Solitaire

by Masterton, Graham

  But even his money could not protect Barney from tragedy and violence. Two days later, without any warning, Alsjeblieft began to shiver and shake and foam at the mouth, and he had to call in Dr Schoeman to give him medication. ‘He’s old,’ Dr Schoeman told him, coming out of the stable and tugging down his sleeves. ‘The kindest thing you can do is to put him down.’

  Barney said, ‘But he did everything. He made my fortune for me.’

  ‘All the more reason to be kind to him,’ said Dr Schoeman, his eyes as blue and bulging as those glass marbles which English schoolboys called Sea-Blue Sailors.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ said Barney.

  Dr Schoeman shrugged. ‘He’s only going to suffer. His liver’s gone.’

  Later than evening, while Joel was laughing in the living-room with Mary, Barney went outside with his Shopkeeper’s pistol, fully loaded, and walked around the house to the stable. The insects chirped and chirruped in the scrub all around him, and high above Kimberley the full moon was suspended bright and cold, the temptation of an age yet to come. He hesitated by the kraal gate, and then he went inside, and crossed the kraal towards the stable.

  Alsjeblieft was lying on his side in the straw, his eyes wide, panting as he breathed. There were flecks of foam around his mouth. He raised his head slightly as Barney came in.

  Barney tugged at his mane. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked gently. ‘Pretty bad, hunh? You have a krenk?’ He was conscious of how nearly he sounded like his mother, on those winter days in New York when he had stayed home, in bed, with a snuffle.

  Alsjeblieft whinnied, and his throat was thick with fluid. Barney stroked his shoulder, and thought of all the miles and all the days they had travelled together, Alsjeblieft and he, and how Pieter had sat in the old horse’s saddle and pretended that he was a soldier, a Life Guard of Her Majesty the Queen.

  ‘I hope you forgive me,’ said Barney, and raised the muzzle of his revolver so that it pointed directly between Alsjeblieft’s ears. Alsjeblieft seemed to sense that something was wrong, because he shifted on his straw, and almost tried to get up on to his knees.

  ‘Forgive me, alsjeblieft,’ Barney asked him, and then there was a very loud, flat shot, and the horse collapsed on to his pallet with a sigh that sounded human. Maybe it was a sigh of relief. Barney stood up, with the heavy pistol hanging in his hand, and looked down at the horse with a choking feeling in his chest. Then he left the stable and walked outside, breathing with as much difficulty as a man who has run a quarter of a mile in his veld boots.

  Joel came hurrying out with his shirt tail flapping out of his trousers. ‘What’s the matter? What’s all the shooting about?’

  Barney nodded towards the stable. ‘Alsjeblieft,’ he said. ‘Dr Schoeman said it was the best thing to do.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’m sorry. I know what that horse meant to you.’

  ‘And to you, too, Joel. Without that old horse, we never could have afforded those four claims.’

  Joel clapped his arm around Barney’s shoulders. ‘You know your trouble, Barney? You’re too sentimental. You saved up the money for those claims by working your backside off, and that’s all. If you weren’t so sentimental, maybe you would have found yourself a decent woman by now.’

  ‘Like Mary?’ asked Barney, sarcastically.

  ‘Mary’s all right. There’s nothing wrong with Mary. And you can take my word for it that she’s a genuine redhead.’

  Barney irritably twisted himself free from Joel’s arm. ‘I’m not in the mood, Joel. That’s all. I don’t forget anybody who’s done me a favour, whether it’s a human or a horse.’

  ‘Meaning that I do? Meaning that I should have to spend the rest of my life being humbly grateful to you for dragging me halfway across the Orange Free State in an ox-waggon, and having me operated on by some halfwitted British surgeon, so that I could have the privilege of walking around like a cripple? God, you’re sanctimonious.’

  Barney stopped, and seized the front of Joel’s shirt. ‘Listen,’ he breathed, his jaw protruding with aggression, ‘one more word out of you and I’ll break your other leg.’

  Joel pushed him away. ‘One day you’re going to stop threatening me, young Barney. The trouble with you is, your intellect gives out too early and then all you have to fall back on is your fists. All these fancy clothes, all these pretensions. A mansion you want, called Vogel Vlei? Why don’t you call it Knishes?’

  Barney rubbed the back of his neck, easing his wired-up muscles. ‘Just leave it, will you, Joel?’

  ‘Come on, now, you threatened to break my leg. I should leave? Let you walk away forgiven? I shouldn’t say my piece about what kind of a hypocritical bastard you’ve turned out to be? And don’t try to say that you’re not. You’re so damned hypocritical that you keep your little black woman tucked away in Klipdrift, as well as your half-caste son; while at the same time you prance around Kimberley complaining to all those goyish cretins about the kaffirs, and how primitive the Bantu are. You should realise, Barney – those goys don’t respect you, whatever you say. They think that you’re just as untouchable as the blackies. So don’t try to match your prejudice with theirs. You’ll never win.’

  Barney listened to this in silence, and then stopped by the verandah steps. ‘You’ve got me wrong, Joel. All wrong. There’s only one thing I want out of life, and that’s money. You see that mine out there? I want all of it. Then, I can do or say whatever I want and it won’t matter.’

  ‘You can do or say whatever you want right now.’

  Barney shook his head. ‘Not now. But the time will come.’

  ‘When? When you’re rich enough? You’re pretty rich now.’

  ‘When the whole of that Big Hole belongs to me. That’s when.’

  Joel gave him a sardonic grin. ‘I see. That’s when you’re going to declare that you were born a Jew, that you’ve always been a Jew, and that you’re always going to go to the synagogue and say your prayers, until they bury you in the ground. But not before then, right?’

  ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘Or what? You’ll hit me? You’ve got the gun this time. Why don’t you shoot me?’

  ‘I should have shot you a long time ago. You’ve been sicker than Alsjeblieft for years.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now, Barney,’ said Joel, hopping towards him on his one good leg. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to act the outraged little brother? Because of that black woman? Is that it? There are twenty black women at least as good as her down on Main Street right now, and you could have any one of them for two pounds ten. I saved you that day! I saved you from yourself! Why, if you’d been married now –’

  Barney raised the Shopkeeper’s pistol and fired at Joel point-blank. He deliberately aimed to miss, of course, by more than three feet. But the sharp report of the gun stopped Joel right where he was, wide-eyed, his hands raised up to his chest in the posture of a frightened animal, and when Barney turned around to climb up the verandah steps, he was still standing there, his mouth opening and closing noiselessly, and the echo of the pistol shot was still racketing around the Kimberley kopjes like a shout of hatred that could never be forgotten.

  Later that evening, Barney took the small ox-waggon and drove up to the site of Vogel Vlei. It was past ten o’clock, but the moon had not yet set, and the outlines of the foundations could clearly be seen in the darkness. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, the wind blowing his curly hair, and he could imagine for a moment the dinners he would hold here, in the dining-room; and the games of billiards he would play with Kimberley’s diamond-dealers; and he could imagine the dances he would arrange on summer evenings, with the rows of French windows open to the lawns, and the waltz music wafting out over the trees.

  Then he thought of Mooi Klip, and the moon as it sank was reflected in perfect miniature in the tear that formed in his eye.

  By the winter of 1878, Vogel Vlei was almost completed. It was an E-shaped, symmetrical mansion in the English co
untry house style, with a stables for eight horses, a kraal for oxen, and a magnificent gravelled courtyard in front of the main entrance, with a fountain which Barney’s architect had bought in Ravenna, Italy, and which had been laboriously carried on ox-waggons across the Great Karoo in sixteen separate pieces. It did not matter that there was not enough water on Barney’s estate to make the fountain actually work. He had a fountain, and that was impressive enough on its own.

  Mooi Klip allowed Barney to take Pieter down to Kimberley one weekend, to inspect the new house. She declined to come herself, although Barney tried hard to persuade her. She was being cautiously courted these days by a young Griqua farmer, a very tall young man with noticeably Dutch looks about him called Coen Boonzaier. He and Mooi Klip were going to take advantage of Pieter’s absence to visit friends along the Vaal River.

  Barney took Pieter’s hand and led him in through the carved oak doors of Vogel Vlei to the pillared hallway, with its shining parquet floors, and its decorative and sweeping curved staircase. Pieter was six now, a composed and dignified little boy, and his mother had dressed him in cream and beige union suit, with a brown bonnet. He was tall for his age, with big feet, and he had a very grave way of talking which amused strangers but which Barney always found touching.

  As he grew older, Pieter was changing more and more to look like his mother; and Barney would sometimes sit him on his knee and stare at him for minutes on end, remembering the brown wide-apart eyes, the smoky-coloured curls, and the lips which had once parted to kiss him, and to tell him that she would marry him and love him for ever.

  ‘Well, what do you think of the house?’ Barney asked Pieter.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Pieter.

  ‘Fine? It’s magnificent! It’s the best house in Kimberley! It’s probably the best house in the whole colony!’

  Pieter looked around the empty uncarpeted rooms, echoing and bare. So far, Barney had not decided on any drapes or furniture or decorations. He had not been entirely sure what to do. His architect had suggested a few names of decorators in Capetown – the man who had furnished Sir Henry Sarkly’s house for him, and the company of designers who had converted the old Quinn house from a model of Georgian serenity into a confusion of Victorian over-indulgence. But Barney had demurred. He had vague and persistent memories of Khotso, and he wanted Vogel Vlei to have the same atmosphere. Elegant, immaculate, but also relaxed.

  ‘Can I go home?’ asked Pieter, in his strong Afrikaans accent.

  ‘This is your home,’ said Barney, laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, it’s one of your homes, at least.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like home.’

  ‘No, not yet. But it will, I promise you. And I promise you something else. You will always be welcome here, no matter what. You’re my son, my only boy, and my first boy, and I want you to remember that, because it’s important. If you want to tell people that Barney Blitz is your father, then it’s all right by me. In fact, I’ll be proud of it. In fact, I’ll be more than proud of it.’

  ‘Mama won’t marry you,’ said Pieter, flatly.

  Barney looked down at Pieter, and Pieter was so much like his mother that it gave him a strange sensation of unreality. ‘She says she won’t.’

  ‘Is it because of Uncle Joel?’

  ‘Uncle Joel?’ asked Barney, and his voice echoed across the oak flooring. He could see a reflection of himself and Pieter in the long line of French windows opposite, two pale figures in a huge sunlit room. ‘Well – I suppose it’s partly because of Uncle Joel.’

  ‘She doesn’t like him.’

  ‘How do you know? She never told you that.’

  Pieter blushed. ‘I know. But I just know she doesn’t like him.’

  ‘I see.’

  They inspected the first floor in silence. The ballroom. The library. The dining-room. The kitchens, with their cold black ranges, and their bare beams. Everywhere they went, there was a sharp smell of newly-cut wood, and plaster.

  Upstairs, looking out of the landing window over the few straggling trees which formed the southern border of Vogel Vlei, Pieter said suddenly, ‘I love you.’

  Barney looked at him cautiously. ‘You love me? You really mean that?’

  Pieter turned towards him, and Barney could see that his son’s eyes were tight with tears, and his mouth was downturned. ‘Mama says you’re good. And I know you are. But she cries. Why can’t you stay with Mama, instead of going away every time?’

  Barney knelt down, and held Pieter tight in his arms. He tangled his fingers into the baby curls at the back of Pieter’s neck, and then he said gently, ‘Sometimes things happen whether we want them to happen or not. I was going to stay with your mama once, but things went wrong. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t your mama’s fault, either. But they did, and now we don’t seem to be able to get back together again.’

  ‘Can I ask her?’ said Pieter.

  ‘Can you ask her what?’

  ‘Can I ask her to have you back with us, to stay?’

  Barney stood up, his hands on his hips, and looked around the deserted living-room. ‘You can ask her if she wants to come and live here.’

  Pieter looked away.

  ‘You don’t want to ask her?’ Barney queried. ‘Or is it that you don’t want to live here yourself?’

  Pieter said, ‘It’s not home. Mama won’t think it’s home. Your other house is home.’

  ‘The bungalow? But that’s just a – well, it’s just a bungalow.’

  ‘This isn’t home,’ insisted Pieter.

  ‘Of course it’s home. It’s the biggest home in the whole of Kimberley. Come on, Pieter, I haven’t even moved in yet. But when I do, then you’ll see how friendly it is. I promise you.’

  At that moment, Harold Feinberg’s voice called, ‘Hallooo? Anyone at home?’

  ‘There you are,’ Barney told Pieter. ‘I told you it was home.’

  Harold came squeaking into the living-room on soft black-leather pumps, and took off his sun helmet. He was breathing rather noisily, as if he had walked all the way from his office.

  ‘Home?’ he said. ‘This place will never be home to anyone, least of all you.’

  ‘You want to make a bet on that?’

  ‘If you like. I bet you my best diamond of the day against your best diamond of the day, that on New Year’s Day, next year, you won’t even be living here.’

  ‘Jewish or Gregorian New Year’s Day?’

  Harold Feinberg pulled an expression of mock outrage. ‘Jewish, of course. Just because you’ve given up your religion, that doesn’t mean to say that I have.’

  Barney laid his hand on Pieter’s shoulder. Harold said, ‘That boy’s growing, you know. I don’t know what his mother’s feeding him, fertilizer, maybe? – but he’s growing.’

  ‘Of course he’s growing. He’s six years old.’

  ‘Your son and heir, huh?’ asked Harold.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So why don’t you marry the mother?’

  Barney took a slow breath. ‘I would, if she’d have me.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ retorted Harold, pacing across the bare floorboards with exaggerated steps. He stopped, silhouetted against the sunlight that flared in from the uncurtained window. ‘You wouldn’t marry her for nothing.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ asked Barney, more cuttingly than he meant to.

  ‘What do I know about it? I’m a diamond dealer. And if you want to know about human nature, I’m your man. Come on, Barney, you’ve seen it for yourself, when you were out kopje-walloping. Greed, you’ve seen, haven’t you, and despair, and hopelessness, and ridiculous optimism? You’ve seen all of those.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well – you may recognise those things in other people – but maybe you don’t see them in yourself. When I look at you, do you know what I see?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Barney, brusquely. ‘What?’

  ‘I see ambition. That’s what I see. I se
e ambition, and I see one thing more.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘I see you burning yourself out before you’re forty-five. A young death. Because, believe me, you’ve already got the kind of house that most people can only dream about, and you’re making more money in one week that most English people make in a year. Do you know how much they pay a butler, these days, a fully-trained buder, in an English household? Seventy-five pounds a year. A year! And you’re making two thousand pounds in a week.’

  ‘You’re not doing-too badly yourself, Harold.’

  ‘You think I’m in the business for money? I’m in business for satisfaction. I’m in business because it’s good for my digestion. But let me tell you something. You won’t ever live here, not happily, anyway; and that poor boy won’t ever be your son and heir.’

  Barney said, ‘What the hell gives you the right to say something like that?’

  Harold Feinberg lifted his hands in pretended innocence. ‘I say it because it’s true.’

  ‘It’s true, is it? Well, let me tell you something. This boy is my son, and my heir, and when I die everything that I own will belong to him.’

  Harold Feinberg came across to Pieter, and took a half-crown from the pocket of his grey vest. ‘You hear that, my boy? he asked. ‘Your papa’s just bequeathed you everything. His house, his diamonds, his broken heart. They’re all going to be yours.’

  ‘Harold,’ warned Barney.

  Harold stood up straight. ‘I’m sorry. I was brought up in Whitechapel. It makes your tongue a little sharper than it should be.’

  ‘You didn’t come here to give Pieter a half-crown, did you? Or to spend your afternoon baiting me?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I came to tell you that the Belgian Company right next to yours want to dispose of their claims, provided they can get a reasonable price.’

  ‘Westerlo? Are you sure? But they own eight and a half claims.’

  ‘With your money, you should be able to afford them.’

  ‘What are they asking?’

  ‘Two hundred thousand. Cheap at the price, I can tell you.’

  Barney pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and made a face. ‘I’d go to one-eighty, but no more.’