by Mark Dawson
Edward eventually persuaded him that they should book tickets to a music-hall show but their taxi driver took them through the Ninth Arrondissement so that they passed alongside Le Folies Bergère and Joseph told him to stop, and told Edward that he had heard about the women inside and that it would be a much more enjoyable way to spend the evening. Edward felt jaded and did not have the energy to argue. Why not, he conceded. They booked tickets for the midnight show and were allotted an excellent table near to the front. Joseph was quickly in buoyant spirits but Edward struggled to lift himself out of a despondent slough. The show was tedious and he was pleased when it was over. The day had not gone as he had planned. He wrote it off and tried to forget it. They had another day tomorrow. He would try harder then.
They took a taxi back to their hotel.
Joseph settled back and stretched out his legs. He looked to be drifting away to sleep when his eyes suddenly flicked open. “Damn!” he said. “I nearly forgot. I saw Billy before we came away. He said the strangest thing happened to him yesterday. He’d gone to the showroom to see Ruby about some business and he says this chap came in looking for you while he was there.”
Edward had a sick, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. “For me?” he said in a deep voice, trying to hide his tremulousness.
“So he says. Billy said this bloke said he was your brother. I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
He thought rapidly. He did not have a brother or sister but perhaps the real Edward Fabian did? He had no idea. What would be the safest thing to say? There was no way of knowing. He wet his lips. “I do,” he said quickly. He prayed that Billy did not have a name, or that, if he did, he had not told Joseph.
“You never mentioned him.”
“We don’t get on. I haven’t seen him for years. What else did Billy say?”
“Not much. He said this fellow had seen your picture in the paper––that story that you did about the showroom. He wants to see you.”
Edward felt weak and helpless and before he could do anything to prevent it his mind was picturing policemen waiting for him on the runway when they disembarked at Northolt. He forced himself to calm down. He was running ahead of himself. He began to plan his story and then what he would have to do when he returned. He would need to rehearse it all in his head, a hundred times over so that it became substantial, and that therefore he would have to believe it himself. He had a brother but they were estranged. He hadn’t seen him since before the war and he had no idea what he wanted now. He would have to meet him and find out. It was nothing unusual. Family business, the sort that all families have.
“Are you alright? You’ve gone pale.”
“It’s my stomach,” Edward explained. “I must’ve eaten something bad.”
“Those oysters,” Joseph suggested. “French rubbish. I told you they were a bad idea.”
* * *
THEY HAD ONE MORE DAY before their return flight at eight o’clock. Edward was determined to spend it well. He had tried to put the news of the previous night out of his mind. There was no sense in worrying about it now and Joseph had not mentioned it again.
They checked out of the pension and took a taxi to the Eiffel Tower, walked to the Hôtel Royal des Invalides, and then spent two hours wandering the Champs-Elysées, pausing at the luxury shops and eventually stopping at a café with tables that spilled out onto the pavement. The Arc de Triomphe was blindingly white in the harsh sunlight. They ordered Americanos and croissants. Joseph had been quiet that morning, a little reserved, and Edward had the unshakeable feeling that whatever it was that had come between them was about to reach its inevitable conclusion. He did not wish to precipitate it but he could not stand the pensive atmosphere. “Is everything alright?” he said, trying to be cheerful.
Joseph hesitated. “There’s something I want to say, Doc––and I hate to say it if it’s going to cause any fuss.”
Edward went cold. “Well, I won’t know until you tell me what it is.”
He looked uncomfortable. “I was thinking that perhaps we should look at getting our own places.” He paused, a quizzical expression on his face that Edward ignored, forcing himself to stare blankly out into the busy street. “It’s been great fun,” he went on, choosing his words carefully, “but it was only ever going to be a short-term thing, wasn’t it? Until you had enough money to stand on your own two feet. And you do now, don’t you? You’ve done well out of all this.”
He reply was a curt, “Yes, of course.”
“Don’t be like that. Wouldn’t you rather get your own place? A bit more space to breathe?”
“Isn’t this all a bit sudden?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days.”
“I can’t say that I have. I thought you were enjoying living together?”
“I have enjoyed it. But I’m getting more serious with Eve, now. It’s not fair on her, bringing her back and you’re there in the flat. You can see that, can’t you? She needs a bit of privacy. I suppose we both do.”
“I’ll start to look around then.”
“Doesn’t have to be right away. Take a couple of days to find somewhere nice.”
A couple of days, Edward thought bitterly. How generous! “No, I’ll start when we get back. You’ve obviously made up your mind. I don’t want to outstay my welcome.”
“Don’t be like that, Doc. There’s something else that’s made me think about this. I’d rather we kept it between us for now, but I’m thinking of proposing.”
“Proposing?” he spluttered. “You’ve only been seeing her for a few months.”
There was hurt confusion on his face. “What difference does that make?”
“Each to his own, I suppose.”
“What does that mean? Oh, never mind––I was going to get the ring out here. I thought maybe you could help?”
It was a bit late to draw the sting, Edward thought. “I don’t know.”
Joseph grimaced a little. Edward watched him in the reflection in the café window and knew there was still worse to come.
“While we’re at it, I’m afraid you’ve upset my aunt. I told you not to go on at her, about Spot and how they’ve chosen to do things, didn’t I, but she says you gave it to her when you went down to the house last week.”
“I didn’t ‘give it to her,’ as you say,” Edward protested with a laugh that sounded horribly false. “She brought the subject up and told me what she proposed to do about it. I told her I didn’t agree. It was perfectly civilised, no more than that.”
“She didn’t see it that way. Her temper––”
“I was trying to be helpful, Joseph. I happen to think she’s making a mistake. You agree with me, I know you do.”
“I don’t know what I think, so I’ve no idea how you’d presume to know.”
“I don’t see how I can be responsible if someone misinterprets what I say.” The sense of frustration was agony to Edward. He forced himself to concentrate on the bitter coffee, trying to wrestle back some equanimity. He looked across the table: the annoyance was evident in Joseph’s face, and Edward knew that he was irritated with his presuming to know best, even though Edward knew that he was right. He wanted to explain himself better, wanted to show Joseph that he was right, break through the suspicion and reluctance so that he would understand and they would feel the same way. “I wish you could see my point of view,” he said. “Doing nothing is the worst thing that you could do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Joseph retorted angrily. “On and on and on. Jesus, Doc, you want to listen to yourself sometimes! You’ve only been involved for a few months, you don’t know Soho, you don’t know my family and you don’t know Jack Spot. You don’t really know anything and despite that you seem to think you know best about everything. I’m starting to think it was a bad idea asking you to get involved in the first place.”
His expression had changed quickly from confusion to blackened anger. Edward had
seen that switch in him before. His temper was finely balanced at the best of times, teetering between precipitous extremes: his good nature could curdle to fury before you knew where you were and it was frightening to see. Edward knew he should stop before he made things worse, but he could not. The frustration had been building in him for days until it was like an ache in his stomach. He should have said, “Alright, Joseph,” to put an end to it, to tell Joseph he understood, that he knew he was being presumptuous and that he would keep his own counsel from now on, that they could move past their disagreement. But he couldn’t say that, he just couldn’t.
Joseph paused, and calmed his temper. They had bought a packet of French cigarettes that morning and he tore it open. He gave one to Edward and reached across to light it for him. Edward felt in the grip of an enervating weakness, as if his knees would buckle and he would fall to the ground. It was all too much to bear: his failure, Joseph’s attitude, the fact that he obviously hated him. Edward suddenly saw it for exactly what it was. They were not friends, and they never had been. He did not know Joseph, not really. They had met, briefly, far away, drunk on whisky and elation at the end of the war. Burma and India were all they had in common, the only memories that were special to them, and, even then, those memories were limited to a drunken brawl in a bar and a drunken carouse afterwards. Those memories were fading fast, like photographs that had been left out in the sun. It was too much. He looked around at the café, at the tourists gathered at the tables and booths. He felt surrounded by strangeness, by hostility. He could see what would happen. It was all so awfully obvious. Only yesterday Joseph had said, “Are you planning a holiday soon” in an offhand way in the middle of a conversation, and now that made sense. So terribly transparent. Joseph and the rest of the family would very quietly, very politely, leave him out. Every convivial thing that they would say to him from now on would be an effort for them. It would all be insincere and Edward couldn’t bear to imagine it.
“Look, Doc,” Joseph said as he lit his own cigarette, “I might as well come out with it. Once this job is finished, Violet wants us to knock it all on the head.”
Joseph’s tone was conciliatory, friendly, but what he said gave Edward a painful wrench in his breast. “What does that mean?” he said.
“My aunt doesn’t want you to work with the family any more.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“That’s how it has to be.”
“You agree with her?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s for the best. You’ve got the medicine to go to. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that house with me. It was selfish of me. You should’ve worked on being a doctor when you got back. It would have made a lot more sense. It still does. Think about it. You know she’s right.”
Edward gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles showed white. He stared at Joseph’s black eyes, at the clench of his eyebrows, the severe folds that creased his brow, and back to the eyes again, dark and black and unsmiling. There was no life there, no sparkle, nothing more than if Edward had been peering into the bloodless surface of a mirror. He felt as if he had been punched in his chest and his breath came fast, through his mouth. It was as if Joseph had suddenly been snatched from him and, at that, the boundless possibilities that he represented had been blown away like smoke. Edward didn’t care about Joseph. It was the injustice that made him so angry.
“Say something, Doc,” Joseph prompted, a little gingerly.
Edward got up, threw a handful of francs onto the table and set off. Joseph took his coat from the back of the chair and hurried after him. “If I knew you were going to take it so badly––”
A burning fury boiled in his blood and made him quiver. “You’ve got some nerve,” he said in a cold voice that was flat despite the crazy anger that he was struggling to contain. “You’re an ungrateful, spineless fool.” Edward stopped in the middle of the pavement and stared at him. “Do you think we would have made so much money at Honeybourne if it wasn’t for me? You wouldn’t have known where to start. You’re fine if things are simple, forcing a door or cutting rough with a guard so you can rob his depot. But if it’s complicated, if it needs careful planning? It’d be you and your friends, blundering around with no idea, not a clue, with no plan and no sense. The same goes for your bloody stupid family, too. You wouldn’t have lasted a week before the police got wise. You talk a good game, Joseph, all that lip, the silver tongue, but up here”––he stabbed a finger against his temple––“there’s nothing inside that pretty head, is there? It’s empty.”
“Watch what you say,” Joseph warned him.
“Or what? You’ll hit me below the belt again?” They had raised their voices and people had stopped to watch them. That made Edward angrier still. Joseph set off, striding purposefully towards the bone-white monument.
Edward followed him. He turned his head to see confusion and something else––fear, or suspicion?––in Joseph’s face. That made it worse. Edward wanted to explain to him, to persuade him that there was no need to behave like this, but he knew now with a sickening sense of certainty that he had been right: he was on his way out of the family. Events had gathered their own momentum now and he wouldn’t be able to stop them. The thought of that was like agony to him. The frustration, to be thwarted when he was so close, when he had finally found such possibilities for his future. The tension rose higher and, suddenly, it snapped. “I pity you sometimes, Joseph, I do––the way you can’t see how people like Billy Stavropoulos are dragging you down, and I think, without me, all you’d ever do is rob the odd house, turn over a warehouse or two, but all it would ever be is just a wait until you get your collar felt and sent down.” He went on furiously, unable to stop. “Asking me to help you wasn’t a mistake––it was the most sensible thing I’ve ever known you to do. And now you think you can just tell me it’s all over? Just like that? Toss me aside like a piece of rubbish?” He laughed caustically. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Joseph picked up his pace and so Edward reached out and grasped him around the shoulder. Joseph spun on his heel and, the angle changing so that his face became visible, Edward could see that he had prodded him too far. It was choked with fury. Joseph shucked his hand from his shoulder, closed his right fist and hooked at him. The blow was thrown carelessly and glanced Edward on the right temple. Again, he knew he should have stopped, that there were lines still to cross, but his own anger had him in a tight grip. He replied with a left-right-left combination, more accurate than Joseph, who took the first punch on his chin and the second and third on his quickly raised forearms. He ducked his head and tackled Edward into the doorway of a boutique. They rolled back into the street, each trying to hold the other down, using their elbows and heads and shoulders to wrest an advantage that they could not hold. They were of similar height and weight and equally matched.
Eventually, both with bloodied lips and noses, they broke apart.
More pedestrians had stopped to watch. A man approaching on the pavement took a step forward as if he were going to help, but stopped.
Edward rested his hand against the wall and breathed heavily. Joseph wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, then cleaned that with his handkerchief. The top four or five buttons of his shirt had been ripped out and the shirt gaped untidily. Edward’s jacket had gashed beneath the shoulder, the sleeve hanging loose and the lining exposed, and his trousers were ripped above the knee. They stared at each other for five or six seconds. Joseph looked at Edward with disgust. Edward’s sudden avalanche of anger was spent and he suddenly felt hollowed out and desperate. He started to say something but Joseph eyed him with open contempt and the words were stopped by a tight twist of despair in his throat. He felt a sudden loss and a sense of helplessness.
Joseph straightened his ruined shirt, trying––futilely––to close it. He flagged a passing cab. Edward stayed where he was, propped against the wall, and watched Joseph’s long legs as he trotte
d over to where the driver had stopped and got in. The cab merged with the traffic and disappeared around a corner.
Edward found a bar and ordered a drink. His hands were still shaking. He bought a carton of untipped Gauloises. He remembered something that Joseph had said to him as they waited in the first class lounge at Northolt yesterday. He had mentioned, very casually in the middle of some conversation, that Edward had been more patient than he deserved in light of his slovenly attitude to keeping the flat clean and most people would have abandoned him by now. “I’d understand if that’s how you felt,” he’d added, trying to be guileless. It had been a clumsy hint so that he wouldn’t have to come out with what he wanted to say more directly today. Edward had ignored it but now he wished he had not. It would have made things easier, and he would have been better able to control the conversation and, therefore, his temper. Things might have been salvaged but now he knew that serious damage had been done. He knocked back his drink. All right, he would find somewhere else. He knew when he wasn’t wanted.
