by Wilbur Smith
He lit the pipe at last, puffing thick rank clouds of blue smoke as he slid a sheath of documents across the desk to David.
‘Read and sign,’ he said. ‘That’s an order.’ David glanced rapidly through the papers, then he looked up and grinned.
‘You don’t give in easily, sir,’ he admitted.
One document was a renewal of his short service contract for an additional five years, the other was a warrant of promotion – from captain to major.
‘We have spent a great deal of time and money in making you what you are. You have been given an exceptional talent, and we have developed it until now you are – I’ll not mince words – one hell of a pilot.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ David told him sincerely.
‘Damn it,’ said Rastus angrily. ‘Why the hell did you have to be born a Morgan. All that money – they’ll clip your wings, and chain you to a desk.’
‘It’s not the money.’ David denied it swiftly. He felt his own anger stir at the accusation.
Rastus nodded cynically. ‘Ja!’ he said. ‘I hate the stuff also.’ He picked up the documents David had rejected, and grunted. ‘Not enough to tempt you, hey?’
‘Colonel, it’s hard to explain. I just feel that there is more to do, something important that I have to find out about – and it’s not here. I have to go look for it.’
Rastus nodded heavily. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I had a good try. Now you can take your long-suffering commanding officer down to the mess and spend some of the Morgan millions on filling him up with whisky.’ He stood up and clapped his uniform cap at a rakish angle over his cropped grey head. ‘You and I will get drunk together this night – for both of us are losing something, I perhaps more than you.’
It seemed that David had inherited his love of beautiful and powerful machines from his father. Clive Morgan had driven himself, his wife, and his brand new Ferrari sports car into the side of a moving goods train at an unlit level crossing. The traffic police estimated that the Ferrari was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour at the moment of impact.
Clive Morgan’s provision for his eleven-year-old son was detailed and elaborate. The child became a ward of his uncle Paul Morgan, and his inheritance was arranged in a series of trust funds.
On his majority he was given access to the first of the funds which provided an income equivalent to that of, say, a highly successful surgeon. On that day the old green MG had given way to a powder-blue Maserati, in true Morgan tradition.
On his twenty-third birthday, control of the sheep ranches in the Karroo, the cattle ranch in South-West Africa and Jabulani, the sprawling game ranch in the Sabi-Sand block, passed to him, their management handled smoothly by his trustees.
On his twenty-fifth birthday the number two fund interest would divert to him, in addition to a large block of negotiable paper and title in two massive urban holdings – office and supermarket complexes, and a high-rise housing project.
At age thirty the next fund opened for him, as large as the previous two combined, and transfer to him for the first of five blocks of Morgan stock would begin.
From then onwards, every five years until age fifty further funds opened, further blocks of Morgan stock would be transferred. It was a numbing procession of wealth that stretched ahead of him, daunting in its sheer magnitude; like a display of too much rich food, it seemed to depress appetite.
David drove fast southwards, with the Michelin metallies hissing savagely on the tarmac, and he thought about all that wealth, the great golden cage, the insatiable maw of Morgan Group yawning open to swallow him so that, like the cell of a jelly fish, he would become a part of the whole, a prisoner of his own abundance.
The prospect appalled him, adding a hollow sensation in his belly to the pulse of pain that beat steadily behind his eyes – testimony to the foolhardiness of trying to drink level with Colonel Rastus Naude.
He pushed the Maserati harder, seeking the twin opiates of power and speed, finding comfort and escape in the rhythms and precision of driving very fast, and the hours flew past as swiftly as the miles so it was still daylight when he let himself into Mitzi’s apartment on the cliffs that overlooked Clifton beach and the clear green Atlantic.
Mitzi’s apartment was chaos, that much had not changed. She kept open house for a string of transitory guests who drank her liquor, ate her food and vied with each other as to who could create the most spectacular shambles.
In the first bedroom that David tried there was a strange girl with dark hair curled on the bed in boys’ pyjamas, sucking her thumb in sleep.
With the second room he was luckier, and he found it deserted, although the bed was unmade and someone had left breakfast dishes smeared with congealed egg upon the side table.
David slung his bag on the bed and fished out his bathing costume. He changed quickly and went out by the side stairs that spiralled down to the beach and began to run – a trot at first, and then suddenly he sprinted away, racing blindly as though from some terrible monster that pursued him. At the end of Fourth beach where the rocks began, he plunged into the icy surf and swam out to the edge of the kelp at Bakoven point, driving overarm through the water and the cold lanced him to the bone, so that when he came out he was blue and shuddering. But the hunted feeling was gone and he warmed a little as he jogged back to Mitzi’s apartment.
He had to remove the forest of pantihose and feminine underwear that festooned the bathroom before he could draw himself a bath. He filled it to the overflow, and as he settled into it the front door burst open and Mitzi came in like the north wind.
‘Where are you, warrior?’ She was banging the doors. ‘I saw your car in the garage – so I know you’re here!’
‘In here, doll,’ he called, and she stood in the doorway and they grinned at each other. She had put on weight again, he saw, straining the seam of her skirt, and her bosom was bulky and amorphous under the scarlet sweater. She had finally given up her struggle with myopia and the metal-framed spectacles sat on the end of her little nose, while her hair fuzzed out at unexpected angles.
‘You’re beautiful,’ she cried, coming to kiss him and getting soap down her sweater as she hugged him.
‘Drink or coffee?’ she asked, and David winced at the thought of alcohol.
‘Coffee will be great, doll.’
She brought it to him in a mug, then perched on the toilet seat.
‘Tell all!’ she commanded and while they chatted the pretty dark-haired girl wandered in, still in her pyjamas and bug-eyed from sleep.
This is my coz, David. Isn’t he beautiful?’ Mitzi introduced them. ‘And this is Liz.’
The girl sat on the dirty linen basket in the corner and fixed David with such an awed and penetrating gaze that Mitzi warned her, ‘Cool it, darling. Even from here I can hear your ovaries bouncing around like ping-pong balls.’
But she was such a silent, ethereal little thing that they soon forgot her and talked as if they were alone. It was Mitzi who said suddenly, without preliminaries, ‘Papa is waiting for you, licking his lips like an ivy-league ogre. I ate with them Saturday night – he must have brought your name up one zillion times. It’s going to be strange to have you sitting up there on Top Floor, in a charcoal suit, being bright at Monday morning conference—’
David stood up suddenly in the bath, cascading suds and steaming water, and began soaping his crotch vigorously. They watched him with interest, the dark-haired girl’s eyes widening until they seemed to fill her face.
David sat down again, slopping water over the edge.
‘I’m not going!’ he said, and there was a long heavy silence.
‘What you mean – you’re not going?’ Mitzi asked timorously.
‘Just that,’ said David. ‘I’m not going to Morgan Group.’
‘But you have to!’
‘Why?’ asked David.
‘Well, I mean it’s decided – you promised Daddy that when you finished with the air force.’<
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‘No,’ David said, ‘I made no promise. He just took it. When you said a moment ago – being bright at Monday morning conference – I knew I couldn’t do it. I guess I’ve known all along.’
‘What are you going to do, then?’ Mitzi had recovered from the first shock, and her plump cheeks were tinged pink with excitement.
‘I don’t know. I just know I am not going to be a caretaker for other men’s achievements. Morgan Group isn’t me. It’s something that Gramps, and Dad and Uncle Paul made. It’s too big and cold—’
Mitzi was flushed, bright-eyed, nodding her agreement, enchanted by this prospect of rebellion and open defiance.
David was warming to it also. ‘I’ll find my own road to go. There’s more to it. There has to be something more than this.’
‘Yes,’ Mitzi nodded so that she almost shook her spectacles from her nose. ‘You’re not like them. You would shrivel and die up there in the executive suite.’
‘I’ve got to find it, Mitzi. It’s got to be out there somewhere.’
David came out of the bath, his body glowing dull redbrown from the scalding water and steam rising from him in light tendrils. He pulled on a terry robe as he talked and the two girls followed him through to the bedroom and sat side by side on the edge of the bed, eagerly nodding their encouragement as David Morgan made his formal declaration of independence. Mitzi spoiled it, however.
‘What are you going to tell Daddy?’ she asked. The question halted David’s flow of rhetoric, and he scratched the hair on his chest as he considered it. The girls waited attentively.
‘He’s not going to let you get away again,’ Mitzi warned.
‘Not without a stand-up, knock-down, drag-’em-out fight.’
In this moment of crisis David’s courage deserted him. ‘I’ve told him once, I don’t have to tell him again.’
‘You just going to cut and run?’ Mitzi asked.
‘I’m not running,’ David replied with frosty dignity as he picked up the pigskin folder which held his thick sheaf of credit cards from the bedside table. ‘I am merely reserving the right to determine my own future.’ He crossed to the telephone and began dialling.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘The airline.’
‘Where are you heading?’
‘The same place as their first flight out.’
‘I’ll cover for you,’ declared Mitzi loyally, ‘you’re doing the right thing, warrior.’
‘You bet I am,’ David agreed. ‘My way – and screw the rest of them.’
‘Do you have time for that?’ Mitzi giggled, and the dark-haired girl spoke for the first time in a husky intense voice without once taking her eyes off David. ‘I don’t know about the rest of them, but may I be first, please?’
With the telephone receiver to his ear David glanced at her, and realized with only mild surprise that she was in deadly earnest.
David came out into the impersonal concrete and glass arrivals hall of Schiphol Airport, and he paused to gloat on his escape and to revel at this sense of anonymity in the uncaring crowd. There was a touch at his elbow, and he turned to find a tall, smiling Dutchman quizzing him through rimless spectacles.
‘Mr David Morgan, I think?’ and David gaped at him.
‘I am Frederick van Gent of Holland and Indonesian Stevedoring. We have the honour to act on behalf of Morgan Shipping Lines in Holland. It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.’
‘God, no!’ David whispered wearily.
‘Please?’
‘No. I’m sorry. It’s nice to meet you.’ David shook the hand with resignation.
‘I have two urgent telex messages for you, Mr Morgan.’ Van Gent produced them with a flourish. ‘I have driven out from Amsterdam especially to deliver same.’
The first was from Mitzi who had sworn to cover for him.
‘Abject apologies your whereabouts extracted with rack and thumbscrew stop Be brave as a lion stop Be ferocious as an eagle Love Mitzi.’
David said, ‘Traitorous bitch!’ and opened the second envelope.
‘Your doubts understood, your action condoned stop Confident your good sense will lead you eventually on to path of duty stop Your place here always open Affectionately Paul Morgan.’
David said, ‘Crafty old bastard,’ and stuffed both messages into his pocket.
‘Is there a reply?’ Van Gent asked.
‘Thank you, no. It was good of you to take this trouble.’
‘No trouble, Mr Morgan. Can I help you in any way? Is there anything you require?’
‘Nothing, but thanks again.’ They shook hands and Van Gent bowed and left him. David went to the Avis counter and the girl smiled brightly at him.
‘Good evening, sir.’
David slipped his Avis card across the desk. ‘I want something with a little jump to it, please.’
‘Let me see, we have a Mustang Mach I?’ She was pure blonde with a cream and pink unlined face.
‘That will do admirably,’ David assured her, and as she began filling the form in, she asked, ‘Your first visit to Amsterdam, sir?’
‘They tell me it’s the city with the most action in Europe, is that right?’
‘If you know where to go,’ she murmured.
‘You could show me?’ David asked and she looked up at him with calculating eyes behind a neutral expression, made a decision and resumed her writings.
‘Please sign here, sir. Your account will be charged,’ then she dropped her voice. ‘If you have any queries on this contract, you can contact me at this number – after hours. My name is Gilda.’
Gilda shared a walk-up over the outer canal with three other girls who showed no surprise, and made no objection when David carried his single Samsonite case up the steep staircase. However, the action that Gilda provided was in a series of discotheques and coffee bars where lost little people gathered to talk revolution and guru-babble. In two days David discovered that pot tasted terrible and made him nauseous, and that Gilda’s mind was as bland and unmarked as her exterior. He felt the stirrings of uneasiness when he studied the others that had been drawn to this city by the news that it was wide open, with the most understanding police force in the world. In them he saw symptoms of his own restlessness, and he recognized them as fellow seekers. Then the damp chill of the lowlands seemed to rise up out of the canals like the spirits of the dead on doomsday, and when you have been born under the sun of Africa the wintry effusions of the north are a pale substitute.
Gilda showed no visible emotion when she said goodbye, and with the heaters blasting hot air into the cab of the Mustang, David sent it booming southwards. On the outskirts of Namur there was a girl standing beside the road. In the cold her legs were bare and brown, protruding sweetly from the short faded blue denim pants she wore. She tilted her golden head and cocked a thumb.
David hit the stick down, and braked with the rubber squealing protest. He reversed back to where she stood. She had flat-planed Slavic features and her hair was white-blonde and hung in a thick plait down her back. He guessed her age at nineteen.
‘You speak English?’ he asked through the window. The cold was making her nipples stand out like marbles through the thin fabric of her shirt.
‘No,’ she said. ’But I speak American – will that do?’
‘Right on!’ David opened the passenger door, and she threw her pack and rolled sleeping bag into the back seat.
‘I’m Philly,’ she said.
‘David.’
‘You in show biz?’
‘God, no – what makes you ask?’
‘The car – the face – the clothes.’
‘The car is hired, the clothes are stolen and I’m wearing a mask.’
‘Funny man,’ she said and curled up on the seat like a kitten and went to sleep.
He stopped in a village where the forests of the Ardennes begin and bought a long roll of crisp bread, a slab of smoked wild boar meat and a bottle of Möet Chandon. When h
e got back to the car Philly was awake.
‘You hungry?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’ She stretched and yawned.
He found a loggers’ track going off into the forest and they followed it to a clearing where a long golden shaft of sunlight penetrated the green cathedral gloom.
Philly climbed out and looked around her. ‘Keen, Davey, keen!’ she said.
David poured the champagne into paper cups and sliced the meat with a penknife while Philly broke the bread into hunks. They sat side by side on a fallen log and ate.
‘It’s so quiet and peaceful – not at all like a killing ground. This is where the Germans made their last big effort – did you know that?’
Philly’s mouth was full of bread and meat which didn’t stop her reply. ‘I saw the movie, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan – it was a complete crock.’
‘All that death and ugliness, we should do something beautiful in this place,’ David said dreamily, and she swallowed the bread, took a sip of the wine, before she stood up languidly and went to the Mustang. She fetched her sleeping bag and spread it on the soft bed of leaf mould.
‘Some things are for talking about – others are for doing,’ she told him.
For a while in Paris it looked as though it might be significant, as though they might have something for each other of importance. They found a room with a shower in a clean and pleasant little pension near the Gare St Lazare, and they walked through the streets all that day, from Concorde to Étoile, then across to the Eiffel Tower and back to Notre Dame. They ate supper at a sidewalk café on the ‘Boul Mich’, but halfway through the meal they reached an emotional dead end. Suddenly they ran out of conversation, they sensed it at the same time, each aware that they were strangers in all but the flesh and the knowledge chilled them both. Still they stayed together that night, even going through the mechanical and empty motions of love, but in the morning, when David came out of the shower, she sat up in the bed and said, ‘You are splitting.’
It was a statement and not a question, and it needed no reply.
‘Are you all right for bread?’ he asked, and she shook her head. He peeled off a pair of thousand-franc notes and put them on the side table.