Venom

by Alan Scholefield

  There was a knock on his door and Ruth came in with the note she had written.

  “It’s all down here,” she said, handing it to him.

  “Oh.” He put the brandy glass behind him but he was aware that she had seen it. He took the note and read it. “You’ve forgotten one or two things, ” he said.

  “What?”

  “You haven’t put down Scotland Yard’s telephone number. Nor the Prime Minister’s. And what about the Archbishop of Canterbury, in case we need him?”

  “Very amusing.”

  “Well, it’s true. Everything here but the kitchen sink. You’re only going away for two days, Ruth. And there are three of us to look after him.”

  She stared at him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just teasing.” Too often their conversations turned into dialogues underpinned by tension.

  “Well, don’t.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t blame me for worrying.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “No.”

  “I know you think I imagine Philip’s illnesses. But you don’t know us all that well. You don’t know what it has been like.”

  “No.”

  “You think I worry too much, don’t you?”

  “I think you’ve got to let the boy stand on his own feet. You can’t live his life for him.”

  “But these illnesses were real. You don’t think I imagined asthma, do you? You don’t think bronchitis was just a cough and a sneeze?” She paused and the brisk, competent facade cracked. “I wish I wasn’t going. I don’t have to, you know. I can easily cancel. Michel doesn’t care one way–”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course you’re going. And you’re going to have a marvellous time. Vienna! Good Lord, most of us would jump at the chance to get a break from London in February. Worst damn month of all with its fogs and its cold. No, you’re going to let Dave drive you to the airport and you’re going to get on the plane and Bob’s your uncle, you’ll soon be sitting down in Vienna and having some of that chocolate cake with cream, what do they call it?”

  “Sachertorte. We’re staying at Sacher’s. I’ve written the telephone number down just in case.” She pointed to the note. “Ring any time. Doesn’t matter when.”

  “You’re doing it again, Ruth.”

  This time she ignored him. “Please put it away safely,” she said. It was an order; she was the mistress of the house once more.

  He waited until she had gone upstairs before he finished the brandy, then he took the note to his bedroom where there was a small writing table. He opened the right-hand drawer and immediately saw the letter. He put in Ruth’s note, hesitated, then took out the letter and read it for the sixth or seventh time. It had come at the beginning of the week and he supposed he must have read it once a day at least. Was it because it frightened him? Nonsense. All he had to do was say no. But did he want to say no? Or, put it another way: did he have the courage to say yes? He stared at the letter as if to gain some hidden clue that would help him to make his decision. It was an excellent notepaper, and so it should be, it belonged to the Georges V in Paris.

  “Dear Mr Howard” (he read). “Forgive me please for writing to you in this way but I am here only a day no more and I heard you were in London at M Blanchet’s home.” (That was an odd thing. How did he know? There had been a long article about Howard in the East African Standard when he had left Kenya, recalling his life and adventures and his final accident, but nothing in Europe. Still, he’d been pretty well-known in Nairobi and he supposed these hotel safari people were in and out of the place once or twice a year, especially someone looking for a man with experience. Anyone in the Stanley Bar could have told the writer he was in London. Perhaps he’d even met Blanchet.) “As you may have heard, my company, Hôtels Belgique Trans-Africain, is expanding once more in Africa . . .” (No, Howard thought, he hadn’t heard, why should he?) “. . . and we are building a new hotel with safari park on the west bank of Lake Kivu.

  “Although we have many hotels in Africa we do not yet have a safari park. This is why I write. Would such a venture interest you? To come and create something new, and then to make it a success?

  “I do not talk about such things as salary or conditions at this early stage, but rest assured we are not ungenerous. There is also a pension plan.

  “I go from here to my head office in Brussels and I will be in London about the middle of next week. I shall telephone you and perhaps we could meet. I look forward to it.” The signature was not clear; Howard thought it was “Barbot”, but could not be sure.

  He dropped the letter back in the drawer on top of Ruth’s note and closed it. Did he want to or not? He wandered into his sitting-room and stopped by the liquor tray. His hand went out to the brandy decanter but instead of picking it up he took his empty glass into the kitchenette and washed it. He felt a small glow of virtue. He rinsed the glass, dried it and put it away carefully. He didn’t have to make up his mind at that moment. Barbot, or whatever his name was, had said he would be in London the middle of next week. There was plenty of time. He returned to the window. A mist was blurring the outlines of the houses on the far side of the square; the whole picture was one of dank depression. Suddenly he yearned for Africa, for violent changes in colour, in the quality of light; for heat and dryness, for night air that washed over one like warm new milk, for strong sunlight, for food that stung the palate with chillies and spices, for all the violent contrasts of that land which was so unlike the one in which he now found himself.

  His mother had always talked of England as “home” and she had tried to keep one foot in Africa and one in a kind of Cheltenham-England to which she clung through the Illustrated London News, Country Life and The Lady. It had never been “home” to Howard even though he had spent all his school years there. Africa was his home and he still longed for it even after what it had done to him.

  Now he was being offered a chance to go back. He would have his own little empire again. Like Kivu. He had never been there but he knew it was on the border of what he still thought of as the Belgian Congo, and Rwanda-Burundi. It would be different from Kenya, and from the two Rhodesias which he had known in the days he had worked in the Colonial Service. It would be new, it would be a challenge, it would give him the chance to regain his place in the scheme of things instead of sitting about here drinking too much and pretending he was actually doing something for the money Blanchet was paying him.

  For a few seconds he felt buoyant, almost euphoric. There seemed nothing he could not do. And then, abruptly, as though the air had gone out of a balloon, he felt flat, assailed by apprehension and doubt. He was too old to start again; that was the bloody point: too old. But even as he formed the thoughts he knew they did not comprise the complete answer.

  In the distance a bell sounded. At first he thought it was the telephone, then he realized it was Philip’s big Mickey Mouse alarm clock. He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock. Not long now, he thought, and Ruth would be gone.

  * * *

  The black Pallas Citroen stood at the kerbside. Dave was holding the rear door, but Ruth was still in the front hall of the house as though unwilling, finally, to leave. Louise, Philip and Howard were all there. “Now, don’t forget,” she was saying to Philip. “I’m just at the end of a telephone line. Dick’s got the number. Any time you feel–”

  “Yes, mother, I will.”

  “And remember, no going out.”

  “No, mother.”

  “And Louise is going to make you escalope. You like escalope. I’ve made it myself–”

  “Ruth, you’re going to be late,” Howard said.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye. Have a super time.”

  “Look after yourself, darling.”

  She hugged Philip and then, almost without thinking, she raised her cheek to Howard and received a dry and somewhat abrasive touch.
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  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Madame.”

  “ ‘Bye, darling.”

  “Have a good time, Ruth, and don’t worry.”

  She went down the steps and into the big, waiting car. In a few moments it was lost in the traffic converging on Sloane Square. Dave was usually a reasonably steady driver but today he whipped the Pallas in and out of the slow-moving traffic until Ruth felt as though she were in a ship and not a car. He had not driven like this since the first time he had gone to the office to fetch Michel. Then he had used The Mall as a speedway. Michel had ordered him to stop at the end of Birdcage Walk, ordered him out of the car, told him that if he ever drove like that again he would be fired, and had then driven himself back to Eaton Square, leaving Dave to walk.

  Now he shot along the King’s Road, turned into Sloane Avenue and made for the Cromwell Road. She thought of ordering him to slow down but decided against giving him the opportunity to argue with her or try to ease the chip which he sometimes wore like a martyr’s crown. Each time she looked up she met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. She was glad to see that they lacked the knowing expression he often wore; instead they were preoccupied. She shifted her position to avoid them and was able to look at them without being seen. He was not bad looking, with blond hair and a strong body. As a youth he had suffered from acne and this had left a roughened face. She supposed he was about twenty-five and there was no doubt he had a strong animal attraction–though not for her, she hastened to qualify.

  She wondered if he and Louise were having an affair. Louise must be fifteen years older but that wouldn’t matter if she fancied him. She stared out at the seemingly endless line of semi-detacheds that spun past her and thought, as she always thought, when she saw them, that they represented some sort of record in ghastliness. But behind her thoughts lay the picture of Philip at the door of the house in the grey afternoon light.

  At the airport Dave stopped the car outside Terminal One and signalled to a porter. Then he had her door open. Usually he did this with a flourish at places like airports and hotels, sometimes giving her a look which said we know it’s all a game; but now, as she thanked him, she noticed that he did not meet her eyes. That was odd. It was unlike him. In a moment she was in the crowd making for the departure lounge.

  Dave stood on the pavement, the open door still in his hand, watching her enter the terminal. Good legs, he thought. His eyes travelled upwards and rested on the grey mutation mink coat. Rich bitch, he thought, with a sudden spurting of hot anger. Rich American bitch. He slammed the car door and went to the driving seat. The anger had made him tremble and his hands were unsteady as he lit a cigarette from the lighter on the dash. He took off his dark navy-blue cap, tilted the driving mirror so that he could see himself, then he brought out a comb and ran it through his hair, enjoying the sight of himself, cigarette in mouth, eyes screwed up against the smoke.

  There was a tap on the driver’s window and he swung round. A policeman was leaning down. Dave’s heart gave a sickening lurch. He touched a button and the window slid open.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the policeman said with heavy emphasis on the ‘sir’. “This is a no-parking area. Would you mind admiring yourself somewhere else.”

  “Sorry.” He touched the button and the window rose again. He started the car and swung away from the Terminal building. Once again anger rose. “Must have seen the cap,” he thought. “Never would have spoken like that if he hadn’t. Not to a bloke in a car like this. Bastard.”

  He drove on and turned into one of the car parks. He looked at his watch; he could hardly see the numerals for the darkness that had seeped into the grey afternoon. Fifteen minutes before the Madrid plane was due to land. He threw the half smoked cigarette out of the window and lit another. That copper had unsettled him. Well, fuck him. No problem. He hadn’t done anything. He leaned back in the seat and began to think about the money.

  * * *

  Philip was in the Great Ngorongoro Crater Menagerie. He had cleaned out the gerbils’ cages and now he was finishing the guinea-pig’s. He had wanted to leave these chores until he returned but Dick had said, “You don’t want to bring him into a dirty menagerie, do you?”

  “How do you know he’ll be a he?”

  “Instinct. Thought of a name for him yet?”

  “But what if he’s a she?”

  “Don’t know that I could tell off-hand. Never really examined them before. Always think of them as masculine. Anyway, try and think of one that would fit both.”

  He finished sweeping the bottom of Sweetypie’s cage and put her back in the fresh sawdust. “It was easy with you,” he said to the guinea-pig. “You just are a sweetypie.” He took the droppings in their sawdust and emptied them into the rubbish bin that stood in the dumb-waiter in the kitchen. When he returned to his room Howard was sitting on his bed.

  “All done, Phil?”

  “I’ll give them another clean-out tomorrow morning.”

  “Good boy. Ready?”

  Philip found that his heart was racing. “Yes,” he managed to say. For a moment he thought his breathing was going all haywire but he did what Dick had told him to do, closed his mouth and breathed evenly through his nose, and the spasm passed.

  “Get your coat on and I’ll phone the taxi rank in the square.” He heard Dick go downstairs to his own flat to phone. He supposed that was because of Louise. It was their secret–his and Dick’s–and there was no reason to share it with anyone else.

  He heard Dick coming back up the stairs but even as he did so he saw the curtain over his passage window drop back into place. Almost immediately the bedroom door was thrown open and Louise came in. She looked flustered. “What do you do, chéri?” she said, pointing at the coat.

  “He’s going out,” Howard said from the doorway.

  She turned sharply. “Madame say–”

  “I know what Madame said. Taxi’s on its way, Phil.”

  “You cannot do this. The child is–”

  “He’s only going out for a short time, don’t worry.”

  “Yes! It is I who worry! You–”

  “Come on, Phil.”

  “No! Madame say he must not go!”

  “Madame isn’t here now,” Howard said, with a slight edge to his voice. “I’m in charge and I say he can.”

  “You! You are in charge! Cest impossible!” She gave a short barking laugh without mirth. “You! Who is going to look after Philippe if he is getting sick again? You?”

  “He’s not going to get sick. That’s the trouble with all of you. You keep on talking about him getting sick. No wonder it affects him.”

  There was a ring at the door. “That’s the taxi,” Philip said.

  “Fine. Ready?”

  Louise threw herself between them. “Philippe, your mother say you must never go out in cold like this. You will get sick. You know–”

  Howard caught Philip by the arm and led him from the room. “For God’s sake keep out of this!” he said viciously to Louise. “You’re only the bloody servant. Remember that!”

  She chased them down the staircase to the ground floor making small but ineffectual grabbing movements at Philip’s arm. “Stop!” she shouted several times. “You must not let him away.” Her English, never good, began to disappear.

  Howard pulled open the front door. An elderly man with a grey-yellow tea-strainer moustache stood on the front step. “Taxi, sir.”

  “That’s right,” Howard said. “Got the money, Phil?”

  “You cannot!” Louise shouted, pulling now at Philip’s collar. “It is too cold.”

  Howard tried to smile at the taxi-driver. “She thinks it’s too cold for the boy.”

  “Nasty sort of day,” the driver said, stepping back down the steps.

  “Off you go, Phil.”

  Philip jumped into the back of the cab and heard the door close behind him. He looked up. Louise’s face was at the window, distorted by the glass, the mouth twisted, the e
yes bulging. She looked frightful. She was signalling with one hand and trying to open the door with the other. He saw Dick come up behind her, take her by the arm and pull her backwards on to the pavement. As though in fear of his life the driver pulled away from the kerb and drove two hundred yards down the square before he reached behind him and slid open the dividing window. “Where to, son?” he said.

  This was the beginning of the test which he and Dick had gone over several times. He gave the address of Loewenthal’s shop in Camden Town and sank back with relief against the seat. Again he could feel the irregular beating of his heart and the constriction at his chest. He closed his mouth and began to breathe evenly through his nose. “You all right?” the driver said with some concern. Philip nodded, keeping on with his steady breathing. “Warm enough?” Philip nodded again. “Don’t you worry, son, you won’t catch cold in my cab. It’s got heating.” He closed the hatch and drove across the square, heading in the direction of the park.

  It was a longish drive from Eaton Square to Camden Town and Philip had time to calm down and look about him with fresh eyes. This was an historic moment, the first time he had ever been in a taxi by himself. He always travelled with Dave, to and from school. He did not like Dave, they never spoke and Dave never got out of the car to open the door as he did when either his mother or Michel was there. He sensed a cruelty in Dave that frightened him and he was glad when the holidays came so that he would not be alone with him. His taxi-driver, on the other hand, had seemed a friendly man. He stared out of the window, still breathing regularly, but without conscious effort now. This had been the first thing he noticed about Loewenthal when they had bought the original pair of gerbils; the wheezing breath and the size. He was a very fat man who wore a black skull cap, and Philip had wondered if he too suffered from asthma, he wheezed so much as he moved about his shop, but Dick had said, “It’s all that fat that’s making him wheeze. My . . . A girl I once knew used to have a dog like that. Dachshund. Kept on feeding it chocolates and biscuits, and finally it got so fat it could hardly move. It wheezed.” Dick did not often mention the girl. Once Philip had asked him about her and he had said, “Jane? Afraid she got lost in the shuffle,” and changed the subject.