On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  “Don’t talk rubbish, Wakefield. If anyone has found a dead man still breathing, it’s you. Smythe, remember, worked for me before going all highfalutin’ at the Guardian. Even Smythe can’t bring back the dead.”

  “Oh, he’s alive all right. My friend took me to see him to vouch for the story. He has three independent witnesses. He asked me to ask you as my editor if the Mail is still interested in the story. He’s over at the Telegraph right now. The Denver Telegraph is being offered an American exclusive.”

  “They won’t swallow rubbish like this.”

  “They will, sir. Mr Brigandshaw and the editor of the Denver Telegraph met during the war. Brigandshaw has told Smythe a wartime story that involved both men that no one else could possibly have known about. Mr Hamilton is very excited his old friend is still alive.”

  “How much is he paying?”

  “Five hundred dollars at the moment.”

  “Take me to Brigandshaw.”

  “He’s sick. Wants time to get well. Amoebic dysentery and something called bilharzia he picked up in the Congo when his plane went down and paralysed the flight engineer. Bowes-Lyon and another man left to find help and never came back. When de Wet Cronjé died from malaria, Brigandshaw made his escape from a tribe of Tutsis, bartering his freedom for guns. Smythe’s agreement with Brigandshaw is to let him get well before he faces anyone. He wants his money back.”

  “Is he going to die?”

  “There’s a chance.”

  “You are behind this, Wakefield, aren’t you? But who gives a damn. What are the Telegraph offering?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “We’ll match Hamilton if I find the war story is true when my call gets through to Denver. Not a penny more or you are fired. If any other paper gets the exclusive you are fired.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Some of it, Wakefield. Some of it. Particularly your friend’s extortion.”

  Half an hour later Horatio was back in the editor’s office. The editor looked agitated. By lunchtime, with William Smythe going from newspaper to newspaper, up and down Fleet Street and phoning Horatio the bids, the Mail topped the Times and secured the exclusive.

  By then, the editor was jaded and sweating. Horatio was trying not to smile. The bidding had taken itself to two hundred pounds for five articles. Anything over five was negotiable.

  “Mr Smythe wishes to have our cheque, sir.”

  “It’s Mr Smythe now.”

  “Mr Hamilton has gone to three thousand dollars.”

  “Where’s the first article?”

  “In my pocket. My instructions are to give it to you when I have the cheque, which please make out to cash. Bank of England pound notes will also be acceptable.”

  “You’re enjoying this, Wakefield.”

  “I’m afraid I am, sir. If we go to press now the story will headline the morning edition.”

  With the dollar at fourteen to the pound, Horatio had never heard of so much money coming his way. When the clerk from the accounts department returned from the bank, Horatio found his hands trembling as he stuffed the notes into his wallet, pushing the overflow into his jacket pocket.

  Dutifully he waited for his editor to finish reading the thousand-word article that described Harry Brigandshaw’s ordeal when the seaplane lost a float coming down on a hippopotamus in the river, smashing up the aircraft as it veered into the trees. Harry Brigandshaw had given them half an hour at the hospital. He looked terrible. The tests were still going on to find out if anything else was wrong with him.

  William Smythe had taken flash photographs of Harry in bed, which were being developed by the Mail.

  The editor finished reading the typed article and sighed.

  “You wrote this, Wakefield, didn’t you?”

  “Some of it, sir. Just wait till you see the photograph.”

  “Go away, Wakefield.”

  The next morning every other newspaper in London said the photograph was a hoax. The Mail had hit the newsstands with an early morning edition. The late editions of their competitors called foul. With lank hair all around the pillow, the photograph on the front page of the Daily Mail was claimed by old friends not to be that of Harry Brigandshaw… One had gone so far as to swear an affidavit.

  Only Percy Grainger, the chairman and controlling shareholder of Colonial Shipping, recognised his worst fears. The eyes with the penetrating stare looking out at him from the paper spread on his desk were the same eyes that had looked deep into his soul before offering him the job of managing director so many years earlier.

  Going into a funk, his body began to shake uncontrollably.

  When the later papers were brought to him by his secretary in complete silence, quoting the story as a lie, it made no difference. It was only a matter of time before they would ask him for an interview. He had even bought what he thought was a dead man’s house in Berkeley Square. A house now worth half of what he had paid when he bought it from the deceased’s estate.

  At that moment, Percy Grainger knew what it felt like to want to die. Even his arms were too weak to bring his hands up to the latch on the tall sash window to push it open. To make it worse, he was crying silently in self-pity. He could hear them talking outside the door. The door he had locked hoping he had the courage to kill himself.

  That night, while Mrs Grainger was trying to convince her husband he had done nothing wrong – she liked the house in Berkeley Square and everything that went with it – Horatio and William were having a celebration. It was the first time Janet Bray was being entertained in a restaurant by Horatio, her friend Pippa from the Hall making up the foursome at Simpson’s in the Strand.

  Soon after they sat down a man two tables away put a monocle in his right eye and rudely turned to look at their table. Horatio thought the middle-aged man was looking at William Smythe. He obviously did not like what he saw. Then the man took the monocle from his eye, giving William a final look of dislike. Like someone who had been unfortunate to see something distasteful where it did not belong.

  Vaguely, Horatio’s instinct from too many years in journalism saw the iris of the man’s eyes were distinctly different in colour. The one that had been covered up by the monocle was pitch black, the other sky blue. Horatio thought the stare at William was probably due to William’s picture in two of the Mail’s competitors’ late editions. Both papers had found William and interviewed him, taking photographs. Over a photograph of William Smythe, both newspapers had headlined ‘The Hoaxer’. When Horatio had pointed out the slur to his reputation as a journalist, William had only smiled.

  “I encouraged them. Said only God knew the final truth of life. The one man gave me a knowing look when he took my photograph, as if I was seeking publicity. The reason for the hoax… The moment newspapers start arguing with each other over a story, the readership jumps. Human nature. The public don’t like newspapers, so one of them now has to be wrong… It was like leading a lamb to the slaughter, got him hook, line and sinker… You have to think when building a story, Horatio. Sometimes, old friend, you are beautifully naive. Like giving Andrew Nash his fifty pounds, half of which, I might add, was my hard-earned money and belonged to me.”

  Earlier in the evening Horatio had had a rush of conscience. He had taken the Tube to Wimbledon Station and walked two blocks to the mother’s house where Andrew Nash was staying. The look of thankful surprise on the mother’s face had been worth every one of the spent pounds.

  “So few people are honest, Mr Wakefield. Andrew said you had promised him fifty pounds for your very successful story. It’s so wonderful the man is alive after such an ordeal. Andrew wants to take me to the theatre, don’t you, darling? Since his father died, we’ve been rather poor. I was brought up to be married to a good man, not to train for a job like some of the women these days. A woman’s true job is to her family. Giving them a good home. Bringing up the children. If you try to do two things in life at the same time, you do two bad jobs. Eit
her have a career or have a family. That was what my mother and father taught me. We were seven children. The happiest of childhoods a girl ever had. It was the war. The war tore us apart literally and now they say there is going to be another one. As if England hasn’t suffered enough… You are a good man, Mr Wakefield. I always say the papers are out for themselves but I was wrong. Andrew thought you would forget him once the story was safely in your paper, but you didn’t.”

  “Why is the byline William Smythe?”

  “So you could get your fifty pounds, Nash. William is my flatmate. A freelance journalist. A very old friend. My editor would never have forked out fifty pounds, no matter what I said about promises.”

  “God goes in strange ways,” the mother had said, slipping her hand into the crook of her son’s elbow and making him turn his face to beam at her.

  “Noël Coward is doing a revue at Drury Lane. Mostly his own songs about the empire. We’ll go tomorrow if I can get tickets. The Corfe Castle sails on Tuesday, earlier than usual. They’re trying to turn the ship around faster, to get in an extra voyage as business is so bad. After the show, I’ll take mother out to dinner.”

  Giving away some of the money Horatio had forced from his editor made him feel less guilty. Like Mrs Nash, he had hoped he had been brought up the right way. There was nothing wrong with sharing the happiness, even tarnished happiness.

  When his mind came back to the restaurant and the present, Horatio found William staring at the pretty girl sitting at the table opposite the middle-aged man with the monocle hanging from a cord onto his chest. William was sitting square to the man and must have felt the stare, causing him to turn his head. Horatio was sure staring at a person brought up the eighth instinct.

  Nine times out of ten, if he concentrated a stare on the back of a man’s head, soon enough the man would turn around. When William had turned round, he must have seen the girl not the man. The girl was exquisite with flawless skin and a soft red blush high up on her cheeks. From years of watching pretty girls, Horatio knew she would be tall and slim if she stood up from the table.

  “I know that girl,” said Janet Bray, following the direction of the men’s looks. “Pippa, isn’t that Genevieve from the Hall? The future glamour girl of stage and screen?”

  “Must be the dirty old man she says is her father. Yes, that’s Genevieve.”

  Pippa’s nose was out of joint, Horatio had noticed. Ever since she and William were introduced, William’s eyes kept straying round the room full of well-dressed people. A big story had always made William distracted, as if it were constantly playing in his head looking for angles.

  “She says she’s nineteen. I think she’s younger. Do you know she doesn’t have a surname? Just Genevieve.”

  “Can’t she do better than a dirty old man?” It was clear to Horatio Pippa hated to be ignored; the girl was being catty.

  Horatio, not wishing to hear the undercurrent going on at the table, now studied the girl. As he would a painting, without lust in his eyes, unconscious of Janet smiling at him as he looked; they were far too comfortable with each other to be jealous.

  “It’s her father,” said Horatio, taking his eyes off the girl.

  “How can you tell?” said Pippa. “She’s a young girl. He’s an old man. Maybe the mother…”

  “Look at their eyes,” said Horatio, stopping Pippa’s one-track mind.

  “You’re right,” said William, laughing. “Both their eyes are of distinctly different colours.”

  “I suggest you stop staring at the daughter, William, or the father will come over and box your ears.”

  “He’s coming,” said Pippa, happily thinking she was about to get her own back as the man put the monocle into his right eye and strode towards their table. In self-defence, Horatio and William stood up as the man reached them.

  “You have no right to make a fool out of my brother-in-law’s memory.”

  The tables around them went quiet, watching the drama, everyone trying not to look as if they were enjoying the sudden confrontation in so civilised a place.

  “It’s a hoax,” said a man from the table behind William, suggesting to Horatio their story was causing more havoc than he had hoped.

  “Who are you, sir?” said William.

  “You are Smythe, a disreputable freelance reporter! I am Merlin St Clair of Purbeck.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr St Clair.”

  “The Honourable Merlin St Clair. My father is Lord St Clair of Purbeck.”

  “I’m very pleased to hear it, Mr St Clair.”

  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Only what I say in the paper. May I compliment you on the beauty of your daughter?”

  Horatio, watching, almost burst out laughing. The crafty fox that was William Smythe had turned his eyes away from the fuming father to smile at the daughter. The problem as it turned out was not the daughter. The problem was the price of fame. Horatio turned to the man with the monocle and smiled gently. Then he whispered softly into the man’s ear so no one else could hear.

  Janet, attuned to Horatio’s voice, heard the one word, Barnaby. The man’s tirade came to an abrupt end as he snapped round and walked back to his daughter at their table. William sat down and started a conversation with Pippa.

  As Horatio sank back into his chair to resume eating his supper the tension went out of the room. People picked up on their own conversations. For the moment, the drama of Harry Brigandshaw was over.

  “We’re going to get a lot more than five articles,” he said to his plate.

  “I know,” said William sweetly. “How’s the food, Horatio?”

  “Lovely… If Janet doesn’t mind me saying so, that girl is utterly beautiful. Not my type, but utterly beautiful. What’s she studying at the Hall, Janet? Speech therapy or drama?”

  “Drama, darling. That one is headed straight for the stage.”

  Later in the evening, when the girl got up to dance with her father, Horatio found out he was right. The girl was unusually tall, and slim… As he watched them dance he hoped a daughter of his would one day dance with him and look at him in just such a way. To anyone looking, father and daughter loved each other with the pureness of driven snow.

  “If we have a daughter, can we have one who will look at me like that after she’s grown up?”

  “After all these years are you proposing to me, Horatio?”

  “One swallow doesn’t make a summer. I’m still a hack reporter on a pittance of a salary. Tonight is a windfall. How’s the new practice going? With all the personal drama going around I haven’t had the chance to ask.”

  “Would you like a working wife?”

  “Not according to Mrs Nash.”

  “Who is Mrs Nash?... Did I tell you I have that appointment to Harrow School in writing? They have a whole flock of stutterers to be cured… Who’s Barnaby?”

  “His brother, the Honourable Barnaby St Clair.”

  “Why don’t you go freelance?”

  “Not pushy enough. Anyway, I like a monthly salary, however small… Writers are not meant to make money. It’s meant to be a vocation.”

  “Talk some sense into him, Janet,” said William. “My friend has too many morals. Do you know he just gave fifty pounds to Doctor Nash for tipping him off about Harry Brigandshaw?”

  “Was Mrs Nash his wife?”

  “His mother.”

  “She sounds a nice woman.”

  “Doesn’t believe in working wives. I’ll tell you the whole story later. It’s still a sore point with William. Half the fifty quid was his.”

  When they had finished arguing about the fifty pounds and looked up, Merlin St Clair and Genevieve had gone. For the first time William Smythe asked Pippa for a dance. Janet and Horatio watched them from the table. Under the double damask pure white tablecloth they held each other’s hands.

  On the dance floor, Pippa was now smiling. The three-piece band was playing a love song from Christopher Marlo
we’s West End hit musical Happy Times. Only then did Horatio remember where he had seen the girl before.

  It was at the final night of the show three years ago. As an occasional theatre critic he had been given the Daily Mail’s invitation to the after-show party. That same night he had picked up on a rumour. Merlin St Clair had never been married to the girl’s mother. The mother, according to the rumour, was a barmaid at the Running Horses at Mickleham. Something Horatio was never going to tell William Smythe or he would read the story as part of the Brigandshaw saga in his employer’s paper, a family titbit too choice for the public not to want to hear. The very beautiful skeleton in the family closet… The poor girl had a lot ahead of her to learn about life and its penchant for cruelty… Even the best of fatherly love came at a price.

  As William sat down after his dance with Pippa, still wearing the earlier smirk, Horatio knew he was going to see more of the tall, slim girl who called herself just Genevieve. The idea made him excited.

  Watching all the interplay had given Janet Bray a sinking feeling, even with the smiling exchanges and holding hands under the table. Girls like Genevieve had the power to turn men’s heads. To control them. To make them yearn for something they would never be able to have. Even make fools of themselves trying to be something they were not.

  After four years attending the Central School of Speech and Drama at the Royal Albert Hall and in the process of becoming a qualified speech therapist, she had learnt more about life than stutters and cleft palates. She had learnt about people. The inside of people. What went on in their heads.

  Janet knew her opinions would likely change over the years. She rather hoped they would. To be too sure of anything at the age of twenty-three was a trap. Especially taking an opinion about minds that could never be seen in daylight. Never exposed. Never comparable to something already known.

  Cleft palates were a physical impediment to speech she could see. Stutters, like Genevieve’s power over men, were in the mind. Janet had seen a hundred girls in the drama section of her school prettier than Genevieve but without real power over men. Genevieve’s power was deep behind the penetrating eyes that sucked sexual want out of men into the light of day where the need was exposed.