Solitaire

by Masterton, Graham

  Agnes stared down at their hands for a long time. Each of them was wearing a wedding-band. ‘I suppose you want me to go, then?’ she said.

  ‘Agnes –’

  ‘I can’t very well stay, can I, when I’ve thrust myself on a man who hasn’t even invited me? I don’t even go out with diggers unless they ask me first. I’m not a fallen woman. Not quite, anyway. I still read the Morning Post, and pour my milk into my tea last.’

  Barney lowered his head. ‘Agnes, I’d like you to stay.’

  ‘You’re just saying that to preserve my dignity.’

  ‘I think I’ve been through too much to start worrying about dignity, either yours or mine.’

  ‘Dear Barney,’ she said, lightly kissing his eyebrows, and the bridge of his nose. ‘I was so fond of you. I wish Daddy hadn’t made such a fuss about your being Jewish.’

  Barney kissed her back, at the side of the mouth, and then softly on the lips. ‘I suppose everybody has to cling on to something. I cling on to my ambitions, and your father clings on to the Kimberley Club, and the important of being English.’

  Agnes looked him straight in the eye. ‘I ought to go,’ she whispered.

  ‘Doesn’t your husband know how discontented you are?’ asked Barney. ‘Doesn’t he know that you walk out with other men?’

  ‘I tell him lies. I don’t know if he believes them or not.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand it.’

  Agnes smiled sadly. ‘I can stand it because I can’t think what else to do.’

  Barney held the pieces of letter up, and then let them fall again. ‘I almost wish that I had written this letter myself.’

  Little by little, Agnes released her hands from Barney’s; and then stood up. She touched the top of his hair, and bent forward to kiss him again on the forehead. ‘I can’t take any more heartbreaks, Barney. I made up my mind at Christmas that I would try to stay faithful to Robert; not because I’m so very concerned about hurting him, but because I can’t bear any more of these casual attachments myself. In the past six years, I think I must have fallen in love a dozen times. But each time my love has come to nothing, and each time I’ve ended up with nobody. I was infatuated with you when I first met you. I suppose you’ve been a little dream of mine ever since. But I can’t stay with you. I couldn’t bear the pain of being hurt again, and especially by you.’

  Barney looked up at her. Her face was so concerned and so pretty; and in the shafts of sunlight that fell across the drawing-room she looked like an angelic showgirl, a poised and erotic equestrienne, the soiled but beautiful star from a travelling carnival. Perhaps she could never give all of herself to anyone, not even to him; and perhaps that was why she would always be frustrated and unhappy. But the love of a girl who asked no questions about the past or the future, a girl whose sexual appetite was demanding and immediate, and who played no tortuous games of etiquette and manners, – the love of a girl like that might be just what Barney needed. It might also be short-lived. He could not tell. But as Agnes stood before him in her riding-coat that afternoon, he knew that he was going to ask her to stay with him; for the simple reason that he had nobody else.

  ‘Stay,’ he told her.

  She did not answer him for almost a minute, watching him with her pale and reflective eyes. ‘If I stay, I’m going to have to ask you for a commitment. I warn you now.’

  Barney held out his hand for her. ‘Stay,’ he repeated.

  They made love that night with a ferocity that, at times, frightened them both. Quite naked, they clawed and plunged and thrashed, kissing until their lips were swollen and raw; tearing and tugging at each other as if their passions could only be satisfied by vandalising the flesh that inflamed them. Barney remembered for years later an instant when Agnes was underneath him, her head thrown back on the pillow, and how his fingers were clutching her breast so savagely that she screamed at him to stop, but not to stop, and how she held her own hand over his to prevent him from releasing his grip.

  The next morning, he opened one eye and looked across the twisted sheets. The carriage-clock beside the bed said six-thirty. The sky was light, but the sun was not yet up, and the bushveld was oddly silent. Agnes had already gone. She had left a note downstairs in the library in writing that was as pretty as she was. It said, ‘I will not hold you to any commitment. Love, Agnes.’

  Barney quickly dressed, and called Michael to bring the carriage out. When it was ready, he climbed aboard, and sat back on the button-backed leather upholstery.

  ‘Where to, boss?’ Michael asked him.

  Barney stayed upright in his seat, his morning hat tilted at a slight angle, his cane held rigidly in front of him. As the sun rose, the carriage was silhouetted against the golden haze that shone through the camel thorn trees; an essay in spindly wheels, calligraphic springs, and elegant horses. They could have been posing for an eighteenth-century painting.

  ‘Boss?’ Michael asked, turning around on his seat.

  Barney took off his hat. ‘I don’t think I’m going anywhere this morning, Michael, thank you. I’m sorry to have put you to all this trouble.’

  ‘No trouble, boss,’ said Michael, and climbed down from his perch once again, to open up the small curved carriage door, and let Barney alight.

  On the last day of August 1879, the steam-vessel Mulhausen docked at Antwerp, in Belgium, under a humid grey sky. The bells were ringing dolorously from Our Lady’s cathedral, and flocks of gulls were keening and crying as they circled around the spires and rooftops and flat-fronted façades of the city, and then sloped out over the wide silvery reaches of the river Schelde.

  Joel was all ready to disembark as the Mulhausen noisily reversed its screws and nudged up to the grey-cobbled Noorderterras. He was wearing a soft grey hat, a light grey cape, and a rather old-fashioned day suit which he had bought in Dieppe when he had changed ships. His leather valise was packed with two spare shirts, some cotton underwear, a bottle of whiskey, and his single right-footed slipper. He had grown a dark beard, and a full moustache, and if it had not been for his missing left leg, even Barney would probably have passed him by without recognising him.

  He had been careful to make his journey from South Africa to Antwerp as misleading as possible to anyone who might be following him. He knew that Barney would soon have learned from Nareez that he had managed to reach Durban, and from then it would have been relatively easy for Barney to discover what ship he had sailed on: even though he had bought his ticket in the name of ‘Leonard Matthews’. Only two ships had been sailing from Durban to Europe that day: and one of those had been headed for South Wales.

  The Wallesey had docked at Lisbon, where Joel had disembarked and bought a fresh ticket to Dieppe under the name of ‘Henry Lester’. He had then left the ship for good at Dieppe, and stayed for a week at a small pension off the Rue de Varengeville, in a gloomy high-ceilinged front room with a blotchy cheval mirror and a creaking bed, and a view through dingy lace curtains of the Épicerie Auffay, and a wrought-iron bench where stout old ladies with long black dresses would sit and gabble all afternoon.

  Joel had taken two hundred pounds in cash with him when he had left Kimberley, but he was already running short. He had his own company chequebook, but the problem was that if he drew out any money, Barney would eventually be able to trace his whereabouts. He had tried to persuade the shiny-headed manager of the Crédit Seine-Maritime to give him a hundred pounds on his passport and his identity papers alone; but after a long whispery discussion with his chief clerk, the manager had smiled and shook his head. Joel had been forced to write a cheque and hope that Barney did not think of looking through the company bank statements for a few months.

  Now he had arrived in Antwerp, on a close and silent Sunday, with the uncut Natalia Star wrapped up in green tissue-paper in his coat pocket, one of the wealthiest men in the city, and one of the most isolated. A shabby carriage with a patched leather hood carried him on clattering and grating wheels across the w
ide square of the Grote Markt in front of the Town Hall, and all around him people walked on their way to Mass, heads bowed, in scarves and clogs, and from the dusty energetic rawness of Kimberley Joel felt as if he had entered a stale and colourless world of widows and seagulls and narrow flat-fronted buildings, a world in which reality seemed to be affirmed only by greyness and solidity, and through which human beings hurried as indefinitely as shadows.

  ‘You want cheap hotel?’ the Flemish cab-driver asked him, drawing up the carriage in a street not far from the Town Hall, The street was only wide enough for one carriage to drive down it at a time, and it smelled sharply of sewage and Javanese tobacco and cooked meat.

  Joel looked up at the flaking doorway and the sign which announced that here was the Grand Hotel Putte. ‘This will do,’ he said. ‘You can give me a hand with my bag.’

  The Grand Hotel Putte was dark and elderly; a building of panelled landings and windowsills where dead bluebottles lay undisturbed amongst the dust. A plump young Flemish girl in a white apron and white cap showed Joel to his room on the top floor. She smelled of ripe underarms and carbolic soap. Joel opened the window and stared out over the steeply-pitched roof tops while she turned down the bed.

  ‘English?’ she asked him, standing by the door.

  Joel gave her an uneven smile. ‘That’s right, English. Here’s a franc for your trouble.’

  She took the money and dropped it into the pocket of her apron. She was trying to think of a word, and Joel found that he could not turn away until she managed to remember it.

  Eventually, she said: ‘Je lijkt zo eenzaam. Heb je geen vrienden hier?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.’

  She waited a little longer, and then she managed to blurt out, ‘My – name – is – called – Anna.’

  ‘Good,’ said Joel. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Anna hesitated for a little while longer, and then left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her. Joel swung himself across on his crutches and banged it shut. Then, breathing heavily, he struggled back to the bed and sat down. After a minute or so, he opened his valise, and took out his bottle of whiskey. There was no mug in the room, so he drank straight from the neck, tilting the bottle back until he almost choked himself.

  The travelling was over: now he was going to have to find someone who could cut the diamond for him, secretly but perfectly. It takes a whole variety of extraordinary skills to cut a diamond, and a stone the size and value of the Natalia Star called for the very finest cleavers, cutters, blockers and brilliandeers, as well as all the facilities that only a major diamond-cutting company could provide. It would be almost impossible to conceal the diamond’s whereabouts for very long, and Joel knew that the risk of Barney finding out where it was being cut was dangerously high. But the risk was worth running: if he tried to sell the Natalia Star in the rough, he would probably make no more than £300,000 – maybe less. If he had it cut, however, and then gave it a ‘legitimate’ history by selling it and re-selling it through any agent or private individual who was interested in earning themselves a commission, he could sell it off for four or five times that amount, or as much as anyone was prepared to bid for it.

  He had a list of names, some of which he had taken from Harold Feinberg’s files; others which he knew simply by reputation. The cleaver would be the most important figure in the whole cutting operation. It would be the cleaver who would study the stone to decide where the planes of cleavage lay, the lines along which the diamond would be split, and on the skill with which he eventually cleaved it would depend the whole value of the finished gem. The cleavers were the élite of the diamond business, and many of them were driven to the diamond district each morning in their own carriages, and owned fine houses in the centre of the city. The undisputed best in Antwerp was Itzik Yussel, of Rosendaal’s; but Joel was reluctant to approach him because he was the first and obvious choice. He had heard that a younger cleaver called Frederick Goldin was beginning to make an impression in the industry with his remarkable talents for saving as much carat weight as possible while shaping his diamonds to a ‘make’ of almost ideal proportions.

  What Joel did not know was whether Goldin would be willing to cut a rough diamond of 350 carats without asking where it came from.

  That evening, as the cathedral bells rang again, he lay on his bed and finished off his bottle of whiskey. From where he was lying, he could see a kite-shaped piece of sky, in between the dormer window and the roof of the building next door, and as he watched it, it gradually darkened, until it was black. The air was soft and warm and slightly sour, and riddled with mosquitoes, which bred in the marshy flatlands around the wide curves of the Schelde.

  At ten o’clock, there was a gentle knocking at his door. He said slurrily, ‘Come in,’ and Anna appeared, in a black dress with a white lace collar, her wispy mouse-coloured hair pinned up with jet brooches and pins. She held up a brown glass bottle, and indicated by mime that he should rub it on his arms and his body. Then she circled her finger around in the air and made a buzzing noise.

  ‘Ah,’ said Joel, in a thick voice. ‘Mosquito repellent.’

  Without a word, she came and knelt down beside the bed, tugging back Joel’s sheets and blanket. Joel watched her blurrily as she lifted his nightshirt, and unstoppered the bottle. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ but she did not answer.

  Her hands were pudgy but firm, and she applied the lotion to his chest and his stomach as busily as if she were waxing a table. The lotion was cold, and smelled of camphor. She rubbed it on his back, and around his buttocks, and down his leg. He began to feel a tight, tingling sensation between his thighs, but he could not make up his mind if she really wanted to touch him there or not. He opened his eyes wide and stared at her; and she stared back at him, young and ruddy, with glistening drops of perspiration clinging to the blonde hairs on her upper lip.

  Just as matter-of-factly as she had massaged the lotion on to the rest of his body, she held him in her fist like a broom-handle, and rubbed him up and down. It was only a matter of seconds before he snorted out loud, and anointed the shoulder of her dress. She stood up, corked her bottle of lotion, and looked down at him with a face that was too plump and expressionless for him to be able to read. She could not have been much older than seventeen.

  ‘Anna,’ he said. It was partly a question.

  ‘Sleep,’ she told him.

  ‘But why? Why did you do that?’

  She looked sideways. She probably did not understand him. Then she went to the window and closed it.

  ‘Sleep,’ she said.

  Hours later, he woke up, awkwardly tangled in his sheets and smelling so strongly of camphor that he was practically sick. He had been dreaming about Kimberley, and the Big Hole, and the night he had fallen and broken his leg and his pelvis. It was hot and claustrophobic; so hot that he thought for a moment that he was back in Africa; but then he reached out and grasped the edge of the bedside table, and he remembered where he was.

  For the first time in a very long time, he said a prayer.

  They met at last in Frederick Goldin’s workshop on the third floor of de Pecq’s, an airy room with high windows facing northwards across the rooftops of the Antwerp diamond district. It was the third week in September, and it had taken Joel all of that time since he had arrived in Antwerp to arrange for an interview. For the first week, he had done nothing but visit the cafés and the restaurants most frequently patronised by diamond merchants, sitting in a corner by himself with a glass of cassis and a plate of stuffed veal, and listening to all of their talk about market prices, and quality, and make, and cut. Most of the dealers were Orthodox Jews, and they huddled around their tables in their shtreimels, their black broad-brimmed hats, with the payess or side-curls which most young New York Jews had long since cut off. It was an odd but reassuring feeling for Joel, to be back amongst his own people after so long in South Africa; and for the first day or
two he had felt like interrupting the merchants’ murmured conversations to take them by the hand and tell them how good it was to see them.

  Deals in the diamond business were always arranged by understandings; by word-of-mouth; with no written contracts. Hundreds of thousands of francs would be committed to the purchase of a parcel of diamonds without any paperwork at all, and with nothing to regulate the sale except the integrity of the merchants themselves. That murmuring that Joel enjoyed so much was the means by which a glittering torrent of diamonds passed from the traders to the merchants to the cutters, and then to the retailers.

  At last, during the second week of his stay, Joel had got into conversation with an English-speaking dealer called Joseph Mandlebaum, a small pot-bellied man in his late forties, bespectacled, with the appearance of a Jewish gnome. From the way Mandlebaum had spoken, it had seemed to Joel that he was more of a wheeler-dealer than many of his colleagues in the Antwerp diamond business: he spent almost half of his time in London, in Hatton Garden, and he regularly sold diamonds to American dealers.

  ‘If you happened to have a very large diamond that you wanted to have cut, very privately, who would be your best man?’ Joel had asked him, as they had sat in a booth in a café called Boom’s.

  Mandlebaum had been sipping tea out of a glass, blowing on the surface to cool it, but he had paused with his cheeks still inflated, and then set down his glass, and looked at Joel through the tiny lenses of his spectacles with slitty-eyed sharpness.

  ‘What do you mean when you say “very large”?’

  ‘I don’t know. This is only supposition. But, say, three hundred carats plus.’

  Mandlebaum had stared down at his tea. ‘That’s a big diamond. Where would you find a diamond like that?’

  Joel had sat back on his hard wooden seat. ‘I don’t think you’re hearing me right. What I was asking was, where could you get such a stone cut very privately, and very privately would presuppose that nobody would ask such a question like, where would you find a diamond like that?’