by John Masters
‘Going to do poor Champion and AC and Lucas in?’ Guy said.
‘We’ll try,’ Naomi said, smiling. ‘What was the figure we expect the motor car industry to expand by, Ron?’
Her husband, the tall quiet man walking behind them, a big clipboard in his hand, said, ‘Six per cent this year, fifteen per cent next … perhaps more when we’re definitely out of Russia … twenty per cent, perhaps. It depends on how soon, and how much, taxes come down, releasing money to buy such items as cars.’
Naomi did not acknowledge the information, but said to Guy, ‘Fifteen per cent for the whole industry! There’s enough there for all of us … but I’m going to make sure that we get at least our share of it. If the others can’t keep up with us, we will get their share too.’
‘Are you going to go public?’ Guy asked.
‘We think …’ Ron began; but Naomi overrode him, saying firmly – ‘Not yet. We have approached Lord Walstone – Hoggin – for capital and he will probably lend it to us – he doesn’t know what to do with his money. With that we can expand a bit, and still be a partnership. Then, once we have established a profit record, and a sales base, we can capitalise and become really big … We could raise twenty times earnings, easily …’
They moved out of the big room, across an open space, and into another – ‘Accounts and records,’ Naomi said. ‘Adding machines … automatic registers. No more quill pen offices for us. That’s Carrie Houlton, she was at Girton with me, a real whizz at maths, she’s head of the department. Good morning, Carrie. This is my cousin, Sir Guy Rowland.’
‘It’s an honour to meet you, sir. Good morning, Mrs Gregory … Will you be in your office at the usual time?’
‘Yes,’ Naomi said, moving on. ‘Ron’s department is the technical side … keeping up with inventions, making some of our own – physics rather than manufacturing. He brings me his ideas, and we discuss how the thing, whatever it is, can be most efficiently manufactured and sold … Don’t we?’
‘That’s right,’ Ron said.
‘He’s away a lot … scientific meetings … talking to inventors … sneaking looks at what our competitors are up to.’ She stopped, sniffing the air like a conqueror savouring victory after battle – ‘We’re going to make two hundred thousand for ourselves by the end of next year, Guy – two hundred thousand, after all expenses, after we’ve paid the interest on Lord Walstone’s loan! A year later we’ll be the second biggest automobile electrical engineering and manufacturing firm in the country.’
‘And what happens if you have a baby in the meantime?’
‘I won’t,’ she said forcefully. ‘Not until 1925. Then we’ll have two, a girl and a boy. The boy will go into politics … and the girl will take over this from us when we’re ready to retire.’
‘Where are you going to retire to?’ Guy asked.
She said, ‘I think we’ll … Oh Guy, you’re pulling my leg again! Just like the horrible little boy you used to be, even though you are a knight.’
‘Can’t help it,’ he said. ‘I was born that way. Well, good luck in your great career … I mean it, Naomi – so, do you have any champagne in your office? … Whisky, then? Let’s drink a toast to both Gregorys, and to Gregorys’, your firm … several toasts.’
The pheasant season was close, the birds were in fine shape, and Lord Walstone was pleased. A few successful shooting parties would bring him considerable prestige. Probyn Gorse, walking the outer boundaries of the Park, was not thinking of prestige. He was watching for signs of predators … crows, rooks, hawks, foxes, kids from the village, poachers. He carried a double-barrelled 12-bore under his right arm, broken but loaded … for a fox would not wait while he loaded the gun … He’d have to be careful what foxes he shot, though, for His Lordship was just as keen on the hounds as he was on the pheasants … more prestige. It meant a lot in England still for a man to have the letters MFH after his name. It meant a lot to him, Probyn thought, though danged if he knew why, really, when His Lordship sat a horse like a sack of mangold-wurzels and knew less about hunting hounds than he did about breeding pheasants, and that was nothing at all.
It was near twilight, and Probyn thought, I’ll go round the top of the next wood and then home by Ten Acre and Fawcett’s Copses. The sun was setting earlier each day now … why, last time they’d played cricket at the Park, the last ball had been bowled almost in darkness … He paused, his eye caught by something in the edge of the wood, where a rabbit trail ran in from the field to a small warren just inside: a running noose, brass wire that had been dulled by rubbing with earth … stick firmly thrust into the hard ground … dang it, this was his own wire, and one of the sticks he’d whittled a couple of years ago. Young Tim Rowland, that’s who it was, who’d set the noose … and another ten yards farther on. He stood a moment, looking. These were His Lordship’s rabbits, which he was supposed to be looking after. Let the boy set his nooses on someone else’s land, land where there wasn’t a gamekeeper. He pulled up the sticks and put them in his capacious pockets, wire and all.
Five minutes later, as he entered Ten Acre Copse, a man rose from the bushes beside him and swung at his head with a big wooden club. The club hit with a hard smash to the left side, above the ear, and he fell, the gun falling from his hands. He was fighting for consciousness as he heard a man’s voice nearby – ‘Tie him up … to the tree, Bert … Tight, man.’ They were dragging him along the ground, supporting him half-upright, tying a rope round him. He mumbled, ‘What … wha’ …?’
‘Shut up, you old fart, or you’ll get hurt.’
He said no more; but as he slowly swam back to consciousness and overcame a strong desire to vomit, he kept his eyes all but closed, and listened. There were five of them … no, six. They were beginning to shoot up into the trees with silenced .22s … There was a little wind, but those small phuts would not carry far. The pheasants were not frightened, seeing no connection between their comrades falling off their perches, and their own situation. After a time the men moved on, and Probyn heard no more; but he could guess. They were going to the other copses where pheasants were roosting. They worked fast … He began to pick at his bonds with nimble fingers, and in ten minutes had freed himself. His gun was gone – stolen, of course. He staggered through the Ten Acre, and, listening, heard the faint phuts from Fawcett’s; and started to run across the field towards it, croaking, ‘Stop! Help, help!’
He heard sudden cracks by his head … bullets, passing close through the air. The poachers were firing at him. They were trying to kill him! He flung himself to the ground twenty yards from the edge of the wood, and a bullet kicked up dust a foot from his head. A voice snarled, ‘Lie there, you bastard!’
‘Kill him and be done with it,’ another said.
‘In another half-hour we’ll just about have the place cleaned out. Bring the vans up to the crossroads down there.’
‘All right, Jim.’
Probyn lay still, listening. More steady phuts … pheasants being killed by the hundred. His pheasants. And they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he got in their way. Vans to take the birds to London. He might sneak down the field and get their licence numbers. He moved a foot cautiously as he lay, and a voice said menacingly, ‘Move and you’re a dead man, Gorse.’
So they knew his name … must have; this had been planned like one of them military operations you read about during the war. He lay still, waiting. At last they went, in the darkness, slowly under heavy sacks. He heard the sound of motor engines from the road below. Then he got up and staggered as fast as he could towards the Big House.
Close to the bulk of it he turned into his own cottage, stopping short in the doorway as he saw Guy Rowland inside, talking to his Woman. They looked up and Guy’s expression changed. He sprang to his feet and came forward, saying, ‘What happened, Probyn? You’re bleeding.’
‘’Course I am,’ he said. ‘Set on by half a dozen blokes from London. They’ve taken half the pheasants.’ He went to the sink
, washed his face, and ran his hands through his henna-dyed hair – ‘Got to go and tell His Lordship.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Guy said. They went out together, and to the back door of the Big House. Probyn rang the bell and waited till a footman came; then he said, ‘Got to see His Lordship, James, in a hurry.’
‘They are in the Gainsborough Room,’ the footman said. He led along the passage, knocked at a door at the front of the house, and went in. A moment later he came out, saying, ‘Please go in, sir … and you, Probyn.’
Lord Walstone was on his feet by the fireplace, his hands behind his back, his ample belly out-thrust. Lady Walstone was knitting, in a chair the other side of the fireplace. Her mother was sitting beyond, her gnarled hands folded in her lap, doing nothing.
‘What is it, Probyn?’ Walstone asked. ‘Out with it, man.’
‘Poachers, my lord,’ Probyn said. ‘Knocked me out as soon as I went into the Ten Acre … shot a lot of pheasants with silenced .22s … tied me up first, then threatened to shoot me when I got free … they was in Fawcett’s by then. Took away the birds in two vans.’
‘Poachers, eh?’
‘They aren’t poachers!’ Probyn burst out. ‘They’re … soldiers! What do they call ’em in America? Gangsters! I seen nothing like this in seventy-four years. Nor my father before me. It’s …’
‘It’s war,’ Walstone said. ‘That’s what it is. And you’re not a soldier. You’re a gamekeeper.’ He went to the corner where a telephone stood on a round marble-topped table, picked it up, and said, ‘Trunks, please miss … London, Gerrard 0433 … ’Arry? Bill Hoggin here. Seems a bunch of boys from the Smoke have come down and nicked half my pheasants. You’ll see ’em coming on to the market in a few days. Find out who done it, and let me know right away. Yes, you can spend some money. A hundred quid. No, I’m not going to prosecute. That’s a mug’s game.’
He hung up and returned to the fireplace, nodding to Guy – ‘’Ullo, Sir Guy. Nice to see you.’
‘I was paying a call on Probyn, waiting for him to come home.’
Lord Walstone turned to Probyn – ‘You’re sacked, Probyn. It takes more than kitowing about pheasants to look after them these days. I’m going to find the bloke who fixed this raid, then I’m going to hire him. You go back to your cottage and take a few of my rabbits and birds now and then, like you used to. These blokes won’t mind about that, because they think big, see? Any time you want any money, come and give ’em a hand with the breeding, getting beaters, all the stuff they know nothing about … but they’ll defend this place like it was Verdun, see. Just remember that, when you want to come out on a moonlight night. This is 1919, Probyn.’
Guy Rowland walked carefully out of the Saloon Bar of the Lord Nelson about half-past eight in the evening and stood a moment, swaying on his heels, looking around him, seeing nothing. He became aware of sound, an awful scraping, whining, tinkling sound. He gazed blankly about and finally saw that a trio of ex-servicemen had taken position at the corner of the building, begging. One, who appeared to be blind, with patches over both eyes, played a cornet, out of tune. Another, with one arm, played a fife, holding the instrument ingeniously in the hunch of his shoulder. The third was without both legs, and squatted in a child’s cart; he waved a tambourine in one hand, and sang. They were all wearing their medals and the tune they were singing and playing at this moment, in the near dark, was ‘Tipperary’.
The whisky he’d drunk was swimming in Guy’s head and it took him a minute to find his wallet, pick out a ten-shilling note, and drop it into the cap set beside the man in the cart. ‘Thank yer, sir, thank yer,’ the legless man cried, breaking his song for a few beats …
Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square,
It’s a long long way to Tipperary, but my heart’s right there!
Guy wandered off aimlessly. The Lord Nelson was in the older part of Hedlington, the streets narrow, the houses close-packed; but, partly due to the bombings in the war, and partly to condemnation of some old buildings in a dangerous state, there were also open spaces, mostly littered with paper, tin cans, bottles, and other debris. The Scarrow, here murky and sluggish, flowed past the end of one of them. His head ached but not very badly. He had been thinking about Maria and Florinda, and had still reached no answer.
A boy darted towards him, followed by a bellow of rage and, a moment later, a man with no trousers on, weaving out of an alley, waving his arms and shouting, ‘Stop him! Thief! Thief!’ Instinctively Guy shot out an arm and grabbed the boy by the throat. The boy struggled and tried to bite but Guy had him firm, and said, ‘Quiet now, or I’ll strangle you!’ Behind the bare-bottomed man a girl darted out and away; but the man was not as drunk as he seemed, and he turned quickly and had her before she could escape.
‘What’s the matter?’ Guy asked.
‘Bloody little whore,’ the man said. ‘And that’s her mate, takes my money while I’m fucking her in the alley there.’
‘I ain’t done nothing,’ the boy whined, making a sudden jerk for freedom. Guy tightened his grip until the boy was choking – ’Aaahah …’
The girl whined, ‘I done nothing. I earned that money.’
But the boy was feeling in the pocket of his ragged coat and pulling out a few coins. ‘’Ere, take ’em mister,’ he gasped. ‘Just let us go. We got to make money, some’ow, ain’t we? My Dad got bofe legs blown off in the war and …’
‘Was that him playing outside the Lord Nelson?’
The boy said, ‘Yus. That’s ’im. Willum Gorse. My Dad.’
The bare-bottomed man grabbed the money and, giving the girl a final shake, threw her to the ground and hurried back into the alley in search of his trousers. Looking round, Guy thought, perhaps someone has seen all this; perhaps not; whether or not, it is certain that no one cares. He said to the girl, ‘Don’t run away.’
She began to dust herself off, saying, ‘Five shillings it is, for a toff like you. Money first … And I’ll send Rupert away so’s you won’t worry about ’aving your wallet pinched.’
Guy said, ‘I know your father well. I don’t know why I didn’t recognise him just now.’
‘’Ad a bit too much wallop?’ she said, slyly – ‘But I can smell yer breath, and that’s not beer. That’s whisky.’
Guy said, ‘Why does he have to beg? Doesn’t he have a pension?’
‘Not enough,’ the girl said at once. ‘Muvver takes in washing … Violet’s left ’ome and lives with a fancy man in Chatham … but she ’ad a baby wot’s now nearly four and she left that for us to look after. Rupert ’ere’s a proper little Artful Dodger, a real expert ’e is. ’E’ll get to the top of the tree in his profession in no time … or the top of the gallows.’
‘And you’re … wait a minute – you’re Betty. You’re about …’
‘Thirteen,’ she said.
‘And there was another girl, who’d be about eleven now.’
‘Jane. Died of the influenza, last year. You do know a lot about us.’
‘I …’ Guy’s head was throbbing and he sat down suddenly in the dirt, beside the dark quivering surface of the river – ‘I don’t understand … Florinda’s your sister. She has plenty of money. So does Fletcher, now. Why are you all so … wretched?’
‘Ma won’t take money from either of ’em,’ Betty said indifferently. ‘Though I know Florinda sends quids and ’alf Bradburys and ’alf-crowns to people ’ere, for them to drop into Dad’s cap … which they sometimes do. But this is more fun … much more fun. ’Oo the ’ell wants to be a fucking skivvy in some toff’s ’ouse? Or work like a ruddy nigger in a HUSL shop? Not me! … C’mon, Rupert. Let’s go down to the South Eastern.’
They disappeared into the gloaming. Guy slowly rose to his feet and staggered back towards the Lord Nelson. The ex-servicemen were still playing on the corner, now ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, as dreadfully as ever. He stood a few feet from them, recognising Willum clearly now … staring, thinking. Why
did everything have to be so … so debased, so miserable? Why did no one care? Tears began to flow into his eyes and sobs choked him. He began to fumble for his wallet; but at once gave that up. Money wasn’t enough. Money would never be enough. The cripples played on, and men and women passed, going in and out of the pub, and some dropped pennies into the cap, or now and then a tanner … Guy waited, watching relentlessly. What did they want of him? But they did not answer, only played on, as relentlessly, and terribly … All the nice girls love a sailor … Pack up your troubles …
Florinda rang the bell outside the street door of the flat, and waited. It was four in the afternoon, teatime; but for him, these days, it might be champagne or brandy time. He might be asleep, or quarrelsome. It didn’t matter; she had made up her mind that the time had come for her to act. Good heavens, in her own way she had been dithering and drifting just as much as he had.
The door opened and he stood there, one hand on the jamb, staring down at her. He had not shaved, but the fair stubble barely showed. He was sober, she thought, and said, ‘May I come in?’
He stood back without a word and she swept in and up the stairs and into the flat proper, threw her sable into an armchair as she passed, sank into another, and lit a cigarette. He came and stood in front of her, blocking out the light from the windows that overlooked the small park in the centre of Greeley Crescent. She got the cigarette drawing and blew out a long stream of smoke. She said, ‘I’m going to get married.’
He seemed for a moment to shrink, and said, ‘I see. Congratulations … but I’m supposed to say that to Billy, a’n’t I? All good wishes, then.’
Her heart sank, but she gathered her inner determination and said, ‘I love him. And he’s handsome, brave … and good in bed.’
He stooped suddenly, and said, ‘You don’t love him! You’re going to throw away the rest of your life just for money, and good fucking? You’re a bloody stupid cunt, that’s all you are! You never had a brain in your head and you’ve never learned anything!’ He seized her by the neck and shook her furiously. Oh dear, she thought, this is getting a bit close to the bone; he is a killer, and has proved it over and over again; but she felt much better. She kept her eyes unblinking on his, as best she could, while her head bobbed fiercely back and forth. His face was close on top of her, his teeth bared, as he snarled, ‘I won’t let you do it! I’ll strangle you first!’
