Stone's Fall

by Iain Pears

  He held up his hand. “We do not have second names,” he said with a smile. “It is uncomradely and also there are far too many people who do not wish to give them. So Matthew will do nicely.” His mouth twitched with amusement as he watched me try to look comradely.

  I quite took to him. He was short, only about five foot four high, weedy and underfed, badly dressed and looked less than healthy. His hands twitched nervously all the time, as though he was trying to pull rings off his fingers, but the rest of him was totally still and calm. His eyes watched me through thick lenses, and they were kindly and a little sad.

  “You have come for the talk?”

  “Ah, yes. I suppose so. I’m not sure why I’m here, to tell the truth.”

  “Comrade Stefan no doubt has his reasons.”

  “I’m sure Comrade Stefan has,” I said, and was quite proud of myself for suppressing the twitch of amusement. It was only because I was quite touched; Hozwicki, as I have mentioned, was not exactly the most friendly of people. He trusted no one, and liked even fewer. To tell me to come here, where he must have realised I would hear him being referred to as Comrade Stefan—thus exposing him to ridicule if not worse if I ever repeated it in the King & Keys—was a gesture. Not exactly an open offer of friendship, but probably the closest to it I or anyone else would ever get. “Who is the speaker, might I ask?”

  “Ah,” he said. “It is Comrade Kropotkin.”

  The anarchist aristocrat. The Russian revolutionary. The Anarchist Prince. All titles dreamed up by the headline writers on the Daily Mail, who excelled at such things. He was an odd fellow, by all accounts; a genuine Russian prince who had turned to rural collectivism and revolution. He had been imprisoned in Russia, thrown out of Switzerland, France and America, and came to rest in a comfortable part of Brighton, where he went for long walks with his dog and was perfectly sweet to the neighbours when not advocating stringing them up from the nearest lamppost.

  “And what is he talking about?”

  “The evils of Darwinism.”

  “Is it evil?”

  “Comrade Kropotkin has argued in the past that Darwinism is but a reflection of capitalism because it emphasises competition and struggle over cooperation and coexistence. It justifies the exploitation of man by man, and strengthens the class ideology of the oppressors.”

  “Excellent. So what will be new today?”

  “That we must find out. If we can understand him. There are so many people of so many different nationalities here, with so many languages, that English is the only one everybody has a chance of understanding. I don’t suppose you speak Serbo-Croat?”

  “Not really.”

  “A pity. I would have pressed you into service to give a running translation. Our Serbs are very bad at languages.”

  “Who else—I mean, what other languages are represented?”

  Josef screwed up his eyes to think. “Well, there are Russians and Germans. Many Latvians and Lithuanians and Poles. A few Serbs. One Dane, although he comes only rarely. Many English, although for some reason few Irish, which I find strange as they are the most oppressed of all. Some Ukrainians and a few Belgians. The French tend to stay in France. And of course we have many, many people who speak only Yiddish.”

  “A veritable Internationale,” I said, with what I hoped was a tone of approval. “And how many policemen?”

  He gave me an odd look, but realised full well that I was lightheartedly broaching a serious point. “That is Serge, who hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “You aren’t tempted to throw him out?”

  “Oh, no. Obviously the police are going to infiltrate, so why bother? We do nothing here that is of great interest to them. It is not as if we hold open meetings on bomb-making.”

  “Those are by invitation only?”

  “Precisely,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Seriously, the authorities here are stupid and coercive, but somewhat milder than their counterparts abroad. As long as we do not frighten them, they leave us alone, more or less. And nothing frightens authority more than not knowing what is going on. Then they fantasise about plots and evil, and react. So we show there is nothing to be afraid of.”

  “And this Serge knows you know about him?”

  “The subject has never come up, but I imagine so. Do you wish to meet him? You are a journalist, I take it.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Because the moment you open your mouth you start asking questions. Because you clearly know nothing about anarchism and because you are a friend of Stefan, who is a journalist as well. You don’t work for the Daily Mail, do you?”

  “Certainly not,” I said, almost offended.

  “That is good.”

  “You don’t mind me coming?”

  “Oh, no. The more publicity the better. Comrade Kropotkin has written many articles for newspapers, here and abroad, showing the origins and nature of what we believe. He has just finished a long article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And now, if you will excuse me.”

  The courteous anarchist moved off towards the stage. He walked with a limp, I noticed, and he looked as though moving was painful for him. He weaved an erratic course as he went, stopping frequently to greet people, pat them on the back, talk briefly with them. One woman he bowed to in an oddly old-world fashion. She was dressed simply, with a muffler around her head, as though she had a cold, and a sprig of flowers in her hair. She briefly broke off her conversation with a large unshaven man to greet him, and half-turned to respond with an unsmiling, cold nod of the head.

  “These, eh?”

  “What?” I turned, to see a grim man staring at me as though I had just advocated the abolition of taxes for landowners. Powerful, intelligent, his eyes radiating annoyance at his feeble grasp of language.

  He waved his arm. “Chairs. They must organise.” He spoke with such a thick and indeterminate accent that it was difficult to realise his understanding of English grammar was rudimentary, as it was almost impossible to make out anything at all.

  “What?” I repeated, almost panicking.

  He picked up a chair, put it into my hand and propelled me roughly across the room until it was next to the one in a line, and made me put it down. Then he gestured to all the other chairs.

  “Again.”

  “Ah. Right.” He was not the sort of man who would brook any refusal. I half-expected him to whip out a revolver and shoot me on the spot if I so much as looked reluctant. So I picked up another chair, and then another, and slowly set them out, row by row.

  “Good. Very good.” A thunderous clap on the back and a broad smile signified my labours for the common good had met with approval. “Drink.”

  He thrust a bottle of beer at me, contrary to the 1892 Regulation of Drink Act, and scowled, or maybe it was a smile. Hard to tell. I smiled back, as best I could. I really didn’t want a drink, but again I felt it unwise to refuse. We toasted each other, smiled again, indulged in another bout of backslapping, and then he drifted off.

  “And you will be Comrade Matthew, the journalist friend of Comrade Stefan,” came a cold female voice behind me. It spoke with a heavy German accent, but was both grammatical and comprehensible.

  I spun round. I opened my mouth to speak. Suave and sophisticated, able to deal with any eventuality. That was the way I wanted to be, and very definitely the way I wasn’t. I couldn’t say a word.

  “Are you here to hear the speech? It is not often we get journalists here, so I imagine you are here to see Comrade Peter.” She spoke quietly, and was one of those who did not look at the person she was speaking to. Stared hard, rather, somewhere above my left shoulder, communicating a contempt which fully matched the harshness of her voice.

  “Um.”

  “Get a good seat. He mumbles.”

  She tossed back her head, and swept a strand of loose hair from her eyes with one finger. I had watched her intensely; had memorised her every gesture, and that was something she did not do. It was as t
hough she had taken on a different persona entirely. Almost as though she was a different person. I felt utterly confused. Surely it could not be so.

  She was dressed in the manner of everyone else in the room; thin, old clothes, utterly unbecoming, with thick black boots. Buttoned up to the neck with a row of buttons, one of which was undone, one missing. Her face was severe and more serious, it looked as though it had been angry often. Her skin was pallid, old-looking. Weary. The smile had no warmth in it at all.

  No, I decided.

  “And you are?”

  “Call me Jenny,” she said flatly.

  “Is it your real name?”

  “What does that matter? With women names are ownership. Who your father was, who your husband is. We must choose our own names, you agree?”

  “Absolutely. Just what I was thinking myself.”

  “I do not approve of frivolity.”

  “Sorry. Habit.”

  “Divest yourself of this habit.” She had pronounced. She had finished. “You will find the meeting instructive if you pay proper attention.”

  She almost clicked her heels together, I swear, and then, very briefly, for a fraction of a fraction of a second as she turned away, I caught her eye. Grey. And I got that familiar shock, running through my system; the curdling feeling in my stomach, the outpouring of breath, the sudden speeding up of my heart.

  Stefan or no Stefan, and despite the undoubted appeal of a many-houred talk from a Russian anarchist, I decided to leave and quickly. At least I managed not to run, but I made my way to the door, through the groups of people coming in the opposite direction, as quickly as I could. Josef stopped me just as I was about to regain my freedom. “You are surely not leaving?”

  “I must, I’m afraid, I…” I tried, but failed to think of some good reason. “I’ve just remembered some work I have to do. Dreadfully sorry. Really looking forward to it.”

  “Another time, then,” he said with no great interest. “As you see the doors are always open. Even to journalists.”

  “Thank you. That is kind, and I have found even the little I’ve seen interesting. Very interesting. Tell me, who is that woman over there?”

  I nodded as discreetly as I could.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Oh, we talked, you see. And there are so few women here, I wondered.”

  “If you want to find out, you should ask her yourself. Besides, I don’t know a great deal about her. She’s been coming occasionally for the last six months or so. It was the first thing she did when she got off the boat.”

  “The boat?”

  “Yes. She is German; had to leave because… well, that doesn’t matter. But she’s tough and committed. If you want to know more, ask her. But don’t expect an answer.”

  I didn’t want to push the matter too far. So I left, grateful only that Hozwicki hadn’t shown up. The last thing I needed was to have to come up with another excuse.

  Kropotkin arrived only about ten minutes after I left; I saw him from my vantage point across the road. It was part of the training; part of the way I had trained myself, at any rate. The ability to wait. It is a skill possessed by very few people. Most get bored after only a few minutes, they become agitated and dream up dozens of good reasons why they are wasting their time, simply to justify giving up. I had learned, not exactly to like it, but more to let my mind drift, so that time seemed to pass more quickly. It had a peaceful aspect to it. It is a small talent, I know, but it is rare and one I am quite proud of. So I found a dark corner, in an alleyway running along the side of a grocer’s shop on the other side of the road, which gave a clear view but which wasn’t lit up by the gaslight. I pulled my coat more firmly around my neck. And I waited. And waited. I saw Stefan hurry in, along with several others; saw a carriage draw up and a tall man with a thick bushy beard get out. That, I thought, would be Kropotkin. Let us assume ten minutes to get started; then three hours of meeting, at least. I pulled my pocket watch out of my waistcoat and peered at it. It was eight o’clock. It was going to be a long evening.

  It was. Almost interminable. Even my skilled placidity in these situations was only just sufficient to get me through. My mind fixed on this Jenny. It hammered away time and again at the whole business, and I could not make head nor tail of it. I was only sure of one thing. I had been lied to, once again.

  So I waited, cold, very hungry and distraught. Nine o’clock; ten o’clock; half past ten. A few people drifted out from time to time; perhaps they did not find the Prince’s words satisfying. Perhaps they had heard them before. Some hung around outside talking, others walked swiftly off. None interested me.

  Eventually Jenny came out. Bundled up in a coat, with a hat on her head, but there was no mistaking her. She was with a man, the one who had told me to set out the chairs. He also had a hat, pulled down over his face. His right hand was in the pocket of his overcoat.

  And he touched her. Stroked her back with his left hand in an unmistakable gesture of intimacy. And she responded, leaning her body against his. There was no mistake. I did not imagine it.

  So I followed. A more hot-blooded person than I might have accosted them. “Hello, Your Ladyship, fancy seeing you here!” But I decided that knowledge was a better revenge. I would discover everything, first of all.

  So I tagged behind at a good distance, just keeping them in view, ducking into the shadows whenever the man paused to tie his shoelaces, or strike a match against a wall, or when they stopped on the pavement to talk. This they did often enough to make me realise they were afraid of being followed. Nobody stops that often. But I had learned from a master. George Short had cut his teeth as a runner before becoming a reporter. He knew all the tricks of how to follow without being seen and, I suspected, knew how to pick pockets and listen in to conversations in bars and restaurants as well. When I was getting going he taught me some of his skills. “You never know when it might come in handy,” he’d said. “These university graduates think it’s all about a well-turned phrase. They wouldn’t be able to get a story if it bit them on the leg.”

  His skills had never been that useful before, but now I saw their point. It is a question of getting into the rhythm of the person you are following, watching them intently until you can predict what they are going to do; moving in harmony with them, so that you are already tucked away in the shadows before they have even begun to turn. Of knowing how far back to be. Of knowing how to walk light-footedly but naturally, so that you are unsuspected even if you are seen.

  I followed them for a mile or so; down Jubilee Street, along Commercial Road, up Turner Street, then into Newark Street, a row of houses, run-down and poor. They stopped outside one of them which was all in darkness, and talked. I heard nothing, but I did not need to; he wanted her to come in; that was clear. She refused, initially, and my spirits rose a little. But then she took his hand, allowed him to lead her to the door, and they vanished inside.

  If I had been in a state of shocked disbelief before, it was nothing in comparison to how I felt now. I could describe my emotions for a very long time, but in fact they were very simple. I was jealous to the point of insanity. She was mine, I told myself. It was another one of her lies to add to the growing list. And such a man? Such people? Clearly, they weren’t notes of her husband’s payments to the Brotherhood that I had found in that folder; they were hers. He had discovered and was trying to find out what she was doing. This man was probably one of that group and she was paying him. My stomach turned over with disgust. I would expose her to the world. I would destroy her reputation so completely she would have to leave the country forever. How to do it? Hozwicki, obviously; I’d promised him a story; it would be better than he dreamed of. Then Seyd’s. I’d pull her husband’s companies down until their worth would fit in my back pocket in small change.

  The thought calmed me. My patience slowly returned, and I became thorough. When the man emerged, I followed him until he got back to what were evidently his lodgings, th
en took a bus back to the West End. I went into an early-morning café—it was by now four in the morning—and borrowed some paper and an envelope from the owner. I considered a long and violent denunciation, but such things are never effective; they make the writer seem hysterical. So instead I kept it short.

  Dear Lady Ravenscliff,

  Please accept my resignation as your agent in the matter of your husband’s will.

  Yours sincerely,

  Matthew Braddock.

  I delivered it by hand to her house, then took the bus back to Chelsea. It was still only six when I slipped quietly into the house, and no one was yet up, not even Mrs. Morrison. I tiptoed up the stairs, avoiding the squeakiest of the treads, and collapsed on my bed. It was an eternity since I had slept properly, but I was afraid sleep would elude me now as well. I shouldn’t have worried. I was still thinking this when my thoughts began to disintegrate and I plunged into oblivion.

  CHAPTER 21

  If I harboured the idea that this might be an end to it, then I could not have been more wrong. I slept until two in the afternoon, but was hardly refreshed when I finally surfaced. I did have a couple of moments’ grace before the full recollection of the previous evening came back, but it was not much of a respite. I was dirty, unshaven, and my bones ached still from tiredness, so I went downstairs in search of hot water. There was no one around, which was unusual; normally at that time of day Mrs. Morrison should be in the kitchen with her half-wit of a scullery maid, arguing over how to peel carrots. So I put a large pot on the hob myself, and yawned while it heated. On the kitchen table was a telegram, addressed to me. I knew the moment I saw it who it was from, and the surge of pleasure I felt should have warned me how feeble was my resolution of only a few hours previously. I considered tearing it in two and throwing it in the bin—I don’t need her; that’s all over—but couldn’t quite manage to be so manfully confident. What if there was something in there to show I was wrong? So I dithered while the water boiled and the kitchen filled with steam, and eventually reached a compromise. I would open it, read it and then tear it up in righteous anger.