Hotbed

by Bill James

  Ralph knew that many great thoughts came down to us through the classical tongues. Although he had never learned Latin himself, he greatly supported it. He wanted his daughters taught the language, plus, possibly, Greek later. For fuck’s sake, if you sent your children to a fee-paying school this was what you looked for on the timetable. But the head teacher wouldn’t give way and Venetia and Fay learned classical tales, and so on, in English – what Ralph called ‘soundbite Aeschylus’. He considered that story about Atalanta and the golden apples stupid when you read it in English, as he had from one of the children’s books. Atalanta said she would only marry a man if he could beat her in a running race. Nobody could until a lad came along and put golden apples on the track. Atalanta went to get them, which obviously slowed her down, and she lost the race and had to marry Hippomenes. This dopey stuff needed to be in ancient Greek, so it didn’t come over straight at you – you’d be too tied up translating it to think how daft it was.

  Ralph, personally, cleaned the main gates plaque every few weeks and made certain the screws holding it did not corrode and become insecure. He would have seen such deterioration as symbolic, hinting at the decline of so much that had been traditional and worthwhile in Britain. This plaque helped give Low Pastures its unique status. Turret was sure to see it and wonder as he turned into the grounds. For Brown to discover that someone of Ralph’s blatant worth wanted him to take on a special commission would inevitably bring excitement: make Joachim ready to accept, eager to accept, regardless of the hellish peril. Joachim, for God’s sake! His parents must really be something, or barmy. Ember had the idea they’d be the sort who’d take holidays in the Black Forest, camping by a brook and drinking the water regardless.

  Ralph liked to apply psychology when selecting someone for a task. As he understood it, this lad, Brown, had a brother who played major roles in West End theatres and at Stratford. Perhaps, then, Joachim felt left behind – a failure. He might be desperate to excel in a career, and impress those fruity parents: Mother, father, your Joachim has broken through via a dear friend and colleague, Mr R. Ember! Ralph didn’t mind helping someone to that sort of little triumph. By sending Brown to spy on Manse and his crew, Ralph would surely be opening up new and glittering career prospects for him, as long as he survived.

  In fact, Ralph felt a duty to let some of his own strength and success seep down to any promising apprentice. It was how humankind progressed. Margaret Thatcher had surely been right on this: if you made it easy for the rich to get richer some of the wealth would reach the less rich, through more gardening jobs in the big houses and deckhands for private yachts. But Brown would understand that for any leg-up to come Ralph must certainly be preserved in place, so as to retain the power to lift him. Clearly, this meant there should be no destruction of Ember by Manse, or Brown was scuppered himself. It would be another reason for Turret to jump at the reconnaissance assignment inside Shale’s outfit and bring Ember reports and possible forebodings. Destruction of, not by, Manse might then be a solution, a regrettable, forced solution, but one which Brown would undoubtedly be proud to have helped initiate.

  ‘You have a brother who’s an actor, I understand,’ Ember remarked. ‘A star, I gather. In that famous play, The Duchess of Malfi.’ Best rub it in a bit.

  ‘We don’t keep contact.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Probably my fault. I drifted away.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him – seen him perform? That’s surprising.’

  ‘I did go to the Almeida when they had a few weeks there.’

  ‘Good? Were you able to get backstage and congratulate him?’

  ‘I just drifted away.’

  ‘Brother v brother rivalry? A sibling’s success intolerable to you? Very common, very understandable.’

  ‘We’re different.’

  ‘I find that strange.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You to be out there in the body of the theatre watching your brother, and he never aware of it. But perhaps he was aware of it. They can peep at the audience unobserved sometimes, can’t they? He might have seen you there. Perhaps he expected you to go and call on him afterwards.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t expect that or wish it.’

  It was flat, it was definite. He’d say what he wanted to say, just that, this one. Did he sound wounded, undervalued? Ralph could help, longed to help, if this could be made mutual. ‘Acting has its rewards, I’m sure, financial and otherwise,’ Ralph remarked. ‘But running a company can have good rewards, too.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘These rewards have to be guarded.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘What I want is a colleague, younger but very much on the up, who can get used to the way things are done, especially get used to the special circumstances of two separate yet combined firms. I need to feel there’s somebody else besides myself who knows the details, could handle them

  alone, if necessary.’

  ‘Details?’

  ‘What you’d call “the intricacies”. The fine points and the possible dangers in this kind of alliance.’

  ‘Dangers?’

  Oh, fuck off. Did mummy buy him a big box of question marks for Christmas? ‘Somebody who has familiarized himself with the way our company operates – that “learning” you referred to,’ Ralph said, ‘but who also knows his way around Mansel’s firm.’

  Brown went silent, as if registering what Ralph had said, picking at it for undertones, searching for the unspoken. There were plenty of these. Let him find them himself. He probably would. Ralph decided he’d chosen a shrewd lad. That could be good or not. He might be too shrewd. He’d see the risks in sniffing around the Shale camp and turn Ralph down. ‘Ah, I see now, you’re scared of him, are you?’ Brown said. He stared at Ember and nodded his head slowly three times, maybe to signal that he did not need an answer, because he knew he had it right.

  Ralph loved truth, but, obviously, truth demanded sane and delicate handling. ‘Scared?’ he said. ‘Of Manse Shale!’

  ‘I noticed it.’

  ‘Noticed what, where?’

  ‘Fright. At the Agincourt,’ Brown said.

  ‘At the Agincourt?’ Ember said. ‘When exactly at the Agincourt?’ Hell, he’d gone into questions mode himself now.

  ‘I thought there were moments of hidden panic, Ralph. But not very well hidden.’

  Yes, although Ember admired plain speaking and honesty above all else, sometimes they should be bludgeoned, dungeoned. Like fucking now. This curly-headed creep infuriated him. He’d generously brought Brown out to a brilliant property as sign of possible admiration, but, suddenly, the sod acted breezy and became all incisive and eyeballing instead. For God’s sake, this house had a consul and a lord lieutenant in its pedigree. Have a gander at that Latin plaque, will you? Seeing his self-assurance, you’d swear this damn nonentity, Brown, was used to such manorial elegance, and to this kind of drawing room, with its Wellington cabinet, rosewood table and long, Regency sideboard, the cheeky clown. But maybe a couple who’d call a baby Joachim did have a considerable property with land. Perhaps Brown wouldn’t feel as impressed as he damn well should in Low Pastures.

  Just the same, people never, never, used the word ‘panic’ about Ralph when in his presence, and especially not people who worked for him. This, above all, was an image matter. He knew that some, behind his back, called him Panicking Ralph, or even Panicking Ralphy, on account of episodes in the past they did not understand properly. They saw ordinary carefulness and wisdom as cowardice. Foul slanders went the rounds. He could not stop this. But they were now in the fine drawing room of his own fine home and to have this prick actually accuse him here of panic dazed Ralph for a few seconds. It nearly brought on . . . nearly brought on a massive Ember-type panic. But he said pleasantly: ‘I thought the Agincourt evening very cheery, didn’t you?’

&nbs
p; ‘“Oh, for he’s a jolly good fellow and so say all of us.”’ He sneer-sang this, made it sound empty, meaningless – even more empty and meaningless than it had been.

  ‘Fun, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You, lead singer and conductor, but with the suspicion of him, no – outright distrust of him – yes, distrust of him like white hot rivets in your eyes.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say so.’

  ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t, Ralph. He could feel it, though. He sits there, hardly a move in response. That tiny, formal quarter-smile. You both clearly had weapons aboard. And then, later, he’s shouting something at you. I saw it, half heard it.’

  No wonder Brown must hate and envy his brother’s success. Joachim possessed terrific, sickening sharpness and fair spiel now he’d loosened up, yet here he was, in a measly, go-nowhere job: go-nowhere unless Ralph gave him something better. And that’s what Ralph proposed, wasn’t it, in a way? Hazardous, yes, but a step, and maybe a step with prospects if Turret could keep himself alive. Ember poured them both more Sauvignon. He needed it, and actually needed something stronger, say Kressmann armagnac.

  ‘Of course, “that tiny formal quarter-smile” means Shale’s as scared of you as you are of him,’ Brown explained. ‘Therefore, a handgun each in your bras. It’s a typical business relationship – lovely cooperation and mateyness for as far as profit demands, and then, beyond this, the dread and certainty that the other one is really after the whole bloody caboodle, and has sly plans to get it.’

  He found himself worth quoting, the smug serf. ‘Manse and I have a genuine, long-lasting “mateyness”, in your term,’ Ralph replied. ‘This has very considerable ramifications. For instance, he wants me as his best man.’

  ‘Gesture.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s –’

  ‘What we have to sort out, Ralph, is the difference between gesture and the real, isn’t it?’ Brown said. ‘One of life’s eternal quests.’

  Oh, a sodding philosopher now. And a cocky one: that ‘we’. Any sorting out required, Ralph would do solo, thank you, sonny boy. Ember said: ‘Admittedly, there are bound to be tensions in the kind of arrangement Manse and I –’

  ‘You want me to get in there and see what the unholy shite is cooking up, do you, Ralph?’

  ‘What I’d like is –’

  ‘Sure, I can deal with that for you. You’ll worry about the nickname, I expect – Turret. Don’t. It’s no more correct about me than “Panicking Ralphy” is about you, Ralph. I can be subtle and watchful, as well as a blast.’ He leaned forward, one hand on offer. Ember shook it. Brown said: ‘There’d be due reward and progress in the firm, I take it. You’ve got quite a decent little set-up out here, haven’t you?’

  ‘Bare stone walls and exposed beams give a kind of motif, I like to think,’ Ralph replied. ‘Everything open, strong, authentic.’

  ‘I heard a villain of villains had Low Pastures not long ago.’

  ‘I –’

  ‘This is absolutely no reflection on you, Ralph.’

  ‘Reflection? On me? How could it be a reflection on me?’

  ‘I said no reflection.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘I’d need £5K a week for the kind of work you have in mind, and certain definite assurances,’ Brown replied.

  It depressed Ember infinitely deeply to hear Turret name that pay, and name it with a defiant, no-arguments flourish, especially just after Ralph had referred to the marvellous quality of the Low Pastures structure. Of course, he had been thinking of offering more for this job, say eight a week, or even ten. Did Brown realize the kind of risk? Some naivety, here, despite all the flatulent talk? Or was all the flatulent talk on account of the naivety – to camouflage it, compensate for it? His brother would be used to speaking concocted lines, many of them corny, full of attitude and not much else. Turret wanted to compete? Did he appreciate what type of difficult information he would be looking for?

  Ember never bought cheap. The bare stone walls and exposed beams of Low Pastures had not come cheap. If you bought cut-price you almost always got cut-price results, or no fucking results at all. God, run-of-the-mill people like goalkeepers, barristers, poker pros, surgeons made £5000 a week and more. Ember had imagined he was picking talent when he picked Turret. Ralph felt let down by this miserable, penny-pinching modesty. And Brown had cut across something Ralph began to say – cut across in Ralph’s own drawing room – cut across as if the demand for £5K were so bold it must come out at once. As a matter of fact, Ralph had an £8K cluster of twenties already elastic-banded in a desk drawer and another twenty in twenties alongside it in case Brown tried to bargain up.

  Ember would not say Turret had actually besmirched Low Pastures by the sad pifflingness of his demand, but Ralph wondered whether he should have let him into the drawing room, especially as his manners in conversation seemed so rocky. Ember could have sited the interview somewhere less, such as the breakfast room or study. It would be amusing but tiresome now to bring out the eight wad and count off five. He’d look like some damn bookie. He wondered whether as Brown watched this procedure he’d realize he had comically underquoted. Ralph decided he would not show the other twenty also. Why be pointed? Let Brown go off with his five, uncertain if he’d done well or pathetically.

  Maybe he’d ring up his parents as if to talk about the weather and so on and mention as something incidental that he’d just landed a business commission at five grand a week, so stuff whatever it was his brother earned poncing about on the stage – not five grand a week, definitely. And his parents might consider five grand a week quite a bit, even though they’d been brassy enough to call a kid Joachim, a British kid.

  ‘When I say “certain assurances” I’m thinking of a decent post on the financial side of the firm,’ Brown said.

  Ralph could have guessed Brown was thinking of a decent post on the financial side, but to pick up five when it could have been eight or ten didn’t seem much of a recommendation for someone thinking of a decent post on the financial side. Ember said: ‘We’re hoping to develop in several new directions. There will be openings.’

  ‘You mean when Manse has been snuffed – deservedly snuffed?’

  ‘It’s in the nature of a vibrant company to find previously untried channels,’ Ember replied.

  ‘How are you going to do it, Ralph?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See to Manse.’

  ‘The purpose of this exercise is for you to get a working familiarity with the binary character, yet unity, of the companies,’ Ember replied.

  ‘It’s not my sort of operation,’ Brown said.

  ‘You’re backing out?’ Ralph felt almost pleased. Did he want to hand over preparations for the possible slaughter of Mansel Shale to this half-baked big-mouth? Didn’t Mansel merit a better angel of death than that, after all these years? Manse had a lot to be said for him, and Ralph wouldn’t at all have minded saying it, even if Manse might have to be put down for inescapable commercial reasons.

  ‘It’s not my sort of operation to see to Manse,’ Brown answered. ‘I mean, actually to see to him personally. Listen, Ralph, have you got the wrong notion, because I’m called Turret?’

  It enraged Ember to be addressed like that, ‘Listen,’ on his own property. ‘What wrong notion, Joachim?’

  ‘I don’t do hits.’

  ‘Hits?’

  ‘Shooting in a street battle is fine, entirely and efficiently fine. This is a matter of fighting for due territory, for respect, for security. But if you’re telling me to look for the clever moment to do Manse personally, and do it personally while I’m in there – that’s not on, Ralph.’

  ‘What I have in mind is standard business practice at a certain upper level. Perhaps you’re not familiar with it yet. Someone considered executive material – potential executive material – is second
ed in a career-expanding move to another business to learn – to absorb – its ways, its intricacies, first hand. A widening process,’ Ember explained.

  ‘There’s a basic difference between warfare and execution.’

  Seminar time. ‘Very much a matter of observing mood, tendencies, atmosphere, and reporting back,’ Ember said. ‘In some respects akin to an ambassadorial mission. That’s how I’d like you to think of it. I’m puzzled by this talk of “hits”.’

  ‘If it comes to carnage around the territory, I’ll be right there, sweetly with you, Ralph, my gun flair yours to count on. You’ll see then where the Turret name comes from. But I’m not one to step up behind Manse and put a few rounds into the back of his head, however noble and necessary the cause.’

  ‘Ambassadorial in the sense that these would be findings from someone embedded in the other, as it were, country – the other business, in this case – embedded and yet not entirely of it, and able to apply detachment, perceptiveness, judgement,’ Ember added.

  ‘Do you get the gap, the great gulf, I’m talking about, Ralphy? I’m a soldier, not an assassin. The trade unions would refer to this as a demarcation matter. Gunfire might be necessary in each role, but the application is different.