On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  “You’ll get lynched, William. Don’t be a fool. We need the Americans.”

  “It’s all about money.”

  “So tell me what’s new,” said Horatio wearily.

  “I had a letter at last from Genevieve. She’s in New York.”

  “Now I know why you are going to America. But don’t stir up shit.”

  “In 1929 communism and national socialism, as the fascists like to call it, didn’t look so bad. Now in Russia and Germany everyone has a job for the moment. In the end it doesn’t matter which system the rich and powerful put into place. The people in the street end up where they started if they are lucky. It’s which group of rich and powerful get into power that makes the rest of us go to war with all that lovely patriotism ringing in our ears. We’re all puppets of the rich or want to be rich, Horatio.”

  “You’ve gone bonkers. Go and interview Adolf Hitler. He’ll understand exactly what you are trying to say.”

  “Of course he will. That’s why he’s in power and about to plunge the whole damn world into a war. He’s gone so far with his rhetoric, his words of rage at the way the world treated Germany at the end of the war, he can’t go back now. He’s on the proverbial roll. He either wins everything for Germany or loses it all, including his own life. If you go around killing the opposition it’s imperative to stay in power for the sake of your own skin.”

  “Janet’s having another baby.”

  “Won’t she have to give up work?”

  “Not with her work being at the bottom of the house. With two of us earning solid incomes we’re saving good money. Paying Blanche to look after young Harry when Janet’s seeing patients makes sense. It also gives Janet a break from the boy who demands attention all the time. Janet’s so happy and over the moon she’s pregnant again. We match each other so well, William. We have something to say to each other at the end of the day. Her patients are not all schoolboys at Harrow. She teaches people how to speak properly in public. How to make each word carry to the back of an audience. She meets interesting people who are doing something with their lives. Janet says so many people swallow their words which, once they are taught how to change, makes their presentations easier to listen to. Men in big business address meetings. She gives them confidence.”

  “Who pay Janet well. Who earns most, Horatio?”

  “Oh, she does. By about double. She’s only limited by the number of hours in the day.”

  “Tell her from me to put up her price. It’s all about supply and demand.”

  “I’ll tell her. If you write too much inflammatory nonsense about America the papers won’t publish your articles anyway. Certainly not in America, just ask Glen Hamilton. They hate criticism. Especially from the old colonial power we still like to call Great Britain.”

  “It’s not nonsense, Horatio. Plain business. Competition. Making money. No one ever made money being polite to the competition and that’s what we are to the Americans. In 1917 it was in their interest to back the Allies as by then we owed them colossal amounts of money they would have lost had Germany won the war. At the end, we owed them more than the Germans thanks largely to the Royal Navy being able to cut off American supplies to Germany.”

  “They were on our side long before they came into the war.”

  “American big business was on any side that paid them money. There are many ways of disguising the origin of a shipment. Send the boat down to a neutral country in South America and change all the shipping documents.”

  “If you know all this why are you going to America? Oh, I forgot. Genevieve. Would you like another cup of tea?”

  “We are so polite. At least you and I are too old to fight in another war. We were born at the right time. Too old for this one that’s coming. Too young for the last. Did you get your invitation to Harry Brigandshaw’s celebration bash? I don’t wish to puncture your ego when you are pouring tea from so nice a china pot but Harry warned me on the phone he had a row with his wife about asking us to the shindig. We’re beneath her now, Horatio. Just a couple of hacks, one with a working wife. Just not good enough for her new friends. Harry phoned me to make sure we are coming. He says he doesn’t like changing friends. What is it with people? They get rich by making or marrying it and have to show off to the rich they want to call their friends, most of which, according to Harry, are a bunch of freaks. You’re lucky to have a good marriage. A bad one is hell. Harry wants to go back to Africa. Says he’s done all he can do for the radar units going up along the south coast. He’s terribly homesick for Africa. That place has some kind of a draw on people which I don’t quite understand. Hastings Court is beautiful with far more of his family history than Elephant Walk.”

  “But not of himself. A man likes to build his own castle, William. Give my love and Janet’s to Genevieve and have a safe flight. For myself I’d catch the boat.”

  “Flying is wonderful. You feel above it all somehow, away from all the infighting going on in the world down below. I’ll send Mr Glass the articles when I come back. You can ask him if he wants to buy them, or you can come to America and see for yourself. How is your editor by the way?”

  “Mr Glass is just the same. He still treats me like I wrote my first newspaper article yesterday.”

  “He’s a damn good editor. Why I’d like him to read my stuff, even if he doesn’t want to publish. When you know where a person or country is coming from it’s easier to know how to react. Right through life people say one thing and mean another.”

  “You have a tortured mind, William.”

  “Thank you for the lovely tea.”

  “Entirely my pleasure. So you don’t believe anyone is intrinsically good?”

  “No, I don’t. There’s evil in everyone waiting for the greed to bring it out.”

  “I feel sorry for you, old friend.”

  “So do I. It’s why one day when we have the power to do it we’ll destroy ourselves and our planet. There are many people out there who would rather have nothing than watching his neighbour live in comfort. If they can’t have what the other’s got they’d rather kill the both of them, or reduce the two of them to abject poverty so they both look the same. People are funny. They don’t like another bloke having more than themselves. It’s human nature that some call the evil within mankind.”

  Only when Horatio returned to his house in Chelsea that evening did the heavy weight lift from his heart; his old friend from the days of his cub reporting had grown depressing. Even after he had sat thinking it through in silence behind his desk did he dare think what William had said was true, as if they were all living in hell and not just one being created by Adolf Hitler and his band of merry men.

  Taking his mind away from the talk with William, Horatio smiled at his wife. Janet looked so happy now she knew she was pregnant, her own smile infectious.

  “We’re going out for dinner tonight to celebrate,” she said after Horatio hung his overcoat on the hallstand; despite being spring, the day was cold.

  “Of course we are. Just the two of us.”

  “Just the three of us, Horatio. You and me and our daughter. I won’t drink though. The doctor says it’s bad for the baby to drink when you are pregnant and we don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “When I came home I was miserable. Gathering news these days is not a happy experience. Now I’m happy. William thinks the world is only full of evil people. That evil lurks in everyone when they stop kidding each other.”

  “What nonsense. What William needs is a good wife. Is he still mooning over Genevieve?”

  “Going to America on Monday to see her.”

  “At least he’s persistent.”

  “We had a party invite from Harry Brigandshaw. Tina had a row with Harry according to William. She thinks we are beneath her as she’s Lady of the Manor.”

  “The poor girl has an inferiority complex. They behave that way. We don’t have to go.”

  “Harry wants us to. He wants to see his namesake young Ha
rry.”

  “Good. Then we’ll go if we can take the baby. How was your day, really?”

  “All right before William made me miserable.”

  “You can’t spend time worrying about what may never happen. All that is important is our family. What is near and dear to us. The rest of the world has to live with itself, sort out its own problems. So what if William’s certain there’s going to be another war?”

  “So am I certain.”

  “Then we’ll get through it, Horatio. You’ll see. All of us here will get through and appreciate each other even more, if that seems possible. Now go up and see your son in the nursery while I change for dinner. I’ve booked us a table at the Trocadero. I have a craving for fish which is how I know this baby is going to be a girl. Stop worrying. We have each other. Nothing else matters in the world.”

  3

  On the Tuesday, when William Smythe was looking for Genevieve’s hotel in Manhattan, not far away Gerry Hollingsworth was on his way in a yellow cab to visit his banker, the man who made the final decision on whether his new film script was going into production. Because of the risk involved, Gerry had been forced to offer Sir Jacob Rosenzweig, late of Rosenzweigs London, a percentage of Robin Hood’s gross income rather than a fixed interest rate on the amount of the loan.

  Most of the money to make a film came from private banks or backers. Robin Hood had already paid back the capital sum from the gross proceeds in Britain and the money was still pouring in making, Gerry hoped, the film’s banker a very happy man.

  “I do all the bloody work and the bank makes the money,” he had complained to Genevieve earlier when he obtained her signature on the new contract, part of Gerry’s ammunition for the meeting with the bank.

  “But they put up the money. They took the risk of the film being a box office disaster. Without their money, Mr Hollingsworth, you could never have made your film in the first place. It’s money that makes money, not hard work. Haven’t you heard the expression, ‘putting your money to work’? Far better than putting yourself to work.”

  “I wish you would not call me Mr Hollingsworth.”

  “Mr Casimir is quite all right with me.”

  “I meant you calling me Gerry, Genevieve.”

  “We’re not off on that old chestnut again? I’m going to have my time cut out keeping Gregory’s hands off my body without you looking at me like that. I don’t have to sign this contract do I? You forget, my father is now a peer of the realm.”

  “We’ve worked together so long, Gerry would be nice once in a while.”

  “Yes, Gerry. Now give me the bloody contract. How’s your wife enjoying New York?”

  “Thankfully, she’s loving it.”

  “All women like spending money. When do I get my signing fee?”

  “When Sir Jacob Rosenzweig, now plain Jacob in America, has himself signed on to the film.”

  “Won’t he think it odd you bought the film rights to my uncle’s book? After the launch of Genevieve in America everyone knows where I came from.”

  “That had nothing to do with it. Keeper of the Legend at this time in the world’s affairs will take the people’s minds off their problems. It’s a medieval story. A world of fantasy, even if your uncle claims his novels are based on family history.”

  “Well they are.”

  “Poppycock. That was Max Pearl’s touch of genius with Holy Knight. In the contract Max wants Robert St Clair in America as a consultant on the film in case we say anything untoward about your precious family. His wife will like that. She’s American according to Max. Something in his eyes said he knew more about the good wife than he was telling. If you were to ask me straight in the face I’d say Max and Freya St Clair were lovers back before your uncle came into the picture.”

  “Max tried and failed. He wined and dined her at the 21 Club. She told me.”

  “We are a close family, aren’t we?”

  “Which is more than you can say for yours.”

  “Don’t be catty. I think they are coming to terms with the name change.”

  “But not living in America.”

  “My children are grown up.”

  “I wish you would remember that when you look at me in that way. I’m the same age as your daughter. And it was me that made Max Pearl put in the clause about my uncle. He’s a good writer and we don’t want a phalanx of scriptwriters putting their own interpretation on the book.”

  “Being a bastard I would have thought the male side of your family would be of no interest. You don’t even carry your father’s name.”

  “Now who’s being catty, Mr Hollingsworth? Go off and get Mr Rosenzweig to lend us the money. Did you know my Aunt Lucinda’s husband Harry Brigandshaw has a roundabout connection with the man they call Sir Jacob Rosenzweig in England?”

  “You’re writing books again.”

  “No, I am not. Uncle Harry as I like to call him has a farm in Rhodesia. A very big farm. The manager of Elephant Walk is Sir Jacob’s son-in-law, though don’t mention it when you see him. My family helped Rebecca run away from New York and marry Ralph Madgwick before the lucky couple went to Africa to live happily ever after. I understand Sir Jacob has not seen his favourite daughter’s children, so keep off the subject. So off you go Mr Hollingsworth, and bring back the bacon, an expression you may not have liked before you changed your name and religion. They say seven moves away, everyone knows everyone else in the world, that we all have a connection. Something I rather like as an idea that someone should put into use to stop everyone squabbling with each other.”

  Down the road in his office Jacob Rosenzweig was waiting for the film producer who was making him so much money. After more than ten years in New York, Jacob thought of himself as an American, having studiously acquired the trappings of an American accent in a bid to fit in. Everything in America, apart from Rebecca, had gone better than he ever could have hoped in the long years since he sailed into New York Harbour with his daughter on the MV Glasmerden.

  The fact that the Berlin office where the bank first started business in a previous century had closed down leaving the bank with colossal unpaid debts, no longer seemed so important. Profits in America were now larger than in London, where Jacob had first started his career in the family bank. He had learnt to cut his losses, to put his family out of his mind except to hope that whatever they were doing, wherever they were, they were happy.

  Minutes before Gerry Hollingsworth arrived for his appointment, Jacob had sat daydreaming behind his desk, wondering what Rebecca and his three grandchildren were doing on Elephant Walk. He was not even sure of the season on the farm in April. Didn’t it rain in April? Was it hot? They had agreed in letters soon after she married Ralph Madgwick to leave it at that, to let their worlds stay apart. She had said she was happy. He hoped so. The birth of the children had come to him on simple cards announcing the dates of their christenings. None of their Christian names sounded Jewish, but that did not matter once the two had married, the damage done.

  In the tight Jewish community of London and New York it was best not to mention a daughter married out of the faith. It was bad for business. Bad for the bank. Almost as bad as Gerry Hollingsworth changing his name and changing his faith, never once acknowledging to Jacob he had once been a Jew. Like Rebecca, it was better not to talk about what once had been in the current state of the world.

  He was now an American, he kept telling himself. An old bachelor of seventy living in a flat overlooking Central Park all on his own, with a servant. All said and done he had had a good life even if he did miss Rebecca, the apple of his eye, the one person in the world he truly loved. What could a man do, he asked himself as his secretary let an obsequious Gerry Hollingsworth into his office. For a moment Jacob wanted to laugh out loud, the man looked so Jewish. But it was business. It always was business.

  Slowly, with effort, Jacob brought his mind to the job on hand as he listened, elbows on his desk, his hands touching at the top in wha
t he liked to think of as a steeple as the man on the other side of the table made his pitch, Gerry Hollingsworth’s confidence growing as he got into his stride. None of which made any difference to Jacob, who had made up his mind to lend the money long before Gerry Hollingsworth walked into his office washing his hands like a supplicant. It was just nice to let the man sweat a little.

  Since the first loan for Robin Hood the man had acquired an appalling American accent. With twinkling old eyes behind the long beak of his nose, Jacob waited for the story to come to a close.

  “Don’t you think you’ve missed something?” he said into the silence, letting Gerry Hollingsworth squirm in his chair. “The girl will be playing the part of one of her ancestors. The Americans will love that. It blends the fantasy into the real. It makes the character and the actress even more part of the same person. Didn’t Max Pearl point it out?”

  “You know Max Pearl, Sir Jacob?”

  “Rosenzweig, please. We don’t use titles in America since the revolution. Mr Pearl is a customer of the bank. Different to yourself, Mr Hollingsworth, he lends us money. Points out customers like yourself. We like to know who we are dealing with. Often the person is more important than the task for which he asks the money. We have to trust each other, Mr Hollingsworth.”