by Peter Rimmer
They went back to the Paddington flat after an expensive dinner in a favourite restaurant, where he drank enough to bring his mind down to the present. They had gone home after their walk in the park so she could change. Because she so wished to please him they made love in the big double bed. She would have been mortified had he left without taking what he had paid for. It would have been like beating a dog that wanted to play.
She wanted him to stay but he went home. His new valet, the fourth since Albert Pringle, was asleep in the chair in the hall. The man was obsequiously subservient.
“I said to go to bed if it was after ten,” said Jack, standing at the front door.
“Oh, sir. It’s my duty. I must be ready whenever you come home. Is there anything you require, sir?”
“No, Bradford. Go to bed.”
“The whisky decanter is in the lounge.”
“It always is at this time of night, Bradford.”
“As you say, sir.”
“And good night.”
“A very good night to you, sir. And may it not be too presumptuous of me to wish you pleasant dreams… Pleasant dreams, sir.”
“Thank you, Bradford.”
“It is always my pleasure.”
In the lounge behind the closed door, he poured himself a whisky and went to his writing desk which he opened, having pulled out the wooden arms that supported the mahogany lid that came down to a table, tooled green leather making a pleasant writing surface where it was smooth in the centre. Jack took a clean sheet of paper from a small drawer and took up his pen. He thought for a while, removing the irritation of Bradford from his mind. Then he forgot his mistress. For a moment before he began to compose the first verse of a new poem he thought of the looming war and wondered if he would be too old to join the army. He hoped not. Even though he knew the piece of paper would end up in the wastepaper basket to the right of his bureau, he began to write. It was his only therapy. The one time he was not bored with his life.
The most stupid thing a whore could ever do was fall in love with the patron. He had made love to her that night because he felt sorry for her and no other reason. Feeling even sorrier for herself at the thought, she went back to having a good cry. Then she blew her nose and made herself a cup of tea. It was a very nice flat. She worried too much. She was still young.
The day before war broke out between Germany and England, Serendipity was oversubscribed five and a half times when it floated on the London Stock Exchange. Jared phoned Jack the news.
“One pound, eleven and sixpence for a share you paid one pound for. How many do we sell?” Jared was very cheerful and very relieved. He had told the senior partner about his predicament some days before.
“Goodness, Wentworth! Why jeopardise the account of Merryweather? You’ll be fired if you lose him, of course. South African mining shares! Were you out of your mind? You should leave the company now, of course. We can’t change your mistake but we would have a defence. Merryweather might just stay with us.”
“He won’t. He said so. May we wait to see what happens?”
“Very well. Don’t do it again. We are here to make a commission when we buy and sell shares. We don’t make an extra penny if Merryweather makes a bundle.”
“We both know the executive directors.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You know something! Buy me a thousand shares. You have to have inside information to make money.”
“Neither of us knows anything. All I have is the prospectus.”
“Now I see it. Tell the floor to make it two thousand shares. My private account. Only a fool would jeopardise his job. Well done, Wentworth. No, make it five thousand. I see what you’re up to. ‘Methinks the lady protesteth too much,’ to make a hash of Shakespeare.”
“But, sir…”
“Out. Wentworth! Five thousand shares.”
The phone had gone quiet. “Are you there, Jack?”
“I’m here. Just the world’s gone mad. How many shares did I get if it’s oversubscribed?”
“Eight to ten thousand I should think. It’s up to the directors’ discretion but they usually allocate in proportion to the oversubscription. How many do I sell?”
“None of course. Let me know the allocation. We’ll also be at war by tomorrow.”
“Looks like it. Don’t you want to sell the few to cover your bet?”
“No. And if it’s any help for your sleep, whatever they do now is my fault, not yours… Are you going to join the army?”
“The navy, I think. I’ve been playing around in small boats all my life. And you, Jack? You don’t have to go.”
“Too old, haha! My foot. I’ll lie. Say I’m twenty-five.”
“They won’t believe you.”
“They will when they get desperate.”
“It’ll all be over in six months.”
Jack was not so optimistic. Austria had declared war on little Serbia for shooting its archduke. The man who had shot him, Gavrilo Princip, was a fanatic. Russia mobilised in support of Serbia so Germany declared war on Russia and France. The rest of the world was waiting for its turn. All the pieces of Europe were being thrown into the air, and everyone who was anyone was getting into position, so when the pieces came down again they could grab as much as possible for themselves. The spoils of war. Jack wondered if there would be any if all the pieces going up in the air were shot to pieces before they hit the ground; war was part of man; nothing had changed; they were all taking sides, hoping they’d chosen the right one. Jack doubted if anyone in power or on the streets had given a thought to the real right or wrong of anything. Once in a regular while, the world wanted blood. Charles Darwin would have understood, Jack thought, walking from his house in Baker Street to his club in Pall Mall. Evolution. Survival of the fittest. He had seen it so often in Africa. All the male animals fought with each other to see who would mate with the female. Only the best strain survived. Man was an animal. They just dressed up better. Or so they thought.
In the club, the Earl of Pembridgemoor was buying everyone a drink.
The next day, after Germany invaded little Belgium, England declared war on Germany. Japan declared war on Germany. Britain’s colonies stood ready to join the war. Jack, in his club on Pall Mall, where he had been all day with the excitement building by the moment, put a phone call through to Jared Wentworth. He wanted to try to make the day as normal as possible, but like everyone else, he wondered if anything would ever be the same again.
“What’s the share price, Jared?”
“One pound, seventeen shillings and sixpence. On the floor they think they’ll go to two pounds by the close. Gold as a monetary hedge. Explosives to blow up the Hun. What a combination! I’ve been trying to reach you at your home since one o’clock. Had a wire from the company’s Johannesburg office. Rather unusual, I’d say. The directors have given you what you asked for. Fifty thousand shares. You own five per cent of the company and will double your money within a week.”
“Was there a personal note to the telegram?”
“No.”
“I’ll be damned. That lunch I paid for with Ernest Gilchrist was the best investment I ever made in my life.”
“You’ll have to find yourself another broker.”
“Whatever for, Jared?”
“I go down to Dartmouth on tomorrow’s train. I’ve joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve… There’s a war on,” he said into the silence.
There’s nothing worse than a guilty conscience that won’t go away. Albert Pringle and Sallie Barker had argued for a week, ever since the closing date, when all the application forms had been received in London with bank guaranteed cheques pinned to the forms. All share requests for one hundred or less shares were to be filled in full. Details of share applications for more than one per cent of the company had been telegraphed to the Serendipity office in Johannesburg for review; which had started the row.
It was Albert Pringle’s chance to make up for running away wit
hout even speaking to Jack Merryweather. He had not even written him a letter.
“Don’t be bloody stupid, Albert, he’ll think it’s me,” said Sallie Barker, the day before the shares were due to float on the London Stock Exchange. “He’ll think I’m after him again. The shares can still flop and then he won’t thank us.”
“You forget. Without Jack Merryweather, none of this would have happened. Your mother had her eye on Jack for you. He paid my passage to Africa and I left him in the lurch.”
“You’re being sentimental.”
“He’s our talisman.”
“Now you are being superstitious.”
“Please, Sallie. I’ve never asked for much. You know the shares are going to open higher than a quid. We know how much we’re oversubscribed. Please. I’ll go on my knees. Someone’s going to make the money. Why not Jack?”
There had been more to Albert’s relationship with Jack. Without the master-servant impediment, and coming from a different class, he fancied they would have been friends. Good friends. They understood each other. Talked to each other about their families and, in the end, he had let him down. Taken the boat trip and thrown it in his face. This would make them even.
So much loyalty, thought Sallie, and smiled.
“Thanks,” said Albert, without her having to speak. The smile was enough. “But we keep quiet. Let him think it’s normal company policy to have large shareholders. You think he’ll want to come on the board?”
The day the shares were listed in London should have been the best day of their lives in Johannesburg. They were two hours ahead of London. When the closing price was telegraphed they were all still in the office, all with mixed feelings. People were talking about a world war, not just a war. South Africa was going to be drawn into the fray. Only the salaried young men from the mine and explosives company, who had been invited to head office to celebrate the flotation, were excited. The older men who had been through the Anglo-Boer War were quiet. At the end of the trading day, their shares were trading at a thirty per cent premium. Everybody clapped at the news.
“Now all we have to do is make sure Serendipity makes a profit,” said Sallie, bringing them down to earth.
“But it’s a start. A good start. We now have the capital. The rest is up to the lot of us in this room and the men at the mine and the factory. Every hourly paid employee will receive a bonus of five pounds whatever the colour of their skin. The rest of you will have to wait for year-end profit when five per cent will be set aside for salaried staff in proportion to your pay. Now just get me the job done… Someone had better start opening the champagne. Mr Pringle will pop the first cork.”
The day Jared Wentworth arrived at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, to start his naval training, Serendipity shares broke through the two-pound level. No one told him. He was too busy collecting his kit. The petty officer in charge of recruits was foul-mouthed and abusive. The way he said ‘welcome to the Royal Navy’ was a cross between a threat and a sneer. Jared’s basic training had begun, and though he did not know it at the time, like a lot of other people in England and around the world, his life had changed forever. The pampered life of an English gentleman was to be lost in the horror of war.
In London, Jack was sick to his stomach. It was as if the nation had smelled blood. Patriotism. Honour. Duty. Words on everyone’s lips. Union Jacks everywhere as if waving the flag would frighten the Germans… What frightened Jack most was everyone seemed to want the war. Eyes gleamed with fervour. Blood rushed to the head. Young men mobbed the recruitment centres. There was no shortage of volunteers. Young men bubbling with excitement of war giving each other false courage. ‘We are all together now’, as if before the war they had nothing to do with each other. No doubt, Jack thought, in Germany they were waving German flags with equal excitement. Neither side mentioned the stomach flutters to each other. The apprehension. The fear. Jack thought that will come later, with realism.
With sober mind and an inkling of what was to come, Jack took himself off to his nearest recruitment centre. The war was a month old. In a business suit and a top hat, he looked incongruous next to men wearing rough clothes and cloth hats. Two of them slapped Jack, a tall thin man with broad shoulders, on his back in the excitement. His hair was prematurely grey under the silk hat. He smiled at the man, for no reason appalled at being touched by a stranger. ‘There’ll be more of that’ he said to himself ruefully. The papers talked of Germany invading France and Belgium. One had said that morning that British troops of one of the Highland regiments had made contact with the Germans. No one was really sure. The truth had already been lost to the censors. What had once been news he could trust was now propaganda. Between the lines, and cross-referencing more than one of the London newspapers, Jack thought some of the regular army had crossed the channel. The Highland regiment in question was famous and the paper had reeled off its glorious history.
When he reached the end of the line he faced a low table. Two bareheaded soldiers with their hats on the table were seated behind it on wooden chairs. One was a corporal, one was a sergeant. That much Jack knew about the ranks of the army. At St Paul’s he had been in the Combined Cadet Force, the CCF. He had twice fired a rifle. In badly fitting uniforms they had marched up and down a road at the back of the quadrangle. Then the sergeant who drilled them had been called back into the real army and gone off to South Africa. The school never saw him again. A year after leaving St Paul’s, Jack learned Sergeant Small had been killed at the Battle of Colenso. Jack was pleased he had died a soldier’s death. Some years later in his club, an old boy who had been a senior when Jack was in his first term, told him Small had died of fever in Bloemfontein without hearing a shot fired in anger. Jack remembered he had disliked the senior when he was at school.
The corporal was having trouble writing with an indelible pencil, licking the blue end of the stump to make it write better. He was filling in forms in triplicate, the carbon paper cramping out of line between the forms, each set pinned together. There was a pile of pinned forms in front of each soldier. He took a fresh set without looking up and poised the stump of the pencil.
“Name!”
“Jack Merryweather. Or rather, John Claud Percival Merryweather.”
“Blimey! Where you from?”
“27 Baker Street. About a mile from here.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-five.”
The corporal looked up at the immaculately dressed Jack standing in front of him.
“Shit, Sarge. ’Ave a look at this… What you doin’ ’ere?”
“Offering my services to the King.”
They both looked at him, the sergeant and the corporal, and giggled.
“How old you say?” said the sergeant.
“Twenty-five.”
“Not in this century. Take off your ’at.”
Jack obliged and stood bareheaded while everyone had a look at him.
“Look, sir. We like the idea, don’t we, lads?” the sergeant said to the young men in the queue behind him. “You won’t see forty again. This is a war. Crawling around on our bellies, see. Put your ’at back on and go ’ome.”
“I’m thirty-three.”
“And I’m the Pope. Go ’ome. Next!”
As Jack turned around and walked away he had never felt a bigger fool in his life. A taxi driver answered the call of his raised rolled umbrella.
“Three cheers for the toff,” someone called.
Jack gave the driver the address of his club. They were raising their cloth hats on the third cheer when the cab drove away. It was all done with good humour but it made Jack feel miserable. The only time he had looked for a job in his life he had been told to go home.
The club was empty. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Jack did something he had never done before in his life and sat at the bar alone.
“You all right, sir?”
When in company, he had always jollied along with the barman. He rather thought
they liked each other… He felt like he had felt as a junior at St Paul’s. Insignificant. Totally insignificant.
“Give me a large pink gin.”
The barman looked hurt.
“I’m sorry, Jim. I’m not all right. Just been tossed out of the King’s army before I got a foot in the door. Said I was too old.”
“You’ve got to lie.”
“Said I was twenty-five. Stood there like a twerp with my hat off. Whole bloody lot laughed at me. Called for three cheers for the toff.”
“They meant it nicely.”
“That made it worse.”
Jack took his club card, signed for his drink, and looked up. Jim was openly laughing.
“Don’t you start.”
“Quite frankly, sir, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Why do men rush off so quickly to get themselves killed? Why does everyone suddenly in the world want to rip each other’s throats?… Why on earth did you volunteer in the first place?”
“It’s weird. I can’t quite answer that. I was drawn to it. As if going would be important. Didn’t want to be left out. I don’t think it was anything to do with wanting a fight. Or being called a coward. I didn’t want to be left out of the herd for the first time in my life. All that I have I owed to other people. This was my turn to do something for what I have. Maybe I just felt needed until they told me to piss off. And if anyone asks, Jim, I’ll always deny I ever spoke those words in the club. Have a drink with me. There are going to be a lot of rules broken in this war. If a member comes, shove it under the bar. And give me another one of those pink gins. I’m glad you laughed. Better to laugh than cry.”
