by Bill James
Ralph had reckoned that if he answered this malevolence by referring to his very obvious and widely acknowledged link with Chuck Heston it would only prove to Iles that he’d done the sweet degree of damage he intended, forcing Ember desperately to protest, using the Charlton comparison. Undoubtedly, this would give Iles a fine, filthy inward chuckle of triumph, the taunting sod. Ralph had to avoid appearing hurt and riled and defensive. That reaction would spell weakness, and Iles was sure to exploit it with some further Association of Chief Police Officers’ intensively cherished yobbishness.
In any case, although Ralph knew of his reputation as a Heston doppelgänger, he never spoke of this himself. It would have seemed grossly boastful, and anything like that he loathed. Modesty he prized. Ember always put on a wholly convincing show of surprise if anyone mentioned the vivid, honourable Chuck cloneship, as though this were the first time he’d heard the compliment and couldn’t take it seriously. ‘I’m just Ralph W. Ember,’ he’d say in a charming, humble-type, take-me-as-I-am plea, ‘not, I fear, an icon of the Cinemascope scene and screen.’ He could tell that some saw this as the screen’s loss, not his.
He got himself sideways on to the cloakroom looking-glass and became completely still, to confirm that the rugged, solidly masculine Chuck profile remained intact, nothing like the profile of any woman, French lieutenant’s or not. This was no easy manoeuvre, but, undaunted, he went at it, undauntedness being another quality he prized. He wanted to get the full impact of his mirrored profile which, naturally, entailed looking straight ahead, not at the glass, because that would offer only an angled, imperfect version, part profile, part full-on. Solution? He had to keep his head rigid as if gazing straight in front but swivelling his eyes, and only his eyes, as far as they could go to the left, in this way catching the reflected profile to perfection, exactly as would a stranger standing close on one side of Ralph in a room or the street and staring in sudden, delighted amazement at the Chuck replica. It was a tricky exercise for him now, yes, but feasible. He had to confirm his heritage. Although he had always declined to have music relayed to the cloakrooms, feeling this would trivialize things, he wished today that his efforts at the looking-glass were accompanied by some of the magnificently epic background score to El Cid. He felt this would have helped resoundingly confirm the glorious identity links between him and Heston.
He possessed DVDs of all the main Chuck movies. The sight of Moses in The Ten Commandments, struggling to bring those tablets of stone down from Mount Sinai, always thrilled and heartened Ralph. This was gloriously applied effort ending in success, and he felt he had the same kind of prolonged, immensely worthwhile task with The Monty upgrade, getting the whole club to the select amenity level of the cloakrooms. Ralph considered that if Moses had been brought in to do an inspection of The Monty, he’d very quickly spot the shortcomings. He wouldn’t leave matters there, though. He was, above all, a positive figure, possibly needing to prove that being found as a baby in a basket among the bulrushes hadn’t in the least stunted him psychologically. Moses would propose drastic but manageable remedies for The Monty’s defects, all in line with Ralph’s own objectives. This thought pleased and fortified Ralph. He detected a kind of heartfelt bonding across the centuries between Moses and him.
Ember admired the terse definiteness of all those ‘Thou shalts’ and ‘Thou shalt nots’ of the commandments inscribed on the stones. Obviously, he couldn’t go along with every one of the bans or life would become very narrow, tame and unsatisfying, but he approved their clarity. He thought jokingly that he would have liked to see one commandment saying: ‘Thou shalt not use the word “bathroom” in phrases such as “go to the bathroom”, “went to the bathroom”, to mean something else.’ Ralph could cite stretches of El Cid’s noble talk in another Chuck film, but would do so only to himself in private. Although El Cid was a mighty leader, he would never be the sort to go around screaming for attention, recognition, adoration. They came automatically, and Ralph liked to think this would also happen in his own case. On the whole, he regarded humility as quite a satisfactory state.
Ralph left the cloakroom, more or less reassured about the unchanged coherence of his nose, jaw/chin, cheekbones, mouth/lips, and went back to the table he’d sat at with those two constabulary louts. Several more members had arrived and were standing at the bar. Ralph greeted them heartily, unhesitatingly, each by his correct name and with separate, personalized smiles. Although they might be entirely without distinction or even wholesomeness, as club owner he was their host and had certain standard duties, including a show of friendliness, and of knowing which customer was which:
‘Royston, grand to see you out and about again absolutely untagged.’
‘Caspar, the teeth look almost wholly natural despite everything; a fine reconstruction.’
By inventorying his features, Ralph felt he had neutralized Iles’s foul slur and now could do an examination of the rest of what had been said during the recent meeting. He signalled for a Kressmann Armagnac refill to help with concentration. The barman cleared the other glasses. In one sense, of course, Ember could have savoured a concealed smirk at what Harpur and Iles discussed with him. Ralph’s knowledge was one very considerable step up on theirs. They believed Enzyme to be out there with the same, loaded .38 pistol, whereas, in fact, it lay snugly not at all far from them in the chiffonier drawer upstairs.
Harpur had spoken of not getting Enzyme pulled in for illegal possession of a firearm because they wanted to do him for something bigger. But, although he certainly had been in possession when the Blake got hit – in lunatic, show-off possession – he wasn’t in possession any longer. There had been that crazily solemn handing-over ceremony of the guilt-ridden Smith and Wesson by Enzyme to Ralph, as a token of regret and future good fellowship; plus, perhaps, reinstatement at the club – as Enz would imagine. Mistakenly. Very mistakenly. ‘Unwavering.’ ‘Adamantine.’ Those had been Iles’s words about Ralph’s refusal, meant by Iles as over-the-top mockery of Ember’s toughness. But, in Ralph’s opinion, they were completely to the point.
But, although Gordon Loam would not be handed back his membership, Ember thought he might uncontroversially allow a traditional Monty après-funeral send-off party for him. The club was a community institution, and Enz, regardless of his blatant status as a right imperial prick, thoroughly belonged to that community. This could be fully, respectfully, emphatically, affectionately acknowledged once Ralph had wiped the fucker out. Clearly, Enzyme could not physically be present at the party, but his spirit might be pervasive there. Ralph didn’t mind Enzyme’s spirit. That could pervade as much as it wanted to. It was the rest of him Ember couldn’t stand.
The club would offer free drinks for the first, measured, half hour of the knees-up, as a gesture recognizing the esteem and fondness folk might have regarded Enz with, if only he hadn’t been such a committed, tireless, right imperial prick: forget, briefly, the shooting and eternal gab about his cut-above, tea-trafficking far-back family. As well as the overall foulness, Enzyme might have had a couple of marginally OK qualities, and Ralph would go along with any efforts to inflate these after his death and make him seem more or less acceptable, as long as it was after his death, Gordon Loam definitely out of the way for keeps and not having in fact to be accepted. RIP, Enz: you deserve it. Nobody Ralph could think of deserved it more.
But, as it sometimes did, the Armagnac seemed to sharpen Ralph’s brain a fair bit. In Kressmann veritas. He’d had a couple. He began to see some unfavourable, hazardous elements in what Harpur and Iles had been saying beneath the seemingly harmless, rambling, inane chatter. Combined, this pair had hit on the two crucial themes in the Enz story: (i) they thought there might be terminal vendetta stuff between Ralph and Gordon Loam following the Blake atrocity and feared the spread of disorder this might bring, endangering a unique, fragile, civic tranquillity built by Iles. (ii) Harpur had suggested there could be an art connection, with Gordon Loam interested in Emb
er’s plans for picture buying.
This was the smart-arse thing about Harpur and Iles: they jibed and wandered and drifted, but always there would be a dirty purpose, and always some acute, inspired, very meaningful, probably vindictive observation disguised by the fooling about. On the Foundation Year university course, undergrads looked at Hamlet, and Ralph adjusted one of the play’s best known lines: Deviousness, thy name is Iles. And/or Harpur.
Occasionally, it did take Ralph a Kressmann or two to get the hidden message or messages. He didn’t think this marked him as stupid, no. But Ralph liked to bring a touch of decency and fair play to life, and he expected others to feel the same. In periods of clarity brought on by the Armagnac he would realize that to centre this hope on two high-rank police, one of them Iles, ONE OF THEM ILES!, was pathetically optimistic. Iles – decency, fair play? Some joke that! The barman had left the bottle, and by now Ralph was starting his third double-plus.
If Iles and Harpur fretted that there might be blood on the pavement, they would know where to look immediately once there was blood on the pavement, or somewhere equivalent, after Ralph had dealt with Gordon Loam. They’d see the motive, of course. In fact, they’d more or less expect Ralph to go tit-for-tatting because of the bar assault on Blake – barbaric, base bar assault – leading to the perilous Worcestershire sauce bottle transformed into unguided missiles. This wasn’t just a case of the rampant genie getting out of the bottle, but of bottle bits themselves becoming rampant. Gordon Loam killed meant Ralph the chief suspect, Ralph probably arrested, Ralph probably charged, and Ralph probably convicted and sent down for years. Where would his glittering plans for The Monty be then? To put himself at risk would be a self-indulgent betrayal of the club and its quality cloakrooms. Also, he had his family to think of.
Discovering that Ember had used the gifted gun to see off the giver of it – Enz – might puzzle Iles and Harpur and their bullet-matching forensic specialists for a while, but they’d sort that out eventually. The Armagnac bluntly, awkwardly, asked: could it be wise, could it be safe, could it be sane for Ralph to plan Gordon Loam’s death and after-funeral remembrance drink-up? Casualness. Brazenness.
And then came (ii), Harpur’s art reference. If Gordon Loam, in these new circumstances, was allowed to stay alive, at least for a while, and brought pictures for Ralph and The Monty, would the police suspect that, because they came via a supremely dubious bugger like Enz, they might have very uncertain origin? Iles or Harpur would possibly put their expert arty detectives on to checking what Ralph knew was called the work’s ‘provenance’: its genuine, total history. Stolen? Manufactured as a copy in someone’s box room? Used as currency by crooks to buy weaponry, and/or wholesale drugs for subsequent street, pub, disco, college trading, and/or jewellery for their women, and/or a bolt-hole villa on an Algarve golf ranch?
Ralph considered it a kind of irony that, although the Kressmann’s helped produce these disturbing questions, it also kept him buoyed up. He’d look for answers to those questions. He thought he should push ahead now with some of his plans, even if the removal of Enz might need to be shelved. He went to the office and telephoned Jack Lamb’s place, Darien. Ralph considered it unusual for someone like Lamb to be in the directory. Perhaps he hoped this would prove his business was entirely honest and open, nothing suspect and needing secrecy. Nice one, Jack – his own type of brazenness. But the rumours still went around. He’d run into Lamb a few times, once at a successful meeting called to resist plans for a big wind farm on rural land near Lamb’s and Ralph’s properties.
It wasn’t Jack who answered the call now. A perky-voiced, mature-sounding woman with a mixed Brit-American accent and phrase-pattern said: ‘This is the Lamb residence. Mrs Lamb speaking. Can I help you in some respect?’
‘I wondered if I could have a word with Mr Jack Lamb, please.’
‘I’m his ma.’
‘Nice to talk to you, Mrs Lamb.’
‘On a short visit from the USA.’
‘I’m sure it will be very enjoyable.’
‘I chose to become Lamb again after an absurd remarriage in the States. I see the return to this name not as defeatism but as self-cleansing, as morale therapy, as morals therapy. Probably something to do with all those lamb mentions in the Scriptures. I have in mind, especially, Revelation. But I don’t say any of those Bible references are specifically to me or Jack!’
Ralph offered a merry, miniature laugh. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so, Mrs Lamb. But I seem to run into Bible matters quite often.’ He’d heard Iles claim that a previous Chief Constable here, Mark Lane, driven three-quarters mad by Iles, used to scour Revelation, scared he’d find prophetic mentions of his name and rank and the cosmic mess-ups he thought he’d perpetrated, because Iles apparently kept telling him he had. Ralph said: ‘I’m a kind of neighbour, I know Jack.’
‘A neighbour? One of the farms?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, it must be Low Pastures, with all the chimneys. Georgian plus Victorian additions? Bigwigs lived there? A Lord Lieutenant etcetera?’
‘Right.’
‘Have you got a sweep on the permanent staff? It’s Mr Ember, yes? Jack’s spoken to me about you. “No Windfarms Here!” Windy Nimby, he was called, I believe, taking the initial letters of “Not In My Back Yard”. A rather extensive backyard, as it happens, but I expect you can match it over at LP. Paddocks? Yes, I think Jack mentioned paddocks. Your daughters, riding fine ponies? Probably gymkhanas? It’s all the apparatus of what some would call the nouveau riche, the jumped-up. Used in Britain, those terms would not be complimentary. But what I’ve learned Stateside is that nouveau riche can be regarded as a very desirable state, and much better than being nouveau skint, as can happen. And “jumped-up” is a jump in the right direction – up – and much preferable to “fallen flat”.’
‘We have to look after the countryside,’ Ember said. ‘We are, willy-nilly, its custodians. Yes, I’m very much a fan of the environment in its many forms. Point a finger this way or that, it’s all environment. Whenever I hear that sublime word, a rush of other words is released automatically in my brain – “protect it”, “guard it”, “maintain it”, “revere it”.’
‘A wind farm would have put a blight on both your glossy properties, I guess, maybe knocked a nought off the value. What did the two of you do – terrorize the planning inspector? Or money passed? Like, “Have a little drink on us, pray do, sir, to celebrate due rejection of this disgraceful proposal.” Gun to his head as extra? But I mustn’t speculate. This is an open line. Remember that give-away voice on the phone near the end of The Great Gatsby?’
‘Is Jack at home, Mrs Lamb?’ Ralph replied.
‘You’ve got some club down the town, yes?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘What kind of club would that be then, Mr Ember?’
‘Of a social nature.’
‘I suppose most clubs are. Guns bought and sold sotto voce? Also recreational aids? I think of usages like “club together” – suggesting an harmonious group. Or someone can be described as “clubbable”, meaning he fits in to the company – not that he can be head-banged. Jack doesn’t go to your club?’
‘I’m making some changes, some major adjustments of tone, much beyond fine-tuning, which would not be adequate. Important to evolve rather than remain stalled, as it were, in formaldehyde. A thrilling prospect.’
‘This second hubby I had, American, he’d never go anywhere without one and a half thousand dollars cash on him in case of trouble,’ Mrs Lamb replied. ‘He believed money in a fair quantity could smooth away rages – others’ rages. That’s the sort he was. Is. Kind of unimpetuous? Have you come across the type? But perhaps we shouldn’t make fun. No question, people are very various. Think of Mother Theresa, sure, but think also of Heinrich Himmler. Quite a personality gap, wouldn’t you say, yet the same breeding process for each?’
‘I have no trouble at The Monty, thank heaven. As a matter of
fact, it’s about the club that I wanted to talk to Jack. And art.’
‘Which art?’
‘Generally.’
‘I expect you’re in favour of it.’
‘What?’
‘Art in general. Your expressions – they have that air, like they’d look very good framed and with under-base lighting.’
‘Yes. Art – it’s so worthwhile.’
‘Same as the countryside.’
‘Art can be an enhancing element,’ Ralph replied.
‘Me, I can take it or leave it alone. That’s a quote from somewhere. Thurber?’
‘Is Jack about?’
‘Jack,’ she yelled. ‘It’s your environmental buddy from Low Pastures. I gather he looks like Charlton Heston, real name Charlie Carter, used to look. Topic, art – art in general, art that enhances.’ He could tell she’d taken the receiver from her ear and was holding it low on one side. Now she brought it back to her ear and mouth. ‘I don’t know whether an artist would like to hear the term,“generally” about his, her art, Mr Ember.’
‘Please, it’s Ralph.’
‘Alice. The thing with art is it’s one person in front of an easel, trying to slap on to the canvas colours and shapes special to that individual artist, not to art “generally”, which would diminish the artist, make him or her feel like just one of a bunch, a production-line operative. Painting by numbers. Or by government edict, like those old Soviet posters proclaiming the glory of hard work for the state and showing proletarian Russians with very strong Stakhanovite jaws, the sun rising encouragingly behind them. Jack’s got a picture here, Amelia With Flask.’ She bellowed again. ‘Jack! A visitor. Your rural accomplice. In favour of the environment. Ralphy.’
