Solitaire

by Graham Masterton

  He replaced his hat, and tugged the brim straight. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether that was such a good idea.’

  Agnes reached out and held his wrist. ‘Listen, Barney,’ she told him, ‘I know you won’t believe this, and there will probably be many times in the future when I will give you good reason not to. But I shall always keep a place in my heart for you. You will always be precious to me. Don’t forget that, please.’

  ‘I won’t be able to forget it,’ said Barney.

  They parted on the corner of the street, while thunder began to bang in the distance, and the wind got up. As Agnes was about to walk away, Barney held her arm, and kissed her again, on the lips. She was elegant and small, and her mouth tasted of rosewater.

  ‘Barney,’ she said. ‘I can’t. If my father found out …’

  Barney reluctantly let her go. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know. I didn’t mean to compromise you.’

  Quickly, she was gone. No matter how many times he met her now, he knew that he would never be able to talk to her again the way he had today. Each of them had a new life to seek out; new obligations to fulfil; and they would have to carry them out apart.

  She reached the door of the notions store, and opened the door. For a moment she was silhouetted against the patterned glass. A mule stirred its hoofs at the tying-up post not far away, as if it was frightened of what was to come, but powerless to escape.

  In October, the short-lived reign of President Stafford Parker of the Diggers’ Republic came to an end. Parker abdicated graciously, though, because the diamond fields were now to come under British rule. At the beginning of November, two days before Barney and Mooi Klip were due to be married, the Union Jack was run up over the Big Hole, and the diggers stood around it and gave three cheers, and waved their hats.

  The annexation of the richest diamond diggings in the entire world, with a production of £50,000 worth of diamonds a week, had been a masterpiece of British colonial burglary. Although the mines were well within the territory claimed by the Orange Free State, the Boers had neither the money nor the military strength to resist that particular combination of bullying and guile which had won for Britain some of the wealthiest geographic prizes that the globe could offer.

  During the years in which the Orange Free State and the Transvaal had been poor, eking their living from the soil, the British had been content to leave them alone. But the discovery of diamonds on such an extraordinary scale could quickly have made the Boers a formidable enemy, and the British Colonial Secretary, Sir Richard Southey, had been growing increasingly worried about the prospect of two wealthy and hostile republics barring British access from the Cape to Central Africa.

  ‘By definition,’ he remarked at a dinner party, ‘the only safe Boer is a poor Boer.’

  The answer to Sir Richard’s problems came when he discovered that all of the new diamond mines lay on land that was inhabited by Griquas. Because it had never mattered before now, nobody had ever satisfactorily decided whether the Boers had any right to claim ‘Griqualand’ as theirs. So, with great pomp and ceremony, it was announced that the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, Robert Keate, would head a commission to arbitrate on the Griqua’s territorial rights.

  President Jan Brand, the Boer leader of the Orange Free State, protested in vain that a disinterested foreign country should decide the issue. It was a British matter, said Keate, dismissively, and the British could not possibly tolerate foreigners meddling in their affairs.

  Keate’s final ruling came as no surprise to the unhappy Boers. The Orange Free State, he concluded, had no jurisdiction over ‘Griqualand’, nor the diamond mines within its boundaries. And within days, the Griqua chieftains Nicholas Waterboer and Jan Bloem had been persuaded by Keate to ask the British to annex ‘Griqualand’ into Cape Colony. Up went the Union Jack over Kimberley, and into the British economy came an influx of diamonds more than six times greater than the annual production of South Africa’s nearest rival, Brazil.

  Enraged, President Brand sent a small commando force to Kimberley to try to recapture the diamond fields. But Sir Henry Barkly, the new Governor of the Cape, immediately responded by rushing up a thousand uniformed British soldiers. Angry, bitter, millions of pounds poorer, the Boers were forced to retreat. They had sustained an injury which would fester now for almost thirty years.

  Barney and Joel and Mooi Klip went to see the flag being raised. On the far side of the crowd, Barney could make out the tall stovepipe hat of Mr Knight, surrounded by the feathery bonnets of his daughters. He linked arms with Mooi Klip, over-possessively, and led her through the jostling diggers to a small hillock, where she could stand on an overturned wheelbarrow and watch what was happening.

  Joel remarked, ‘At least we’ll get some law and order around here now.’

  ‘You talk of law and order?’ smiled Mooi Klip.

  ‘Proper law and order. Not barrelhead justice,’ retorted Joel.

  The flag was jerkily raised to the head of the staff, and a small military band, in white topis and bright red tunics, played God Save The Queen, and Another Little Patch of Red. Then there were more cheering, and more hat-waving, and most of the diggers streamed off to Dodd’s Bar for a stiff drink. Barney lifted Mooi Klip down from her wheelbarrow.

  It was then that Edward Nork appeared, walking like a long-bladed pair of scissors, and dragging behind him a diffident but very well-built young man with a round face, prominent ears, and the sort of well-combed wavy hair that always reminded Barney of British public schoolboys.

  ‘These are the chaps!’ Nork announced to his new charge. ‘These are just the chaps I’ve been looking for!’

  The young man flushed pink. He was wearing white cricket flannels with very baggy knees, and cricketing boots. He nodded to Barney and Joel and Mooi Klip, and said, ‘I hope I’m not imposing. I met Mr Nork here by accident, and he insisted on taking me in tow, like a lifeboat.’

  ‘I knew his father!’ Nork exclaimed. ‘I used to visit Bishop’s Stortford on a bicycle, to visit a very clever young lady I once knew, and his father was the local vicar. We used to discuss the geology of the Holy Land together, his father and I.’

  ‘My name’s Cecil Rhodes,’ said the young man, in a high-pitched, upper-class English accent. ‘My father is the Reverend F. W.’

  ‘I’m Barney Blitz,’ replied Barney. ‘This is my brother Joel, and this is Mrs Blitz-to-be.’

  ‘Well, congratulations,’ smiled Cecil Rhodes. ‘My father always said that marriage is the closest estate to heaven that a man can enjoy.’

  ‘You have an Anglican motto for every occasion?’ asked Joel.

  ‘I was brought up religiously, if that’s what you mean,’ Cecil Rhodes replied, cautiously, but not apologetically.

  ‘Well, I think we all were,’ said Joel. ‘But it doesn’t take long for the diamond diggings to drum that nonsense out of you. You’d better come and have some lunch. Do you like frikkadeller?’

  ‘Do you mind if I bring my things along?’ asked Cecil Rhodes. ‘I have an ox-waggon tied up over there.’

  ‘Nobody will steal it,’ said Joel. ‘What’s on it? A shovel or two? A bedroll? You can pick diamonds up off the ground around here, so nobody’s going to bother with stuff like that. Water, that’s the only expensive commodity out here. Water, and women.’

  They walked back to the house, where Mooi Klip stoked up the woodburning range and put the meatballs on to fry. Barney offered to help her, especially since she was pregnant, but she waved him away. At the kitchen door, though, she called him back, and gave him a long and lingering kiss.

  ‘This day next week, I will be Mrs Blitz,’ she said, warmly.

  ‘And I will be your husband,’ Barney grinned. ‘So there.’

  Joel was pouring out drinks. He was talking even more loudly than usual, and more abrasively. He did not enjoy having guests at the house at the best of times, and Edward Nork was a particular hatred of his, especially since Sir Joshua Field, another Bri
tish geologist, had declared that the blue flaky ‘bedrock’ beneath the yellow ground might actually bear even more diamonds than the topsoil. Joel did not take to Cecil Rhodes, either. Rhodes had that brassy English self-assurance that made Joel feel like grinding his teeth. ‘They think they own the whole damned world,’ he used to complain to Barney.

  ‘That’s probably because they do,’ Barney had replied, absent-mindedly.

  Cecil Rhodes said, ‘I’m joing my brother Herbert, as a matter of fact, at the De Beers mine. Herbert used to farm cotton in Natal, and I took the business over when he left to go diamond-digging. I brought in a fine crop, too, and I would probably have been doing it still if the prices hadn’t been so ridiculously low. You could never get rich by growing cotton.’

  ‘Diamond-digging isn’t as easy as it looks,’ said Joel, handing round glasses of sherry. ‘And it’s certainly not for children.’

  ‘Well, I’m eighteen,’ said Cecil Rhodes, with a smile. ‘I expect that’s old enough.’

  ‘Can we call you Cecil?’ asked Barney, sitting down in his large woven armchair.

  ‘I’d rather you called me Rhodes, if you don’t mind. It’s what a fellow gets used to at school.’

  ‘You think you’re going to strike it rich?’ Barney asked him.

  ‘Rich and powerful, I rather hope,’ said Rhodes, artlessly. ‘You see, it’s my belief that the British are the first race in the world – with no offence at all to present company – and that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race. The absorption of the greater part of the world under British influence would simply mean an end to all wars.’

  ‘I hope you’re not including the United States in your would-be empire,’ said Joel. He finished his sherry in two or three gulps, and then poured himself another glassful.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Rhodes. ‘We English-speaking peoples should stand together as closely as possible. If there be a God, I think what He would like me to do is paint as much of the world as possible in British red. Including America.’

  ‘I always knew there was more than one God,’ said Joel.

  Rhodes made a face which indicated that if that was going to be the tone of the conversation, then it would be better if they changed the subject altogether.

  ‘But if you’re right, there must be more than one God,’ Joel persisted. ‘Because we were chosen of Adoshem, the true God, not the British. You can mock us for being chosen. You always have. But isn’t mockery the last resort of the hopelessly envious? We were chosen, and you weren’t; and no matter how many soldiers you send scurrying around the world, you can never alter that fact because it is historical and unalterable.’

  ‘I really think you’re missing the point,’ said Rhodes. ‘These days, it is a combination of wealth, power, and benign intention that makes Britain the chosen instrument of the Lord.’

  ‘Benign intention? The Boers think you’re the devil, personified.’

  Barney put in, more quietly, trying to divert the conversation from religion and race, ‘What do you really plan to do here, Rhodes? You sound as if you have something in mind.’

  Rhodes looked him right in the eye, sitting up straight in his basketwork armchair as if he were being interviewed by his housemaster. ‘What I really plan to do here, Mr Blitz, is make my fortune. From the little I’ve already seen of the mines, they’re utterly chaotic. They need order, and system. They need to be managed on a large-scale, businesslike basis. If I can achieve that, then I’ll have achieved what I came here to do.’

  ‘Magnificent words for an eighteen-year-old,’ said Joel, sarcastically.

  ‘Sensible, though,’ put in Barney. ‘I’d better keep my eye on you, young Rhodes, or you’ll be playing me at my own game.’

  ‘Regrettably for both of your empire-building ideas, the Board for the Protection of the Diamond Industries still won’t allow one man to own more than two claims,’ put in Joel. ‘And, by God, two is enough for anybody.’

  Rhodes stood up, and tugged his cricket-flannels straight. ‘I think we’ll just have to see about that,’ he said. ‘And now I believe I’ve changed my mind about lunching with you, thanks all the same.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay,’ said Barney, amused by Rhodes’ abruptness.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t believe I will. I think your brother and I may have something of a clash, and I don’t want to spoil your frikkadeller for you. You’ll give my apologies to your charming fiancée.’

  ‘Running off with your tail tucked between your legs?’ smiled Joel. ‘That isn’t the spirit that got the map of Africa painted red.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Rhodes. He nodded with courtesy to Edward Nork, who returned his nod with a waggle of his fingers; and then to Barney. But Barney had suddenly become aware that this seemingly equable young man was gripping the flannel of his trousers to sightly that he had torn the seam. He must have been within a hair’s-breadth of completely losing his self-control.

  Barney showed Rhodes out on to the verandah. It was a cool, windy day, and plumes of dust were blowing up from the Big Hole.

  ‘Well, it seems that we may find ourselves in competition one day,’ said Rhodes, in a rather metallic tone. He held out his hand to show that, between him and Barney at least, there were no awkward feelings.

  ‘Yes – we may,’ said Barney. ‘In fact, I hope we do.’ There was something about Rhodes’ directness that unbalanced him. Rhodes seemed to understand the real implications of the wealth of Kimberley without any effort at all, whereas Barney had taken several months to grasp that these mines were so fabulously rich that anyone who managed to control them could control practically the whole of Africa. Barney felt as if he were up against a dedicated opponent at last, and the prospect both excited and scared him.

  ‘If we do find ourselves competing,’ Rhodes replied, ‘then I can assure you that you’re in for one devil of a scrap.’ Then he began to walk back towards Kimberley with his trouser-legs flapping in the wind. A little distance away, with Barney still watching him, he stopped, and produced from one of his pockets a tin of cough-lozenges. He popped one into his mouth, and then continued walking, as steadily and confidently as if the whole diamond mine already belonged to him.

  The night before Barney’s wedding was the most catastrophic night he had ever lived through. The crisis came without any warning at all. All the arrangements had been made with the pimply young curate from Wimbledon to perform the ceremony at Kimberley’s Anglican Church, and the banns had been read. Jan Bloem and his mother were expected to arrive from Klipdrift early in the morning, bringing Mooi Klip’s family with him. Mooi Klip herself had butchered half an ox to be roasted, and with the help of a young Yorkshirewoman who lived with her husband in the shack next door, she had made dozens of biscuits and candies.

  The inside of the house looked as if it had been decorated for Christmas, with plumes of dried grass and flowers, paper streamers, and stars cut from biscuit-tin lids. There were two barrels of wine, a cluster of borrowed mugs and glasses, and a barrel of sherry. The table was carefully set with plates, and Barney had made a special trip down to Walker’s Lunch Rooms to borrow twenty knives and twenty forks. Joel, grudgingly, had torn two dozen napkins from a large dust-sheet – not because they could not afford to buy any, but simply because there were none to be had.

  Mooi Klip, already glowing with the first stages of pregnancy, her hair shining, her eyes bright, and her breasts tightening the bodices of her dresses, took on an extra glow. A glow of pride, and rediscovered dignity, and plain love.

  Just before noon on the day before the wedding, Barney and Joel went into Kimberley to meet a German salesman about pumping equipment. The weather had been wet and unsettled lately, and most of the claims in the Big Hole were so deep now that whenever it rained, they flooded with bright yellow water, and prospecting could sometimes be held up for days. Even pumps did not help much, although they were better than nothing. If the digger in t
he next claim did not have a pump, the water from his flooded workings would simply gush over into yours. There were 3600 individual claims in the Big Hole, and the British writer Anthony Trollope had said that it looked as if ‘some diabolically ingenious architect had contrived a house with 500 rooms, not one of which should be on the same floor, and to and from none of which there should be a pair of stairs or a door or a window.’

  The German pump salesman was stout, with hands like haxe, the Bavarian pork-knuckles. He sat in a stained-oak booth at Marshall’s Restaurant with a large plate of chops and mashed potatoes in front of him, drinking whiskey and entertaining a succession of anxious diggers. By the time Barney and Joel arrived, he had sold all of the six steam-pumps that he had brought with him from Capetown, and was taking orders for six months ahead.

  ‘But, I will buy you a beer as a consolation,’ he told them, gaily waving a chop.

  Out in the street again, Joel said, ‘What do we do now? We’ve already lost six days through flooding.’

  ‘Maybe I should go over to the De Beers mine, and see if anybody there can lend us a pump,’ said Barney. ‘Why don’t you go back to the claim, and see what you can do to bale it out with buckets?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Joel. He hesistated for a moment.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ asked Barney.

  Joel took off his hat, dusted it, and then knocked it back into shape. ‘I think I ought to say that I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry? What for?’

  ‘Sorry for behaving like a mad dog. Sorry for being so vicious to you when you’ve done nothing but help me. Just – sorry.’

  Barney put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and held him very close. ‘You don’t think I understand how you’ve been feeling? You’ve been such a farbissener! But it doesn’t matter. We love you, both of us. Mooi Klip and I. And that’s the way it’s always going to be.’

  Joel sniffed, and wiped tears away from his face. ‘I wanted so much to be strong,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t carry Mama, and I couldn’t carry the tailor’s business. When I was at sea, I couldn’t take that, either. You know what work it is, on a merchant steamer? Two hours sleep, and twenty-two hours’ shifting cargo. Then I bought the farm, and I didn’t know how the hell to cope with that, either. It was all weeds, and dereliction! I couldn’t even scratch the surface. Now, it’s the mine. And it’s still Mama, too. I can still see the way she looked. I can still hear her voice. Why in God’s name wasn’t I born to some other woman?’