Against the Tide

by John Hanley

  ‘Only some silly school boy stuff – from that play we were in.’

  ‘Oh, when you played Shylock. I thought that was very brave, Jack.’

  Saul looked shocked, though his tone was mocking. ‘Why? It was a privilege for him.’

  Further banter was suspended when the final party entered the room from the hotel entrance. All the guests swivelled in their chairs to watch.

  Hayden-Brown led in the two Germans Hélène had identified, Kempler and Schmitz. The latter did seem to have a slight limp. The overweight Sleeman bustled after them. They all waited patiently at the table while Sir Edward Fairfield made a fuss about escorting a woman through the double doors.

  I’d never met her but I could see Mum’s finger hovering over her photograph. The years hadn’t been kind to her – she looked frail and drawn, almost haggard – but there was no doubt it was Isobelle.

  The men bustled about her, arguing about where she should sit. Fairfield won and placed her between him and Kempler. Hayden-Brown bowed politely to everyone in the room, though he looked puzzled when he saw us.

  He smiled uncertainly then sat down. The guests applauded politely then resumed their conversations. How long before a waiter appeared to eject us?

  Saul pointed to the two empty seats at our table. There was no sign of Kohler or Caroline. Was she planning to bring Rudi to sit with us?

  The adrenaline surged again and I put my menu down before it started to shake in my hands. The waiter arrived with our champagne, which Saul examined before he told him to open it.

  ‘“Bollinger” ‘28. That was a good vintage. Should be fine.’

  ‘Christ, that’s eleven years old, how much will that cost?’

  ‘Too rich for you, Jack? Don’t worry. The meal’s all taken care of, according to Caroline. Of course, if you don’t want to accept her hospitality, you could always go “Dutch” – talk of the devil.’

  I refused to look and turned to Rachel instead, but I could see it in her eyes. I watched them closely. It might have been a trick of the reflections from the sinking sun but they seemed to glow with a fire I hadn’t seen before. Perhaps there was more than one score to be settled this evening.

  I judged Caroline’s progress to the table by the increasingly ironic smile on Rachel’s face which grew in defiance of the coldness which slowly crept into her eyes, until the fire was extinguished and our hostess had arrived.

  I heard the rustle of her dress before I was almost overwhelmed by her perfume – jasmine, musk and an abundance of rose so strong it seemed to encircle my throat and constrict my breathing. I remembered this one for the inherent irony. Joy, the most expensive in the world and, on Caroline, so inappropriately named.

  “Lust full of forged lies.” Those lines would haunt me. I shut my eyes to focus better on her presence, trying to understand why I was quivering with anticipation. Trying desperately to work out what I felt for this woman who seemed to have such power over me. I hated her, wanted to humiliate her for what her mother had done, for what she had done, but when I reached for the sword of my anger, I couldn’t pull it loose.

  I sensed her confusion, her hesitation as she hovered behind me. I opened my eyes and looked into Rachel’s. The coldness had evaporated and all I saw was sadness beyond my reach. She shut her eyes and I stood up, breathed deeply and turned slowly to face my nemesis.

  39

  She was dressed in white – an ice maiden pulsing with the energy and confidence of one who didn’t need to look to see that every eye in the room had followed her from entrance to table. I fought to keep my face neutral and de-focused my eyes to avoid responding to hers as she searched my face for an explanation. I bowed politely. She leant forward over the back of my chair and brushed her lips gently against my right cheek. Her hair smelt of apples and cinnamon as it flicked against my face. The heat from her cheek burnt my ear as she turned away, moved around to Rachel and kissed the air beside each of her cheeks. She rustled round the table to Saul for a more intimate embrace.

  Finally, she turned to Kohler, who was standing away from the table in no-man’s-land. ‘I know that Jack has met him, but allow me to introduce Rudi Kohler, Rachel.’

  Kohler bowed but stopped short of clicking his heels.

  ‘Saul Marcks.’

  Kohler reached across, offered his hand but barely touched fingers.

  Saul chuckled wryly. ‘A pleasure, sir. I don’t think I’ve met any real Dutchmen before.’

  Caroline assumed command. ‘Well, we’re all here. It’s a bit unbalanced with only two girls, but I’ll sit between you two. Jack, you move around and sit next to Saul so Rudi can sit next to Rachel.’

  I followed my instructions and just avoided bumping shoulders with Kohler, who seemed slightly unsteady as he moved past to take his seat.

  ‘Ah, champagne. Good. Are you joining us, Jack, or are you back on the wagon?’

  ‘I think he can handle it now he’s had some experience, Caroline. I’m sure he won’t spill any.’ Rachel’s tone was as clear as the crystal glass she waved in her rival’s direction.

  Kohler clapped his hands together. ‘Good, let us enjoy a pleasant evening. We put bad times behind us, yes?’ He reached across Caroline and offered me his hand.

  Given the angle, it was impossible for me to respond without elbowing Caroline out of the way so I stood up and we shook behind her back. I was pleased to note that the “Dutchman’s” nose was still slightly swollen and he seemed to have yellow bruising around his eye sockets. His cheeks were also rather red. Had he been drinking already?

  I caught Brewster nodding his approval and drawing Phillips’ attention to the gesture. I must have imagined it but the room seemed to draw a collective sigh of relief.

  The Bollinger was poured and Saul offered a toast to “international relations” without the slightest irony in his voice.

  Kohler responded with one for “European unity”.

  I raised my glass to “justice” at which point Caroline interrupted. ‘That’s enough of that – we’ll be drunk before the meal starts. Well, what are we having?’

  The others examined their menus in silence while the waiters hovered. I looked at Caroline surreptitiously as I pretended to study mine. Her cheeks were flushed and it wasn’t from rouge. And she was worried about us getting drunk? I felt sure she had made a good start with Kohler before they arrived at the table. In his room probably and perhaps the flush wasn’t just the alcohol.

  I caught Rachel looking at me and thought she shook her head to tell me to stop torturing myself. I didn’t feel like eating at all but settled on the remoulade of artichoke followed by consommé chantilly. A selection of olives, nuts and celery would be served after the first course but I wondered if the meal would last that long.

  Everyone ordered an entrée, with the men settling on a meat dish which stood little chance of living up to its lavish description.

  Caroline ignored the menu and asked for a very small fresh Jersey plaice with no sauce.

  Rachel expressed surprise at her lack of appetite and asked if she could have a large one in a butter sauce.

  One nil to her.

  Saul started a discourse on women’s obsession with their figures until Caroline cut him short with an observation on his crassness and his waistline being in equal proportion to each other.

  The others laughed and sipped their champagne more rapidly.

  I brooded. Did Hayden-Brown know his daughter had invited us? What was Caroline’s mother doing here? Did anyone else know about her and my father? Where were the diamonds?

  The tension around the table was palpable. Saul looked as though he was calculating an attack, though I wasn’t sure which of them was his target.

  Caroline had invited Rachel for a purpose but I couldn’t fathom it. Perhaps I should just wait until she made the first move. She had something planned – I was sure of that. With six more courses to come, there was no shortage of time.

  During the break f
or queen olives and celery, I caught Saul experimenting with the discarded stones on the tip of his knife. Was he planning to launch them in the general direction of the head’s table or fire them at Kohler?

  Rachel quietly intervened and removed his plate before he could take his plan any further.

  I leant over to Saul and whispered Shylock’s famous aside: ‘‘How like a fawning publican he looks!’’’

  ‘Who? Not me I hope’

  ‘“I hate him for he is a German.”’

  Saul laughed at the transposition of German for Christian. ‘Don’t misquote the Bard – Grumpy will excommunicate you.’

  ‘“If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. Cursed be my tribe, if I forgive him!”’

  ‘What are you two talking about? It’s rude to have private conversations. Come on, Jack, share your joke with us.’ Caroline didn’t understand the concept of whispering and her voice carried over the waiters who were now trying to serve the consommé.

  ‘Nothing. I was just quoting some Shakespeare.’

  ‘Ah, the English obsession with their great playwright. Tell me, Jack, why is he so popular when ninety percent of your population don’t understand his language?’ Kohler leant forward to speak to me over the arm of the waiter fussing over Caroline, his grey eyes slightly unfocused.

  Saul bared his teeth ready to reply but I beat him to it.

  ‘Many reasons, Rudi. I suppose the main one is he’s English, he’s ours. He writes about our history, has sympathy for the underdog but, most of all, he is inspiring. Not everyone may be able to read his language easily, but everyone understands his stories.’

  ‘Most of which he stole from other writers.’ Kohler smirked, his soup spoon halfway to his mouth.

  ‘I don’t suppose he translates very well into German, though.’ Saul got his barb in just as the spoon reached Kohler’s mouth.

  To my satisfaction, the thrust was so unexpected that Kohler dropped the spoon into the plate, splattering his shirt. A waiter fussed over him with a napkin, which gave him time to recover.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it does. German is a very precise language, rather like Dutch. His sloppy English is difficult to transpose. It might fit into French or Italian though.’

  Saul said, ‘We were actually discussing the Merchant of Venice. Do you know it, Rudi?’

  He wiped his napkin over his mouth before replying. ‘Is that the play where the Jew tries to cut a pound of flesh from the merchant?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So, nothing changes. Only now the Hebrews want more than a pound of flesh, yes?’ He laughed but no one responded.

  ‘Actually, Shakespeare gives a more balanced view. I played Shylock in our college production. Saul, who doesn’t look it with his red hair but is actually Jewish, played the Merchant, Antonio. It was a challenge for both of us.’ I smiled at Saul. ‘I think we both learned a lot.’

  Kohler stiffened slightly but didn’t change his expression. Of course Caroline might have already told him about Saul. His name was a bit of a give away so perhaps I had imagined the German’s reaction.

  Caroline pushed her soup away. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that Shylock tried to murder Antonio though, does it, Jack? I’m sorry but I didn’t feel any sympathy for him. He got his just desserts in the end. Not because he was Jewish, but because he was a miserable bastard. He reminded me of someone else I know.’ She glared in the general direction of her father. ‘That greedy –’

  Rachel interrupted. ‘But it’s not just about race, is it? I haven’t had the privilege of a classical education like all of you but I saw the play and even I realised that the meanness of spirit which drives Shylock has nothing to do with his religion.’

  We all stared in surprise at Rachel’s intervention.

  She continued. ‘I can’t quote from the play like you two but I did understand what that woman who was dressed as the lawyer, said –’

  ‘You mean Portia,’ Saul interrupted. ‘‘The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath –”’

  ‘Oh stop showing off, Saul,’ Rachel retorted.

  She was right. The only one who spoke any sense. She would have made a far better Portia than the diva we’d borrowed from the girls’ college.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, that’s enough of the bloody Bard.’ Caroline gulped down her glass of Chablis Grand Crux, which Saul had ordered with the first course. ‘How the hell did we get started on him again?’ She glared at me. ‘Isn’t there something more interesting to talk about?’

  ‘How about Danzig?’ volunteered Saul. ‘I understand Mr Chamberlain’s latest speech has gone down a bomb in Berlin. What do you think, Rudi?’

  ‘I’m afraid your Prime Minister is talking through his top hat. Danziggers have every right to return to their fatherland. If he seriously expects the world community to believe that Danzig belongs to Poland then the world might start to believe that Gibraltar belongs to Spain.’ Kohler clearly felt pleased with his overarching statement, which I thought sounded similar to something in a Goebbels speech which had been reported in the Evening Post.

  I glimpsed a secret smile on Caroline’s lips. So was this her plan? To encourage us to provoke Kohler into defending Germany so openly he might confess his nationality in public? It couldn’t be too obvious though – he might just walk away. We had to suck him in a bit more.

  ‘You might be right there, Rudi. It is a complicated situation and we mustn’t be hypocritical. Besides, international affairs are far too contentious. Why don’t we talk about music?’ I nudged Caroline gently with my elbow. ‘What do you think? Is music international or tribal?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Jack? Tribal music?’ she asked.

  ‘I meant, does each country have its own identity in music or is it universal? I know the Italians seem to have hijacked the language.’

  ‘How observant of you. Are you suggesting that only Italians identify with Verdi and Puccini, that the French only love –’

  ‘Themselves,’ interrupted Saul. ‘No, Jack’s talking about identity in music. I think he means, can you tell the nationality of composer by the way his music sounds? Am I right, Jack?’

  ‘Sort of. For example, Beethoven. He’s Austrian. Are the emotions his music provokes really those peculiar to that nation? Are Tchaikovsky’s just appropriate for the Russians? Are Chopin’s for the Poles –’

  Kohler interrupted. ‘What about the English, Jack? Don’t you have any composers of your own?’

  Caroline turned on him. ‘Yes, of course we do. And bloody emotional they are as well. Think of Elgar and “Land of Hope and Glory.”’

  Kohler pushed his chair back. ‘I think I understand what Jack is talking about. The British are militaristic and so is their music. The Italians are romantic and theirs reflects that. The Germans, who I believe would lay claim to Beethoven, are strong and emotional –’

  ‘What about the Poles, though, Rudi? Are they militaristic? Will they fight?’ I spoke softly, daringly.

  Kohler twisted his napkin in his hands as he looked around the room. ‘I’m not a musician but perhaps I can answer that with an example. Chopin is a typical Pole, is he not?’

  Caroline answered, ‘Yes and a real patriot.’

  Kohler pushed himself up and stood behind Caroline’s chair. ‘Well, let me play you a short piece by Chopin and you tell me.’ He stepped out towards the bandstand, rolling slightly as if the dining room was on a cruise liner at sea.

  ‘Can he play?’ I asked Caroline.

  ‘I have no idea. This should raise the temperature though – assuming he doesn’t fall off the stool.’

  ‘Was this your plan, to provoke him?’

  ‘He’s not as bad as you think, Jack.’

  There wasn’t an immediate answer to that so I changed the subject. ‘Who organised this function? It’s not a normal evening meal, is it?’

&n
bsp; ‘My father invited a few people to celebrate his business deal. You know the people with him, Rudi’s uncle, his associate, whose name I’ve forgotten.’

  I almost interrupted with the correct name but bit my tongue just in time.

  She didn’t notice. ‘The sleazy-looking one is from Belgium and I think you know Sir Edward.’

  ‘Sir Edward?’

  ‘Fairfield, the banker. I’m sure I told you.’

  ‘Oh, yes and who’s the woman with him?’

  She hesitated and covered the pause by sipping her wine. ‘Not sure, we haven’t been introduced.’

  And there it was – her first blatant lie. How many others had there been?

  She carried on, oblivious to my expression. ‘There are some lawyers behind you, some local bankers on the other side –’

  ‘What about Brewster and the people from the club?’

  ‘Oh, he’s just thanking them for looking after me and being kind to Rudi… and, before you ask, I didn’t know your Uncle Ralph and his hangers-on were coming.’

  ‘So you invited us just to show off your new friend.’

  She glared at me, her colour rising again. ‘Grow up, Jack. Don’t be so prejudiced.’

  I clenched my fists under the table, not daring to ask the questions I really wanted answering as Kohler fiddled with the piano stool.

  Without any warning to the other diners, he started to play. The music was slow, deliberate, precise, but lacking in emotion. It conjured up images of slow moving troops, smartly dressed but without menace – on parade.

  I hissed at her, ‘What’s this called?’

  ‘It’s Chopin’s Polonaise Number Three – “Military”. He’s playing reasonably well – too much pedal and the left hand is rather pedantic, but he’s making his point in a ponderous way.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Chopin and, by implication, Poland, is military. It’s strong but not powerful. There’s no emotion in the notes and it ends without any crescendo. He’s actually a lot more subtle than I thought.’