by Wilbur Smith
As the first bars of the opening movement of the third concerto in D minor sounded, Sacha sprang to her feet, seized the machine and hurled it against the wall with maniacal strength. The recorder shattered. Sacha threw herself to the floor, drew her knees to her chest in the foetal position, thrust her thumb into her mouth and bumped her head rhythmically on the floor. It was the last time that Marlene attempted to intervene in her treatment.
From then onwards she confined herself to reading poetry to Sacha or reciting a detailed account of the past week’s trivial events. Sacha remained silent and totally withdrawn. She stared at the wall, swaying backwards and forwards in the chair as though it was a rocking horse.
Months later, Marlene Imelda discovered she was pregnant once again. She waited until the sex of the foetus was confirmed by her gynaecologist; then on her next visit to Nine Elms she confided in Sacha, ‘Sacha, darling, I have the most wonderful news. I am pregnant and you are going to have a baby sister.’
Sacha turned her head towards her and looked Marlene in the face for the first time during the visit.
‘A sister? My own sister? Not a brother?’ she asked in a clear and lucid voice.
‘Yes, darling. Your very own little sister. Isn’t it exciting?’
‘Yes! I want a sister very much. But I don’t want a brother.’
‘What do you think we should call her? What name do you really, really like?’
‘Bryoni Lee! I love that name.’
‘Do you know anybody with the same name?’
‘There was a girl at school who was my best friend.’ She smiled. ‘But her father found a new job and they moved to Chicago.’ She was animated and talking like a normal child of her age.
Week after week they discussed the new baby, and week after week Sacha asked the same questions in the same order. She laughed at her mother’s replies.
After Marlene’s eighth month of gestation Sacha sat next to her throughout the entire visiting period and Marlene held her daughter’s hand against her stomach. When the baby moved under her hand for the first time Sacha shrieked with excitement so loudly that the duty sister rushed into the visitors’ room.
‘What on earth is the matter, Sacha?’ she demanded.
‘It’s my little sister! Come and feel her.’
Marlene brought Bryoni Lee to visit Sacha for the first time when she was three months old. Sacha was allowed to hold her new sister and she sat with her on her lap for the entire visit, cooing and laughing at her and asking her mother questions about her.
After that first visit with Bryoni, Marlene never missed a week and Sacha was able to watch Bryoni Lee growing up. Her therapists recognized the beneficial effect that the infant was exerting on Sacha and they actively encouraged the relationship.
And so the years passed.
*
Bryoni Lee grew into another beautiful child. She was petite and dainty with pixie features and striking dark eyes. Her heart-shaped face was mobile and expressive. People were naturally attracted to her and they smiled whenever she entered the room. She had an enchanting singing voice. Her feet seemed to have been designed to dance. Yet she was strong willed and assertive.
Bryoni Lee’s natural place was at the head of the pack. Like her father Henry Bannock she was a born leader and organizer. In any group of children she effortlessly assumed control and even the elder boys bent readily to her will.
It took Henry some time to become accustomed to having a child in his household who he was unable to dominate entirely, especially in as much as this was a female offspring who was willing to stand up to him. Henry had strong views on the divides between the genders and the roles of and relationships of parents to children and men to women. Equality did not figure on his list.
Bryoni Lee delighted him in that she was clever and good to look upon, but she alarmed him in that she answered back and argued with him. Henry would fly into rages at her. He shouted at her and threatened her with corporal punishment. Once he actually carried out the threat. He pulled his belt out of its trouser loops and whacked her across the back of her bare legs. It raised a red weal but she stood her ground and refused to cry.
‘Daddy, you shouldn’t do that,’ she told him solemnly. ‘You were the one who told me that a gentleman never hits a lady.’
Henry had shot the Commie jets out of the sky over Korea and beaten the living daylights out of any number of the big tough roughnecks and roustabouts who worked his oil rigs, but now he backed down from an eight-year-old girl.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her as he threaded the belt back through his trouser loops. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. I won’t do it again. I promise you. But you must learn to listen to me, Bryoni Lee!’
In turn he began to listen to what she had to say, a courtesy that he had seldom extended to any other female. He discovered to his surprise that more often than not Bryoni Lee made good sense.
*
The year Bryoni Lee turned ten years of age was a memorable one in the Bannock household. In May Henry brought in his first off-shore deep water oil well. The market capitalization of Bannock Oil reached ten billion US dollars. And he purchased his personal Gulfstream V private jet, which he generally flew himself.
In the same month the Bannock family moved into their new home in Forest Drive. Designed by Andrew Moorcroft, of Moorcroft and Haye Architects, it was set in fifteen acres of gardens and contained eight bedroom suites. It won the Best House of the Year Award from the American Institute of Architects.
Carl Peter Bannock had graduated cum laude from Princeton and in June he went to work for Bannock Oil at its head office in Houston.
In July Henry Bannock asked his old friend and lawyer Ronnie Bunter to set up the Henry Bannock Family Trust to protect his close family from all harm and evil for the duration of all their lifetimes. The two of them laboured and agonized over the wording and the provisions of the trust deed until August when Henry finally signed it.
Ronald Bunter kept the original deed in his firm’s strongroom and Henry placed the only copy in his own strongroom at Forest Drive.
In August of that same year the doctors at Nine Elms told Henry and Marlene that Sacha Jean would never be able to live outside an institution and would be in care for the rest of her life. Henry made no comment and Marlene locked herself in her sumptuous new bedroom suite with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin.
In September Marlene Imelda Bannock began a spell of three months in the Houston drug clinic on a rehabilitation programme for alcoholics.
In October Henry Bannock divorced Marlene Imelda Bannock and was given full custody of both their daughters; Sacha and Bryoni. Carl was already an adult so his name never figured in the divorce documents. When she was released from the drug programme Marlene went to live alone in the Cayman Islands in a magnificent beachside property where she was tended by a large domestic staff. All this was a part of the divorce settlement.
In late October the Directorate of Civil Aviation refused to renew Henry Bannock’s commercial pilot’s licence. He had failed his medical check.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Henry demanded furiously of the physician who was conducting the examination. ‘I have just bought myself a Gulfstream for twelve million dollars. You cannot pull my licence now. I am as fit as I was when I was flying Sabre Jets in Korea.’
‘If I may respectfully remind you, Mr Bannock, that was some two decades ago. Since then you have worked yourself as if you were a one-man prison chain-gang. When did you last take a vacation?’
‘What the hell has that got to do with it? I haven’t got time for vacations.’
‘That’s my point exactly, sir. Then tell me how many Havana cigars you have smoked since Korea? How many bottles of Jack Daniel’s have you demolished? How much exercise do you take?’
‘You are being insolent, sonny boy.’ Henry’s face turned puce. ‘That’s my private business.’
‘I apologize for that. Howe
ver, I have to tell you that you have a classic case of atrial fibrillation.’
‘Cut out the technical gobbledegook. What the hell are you fibrilling and drivelling about?’
‘I am trying to tell you that your heart is dancing around like Gene Kelly on steroids. But that’s only the half of it. Your blood pressure is up there in outer space with Neil Armstrong. If I were your physician I would immediately place you on Coumadin, Mr Bannock.’
‘Thank God you are not my doctor. I know about this Coumadin stuff. I know it was used as rat poison and that it doesn’t taste like Jack Daniel’s; so you can take it, roll it into a small ball and stuff it up your rear end, Doctor Menzies.’ Henry stood up and marched out of the office.
Even without his pilot’s licence Henry continued to fly his beloved Gulfstream. He had two highly paid commercial pilots who covered for him.
However, sometimes in the still midnight hours he woke up with his heart stuttering and fluttering in his chest. He refused to see another doctor. He did not want to hear his death sentence being read to him.
With this warning that his days were numbered, he worked himself even harder. The idea of giving up his Havanas and his Jack Daniel’s was intolerable, so he put it out of his mind.
In November Bryoni Lee won a state-wide mathematics competition against other students three and four years senior to her and was voted by her classmates the most likely to succeed and the most likely to become the president of the United States of America. She took over from her absent mother the visiting duties for her older sister.
Every Sunday Bonzo Barnes, Henry’s chauffeur and bodyguard, drove her up to Nine Elms to spend the day with Sacha. Bonzo was a former heavyweight boxing contender. Like most others he loved young Bryoni. Bryoni sat up in front with him and they chatted happily all the way to Pasadena and back.
In December of that same year while his father was in Abu Zara reviewing the Bannock Oil concessions in that country, Carl Peter Bannock finally worked out the passwords and codes to Henry Bannock’s strongroom. Carl had found a spot on the swimming pool terrace from which he was able surreptitiously to overlook his father’s study. One Saturday morning he watched through the lens of a pair of 10x Zeiss binoculars as Henry sat at his desk and prised back the silk lining of his black leather desktop diary. Then he drew from beneath the lining one of his own business cards which he had concealed there.
On the back of the card in Henry’s large bold hand was written a long string of letters and numbers. He crossed the room to the steel door of his personal vault. Consulting the writing on the card, Henry rotated the dial of the lock back and forth to register the password and then he spun the locking wheel in a counterclockwise direction and swung open the massive door.
Carl had to wait several weeks until Henry left on his next business trip, but then he had ten days and nights to work with.
The first night, after many frustrated attempts, he was able to master the complicated sequences to deactivate the locking mechanism and to open the steel door to the vault.
The next night he photographed the interior of the vault and the arrangement of the contents. Before he dared move anything he knew he must be able to replace all of it in exactly its original position. He knew that his father would immediately notice any changes. He wore surgical gloves at all times so as to avoid leaving his fingerprints on any of the contents of the vault and he worked with painstaking attention to all the details.
On the third night he could start exploring the contents of the vault. The bars of gold bullion were stacked on the floor where their weight was borne by the steel and concrete foundations. He estimated that there must be about fifty or sixty million dollars’ worth of gold in the hoard.
Henry’s behaviour had always been dictated by a peculiar mixture of reckless daring and prudent caution. This hoard was his little emergency fund.
On the next line of shelves were Henry’s decorations and citations from his US Air Force days, and photographs and memorabilia of particular significance to him. On the steel shelves above were files of documents and share certificates, bonds and deeds of title to the numerous properties and concessions that Henry owned in his personal capacity. The other significant assets were held in the name of Bannock Oil Corporation.
On the fourth shelf from the top Carl found what he was really looking for.
He already knew of the existence of the Henry Bannock Family Trust. While he was still at Princeton he had begun hacking into his father’s telephones in his bedroom and in his study. He had even attempted to access Henry’s private phone lines at Bannock Oil headquarters, but the security cordon protecting the Bannock Building was impregnable.
Carl had been restricted to listening in on the line to the main bedroom suite to numerous conversations between Henry and his ex-wife and mistresses. But Carl had also made transcripts of conversations that Henry had conducted from his downstairs study, which included numerous conversations between Henry and his business associates and, more importantly, his lawyers.
Carl had been able to follow some of the discussions between Henry and Ronald Bunter, his principal lawyer, while they put together the Deed of Foundation of the Family Trust. But he had only a vague picture in his mind of the exact content and provisions of the final Trust Deed.
Now he found Henry’s copy of this large tome sitting in the middle of the fourth shelf.
Still he did not rush at it. He examined the deed minutely with a magnifying glass before opening it. He marked the pages that Henry had stuck together with tiny droplets of glue. He separated these carefully and re-glued them as he passed on.
Between page 30 and page 31 he found the hair that Henry had placed there to trap interlopers. He recognized it as one of Henry’s own hairs, wiry and springing, that he had plucked from his sideburns. Carl kept it in a clean white envelope and replaced it between the pages when he had finished with the document.
All these preliminaries left Carl with three uninterrupted nights before his father’s return from the Middle East to peruse the deed of the new Henry Bannock Family Trust.
What he read filled him with a soaring sense of his own supremacy. The Trust Deed had endowed him with almost god-like powers. He was armed against the world and shielded by billions of dollars. He was invincible.
*
Sacha Jean had gradually regressed over the years until she had reached the equivalent mental age of a five-or six-year-old. Her world had shrunk as her brain was stifled and shut down. She no longer recognized anybody except one of the middle-aged nurses, who had been especially kind to her, and her baby sister Bryoni.
When her nurse reached retirement age, Sacha’s already limited world was halved again and she became pathetically dependent on Bryoni. When the weather permitted it, the two of them spent all of every Sunday in the gardens of Nine Elms. Over time the physicians had learned just how reliable and responsible Bryoni was. They had no hesitation in giving her full care of Sacha for the day.
Sacha was now in her early twenties and obese. She towered over her little sister. Bryoni mothered her and led her by the hand to her favourite spot beside the lake, where they picnicked and fed the ducks. Sacha could no longer concentrate long enough to read for herself but she loved nursery rhymes. Bryoni read them to her. They played hopscotch, follow the leader and hide and go seek. Bryoni’s patience was endless. She fed Sacha the picnic lunch that she had brought with her from home, and wiped her face and hands when she had finished eating. She took her to the toilet and helped her wipe herself and readjust her clothes when she had finished.
Sacha particularly loved having her back tickled. She liked to take off her blouse and lie face down on the picnic rug and make Bryoni tickle her back. Whenever she stopped Sacha would cry, ‘More. More.’
One Sunday Bryoni was tickling her when Sacha said quite distinctly, ‘If he ever wants to touch your nunu, don’t let him do it.’
Bryoni paused in mid stroke and thought about what her
sister had just said. Nunu was their baby name for the vagina.
‘What did you say, Sash?’ she asked carefully.
‘When?’
‘Right now.’
‘I never said nothing.’ Sacha denied it.
‘Yes, you did.’
‘I never did. I never said nothing.’ Sacha was already becoming agitated and nervous. Bryoni knew the symptoms. Next she would curl up in a ball and start sucking her thumb or bumping her head on the ground.
‘My mistake, Sash. Of course, you didn’t say anything.’ Slowly Sacha relaxed and starting talking about her puppy. She wanted her puppy back. For her last birthday Mummy had brought her a puppy, but Sacha was very strong and she loved and squeezed the puppy to death. They had to tell her it was sleeping to get the carcass away from her. She always asked Bryoni to bring it back to her, but the doctors would not let Sacha have another pet.
The next Sunday was bright and sunny and they picnicked at the same spot on the lake shore. Sacha didn’t like anything to change. Change made her feel nervous and insecure. When they had eaten their lunch, Sacha demanded, ‘Scratch my back.’
‘What is the magic word?’ Bryoni asked her. Sacha thought about it, scowling with concentration, but at last she gave up.
‘I forgot the word. Tell me what it is.’
‘Is the word please, do you think?’
‘Yes. Yes. It’s please.’ Sacha clapped her hands with joy. ‘Please, Bryoni. Pretty please scratch my back.’ She pulled off her blouse and stretched out on the rug. After a while Bryoni thought she had fallen asleep, but suddenly Sacha said, ‘If you let him touch your nunu he will stick his hard thing into you and make you bleed.’
Bryoni froze. The words shocked her deeply, to the extent that they made her feel physically sick. However, she pretended not to have heard and went on stroking Sacha’s back. After a while Bryoni began to sing: ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.’ Sacha tried to join in but she got the words all muddled up and they both laughed.