’re so secretive, and then you wonder why I behave so defensively. It will be wonderful if you’re a millionaire! Think of all the horses we’ll be able to buy! We’ll be able to travel to Capetown, and to London, and we’ll be able to dress ourselves in all the latest fashions!’

  ‘Sara,’ Barney told her, patiently, ‘even if we do find the diamond, and even if we do sell it for anything like a million pounds, it’s going to take months for the money to come through; and then I’ll probably invest the larger part of it in more diamond claims.’

  ‘Of course you won’t,’ Sara teased him. ‘Don’t you have enough diamond claims as it is?’

  ‘I want to own the whole of the Kimberley Mine personally,’ Barney replied, in a flat voice. ‘That’s all I’m interested in.’

  ‘That’s a fine thing to say to your wife at your wedding celebration party.’

  Barney took her hand, and squeezed it. ‘Come on, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just a little preoccupied this evening, that’s all.’

  ‘With fond memories of Natalia Marneweck, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course not! What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  Sara’s expression went through as many changes as the drawings in a children’s flicker-book. ‘You do have fond memories of her, don’t you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? Any less than you have fond memories of Trevor, or of any other gentleman friends you’ve known?’

  ‘At least I don’t continue to meet my gentlemen friends in secret, in the servants’ quarters of my new husband’s house.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Barney demanded, trying to keep his voice down. He was still holding Sara’s hand, but now he was clutching it so tight that she wrestled to get it free.

  ‘I’m saying nothing, except what is true. Nareez happened to go to the kitchen to bring me warm milk, when she saw you talking to Natalia Marneweck. She heard everything you said, and she told me that it sounded most affectionate.’

  Barney looked at Sara for a long time, the muscles around his mouth bunched as if he were considering hitting her, or walking out. But then he said quietly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before, that you knew?’

  ‘I suppose I was afraid to. In any case, Nareez said that if you were going to be a millionaire, I should be careful. I should be nice to you, and try to make you forget Natalia.’

  ‘Are you really that naïve? Or is this some kind of ridiculous prank? Whatever I felt about Natalia, I’m married to you; and, believe it or not, I want our marriage to be happy. That’s all I can say about it. I didn’t want to tell you about Natalia coming here because I thought it would only upset you. Nothing happened – except she went back to Klipdrift to marry some farmer. Adonai El Rachum Ve-Chanum, did Nareez really listen in to all that? So you knew about the diamond right from the beginning? And you thought I was going to be a millionaire? And that’s why you –’

  Sara blushed fiercely, and at last succeeded in tugging her hand away.

  ‘Sara?’ whispered Barney, intensely. ‘Is that why you turned so passionate? Is that it? Because Nareez told you to make me forget about Natalia, in case you lost your share of my million pounds?’

  ‘Don’t,’ pleaded Sara, mortified.

  ‘Don’t what? Don’t try to get the truth out of you? Are you trying to tell me that all of your passion is faked? That you’ve been prostituting yourself for this diamond?’

  ‘I’m your wife,’ hissed Sara. ‘How can you possibly dare to call me such a thing?’

  Barney stood with his arms by his sides and looked at Sara with a feeling inside him like dropping off a mountain. ‘I suppose I can call you such things because they appear to be true.’

  ‘You’re such a stickler for truth, aren’t you? You’re so noble, and so right, and so compassionate. The trouble with you, my deah, is that your compassion is like a curse. You’re so indomitably strong that you crush everybody around you, without understanding your own strength. Did you ever think for a moment, my love, what your ambition does to people? You want to own the whole of the Kimberley Mine, and the terrible thing about it is that you will. Nareez understands what you’re like, and she was trying very hard to save me from being crushed underneath your charity, and your sense of duty, and the guilt you feel because you married me. But why feel guilty? We probably don’t love each othah; but nor do thousands of married couples, any more than we do. I’m just as responsible for what happened as you are. You excited me, the way you came to claim me. I’d just lost a fiancé, and I was bored to tears with living at home. I rushed into the wedding as eagerly as you did. Perhaps I’ve been cold to you sometimes, and unpleasant. Perhaps I’ve been stiff. Well, I’m that kind of a girl, I suppose, although not always. I’ve got a fractured life-line, that’s the trouble. One day I feel that I’m fond of you, other days you get on my nerves so much that I can scarcely bring myself to speak to you. But, for God’s sake, Barneh – don’t pity me, and don’t blame yourself, and don’t try to make everything all right. If you do that, you’ll bury me alive, the same way that you’ve buried your brother alive, and the same way that you’ve buried Natalia Marneweck alive. You don’t realise what a powerful man you are, Barney – not for one second. You’re like a landslide – a high-principled landslide that won’t be diverted because of its conscience and its responsibilities and its unwavering, impossible ambition.’

  Barney opened his mouth and then closed it again without saying anything. He still felt as if he were dropping off that mountain, suspended weightless in empty space for that long vertiginous moment before the ground below begins to expand like a rapidly-rising load and suddenly slams into you.

  ‘This isn’t the place to talk like this,’ he told Sara, at last.

  ‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘But it had to be said.’

  He nodded, distraught, off-balance.

>   ‘Do you think we can –?’ He couldn’t find the words. He said instead, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No sorrow,’ warned Sara. ‘Now, I’m going to circulate. I feel rather shaky, as a matter of fact. I need some light conversation to settle me down.’

  ‘Just answer me one question,’ said Barney, taking her hand again, but gently this time. ‘Were you really so afraid that I’d make a million, and that you wouldn’t get a share of it? Afraid enough to –’

  Sara thought for a moment, and then gave an ambiguous nod that did not quite seem to mean that she had been afraid; but that being afraid was the nearest way she could think of to describe it.

  ‘Then why –’ Barney began, but at that moment there was a high-pitched scream, and a smashing of dishes, and a chiming of fallen tureen-covers, and Joel rolled over on to the floor with a ten-foot linen tablecloth wrapped around him, bringing down apples and plums and knives and forks and half-sliced hams. A yellow Gouda cheese rolled across the dining-room and disappeared behind the velvet drapes as if somebody had sent it off on an errand.

  ‘He collapsed!’ cried Fanny Bees, the actress, who had been standing close by. ‘He swayed like a tree, and then he simply collapsed!’

  The quintet music died away in a straggle of discordant notes as Barney knelt down beside Joel and tugged away his necktie. Joel was blue around the mouth, but still breathing, and his left hand kept twitching and trembling from the muscular effort of leaning on his stick. He opened his eyes for a moment and peered at Barney like a man straining to see down a well.

  Barney looked up at the gathered guests. ‘Somebody help me carry him through to the drawing-room. We can lie him down on the couch.’

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ breathed Joel. ‘Whatever you do, don’t touch me.’

  ‘Joel,’ insisted Barney, ‘we can’t leave you lying here.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve hurt me enough already, you putz?’

  Barney untwisted the tablecloth and wrenched it from underneath Joel’s back. ‘Just keep your filthy language to yourself,’ he said, his voice shaking with anger and emotion. He felt as if he could punch Joel and embrace him, both at the same time. God, what he must have suffered, to bring him to this!