Golden Boy

by Rosemary Friedman

  Freddie sat next to her on the sofa and took her hand. Stuff Gordon Sitwell. There was no way he was going to let Lilli go into a home.

  ‘I wanted so much for you to take up the piano, Freddie. I tried to teach you, but you hadn’t the slightest interest…’

  Lilli seemed to be having one of her lucid periods, to be in touch with reality. It was the moment, Freddie thought, to tell her about his dismissal.

  ‘There’s something we have to discuss. Something you ought to know.’

  He wondered whether there was any point explaining that there had been exceptional expansion and irresponsibility in the financial markets, that the consequences of that excess and profligacy had to be paid for by someone, that he was no longer head of corporate finance at Sitwell Hunt International, that he had got the sack. But Lilli was staring at him as if he was a stranger, as if she had never seen him before, as her eyes grew visibly empty and her mind wandered off into some past interior accessible only to herself.

  ‘Didn’t you play the the saxophone’, she said, ‘with Harry Roy?’

  Freddie gave up.

  Mrs Williams insisted that he stay for lunch. It wasn’t often, she said, that they had company. She set a place for him at the top of the gateleg table. He was to be the guest of honour.

  Guest of honour. Ten days ago he had been the guest of honour at the annual banquet of the City Livery Club. The invitation had come from the Lord Mayor himself who, as an alderman of the City of London, had been a personal client of Freddie’s and had entrusted to him the affairs of the livery companies and the finances of the guilds.

  Spawned in the Cambridge Union, Freddie was an accomplished speaker. Any nervousness induced by getting to his feet after dinner was instantly dispelled by a charge of adrenaline as he plunged into a task he was confident he would do well. Speaking without notes, he would picture himself as the hub of a large wheel of which the points he wished to cover – in this case the City, the poll tax, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and the Black Death with its resultant shortage of labour – were the spokes. Mentally circumventing the wheel he would eliminate the spokes one by one, until only the tyre remained, at which point he would know that his task was accomplished and his speech was at an end. Dressed in white tie and tails (Rosina’s comment was that he looked a right wally), he had taken his place at the top table next to the Lady Mayoress, while Jane in a yellow silk dress from Bingo’s – split at the front to reveal her legs as she walked – had chatted up the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. After Grace recited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a cavalcade of white-gloved waitresses weaving smartly in and out of the tables to the accompaniment of the ‘Skaters’ Waltz’ and the ‘Post Horn Gallop’, had served the banquet which was rounded off by the entry of the silver Loving Cup, filled with spiced wine, which in a time-honoured ritual was passed along the tables.

  Recalling his well-received address suddenly brought home to Freddie the extent of the fallout from his dismissal, and the fact that from now on there would be no more such prestigious invitations. He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter and that he didn’t care; that he had been to too many cocktail parties where the conversation was inaudible, the food unmanageable, and the champagne warm; too many dinners at which he had been forced to listen to interminable orations whilst struggling to be civil to an aurally challenged stranger or entertain somebody’s wearisome wife.

  His own speech in Guildhall, in which he had compared Watt Tyler and his revolutionaries with the present day militants, had been greeted with prolonged and enthusiastic clapping which had persisted in undulating waves until well after he had shaken the outstretched hand of the Lord Mayor and caught Jane’s approving eye. He could hear the applause now, reverberating in his ears.

  ‘There you go.’ Mrs Williams’ voice brought him back to earth.

  He took his place at the head of the gateleg table as a plate was put in front of him on which was not the exotic duckling with Anise, as served at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, but a dull-eyed poached egg on a watery mound of mashed potato.

  Eighteen

  Although Freddie was a risk-taker he had never been a gambler. Having walked at a brisk pace up Edgware Road and Park Lane and along Curzon Street from the Water Gardens, he was surprised to find himself standing outside the Vingt-et-Un, a gaming club to which he had been introduced by James, a notorious high-roller, and where he occasionally took clients from abroad. While his guests often took chances, Freddie’s speculation was modest. He preferred to play the stock market where the croupiers were the brokers, their commissions the house percentage, and the stocks – despite the advent of technology – behaved with mathematical randomness.

  His axiom in business, which he considered fundamental, was that at the top you must sell and at the bottom you must buy. Where most people went wrong was that they were too emotionally involved in their businesses to make the leap between recognising the top and getting out.

  As far as the casino was concerned, he acted on the premise that money which you cannot afford to lose produces psychological distress and bad play, while money which means little to you leads to confidence and precision. He always put an upper limit on the amount he was prepared to risk. Having set his initial stake at an acceptable level, he mitigated the possibilities of losing it, either by betting heavily, in the hope of winning a substantial sum fairly quickly (and taking the chance of being rapidly cleaned out), or by dividing his capital into smaller units (so that there was much less likelihood of losing it all) and limiting the amount he stood to gain.

  His game was blackjack, for which he used a card-counting system which entailed keeping track of the tens. He had not tried his luck in the middle of the day since he was fourteen years old. Whilst he was growing up there had been few holidays. His excursions with Lilli had largely been limited to ‘away days’, most of which took them to Chessington or Whipsnade zoos or to stately homes within a few hours’ ride of Maida Vale. Freddie’s favourite outing was to Brighton, where, while Lilli tried to interest him in the treasures of the Royal Pavilion and extolled the therapeutic values of the sea air, he had counted the minutes until they could go to the amusement arcades. It was here, amongst the heady clatter of the pinball and the fruit machines, that he had formulated his belief in his ultimate success and his conviction that persistence would be rewarded, with which he had signed his unwritten contract with fate. While Lilli relaxed in a deckchair, Freddie – who had sprung up in his teens and was exceptionally tall for his age – computed his chances of making his fortune. He counted out his pocket money (supplemented by a variety of after-school jobs), and applied himself to augmenting it. His precocious ability to call a halt to his activities while fortune was still smiling, to get out when he was ahead, not to push his luck, was apparent even then.

  In a miasma of fistfuls of warm tokens, calculated manipulation of levers, revolving apples and bananas, the intoxicating rain of pennies from some automated heaven, he was unaware of time passing. When Lilli came to drag him away for lunch, or to tell him that they must hurry to catch the train, her disapproving voice ruptured his fantasies and interrupted his daydreams, that one day, some day, he would be rich.

  As he entered the Vingt-et-Un and climbed the impressive staircase, he experienced exactly the same mounting sensation of excitement, harboured the same desires, as he had so many years ago on Brighton Pier.

  Although there were few people in the heavily curtained gaming room hung with the stale smoke of cigars, Freddie was unable to get a table to himself. Sitting down at a ‘ten pound minimum’ table, next to a grossly overweight punter in a crumpled suit and tinted glasses, he took £100 from his wallet. Passing the two fifty-pound notes over to the dealer, an English rose with milk-white skin and soft blonde hair wearing a deceptively simple cornflower blue dress with puff sleeves and a sweetheart neck, he began, as usual, by cautiously placing small bets and keeping track of the 10s. When seventeen of them had bee
n played, he checked that the next round would come from the cards which remained in the shoe and, in accordance with his strategy, increased the size of his bets. After half an hour he had doubled his initial stake. Pleased with his gain, he was about to get up from the table and cash in his chips. The voice of Derek Abbott, with the refrain of his £100,000 overdraft, reverberated in his head. One hundred pounds was a drop in the ocean. He was in need of serious money. Taking out his pen (and his worry beads), and with visions of doubling up his severance pay, he wrote out a cheque for £5,000.

  He knew that the odds were against him. ‘Good luck’ made few millionaires. It was the same in the City. Those who regarded dealing as nothing but a game of chance invariably wound up penniless if not in jail. ‘Good luck’ was synonymous with good judgement, although it was often quoted, by the man who had lost out, as accounting for the success of his rival. The true gambler, who remembered only his good luck, and forgot his bad, was destined always to lose. It was this fatal optimism that ensured the solvency of gambling houses.

  Setting aside all his years in banking, all his experience, all his acquired wisdom, Freddie managed to convince himself that it was some unseen force which had directed him from Lilli’s flat to the casino where he was certain to win. What he was playing for was hope.

  Moving to a more serious table where there was only one other player, the minimum bet £100 per box, and a more full-blown English rose who dealt the cards with the speed of light, he settled down in earnest to cock a snook at Derek Abbott.

  Within five minutes he was dealt two blackjacks. Splitting the 8s, he got a 3 on one, and a 2 on the other. He doubled them both and the bank went bust. Within ten minutes his £5,000 stake had increased to £25,000!

  He now had a problem. Twenty thousand pounds was not to be sneezed at. Bearing in mind his financial situation however, it was neither here nor there. The multicoloured piles of chips in front of him represented a chance of getting himself out of trouble. He hesitated only a few seconds. Putting £500 on each of three boxes, he caught the cynical eye of the dealer. It was his day. He could not put a foot wrong. In no time at all his £25,000 became £50,000. He played two boxes, £5,000 on each box. Two 6s on one box and two 7s on the other. The bank had a 4. Splitting the cards, and watched with interest by a young man wearing shades and a ponytail, who stood behind him at the table, he doubled his stakes to the tune of £20,000. On the first 6 he was dealt a 4, and on the second 6 a 3. He doubled again and got 10 on each split, leaving him with 20 on one, and 19 on the other. His two splits 7s got a 10 and a 4, which he promptly doubled and was dealt another 4. His second box had £15,000 running on it. A total of £35,000 on one deal. The anchor man at the end of the table had a £100 chip on his box, on which there was a 2 and 10. Drawing a 6 he stuck at 18. The English rose drew a 10: fourteen! Given a very little luck Freddie stood to make a cool £70,000 from one hand. Rotating his worry beads he willed the dealer to draw another 10. She drew an ace. His palms were damp. Fifteen. The next card had to be a 7, an 8 or a 9. It had to be. The bank would go bust, and he would be out of trouble with Derek Abbott. Beneath the gaze of the man with the ponytail, watched anxiously by Freddie, with the tactile certitude of a blind person the tapered fingers of the English rose advanced towards the shoe and withdrew a card. Six! Without a glance in Freddie’s direction, she disdainfully swept up his chips and his cards and with them his chance of paying off his overdraft.

  Dismissing his reversal simply as an unlucky break, Freddie decided that now his only salvation was to press harder and increase the size of his bets. With the capriciousness of a freak wind, his luck turned. Fourteen hands later, without a single draw and the play running relentlessly against him, he had ploughed back not only all his winnings but his original stake. Five thousand pounds down the tubes!

  Considerably shaken, he called for coffee. Leaving his cup on the table, and keeping one eye on the play, he went to the cash desk and wrote another cheque to the tune of £5,000. On his table the bank was now losing. The play seemed once again to have turned. He told the cashier to hurry with his chips but the shift had changed and the girl, whom he hadn’t seen before and who did not recognise him, needed authorisation. Flipping his worry beads, Freddie waited for the manager who with the merest inclination of his head signified his approval to the cashier who counted out Freddie’s chips, checking and rechecking them with agonising slowness.

  By the time he got back to the table, his coffee cup had been removed, his seat had been taken by the man with the ponytail, he had been demoted to a chair at the far end, and he had missed another winning hand. As heedless of time as he had been in the Brighton amusement arcades, he set steadfastly about recouping his losses. He played two boxes. Eighteen on each of them. An 8 for the bank. The anchor man drew a card when he should not have done. A 10. The dealer gave herself an ace, winning at 19 and snapping at Freddie for accidentally touching the cards. As his worry beads worked overtime, his pile of chips swiftly dwindled. He blamed himself. For forgetting his fundamental principle. For not having the good sense to know he was at the top and making the decision to get out.

  When he was down to his last £100, he crossed to the roulette table and put the lot on number 2, the second of March, his wedding day. The silver ball, its trajectory closely followed by the croupier and the pit bull seated like some impervious slit-eyed God above him, circled the swiftly revolving wheel, fell, then rose to spin again in agonising circles. Mesmerised by the blob of metal and feeling physically sick, Freddie watched it hover tantalisingly over number 2 before, rattling in its death throes, it insinuated itself into 21 by its side.

  He had been in the casino for less than an hour. In forty-five minutes he had thrown away £10,000. Furious with himself, he ran down into the street where he was greeted by torrential rain. The doorman did his best, with whistle and outsize umbrella, to find a taxi. The waterlogged streets of a prematurely dark Mayfair were not the most propitious place. Impatient with the man’s abortive, if well-intentioned efforts, Freddie decided, for the second time that day, to walk to Regent’s Park.

  It was only when he reached Chester Terrace, cold, wet, and extremely angry – he felt quite capable now of carrying out the crime he had only dreamed of committing against Gordon Sitwell – that he realised to his horror that, unaccustomed to driving Jane’s car, he had left the Japanese hatchback outside the Water Gardens.

  Entering the house quickly and leaving dark pools on the parquet floor, he flung himself up the stairs like a junkie in search of his unfailing panacea.

  The performance of The Magic Flute, which despite its triteness and banality always managed to elevate his mood, had been announced whilst he was getting ready to meet Wichmann, what seemed light years ago. Before peeling off his clothes, he pressed the button on his music centre which was permanently tuned to Radio 3. Instead of Tamino’s flute, Sarastro’s invocation to Isis and Osiris, or the coloratura of the Queen of the Night, a bass voice chanted tunelessly to the beat of the bongo drums: ‘Peaze Porage in the Pot Nine Days Old. Peaze Porage in the Pot Nine Days Old. Peaze Porage in the Pot Nine Days…’ Certain that he was in imminent danger of a heart attack, Freddie bellowed for the blood of Rosina who had just come home from school.

  ‘Who told you to touch my radio?’

  ‘Sorry, Daddy…’

  She was always sorry.

  ‘You know quite well that no one is allowed to touch my radio.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s not good enough, Rosina. You have no respect for other people’s property, no respect for anything. This is my house. My dressing-room. And my radio…’

  Listening to the sound of his own voice as he went on and on about personal space and invasion of privacy and the automatic deference due to parents from their children (which he did not believe) and the fact that he wasn’t surprised that Rosina’s reports were so poor (not entirely true) when she was constantly watching TV or going out or washin
g her hair or spending hours on the phone, he was aware in the far reaches of his brain that he was taking out on Rosina his animosity towards Gordon Sitwell and Conrad Verger and Derek Abbott, and Hans Wichmann from whom he hadn’t yet heard, but even though he realised it, he was unable to stop himself from reducing her to a state of hysteria (not difficult) and finally to tears which added fuel to the fire of his rage.

  ‘Apart from anything else, Rosina, you know perfectly well that if there’s one thing I cannot tolerate it’s that racket…’

  ‘It is not a racket. You don’t know the first thing about it…’

  ‘And I don’t want to.’

  ‘That’s your trouble. You’re so wrapped up in that terrible caterwauling you have on all the time, in your wheeling and dealing, as if everything’s down to money…’

  ‘I haven’t noticed you’re averse to spending it.’

  ‘…that you’re not the slightest bit interested in anything else. You’ve never bothered to listen to my music. You’ve never bothered to listen to me. You don’t listen to anybody. You only listen to yourself!’

  The volcano of Freddie’s wrath burned itself out as suddenly as it had erupted. He was ashamed of himself for displacing onto a 15-year-old feelings which belonged elsewhere.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This…music. What is it about?’

  ‘It’s about black people.’ Rosina helped herself to one of Freddie’s handkerchiefs into which she blew her nose. ‘It’s about decay and death in the slums of New York. About inner city tensions. About project housing. About poetry, about attitude, about style…’