On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  To cure a stutter she liked to go behind the voice, to convince the person’s mind to tell the tongue to execute its work properly from the tip to the palate. To make words whole and crisply understandable to one single person or an audience in a large auditorium.

  In order to cure the stutter she liked to think of it as kidding the mind to behave properly. She had even given it a word, kidology. It had taken just six weeks to send her first patient home without his stutter to his parents’ delight and astonishment. The boy’s father was a politician. His family had been politicians for three centuries, something the boy would have been unable to be with the impediment of a stutter.

  He attended Harrow School, which had brought Janet’s name to the notice of the board of governors. Speech therapy was a new vocation for a girl, a new form of therapy for a modernising world of medicine.

  At Harrow, with so many pupils, they had found seventeen boys who required her help, putting them all into one class for Janet to attend weekly at the school, to become the only woman on the staff, as far as she knew, at Harrow School.

  As they all went their separate ways that night, Janet to her small flat close to the rooms where she practised her speech therapy, she was not sure whether the thought of Genevieve frightened her more than the seventeen boys she was going to confront on Monday.

  It was the first time in two years Horatio had even looked at another woman, let alone with the blood draining out of his face, his eyes seeing something Janet was sure he had never seen before.

  When the taxi dropped off Pippa with another mile for her to go to her flat, she began to shiver with fright, the thought of losing Horatio the worst catastrophe in her young life. She had spent so many hours imagining them together with a family. Three children. A small house. Holidays once a year by the sea. Growing old gracefully together in harmony.

  Now it was not even the lack of money that stood in the way of her happiness. She felt it in her mind. In her bones. Suddenly her life looked dark. Black. No end to the tunnel she had spent twenty-three years going through, looking for the light.

  When she closed her front door on the October night, she knew there was only one answer to her problem. She would give up one of her principles. She would seduce Horatio. Do what he wanted. Take him to bed and hope that sensual love would drive thoughts of the other woman right out of his mind.

  The next day, with neither of them aware of Janet Bray’s insight, to William Smythe’s delight the Daily Mirror picked up on the Brigandshaw story. Someone at Simpson’s on the Strand had told the paper about the brief contretemps with Merlin St Clair.

  “Probably the staff. The patrons would have phoned a better newspaper. Some waiters with long ears have contacts at the tabloids so the plebs can get an insight into the seamy side of the rich.”

  “You are being a snob, William, but you are probably right. How does a man from Kidderminster Grammar and a socialist university end up with his nose in the air?”

  “That girl was quite something.”

  “Yes she was. You’ll find she likes rich men with titles. Her grandfather is a baron.”

  “There’s something fishy there. What’s a baron’s granddaughter doing on the stage?”

  “She hasn’t got there yet.”

  “We’ll both go to her first night in the West End. She’ll probably go into repertory in the provinces before hitting the big time… Do you know the Mirror has more readers than the Times? Now we have the brother-in-law quoted as saying I’m a fraud. That Brigandshaw is still dead. Now the game is really on. When you get to work, show Glass the Mirror and tell him I need an office. You have to keep on top of these things and I need a phone and secretary. He’ll understand. Likely piddling in his pants with excitement.”

  “My editor does not pee in his pants but I’ll ask him… Like old times. Do you want a job?”

  “I have one. A well-paid job. After Brigandshaw fades, I’m going to look for high-class scandal. You’ll be amazed what a freelancer can do once he has a reputation. I’ll set up my own office. When I have enough to do you can join me, but I’m changing your name.”

  “What to?”

  “Jim. You always wanted to be your Uncle Jim.”

  “Equal partners. Thanks, I’ll stick with Horatio.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Just remember who picks up the breaking stories… Did you think Janet was a bit funny at the end of the evening?”

  “I was looking at Pippa. On the dance floor she pushed her crotch hard into my loins.”

  “I thought you were dreaming of Genevieve?”

  “Not at all, old boy. First secret of women, always take what’s offered. They all look like sisters when you stand on their heads.”

  “You are vulgar. I’m going to work.”

  “Don’t forget what I said about Glass.”

  The first call Barnaby St Clair made that morning was the easy one. Edward had made him his breakfast while Barnaby built up courage for the second call to Tina Brigandshaw. The telephone exchange put him through to his brother Robert in less than half an hour. The line to his family home in Dorset was surprisingly clear.

  With the rain slanting down outside his window, the wind lashing the rapidly defoliating trees in Green Park the other side of Piccadilly, he had somehow expected the line to crackle as the wind whipped all that wire to Purbeck Manor, where Robert and his wife Freya lived with Lord and Lady St Clair.

  To stop being questioned by his mother on why he was calling home out of the blue, Barnaby had placed a person to person call with the local telephone exchange. With all the rumours flying around in the press, he did not wish for Tina’s mother to read about Harry’s return to England in a newspaper.

  Barnaby had known Mrs P since he was a boy, as he had her husband, now the stationmaster at Corfe Castle railway station where Pringle had worked all his life just a few miles from Purbeck Manor.

  When the exchange finally rang back with the call, Robert was on the line wondering what on earth was going on.

  As a successful novelist, Robert was suspicious of unexpected phone calls, especially from his brother Barnaby who rarely appeared on the scene without a crisis in hand.

  “What’s gone wrong this time, Barnaby?” he asked into the mouthpiece of the phone that stood in the hall of the old manor house not far from the big, gothic front door. “It’s bloody cold standing in the hall. There’s a draught coming at me right under the door. A howling draught, Barnaby.”

  “Have you read a newspaper for the last few days?”

  “I hate newspapers, despite Freya.”

  “How are Freya and Richard?”

  “The boy is fine. Freya is miserable. The opening of her play has been delayed, as you well know. It’s the slump.”

  “There’s a depression… We’ve found Harry.”

  “How do you mean ‘we’? You haven’t been to Africa in years. Freya was relying on you, Barnaby. A good opening in the West End will give her a very nice career. You may not think so but women also need something to do other than having babies.”

  “In London.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “He’s in a Bloomsbury hospital, sick as a dog. It’s in all the papers. Only the Mail has the right story. Merlin’s in the Mirror shouting his mouth off, having confronted the journalist in Simpson’s last night. Chap called William Smythe.”

  “What was Merlin doing there?”

  “With Genevieve. The Mirror printed a picture of Genevieve and Merlin. That paper really is a scandal sheet. Someone had taken a photograph of them while they were on the dance floor looking like lovers. Our niece is not only beautiful but also photogenic. She’ll end up in the films.”

  “Can’t you convince Oscar Fleming to put on my wife’s play? Most of it is your money on the line. You made enough out of Marlowe’s second hit. Please, Barnaby. It’s the girl’s pride.”

  “Be patient.”

  “Have you ever met a patient
woman? Now, if you’ve finished talking rot about Harry and you don’t want to put on my wife’s play after all, I have work to do. My books are not selling as well as before the crash but they are still selling as I have a publisher. Unlike my poor wife who doesn’t have a backer to put on her plays… Now she wants to go back to America and work again for Glen Hamilton at the Denver Telegraph.”

  “Glen is also running the story of Harry coming back from the dead. Ask Freya. She knows Glen would never knowingly print a lie.”

  “Now I really am cold.”

  “Shut up and listen. Afterwards I want you to go and see Mrs P at the cottage, before the bloody papers knock on her door.”

  “Does Tina know?”

  “Not yet. Getting a phone call through to Rhodesia is going to take me all day… I’ve given Harry Holy Knight to read when he’s well enough. Said he liked your picture on the back of the cover. He brought bugs in his body from Africa even the doctors don’t know about.”

  “What kind of bugs?”

  “Just listen.”

  Four hours later, while Barnaby St Clair was making another call to the telephone exchange to find out what was happening to his call to Rhodesia, not far away at the Department of Inland Revenue, Milton Landan was having a good chuckle with his civil service friends.

  “Unbelievable, my boy. Unbelievable… Did you read this, Pimm? What people do in this world to try and make money.”

  “Don’t you read the papers? It’s been headline news for days.”

  “I assessed that estate for payment of death duty. Wasn’t my fault they demanded to fix the share price when the plane went down. I thought I was doing them a favour. The market was going up. Not the slightest idea of the crash to come. Now three years later some con-artist says he is Harry Brigandshaw.”

  “What happens to the money if the man is found alive?”

  “He’d get his money back, of course. You can’t charge a man death duty when he’s still alive. That’s the beauty of death duty tax. You can do what you like to a dead man when he can’t argue.”

  “Do you know how much it is?”

  “To the penny.”

  “And interest?”

  “If a chap doesn’t pay his tax on time and we catch up with him we charge him compound interest and then add a fine. This has never happened before. He’d get compound interest I suppose but we don’t get a fine.”

  “Did a smart thing going dead for three years. With the stock markets still on the way down, he’ll be worth far more now than if the courts hadn’t pronounced him dead. You must have taxed the estate for more than the assets would now be worth and he still gets three years’ interest.”

  “They’ve still got to prove the right man is still alive, Pimm. What do the other papers say?”

  “That it’s a hoax, even his brother-in-law. There’s a picture of the brother-in-law’s so-called daughter that made me drool. Now there’s a girl to meet. My wife looks like a sack of potatoes. With everything going down, the budget is going to be terribly short this year. What happens if the government can’t borrow more money?”

  “We’re off the gold standard. They print it… Where was the picture of the brother-in-law’s daughter? If it was his daughter of course. Rich men keep together so the chap’s likely rich. Lucky bloke. Wish I could keep a mistress the age of my daughter… If Brigandshaw is alive, I wonder what he’ll do with that chap at Colonial Shipping who had the bright idea to ask us to fix the share price at the time of the plane crash? Wouldn’t like to be in his boots when his old boss comes back from the dead and asks him what the bloody hell he was doing. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes, oh no… I never thought I’d say it, Pimm, but you and I are lucky to have passed the civil service exams when we did and work for the government. At least we have a job.”

  “You may not have if you give Brigandshaw back his money.”

  “That’s not my problem. That’s the law. Anyway, it’s all a question of whether he’s alive. A man like that with so much money wouldn’t want to hide himself away for three years. Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Maybe you’ll find out. He’ll have to come and see you. Then you will be a celebrity if you let the papers know what’s going on. You’ll be the talk of the town. Never does a career any harm being talked about when you are in the right.”

  “Do you know, sometimes I like you, Pimm.”

  When Milton Landan went home that night still convinced the Daily Mail had started a hoax, Barnaby St Clair was putting down his telephone having spoken to the supervisor. There were only three lines to Rhodesia through Cape Town, but it appeared that was not his only problem.

  In the farming areas outside Salisbury, the farmers shared a party line, which had a small handle next to the phone set fixed to a wall inside the house. Each of them had a combination of rings different to their neighbours. The original idea to save money was to let the farmer only answer his own rings when set off by the Post Office. After the call, a single long ring told the other farmers on the party line the call was finished and the line was clear.

  The idea had been that of a man not thinking properly at the time: bored wives stuck out in the bush could chat to their neighbours three miles away without moving out of the farmhouse or paying the Post Office a penny. Frustrated operators broke into these hen parties asking the women to put down their phones when an outside call was on its way.

  The trouble for Barnaby was, by the time Salisbury had connected to Cape Town, another pair of bored women were on the party line chatting away.

  “How do you ever get a call to the right person?” he had asked the supervisor.

  “Patience, sir. Patience. At least those people far away in Africa can talk to you in England.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “We will, sir… Now, what was that number again?”

  Robert was now on his way up to London to see Harry, bringing Freya and leaving Richard with his grandmother. Barnaby smiled at the thought of his mother having her grandson all to herself. She and Mrs Mason, the old cook at the Manor, would be having the time of their lives.

  Freya coming to London had more to do with her play than visiting Harry in hospital. That much Barnaby knew about playwrights. If he had his own way, the show would go on even if the small audiences made the play run at a loss.

  Earlier Barnaby had received a lecture from Oscar Fleming on people and the theatre.

  Only Christopher Marlowe’s show was making any money, a whimsical musical that took people’s minds off their problems. A straight-shooting play on the stupidity of war was not what the public wanted on its mind, however brilliant the writing or the story.

  After the Great War, the crash in the stock market and the worldwide depression, London audiences wanted cheering up, according to Oscar Fleming. Plays with a strong message went down better with affluent audiences who were better equipped to enjoy and smile at other people’s affliction.

  When Freya arrived, Barnaby was going to suggest his new sister-in-law write something fantastical. In his own mind what he thought of as a nice mindless piece where no one in the audience was required to think, a pleasant message for raw nerves.

  As usual when Barnaby thought back on the conversation, Oscar Fleming was right. The real art was not theatre but making money.

  “Never tell an audience what they don’t want to hear, Barnaby. Never tell anybody for that matter, certainly not if you want to make money or a friend. And never ever overrate the cerebral capacity of the human mind unless it reflects well on themselves. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a clue what you are talking about if you convince them first only a clever person like themselves would understand. Then they feel superior. A truly good play has a splendid, easy to understand story, like Romeo and Juliet, and slips the knife into the audience with the truth without them knowing. Making them think and understand later when they get home.”

  When the call was finally picked up on Elephant Walk in the
hottest month of their year, the old Mrs Brigandshaw, Harry’s mother, answered. By then the other wives of the white men in Africa had gone to bed, their phones at last on the hooks, their tongues relaxed in sleep.

  “Harry’s alive, Mrs Brigandshaw,” said Barnaby, all the way from London clear as a bell.

  Part 2

  One Man’s Fish is Another Man’s Poison — November 1931

  1

  There were five houses on the family compound on Elephant Walk. Tina Brigandshaw and her five children were asleep in the newly renovated house that had been built by Martinus Oosthuizen back before the British raised the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury and declared the land of the Shona a British colony. Then, he and Sebastian Brigandshaw, Harry Brigandshaw’s father, owned the property they loosely called a farm.

  The old house had fallen derelict from lack of attention for many years and again after Barend, the son, had died instead of Harry Brigandshaw. Barend was the dead father of Martinus junior, named for his grandfather hanged by the British in the Anglo-Boer War for going out with his fellow Boers.

  By the time the phone call came through in the middle of the night, Martinus junior, or plain Tinus as he preferred to be called, Harry’s nephew (Madge, his sister, had married Barend despite her being British) was away at school at the Diocesan College in Cape Town known to the boys and masters as Bishops. Paula and Doris, the sisters of Tinus, were also away at boarding school.

  Tina, fast asleep, failed to wake up to the two long and one short ring that said the incoming call was for her. Neither Sir Henry Manderville in his one-bedroom house on the compound, Ralph Madgwick in the manager’s house, or the children’s nurses, Molly and Ivy in the rondavel, had heard the call, their brains attuned to wake only to their own call rings, each having one of the thirty-six houses that made up the party line Barnaby had been battling to break into all day.