The Beaufort Sisters
The Beaufort Sisters
Jon Cleary
From the award-winning Jon Cleary comes a story of four sisters - Nina, Margaret, Sally and Pru - the beautiful and wilful daughters of Lucas Beaufort, the richest man in Kansas City.Nina, Margaret, Sally and Prue – the four beautiful and spoilt daughters of the richest and most powerful man in Kansas. They took what they wanted and loved whoever they pleased. Their father could buy them anything they desired, but even his wealth could not buy them happiness.
Jon Cleary
THE BEAUFORTSISTERS
Copyright (#ulink_f49f63c0-b2fb-5247-aed6-4718aa596c35)
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979
Copyright © Jon Cleary 1979
Jon Cleary asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780002220378
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780008139339
Version: 2015-05-19
Dedication (#ulink_008bcaf7-0245-5985-b8e7-71c1b2acf28b)
To
Shelagh
and Freddie
Contents
Cover (#ud0e26d1e-5b15-5627-8c94-a8b61275fff7)
Title Page (#u4e37bd51-af18-5901-a5e5-1eae12049212)
Copyright (#ulink_74816d6b-306f-55ff-9f88-131b1c16749a)
Dedication (#ulink_51cd8015-719a-5aec-8b6f-25613209c502)
Chapter One: The Sisters (#ulink_23b65f9a-af2b-5908-a134-b12143c909b4)
Chapter Two: Nina (#ulink_3bbf1a67-5e4b-5296-bbc2-47c0ac8ca528)
Chapter Three: Nina (#ulink_4c148170-61e4-56ca-9edb-8e4422d598ce)
Chapter Four: Nina (#ulink_537f25dd-7cfd-59d3-8fd5-f086a5ac3d0d)
Chapter Five: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven: Prue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve: Prue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen: Tim and Lucas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen: The Sisters (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_503798cc-f62e-5322-831a-55c49202fa09)
The Sisters (#ulink_503798cc-f62e-5322-831a-55c49202fa09)
1
‘Why are so many tennis players pigeon-toed?’ said Prue. ‘They’re very sexy-looking till you get to their feet.’
‘Why don’t we just watch the tennis?’ said Margaret. ‘We’ve paid for that, not conversation we could have at home.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Sally and half-raised her walking stick as if she might thump her sister with it. ‘Is this another tax deductible expense?’
Prue put on her glasses, looked out at the four men on the court, frowned, pursed her lips, then took off the glasses. ‘What was I about to say? Something about sexiness in sport.’
‘Is sex a sport?’ said Nina. ‘All the manuals I’ve seen advertised, I thought it was a course in bedroom engineering.’
The Beaufort sisters were sitting in the gold boxes, the most expensive, in the Kansas City municipal auditorium watching the World Professional Tennis Doubles championship. Collectively they were always known by their maiden name, even though all of them were married and all four had been married more than once. Sixteen years separated them from youngest to oldest: Prue was thirty-seven, Sally forty-one, Margaret forty-eight and Nina fifty-three. None of them had lost her beauty and together they attracted the eye of any man not suffering from cataracts or a lack of hormones; even college youths had been known to remark that maybe there was something to be said for older women if they all looked as good as the Beaufort sisters. Of course, for those who knew how much they were worth, their wealth added lustre to their beauty and not just because of all the creams, massage and hair styling it could buy for them. A woman is never better framed than when in the doorway of a bank in which she is a major stockholder.
The tennis tournament was still in its early stages and the local citizens had not yet rushed to fill the huge indoor stadium. Only avid tennis fans and the country club set, and the Beauforts belonged, between them, to one or the other or both, had shown up this afternoon. The sound of racquets meeting ball echoed in the cavernous auditorium like the amplified sound of an accountant’s gut-string being torn apart. It was obvious that the players now on court were disturbed by the mocking acoustics of the near-empty galleries. None seemed more upset than Clive Harvest, one of the two Australians playing a South American pair.
He was a tall muscular man, some years older than the other three men on court, with blond good looks and a set of expressions that seemed to jump back and forth between temper and laughter. He went up for a smash, misjudged it and put the ball well out of court; he cursed loudly and flung his racquet after the ball. Then he suddenly jumped the net, raced to each of his opponents, grabbed their hands and went through a pantomime of apology, retrieved his racquet and jumped back over the net. A lone spectator in the upper gallery, wanting to communicate with someone, anyone, gave him a loud Bronx cheer; Harvest saluted the compliment with two fingers. The two South Americans glowered in disgust and Harvest’s partner, a boy of about twenty, just looked embarrassed.
‘Mr Harvest,’ said the umpire from his throne, ‘if you’ve finished your little act, may we continue the match?’
For a moment it looked as if Harvest were going to give the umpire the two-fingered salute; then suddenly he smiled, a broad flash of teeth in his tanned face, and looked genuinely contrite. ‘Sorry, Mr Baker. I’m a perfectionist, that’s my trouble. Missing an easy smash like that – ’
‘We all aim for perfection, Mr Harvest. Let’s try for a little less this afternoon, so that we can get this match finished.’
There was scattered applause, but Harvest just looked around and smiled broadly, as if his antics and display of temper had been committed by someone who had already left the court.
He won the next point and the game with a deft interception that split the two South Americans like a guerrilla’s bullet. As the two teams crossed over, pausing near the umpire’s chair to towel themselves, Harvest looked towards the Beaufort boxes. He had done the same thing several times during the match. It was impossible to tell who it was interested him; his glance was always too quick and casual. He was, however, more than casually interested in someone in the boxes.
‘I think I’ll go,’ said Nina. ‘This isn’t very interesting.’
‘You can’t walk out in the middle of a match!’ Margaret waved a protesting hand. Sometimes she acted as if she were the family matriarch. She was taller than her sisters, no hint of grey yet in her dark brown hair, and she carried herself in what Nina called Missouri Regal style. ‘It’s an insult to the players.’
‘That Australian has been insulting us spectators all afternoon,’ said Sally. ‘You don’t owe him any compliment, Nina.’
Nina stood up, slipping her arms into the sleeves of the vicuna coat she had been wearing across her shoulders. She was the shortest of the sisters, a little too tall to be called petite; her golden blonde hair would have been darker if not for her weekly visit to her hairdresser. She was no better or more expensively dressed than her sisters, but she had just that extra touch of elegance. In Kansas City, Missouri, the Beauforts were the family and it was as if Nina had taken it upon herself to show outsiders that the citizens were not all descendants of One-Eyed Ellis, Wild Bill Hickok and other, later rascals.
She left the boxes, stares following her from the other boxes, and went out into the entrance lobby. George Biff, patient as a statue of himself, the light gleaming like points of humour in his ebony face, was waiting there. He touched the peak of his chauffeur’s cap with his maimed hand.
‘I get the car, Miz Nina. Be but two minutes, out front there.’
‘No, I’ll come with you, George.’
The old black looked at her, seeing the nervous tension in her, wondering what had upset her. But he said nothing, led her out to the Rolls-Royce in the nearby parking lot.
Going home in the car Nina sat gazing out the window with a face that seemed suddenly to have become younger, as if years had been wiped away from it. But then George Biff, watching her anxiously in the rear-view mirror, saw the frown appear between her eyes, and then her eyes close, but not before he had seen the glistening of tears.
‘You all right, Miz Nina?’
‘Yes.’ She did not open her eyes. ‘Just a headache.’
The car purred along, George Biff making no attempt to get out of line in the traffic and overtake other cars. All the Beauforts had expensive cars, but only Nina had a Rolls-Royce, one of the few in the city. Margaret, who cared too much about such things, being political, thought it a little nouveau-riche for the Middle West, something one might expect from the new millionaires who wished to make their wealth conspicuous. But Nina had always had her own way and this was her second Rolls-Royce. Her only concession to inconspicuousness was that both cars had been black and that George Biff was under strict instructions not to show any arrogance in traffic. Not that a Rolls would have had much deference from the local wheelborne peasants.
‘Be on the Parkway in a minute. You just relax back there.’
‘I am relaxed.’ Nina opened her eyes. ‘Don’t be such an old fusspot, George. Sometimes I think you should have been a mammy.’
George grinned. ‘Would of got me locked up, a black mammy chasing some of them black gals like I used to. Don’t think I ever heard of a gay black mammy. Here’s the Parkway. Nearly home.’
2
Ward Parkway runs south out of Kansas City and is lined with some of the more magnificent homes in the nation. There is no consistency of style, unless conspicuous expenditure of money is in itself a style. French Regency, English Tudor, Southern Colonial: the great-granddaughter of Scarlett O’Hara waves across the manicured lawns to a blue-rinsed Elizabeth R of Missouri. Yet even though the homes are symbols of the wealth of their owners, vulgarity, like the weeds in the expensive lawns, is not allowed to flourish. Reticence, if such a trait is possible in a $500,000 mansion set back only yards from a busy thoroughfare, is looked upon as desirable as being white, Protestant and Republican. Some Catholic Democrats managed to settle along the Parkway, most notably the political boss Tom Pendergast, but they appear to have done little to change the ideas of the majority as to what is right and proper for such an address. When a Catholic President moved into the White House, black crêpe was observed hanging in the windows of one or two of the older mansions. It is only fair to add that they did not hang crêpe in their windows when President Nixon moved out of the White House.
The original Beaufort house had been one of the first to be built along the Parkway. Thaddeus Beaufort, the founder of the family fortune, built the house as he had built his wealth: solidly, conservatively and to last. The architect, made light-headed by the commission, had mixed his design but somehow avoided vulgarity; the mansion was an amalgam of English Elizabethan manor house and French chateau, without the libidinous air of either. The property had once taken up fifty acres of a whole block and had been known as Beaufort Park; a private park which the public hoi-polloi could only admire through the spiked iron-railing fence surrounding it. Peacocks, avian, not human, had strutted the lawns; Thaddeus, walking the paths of his estate every evening summer and winter, had always worn black. His wife Lucy wore only mauve; walking together, they offered no competition to the peacocks. Sunday afternoons the hoi-polloi would stand outside the iron railings and whistle at both the peacocks and the Beauforts, but got no recognition from either. Late in life Lucy bore her only child, Lucas, and he too was dressed in dark clothes as he grew out of babyhood. Walking their rounds, the father, mother and small boy looked like a tiny funeral cortège trying to find a graveside ceremony.
Lucas grew up to marry Edith Pye, whose father was one of the principal stockholders in the Kansas City Railroad and who also owned half of Johnson County just over the State line in Kansas. When Thaddeus and Lucy died within six months of each other, in 1923, they left Lucas $220 million, which, with what Edith had inherited from her parents, made Lucas and Edith the richest couple in Missouri; all that in a day when income tax, compared to what was to come, was no more unbearable than an attack of hives. Lucas and Edith’s money continued to grow since, as any Wall Street farmer will tell you, there is no fertilizer better for growing money than other money.
The Beauforts had never been as ostentatious in the display of their wealth as the rich in the East: the caliphs of New York and Newport had had a barbarous bad taste that had both frightened and offended Thaddeus. His granddaughters had inherited his discretion, to a degree; it was foolish to be too reclusive about one’s money, because that only aroused the suspicions of the tax men. Part of the land had been sold off, but the estate still covered just over twenty acres. Nina occupied the original big house and beside it, on the northern side of a private street, three other mansions, slightly less grand but still formidable, housed the other sisters. The peacocks had gone and so had most of the fifty servants and gardeners who had once worked on the estate. But no strangers, passing by the empty lawns, would have mistaken the houses for empty museums or institutions. The Beaufort sisters, even when not visible, had their own vibrancy.
The Rolls-Royce pulled in through the big gates that still provided the main access to the estate. The uniformed security guard saluted Nina; as a child she had been saluted, less formally, by the guard’s father. The car went up the curving drive, past the big maples and the bright blaze of azaleas, and pulled up in front of the big main house. Nina got out, said a short thanks to George, went inside and straight up to the main bedroom that looked out towards the gates.
She took off her dress and lay down on the wide double bed. Even in the years between her marriages, here at home and in the houses she had rented abroad, she had always slept in a double bed. As if the sleeping place beside her would, inevitably, once again be filled. As it had been, and happily, for the past three years.
She had been lying there an hour when she heard the car coming up the drive.
Downstairs George Biff, who doubled as butler on the latter’s day off, alerted by the security guard on the intercom, went to the front door and opened it as the tall blond young man got out of the red compact and came up the steps.
Nina slipped on a robe and went out on to the gallery above the curving staircase. ‘What is it, George?’
George looked up in surprise: his mistress normally never came asking who was at her door. ‘A Mr Harvest to see you, Miz Nina. He don’t say why he want to see you.’
‘Why do you want to see me, young man?’
Harvest licked his lips, a hint of nervousness that one would not have expected in him. ‘Miss Beaufort – ’ His voice was tight; he cleared his throat. ‘I believe I am your son Michael.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_b83c1d63-a899-5b0d-9e4b-cabcb9f51ba6)
Nina (#ulink_b83c1d63-a899-5b0d-9e4b-cabcb9f51ba6)
1
Nina Beaufort met Tim Davoren in Hamburg in the fall of 1945, the happiest accident of her life up till then.
It was not her first visit to Europe. In the spring of 1936 Lucas and Edith Beaufort took the three children they then had, Nina, Margaret and Sally, on a grand tour of the Continent. Lucas, who had been nurtured as an isolationist from an early age by his father, had not wanted to make the trip; if the family had to travel out of Missouri, there were another forty-seven very good and interesting United States to be explored. But Edith, who had graduated from Vassar, a notoriously internationally-minded school, had insisted that she and the children needed more perspective than any American trip, even to outlandish California, could give them. So the three Beaufort sisters, aged twelve, seven and three, eager for perspective, whatever that was, left Kansas City with their parents, a governess, a nurse, George Biff and twenty-two pieces of luggage for New York and the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary.
Once at sea and committed to the trip, Lucas, a man who cut his losses and made the most of what was left, began to enjoy himself. He smiled indulgently as his daughters paraded the deck singing Onward Townsend Soldiers, even though he detested the socialist crank, Francis Townsend, who was the New Messiah to pensioners all over America. He danced with Edith to the tune of The Music Goes Round and Round; he relaxed in a deck chair and read an advance copy of a book called Gone With The Wind and was glad that his Edith was not like Scarlett O’Hara. He went to the ship’s cinema with his wife and daughters and saw Shirley Temple in Captain January and wondered aloud why all American children could not be like the cute curly-haired charmer. When Nina threw up in the cinema, everyone put it down to sea-sickness.
Lucas’ only bout of sea-sickness came when he learned that Tom Pendergast and his wife were also on board the Queen Mary. The political boss’ European trip had been well publicized before he left Kansas City; but, careful of the Irish vote, he had neglected to tell the reporters that he was travelling on a British ship. The Queen Mary was just passing the Statue of Liberty when Nina brought her father the news.
‘Stop the ship!’ Lucas ordered his wife.
‘I can’t,’ said Edith placidly. ‘Now settle down, sweetheart. It’s only for five days. You don’t have to walk arm in arm with the dreadful man all the way across the Atlantic.’
Nina giggled and, though she was his favourite, her father glowered at her. ‘There is nothing to be laughed at about that man.’
‘Is he really so wicked, Daddy?’
Mr Pendergast certainly didn’t look wicked. She and Margaret trailed him all across the ocean, spying on him from behind deck chairs, air funnels and lifeboats. He would wink at them and wave, as if they might be Democratic voters of the future, and they would wave back, though they never told their father. The elder Beauforts and the Pendergasts would occasionally pass each other and though Tom Pendergast would smile expansively, Lucas would only nod stiffly and pass on.
Edith had wanted to visit Spain, but the Spanish, not knowing the Beauforts were coming, inconveniently started a war amongst themselves. So the family spent more time in Germany where Lucas and Edith, paying a courtesy call at the American Embassy in Berlin, were offered the chance to meet Adolf Hitler at a reception. Lucas was impressed by the charm and affability of Der Fuehrer and a week later he and Edith, with the children in tow, met Hitler again at a trade fair in Munich. The German leader showed his attraction for children and Nina, Margaret and Sally were photographed smiling up at the man they obviously thought would make a marvellous uncle. Back home the Kansas City Star ran the picture on Page One and everyone but the few Jews in the city remarked on the proper recognition that the élite of Kansas City had been given, much more than they got in New York or Washington.
Nina, for her part, fell in love with the old towns and castles of Germany and determined to return some day on her own. As she grew older and moved into her teens she found it hard to believe the stories she now read about Hitler, but by the time she was in college she hated him and the Nazis as fiercely as did anyone she knew. Except perhaps the Jews, but there were not too many Jewish girls at Vassar.
She graduated in June 1945. Her father had argued that she should go to a college nearer home, where she would not only be under his eye but also under the proper influences. But her mother, still talking about perspective, had prevailed and Nina had gone East to Sodom, Gomorrah and Vassar. She came home and told her parents she wanted to go to Europe with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency and help re-build Germany.
‘Impossible,’ said her father and even her mother agreed. ‘You’re too young for such an adventure.’
‘I’m not thinking of it as an adventure,’ said Nina. ‘I thought of it as something I should do, a social duty if you like.’
‘There is plenty you can do right here in Kansas City.’ Lucas had missed his favourite all the time she had been East; he did not want to lose her again so soon, certainly not to foreigners who had got themselves into their own mess. ‘Returning GI’s, for instance. The Red Cross would be glad to have you help them.’
‘I want to go to Germany,’ said Nina stubbornly.
‘Why?’ asked her mother.
But Nina couldn’t tell her parents that she wanted to escape from Kansas City, from being a Beaufort. ‘I’ve already applied to UNRRA, but they won’t have me. They said they wanted older people with more experience.’
‘You see?’ said her father. ‘Stay at home and join the Red Cross. I’ll buy you a new car.’
‘Don’t be stupid, sweetheart,’ said Edith, who began to recognize in her daughter something of herself that she had forgotten. ‘You aren’t going to bribe her with an automobile. She still has the MG we gave her – ’
‘I’ll give that to Margaret,’ said Nina, glowing with zeal, feeling like a Missouri relative of Francis of Assisi.
‘Darling,’ said her mother, who reserved sweetheart for her husband, ‘these – UNRRA? – people do have a point, don’t they? About your being too young.’
‘What’s wrong with being young? Youth has more energy and maybe more compassion than older people.’
‘I knew she shouldn’t have gone to Vassar,’ said Lucas; then sighed because he knew he couldn’t refuse his favourite anything she asked. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Write to President Truman and ask him to have me put on the American team for UNRRA.’
‘Ask a favour of that feller in the White House? I’d rather commit suicide!’
‘You can’t,’ said Edith, who had her own way of deflating her husband. ‘The Nichols and the Kempers are coming to dinner tomorrow night. You can telephone President Truman. He’ll always take a call from Kansas City.’
‘Not when he hears who’s calling. He knows I can’t stand him.’
‘Just be thankful you don’t have to approach him through Tom Pendergast.’ The political boss had died six months before, a bright occurrence only dimmed for Lucas by the succession a little later of Harry Truman to the Presidency. ‘Call the White House now. Harry Truman is an early riser.’
‘Harry? When did you get so familiar with him?’
But Lucas rang Harry Truman and the President spoke to someone who spoke to someone and in August 1945 Nina sailed for Europe as an accredited worker for UNRRA.
On the night before she left home the four girls gathered in Nina’s room. Margaret was now almost sixteen, Sally was twelve and Prue, the late arrival, was five-and-a-bit. Nina had laid out the treasured possessions of her childhood and girlhood and invited her sisters to take their pick.
‘You’re not going to be a nun.’ Margaret was jealous of her sister’s chance for adventure. ‘You might want to keep these when you come back.’
‘Can I have your car?’ Sally was mechanical-minded and not interested in any of the things laid out on the bed. ‘I’ll drive it around the gardens.’
Prue was picking over what was offered. ‘I’ll take them all,’ she said.
Nina hugged her youngest sister, gazed at the other two. ‘I’m just the first. When you are all old enough, we should all go out and help the poor of the world.’
‘What’s the poor of the world?’ asked Prue.
‘I think we’d all look rather silly trying to be Sisters of Charity,’ said Margaret, practical-minded. ‘We can always get Daddy to write a cheque. The poor don’t want people like us fussing over them.’
‘They needn’t know who we are. We could always change our name!’
‘I don’t want to change my name,’ said Sally.
‘I do,’ said Prue. ‘I’d like to be called Mickey Rooney.’
A few weeks later Nina wished she had changed her name before applying to UNRRA. She crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary on a return trip after it had transported almost a division of GI’s back home. The music this time was Rum and Coca-Cola, but there was no dancing; Tom Pendergast was dead, but a British merchant naval officer winked and waved at her and got no further than the political boss had nine years before. She landed in Southampton and flew from England to Frankfurt in Germany in a MATS cargo plane. She landed in Frankfurt on the day that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on the other side of the world; but the bang wasn’t heard and nobody seemed to hear or even feel the ripples spreading into the future. The UNRRA people were waiting for her, some of them with quite open hostility. They made it plain that they thought theirs was no job for spoiled rich kids with political pull. For the first time she realized there was a handicap to being a Beaufort.
Her boss was a retired colonel who had worked with Herbert Hoover on the American Relief Administration after World War One. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Beaufort. I was young then and there was the same opposition towards me. But some day the young are going to take over the world.’ Then added, because he, too, had grown old, ‘God help it.’
‘Am I doing a good job, Colonel Shasta?’
‘As well as anyone on the team. I have to go up to Hamburg next week and see the British. Would you care to come with me as my driver and secretary?’
‘Won’t that cause gossip, Colonel?’
‘I hope it does. I’ll be flattered. But you’ll be safe with me, Miss Beaufort. I’m that old-fashioned sort, a faithful husband. My wife, who lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also happens to have antennae than can pick up any immoral thoughts I may have on this side of the Atlantic. I believe it is called extrasexual perception.’
So in October, two months after landing in Germany, Nina drove up to Hamburg with Colonel Shasta. She had become accustomed to the bomb damage she had seen around Frankfurt, but it was still a shock to pass through the towns on the way north and see how widespread was the destruction of Germany. They passed queues of people standing outside shops, Germans wearing the wardrobe of the defeated, half-uniforms, thin ersatz tweed, worn fur coats, and all with the same pale, hopeless faces. The jeep was halted by a military policeman at a cross-street and Nina became acutely aware of the people standing on the sidewalk waiting to cross. She was wearing for the first time the camel hair coat that her mother had had made for her and specially dyed a not-too-unbecoming khaki. She looked at a young girl her own age, saw the thin cotton dress covering the thin bony body; the girl stared back at her, face expressionless. Then Nina saw the envy and hate in the dark eyes and she turned away, too inexperienced in the expressions victors should wear.
‘Don’t show pity,’ said Colonel Shasta, who had been watching her. ‘That’s the last thing they want.’
‘It’s difficult not to show it.’
‘Tell that to the men who fought them.’
They drove into Hamburg, crossed the Lombard Bridge and after getting lost several times at last found the office Colonel Shasta was looking for. It was in a large house two blocks back from the Altersee; next door to it was another large house that was a club for British officers. Except that they needed a coat of paint, neither house looked as if it had suffered at all from the war.
‘Rather grand, aren’t they?’ Nina said. ‘I wonder if any Germans still live around here?’
‘Every house in the street has been commandeered,’ said a voice behind her and Colonel Shasta. ‘The fruits of victory. I was told you were due here today. I’m Major Davoren, Commanding Officer of the unit that’s taken over this house. I’m afraid UNRRA has been moved to a larger but less attractive place than this.’
He was dark-haired, good-looking, with a black moustache and dark eyes that might have been tired or just bored. He was tall, with heavy shoulders, and a certain ease of movement that suggested he might have been an athlete before the war. There was a row of ribbons on the breast of his battle tunic, including, Nina was to learn later, the ribbon of the Military Cross.
‘Could you have someone direct us?’ Shasta asked.
‘I’ll take you there myself.’ He got into the back of the jeep and, it seemed, looked at Nina for the first time. ‘Straight ahead, driver, then second right.’
‘This is Miss Beaufort,’ said Shasta, grinning. ‘I don’t think she is accustomed to being called Driver.’
‘Awfully sorry.’ But Davoren’s apology sounded perfunctory. ‘Shall we go, Miss Beaufort?’
Nina let in the gears with a crash and the jeep jerked forward. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Shasta grin again, but Major Davoren was behind her and she couldn’t see how he had reacted. She hoped she had snapped his head off.
Five minutes later they drew up outside a large block of apartments that had been converted into offices. Shrapnel marks pitted the walls and there was a huge black scorch mark stretching up a side wall, as if someone had tried to burn a hole in it with a giant blowtorch. The block had none of the dignity of the house they had just left.
‘Blame us English,’ said Davoren. ‘I’m afraid the army is claiming all the best for itself. As I said, the fruits of victory.’
‘You don’t believe in rehabilitation for the Germans?’ said Nina.
‘The young and idealistic,’ said Davoren, who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years older than Nina. ‘Could you spare me a few minutes with Miss Beaufort, Colonel?’
‘I’ll be inside.’ Shasta climbed out of the jeep. ‘Don’t scratch his eyes out. I think we’re still supposed to be allies.’
He went into the apartment block, carrying his valise, and Davoren slid into the vacated seat beside Nina. ‘Well, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot.’
‘You have, not me.’
‘I’ve been fighting these bloody Germans for five and a half years. I’m not naturally vindictive, but I haven’t yet got round to feeling magnanimous. I lost my parents and my only sister in an air raid on London, wiped out by a V-2. What are you doing for dinner this evening?’
She was surprised to hear herself say, ‘Nothing.’
That was Friday and he took her to dinner at the Atlantic Hotel. The dining-room was full of British officers in khaki, Control Commission personnel in blue and German women in tow. There appeared to be no German men and only a few British women, all of whom looked with hatred at the Fraulein, none of whom was less than good-looking and most of whom were beautiful.
‘Fraternization doesn’t seem to worry you men. What would happen if one of those English girls came in here with a German man?’
‘She’d be shown the back door. We have to have standards, you know.’
‘Double standards, you mean.’
‘Of course. What else makes the world go round?’ But he smiled as he said it and his charm almost persuaded her that he only half-meant what he had said.
He took her home early to the billet where she was staying for the weekend. ‘There’s a curfew on and some of the MP’s can get a bit bloody-minded if they catch an officer with a good-looking girl. Pity you’re not staying here at the Atlantic, you could have invited me up to your room.’
She let that pass. ‘I stayed here with my parents when I was a child.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You did it in style. I came to Hamburg for a week before the war. I stayed in a dreadful sleazy little room over behind the Reeperbahn. Girls kept knocking on my door all night.’
‘Poor you.’
Saturday night he took her to a cabaret in the cellar of a bombed-out theatre. This time there were plenty of Germans, men as well as women; some of them looked remarkably well-fed for people whose official food ration was supposed to be only 1000 calories a day. Nina peered through the cigar and cigarette smoke, listened with her Berlitz-acquired ear to the conversations going on around her.
‘They are making business deals!’
‘Black marketeers,’ said Davoren. ‘This cabaret is the sort of stock exchange for it all. If you want to make any money on your PX issue, this is the place to come.’
‘I don’t need money.’ He knew nothing about her or her family; she revelled for the first time in anonymity, as if it were some sort of vice. ‘Do you come here and sell things?’
‘No. I’m not really interested in money. I shouldn’t say no to a fortune, but I don’t care for this piecemeal way of getting rich. Oh, I daresay in ten or fifteen years’ time some of those jokers will be fat, rich pillars of society – that is, if Germany ever gets off the ground again. And some of our own chaps are making a nice little bundle. But it’s not for me.’
‘Don’t you have any ambition? I don’t mean for this sort of thing. But – ’
‘Not really. I’m a day-to-day type. I’ll probably stay on in the army and if I don’t blot my copy-book I’ll retire as at least a brigadier. All that without having to fight another war – I’ll be dead before there’s another one.’
‘My God, what a limited vision!’
‘Oh, it has its compensations. You, for instance. Would I have met you if I’d been back in some office in London trying to make my fortune?’
‘What did you do before the war? Had you any ambition then?’
‘I had just come down from Cambridge when my country called me. I started out to be an archaeologist, studied Arabic, was going to dig up all Tutankhamen’s relatives. But I grew tired of that and I read History instead. One of the things I learned from that was that ambitious men usually finished up dead ahead of their appointed time.’
‘You should have met my grandfather. He was ambitious at ten and he lived till he was eighty.’
‘Ah, but did he succeed in his ambitions?’
‘Up to a point,’ she said and he smiled, mistaking her caution.
Then a man came to their table, bowed to Nina, clicked his heels and shook hands with Davoren. He was small, blond, tanned, athletic: ten years ago Nina could see him springing off vaulting-horses into posters extolling the Youth Movement. Or spurting out of starting-blocks in pursuit of Jesse Owens and the other black Americans at the Berlin Olympic Games. Davoren named him as Oberleutnant Schnatz, late of the Luftwaffe.
‘A good German, aren’t you, Rudi? Well, not a Nazi. But his morals aren’t the best.’
Schnatz smiled, unoffended. ‘Morality is only a matter of degree, Tim, you know that. After what we have been doing to each other for the past six years, what is a little black market?’
‘Rudi went to Oxford,’ Davoren explained. ‘They always had less concern for morality there than we at Cambridge. We played tennis against each other, each of us got a Blue. Baron von Cramm once tried to seduce him at Wimbledon, but I never got that far. What can I do for you, Rudi, though the answer is no, in advance.’
Not even Vassar, let alone Kansas City and the Barstow School, had prepared Nina for the decadence she was witnessing. Two girls went dancing by, arms wrapped round each other, oblivious of the sneers of the men watching them. Three whores came in, sat down and were in business at once; three pink-cheeked British subalterns fell on them like choirboy rapists. Four men sat at a corner table, heads close together, greed giving them a family resemblance. Evil, or anyway sin, hung in the air as thick as the cigar and cigarette smoke and Nina shivered with the thrill of it. She knew that back in the Thirties Kansas City had been known as America’s Sin City, but it could never have been like this. Without knowing it she was suffering from the tourist’s astigmatism, seeing foreign evil as worse and much more interesting than the home-grown variety.
‘I understand your lady friend is an American. I’m looking for contacts in the American zone.’
Nina saw Tim Davoren sit up a little straighter in his chair, felt his legs brush against hers under the table as they tensed. A thin blonde girl with a clown’s face had come out on to the small stage at the end of the cellar and was singing Little Sir Echo in German; or so Nina thought, till she caught some of the words and realized it was an obscene parody that had the audience who understood it holding their sides. But she was listening with only half an ear, more intent on Tim Davoren and Rudi Schnatz.
‘Rudi old chap, you’re asking for a poke in the nose. British heavyweights have never been much good, but I think I could flatten you.’
‘You are twice my size, old chap. I’m not Max Schmeling.’
‘I shouldn’t have threatened you if you were.’
‘You may not be brave,’ said Nina, ‘but I’ll poke anyone in the nose who says you’re not gallant.’
Schnatz smiled, taking her remark as encouragement for himself. ‘Miss Beaufort, I would not wish to get you in trouble either with Major Davoren or your American authorities. But there is a lot of unrest in the American zone, I’m told. A lot of GI’s wish to go home. Some of them may like to make some money to take home with them. If you should hear – ’
‘Go away, Rudi,’ said Davoren, ‘and don’t trouble the lady. I mean it.’
Schnatz looked at him, then at Nina: neither of them was smiling. The rest of the room laughed its head off at the clown singer; the lesbians rose behind Schnatz, hand in hand, heading for their bed. He bowed to Nina, nodded to Davoren and went away, disappearing behind the lesbians into the smoke and laughter.
Davoren took Nina’s hand, pressed it. ‘I know Rudi wasn’t a Nazi and I don’t think he’s a criminal, not at heart. But if he should try to get in touch with you again, give him – I think you call it the bum’s rush. Those chaps are going to get into an awful lot of trouble one day.’
Sunday night he took her to bed, in his room in the big house where he was billeted with seven other officers. He was surprised when she told him she was a virgin and he lay back on the pillow and scratched his head as if puzzled and worried.
‘You mean you’ve never had a lover?’
‘Depends what you mean by lover. I don’t think I’ve actually been in love. I had crushes on several boys I met at college and I had what I suppose you call affairs. But all I did was some heavy petting. I never went all the way.’
‘All the way. It sounds like jumping off a cliff.’
‘To a girl, losing her virginity is like jumping off a cliff. You only do it once. Lose your virginity, I mean. After that I suppose it becomes, um, a habit.’
‘Don’t ever think of love-making as a habit. The postures of it are ludicrous, but it’s still a beautiful experience. And beautiful experiences are not the result of habit.’
‘How many girls have you made love to? You sound like Casanova. Where are you going?’
‘To get the international defence weapon – a French letter. You obviously haven’t come prepared.’
‘I think my father would die if I got pregnant.’
‘I don’t see the connection, unless American fathers have some sort of umbilical union with their daughters.’
‘Would you marry me if you got me pregnant?’
‘Are you proposing to me?’
‘I don’t know – am I? Good God, how things sneak up on you! I think I am in love with you.’
He kissed her gently. ‘You’re far too honest, darling heart. And too forward. You should have let me speak first.’
‘Shut up and get back into bed.’
But as he entered her she knew she had indeed spoken too soon, that he was not in love with her.
She went back to Frankfurt next morning with Colonel Shasta who asked her no questions but looked as if he had the answers anyway. All he said when they got back to Frankfurt was, ‘Take care, Nina. Germany right now is no place to make commitments. You’re very young.’
‘You sound like my father, Colonel.’
‘I’m trying to. I have a daughter your age back home.’ Then he asked his only question: ‘Does Major Davoren know who your family are?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You’d better tell him, then. It may tell you, one way or the other, whether his intentions are honourable or not.’
But she didn’t tell Tim, at least not for a couple of months. They met each weekend in villages and towns between Frankfurt and Hamburg, finding accommodation in inns and small hotels that had not been requisitioned by the Military Government. By the time she found she was pregnant he had told her he loved her and she believed him. Or wanted to.
They were in a village on the border of the American and British zones. From the inn they could see the white empty fields stretching away under the grey sky; the dark green river appeared unmoving as it curved below the village. Beyond the river a small copse looked like stacked firewood, black and leafless; two blackbirds sat motionless on a fence, like ebony ornaments. It seemed to Nina that all the seasons had stopped forever in an eternal winter. Despite the fire in the grate in their bedroom she felt cold, colder and more miserable than she had ever felt in her life before.
‘I didn’t expect you to be pleased. But I hoped you’d – understand. At least that.’
He stood beside her at the window, but not touching her. From the side of the inn came shouts and laughter as some children fought their own war with snowballs.
‘I do understand – if that’s the word you want. I’m not an utter bastard, darling. And I’d be pleased, too – in other circumstances.’
‘What other circumstances?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me your family is rich? Really rich?’
‘Who told you?’ she demanded.
‘Simmer down. Wasn’t I supposed to know? Rudi Schnatz told me – evidently he made his contacts in the American zone after all. I suppose my English insularity is to blame – if I were really educated I should have known that you are right up there with Barbara Hutton and that other American heiress – Dorothy Duke? Doris Duke. But I’m not educated. I obviously took the wrong subjects at Cambridge.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake stop it! None of that’s important – ’
‘You thought it was or you would have told me. Were you afraid I’d fall in love with your money instead of you? You didn’t trust me, that’s the important point.’
She knew he was right. But she was too worried and upset to make concessions; unaccustomed to crises, she reacted selfishly. ‘What are we going to do then? I’m not going to have an abortion.’
‘Well, that leaves only one alternative, doesn’t it?’ He sounded disappointed that she had vetoed an abortion; or perhaps her angry and frightened ear only made him sound that way. ‘We’ll have to get married.’
‘Have to? Good God!’
The children had given up their snowball fight and gone elsewhere. The inn was suddenly quiet, listening. She bit her knuckles, stifling any further outburst. Ladies never made a show of themselves: her mother stood invisible in the corner of the room, telling her how to behave. But her mother would never have got herself into this situation and there was no knowing how she would have reacted if she had. All the decorum Nina had been taught in Kansas City meant nothing in a cold room in an inn in faraway Germany.
‘I think we’d better spend the rest of the weekend talking this over. I’m sorry I got you into this, darling. Really.’ He moved to take her in his arms, but she pulled away.
‘No, I want time to think. Don’t touch me – please. I can’t stay the weekend – Colonel Shasta wants me back in Frankfurt tonight. They are expecting trouble from the GI’s – there’s a lot of talk about demonstrations. They want to go home. Colonel Shasta wants us all off the streets, just in case.’
‘Do you want to go home, too?’
Suddenly she did want to go home. She felt miserable, frightened and selfish; the poor of the world would have to wait. Unconsciously she put a hand on her belly, as if the baby were already apparent. ‘I’ll have to. I don’t think UNRRA would want this sort of bundle for Europe.’
‘Stop that sort of talk! Cheapening yourself isn’t going to help.’
She did up her camel hair coat, pulled on her gloves. ‘We can’t talk to each other in this mood.’
‘I’d better see you back to Frankfurt.’
‘I’ll be all right. I’m not the helpless little mother just yet. I’ll call you during the week, when I’ve thought some more. No, don’t kiss me – ’ She was close to tears: to have him kiss her would be like turning a key in a dam.
‘I’ll marry you,’ he said quickly. ‘Despite your family.’
He had made a mistake in adding the last sentence. She shook her head, realizing how much she belonged to those back home. She hadn’t escaped by coming to Germany: she needed now, possibly always would, the security in which she had been brought up.
‘I’m part of our family and they’re part of me. That’s something we’d have to understand right from the beginning. They won’t be against you – why should you be against them?’
He sighed. ‘I wasn’t drawing battle lines. But if we marry, I’m marrying you, not them. I’d say the same whether they were rich or poor. I’ll ring tonight to see if you got back all right.’
Driving back to Frankfurt in the jeep Colonel Shasta had lent her, Nina was only half-aware of the traffic. She did not see the US Army truck that stayed behind her all the way from the village north of Kassel right through to the outskirts of Frankfurt. As she came into the city she had to slow; traffic had thickened and after a few blocks came to a halt. She leaned out of the jeep and up ahead caught glimpses of soldiers spread out in a thick human barricade across the road. She could hear chanting, loud and angry: she had never thought the word Home could have any threat to it. At once she felt frightened and looked about for a way to get out of the traffic jam. She was not normally nervous and she wondered if approaching motherhood made one so; then she ridiculed the thought, laughing at herself. The row with Tim had just upset her, all she really wanted was to get back to her billet and burst into tears.
‘We’ll get you out of this, Miss Beaufort.’ The GI, earflaps of his cap pulled down, thick woollen scarf wrapped round the lower half of his face so that his voice was muffled, had come up quietly beside the jeep. ‘It looks pretty ugly up ahead. Just back up and follow us.’
She wondered who the soldier was, that he knew her name. Probably someone she had met on one of her visits to a military office; it was impossible to recognize him behind the scarf and earflaps. She put the jeep into reverse and followed the army truck as it backed up and swung into a side street. The sound of the chanting demonstrators was drowned now by truck horns being punched to the rhythm of the chant. Then a shot rang out and the blaring horns and chanting suddenly stopped. A moment later there were angry shouts and the sound of breaking glass. In a moment of imagination she wondered if she was hearing echoes of the Thirties: had the streets of Frankfurt clamoured like this when the SS had been rounding up the Jews? Street lights came on in the gloomy afternoon and the scene all at once became theatrical, a little unreal, a grey newsreel from the past. But the angry, yelling soldiers streaming down through the stalled traffic were real enough, frighteningly so.
She looked back and saw the GI gesticulating to her from the back of the army truck, which had turned round and was facing down the side street. She slammed on the brakes of the jeep, jumped out and ran to the truck. The GI reached down, grabbed her hand and lifted her easily, as if she were no more than a small child, into the back of the truck. The canvas flaps were pulled down and abruptly she was in darkness.
‘Thanks. I’m glad you came – ’
Then a hand smothered her face and she smelled chloroform on the rag that was pressed against her nose and mouth. She struggled, but an arm held her, hurting her. Then the darkness turned to blackness.
2
‘My name is McKea, Magnus McKea,’ said the tall American major in a voice that sounded slightly English; Davoren wondered if he had been an actor before he had joined the army. ‘I’m with the legal staff down at Nuremberg on the War Crimes thing. Colonel Shasta suggested I should come up and see you. It’s about Miss Beaufort.’
Davoren laughed, leaning so far back in his chair to let the laugh out that he looked in danger of falling over backwards. He was in his office in the big house on the Kasselallee, the walls papered with maps that he no longer looked at. Orderlies came and went in the corridor beyond the open door, all of them armed with the piece of paper that made them look as if they were too busy to be asked to do something by an officer or NCO. He was safe in British Army occupied territory and here was some Yank come to accuse him of something that was the best joke he had heard in ages.
‘You mean Miss Beaufort’s condition is a war crime?’
Major McKea looked puzzled. ‘Don’t joke, Davoren. Kidnapping is a crime, period.’
Davoren sat up straight, suddenly sober. ‘Good Christ – she’s been kidnapped?’
‘Yesterday some time. She didn’t return to her billet last night – ’
‘I know. I rang the billet, but some girl said she thought she’d seen Miss Beaufort come in and go out again.’
‘She was mistaken. Miss Beaufort never got to her billet. Her jeep was found abandoned in a Frankfurt suburb last night. An hour later Colonel Shasta got a ransom note to be passed on as quickly as possible to her father. He signalled Washington and they got in touch with Kansas City. I was brought in to represent Mr Beaufort till he gets here – my father is the Beaufort family lawyer. Nina’s father is being flown over by the Air Force. He’s expected in Frankfurt sometime tomorrow.’
Davoren was silent, but his face was expressive enough; he was too close to the war, to the cheapness of life, to be hopeful. Then he looked across at McKea. ‘I’m sorry I laughed. It was a stupid private joke.’
‘You said something about Miss Beaufort’s condition. Is she pregnant?’
Davoren nodded. ‘Does her father know about me?’
‘I don’t know, unless Nina wrote him. I don’t think anyone knows about you, except Jack Shasta. He thought you should be told.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me last night?’
‘I don’t know. I guess he was too concerned with getting in touch with Nina’s father.’ He lit a pipe, puffed on it. ‘I’ve known Nina since she was just a kid. We were never close, she’s about ten or twelve years younger than I, but I always liked her.’
Davoren saw the enquiring look through the haze of pipe smoke. ‘I love her, if that’s what you’re asking me. I didn’t think of her as just someone to jump into bed with.’
McKea ran a hand over his crew-cut, thinning red hair. ‘I didn’t mean to imply – sorry.’
Davoren got up, closed the door against the traffic in the corridor. This was no longer British Army occupied territory: it was his own and very personal, too. He remained standing, his back to the maps on the wall. The maps were pre-war, marked with towns that now were only rubble: they only seemed to deepen the lack of hope he felt. Nina could be buried anywhere in the havoc.
‘Is there any hint of who’s kidnapped her?’
‘Nothing definite. We think it’s probably Krauts. God knows, they have enough reason to be asking for money.’ It was difficult to tell whether McKea was critical of or sympathetic to Germans. But then he said, ‘The country’s full of communists and socialists, you know.’
Magnus McKea came from one of the oldest families in Kansas City, Missouri, a family whose conservatism had a certain hoariness to it. The army, and Europe itself, had opened up his tolerance, but he still tended to suspect any liberal thought that fell into his head, as if it might be the beginning of a brain tumour. He had a slightly fruity voice that almost disguised his Middle West twang. He had been fortunate or unfortunate enough, depending on one’s point of view and ear, to have had an English grandmother who had refused to speak to him if he spoke to her in what she described as a nasal infection. His grandmother, in earlier times, would have been scalped for her arrogance towards the natives. He had not enjoyed Europe, neither the war, the Nuremberg trials nor the havoc and misery that passed for conquered territory. All he wanted was to go home, but he had too much sense of duty to demonstrate towards that end.
‘Oh? I thought they’d all been killed off by the Nazis.’
McKea wasn’t sure whether Davoren meant to sound sardonic or not. ‘Not all of them. Half a million dollars, which is what they’re asking – what’s the matter?’
‘The Beauforts are that rich?’
‘I shouldn’t imagine Lucas Beaufort would miss half a million dollars. Finding the money is no problem – I believe he is bringing it with him this evening. In the meantime we’re looking for leads to the kidnappers, just in case – ’
‘Just in case they don’t hand Nina back to her father?’ Davoren tried to keep any emotion out of his voice; but he was suddenly afraid for Nina’s safety. ‘Are you expecting me to give you a lead?’
‘We thought you might have a suggestion – ’
Davoren clicked his fingers. ‘Rudi Schnatz! Do you have transport?’
‘I have a jeep and driver outside – ’
‘Let’s use it!’
McKea, a man accustomed to taking his time, had to hurry to keep up with Davoren as the Englishman led the way out of the house. They got into the jeep, Davoren gave the driver directions and twenty minutes later they pulled up outside a decrepit old house just off the Elbchaussee. On the other side of the street a row of bombed-out houses, like jagged gravestones, was an ugly testimony to the recent past. On a broken wall was scrawled a plea for the future: Let Communism Re-Build These!
‘You see?’ said McKea. ‘They’re not all dead.’
‘It’s in English. Maybe some of our chaps put that there.’
McKea said nothing, dismayed that communists might have fought on the wrong side; he had already decided that the Russians at Nuremberg were the enemy of the future. Even the British, usually so reliable, had tossed out Churchill for Attlee and his socialists.
Davoren led the way up the chipped and cracked marble steps to the house. This had once been one of the best areas of the city, but all its smug dignity and prosperity had gone with the bombs. Davoren thought of the ruined sections of London and wondered which would be re-built first. The Yanks were already talking of re-building Europe before the Russians got too strong.
Rudi Schnatz was in a worn woollen dressing-gown with some sort of crest on the pocket: his day was just beginning. ‘I say, old chap, it’s a bit strong, isn’t it, busting in on a chap like this?’
Davoren pushed into the two-roomed flat, away from the prying frightened faces that had already appeared at the other doors in the hallway and on the landing above. McKea, more polite, less belligerent, followed him, closing the door against the curious.
‘Rudi, I don’t have any time for manners.’ Through the open door to the bedroom Davoren saw a naked girl sit up in a big brass-railed bed; then she lay down quickly again, pulling the blankets up over her. ‘We’re looking for Miss Beaufort – she’s been kidnapped.’
Schnatz pulled his dressing-gown closer round his throat, almost a feminine gesture. ‘Please, Tim – you don’t think I’ve kidnapped her, do you?’
‘If I thought that, you’d be out in the jeep now and on your way to the Provosts. No, I want to know who your contacts are in the American zone. The ones who told you who Miss Beaufort was. Is.’ He corrected himself, like touching wood.
‘Are they the ones who have kidnapped her?’
‘We don’t know. For Christ’s sake stop wasting time with bloody questions – this has got nothing to do with you! Tell me who your contacts are, where we can find them!’
‘I don’t know that I can do that, old chap. Honour among thieves, you know – ’
Davoren grabbed him by the front of the dressing-gown and lifted him off the floor. The Englishman’s face was dark with anger, heightened by his bared teeth: he looked on the verge of a fit. ‘Tell me who they are, Schnatz, or I’ll break every bone in your body!’
There was a muffled scream from the other room. McKea crossed to the door and closed that one, too. He didn’t have the true spirit of the conqueror, he was too much the lawyer. He just hoped Davoren wouldn’t try to kill the little German, though it looked very possible. But he wouldn’t interfere, not in the British zone.
Schnatz struggled, unafraid, ready to fight the bigger man. He gasped something in German and Davoren let him go so that he fell back on his heels.
‘Who are they? Their names, bugger you, their names!’
Schnatz pushed back his long blond hair, shook his head. ‘You’re acting just like the Gestapo, old chap – ’
‘Their names!’
‘Burns and Hiscox. They are with the Supply outfit just outside Frankfurt on the road to Fulda – ’ Davoren was already on his way out of the room and Schnatz shouted after him: ‘Don’t tell them I sent you! If they’re not the ones, I’ll still need them – ’
Outside in the jeep Davoren said, ‘Drive me back to my office, I’ll get my own car and driver.’
‘I think you can safely leave it to us. After all, it’s in our zone – ’
‘Don’t start drawing bloody boundaries! Back to my office, driver, and get a move on!’
The driver looked at McKea: who did this goddam limey think he was? But McKea just nodded and the driver let in the gears and they sped back through the city.
Davoren picked up his own driver and the commandeered Mercedes which was his staff car. He invited McKea to ride with him in the more comfortable car and the American, after a moment’s hesitation, accepted. They sat in the back seat while the Mercedes sped down the autobahn after the jeep. Davoren had calmed down, seemed almost morosely quiet. McKea stared out at the passing countryside, now fading into the thickening dusk. He preferred Germany at night, when so much was hidden by darkness. It was a relief from what he read and listened to at Nuremberg during the day.
At last Davoren said, ‘What’s Old Man Beaufort like?’
‘Autocratic. Devoted to Nina – she’s his favourite. Until we find the kidnappers, he’ll probably choose you to blame for what’s happened. We’ll have to tell him, of course. I mean, about – ’ McKea could see the driver in front of them half-turn his head, one ear cocked to follow the conversation.
‘I’m already blaming myself,’ said Davoren, careless of the driver. ‘For everything.’
3
Nina had a headache and felt ill. So far she had had no morning sickness; but she was sick this morning. And cold and miserable and afraid. She sat on the floor of the bare room, wondering where she was. She could hear no sound from outside except the occasional harsh cry of a bird; she recognized country silence, remembering vacations spent on the Beaufort plantation down in the south-east corner of Missouri. The two men who had kidnapped her had fed her army rations last night and again this morning: at least they were not going to let her starve. They had given her two army blankets, but even with those and still wrapped in her camel hair coat, she had not been able to sleep for the cold. She had never felt worse in her whole life and only an effort kept her from breaking down and weeping helplessly at her plight.
The door was unlocked and one of the men came into the room with a mug of steaming coffee. He was the one who had been driving the truck and she had not seen him until she had woken up in this room last night. He was a small man, in uniform and wearing a parka with the hood up; Air Force dark glasses covered his eyes. In the gloom of the room, with the only light coming through the cracks of the boarded-up window and through the half-open door, it was impossible to distinguish his features. He was just a dark body and head with a rough soft voice.
‘Get this into you, honey. Sorry we can’t give you any heat, but we don’t want people coming around asking why smoke’s coming outa the chimney. If your daddy don’t fool around, you oughtn’t to be here too long.’
Nina stood up, took the mug and almost scalded her throat as she gulped down the coffee. The man stood looking at her and she suddenly felt even more afraid: was he going to rape her? She tightened her grip on the mug, ready to hurl it if he moved towards her.
‘I’m just looking at you.’ The man’s voice was most peculiar, as if he had a small bag of sand or gravel in his throat instead of a voice-box. ‘We put a price of half a million bucks on you. You think you’re worth that much?’
She almost said, My father would think I’m worth much more; but she was not so cold and miserable that her mind had stopped working. She suddenly realized how dangerous wealth could be. It was said that kidnapping in America had originated in Kansas City; people must have been abducted in colonial times, but it had been turned into a modern profession by gangsters in her home town. They had even kidnapped the city manager’s daughter; Lucas Beaufort had wanted to broadcast a plea that the kidnappers come back for the city manager, too. The spate of abductions had frightened the wealthy citizens and for a while no children of rich families went anywhere without an escort. When Nina had gone to college her father had wanted a private guard assigned to her, but the Vassar board had been firm that their campus should not be turned into a security camp. From her early teens Nina had been aware that great wealth made her and her sisters different from other children, but, despite her father’s concern, she had never really thought of it as endangering her. Now, chillingly, she knew better.
‘Why are you doing this?’
But even as she asked she knew it was a foolish question, and the man laughed. ‘You ain’t that dumb, Nina. We’re doing it for money. Ain’t that what your old man and his old man worked for, screwed people for? We come over here, us GI’s, to fight for a better world, that’s what they told us. You need money for a better world, if you’re gonna enjoy it properly. My partner and me, we been making a little on the side. But you’re worth more than a truck-load of cigarettes, more than a whole PX.’
‘They might hang you for kidnapping. They wouldn’t do that for selling things on the black market.’
‘The Krauts spent three years trying to shoot my ass off, but I survived. I think my luck’s gonna hold. Nobody’s gonna hang me. You work for UNRRA, but you don’t know nothing about the real world. The real world is made up of people without money, and I don’t mean just Krauts. We gotta take risks, we wanna get anywhere. You’re lucky, you’re never gonna have to take a risk in your whole goddam life!’
He sounded abruptly angry, though his voice didn’t rise. He went out of the room, slamming the door behind him and locking it. Nina put the mug down on the floor, began to walk round the room in an effort to turn the blocks of ice in her shoes back into feet. She heard an engine start up outside and she went to the window and tried to peer out through the thin cracks between the boards. But all she could see was snow, a blank white mockery.
The truck, or whatever it was, drove away. When its sound had faded she stood listening, ears alert for any sound in the house. She could hear nothing; then the house creaked as if to reassure her that she had been left alone. She made up her mind that she was going to escape.
She had always been a resourceful girl, though never as good at practical matters as Margaret and Sally. She hoped she could get herself out of a locked, boarded-up room. One could not be more practical than to know how to escape from kidnappers.
Buoyed up by her own determination, she began at once to seek a way out of the room. Ten minutes later she was as depressed and miserable as when the kidnapper with the husky voice had come in. There was nothing in the room that she could use as a club to bash the boards away from the window; the door was too stout to be broken open and the lock would have defied Jimmy Valentine or any other cracksman. She sank down to the floor beside the fireplace and began to weep.
Then something fell into the grate, a lump of soot, and she heard the flutter of wings in the chimney. She sat up, waited, then crawled into the fireplace and looked up. A film of soot floated down on to her face; but high up in the chimney she could see a small square of light. She withdrew from the fireplace, sat on her haunches and considered. Weighed her strength and size (would the chimney be too narrow and too high?) against the urge to escape. Weighed, too, her determination against her fear that the men would come back, find her trying to escape and vent their anger on her.
She measured the width of the chimney with her hands, decided it was wide enough to take her shoulders and hips. She took off her coat, knowing the bulk of it would handicap her once she began climbing up the narrow space. But she would need it once she was outside the house; she put the belt of it through the loop inside the collar, tied the belt round her waist and let the coat hang down between her legs. She pulled the knitted cap she wore down over her face to just above her eyes, pulled on her gloves. Then she crawled into the fireplace, stretched her arms above her, eased herself upright into the narrow blackness of the chimney and began to climb.
She was glad she was wearing stout winter shoes; she searched for and found tiny crevices in the chimney wall into which she drove her toes. The chimney had not been cleaned in years and she had climbed no more than her own height when she began to feel she was smothering. A bird suddenly fluttered out of the top of the chimney in a panic; soot cascaded down on her and she shut her eyes and turned her face downwards just in time. She lost her grip and went plunging down, scraping against the bricks, taking more soot with her. She hit the floor of the fireplace, feeling the jarring shock go right up through her body to her skull; but she remained upright, unable to fall over because the chimney held her like a brick corset. She held her breath, feeling the soot in a thick cloud about her face, waiting for it to settle, then she opened her eyes and stared into the blackness.
It seemed that every bone and muscle in her body hurt; her knees and ankles felt as if they might be broken. Her arms were trapped above her head; she could feel the pain where her elbows had been scraped as she fell. Her right knee felt as if there was an open wound in it and her right hip as if it had been kicked by a horse. She wanted to gasp for breath, but she was afraid that would mean sucking in a lungful of choking soot. She thought of the baby inside her, wondered if it was already beginning to miscarry. She was frighted, ready to scream, discovering, now, for the first time in her life, that she was claustrophobic.
But she held on to herself, didn’t bend her knees, kept herself upright in the black prison of the chimney. She was on the point of hysteria, but, without recognizing it, something of the iron she had inherited from her parents and grandparents kept her from breaking. She continued to stare into the blackness, smelling the burned wall only an inch or two from her face, willing herself to believe that it was not going to collapse in on her and smother her. She was no longer cold, she could feel sweat running down her face and body. Some instinct told her that all she had to do was survive the next minute or two. If she didn’t, if she gave in and retreated from the chimney, she knew she would never enter it again. And the chance of escape would be gone.
Then the hysteria passed, gone all of a sudden, as if wiped away by her will. She started to climb again, feeling more confident with every foot gained; soot continued to float down, but she ignored it, holding her breath till it had gone past. Her body was just one large ache, but she kept climbing, elbows, knees and ankles scraping against the brickwork. Then, all at once it seemed, the blackness turned to gloom, then there was light and a moment later her head cleared the top of the chimney.
She scrambled out, holding desperately to the chimney so that she would not slide off the snow-covered roof. She was on top of a farmhouse that was more ruin than building; the only rooms left intact were the one in which she had been imprisoned and the room immediately below it. The rest of the house was a shell; charred timbers, a tumble of bricks and a big bomb crater told their own story. All around her the fields lay white and empty.
It took her another five minutes to get down from the roof. Twice she almost fell; snow slid down beneath her like an avalanche and fell into the yard. Then she was down on the ground, stumbling through the mud and snow, running like a crazed person, whimpering like a child. She fell down twice before she realized she had tripped over the coat between her legs. She stood up, gasping for breath, giggling hysterically at herself, and struggled into the soot-blackened, mud-stained coat. Then, steadying herself, she walked out into the lane beside the yard and began to hurry away from the farm.
4
Davoren and McKea were stopped twice for speeding by military police, so that it was dark before they pulled into the warehouse on the Fulda road where the supply company was headquartered. The place seemed deserted and it took them a few minutes to find a soldier who could tell them where the adjutant was.
‘What an army!’ said Davoren. ‘How did you chaps manage to win the war?’
‘We won it, that’s the point. It’s over and everybody just wants to go home. Don’t you?’
But Davoren didn’t answer that, going instead to look for the adjutant, who told them, ‘Burns and Hiscox? Sure, they’re on weekend passes. They went off Friday night. I understand they do a little business on the side.’
‘You condone that?’ said Davoren.
The adjutant was fat, bald, homesick and not inclined to take any moralizing from an unknown Englishman ‘The war’s over, mac. Didn’t you know?’
Outside the office Davoren spat into the dirty snow in the cobbled yard. But he made no comment on the adjutant, just said. ‘Do we send your MP’s looking for Burns and Hiscox?’
‘We can’t go looking for them ourselves.’ McKea himself had a sour taste in his mouth at the sloppy moral attitude of the supply adjutant. ‘I understand how you feel, Davoren. But I think we have to do this through the proper channels.’
‘Bugger channels!’ Then Davoren threw up his arms and let out a loud sigh that was almost a moan of pain. ‘You’re right. But Jesus Christ – ’
‘Let’s go and see Jack Shasta. He may have heard something further.’
Colonel Shasta was in his office, even though it was Sunday night. ‘I’ve been trying to call you, but Hamburg said you’d left, didn’t know where you’d gone. It’s a helluva way to run an army, I must say.’
Davoren looked at McKea, grinned, looked back at Shasta. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’
‘We’ve been doing some sleuthing,’ said McKea, all at once liking Davoren. ‘We think we might have a lead. If you get in touch with the Provost-Marshal – ’
‘There’s no need,’ said Shasta. ‘Miss Beaufort is safe.’
‘Where?’ The heart did not leap, said practical-minded medical men: but Davoren felt something rise in his chest. ‘Where, for God’s sake?’
She was asleep in her billet, a house on the edge of the bombed ruins of the old city. The other women in the house did not try to stop Davoren as he walked in, asked where Miss Beaufort’s room was and went straight upstairs and into the room without knocking. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her still asleep. She had been bathed and fed; her muddied and blackened clothes were in a heap in a corner of the room. But even in sleep her face showed the strain she had been under. She whimpered even as he looked at her and her body shook in a quick spasm. He bent and kissed her, feeling weak and empty himself, demolished by relief and love.
Nina opened her eyes, saw his face close to hers and started away in fear. Then she recognized him and her arms, the elbows decorated with chevrons of medical tape, came out from beneath the blankets and went round his neck.
‘Let’s go home.’
‘Just what I had in mind,’ he said, thinking of England.
5
They went home to Kansas City two months later.
Burns and Hiscox did not return from their weekend leave and were officially posted as deserters and never heard from again. Since kidnapping was not classified as a military crime, armies having indulged in it for centuries, they were not listed as suspected kidnappers. Military authorities, who had not even bothered to start a file on the Beaufort case, promptly forgot about it and went back to wondering what the hell one did with the peace when one had won a war. The black market continued to flourish, becoming a major industry, and the fed-up GI’s gave up demonstrating and went back to gold-bricking, fraternizing and all the other important functions of an occupation force.
And Lucas Beaufort returned to Kansas City with his half a million dollars still unpacked. But not before meeting Nina’s brand-new fiancé.
‘Are you sure of him?’ The army had given him a room which they kept for VIP’s. Generals, senators, even Bob Hope had stayed in the room, but Lucas was unimpressed. They had left no presence that made him feel he was in better company than himself. ‘He seems rather – cavalier, I think is the word.’
‘Wasn’t that what Grandfather was?’
‘Not towards your grandmother. Only towards his business partners.’ Lucas had no illusions about his father. ‘Major Davoren says he wants to take you back to England. But he admits he has no prospects there, none at all.’
‘I have my own money.’
‘I’m sure he knows that.’ Then, seeing the angry flush in her face, said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have, Daddy, and I’ll never forgive you for saying it. Not about the father of my baby.’
‘Dear God!’ Lucas normally had only a social relationship with the Almighty. He attended Sunday service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where he sat in a reserved pew and wondered why God, if there was a God, answered the prayers of men like Roosevelt and Truman. ‘You mean you’re –?’
‘Pregnant. Enceinte. Schwanger. Or as the English put it, a bun in the oven.’ Then, because it hurt her to hurt him, she impulsively put her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy – I shouldn’t have said that. But you made me so angry – you’re not being fair to Tim – ’
Lucas took her hand in his. His face had a handsome boniness to it, but only his family ever saw it softened into his true good looks. ‘Nina sweetheart, all I want is to be sure that you are happy. It’s just that I have to re-adjust – your mother and I always expected you to marry someone from back home – ’
‘That’s it, Daddy. You don’t really want me to have a mind of my own. You don’t want me to be anything but a Beaufort – ’
‘All right. I’ll talk to Major Davoren.’ Lucas didn’t know how to cope with a daughter who showed such independence. Already back in Kansas City Sally and even young Prue, only five years old, were showing they had minds of their own. Only Margaret, the one to whom he showed the least favouritism (and was ashamed for his prejudice), seemed content to do what her parents wanted. ‘But do you mind if I try to persuade him to come back to Kansas City? There’s no future in England, not under that fellow Attlee.’
Nina made the concession, now secretly wanting to go home to Missouri. She had had enough of Europe, or anyway post-war Europe. All her charity had been frozen out of her by her fear for her own safety. She was ashamed of her selfishness, but she was not the first to discover there are limits to one’s self-sacrifice; she was even more ashamed that her limits had been so shallow. The older hands had been right: she had just been a rich kid playing at being a do-gooder.
‘But don’t press him, Daddy. Let him make the decision.’
Tim Davoren had stayed in Frankfurt and later that day Lucas, who had been in the city only once before, took him on a guided tour. ‘This is where the Rothschilds began, did you know that?’
‘So I understand. Goethe, too.’
‘Gurter? Never heard of him.’ Lucas had not been interested in the humanities at college; stick to the money subjects, his father had advised him. ‘I was here in 1936. The Rothschild house was still standing then. Right over there.’
Tim Davoren knew he was being tested: for Nina’s sake he showed interest. ‘From small acorns etcetera, as they say in Kew Gardens.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucas, his suspicions rising again. ‘I take it you are not very interested in the making of money?’
‘I don’t think I have the talent for it.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily disqualify you. Gamblers have no talent, but they are interested in making money. Do you gamble?’
‘Not knowingly. But I suppose everyone gambles one way or another.’
‘What are your talents, may I ask? I understand you are a good soldier, that you won the Military Cross. It’s not much of a career, though, is it? Not in peace time.’
‘I’m getting out of the army. I thought I might try teaching.’
‘You’d soon tire of that,’ said Lucas, as if he had known Tim all his life. ‘You wouldn’t think of coming back to Kansas City?’
‘What would I do?’ Tim kept his voice deliberately flat, a characteristic he had just before he was about to erupt.
‘You could take your choice,’ said Lucas, not entirely undiplomatic. ‘Come back there and see what offers.’
Tim walked in silence letting his anger subside. He recognized that the older man was only trying to do the natural thing, protect his daughter. But he also recognized that Lucas was already trying to assert some authority over his future son-in-law. And that’s just not in your book, Tim old boy.
‘I’ll talk it over with Nina.’
Lucas walked in silence, too. Then he seemed to accept that he could ask for no more. He nodded, then said, ‘She tells me she is pregnant. How did that happen?’
‘The usual way,’ said Tim.
Lucas stopped, looked as if he were offended, then suddenly let out a gust of laughter, surprising Tim, who had decided that the older man had no sense of humour at all. ‘Of course! Damnfool question – damn good answer. I’ll tell her mother that. You’ll like her mother. Has a sense of humour, something I haven’t got. Gurter? You don’t mean Go-eth, the poet, do you? You don’t like poetry, do you?’
‘Only if it rhymes,’ said Tim, and Lucas seemed satisfied.
That evening Tim had dinner with Nina and her father, then took Nina back to her billet. He had sent the Mercedes and his driver back to Hamburg; they walked home through the ill-lit streets, careful of the ice on the cracked sidewalks. They stood just inside the doorway of her billet and, bundled up against the cold, embraced each other like a couple of bears.
‘Darling heart, you shouldn’t have told your father you were pregnant, not yet. You’re too honest. Never be more than discreetly honest with people you have to live with.’
‘Will that include you, too?’ She kissed him, silencing his answer. She still had not recovered from her ordeal and she was in no condition to suffer lovers’ truths. ‘Mother would have guessed in time. Girls usually don’t have babies six months after they’re married.’
‘Did what happened to you – there won’t be a miscarriage?’
‘I think he, or she, is going to be indestructible. I haven’t even felt nauseous.’ Then in the darkness, unable to see his face, she said, ‘You don’t mind going home with me to Kansas City?’
His head was stiff and unmoving against the light in the windows of the house opposite. ‘No,’ he said quietly.
But she wondered if he was being only discreetly honest with her. She was too afraid to ask. She drew the dark head towards her, felt for his lips with hers and kissed him, seeking a true answer there. But already she had learned that lips were no more truthful than the tongue.
Lucas Beaufort went back to Kansas City relieved and satisfied. Nina and Tim were married quietly by an army chaplain a week after he left, with Colonel Shasta and Major McKea as their witnesses. When Lucas arrived back in Missouri it was announced without fanfare that Miss Nina Beaufort, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Lucas T. Beaufort, had been quietly married three months earlier to Major Timothy Davoren, only son of the late Mr and Mrs Clive Davoren of London, England. If anyone in Kansas City wondered why a Beaufort girl, the first one to be married, should have wed so secretly, no one voiced their wonder in public. Not even when she arrived home in March 1946 obviously pregnant.
Word of the kidnapping had got out. However, since the kidnappee had escaped unhurt, the kidnappers had not been caught and no money had been handed over, editors gave the story only a narrow spread in their newspapers. Who in the rest of the world thought anyone from Kansas City was interesting? Even Harry Truman was at pains to say he came from Independence, though cynics said that was only a play on words to show he was not Tom Pendergast’s man. Anyone passing through the two places wasn’t sure where Kansas City ended and Independence began.
Edith Beaufort, adamant that she had to meet her new son-in-law before anyone else in Kansas City saw him, insisted that she and Lucas go to New York to meet the Davorens as they got off their ship. She liked Tim as soon as she met him and he liked her.
‘You’ll do,’ she told him. ‘You’re much better than I expected or hoped for.’
‘A bad advance report from Mr Beaufort?’
‘Just say unenthusiastic. You’re not American, specifically not from the Midwest, that’s the main thing against you. He ignores the fact that he’s only two generations removed himself from England. And his grandfather left under a cloud, as they say.’
‘No cloud over me,’ said Tim. ‘The sun shines on me all the time. Especially when Nina is around.’
‘Your charm is obvious, but I like it,’ said Edith. ‘If there is any charm from our local men, it’s accidental and biennial. My husband is a good example. But I love him, Tim, and I hope you will love Nina just as much.’
They rode back from New York in a private railroad car. Nina and her mother watched the two men gradually thaw towards each other, but the thawing was slow, like two polite icebergs cruising down from Greenland. They were half-way between Columbus, Ohio, and St Louis before Lucas slapped Tim on the knee at one of the latter’s jokes. By the time they got off at Kansas City they were Tim son and Lucas old chap and moved in a common cloud of cigar smoke. Nina and her mother felt the future was secure.
There were four cars at Union Station to meet the train. One car contained the other three Beaufort sisters and Edith’s secretary, Miss Stafford; one car was for Lucas and Edith; another was for the newly married couple; and the fourth took the luggage. They moved out to a fanfare of flash-bulbs from the press photographers.
‘Do you usually travel in convoy?’ said Tim as he and Nina settled back in the pre-war Packard.
‘Only for weddings and funerals. Darling, please – take it all for granted. Please?’
He laughed: nervously, it seemed to her, though she had never thought of him as having nerves. ‘I’m not overwhelmed, but I’m certainly whelmed. Even that – ’ He nodded at the glass partition which separated them from the chauffeur. ‘We have those in England still, but I thought it had all gone out in democratic America.’
‘Don’t refer to it as Democratic America,’ she said, misunderstanding his adjective. ‘Daddy is a Republican. This car belonged to my grandmother – you can see how old it is. She didn’t believe in servants listening to their mistress’ conversation. Neither do I. What’s wrong with a car with a glass partition?’
‘It’s not just the car. It’s just everything. The private railway carriage, your father bringing half a million dollars to Germany in a couple of suitcases … Take it for granted, she says.’
‘It’s the only way.’
‘You were born to it. I’ll try, my love, but don’t blame me if I occasionally get a glazed look in my eye.’ Then a little later he said, ‘What’s this?’
‘Home.’
‘Well, I suppose King George has to say the same when someone asks him about Buckingham Palace. Where are we going to live?’
‘We’re having our own suite for the time being, in that wing there. Daddy is going to build us a house in the park. Something smaller,’ she added as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
‘Let it be as big as you want,’ he said expansively. ‘If I’m going to take it all for granted, I may as well not be cramped.’
Nina was relieved at how her three sisters took to Tim. ‘He’s absolutely out of this world!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘He’s thrilling!’
Sally, equally thrilled, rolled her eyes in ecstasy. ‘And he’s got you pregnant – already! He’s a quick worker.’
‘Most husbands are,’ said Nina, wondering how much her mother had told her sisters. ‘That’s what wedding nights are for.’
‘Are you going to have a baby?’ asked Prue, already that mixture of shrewdness and romanticism that would plague her all her life. ‘You’re a bit fat. I’ll look after it if you don’t want it.’
‘We’ll look after it together, darling. What do you think of Tim?’
‘He’s got funny eyes. They’re always looking at things.’
Tim’s eyes were indeed always looking at things, Nina noticed as the weeks went by. He made no comment, but his eyes were too sharp and observant for someone who was resigned to taking everything for granted. And, as if his eyes were a mirror of her own, she began to see things from a new angle and in a different light. For the second time since meeting him she saw the family wealth as something not to be taken for granted. You think you’re worth that much? the kidnapper had asked her. And she wondered just what she was really worth in Tim’s eyes.
He had refused to take a job in the Beaufort bank or the oil company or the lumber business or with the railroad. He considered going to work for the granary company, but that would have meant living away from Kansas City and Nina refused to do that; small town living, or even small city, was not for her. The same reason ruled out living and working on the cotton plantation down-State. So he went to work for the Beaufort Cattle Company in the stockyards.
‘What do you know about cattle?’ Nina asked.
‘Nothing. But your father tells me he knows nothing about lumber, but he’s president of the company. Is that right, Lucas?’
‘He’s got you there, sweetheart.’ Lucas smiled at his daughter, telling her how pleased he now was with her husband. He had half-expected Tim to settle for the cushiest job offered him, but he had turned out to have a wide streak of independence in him. ‘But I have fellers who know the business and they see I don’t make any mistakes. I’m putting Tim in as a vice-president of the Cattle Company and he’ll soon learn.’
‘I think you misunderstood me, Lucas. I don’t want to start as a vice-president. I’d rather go in as an ordinary worker, right at the bottom.’
‘Cutting off the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue. ‘George took me down to see the man doing it.’
‘I think you had better eat alone in the nursery from now on,’ said Edith. ‘And, Lucas, I think you had better have a word with George.’
They were in the big panelled dining-room where Lucas insisted that they eat every evening. The table could seat thirty, but two leaves had been taken out of it, reducing it to a size that did not ridicule the family sitting at it. Nina and Tim sat on one side, the three younger sisters on the other, and Edith and Lucas sat at the ends. Thaddeus and Lucy Beaufort had always dressed for dinner, but when they died and Edith took over the running of the house she had abolished that rule. She loved dressing up, but the fun went out of it if one had to dress every night.
‘George is only teaching her the facts of life,’ said Sally. ‘It’s the new society. I was reading about it in Time magazine. Things are going to be different. Are you going to be a modern mother, Nina?’
‘I’m not going to take the baby down to the stockyards, if that’s what you mean. And I think I’ll do without George’s help.’
George Biff, standing in for the butler on the latter’s night off, came in with the dessert. He was not a handsome Negro, but he had a broad friendly face and he moved with the light grace of a man who had been both boxer and musician.
‘Caramel custard tonight, ma’am. Just poor folks’ stuff.’
‘It’s crème caramel, George. French and not poor folks’ stuff. And Mr Beaufort would like to see you in his study after dinner.’
‘It’s about the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue.
‘Could we change the subject?’ asked Tim. ‘Otherwise I’m likely to lose my taste for this delicious crème caramel.’
Later Tim and Nina walked round the park, unconsciously following the paths and habit of Nina’s grandparents. A warm breeze blew up from the south and the maples that screened the house from the parkway whispered secretly in the darkness. Twice the Davorens passed security guards patrolling the big railed fence, but Tim made no comment on them. Nina now took it for granted that he was taking everything for granted. Including guarding against any further kidnapping of a Beaufort.
‘How did George come to work for your father?’
‘He’s Daddy’s favourite charity, though charity is never mentioned. When Daddy was a young man his one passion was jazz – ’
‘You’re pulling my leg. He seems more like Gilbert and Sullivan.’
‘No, really. He used to go down to 12th Street almost every night. Even after he married he used to go down there at least once a month. That was where he met George. George used to be a prize-fighter, but he also played trumpet in several bands. He used to stand in sometimes with Count Basie, when the Count was just plain Bill Basie.’ She giggled. ‘George once told me that Basie’s signature tune in those day was called Blue Balls, but he had to change its title when his band went on radio.’
‘George seems to spend a lot of his time instructing the Beaufort sisters in genitalia. I hope he never showed you his own.’
‘That’s a dirty remark and I should kick you in yours for talking about George like that. He loves the lot of us and I think he’d die for any one of us.’
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘Well, one night he got into some sort of argument with a gangster we had here in the Thirties, a man name Johnny Lazia. The next night Lazia sent two of his men back to the Reno Club and they shot off all the fingers on George’s right hand. Daddy was there and saw it all. He took George to the hospital in his own car, paid all the hospital expenses, then he brought George home and he’s worked for us ever since.’
‘What happened to Lazia and his gangsters?’
‘Nothing. Daddy went to the police department, but they just didn’t want to know. Lazia was hand-in-glove with Tom Pendergast and the police didn’t want to tread on the boss’ toes.’
‘I’m getting a new respect for your father.’
‘I’m hoping that one of these days you and he will understand each other exactly. You’re still getting used to each other. I think he admires you for wanting to start at the bottom. But I wish you’d chosen somewhere less smelly than the stockyards.’
6
Michael Lucas Davoren was born on Labor Day, 1946 – an appropriate day, as his mother remarked, since his birth was not easy. He came into the world reluctantly and for the first minute of his life was as poor as he would ever be. Then the two doctors and the nurse and all the trappings took over; his swaddling clothes might have been a coronation robe. Lucas and Edith made sure that their first grandchild, even if his name was not Beaufort, should begin life in proper Beaufort style. The nursery was re-decorated and re-furnished, a night- and a day-time nurse were engaged. Toys that would not be used for months or even years swamped the nursery and Edith even ordered a bookshelf of children’s books.
‘He has the best library of any illiterate in America,’ said Tim.
‘Don’t be churlish, darling,’ said Nina. ‘All grandparents get carried away like that.’
‘But Christ Almighty – what are they leaving us to buy him? I’d like to bring him home something, but there’s nothing he hasn’t got!’
‘You’re bringing home the smell of the stockyards.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He softened, stroked her golden hair as it lay on the pillow beside his own dark head. ‘By the time our next one comes along I’ll be taking it all for granted again.’
But there were to be no more children for Tim and Nina. Her gynaecologist, Dr Voss, was a man who delivered babies and punches with the same precision. ‘Your uterus is useless from now on. Forget about any more children. Consider yourself lucky young Michael came out okay.’
Tim got over the disappointment soon enough, but it remained with Nina not only for the next few months but for years to come. She reacted by slipping into the attitude of her parents and spoiling Michael unrestrainedly. He was not allowed to utter a yelp without being picked up and soothed; breezes, draughts and heavy breathing were kept from him as if they were gusts from the plague. Tim was the only one who didn’t spoil him, breathing anthrax, foot-and-mouth and a dozen other animal diseases all over his only son. Michael survived both treatments.
In February 1947 the Davorens moved into their new house.
‘I love it,’ said Tim and Nina knew that he meant it. ‘It’s – comfortable. What a home should be.’
They were walking round the paths, a habit each of them looked forward to, knowing it was a way of being together for a while before going back to the main house and dinner with the family. Now they had moved into their own house Nina decided she liked the routine and they would keep it up.
‘I’m keeping the staff to a minimum. I don’t want us overrun.’
‘Good idea. For starters, could we fire the nurse? I think it’s time Michael stood on his own two feet.’
‘He’s less than six months old. Don’t you think he’s a bit young for that?’
‘Not if his mum and dad stand on either side of him.’
His tone was easy, almost flippant, but she knew he was serious. She was too happy to argue; besides, the idea appealed to her. It would be another way of showing him that she could be independent when she tried. She had begun to fuss less and less over the baby, who was now allowed to cry sometimes for two minutes before being picked up.
‘All right, the nurse goes. I’m so happy, darling.’ She squeezed his arm and he returned the pressure but said nothing. After a moment she said, ‘But you’re not. What’s the matter?’
He was silent for a few steps, the gravel crunching beneath his feet like the sound of his thoughts being sorted out. ‘I think I made a mistake going to work at the stockyards. The chaps I work with in the yards are all right, but the fellows in the office, the manager and two or three others, think I’m after their jobs. My future down there has about as much promise as a steer’s.’
‘Well, we’d better speak to Daddy – ’
‘We shan’t speak to him. This is between you and me.’
‘I didn’t mean that he should put any pressure on those men. I meant he can find a position for you with one of the other companies. Something where you don’t come home smelling like Buffalo Bill.’
They had reached the house. He said nothing until they were inside and upstairs in their bedroom. Then he took her by the shoulders and pressed her down on the bed.
‘Are we going to make love? Before dinner?’
‘Sit up. You talk about me being sex mad. Sit up.’ She raised herself and he sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Now listen to me. From now on you don’t go near your father regarding anything about me. If I want him to do something, I’ll go to him myself. Understand?’
She stared at him, then slowly nodded. ‘You’re not taking things for granted, are you? Not even now.’
‘Certain things, yes. But I’m not going to become your father’s puppet. Hold it – ’ He held up a hand as she started to protest. ‘He doesn’t think of himself as a puppet-master, but that’s what he is. With you, your sisters, me, everyone who works for him. The only one who escapes is your mother.’
She was about to argue with him, but only out of her loyalty to her father. Then she realized she had no argument: what he had said was true. At least in regard to herself and her sisters; she had no idea how much power her father wielded over those who worked for him. She had been brought up in a private world: even the years at Vassar and the six months in Germany had been only half-opened windows on the world at large. She knew that money, in a money society, was power; there had been a teacher at Vassar who had taunted his students with that lesson. She was all at once conscious of the fact that she was ignorant of what everyone outside the family thought of Lucas Beaufort. The kidnappers in Germany had taught her nothing except that the family wealth could make her father vulnerable from certain angles. But at the same time she wondered how many children in other families, rich or poor, were in the dark as to what the rest of the world thought of their fathers. Public opinion was a prism she had never examined.
‘All right,’ she conceded, tasting disloyalty for the first time and not liking it. ‘What are you going to do? Go into business on your own?’
‘Doing what? I told your father once that I thought of being a teacher, but I know now I’d be no good at it. I don’t have enough patience to care whether someone would learn anything from me. As for going into business, what could I do? Take off your dress.’
‘Making love is no answer. We have a problem – ’
He took his hands from her, rolled over on his back and looked up at the bed canopy. It was a copy of a French tapestry: Diana stood with her hunting dogs, like a greyhound trainer who had lost her shirt at the races. Her blue silk eyes looked straight down at the bed, a voyeur who amused him. But not this evening: he was beyond amusement. None of the goddesses, especially Diana, could help him. Except, perhaps, one of the bitch-goddesses and he had never trusted any of them.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he said listlessly.
A long time later she wondered if that was the moment when his defeat began. But right then, the telephone rang. She leaned across him and picked it up.
‘Darling,’ said her mother, ‘I have a wonderful idea! You must have a house-warming party.’
Nina felt the string being pulled: her mother, too, was a puppeteer. ‘Mother, I don’t think I really want a party just now – ’
Underneath her she saw Tim looking at her expressionlessly. His face was close to hers, only part of it visible: his one eye was like a dark marble, telling her nothing. She lifted herself from him, put her hand over the phone.
‘Mother wants us to throw a house-warming party.’
He shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against her stomach. ‘Why not? We haven’t played host to anyone since we got here.’
She sat up, turned her back on him. ‘All right, Mother. We’ll have a party. Just one thing, though – I want to plan it all on my own.’
There was silence at the other end of the line. At last, with a sigh that was a plain reproof: ‘Of course, darling. But if you need any help – ’
7
‘I hate to admit it,’ said the railroad president, ‘but there have been worse Presidents than Harry Truman.’
‘In some banana republic,’ said the banker. ‘Not in this country.’
‘I believe in the work ethic,’ said the banker’s wife. ‘I don’t know what the workers would do without it.’
‘Women’s rights?’ said the retired general. ‘If they’d been important they’d have been discussed at Potsdam. Right, Ethel?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said his wife. ‘Permission to stand easy now?’
Nina moved through the froth of party talk, feeling a pride that was new to her: hostess in her own home. The party was already a success, an instant house-warming; Nina took smug secret pride in the knowledge that it had been due solely to her own efforts. She had chosen the caterers, showing her independence by ignoring her mother’s usual choice; she had made out the guest list, splitting it between her parents’ friends and her own. It had disturbed her that she had created an awkward moment by asking Tim if there was anyone he would like to invite.
‘Only Bumper Cassidy. But I don’t think he’d fit in. He’s my sidekick down at the yards.’
‘Darling, invite him!’
He had shaken his head. ‘He would only feel out of place and so would his wife. She’s a waitress in a joint on 12th Street.’
‘My, how you get around when I’m not with you. Sidekick. Joint on 12th Street. You’re becoming more American every day.’
‘Tell your father. It’ll make his year.’
She approached her father now, sliding into his arm as he crooked it out for her. ‘Nina, it’s the best party I’ve been to in years. Where’d you get that band?’
‘George was my talent scout. I got them specially for you.’
‘Great. I haven’t heard music like that since I was a young man and used to go to the Old Kentucky Barbecue down on the Paseo. How much are you paying them?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘Don’t spoil them. I can remember when you could get Hot Lips Page for three dollars a night. Where’s Tim?’
‘Out on the veranda dancing with Sally.’
Tim had already danced with Miss Stafford, Edith’s secretary, a plump plain woman who was a snob but likeable and who thought Tim was a real-life version of Ronald Coleman. She lived in the past and Tim played up to her with a courtliness that made her laugh but didn’t offend her by mocking her. She was only one of his conquests among all the women, family and staff, on the Beaufort estate.
Now he was charming Sally who, at her first adult party, was in seventh heaven and Tim’s arms, floating inches above the floor. ‘You dance like Ginger Rogers. Or a ballerina. Why don’t you become a dancer?’
‘I hate indoors. You know what my ambition is? To win the Indy 500.’
‘Sally my love, don’t be a racing driver. Stay feminine.’
‘I’m not a lesbian, if that’s what you’re thinking – ’
My God, what happened to the innocent girls of my youth? ‘Nothing was further from my mind. I don’t think they allow lesbians into the pits at Indianapolis.’
Sally shrieked, clutching him. ‘Oh Tim, I adore you! Divorce Nina and marry me!’
‘A child bride – just what I’ve always wanted. But don’t they hang a man for that here in Missouri?’
‘Daddy would fix that.’
‘Just the man I’d ask. Can I tear myself away now and dance with Meg?’
‘Oh God, her. Look at her – all those boys hanging around – ’
‘You’ll be like that yourself some day.’
‘Oh God.’
Tim left her, moved across to Margaret and took her away from the six boys hanging around. ‘Thanks for rescuing me. Boys that age are so gauche. I think I like older men.’
‘We have our uses. Would you mind backing off a little? Your sister, my wife, is watching us.’
She blushed and was embarrassed, proving she was still only seventeen going on eighteen. ‘Oh God. That’s the way boys expect you to dance.’
‘The gauche ones. Some older men, too. But not this one, not in front of his wife.’ They danced sedately for a while, Jane Austen set to A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Then he said, ‘Let’s head down towards your mother.’
‘Are you working your way through the Beaufort women tonight?’
‘All of them. I have a date with Prue at midnight in her room.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s man-mad. At six.’
Smoothly as a gigolo he left Margaret and took Edith in his arms. They moved back down the veranda to There Goes That Song Again, which someone had requested and which the band was playing as if they had been insulted.
‘Tim, we don’t seem to talk to each other very much these days.’
‘I’m so busy being a bread-winner, husband and father, I don’t have time for other women. But let me know when Lucas is out of town and I’ll pop over.’
Edith didn’t respond to flirting. ‘Were you a philanderer before you met Nina? You have a way with women.’
‘Would you expect me to admit it if I had been?’
‘Unhappy men sometimes do stray, just as a diversion.’
‘What makes you think I’m unhappy?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean you and Nina. That part is happy enough. But you don’t really like America, do you?’
‘America is a very big country.’
‘All right. Kansas City. You don’t like it, do you?’
He smiled, took her through some intricate steps which she had a little difficulty in following. ‘That would be tantamount to saying I don’t like the family, wouldn’t it?’
‘Tantamount. You sound like Walter Lippmann. Yes, I suppose it would be tantamount to saying you don’t like us. But I don’t believe that.’
‘Edith – don’t worry. I love you all. I’d love you even more if we didn’t live quite so much on top of each other. Offended?’
‘No, I just missed my step.’ The band, on orders from Lucas, had thrown There Goes That Song Again out the window and had started in on Make Believe Rag. Lucas stood by the band, foot tapping, face thirty years younger. ‘You can’t blame me, Tim. I’ve never tied Nina to my apron strings.’
‘Edith, when did you ever wear an apron? I’m not blaming anyone in particular. It’s the circumstances – ’ He appreciated her intelligence and tact in not asking for an explanation of the circumstances. ‘Nina and I should have gone down to live on the plantation. I think I’d have made an ideal Massa Tim.’
‘You can still go down there. Do you want me to talk to Nina?’
‘Take your apron off, Edith.’
‘What? Oh. You mean stop interfering? It’s difficult for a mother like me not to interfere. I grew up in a social frame of mind where mothers expected their daughters to marry within their own circle. Their own class, I suppose you’d call it in England.’ Despite her respect for perspective, Edith’s world was still small and she felt safe in it. The kidnapping of Nina had had an effect on her, the depth of which not even Lucas suspected. She had presented a brave, calm face to everyone at the time, but in her secret self there was wreckage, the realization that the world was full of enemies for people like themselves. ‘You’ve met all our friends – there are practically no outsiders. Some of the younger ones, maybe, have other ideas – Nina, for instance. The war changed things. I try, Tim, but it is difficult for me. Lucas and I are selfish, I know, but we want our family around us. And we think of you as family, Tim.’
But I’ll always be an outsider; but not for the reasons you think. He had belonged to a middle-class family who had always had enough money to get by, mainly because their wants and ambitions had been small. His father had been a suburban solicitor who had been more than content with his house in Ealing with a modest mortgage on it, the second-hand Wolseley car and membership of the local tennis club. Wealth, real riches, was something the family never thought about, as they never thought about the families who had the wealth, the Grosvenors, the Cavendishes, the Howards. Perhaps it had something to do with the English system: he might have been different had he been an American. Ambition, even envy, was not considered off-side in this country. He was handicapped by his upbringing, by a mother and father who had, without ever mentioning the subject, taught him to be satisfied with his lot. But these days he felt like a man who, accustomed to everyday sunsets, was all at once confronted with the pyrotechnics of Judgement Day. It was an image he never confided to Nina. Something else he also never confessed to her, and only reluctantly to himself, was that he was afraid of the seduction of money. Since coming here to Kansas City he had realized he had a weakness he had never suspected in himself: if he had enough money of his own he would be nothing but a hedonist. That was the ultimate and real reason for not taking the Beaufort riches for granted. It was not something he could explain to Edith.
He handed Edith over to Lucas, collected Nina and took her into the buffet supper. ‘It’s a marvellous success, darling. We should do this more often.’
‘You’re really enjoying yourself? Truly?’
‘Darling heart – ’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Truly.’
8
The stockyards’ strike began on the day the Paris conference on the newly announced Marshall Plan opened.
‘Truman should be running this country,’ said Lucas, ‘instead of trying to run Europe. We’ve got enough damned Reds here without trying to stop the Reds over there. Let ’em look after themselves.’
‘I don’t think there’s a Red down in the yards,’ said Tim. ‘Except Red Ludwig, the feed man, and he makes you look like Joe Stalin. I didn’t think it was possible for a man to be so far to the right without falling off the edge of the world.’
‘Well, someone’s stirring up this trouble. Wanting seventy-five cents an hour as the minimum wage – if we give them that, there’ll be no end to their demands. You get that now, don’t you?’
‘Yes. But the minimum is forty cents an hour.’
‘Are you supporting the demand?’
‘They’re letting me stay neutral. The chaps appreciate my position. But there’s a lot of solidarity down there, Lucas. You won’t employ union labour, but these chaps are as solidly together as if they were a union.’
‘You sound as if you do support them.’
‘I told you, I’m neutral. But I’m leaning a little your way in telling you just how strong their feelings are. They’re not going to back down. I think you ought to meet with them.’
‘I’m not meeting with anyone. I’ve got fellers down there to run the company – I don’t believe in interfering.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Nina, who had been sitting quietly listening to their discussion. ‘I’ll bet you’ve already told management to say no to the men.’
‘A Red in my own family,’ said Lucas. ‘Emma Goldman.’
They were sitting on the enclosed back porch of the Davoren house. Tim and Lucas had played two sets of tennis on the court behind the main house, then they had come across for a beer. Even though they had played late in the afternoon, the July heat had been too much for Lucas and he was exhausted and testy. He was also very red, but in the circumstances of the discussion Nina diplomatically did not mention it. She placidly knitted, a pursuit she had taken up in the past month, telling Tim it would not only keep her occupied but would save them money on Michael’s clothes, a thriftiness which Tim, with a perfectly straight face which she hadn’t missed, said he appreciated. Occasionally she looked out towards the lawns where Michael was crawling around under the benevolent eye of George Biff. The nurse had been got rid of and George, without asking or being asked, had taken over.
‘You’re behaving like Grandfather.’
‘You don’t know how your grandfather behaved.’ Something more personal than the strike had made Lucas irritable. He had always fancied himself as a tennis player, but Tim, playing at only half-pace, had beaten him without the loss of a game.
‘I do know, Daddy. We had a teacher at Vassar who gave us a short course in labour history. Grandfather wasn’t quite as bad as Rockefeller and Henry Ford at breaking strikes, but he was bad enough. I was ashamed when the teacher told us what Grandfather did here in, I think it was 1924, some time then, when he locked out the railroad workers.’
‘Your teacher didn’t show much taste by mentioning that with you in his class.’
‘You don’t learn history by being squeamish. I knew he was trying to make me uncomfortable, he was that sort of man. But I checked and found out he was telling the truth.’
‘There are two sides to every dispute.’
‘Maybe you should go down to the yards and listen to the men’s side.’
Lucas, still red and sweating, wiped his face with his towel. He looked at his favourite, sensing, as he had for some time, that he was losing her day by day. He supposed this happened to all fathers when their daughters married; he wondered how Edith’s father had felt. A father’s rival was his son-in-law and all at once he felt a stab of jealousy towards Tim. He stood up, picked up his racquet and headed for the door with the abrupt departure that was an occasional characteristic of his, as if he had heard a whistle that called him to some other place.
‘Thanks for the game, Tim.’ The screen door banged behind him, a thudding first-act curtain.
‘That’s not the end of our argument with him,’ said Tim.
‘Do you think you should take a week off till all this blows over? We could go down to the plantation, you could do some fishing – ’
‘It’s not going to blow over in a week. The men are as stubborn as your father. And I think it would be cowardice for me to walk out before it was over.’
‘You’re not neutral, are you? You’re on their side.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Not if you think they’re right. I just can’t imagine how people live on those sort of wages. They can’t live much better than those people I worked amongst in Germany.’
‘Oh, they live better than that. Nobody down at the yards is starving and they’ve all got a roof over their heads when they go home. But Bumper Cassidy told me, even with him and his wife working, they’ve never been out of debt in the fifteen years they’ve been married.’
‘Is he going on strike?’
‘He’s one of the leaders.’
She folded up her knitting, put it away in the expensive embroidered sewing bag that had cost her ten times the price of the wool she was knitting. ‘Don’t get involved, darling,’ she said and went out to Michael and George Biff, closing the screen door quietly behind her.
George picked up the baby, brushed the grass from him. ‘You stopped spoiling him, Miz Nina, he’s a good kid now.’
‘George, when did you become an expert on child raising?’
‘I had six brother and four sisters, all younger’n me. They started yowling, I belt ’em over the ear. They’s all grown up, nice people.’
‘But all deaf in one ear.’
He grinned, bounced Michael up and down in his arms. ‘Miz Nina, a little paddy-whacking never hurt nobody.’
‘If ever I see you paddy-whacking Michael I’ll knock you down.’
His grin broadened. ‘Ain’t never gone a coupla rounds with a lady. You want six-ounce or eight-ounce gloves?’
Each of them knew how far their banter could go before she lost her authority. There were always certain hints, which she recognized, that he loved and respected her: he had said ‘ain’t never gone a coupla rounds with a lady’ instead of ‘with a woman.’ Such small gestures were always there behind his easy cheek.
She took Michael from him, kissed the flushed chubby face. He was blond like her, but there were traces of his father in him, glimpses of the future. ‘I’ll let my son defend me when he grows up. You just watch out.’
Tim went to work next day and came home that night worried and upset. He showered and changed and went out with Nina and the baby for their walk round the park. She could see that something was troubling him, but she contained her impatience. It was after dinner, when they were having coffee in the living-room, before her patience finally ran out.
‘Well, what happened today?’
Inger, the Swedish maid, brought in fresh coffee. Nina had a staff of three helping her run the house and Inger was the brightest of them, a plump plain girl whose eyes and ears were like magnets for every splinter of gossip dropped about the house. Nina waited till she had gone out of the room again, then she repeated her question.
‘Nothing happened.’ He sipped his coffee, then leaned back in his chair, the big red leather wing-back that she had bought specially for him, and sighed. ‘It’s tomorrow something’s going to happen. Your father is bringing in scab labour.’
‘Daddy or the company managers?’
‘Same thing. He’d have to okay it. They’ve recruited them from down in Arkansas and they’re bringing them in by truck tomorrow morning. They announced it to us this afternoon, just as if they were asking for a flat-out confrontation. We’ve been locked out.’
‘We?’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I’m with the men. I can’t be otherwise – I think they’re entitled to what they’re asking for. I don’t want to be an agitator or anything like that, but I have to support Bumper and the other chaps. I find I have a social conscience, something that’s never troubled me before.’
‘Do you think you should go over and tell Daddy what you’re going to do?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good. If he doesn’t understand the men’s reasons for the strike by now, no amount of explanation will convince him I’m doing the right thing. He’s living in the past. He still believes in the sanctity of capital, right or wrong.’
‘I don’t understand him.’ She could feel anguish boiling up inside her, less bearable because she was unprepared for it. She had wanted her father and Tim to be friends, though she had known there would always be powder there to explode a division between them. She had not expected the powder train to come from the direction of the stockyards. ‘He’s basically a kind man. He’s charitable – look at the money he’s given to charity. The Foundation isn’t just something he inherited from Grandfather – he believes in it.’
‘It could be from a sense of guilt. I don’t know, I’m not judging his charity. But he’s like a lot of rich men – we have them in England, too – as soon as the workers start demanding a little more, they think they’re endangered, they’re going to have another revolution on their hands. From what I’ve read, John D. Rockefeller was like your father. He gave away millions with one hand and with the other hit a worker over the head with an iron bar. I don’t mean he wielded the iron bar himself, but he condoned it when it was done by others.’
‘Daddy would never allow any violence.’
‘There’s going to be violence tomorrow when those scabs turn up.’
‘You better not go to work tomorrow, then. I don’t want you getting hurt.’
But when she woke in the morning he was already gone. Distressed, she couldn’t eat breakfast. She tried to bathe the baby, but he was in one of his playful moods and she got short-tempered with him and finally called in Inger to take over. She dressed without showering, careless of what she put on, then hurried across to the main house. Her mother was having breakfast in her bedroom, planning her day with Miss Stafford.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
Edith looked at her, then nodded at Miss Stafford. ‘That will be all, Portia. Tell one of the gardeners to look at the tennis court. Mr Beaufort was complaining about it night before last. He said he got some bad bounces.’
‘Another beautiful day,’ Miss Stafford said to Nina and went out of the bedroom.
‘Now what’s all this? You know your father is always downtown by this time. He’s in his office at eight every morning.’
‘Did he say if he was going down to the stockyards?’
‘He and I never discuss his business.’ But she patted the newspaper that lay on the bed beside her breakfast tray. It was yesterday’s Star; it was one of her idiosyncrasies that she always waited till the news was at least a day old before she read it. That way, she said, she got a better perspective on whether the doom-sayers of yesterday had been proved correct today. It also buttressed her optimism because the doom-sayers were usually wrong. ‘You’re worried about the strike? I think you can leave it safely with your father to deal with. He’s a reasonable man in business, they tell me.’
‘Mother, how would you know? You said you never discuss business with him. This strike is serious. And Daddy is being pigheaded about it. I’m worried, Mother. Tim has gone to work this morning – there’s going to be trouble – ’
‘Darling – ’ Edith put her tray aside, patted the bed. ‘Sit down here. I can’t remember when I last saw you so upset. You’ll have to trust Tim. That’s what wives must do – ’
‘Oh Jesus!’ Edith said nothing, but her face stiffened and a deep frown appeared between her eyes. Nina flopped on the bed, hugged her mother. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to swear. But you don’t know what could happen down there this morning. It’s not just a question of trusting Tim – ’
‘Darling, I know we both live a sheltered life. Me more than you. But I don’t think that even out there – ’ She waved a hand vaguely towards the windows, towards the green thrones of trees, the pikestaffs of the iron fence, the outer world beyond the moat of wealth. ‘Even out there I don’t think women interfere in their husbands’ affairs. We just have to trust that they know what they are doing, that they are doing the right thing – ’
‘One of them will have to be wrong this morning, Tim or Daddy. They can’t both be right, not about this strike. And I think Daddy is the one who’s wrong this time.’
Edith looked at the newspaper headline covering the strike story: perhaps the doom-sayers were going to be right after all. She was not foolish, she did not believe she lived in the best of all possible worlds, only in a tiny corner of it; but she had not been bred to go looking for what was wrong with the world, her plea for perspective was only play-acting and she knew it. Her equanimity was only cowardice genteelly disguised.
‘I’ll talk to him tonight – ’
‘It may be too late then.’ Nina kissed her mother, slid off the bed. ‘Whatever happens down at the stockyards today, there’s going to be a hell of a scene here tonight. I’m going to tell Daddy a few truths.’
She left her mother, ran downstairs, out of the house and back towards the stables where all the cars were garaged. She drove her MG out into the cobbled yard and almost ran down George Biff as he stepped in front of her.
‘Where you going, Miz Nina?’
‘None of your business! Out of the way – please, George!’
He came round, slipped into the passenger’s seat beside her. ‘You rushing off down to the yards, right? You damn foolish. You ain’t gonna solve nothing like that.’
‘I’m not trying to solve anything – all I want is to bring Mister Tim home before the trouble starts.’
George looked at his watch. ‘It gonna start, it already started. I talked to Mister Tim this morning when he come to get his car. He told me about them scabs coming in. You gonna drive or you want me to?’
She argued no further. It took them twenty-five minutes to get to the stockyards, caught as they were in the morning peak-hour traffic. One or two of Nina’s friends saw them, waved cheerfully; they had no problems, none of them had a husband on his way to do battle, scabs, scabs. The morning was already hot, the eye-scalding sunlight an omen in itself. As they drove down towards the yards the smell of livestock hit them suddenly, as if they had driven through an invisible gate into another atmosphere. Police cars blocked the roadway up ahead and beyond the cars they could see trucks and a crowd of men. Nina parked the car, switched off the engine and at once they heard the shouts and booing of the men above the bellowing of the cattle in the yards.
George Biff put a hand on Nina’s arm as she started to get out of the car, but she took his hand by the wrist and dropped it back on his knee. ‘I’m going up there, George, so don’t try and stop me. I want to know what’s happening.’
‘I can find out – ’
She relented. ‘We’ll find out together. Come on.’
As they got to the line of police cars a sergeant blocked their way. ‘Okay, you two, this is no place for you. You with the lady, boy?’
‘He’s with me, yes,’ said Nina, squarely facing the thickset, overweight officer. He had a Southern accent and she resented his calling George ‘boy’. She wondered what his attitude was towards the strikers. ‘My name is Davoren – my father owns the Beaufort Cattle Company, where all the trouble is.’
‘You can say that again, there’s trouble, all right.’ The sergeant’s tone hadn’t altered. He knew who she was, even if he hadn’t seen her before; but he wasn’t impressed by rich girls who took niggers driving with them in imported sports cars. ‘That’s why you better turn round and go back home. We’ll take care of the trouble if it gets any worse.’
A young policeman came running down from the trucks, looking hot, angry and as if wishing he were somewhere else. ‘Sarge, you better come on up there. Those pickets, they’re not gonna let the trucks through. It’s getting rough.’
‘You buzz off, you understand?’ the sergeant said to Nina, then he lumbered up the road after the young officer.
‘We better do what he says,’ said George, sweat beginning to glisten on his dark face. ‘Looks like it gonna get pretty bad in a minute.’
The yelling had increased and the horns of the trucks had begun to blare; strident echoes rang in Nina’s ears, Frankfurt and Kansas City merged, she was suddenly as afraid of the past as of the present. She started to run towards the disturbance, but George grabbed her arm, held her back. Utterly distraught now, as if the yelling and the truck horns blaring were an omen, she struggled against his grip. The cattle in the yards on either side of them began to mill, bellowing loudly, raising dust that blew up and floated across the road like the smoke of an explosion. Down here on the flats beside the river the sun bounced back from the roadway, splintered itself on the windshields of the police cars. The stockyards became a cauldron of heat and dust and panic and anger.
‘Stay here! Don’t come any closer – you hear me? Stay here!’
George pushed her back towards the MG, then turned and ran up towards the trucks and the yelling crowd.
In the front line of the crowd Tim was struggling to edge towards the side. He had no desire to be a ring-leader in what was going to be an ugly encounter. He had been standing talking to Bumper Cassidy, both of them watching the blocked trucks carrying the scab labour, when suddenly the situation had got out of hand. The pickets had been rocking the trucks, trying to force the drivers to reverse; one of the drivers lost his head, threw a wrench and a picket went down with blood gushing from his face. Next moment the whole mob had surged forward, pickets clambering to get up at the men in the trucks like pirates boarding a convoy of galleons. Whistles blew and the police came in at the mob of strikers from the other side of the trucks.
Tim knew he was in danger. Mob mindlessness had taken over; if there was a cool head among the three or four hundred men it was having no effect. Bumper Cassidy, beside Tim, had responded to the uproar with a reflex action; he was a big, bald-headed man who, if he was lost for words, was never lost for fists. A man fell out of a truck and Bumper hit him on the way down, stopping him for a moment in mid-air as if the blow from his fist was stronger than the pull of gravity. Then a police baton hit Bumper on the side of the head and he fell sideways against Tim, who went down in the stampede.
Tim fought his way to his feet, hitting out indiscriminately; a man he worked with every day, blind with rage, threw a punch at him and he just managed to duck under it. Choked with dust, blinded by sweat, gasping for breath in the stifling heat, he found himself being swept round in the mob as in a whirlpool. Suddenly he was on the edge of the big melée, but in a worse position; he thudded up against the railings of a yard, felt a searing pain across his belly as a steer’s horn swept by. He was spreadeagled against the fence, the fighting crowd behind him hammering him there; right in front of him the stampeding cattle thundered by, eyes white-wild, their bellowing as brutally bruising as if they were running him down. Their horns went dangerously close as some of them thudded into the fence; he fought to push himself away from the railings but the crowd threw its weight against him, unaware of him. For a moment he thought of trying to climb over the fence, but knew at once that that would mean almost certain death.
He began to fight his way along the fence, punching and swiping at everyone in his way. He had almost reached the edge of the crowd when something hit him behind the ear; he went down, dazed, had no strength to pull himself up again. Then he felt someone lifting him, a black man who was faintly familiar; he clung to the man as the latter began to drag him out of the riot. He was dimly aware of a policeman appearing out of nowhere, baton raised; the black man let go of Tim with one hand, swung at the policeman and the latter went down. Tim was dragged over the fallen officer, then the black man picked him up in a fireman’s lift and carried him out of the yelling, struggling crush and down the road. He was dumped into the seat of a car that was also vaguely familiar, he felt someone kiss him, then he passed out.
‘Get going, Miz Nina!’
Nina swung the MG round, ignoring the shouts of the police sergeant as he ran down towards them, and took the car down the road with a screech of tyres.
9
‘Disgraceful!’ Lucas looked as if his bones wanted to blow him apart; all arms and legs and rigid body, he stalked up and down his study. ‘The papers have got on to the story! The two of you down there like damned agitators. And George hitting that policeman – Goddam it, what got into you?’
‘You can’t blame George for anything he did – he was just trying to rescue Tim.’
Nina had never seen her father so angry; but she was surprised at her own total unconcern for his reaction. All she cared about at the moment was Tim, lying in their bedroom in the house across the lawns with twelve stitches in the wound in his belly, two broken ribs and a slight concussion. She was off-balance emotionally, as if there had been a subsidence within her, a breaking-up of levels that had sustained her all her life up till now. There had been worries and doubts in the sixteen months she had been married to Tim, all brought on by Tim’s sometimes prickly attitude towards her father: there had never been any open quarrel but at best his attitude had always been one of guarded geniality, his smile not hypocritical but a defence that neither of her parents had recognized as such and had never penetrated. The evidence had been growing in her mind for months, but only today had it all suddenly formed itself into a pattern that she acknowledged. It was no news to her that Tim had never really accepted her father, but it had come as a shock to learn that her father returned the attitude.
‘I’ve had to talk to the chief of police, get him to drop the charge against George. Damn it, you know what they could do to him – a Negro hitting a white officer! And you took George down there with you, let him get into that situation!’
‘I didn’t do any such thing!’ She never had fought with her father like this; she burned with both shame and temper. ‘George came of his own accord – to help me. And he went into the mob to help Tim because he had some spark of humanity in him – something I think you’ve forgotten!’
She had hurt him, she could see that, but he wasn’t a weak man: he did not retreat behind a whine of reproach for her betrayal. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. The company has always been fair with its workers – it isn’t inhumane to object to their greediness. They get a fair share in wages of the profits – ’
‘It’s nothing to the money we have!’
‘Don’t be naïve. You don’t run a business that way. The Cattle Company has to pay its own way – whatever else we have doesn’t enter into it. You’re talking like some woolly-minded socialist. If you got that from your husband – ’
‘I didn’t get it from my husband – he has a name or have you put it out of your mind? He’s never attempted any propaganda with me – I think he’d laugh his head off if you called him a socialist. I worked it out for myself – I think the men are entitled to what they’re asking for.’
‘They get a living wage – ’
‘A living wage isn’t enough! God, Daddy, you’re still in the last century – I don’t think I’ve ever looked at you properly. Grandfather must have put blinkers on you when you were born – ’
Her voice had risen; she was almost shouting. The study door opened and Edith came in quickly, closing it behind her. ‘I told myself I was not going to interfere. But this has gone on long enough and loudly enough – too loud, all the servants can hear you. I think you had better apologize to your father, Nina, then go home and cool down. You’d better cool down, too, Lucas – your voice has been just as loud as hers.’
‘I’m not going to apologize! Tell your husband to come into the twentieth century – he just doesn’t know what’s going on in the world!’
‘My husband?’ said Edith.
But Nina had already rushed out of the room, past George Biff standing in the hall, his face grey with pain and emotion; then she was running across the lawns, through the afternoon heat, like someone fleeing a catastrophe she couldn’t face. Margaret and Sally, coming up from the tennis court, called to her, but she didn’t hear them. She ran towards her own house, tears streaming down her face, but even in her distress she knew the house was no real haven, that it had never really belonged to her and Tim. It had been a gift from her parents and she ran now through the strings that bound it to the big house that dominated the park.
Tim lay flat on his back in the bed, a low pillow under his head. He tried to sit up when she came into the room, but winced in pain and lay back at once. ‘What’s the matter? For Christ’s sake – Nina! What happened?’
She had flopped on the foot of the bed, hand over her face, her head shaking from side to side. She struggled to control herself, the sobs coming up as great gobs of pain in her chest. He reached for her, but she got up and moved away, waving a dumb hand for him to remain lying down and not hurt himself. She should have stayed downstairs till she had composed herself, but she had come headlong up the stairs to the one true haven that was all her own, him.
He waited impatiently for her to tell him what had happened. At last she was in control of herself, had cooled down, as her mother had advised; she was tearless now, dried-out and cold, more than just cool. She told herself she owed no more allegiance to her mother and father.
‘I got nowhere with Daddy.’ She told Tim all that had been said and argued in her father’s study; as she talked, she felt the distance increasing between her parents’ house and her own. ‘He’s hopeless – he’ll never see things our way.’
He misunderstood her, thinking she was talking only about the strike. ‘Bumper phoned me – the men are going back to work. They haven’t announced it yet, but Bumper says they’ve all recognized now that they can’t win.’
She had to concentrate to think about the events of the morning: she had been preoccupied with the wide empty horizon of the future. ‘Oh – you mean they’re giving up? So easily?’
‘Don’t criticize them. It’s too easy for us – ’
‘But you were hurt – for them! Daddy will laugh at us – ’
‘I don’t think he’s that heartless or undiplomatic.’
She moved up closer to him on the bed, took one of his bandaged hands in hers. ‘Darling, let’s go away.’
He stared at her closely, his eyes wary in his bruised and grazed face. ‘You don’t mean just for a holiday, do you?’
‘No, I mean move away from here, go somewhere else to live. Anywhere – I don’t care – ’
‘I think you’d better sleep on it – ’
‘I don’t want to sleep on it! For God’s sake, stop being so damn careful of me – I’m not doing this just for you! I’m thinking of me – of us, both of us. And Michael – ’ She was infested with pessimism, was building fears on fears without any real foundation. She had been too well protected, even from the knowledge that her father had another set of loyalties, ones outside that to her and her sisters. ‘Let’s go to England! You’d like that – ’
He searched her face as if it were strange territory: he had never known her to look and sound like this. He sensed the seriousness in her: what she had just suggested may have come off the top of her head, but she felt it deeply. The decision she had made was bigger than her decision to marry him. But he wasn’t hurt by it.
‘All right, we’ll go back to England. But you have to promise me – we tell your parents together and you have to make them understand it was a joint decision on our part.’
‘But it isn’t – ’
‘Yes, it is. You may have suggested it, but you’re not to tell them you did. You’ll hurt them enough just by going – you don’t have to rub it in by letting them know you had to talk me into it.’
It was her turn to look searchingly. ‘Why are you being so careful of their feelings? They’ve never been that way about yours.’
‘I’m being careful for your sake, darling heart. You may want to come back here some day – ’
‘Never – ’
He shook his head on the pillow. ‘You’ll want to come back. Perhaps not to live, but you’ll want to come back for visits, long ones. There’s not just your parents – there are your sisters. You’re too attached to them to want to turn your back on them.’
10
Lucas and Edith took the news as Nina had expected: as if she had turned a gun on them. Lucas did not speak to her for two days, going out of his way to avoid her. But Edith, after her initial shock, did not surrender her daughter without a fight.
‘If we’ve made mistakes, Nina, then all I can ask is that you forgive us. It won’t happen again.’
‘It will, Mother. Daddy will never change. He thinks he owns us. Not just all of us, but Tim, too.’
‘You’re mistaking love for ownership. Maybe he shows it the wrong way, but it is love. I know him better than you.’
‘That’s why you can make excuses for him. But I can’t, Mother – not any longer.’
Then she tried to explain her departure to her sisters. She got them together in what had been the old nursery and was now a games and television room. But all the artefacts of their childhood were still there: dolls, toys, finger-paintings. It was a museum now for the older girls, but it was Prue’s retreat and domain. She was delighted to have her sisters as her guests. She sat playing with her dolls, only occasionally cocking an ear to the conversation. But Margaret and Sally were in tears.
‘Oh God!’ wailed Sally. ‘We’ll miss you terribly!’
Margaret wiped her eyes. ‘I suppose I knew marriage was going to break us up some day. But not like this. Daddy is like a zombie.’
‘I think I’d like a zombie doll,’ said Prue.
‘Oh God,’ said Sally; then wiped her eyes. ‘If you go, Nina, can I have your MG?’
‘How mercenary can you get?’ said Margaret. ‘Nina, how does Tim feel? We’re going to miss him as much as you. He’s part of the family.’
‘That’s just what he’s not. Daddy doesn’t think so. Will you come and see us when we’re in England?’
‘Of course,’ said all three; then all four of them had another big weep. ‘God, it’s just awful!’
Later Margaret walked back with Nina to the Davoren house. Purple clouds boiled above then and a wind whipped the trees to life. There were tornadoes further south, but so far no warnings had been issued for this area. It was a good day for being miserable.
‘If there’s anything I can do to help – ’
‘Better not take sides,’ said Nina, linking her arm in her sister’s. She had never been as close to Margaret as to Sally and Prue, but now she was grateful for Meg’s comfort and presence. She wanted someone to talk to, and her mother had failed her. ‘Just watch out when it comes time for you to fall in love. Please yourself, not Daddy. Is there anyone you’re serious about right now?’
‘No.’ But Margaret seemed to close up; Nina felt her arm stiffen slightly within her own. ‘Well, maybe. But we haven’t talked about it. I could be crazy about someone else this time next year. Did you fall in and out of love once a month when you were my age?’
‘I was crazy for half a dozen boys. It was a wonder I didn’t have half a dozen babies.’
‘You mean you went all the way with all of them?’
Nina laughed, beginning to feel a little better. Her sisters were indeed a comfort, she really was going to miss them. ‘I always said No at the last moment. I must have been a terrible tease. But I was afraid of losing them. I’m – I don’t know, I used to fall in love too easily. I did with Tim, all in a weekend.’
‘You’re not sorry about that, for God’s sake?’ Margaret pulled up, her arm jerking Nina to a halt.
‘Of course not. But I break out in a cold sweat sometimes. I mean I might have missed him, never met him, if I’d married one of the others.’
Margaret nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I’m trying to teach myself to be patient. But it’s hard, isn’t it? Oh, there’s Tim! I didn’t know he was up.’
‘He’s not supposed to be.’
But Tim was sitting in an armchair on the wide rear porch, a book open on his knees, a pitcher of lemonade on the cane table beside him. Inger, the maid, hovered over him, a Swedish angel who would gladly have fallen if the master had tempted her. Nina had already decided that, if she and Tim had not been leaving, then Inger would have had to go.
The maid went back into the house and Nina and Margaret sat down on either side of Tim. ‘Who helped you out of bed? Inger Nightingale?’
‘Only after she’d given me some Swedish massage. They have some marvellous ways with their hands – ’ He grinned at her, then at Margaret. ‘When you marry, Meg, don’t be jealous of your maids. No husband in his right mind would ever dally so close to home. What do you think of our news?’
‘I’m heart-broken. But I think you’re doing the right thing. I just wish you didn’t have to go all that way, to England.’
Nina picked up the book from his lap. ‘All the King’s Men.’
‘I thought it was about your father.’ Then he pressed her hand. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t make snide remarks like that.’
She kissed him and went inside to supervise Michael’s lunch. Tim watched her go. ‘I hope she knows what she’s doing, Meg. It’s going to be a bigger wrench for her than she realizes.’
Tears suddenly sprang into Margaret’s eyes, surprising him: she had always struck him as the least emotional of the sisters. ‘Oh Tim, why did it have to happen?’
‘I don’t really know. The fault isn’t all your father’s. Just learn from our mistakes. Be sure the man you marry will be one your father approves of. You may have to wait till the right one comes along, I mean a chap you love who also meets your father’s approval, but it’ll be worth it. Don’t let some chap bugger up things for you the way I have for Nina.’
‘You haven’t – buggered up things for her. She loves you – isn’t that all that matters? I just hope I’m as lucky as she is.’
‘You’re sweet.’ He put a finger against her cheek. ‘Just take care. You Beaufort girls have got everything in the world but a guarantee of happiness. And nobody has that.’
Chapter Three (#ulink_89972d79-8551-5ded-8d02-6c423738def4)
Nina (#ulink_89972d79-8551-5ded-8d02-6c423738def4)
1
By the time the Davorens were ready to leave for England, Lucas had thawed out towards both of them. It was not in his nature to beg forgiveness and he could only go just so far in his rapprochement with them. He left it to Edith to make a last-minute effort to talk Nina and Tim into staying.
‘I’m sorry, Mother. I’m glad we’re friends again with Daddy, but I think we need to get away from him. For a while, anyway. Once we’re on the other side of the Atlantic, maybe he’ll learn not to be so possessive.’
Edith, standing amidst the Sèvres china, the Persian rugs, the silk drapes, said, ‘I feel like a mother must have felt a hundred years ago when her family left her and headed West.’
Nina laughed, a little too heartily; but it was a good excuse to let out some of the emotion in her. ‘You don’t really think you’re a pioneer woman!’
Edith had not lost her sense of humour. She looked about her, then laughed and took her daughter, the pioneer sailing for England, in her arms. ‘You know what I mean. I never dreamed I’d be losing any of you – ’
‘You’re not losing us, Mother. You’ll just have to get used to the idea that the world has got bigger.’
Even Lucas, when it came time to say goodbye, conceded that fact. ‘We’re investing overseas – in oil, for a start. I suppose it was inevitable. Can’t get used to it, though. I don’t like the thought of foreigners telling me what I can do with my money.’
‘Why are you doing it then?’ said Tim, more at ease with Lucas than Lucas was with him. ‘You don’t need the money.’
‘Washington approached us. I never thought I’d be doing that feller Truman a favour, but he is the President, God help us. They want us to expand over there in the Middle East before the Russians get in. Beaufort Oil is going into a place called Abu Sadar on the Persian Gulf.’
‘You can stop off and visit us in England when you’re on your way to the Gulf.’
‘I won’t be going out there, I’ve got fellers to do that. But Edith and I will come and visit you – ’ He put out his hand, for a moment looked as if he was going to break down and plead with Tim to stay, not to take his favourite daughter away from him. ‘We’ll come whenever you ask us.’
The departure was a quiet one, with no farewell parties. Nina went round and said goodbye to her friends, discovering only as she was leaving them that none of them was really close to her. Tim went back to the stockyards only once, to say goodbye to Bumper Cassidy, who wished him well and invited him back for the next strike – ‘Next time we’re gonna get what we ask for.’
Magnus McKea, home now from Europe, glad to have Nuremberg behind him, came to say goodbye to both of them. ‘My father is retiring and I’m taking over the law office. That means I’ll be dealing with your father direct, Nina. If there’s anything – ’
‘We’ll let you know if there is, Magnus. Will you handle my funds for me, send money across when we need it?’
She was alone with McKea for the moment. There was a tacit agreement between her and Tim that they would need her money to live comfortably in England, but she had become self-conscious about it, as if it were some sort of family birthmark better left ignored. She welcomed the idea of Magnus as her own lawyer, even if he was also her father’s.
Magnus himself was a little dubious. ‘I’m your father’s lawyer first. If there’s any conflict of interest, I’m afraid I’ll have to take his side.’
‘We’ll risk that. I’m hoping any disagreement between Daddy and us is over for good.’
The final farewells were said at home, then George drove them to Union Station. Lucas had decided against a public goodbye, in case there should be a reporter or two waiting. It was as if he saw Nina’s going away as some sort of defeat for himself: he didn’t want it spread across the newspapers for all to see. It was bad enough that people in their own circle knew what had happened, even if they could only guess at the reason for the Davorens’ departure.
George carried Michael into the station. ‘I’m gonna miss him, Miz Nina.’ Michael, a year old now, laughed without restraint, the only one young enough not to feel the pain of the occasion. ‘Gonna miss you and Mister Tim, too.’
The Davorens crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, a booking that Nina had sentimentally insisted upon. They spent a month at the Savoy while they looked about for a place in the country. Tim raised no objection to their staying at the hotel, even though Nina was footing the bill; she wondered if he was letting her indulge them before they got down to living on his terms.
They found a house to lease and a business to buy at the same time and in the same place, Stoke Bayard, a village on the River Thames near Henley. The house was on a ten-acre island in the middle of the river, connected to the main bank by an arched bridge over a tributary of the main stream. The business was on the edge of the village, a boat-yard which built punts and skiffs and, in summer, rented them out to fishermen and picnickers who came down from London.
The house was a pre-1914 summer pavilion, a seven-roomed folly or, as Tim described it, a family of gazebos. ‘I love it,’ said Nina. ‘It just proves not all the bad taste is in America.’
‘It’s not practical. We’ll freeze in winter.’
But they went ahead anyway, because she insisted, and leased the house for a year and moved in as the best summer England could remember began to turn into an equally beautiful autumn. Tim took over the boat-yard and the one full-time worker as the last of the summer visitors began to dwindle away.
The yard stood at a bend in the river and looked up to the house on the island. Tim would sometimes see Nina on their front lawn with Michael and they would wave to each other; life seemed idyllic, with his work so close to his home and no Lucas to worry about. He even forgot about the prospect of winter in the pavilion built for summer.
His sole full-time employee was an Australian artist who lived opposite the island with his wife and two small daughters. He had done his apprenticeship as a boat-builder back home in Australia and he was still working at his trade while he established himself as an artist in England.
‘Australia is a bloody cultural desert.’ Steve Hamill was a short chunky man with a thick moustache and a rolling gait that suggested he had been a sailor; but he was scared of the water and couldn’t explain why he had become a builder of craft to sail upon it. ‘I suppose it’s like that in the Middle West, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tim. ‘I was never much of a one for culture.’
‘I’ve got no education to speak of, but I know where the soul of art is. Right here in Europe. All I’ve got to do is absorb it, get it into me, and then I’m going to be the most successful bloody artist ever came out of Aussie.’
‘Perhaps I’d better buy one of your paintings now while I can still afford your prices.’
The Hamills lived in a large caravan which Steve had redecorated. It stood in one corner of a field like something forgotten by a carnival that had moved on. Near it he had built himself a small shed that was his studio.
Eileen Hamill was a pretty girl with auburn-tinted bangs and a quiet manner that suggested she took a long view of everything. Her whole life seemed to be Steve and their two small girls; she was prepared to wait forever for him to be the artist he wanted to be. But Tim, who had now developed a very personal eye for such things, wondered how long her patience would survive the cramped, uncomfortable life in a caravan.
While Tim looked at Steve’s paintings in the shed, Nina sat with Eileen in the caravan and sipped tea and ate home-made scones. The two small Hamill girls, delighted to have a living doll, played with Michael on the grass at the bottom of the caravan steps.
‘I grew up in the slums back in Melbourne,’ said Eileen. ‘The only time I ever got out of the city was when the local church took us on a picnic. To live like this – it’s heaven.’ Then she added, ‘Though I don’t know what it will be like in the winter.’
Nina was still adjusting. Life for her had suddenly been reduced to a much smaller scale. She could not imagine living in the confined quarters of the caravan; she wondered how the Hamills made love, sleeping so close to their children. She couldn’t see herself under Tim with two pairs of bright curious eyes peering over his shoulder. She smothered a giggle at the thought, coughed and made out some tea had gone down the wrong way.
‘But at least it’s our own and it’s better than living right on top of each other as they do in London. Even in the slums back home we had a backyard. But we keep hoping we’ll have something bigger in a year or two. You have to, when you’re an artist. Hope, I mean.’
Nina went across to the shed to look at the paintings. Taking Steve Hamill as no more than a working man with perhaps enough talent to have given him some ambition, she was surprised at the sensitivity of his paintings. His wife and his children were subjects in all his work, but they were not portraits; they were dream figures in a world in which the rough, casual Steve would have looked as out of place as a cubist dustman in a Watteau landscape. There were thoughts in Steve Hamill’s head that he could never express in words, that had to come out through his rough, broad-fingered hands.
Nina and Tim bought three paintings and two sketches and Steve shook his head at them. ‘I hope you’re not being charitable.’
‘We’re buying them as an investment,’ said Tim.
‘You want your heads read. My stuff an investment? Well, it’s your money. I hope you’re not leaving yourself short.’ He and Eileen had no idea who Nina was, nor did anyone else in the village; she was enjoying her anonymity, the first time in her life she had not been a Beaufort. ‘How about twenty quid each for the paintings and a fiver for the two sketches? Or am I asking too much?’
Going back to the pavilion, Tim carrying the paintings and Nina carrying Michael straddled across her hip, Nina said, ‘I wonder what it’s like to start at the bottom like that?’
‘You’ll never know, darling heart.’
‘I couldn’t live in cramped conditions like that. I was thinking, how do they make love with everything right on top of them? Including the children.’
‘The poor have had to do it that way for centuries. They hold their breath, which accounts for the pop-eyed look among the poor. It’s only the fortunate who can expose their privates in private. Shall we go in and try a little exposure?’
‘It’s five o’clock. Cinq à sept, as the French say. I’ve always wanted a lover to call on me before dinner. What shall we do with Michael?’
‘Hang him on the wall with the paintings.’
2
Autumn slipped into winter. The river lost its sparkle, the songbirds went south, the sun came out only occasionally as if it too was being rationed by the austerity-minded government. Tim and Nina made friends in the village, but gradually Nina began to feel homesick. Food and Christmas gift parcels arrived from Kansas City like insidious propaganda: come home, said every tin and package. But she said nothing and if Tim noticed any change in her, he also said nothing.
She and Tim and Michael had Christmas dinner alone. The table was loaded, but all the food had come in cans from America. Each of them put on a brave face, but Michael was the only one who laughed and enjoyed himself without restraint. Tim had suggested having the Hamills join them, but they had gone up to spend Christmas with some Australian friends in Earls Court. Despite fires in every room the house was cold; it seemed to have a chill of its own that had nothing to do with the weather outside. A winter wind scavenged the trees, seeking the last of the leaves; yesterday’s rain had turned to ice under the hedgerows, like negatives of shadows. When the phone rang at four-o’clock in the afternoon Nina rushed to it as if it were a lifeline thrown to her across the Atlantic, though she knew nobody would call her from Kansas City.
‘We’re here,’ said her mother, sounding warm and comfortable, as if she herself were centrally heated.
‘Where?’
‘In London, of course. At the Savoy. We were going to surprise you, be down with you for Christmas dinner, but the boat was delayed by storms. We – ’
‘Mother, who’s we? All of you?’
‘No, just your father and Meg. Your father had to come over on business – ’
‘What about Sally and Prue?’ She wanted to see them all. She still couldn’t believe her mother was in England, knew this had to be a dream and she might as well dream for the most.
‘Sally’s been left with a tutor. She’s been neglecting her school work for that blessed car you gave her. Can you imagine, she got only nine per cent in history. American history, too.’
Nina laughed and laughed: Oh God, she was glad to hear anything about any of them! ‘Prue?’
‘Has the measles. How is my grandson? How do we get down to see you?’
‘Mother, we’ll come up!’ All at once she didn’t want her parents to see where she and Tim were living; not in this season with the house as cold as it was. She was afraid they would use it as an excuse to criticize Tim, blame him for making her and Michael live in such Spartan conditions. She did not want her Christmas, which had suddenly become Christmas, spoiled. ‘We’ll have dinner at the hotel with you … No, we were going to have it tonight anyway … No, I don’t have enough for us all …’
‘Two Christmas dinners in a day?’ said Tim.
They drove up to London in the pre-war Jaguar SS they had bought when they had moved down to the country. There was still petrol rationing, but Tim got a business quota for the boat-yard and, in the spirit of spivvery of the times, each weekend he filched a gallon or two and it added to the small family allowance they got. Being able to drive up to London was a luxury in itself, another way of feeling rich.
‘Why didn’t you ask them down to the house?’
‘I thought you’d like a break – ’
He said nothing and she knew she hadn’t convinced him.
But any uneasiness vanished as soon as the family reunion took place. Her parents greeted Tim with the same warmth as they did her. It seemed that all was forgotten and this was a new start. Nina went into the main bedroom of the hotel suite with her mother, Margaret and Michael, the latter swamped with attention from his grandmother and aunt. Lucas and Tim sat down in chairs by the window and looked out on the dark river and the bombed ruins along the south bank.
‘Nina’s letters said you were doing well with your boat business.’
Tim himself had never written and he wondered how much Nina had boasted of him as a successful boatman. He said cautiously, ‘It’s too early to tell. I took over at the end of the season. I shan’t really know how things will go till the end of next summer.’
‘Well, if you need any finance … Or shouldn’t I offer that?’
‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ But the last thing he would ever do, he told himself, would be to accept money from Lucas. ‘Why are you here? Edith said you were on business.’
‘The oil company is expanding. We’re setting up an office in London, then we plan to branch out with gas stations all over the country. I’m afraid I’m an internationalist now. Never thought I would be, but a man has to change, I guess.’
‘How’s the project going in the Middle East?’
‘Abu Sadar? The place is floating on oil. Our only problem is keeping on the right side of the Sultan. He’s okay, but he’s got some sons who want to meddle. We’re starting to educate them in America now, you know? Bringing the young fellers to Harvard, Caltech, places like that. A mistake, I think. Educate the natives, you buy trouble for yourselves. Their ignorance is your bliss.’
‘That one of your own?’
Lucas laughed, slapped Tim on the knee: the armistice was complete. ‘I think it was one of your Foreign Ministers talking about the British Empire. Well, shall we go down to dinner? I guess you’re hungry as a horse?’
‘A whole stable,’ said Tim, wondering if he looked as stuffed as he felt.
The Savoy produced a cot and Michael, worn out by all the fuss made of him, was put to bed in the care of a chambermaid. Then the Beauforts and the Davorens all went down to dinner.
Tim sat between Margaret and Edith; it was the former who engaged him. He had never seen her so animated and voluble; she kept grabbing his arm to turn him back to her every time he attempted to say a word to Edith. She looked beautiful and, yes, sexy (he was surprised to find himself looking at her in that light). It occurred to him as he looked across the table that, compared to Margaret, Nina looked tired and drab. He chided himself, because he knew it was his fault.
‘Nina looks tired.’ Edith managed to get a word in. ‘Has she been unwell?’
‘The excitement has just got to her.’ But he knew it was more than that.
‘We miss her, Tim. I have to tell you that, even though you’ll dislike me for it. We miss you, too. And that last isn’t an afterthought.’
‘Of course it isn’t!’ Margaret grabbed his arm from the other side, swivelling him round; at least she was preventing him from eating, a relief he hadn’t expected. ‘We all do miss you! We’re here for a week, you’ve got to spend every day with us – ’
‘I’m a working man – ’
‘Oh bushwah! Close your old boat-yard down – give your men a vacation – ’
‘With pay? That would give your father a stroke.’
But nothing, it seemed, would give Lucas a stroke right now. All his attention was on Nina; he had re-possessed his favourite, if only temporarily. He caught Tim’s glance and he flashed a smile, the across-the-table smile, the dental fireworks that mean nothing. Or did the smile mean nothing? Tim wondered if there wasn’t a spark of triumph in it, that Lucas was beginning a new battle in which he had already made a gain.
Edith suggested that Tim and Nina stay up in town that night, but Tim, feeling perverse, said they would have to go back. ‘But tomorrow is a holiday,’ said Nina. ‘Boxing Day.’
‘You never know, there may be some fools wanting to go out on the river.’
‘Business is business,’ said Lucas understandingly, nodding in agreement. Then: ‘But maybe Nina and Michael could stay.’
Did he say that too innocently? Tim looked across at Nina and was disappointed to see how eagerly she had greeted her father’s suggestion. He felt suddenly jealous; and then, just as abruptly, didn’t care. The other side of the coin of jealousy was indifference; it was his first experience of how the coin could flip without warning.
‘Stay a couple of nights,’ he said, ‘then bring your mother and father and Meg down to our place. I’m sure they want to see where we live.’
Nina’s face was blank. ‘A good idea.’
Nina and Michael, her parents and Margaret, came down by chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce the day after Boxing Day. The big car rolled through the village and the villagers stopped and looked after it when they saw Nina sitting in the car. It drew up at the boat-yard and Steve Hamill came into the office where Tim was struggling with a stock list.
‘The wife’s outside. Yours, not mine. In a bloody great Rolls. I must say she looks at home in it.’
Tim went out to the car. It was a cold day, a wind coming in from the ice-works of Russia, and only Lucas got out of the car. ‘Nice little place. Bit primitive though, isn’t it?’
‘We preserve the primitive here in England. It’s part of our tradition.’ He tried to keep the acid off his tongue; he wasn’t looking for another battle. ‘It seems to work.’
‘Couldn’t work in these conditions myself.’
‘Lucas – ’ He couldn’t resist it; even so he diluted the acid with a smile. ‘You’ve always worked in a board-room. These conditions here are no worse than those I worked in at the stockyards. Did the chaps there ever get their raise?’
‘No. But we gave them a fifty-dollar bonus for Christmas.’
‘Your place in Heaven is assured.’
‘You’re too cynical, Tim.’
‘No, just whimsical. You bring it on in me. Shall we go down and look at our house? The conditions there are a little better. Just.’
Lucas and Edith were appalled at the conditions that Nina and Michael had to live in; they didn’t appear to worry about Tim, he was English and accustomed to such living. They said nothing to him, though doing a poor job of disguising their reaction; but they had a lot to say to Nina when Tim took Margaret for a walk round the small island. Edith kept her mink coat on all the time, as if to emphasize her feeling that the fires, blazing though they were and supplemented by electric radiators, were useless in such a house.
‘You can’t live like this. You’ll have to get a better house. It’s not fair to Michael. He’ll grow up crippled with arthritis or something.’
‘I couldn’t live in these conditions myself,’ said Lucas. ‘We’ll have to do better for you.’
Nina shook her head. ‘This house was my mistake, not Tim’s. I’ll look around for something better. But you’re not to say a word to Tim, understand? He’s working hard and he’s perfectly happy.’
Out in the grounds Tim was saying, ‘Perhaps the boat-yard is not what I want for the rest of my life. But it’s a start.’
‘I still think you should have stayed in America,’ said Margaret. ‘You liked all our creature comforts, I know you did. You should have gone out to California, started something there.’
‘How did you know I liked the creature comforts?’
‘I know you better than you think. Prue used to say you were always looking at things, and you were. While you were, I was looking at you. And you lapped up everything the family could offer you. Everything but Daddy wanting to run you the way he runs the rest of us.’
They had been walking arm-in-arm, but now he moved away from her on the pretext of pulling off a switch from one of the willows that lined the river bank. He swung the switch back and forth, taking the heads off the yellow reed-feathers along the bank, like a destructive schoolboy who, for reasons he couldn’t name, had to abuse nature. Then he stopped, regretting the reed-feathers lying like gold dust on the thin snow that had fallen last night. He looked sideways at her, again like a schoolboy.
‘What else have you observed about me?’ He felt uncomfortable with her; her very youth somehow made her formidable. ‘Never mind, I don’t want to know. But obviously I should have been looking at you more closely.’
‘You could have done worse.’
At first he didn’t catch what she meant. Then he burst out laughing, more with surprise than amusement. ‘Meg, for Christ’s sake – ! I don’t play around – ’
‘I know that. That was why it was all so hopeless.’ She said it flatly, with no dramatics.
It might have been better if there had been dramatics: then he could have put it down to a crush on him. But he realized, with sickening certainty and no conceit, that she was in love with him. He slammed the willow switch against the trunk of a wych-elm, a substitute for her. He wanted to whip some sense into her, could feel the anger building in him as he stared at her.
‘Jesus God Almighty – Meg, do you know what you’re saying? Of course you do – ’ He saw the pain in her dark eyes. He threw the willow switch into the river, afraid of the angry trembling in his hands. He walked on and she fell into step beside him but did not put her arm in his this time. ‘Meg, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to put all this out of your head. I’m married to Nina and I’m in love with her and that’s that.’
‘Don’t you think I know it? I shouldn’t have told you. But it slipped out.’
‘You’ve got to be sensible – ’ He sounded as if he were talking to a schoolgirl; and he didn’t want to sound that way. This was far more serious, for himself as well as for her, than a fleeting schoolgirl fantasy. He began to wish she wasn’t so damned adult. ‘You’ll be unhappy, I suppose, for a while. But you’ll make me unhappy. And Nina, too, if she ever found out.’
‘She won’t. I’m not a bitch. And I said I’m sorry I told you.’
Out of habit he went to kiss her on the cheek, as he had done innumerable times; but at the last moment held himself back. ‘Let’s go back to the house. One thing I’m glad of – there are no tears.’
‘There may be tonight,’ she said. ‘But you’re safe for now.’
The Beauforts went back to London in the afternoon, Lucas and Edith convinced that Nina had condemned herself to a life of poverty, Margaret angry and ashamed that she had exposed her feelings to Tim. They stayed another week in London but did not come down to Stoke Bayard again. Tim and Nina went up to visit them and Nina stayed at the Savoy with Michael for a couple of nights. Edith and Lucas said nothing more about the way in which the Davorens were living, but when Tim came up on the last day Lucas took him aside.
‘I meant what I said, Tim. If you want to expand that boatyard, call on me. Don’t go to a bank. No point in getting into their clutches,’ he said with a banker’s smile.
Nor in yours, Lucas old chap. ‘I shan’t think of expanding for at least another year.’ He returned Lucas’s smile, turning the conversation into a joke between them: ‘If you want any help with the oil fields out in Abu Sadar, call on me. My Arabic is rusty, but I can always brush it up.’
‘Didn’t know you spoke Arabic. The young fellers all speak English out there, but the old guys never bother to learn. You’d think they would, dealing with us all the time.’
‘Just what we English used to say in our Empire days.’
‘You being whimsical again? You can’t joke about the Arabs. They’re going to be a pain in the ass to us some day. Well, now we’re off to Paris – Edith and Meg want to go. Never liked the French myself. They’re a pain in the ass, too. Never can trust them.’
‘What about the English?’
Lucas winked, refusing to take the bait. ‘Time we were leaving.’
Farewells were said. The Beauforts hugged Michael, squeezing affection into him as if giving him blood. Nina hugged and kissed her parents and sister; Tim watched carefully, alert for any sign that she wanted to go home with them. He shook hands with Lucas, kissed Edith on the cheek. Then he had to say goodbye to Margaret.
He took her hand, felt the tension in her fingers. ‘Enjoy Paris. I was there only once, but I loved it.’
‘Why don’t you come with us now?’
He kissed her quickly on the cheek, extricated his fingers from hers. ‘I’m a working man with a wife and kid to support.’
He turned away from her, still feeling the tension in her even though he was no longer touching her.
3
It snowed heavily during the night and for the next two days. All the pipes in the house froze, and Tim moved Nina and Michael down to a hotel in Henley. He went back to the house and invited the Hamills and their children in to join him; they would be a little more comfortable than in their caravan. Tim stoked up the fire in the living-room, kept it going twenty-four hours a day, and he and the Hamills camped in the room. They boiled ice for drinking water and poured hot water down the toilet to break up the ice in the sewage pipe. Nina phoned twice a day from the hotel and Tim, lying unconvincingly with a half-frozen tongue, told her things were fine. On the third night the snow turned to rain and it rained for the next three days. By then Tim, telling Steve Hamill not to worry about the cost, had insisted that Eileen Hamill and the two little girls be moved down to join Nina and Michael in the hotel at Henley.
On the sixth morning Tim, who had been dozing in a chair, half-awake all night, sat up as Steve shook him. ‘We’ve got to get out, mate. The bloody river’s at the front door.’
Tim hastily did up his boots. He looked around the living-room, at first saw nothing that he wanted to save from the flood; then he noticed Steve’s paintings and sketches hanging on the wall. He grabbed them and raced upstairs with them, wrapped them in blankets and laid them on the bed in the main bedroom. When he got downstairs and into the hall Steve was at the front door with a skiff.
‘Lucky I got this before the bloody thing went under.’ The water was rising by the minute, flooding into the house through the open door. ‘We better head for the boat-yard. And pull like buggery. If we can’t get across that current, we’re going to finish up half-way to France.’
Brown water, looking as thick as soup, was rushing down past the house as they slid the skiff away from the front door. The island had already disappeared; the house stood in a brown swirling waste. The usually placid Thames raged past in swift, yellow-flecked ropes of current. Logs and trees bobbed and whirled like drowning dancers; a panic-stricken dog went by, only its head showing, chasing a sheep’s carcase. The rain was still falling, shutting out the slopes of the valley, deadening every sound but the hiss and death-rattle gurgle of water.
As soon as Tim and Steve pushed off they had to start rowing furiously. The current swept them straight at the raised bridge that connected the island to the main bank; but there was no island and no bank and it stood like an upturned long-boat stuck on a hidden reef. Tim saw the bridge rushing at them; he dug in his oar and they skidded past with inches to spare. Then he quickly started rowing again. They had to row diagonally across the river if they were not to be swept round the bend and past the boat-yard. A mile downstream there were a lock and a weir and the thought of crashing into one or plunging over the other made him and Steve row furiously.
The river was normally forty to fifty yards wide at the bend; now it was closer to a hundred. The current tore at the skiff, muscling it off an even keel as it struggled sideways across the wide sweep of the bend. Tim was blinded by rain and each time he opened his mouth to gulp in air he choked on the water he took in. Cold and stiff, he must have pulled a muscle: every time he pulled back on the oar he wanted to yell with the pain in his side. He had got into the skiff without any thought that they might be in any real danger, but now he saw they stood a better than even chance of having the skiff overturned and their being flung into the river. He saw Steve, the man afraid of water, throwing frantic glances back over his shoulder, looking for the far bank and safety.
Everything flung itself against them as they battled their way across the current: the swirling water, the rain, logs and debris. A dead cow hit the skiff head-on in a blind charge; the boat swung round, tipping dangerously, and for a moment Tim thought they were going to go under. Then the skiff righted itself, the two men dug in their oars and they swept down towards the tiny jetty that ran out from the slope below the yard. They hit it with a thud, the skiff splintered and tipped over and Tim and Steve were flung into the freezing water.
Tim grabbed at the jetty as the water tore at him, pulled himself up on to it. He clutched at Steve as the latter was about to be sucked under the platform. Water was already lapping over the jetty and Tim could feel it moving on its pilings. As Steve struggled out of the water, the whole jetty leaned dangerously to one side. Both men scrambled to their feet and ran.
They leapt on to the cobbled slope as the jetty was swept away by the flood. They staggered up the slope and sat down heavily, exhausted by their efforts, weak with relief at their narrow escape. It was fully a minute before they stood up, both of them wavering on unsteady legs.
‘Jesus wept!’ Steve Hamill let out a cry of agony. ‘Look at that!’
Coming downstream, like runaways down a hill, were his caravan and studio shed. They went past at speed, the caravan a bright mocking note, bobbing and dancing like something on a carnival carousel, in the brown raging flood. As it went past the boat-yard the shed, which had been upright, suddenly tipped over. Its floor opened and paintings and canvases shot out and went skimming down the river, riding the current like gaily-coloured surf-boards that had lost their riders.
Tim looked at Steve. The Australian’s face was wet, water streaming down his cheeks, but it was impossible to tell whether it was rain or tears. The look on his face, however, was that of a man seeing his life’s work going pell-mell down a huge drain.
4
The rain stopped the next day, but it was almost a week before the flood fully subsided. The yard lost two-thirds of its boats, sunk or smashed; all the moorings and slipways and the work-shed went downriver. Tim and Nina, the house abandoned, living now in the hotel in Henley, drove up at the end of the week and took stock of the damage. Eileen Hamill stayed at the hotel to look after the children and Steve drove up with the Davorens.
‘It will take us at least six months to get things back to normal,’ Tim said. ‘We’ll never be ready for summer.’
‘What about the insurance?’ Nina asked. ‘Maybe we could buy all the boats we need.’
Tim looked around at the havoc. ‘The insurance won’t cover everything by a long chalk. You want to stay on, Steve?’
The Australian shrugged. He was utterly depressed, unrelated to the casual, happy man the Davorens had known. ‘I’m willing. But I don’t know if the wife wants to. Did she tell you? One of my paintings finished up stuck under the bridge all the way down at Henley. She saw some kids chucking stones at it, using it as a target. She’s more upset at what happened than I am. I think she’d like to move somewhere else, right away from here.’
Tim took Nina’s arm and they walked back to the car. The sky had cleared and the sun was shining; the flood-damaged valley was exposed pitilessly in the pale silver-gold light. Upstream the island was above water again; even at this distance it was possible to see the mark just below the upper-storey windows of the house where the flood had peaked. The boat-yard was thick with mud and debris, all of it beginning to smell as the sun shone on it. It looks like a battlefield, Tim thought. And I’ve just lost the battle.
‘I hate to say it, but I don’t want to start all over again. And that’s what it would mean.’
Nina felt a mixture of surprise, relief and disappointment. She had never seen him defeated before; or anyway so ready to accept defeat. In the time they had been married he had made compromises, but always with a wry insouciance that let her know he was granting concessions to please her. But this was a surrender of himself for himself: for the first time she saw a weakness of character that she had never suspected.
‘What worries me is what will happen to Steve?’ He looked across at the Australian moving through the wreckage of the yard; Steve picked up a rudder, looked at it as if wondering what to do with it, then threw it aside. ‘You should have seen the look on his face when everything he owned went past here the other day. I think it was then I realized how lucky we are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We could lose a lot. This, for instance – even a lot more.’ He gestured at the yard. ‘But we could never lose everything. He was telling me yesterday. He has exactly fifty-two pounds in the bank and that’s all.’
Her disappointment in him was giving way to relief for herself. My character is no better than his. ‘I don’t want to stay here if you don’t. But what will you do?’
He had done a lot of thinking: that was evident as soon as he spoke. ‘I could go to work for your father again.’
‘Back in Kansas City?’ She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
‘Not just yet, perhaps later. I could work for the oil company now it’s set up an office in London. I don’t know what I’d do, but I’m sure your father could find something for me.’ There was just a hint of sarcasm in his voice, as if he were adding salt to his own wounds.
‘We’ll have to call him right away. They’re leaving Paris for Cherbourg tomorrow, to catch the ship.’ She was pushing him, but she was confident now she was taking no risk.
They called Lucas that afternoon at the Crillon in Paris. ‘Sure, I can find a place for you,’ said Lucas. ‘I’m sorry about the boatyard. You sure you want to come and work for me?’
‘Lucas, it wasn’t exactly easy for me to make this decision – ’
‘Sure, I understand. But I had to ask.’
Lucas came to London alone, on the boat train. Edith and Margaret had wanted to come back to London for a few more days, but he insisted that they take their booked passage on the Ile de France from Cherbourg. He expected some heated discussion in London and he did not want any interference from the women. He expected he would get enough from Nina.
He was right. ‘You can’t do this, Daddy! You can’t expect us to go out to Abu Sadar, taking Michael to a place like that – ’
‘You and Michael don’t have to go. All I’m asking Tim to do is go and learn the business at the source. He said he could speak Arabic – that’s not much, but it’s more than he has to offer in the London office.’
You son-of-a-bitch, thought Tim, using an Americanism because it had just the right amount of bite to it. There were four-letter words on the tip of his tongue, but he held those back. He was surrendering to Lucas and he was going to do it as gracefully as possible. To do so, he knew, would take some of the edge off Lucas’ satisfaction.
‘I’ve given it a lot of thought since you called me, Tim. If I put you into the London office, I’d have to move someone sideways to make way for you – ’
‘Why do you have to move someone?’ Nina demanded. ‘The company is big enough – just make another position.’
‘Tim wouldn’t like that, would you, Tim?’
The old son-of-a-bitch is co-opting me on his side while he’s cutting my balls off. ‘We don’t want any nepotism. At least none that will show.’
‘I’m not going to Abu Sadar and I’m not letting you go!’
‘Drop your voice, darling heart, or we’ll be thrown out of here.’
‘We shouldn’t have invited her to lunch,’ said Lucas. ‘Women should be left out of business discussions.’
Lucas had checked into the Savoy again and Tim and Nina, leaving Michael with Eileen Hamill, had come up by train. They were having lunch in the Grill, a setting not designed for family rows.
‘Do you want to go to Abu Sadar?’ Nina said.
‘Not really. Certainly not without you and Michael.’
‘It’s no place for women and children, not yet awhile.’ Lucas looked at the dessert trolley as a waiter approached with it. ‘I’ll try the baked custard. You’ll only need six months out there. You’ll get the feel of the business and then you can come home to Kansas City, to head office. Don’t you want dessert, Nina?’
‘And what do I do?’ Nina dismissed the waiter and the dessert trolley without looking at either. ‘Sit here in London twiddling my thumbs?’
‘I think what your father is suggesting is that you should go back to Kansas City. Or is that a wild guess, Lucas?’ The sarcasm was as smooth as the baked custard which he, too, had ordered.
‘Do you need to go to the ladies’ room?’ Lucas said to Nina.
‘No, I don’t! Dammit, Daddy, what are you trying to do?’
‘Tim will go into marketing when he comes back to head office. That suit you, Tim?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Go and powder your nose, Nina. When you come back we’ll have it all worked out.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ She looked at Tim for support, but he shook his head, a gentle movement that she almost missed. But his message was in his eyes: your old man has won, darling heart. Abruptly she stood up, almost knocking over a waiter, and plunged blindly across the room and out to the ladies’ room.
‘Do you agree she and Michael should come home?’
‘As she asked you, Lucas, what are you trying to do? Are you stuffing me and having me mounted like some sort of trophy?’
‘This is good custard. Think I’ll have some more. Stuffing you? I take it that’s a euphemism for a stronger term. No, I’m not. I’ll remind you, you came to me asking for a job. I didn’t have you flooded out of the boat-yard.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’
‘Cut out your whimsy. That’s your trouble, you don’t take anything seriously enough.’
‘You’re wrong there, Lucas old chap. I know this is bloody serious. You’re trying to break up my marriage.’
‘That’s where you are wrong. I’m not trying to break up your marriage. But I don’t want my daughter and my only grandchild traipsing round the world after you while you try to make a living at trades you have no training for. I can make a good career for you in oil. You’re intelligent and if you can sell oil as well as you sell yourself, you’ll be a success in no time.’
‘You’re a past-master at flattery.’
Lucas ignored the comment. ‘I can’t bring you in cold and dump you on the marketing vice-president back home. That’s why you have to go out to Abu Sadar. While you’re out there Nina and Michael can live in comfort back home in your own house.’
‘I still feel I’m being stuffed. But as the ladies say, if rape is inevitable you may as well lie back and enjoy it. No ladies of my acquaintance, I hasten to add.’
‘You’d never need to rape any woman. You’re too good a salesman.’
‘No more flattery. It’s going to my head. Yes, I think I’ll have some more baked custard. I’ll probably get nothing like this out in Abu Sadar. Unless you’ll send me food parcels?’
Lucas smiled, knowing he had won. ‘I’ll see if Sears Roebuck send food parcels.’
Nina came back, face made up, spirit repaired. Before she even sat down she knew that everything had been decided, that her father, this time with the acquiescence of her husband, had claimed her back into the family. She was angry at Tim for his surrender, but her anger at herself was only slightly less. She would be glad to be returning home.
‘I think I’ll have some dessert, after all. No, not baked custard. I’ll have a couple of éclairs. I always over-eat when I’m unhappy. When do you leave for Abu Sadar?’
‘He goes as soon as possible,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ll stay on until you’re ready to leave, then you and Michael can come home with me. The Queen Mary is sailing next week.’
‘How appropriate. Just like old times.’
‘There was nothing wrong with old times.’
‘There is if you persist in trying to hang on to them. I see you’re ready for your coffee. I’ll have a double brandy with mine.’
‘The good life,’ said Tim, trying to salvage something out of the lunch, the past and the future. ‘I thought we had said goodbye to it, but it seems I was wrong.’
Chapter Four (#ulink_ed6deef4-9370-5722-9cc8-eee5ab223c3f)
Nina (#ulink_ed6deef4-9370-5722-9cc8-eee5ab223c3f)
1
It was another two months before Tim and Nina got away to their respective destinations. Lucas, an army of staff always standing by to do his bidding, had little idea what faced a man in a one-man business. The boat-yard could not be disposed of by just walking away from it; over the two months Tim gained an education in the failure of a business if in nothing else. Steve Hamill stayed on till the final winding-up.
He protested in strong terms when Tim said he and Eileen and the two children were to stay on at the hotel in Henley with the Davorens. ‘I can’t fork out that sort of money! I’ll spend the rest of my life paying you back.’
‘It comes out of business expenses. You won’t have to pay it back. No argument, Steve.’
On the last day Tim gave him a cheque for a thousand pounds. It was Nina who insisted that the Hamills be given that much and the money came from her own account. ‘Two years’ wages!’ said Steve. ‘What’s going on? I don’t want charity, mate. I know who Nina is now. The wife did a bit of looking up – she got in touch with the American embassy, they told her who Old Man Beaufort was – ’
‘It’s not charity. It’s a down payment on your first painting that has a thousand pounds price tag on it.’
‘You want your head read. If ever I get more than two hundred and fifty quid for a painting of mine – ’ He looked at the cheque and Tim saw the temptation in his face. ‘Money. It drugs you, doesn’t it?’
The question was too much on target, though he was sure Steve had not meant it to be personal.
They said goodbye to the Hamills and went up to London by train. The Jaguar SS had been disposed of and a property developer had bought the boat-yard site, wreckage and all. They checked into the Savoy again and Nina went shopping while Tim spent a week in the London office of Beaufort Oil. Nights they spent making love.
‘I’ll be worn out by the time I get to Abu Sadar.’
‘That’s the idea.’ He was highly sexed, something that had never troubled her in the past. But now there was just the lurking doubt. ‘Then you won’t be chasing the Arab girls up the date palms.’
‘I’d never think of doing it up a date palm. I’m going to miss you. I don’t mean just this. But you, just being with you.’
She could only answer him with tears, clinging to him as if she were losing him forever. They had not discussed her father; all they talked about was what they would do when the six months’ separation was up. When it came time for them to say goodbye down at Southampton, where Nina was to board the ship for New York, she was surprised at how emotional Tim became when he held Michael for the last time. There were tears in his eyes as he kissed the child.
‘Don’t let your father take him over. He’s our son and that’s what he’s going to stay. He’s not going to be known as Lucas’ grandson. Promise me?’
‘I promise. If he has to have a surrogate father, how about George Biff?’
‘Couldn’t be better. Goodbye, darling heart. Don’t look at any other chaps.’
‘Let’s make love as a final reminder.’
‘Here? I don’t think the sports deck was meant for that sort of sport.’
The ship sailed and Tim went back to London and two days later flew out to the Middle East. He hated the place: the desert, the discomfort, the tightly enclosed living among the small oil community. But he hid his feelings from those he worked with and was popular with them. He became acquainted with some of the American-educated young men and idly wondered if, as Lucas had predicted, they would provide trouble in the future.
He had been there three months when he flew up to Beirut with one of the engineers. The engineer, who had a girl friend, left him to his own devices. He met an English dancer from one of the night clubs, took her home and went to bed with her. In the morning she asked him for fifty pounds.
‘I don’t do it for love, love. When my legs have gone and my bosom’s drooping, I want to live in as much luxury as I can afford. I’m the original whore with a heart of gold. Only I have it in a bank and I keep adding to it every week.’
He handed her the money. ‘That’s penance, not payment.’
She kissed him. ‘You married men. Your conscience stands up as your cock goes down. Shall I see you again?’
‘I think not. Take care of your bullion.’
He went back to Abu Sadar, wondering how many people in Kansas City would think of him as a male whore when he went back there.
Nina had arrived home with mixed feelings that stayed with her like a dull fever for a month after her return. She missed Tim and she hated her father for what he had done to them. But she welcomed the security and warmth of being back home with her sisters.
‘How’s your love life?’ she asked Margaret.
‘She’s going out with an ancient man.’ Prue was now seven, bright and observant; she still had the innocence of childhood but was looking forward to losing it. ‘He’s a professor.’
‘He’s not a full professor and he’s only twenty-eight, for God’s sake.’ Margaret, trying to please her father, had elected to go to the University of Missouri instead of Vassar; but Lucas, disappointing her again, had taken her decision for granted. ‘He’s teaching me politics.’
‘Hah-hah,’ said Sally, who was beginning to show some of the beauty of her older sisters. She was still a tomboy, still mad about cars, but Nina noticed that when a boy called on Saturday evening to take her out she was as feminine as any of them. She had begun to learn that boys didn’t like kissing a grease-stained cheek, no matter how mechanical-minded they were. ‘That Frank Minett is more interested in Daddy than he is in you.’
‘What about you? Who’s your regular boy-friend?’
‘She’s got dozens,’ said Prue, the gossip columnist. ‘She goes out with anyone who’s got a sports car. She’s going to get into trouble some day, that’s what I heard Daddy tell Mother.’
‘Not in a sports car,’ said Nina, winking at Margaret and Sally. ‘Where does this child get her education?’
‘Reading books. She reads everything she can find. She brought home Forever Amber the other day from school. God knows where she got it.’
‘I think I’d like to have lived in olden times,’ said Prue. ‘Men liked women in those days.’
That six months was, up till then, the most drawn-out period Nina had ever lived through. Each day fell reluctantly from the calendar; a week was a long treadmill that never got her anywhere. She attended dinner parties put on by her parents, went to other parties with Margaret, took up with old schoolfriends; but all the distractions were only a way of filling in time and were not always successful. Sometimes, desperately hungry for Tim, she thought of taking off to join him but she knew she could not take Michael with her and she put the idea out of her mind. Once again she began to spoil Michael, lavishing on him all the attention that normally he would have had to share with his father.
That year, 1948, spun itself slowly off the globe and into the fog of history. The new nation of Israel was proclaimed; Arab armies invaded Palestine. Nina suddenly worried that Tim might be caught up in another war; but he wrote her reassuringly, telling her that the Arabs would never be united against a common foe. President Truman announced that the 80th Congress was the worst in history, a judgement that Lucas agreed with, though it gave his Republican conscience a hernia to say so. The Russians blockaded Berlin and some people began to wonder if Germany was to be another battleground so soon. Thomas E. Dewey was nominated as the Republican candidate for the coming Presidential elections and Lucas accepted a nomination to the Missouri Republican committee; Harry Truman was nominated again by the Democrats and Lucas at once gave a quarter of a million dollars to the Dewey campaign – ‘It’s worth it to get rid of that feller Truman.’ General Pershing, D. W. Griffiths and Babe Ruth died within a month of each other, each of them taking a little glory with them into the grave. The New Look, which had come in the year before, turned into an Old Look; but bobby-socks were still fashionable, proving that bobby-soxers were not as fickle as their older sisters.
Dr Kinsey appeared, to tell the world what it had long suspected, that the next door neighbours had their secrets too; people who had thought they were perverts suddenly discovered they were normal and rushed back to bed, some even neglecting to pull down the blinds. Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living was published and some people, who never looked at an author’s name, bought it thinking it was a sequel to Dr Kinsey’s Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. Women readers anxiously waited for Dr Kinsey’s promised book on female sexual behaviour, hoping to learn something that their husbands the dirty beasts, had experienced with the whores out at tha place on the edge of town. The months spun slowly away and Nina, careless of news or history, waited for Tim to come home.
He arrived back in time for Michael’s second birthday. ‘Good God, how he’s grown! What’s George been doing – stretching him?’
‘He thinks George is God Almighty. You’re going to have your nose put out of joint for a while. He doesn’t remember you, you know.’
‘Do you?’
She kissed him hungrily, glad that she had insisted that none of the family should come to the airport with her. ‘Don’t ever let us be separated again. I’ve practically dried up inside. I’ve had such a yen for you.’
‘Me too,’ he said, the dancer in Beirut forgotten.
Nina had bought a new car, a Buick, which she drove herself. Michael sat between them, looking up curiously at this stranger, not frightened of him but still cautious. ‘I thought you said he could talk?’
‘Give him time. He’s got to get used to having a strange man playing around with his mother.’
‘I hope he’s not going to be a two-year-old prude.’ He smiled at his son, who continued to look suspicious. ‘What does he think of his grandfather? Is he God Almighty too?’
She drove in silence for a while, as if concentrating on getting him home unscathed. She wondered if he felt that he was coming home, but was afraid to ask him.
‘Don’t start fighting with him, please darling.’
‘There won’t be any fighting. I’m a pacifist in family matters now. Totally spineless. I just want the major share of my son’s attention and affection, that’s all.’
‘You’ll get it,’ she promised, not wanting to spoil a moment of his homecoming. ‘Look, he’s already smiling at you. He has your smile, you know. Everyone comments on it.’
He looked steadily at her for a moment, then he relaxed and grinned at his son. ‘Five teeth. Is that my smile?’
The reunion with the family went off without incident. Tim was kissed warmly by Edith, Margaret, Sally and Prue, Lucas just as warmly shook hands. He was part of the family again and no one seemed to have any doubts that he might want it otherwise. Nina watched him being charming to everyone, but behind the smile and the banter she sensed a certain restraint, a reserve of feeling that he was not going to squander on this first day home.
She had been living in their own house ever since she had first returned from England and today she had prepared the place specially for him. He had always liked flowers, azaleas and camellias being his favourites, and every room glowed with their colours. She introduced him to the new staff she had engaged on her return, a cook and two housemaids, then she took him into the living-room. On the wall above the fireplace was one of Steve Hamill’s paintings.
‘The other paintings are in your study and the sketches in our bedroom. The more I look at them, the more I like them.’
He looked around the room, but in his mind’s eye he was looking all around the house and the estate. It was all so much better than anything he had lived in since leaving here a year ago. For want of a better phrase, let’s say I’ve come home.
‘Let’s have a look at the sketches in the bedroom.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
A long time later she would remember that first night of reunion. It was perfect: the playing with Michael before he was put to bed, the dinner alone for just the two of them, the love-making when they went to bed for the night. She had never been happier, her mind completely wrapped in the joys of the moment; she did not have to make any conscious effort to shut out tomorrow, the world was just this house and time was only now. Even the pain of the six months’ separation was forgotten.
Tim went to work in the oil company and, as far as Nina could judge, seemed happy and successful in his job. He went out of town, to New York, Washington, Chicago on business, but he was never away for more than two nights and he always called her each night. September became October; then November and the elections loomed. Republicans across the nation, Lucas not least of all, prepared to welcome President Dewey.
‘We must have a party,’ said Lucas. ‘We’ll have something to celebrate – a man of our own in the White House after sixteen years of those goddam Democrats. We’ll have the party on Election Night.’
‘Mightn’t that be a little premature?’ said Tim. ‘I’m not so sure that Truman won’t win.’
‘Care for a small bet? I’ll give you ten to one.’
It was a moment before Tim said quietly, ‘All right. I’ll put up five thousand dollars.’
Lucas looked as if he was going to laugh, then he frowned as he saw that Tim was serious. ‘That’s a lot of money for you. You’ve never been a gambling man before.’
‘No. But didn’t you once tell me that this country was built by men who took chances? Your father included.’
‘They didn’t back losing Presidents. Still, if you want to throw your money away … Five thousand. That’s half what the company’s paying you a year, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. So if I win I’ll be five years ahead.’
‘You might also be out of a job,’ said Lucas, but managed to smile as he said it.
Harry Truman came home to Independence, worn out by his whistle-stop campaign by train across the country. But on the front page of the Star, which had not endorsed him, he showed the old chirpy confident smile – ‘The people are going to win this election, not the pollsters.’
‘Bull,’ said Lucas, tying his black tie in front of the dressing-table mirror; Edith had decided that a Republican victory should be celebrated in proper style. ‘The pollsters are right, every one of them. He can’t goddam win!’
‘Watch your language, sweetheart – you’re starting to sound like him.’
Though the word had not then been coined to describe them, the Establishment of Kansas City was there that night at the Beaufort party. The celebration started as soon as they arrived; guests were drinking champagne toasts to victory within ten minutes of being inside the house. There was a television set and a radio in every room; the big house resembled a luxury campaign headquarters. The men looked rather sombre in their tuxedos, but the women provided a look of bunting: gowns of every colour swirled through the rooms, visible symbols of everyone’s gay spirits. Lucas had sent George Biff down to 12th Street to recruit a band; it jammed its way through a score of numbers, playing with such verve that one would have thought that every member of the band was a ragtime Republican. The only number they didn’t play was The Missouri Waltz, Mr Truman’s own favourite.
Nina, radiant in pink, was enjoying herself immensely. She had no interest in politics, but tonight’s party had all the bright revelry of parties she could remember from her girlhood. She danced with old boy-friends, hugged old girl-friends, raised her glass a dozen times in victory salutes with her parents’ friends. Then, wanting a respite, she went out on the wide enclosed veranda with Magnus McKea.
‘Where’s Tim?’ he asked.
She had been enjoying herself so much she hadn’t missed him. ‘Probably trying to dodge Daddy. He has a bet on, you know. He thinks Mr Truman will win.’
‘God forbid. I hope he’s not broadcasting it.’
‘Tim is more discreet than that. What time will we hear the first returns?’
‘Not for another hour at least. By then all the crowd should be pie-eyed, the way they’re going. Ah, Mr Minett. Quite a night, eh?’
Frank Minett was a heavily-built, medium-height man who looked several years older than he actually was. He was ambitious and that gave him a certain spurious aggressiveness which not-too-observant people mistook for confidence. But he was out of his depth in this house tonight, acutely aware of the power and money that he would never have.
‘Quite a night, Mr McKea. I was looking for Meg – she wants me to explain the trends in voting as they come in.’
‘No need for that,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s going to be a landslide all over.’
Then, looking through the wide french doors into the living-room, Nina saw Tim and Margaret come into the room, both of them looking a little dishevelled, as if they had been out in the rain and wind that had sprung up. Margaret said something to Tim, held his hand while she smiled at him, then went to join her mother and father. Tim looked around, saw Nina out on the veranda and came out, patting down his wind-blown hair. There were rain-spots on the shoulder of his dinner-jacket and a smudge of lipstick on his shirt.
‘You look as if you’ve been celebrating already,’ said Magnus.
‘He’s backing Mr Truman,’ said Nina. ‘What’s he got to celebrate?’
Magnus and Frank Minett seemed to retreat without actually moving. Neither of them was married but they recognized the electricity in a marital storm.
‘Oh, there’s Meg!’ Minett was gone as if he had been jerked away by an invisible wire.
‘Think I need a refill,’ said Magnus, not even looking at his almost full glass. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Well,’ said Tim when he and Nina were alone, ‘my deodorant can’t be working.’
‘Your charm must be working. You have lipstick on your shirt.’
He smiled, unabashed. ‘Meg’s. Or did you think it might be someone else’s?’
Suddenly she felt ridiculous, wondering what had made her so jealous and suspicious of Margaret. He seemed only mildly concerned, as if perplexed that she should suspect him of any sort of philandering with Margaret or anyone else.
‘Sorry. I think I’ve had too much champagne.’
It was only later, just as she was about to drop off to sleep in his arms in their bed, that it came to her that he had made no attempt to explain why Margaret’s lipstick was on his shirt. But that was after they had made love and she knew from experience that the mind had a way of shooting off at tangents after sex, thought trying to re-establish itself again after animal instinct.
The party began to wind down around midnight when it became apparent that Dewey was not going to have a landslide victory after all, that in fact President Truman was leading in the early returns. Magnus McKea got on the phone to the Star and came back to report that the political writers were now working on second, revised drafts of their columns.
‘They tell me that Harry Truman is out at Excelsior Springs, has gone to bed and is sound asleep. The man’s too damned cocky.’
‘Going to sleep while feeling cocky – that’s no mean feat,’ said Tim. ‘We had a Prime Minister who used to go to sleep, Stanley Baldwin, but that was because he couldn’t stay awake once he sat down in the Commons.’
‘You’re looking cocky, too,’ said Lucas.
‘Would you make out the cheque to cash, just in case you decide to commit suicide before the banks open? I don’t want Magnus as your executor freezing all transactions.’
The men grouped around the television set in Lucas’ study. A few women, Margaret included, hovered in the background. Edith had looked in once or twice, but like most of the women at the party she knew better than to intrude too much. When things were going bad politically, men found women a nuisance. Politics, Lucas had told her, was a male disease that the weaker sex should avoid.
It was Nina, inoculated by too much champagne, who intruded. She breezed into the study, looked at the glum faces, then announced, ‘Cheer up, for God’s sake! It’s not going to be the end of the world if Truman wins!’
‘Darling heart,’ said Tim, the only cheerful face in the room, ‘you are risking being scalped. I believe the gentlemen here are just about to join the Indians.’
Frank Minett laughed, then strangled it as several of the black-tied Indians looked at him as if he should be scalped. Margaret, sitting on the arm of his chair, cuffed his ear. Lucas didn’t even glance at him but looked at his favourite as if she had hit him with a poisoned arrow.
‘Nina, we’re not worried about the world. It’s what that feller can do to this country that concerns us. Now please stop acting like a high school cheer leader.’
‘I think I should make a confession – I voted for Mr Truman.’ She had not, but she was in a rebellious mood; something had gone wrong with her evening and she wasn’t sure what it was. ‘I’m disgusted that anyone from the Midwest could vote for a New Yorker like that Tom Dewey.’
‘I apologize for my daughter, gentlemen,’ said Lucas.
‘He feels like Mrs Brutus,’ said Tim. ‘Darling heart, you shouldn’t stab Caesar in this temple.’
‘I think you’re both drunk,’ said Margaret, coming to her father’s aid.
‘French champagne,’ said Tim. ‘It wouldn’t have happened if we had been drinking domestic stuff. Never trust the French. Remember saying that, Lucas?’
‘I hate to say it,’ said Magnus McKea, ‘but I think it’s all over. I shall go home and get drunk. On domestic bourbon.’
‘Spoken like an honourable loser,’ said Tim. He sounded as recklessly rebellious as Nina; she had never seen him so opposed to her father in public. He was smiling all the time, seemed in high good humour, but he was getting malicious satisfaction from the fact that he looked like winning his bet with Lucas. ‘I’ll be over in the morning, Lucas old chap. Shall we leave the wake, darling heart?’
Nina took his arm, ‘Bear up, Daddy. You only have to wait another four years. Who knows whom you’ll find?’
Next day, after he had collected his cheque from Lucas, Tim went downtown to the Muehlebach Hotel and managed to shake hands with President Truman. ‘My father-in-law Lucas Beaufort asked me to give you his congratulations, Mr President,’ he lied.
The President’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses. ‘I’ll bet. Ask him if he’d like to come to Washington and work for me. I’m looking for someone to run the social welfare programme.’
Tim went across and deposited his cheque in his account in the City and Country Bank. The teller’s eyes went up when he saw the amount and the signature; Tim was tempted to tell him what the cheque represented, but refrained. Last night’s champagne was now a sour taste in his mouth. There was also another sour taste, the memory of what had happened with Margaret in one of the empty rooms above the stables. His sense of guilt was doubled by the knowledge that he had enjoyed being with her and that he could be tempted again.
He stood outside the bank in a drizzle of rain wondering where he might go. He was thinking of the ends of the earth, but eventually he went home. Or what, in today’s mood, passed for home.
2
Though they never came to open warfare and they were always polite to each other, the gap between Tim and Lucas widened. Nina only slowly became aware of it, because Tim never mentioned it. She also slowly became aware of a change in him, a retreat into himself. It was not so much a shutting-out of her as that he seemed to become absent-minded about her. He was just as passionate in bed; but then it is difficult to be absent-minded about sex unless one is a professional. But the light-hearted courting of her that had been such a custom of his was now only an occasional whim. She wondered if this was how it was with all marriages, if husbands and wives, though still in love, stopped being lovers. On a couple of occasions when he went off on business trips he neglected to phone her at night. She even, to her shame, began to look for signs that he was having an affair with another woman, but there was none. Her one stab of jealousy towards Margaret had already been forgotten, put out of her mind by the fact that Margaret’s time now seemed taken up with Frank Minett.
‘Is he getting serious?’ she asked one day when she had volunteered to pick up Margaret at the university. ‘Prue tells me he’s always hanging around the house.’
‘Prue notices too much. Yes, he’s serious. But I’m not. The trouble is, Daddy thinks he’s just great. He wants Frank to leave the university and go into the bank.’
‘I thought Frank’s subject was politics, not economics.’
‘Frank’s subject is anything that’s going to get him to the top.’
‘You sound as if you don’t like him.’
‘Oh, I like him all right. But I’d like to do my own choosing, not have Daddy do it for me – which is virtually what he’s doing. You were lucky. I mean, choosing Tim without any interference from Daddy.’
‘Oh, he tried to interfere. He’ll never forgive Tim for being independent.’ She paused. ‘Have you noticed any change in him lately? Tim, I mean.’
Intent on driving, she did not notice Margaret’s careful glance at her. ‘No. Why?’
Nina took her eyes off the road for a moment. ‘You sound as if I shouldn’t have asked you that question.’
‘Maybe that’s how I do feel. He’s your husband – we shouldn’t be talking about him.’
‘We’ve been talking about Frank.’ She knew she had made a mistake. If Margaret herself had been married it might have been different, but Margaret had no experience to draw upon, had, as far as she knew, never been in love, not really in love. ‘No, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s just that – well, Daddy’s turned his back on him. Tim’s not going to get anywhere in the oil company.’
‘How do you know? Has he told you?’
Nina turned the car in through the gates of the estate, nodded to the security guard as he saluted them. ‘No. But I recognize the signs. It’s going to be the stockyards all over again. I’m beginning to think we should go away again.’
‘Where would you run to this time?’
Nina jerked the car to a halt, skidding it in the gravel. ‘That sounds so – so brutal!’
‘It’s true, isn’t it? If you take Tim away from here again – ’
‘For your information, I didn’t take him away last time. It was a mutual idea – ’
‘You still went, that’s the point, and it didn’t work out. You’re never going to win your fight with Daddy by trying to beat him from a distance.’
‘You’re talking about transferring to Vassar next semester. Is that how you’re going to win your fight over Frank?’
‘My case is different. I’m not married to Frank and not likely to be. I just want to get away from here for a year or two. I’ll come back eventually because I don’t think I’d want to live anywhere else. But Daddy’s not going to run my life the way he’s tried to run yours and Tim’s. Thanks for picking me up.’
She got out of the car and ran up the steps and into the big house, not looking back. Nor did Nina look after her: instead she looked across the lawns to where Tim, George Biff and Michael were playing with a tennis ball. Tim had been spending a great deal of time with Michael and George; as a mother she was delighted but as a wife she sometimes felt she was in the way. She looked at the man’s world there on the green lawns and suddenly wished for another child, a daughter. She drove on down to the stables, garaged the car and walked back up the winding path. The air held the promise of a hot dry summer to come and she wondered where she, Tim and Michael could go to avoid it. Perhaps to Minnesota or even Maine. A long way from her father.
‘Two and a half years old and he has the reflexes of Fred Perry,’ said Tim, showing his chauvinism when it came to sport.
‘And Sugar Ray Robinson, too,’ said George, who wouldn’t have known Fred Perry from Suzanne Lenglen but knew his boxers. ‘He gets beat at tennis, he can knock out the referee.’
Michael was a sturdy child, big for his age and seemingly without fear. He tumbled about the lawn, chasing after the ball when it was thrown to him, falling over and coming up gurgling with laughter. It was obvious that his father had now become his particular favourite, even over George. He saw Nina, threw the tennis ball at her, then rushed at her and almost bowled her off her feet.
‘Terrific tackler, too,’ said Tim. ‘We’ll put him down for Cambridge next year. Eton or Harrow first, then Cambridge.’
‘He’s going to be educated in England?’ She meant to say it lightly but it came out tart. Which was her real feeling.
‘I thought we’d discussed it.’ He managed to get the proper light note; he tossed the ball high into the air and caught it to his son’s great delight. ‘English education is still the best, despite the socialists.’
Michael saw his aunts, Sally and Prue, come out of the rear of the big house. He screamed at them, then galloped off towards them. Tim nodded at George. ‘Keep an eye on him, George. Don’t let the girls spoil him.’
‘No chance. He’s like me, a man’s man.’
As she and Tim walked towards their own house, Nina said, ‘I don’t think we’ve said a word about Michael’s education.’
‘No, we haven’t. That was why I was surprised when your father told me everything was arranged.’
‘Nothing is arranged! Did you argue with him?’
‘I no longer argue with your father. In another nine or ten years, when Michael is ready to go to boarding school, your father may no longer be with us. He’s almighty, but I don’t think he’s immortal.’
She changed the subject abruptly. Criticism was not one of her pleasures, especially of him. ‘Why home so early?’
‘I’ve decided I’m working too hard.’
‘Are you getting lazy?’ She smiled, straining to be light.
He bounced the tennis ball on the close-cut lawn as they walked. ‘Yes, I think I am. Or put it another way – I ask myself is there any point in working? Daddy, I’ve learned, is invincible. He is never going to allow me to be sacked from the oil company – he would never let that happen, for your sake. But I’m never going to get very far up the ladder, either. The truth is, I am not a businessman at heart. The thought of selling millions or billions of gallons of oil doesn’t thrill me in the least. And the word has got through to Daddy that the marketing division finds me less than enthusiastic.’
‘What’s got into you? You sound, I don’t know, shiftless. You were never like that before.’
‘I think I was, only you never saw it. Neither did I. Darling heart, don’t be offended by this. I’ve decided I like being a rich girl’s husband, but I’m not going to work at it. Steve Hamill had a word to describe me – a bludger. If one can swallow one’s conscience, and I’ve been chewing mine for some time, there’s no pain at all in being a bludger. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the way it is going to be, I’m afraid. I enjoy luxury. Just as you do,’ he added unmaliciously.
‘I was born to it,’ she said, as if that were some sort of argument. But he was unimpressed and she went on, ‘What are you going to do, then?’
‘I’ll do what all the other bludgers – ’
‘Don’t use that word.’
He looked at her quizzically, bounced the ball a few times. She felt awkward, somehow naked; this was a crisis in their marriage and she was unprepared for it. From the maples at the rear of the park there came the plaintive note of a mourning dove; but across the lawns the laughter of Michael, Sally and Prue was a counterpoint. Somewhere a lawn-mower whirred and out on the parkway traffic growled, hummed and sighed. In the midst of an ordinary day, surrounded by the security that she treasured, she felt her life falling apart. She stared at him for some help, but he was blind to or ignored her silent plea.
‘I shan’t make myself conspicuous. I’ll fill in my time so that, if nothing else, I’ll look busy. But most of all I’ll concentrate on being a father. Just to make sure Michael doesn’t grow up in my image.’
‘Whose image do you want for him?’
‘Not your father’s.’ He smiled, but still managed to sound good-humoured.
She felt bewildered, first by Margaret’s outburst, now by this casual declaration by Tim that he was throwing in the towel. True, she had orginally wanted him to become part of the family, though at the time she had not really appreciated how much that surrendering of his independence would mean to him. But in the three years they had been married she had come to see his point, to share his determination to be his own man and not her father’s. He was not becoming her father’s man now. What was worse, he was settling for being her man, letting her money keep him. Her disappointment in him sickened her, yet she knew that she was the one who had planted the seed of corruption.
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Jon Cleary
From the award-winning Jon Cleary comes a story of four sisters - Nina, Margaret, Sally and Pru - the beautiful and wilful daughters of Lucas Beaufort, the richest man in Kansas City.Nina, Margaret, Sally and Prue – the four beautiful and spoilt daughters of the richest and most powerful man in Kansas. They took what they wanted and loved whoever they pleased. Their father could buy them anything they desired, but even his wealth could not buy them happiness.
Jon Cleary
THE BEAUFORTSISTERS
Copyright (#ulink_f49f63c0-b2fb-5247-aed6-4718aa596c35)
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979
Copyright © Jon Cleary 1979
Jon Cleary asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780002220378
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780008139339
Version: 2015-05-19
Dedication (#ulink_008bcaf7-0245-5985-b8e7-71c1b2acf28b)
To
Shelagh
and Freddie
Contents
Cover (#ud0e26d1e-5b15-5627-8c94-a8b61275fff7)
Title Page (#u4e37bd51-af18-5901-a5e5-1eae12049212)
Copyright (#ulink_74816d6b-306f-55ff-9f88-131b1c16749a)
Dedication (#ulink_51cd8015-719a-5aec-8b6f-25613209c502)
Chapter One: The Sisters (#ulink_23b65f9a-af2b-5908-a134-b12143c909b4)
Chapter Two: Nina (#ulink_3bbf1a67-5e4b-5296-bbc2-47c0ac8ca528)
Chapter Three: Nina (#ulink_4c148170-61e4-56ca-9edb-8e4422d598ce)
Chapter Four: Nina (#ulink_537f25dd-7cfd-59d3-8fd5-f086a5ac3d0d)
Chapter Five: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven: Margaret (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten: Sally (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven: Prue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve: Prue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen: Tim and Lucas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen: The Sisters (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_503798cc-f62e-5322-831a-55c49202fa09)
The Sisters (#ulink_503798cc-f62e-5322-831a-55c49202fa09)
1
‘Why are so many tennis players pigeon-toed?’ said Prue. ‘They’re very sexy-looking till you get to their feet.’
‘Why don’t we just watch the tennis?’ said Margaret. ‘We’ve paid for that, not conversation we could have at home.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Sally and half-raised her walking stick as if she might thump her sister with it. ‘Is this another tax deductible expense?’
Prue put on her glasses, looked out at the four men on the court, frowned, pursed her lips, then took off the glasses. ‘What was I about to say? Something about sexiness in sport.’
‘Is sex a sport?’ said Nina. ‘All the manuals I’ve seen advertised, I thought it was a course in bedroom engineering.’
The Beaufort sisters were sitting in the gold boxes, the most expensive, in the Kansas City municipal auditorium watching the World Professional Tennis Doubles championship. Collectively they were always known by their maiden name, even though all of them were married and all four had been married more than once. Sixteen years separated them from youngest to oldest: Prue was thirty-seven, Sally forty-one, Margaret forty-eight and Nina fifty-three. None of them had lost her beauty and together they attracted the eye of any man not suffering from cataracts or a lack of hormones; even college youths had been known to remark that maybe there was something to be said for older women if they all looked as good as the Beaufort sisters. Of course, for those who knew how much they were worth, their wealth added lustre to their beauty and not just because of all the creams, massage and hair styling it could buy for them. A woman is never better framed than when in the doorway of a bank in which she is a major stockholder.
The tennis tournament was still in its early stages and the local citizens had not yet rushed to fill the huge indoor stadium. Only avid tennis fans and the country club set, and the Beauforts belonged, between them, to one or the other or both, had shown up this afternoon. The sound of racquets meeting ball echoed in the cavernous auditorium like the amplified sound of an accountant’s gut-string being torn apart. It was obvious that the players now on court were disturbed by the mocking acoustics of the near-empty galleries. None seemed more upset than Clive Harvest, one of the two Australians playing a South American pair.
He was a tall muscular man, some years older than the other three men on court, with blond good looks and a set of expressions that seemed to jump back and forth between temper and laughter. He went up for a smash, misjudged it and put the ball well out of court; he cursed loudly and flung his racquet after the ball. Then he suddenly jumped the net, raced to each of his opponents, grabbed their hands and went through a pantomime of apology, retrieved his racquet and jumped back over the net. A lone spectator in the upper gallery, wanting to communicate with someone, anyone, gave him a loud Bronx cheer; Harvest saluted the compliment with two fingers. The two South Americans glowered in disgust and Harvest’s partner, a boy of about twenty, just looked embarrassed.
‘Mr Harvest,’ said the umpire from his throne, ‘if you’ve finished your little act, may we continue the match?’
For a moment it looked as if Harvest were going to give the umpire the two-fingered salute; then suddenly he smiled, a broad flash of teeth in his tanned face, and looked genuinely contrite. ‘Sorry, Mr Baker. I’m a perfectionist, that’s my trouble. Missing an easy smash like that – ’
‘We all aim for perfection, Mr Harvest. Let’s try for a little less this afternoon, so that we can get this match finished.’
There was scattered applause, but Harvest just looked around and smiled broadly, as if his antics and display of temper had been committed by someone who had already left the court.
He won the next point and the game with a deft interception that split the two South Americans like a guerrilla’s bullet. As the two teams crossed over, pausing near the umpire’s chair to towel themselves, Harvest looked towards the Beaufort boxes. He had done the same thing several times during the match. It was impossible to tell who it was interested him; his glance was always too quick and casual. He was, however, more than casually interested in someone in the boxes.
‘I think I’ll go,’ said Nina. ‘This isn’t very interesting.’
‘You can’t walk out in the middle of a match!’ Margaret waved a protesting hand. Sometimes she acted as if she were the family matriarch. She was taller than her sisters, no hint of grey yet in her dark brown hair, and she carried herself in what Nina called Missouri Regal style. ‘It’s an insult to the players.’
‘That Australian has been insulting us spectators all afternoon,’ said Sally. ‘You don’t owe him any compliment, Nina.’
Nina stood up, slipping her arms into the sleeves of the vicuna coat she had been wearing across her shoulders. She was the shortest of the sisters, a little too tall to be called petite; her golden blonde hair would have been darker if not for her weekly visit to her hairdresser. She was no better or more expensively dressed than her sisters, but she had just that extra touch of elegance. In Kansas City, Missouri, the Beauforts were the family and it was as if Nina had taken it upon herself to show outsiders that the citizens were not all descendants of One-Eyed Ellis, Wild Bill Hickok and other, later rascals.
She left the boxes, stares following her from the other boxes, and went out into the entrance lobby. George Biff, patient as a statue of himself, the light gleaming like points of humour in his ebony face, was waiting there. He touched the peak of his chauffeur’s cap with his maimed hand.
‘I get the car, Miz Nina. Be but two minutes, out front there.’
‘No, I’ll come with you, George.’
The old black looked at her, seeing the nervous tension in her, wondering what had upset her. But he said nothing, led her out to the Rolls-Royce in the nearby parking lot.
Going home in the car Nina sat gazing out the window with a face that seemed suddenly to have become younger, as if years had been wiped away from it. But then George Biff, watching her anxiously in the rear-view mirror, saw the frown appear between her eyes, and then her eyes close, but not before he had seen the glistening of tears.
‘You all right, Miz Nina?’
‘Yes.’ She did not open her eyes. ‘Just a headache.’
The car purred along, George Biff making no attempt to get out of line in the traffic and overtake other cars. All the Beauforts had expensive cars, but only Nina had a Rolls-Royce, one of the few in the city. Margaret, who cared too much about such things, being political, thought it a little nouveau-riche for the Middle West, something one might expect from the new millionaires who wished to make their wealth conspicuous. But Nina had always had her own way and this was her second Rolls-Royce. Her only concession to inconspicuousness was that both cars had been black and that George Biff was under strict instructions not to show any arrogance in traffic. Not that a Rolls would have had much deference from the local wheelborne peasants.
‘Be on the Parkway in a minute. You just relax back there.’
‘I am relaxed.’ Nina opened her eyes. ‘Don’t be such an old fusspot, George. Sometimes I think you should have been a mammy.’
George grinned. ‘Would of got me locked up, a black mammy chasing some of them black gals like I used to. Don’t think I ever heard of a gay black mammy. Here’s the Parkway. Nearly home.’
2
Ward Parkway runs south out of Kansas City and is lined with some of the more magnificent homes in the nation. There is no consistency of style, unless conspicuous expenditure of money is in itself a style. French Regency, English Tudor, Southern Colonial: the great-granddaughter of Scarlett O’Hara waves across the manicured lawns to a blue-rinsed Elizabeth R of Missouri. Yet even though the homes are symbols of the wealth of their owners, vulgarity, like the weeds in the expensive lawns, is not allowed to flourish. Reticence, if such a trait is possible in a $500,000 mansion set back only yards from a busy thoroughfare, is looked upon as desirable as being white, Protestant and Republican. Some Catholic Democrats managed to settle along the Parkway, most notably the political boss Tom Pendergast, but they appear to have done little to change the ideas of the majority as to what is right and proper for such an address. When a Catholic President moved into the White House, black crêpe was observed hanging in the windows of one or two of the older mansions. It is only fair to add that they did not hang crêpe in their windows when President Nixon moved out of the White House.
The original Beaufort house had been one of the first to be built along the Parkway. Thaddeus Beaufort, the founder of the family fortune, built the house as he had built his wealth: solidly, conservatively and to last. The architect, made light-headed by the commission, had mixed his design but somehow avoided vulgarity; the mansion was an amalgam of English Elizabethan manor house and French chateau, without the libidinous air of either. The property had once taken up fifty acres of a whole block and had been known as Beaufort Park; a private park which the public hoi-polloi could only admire through the spiked iron-railing fence surrounding it. Peacocks, avian, not human, had strutted the lawns; Thaddeus, walking the paths of his estate every evening summer and winter, had always worn black. His wife Lucy wore only mauve; walking together, they offered no competition to the peacocks. Sunday afternoons the hoi-polloi would stand outside the iron railings and whistle at both the peacocks and the Beauforts, but got no recognition from either. Late in life Lucy bore her only child, Lucas, and he too was dressed in dark clothes as he grew out of babyhood. Walking their rounds, the father, mother and small boy looked like a tiny funeral cortège trying to find a graveside ceremony.
Lucas grew up to marry Edith Pye, whose father was one of the principal stockholders in the Kansas City Railroad and who also owned half of Johnson County just over the State line in Kansas. When Thaddeus and Lucy died within six months of each other, in 1923, they left Lucas $220 million, which, with what Edith had inherited from her parents, made Lucas and Edith the richest couple in Missouri; all that in a day when income tax, compared to what was to come, was no more unbearable than an attack of hives. Lucas and Edith’s money continued to grow since, as any Wall Street farmer will tell you, there is no fertilizer better for growing money than other money.
The Beauforts had never been as ostentatious in the display of their wealth as the rich in the East: the caliphs of New York and Newport had had a barbarous bad taste that had both frightened and offended Thaddeus. His granddaughters had inherited his discretion, to a degree; it was foolish to be too reclusive about one’s money, because that only aroused the suspicions of the tax men. Part of the land had been sold off, but the estate still covered just over twenty acres. Nina occupied the original big house and beside it, on the northern side of a private street, three other mansions, slightly less grand but still formidable, housed the other sisters. The peacocks had gone and so had most of the fifty servants and gardeners who had once worked on the estate. But no strangers, passing by the empty lawns, would have mistaken the houses for empty museums or institutions. The Beaufort sisters, even when not visible, had their own vibrancy.
The Rolls-Royce pulled in through the big gates that still provided the main access to the estate. The uniformed security guard saluted Nina; as a child she had been saluted, less formally, by the guard’s father. The car went up the curving drive, past the big maples and the bright blaze of azaleas, and pulled up in front of the big main house. Nina got out, said a short thanks to George, went inside and straight up to the main bedroom that looked out towards the gates.
She took off her dress and lay down on the wide double bed. Even in the years between her marriages, here at home and in the houses she had rented abroad, she had always slept in a double bed. As if the sleeping place beside her would, inevitably, once again be filled. As it had been, and happily, for the past three years.
She had been lying there an hour when she heard the car coming up the drive.
Downstairs George Biff, who doubled as butler on the latter’s day off, alerted by the security guard on the intercom, went to the front door and opened it as the tall blond young man got out of the red compact and came up the steps.
Nina slipped on a robe and went out on to the gallery above the curving staircase. ‘What is it, George?’
George looked up in surprise: his mistress normally never came asking who was at her door. ‘A Mr Harvest to see you, Miz Nina. He don’t say why he want to see you.’
‘Why do you want to see me, young man?’
Harvest licked his lips, a hint of nervousness that one would not have expected in him. ‘Miss Beaufort – ’ His voice was tight; he cleared his throat. ‘I believe I am your son Michael.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_b83c1d63-a899-5b0d-9e4b-cabcb9f51ba6)
Nina (#ulink_b83c1d63-a899-5b0d-9e4b-cabcb9f51ba6)
1
Nina Beaufort met Tim Davoren in Hamburg in the fall of 1945, the happiest accident of her life up till then.
It was not her first visit to Europe. In the spring of 1936 Lucas and Edith Beaufort took the three children they then had, Nina, Margaret and Sally, on a grand tour of the Continent. Lucas, who had been nurtured as an isolationist from an early age by his father, had not wanted to make the trip; if the family had to travel out of Missouri, there were another forty-seven very good and interesting United States to be explored. But Edith, who had graduated from Vassar, a notoriously internationally-minded school, had insisted that she and the children needed more perspective than any American trip, even to outlandish California, could give them. So the three Beaufort sisters, aged twelve, seven and three, eager for perspective, whatever that was, left Kansas City with their parents, a governess, a nurse, George Biff and twenty-two pieces of luggage for New York and the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary.
Once at sea and committed to the trip, Lucas, a man who cut his losses and made the most of what was left, began to enjoy himself. He smiled indulgently as his daughters paraded the deck singing Onward Townsend Soldiers, even though he detested the socialist crank, Francis Townsend, who was the New Messiah to pensioners all over America. He danced with Edith to the tune of The Music Goes Round and Round; he relaxed in a deck chair and read an advance copy of a book called Gone With The Wind and was glad that his Edith was not like Scarlett O’Hara. He went to the ship’s cinema with his wife and daughters and saw Shirley Temple in Captain January and wondered aloud why all American children could not be like the cute curly-haired charmer. When Nina threw up in the cinema, everyone put it down to sea-sickness.
Lucas’ only bout of sea-sickness came when he learned that Tom Pendergast and his wife were also on board the Queen Mary. The political boss’ European trip had been well publicized before he left Kansas City; but, careful of the Irish vote, he had neglected to tell the reporters that he was travelling on a British ship. The Queen Mary was just passing the Statue of Liberty when Nina brought her father the news.
‘Stop the ship!’ Lucas ordered his wife.
‘I can’t,’ said Edith placidly. ‘Now settle down, sweetheart. It’s only for five days. You don’t have to walk arm in arm with the dreadful man all the way across the Atlantic.’
Nina giggled and, though she was his favourite, her father glowered at her. ‘There is nothing to be laughed at about that man.’
‘Is he really so wicked, Daddy?’
Mr Pendergast certainly didn’t look wicked. She and Margaret trailed him all across the ocean, spying on him from behind deck chairs, air funnels and lifeboats. He would wink at them and wave, as if they might be Democratic voters of the future, and they would wave back, though they never told their father. The elder Beauforts and the Pendergasts would occasionally pass each other and though Tom Pendergast would smile expansively, Lucas would only nod stiffly and pass on.
Edith had wanted to visit Spain, but the Spanish, not knowing the Beauforts were coming, inconveniently started a war amongst themselves. So the family spent more time in Germany where Lucas and Edith, paying a courtesy call at the American Embassy in Berlin, were offered the chance to meet Adolf Hitler at a reception. Lucas was impressed by the charm and affability of Der Fuehrer and a week later he and Edith, with the children in tow, met Hitler again at a trade fair in Munich. The German leader showed his attraction for children and Nina, Margaret and Sally were photographed smiling up at the man they obviously thought would make a marvellous uncle. Back home the Kansas City Star ran the picture on Page One and everyone but the few Jews in the city remarked on the proper recognition that the élite of Kansas City had been given, much more than they got in New York or Washington.
Nina, for her part, fell in love with the old towns and castles of Germany and determined to return some day on her own. As she grew older and moved into her teens she found it hard to believe the stories she now read about Hitler, but by the time she was in college she hated him and the Nazis as fiercely as did anyone she knew. Except perhaps the Jews, but there were not too many Jewish girls at Vassar.
She graduated in June 1945. Her father had argued that she should go to a college nearer home, where she would not only be under his eye but also under the proper influences. But her mother, still talking about perspective, had prevailed and Nina had gone East to Sodom, Gomorrah and Vassar. She came home and told her parents she wanted to go to Europe with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency and help re-build Germany.
‘Impossible,’ said her father and even her mother agreed. ‘You’re too young for such an adventure.’
‘I’m not thinking of it as an adventure,’ said Nina. ‘I thought of it as something I should do, a social duty if you like.’
‘There is plenty you can do right here in Kansas City.’ Lucas had missed his favourite all the time she had been East; he did not want to lose her again so soon, certainly not to foreigners who had got themselves into their own mess. ‘Returning GI’s, for instance. The Red Cross would be glad to have you help them.’
‘I want to go to Germany,’ said Nina stubbornly.
‘Why?’ asked her mother.
But Nina couldn’t tell her parents that she wanted to escape from Kansas City, from being a Beaufort. ‘I’ve already applied to UNRRA, but they won’t have me. They said they wanted older people with more experience.’
‘You see?’ said her father. ‘Stay at home and join the Red Cross. I’ll buy you a new car.’
‘Don’t be stupid, sweetheart,’ said Edith, who began to recognize in her daughter something of herself that she had forgotten. ‘You aren’t going to bribe her with an automobile. She still has the MG we gave her – ’
‘I’ll give that to Margaret,’ said Nina, glowing with zeal, feeling like a Missouri relative of Francis of Assisi.
‘Darling,’ said her mother, who reserved sweetheart for her husband, ‘these – UNRRA? – people do have a point, don’t they? About your being too young.’
‘What’s wrong with being young? Youth has more energy and maybe more compassion than older people.’
‘I knew she shouldn’t have gone to Vassar,’ said Lucas; then sighed because he knew he couldn’t refuse his favourite anything she asked. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Write to President Truman and ask him to have me put on the American team for UNRRA.’
‘Ask a favour of that feller in the White House? I’d rather commit suicide!’
‘You can’t,’ said Edith, who had her own way of deflating her husband. ‘The Nichols and the Kempers are coming to dinner tomorrow night. You can telephone President Truman. He’ll always take a call from Kansas City.’
‘Not when he hears who’s calling. He knows I can’t stand him.’
‘Just be thankful you don’t have to approach him through Tom Pendergast.’ The political boss had died six months before, a bright occurrence only dimmed for Lucas by the succession a little later of Harry Truman to the Presidency. ‘Call the White House now. Harry Truman is an early riser.’
‘Harry? When did you get so familiar with him?’
But Lucas rang Harry Truman and the President spoke to someone who spoke to someone and in August 1945 Nina sailed for Europe as an accredited worker for UNRRA.
On the night before she left home the four girls gathered in Nina’s room. Margaret was now almost sixteen, Sally was twelve and Prue, the late arrival, was five-and-a-bit. Nina had laid out the treasured possessions of her childhood and girlhood and invited her sisters to take their pick.
‘You’re not going to be a nun.’ Margaret was jealous of her sister’s chance for adventure. ‘You might want to keep these when you come back.’
‘Can I have your car?’ Sally was mechanical-minded and not interested in any of the things laid out on the bed. ‘I’ll drive it around the gardens.’
Prue was picking over what was offered. ‘I’ll take them all,’ she said.
Nina hugged her youngest sister, gazed at the other two. ‘I’m just the first. When you are all old enough, we should all go out and help the poor of the world.’
‘What’s the poor of the world?’ asked Prue.
‘I think we’d all look rather silly trying to be Sisters of Charity,’ said Margaret, practical-minded. ‘We can always get Daddy to write a cheque. The poor don’t want people like us fussing over them.’
‘They needn’t know who we are. We could always change our name!’
‘I don’t want to change my name,’ said Sally.
‘I do,’ said Prue. ‘I’d like to be called Mickey Rooney.’
A few weeks later Nina wished she had changed her name before applying to UNRRA. She crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary on a return trip after it had transported almost a division of GI’s back home. The music this time was Rum and Coca-Cola, but there was no dancing; Tom Pendergast was dead, but a British merchant naval officer winked and waved at her and got no further than the political boss had nine years before. She landed in Southampton and flew from England to Frankfurt in Germany in a MATS cargo plane. She landed in Frankfurt on the day that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on the other side of the world; but the bang wasn’t heard and nobody seemed to hear or even feel the ripples spreading into the future. The UNRRA people were waiting for her, some of them with quite open hostility. They made it plain that they thought theirs was no job for spoiled rich kids with political pull. For the first time she realized there was a handicap to being a Beaufort.
Her boss was a retired colonel who had worked with Herbert Hoover on the American Relief Administration after World War One. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Beaufort. I was young then and there was the same opposition towards me. But some day the young are going to take over the world.’ Then added, because he, too, had grown old, ‘God help it.’
‘Am I doing a good job, Colonel Shasta?’
‘As well as anyone on the team. I have to go up to Hamburg next week and see the British. Would you care to come with me as my driver and secretary?’
‘Won’t that cause gossip, Colonel?’
‘I hope it does. I’ll be flattered. But you’ll be safe with me, Miss Beaufort. I’m that old-fashioned sort, a faithful husband. My wife, who lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also happens to have antennae than can pick up any immoral thoughts I may have on this side of the Atlantic. I believe it is called extrasexual perception.’
So in October, two months after landing in Germany, Nina drove up to Hamburg with Colonel Shasta. She had become accustomed to the bomb damage she had seen around Frankfurt, but it was still a shock to pass through the towns on the way north and see how widespread was the destruction of Germany. They passed queues of people standing outside shops, Germans wearing the wardrobe of the defeated, half-uniforms, thin ersatz tweed, worn fur coats, and all with the same pale, hopeless faces. The jeep was halted by a military policeman at a cross-street and Nina became acutely aware of the people standing on the sidewalk waiting to cross. She was wearing for the first time the camel hair coat that her mother had had made for her and specially dyed a not-too-unbecoming khaki. She looked at a young girl her own age, saw the thin cotton dress covering the thin bony body; the girl stared back at her, face expressionless. Then Nina saw the envy and hate in the dark eyes and she turned away, too inexperienced in the expressions victors should wear.
‘Don’t show pity,’ said Colonel Shasta, who had been watching her. ‘That’s the last thing they want.’
‘It’s difficult not to show it.’
‘Tell that to the men who fought them.’
They drove into Hamburg, crossed the Lombard Bridge and after getting lost several times at last found the office Colonel Shasta was looking for. It was in a large house two blocks back from the Altersee; next door to it was another large house that was a club for British officers. Except that they needed a coat of paint, neither house looked as if it had suffered at all from the war.
‘Rather grand, aren’t they?’ Nina said. ‘I wonder if any Germans still live around here?’
‘Every house in the street has been commandeered,’ said a voice behind her and Colonel Shasta. ‘The fruits of victory. I was told you were due here today. I’m Major Davoren, Commanding Officer of the unit that’s taken over this house. I’m afraid UNRRA has been moved to a larger but less attractive place than this.’
He was dark-haired, good-looking, with a black moustache and dark eyes that might have been tired or just bored. He was tall, with heavy shoulders, and a certain ease of movement that suggested he might have been an athlete before the war. There was a row of ribbons on the breast of his battle tunic, including, Nina was to learn later, the ribbon of the Military Cross.
‘Could you have someone direct us?’ Shasta asked.
‘I’ll take you there myself.’ He got into the back of the jeep and, it seemed, looked at Nina for the first time. ‘Straight ahead, driver, then second right.’
‘This is Miss Beaufort,’ said Shasta, grinning. ‘I don’t think she is accustomed to being called Driver.’
‘Awfully sorry.’ But Davoren’s apology sounded perfunctory. ‘Shall we go, Miss Beaufort?’
Nina let in the gears with a crash and the jeep jerked forward. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Shasta grin again, but Major Davoren was behind her and she couldn’t see how he had reacted. She hoped she had snapped his head off.
Five minutes later they drew up outside a large block of apartments that had been converted into offices. Shrapnel marks pitted the walls and there was a huge black scorch mark stretching up a side wall, as if someone had tried to burn a hole in it with a giant blowtorch. The block had none of the dignity of the house they had just left.
‘Blame us English,’ said Davoren. ‘I’m afraid the army is claiming all the best for itself. As I said, the fruits of victory.’
‘You don’t believe in rehabilitation for the Germans?’ said Nina.
‘The young and idealistic,’ said Davoren, who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years older than Nina. ‘Could you spare me a few minutes with Miss Beaufort, Colonel?’
‘I’ll be inside.’ Shasta climbed out of the jeep. ‘Don’t scratch his eyes out. I think we’re still supposed to be allies.’
He went into the apartment block, carrying his valise, and Davoren slid into the vacated seat beside Nina. ‘Well, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot.’
‘You have, not me.’
‘I’ve been fighting these bloody Germans for five and a half years. I’m not naturally vindictive, but I haven’t yet got round to feeling magnanimous. I lost my parents and my only sister in an air raid on London, wiped out by a V-2. What are you doing for dinner this evening?’
She was surprised to hear herself say, ‘Nothing.’
That was Friday and he took her to dinner at the Atlantic Hotel. The dining-room was full of British officers in khaki, Control Commission personnel in blue and German women in tow. There appeared to be no German men and only a few British women, all of whom looked with hatred at the Fraulein, none of whom was less than good-looking and most of whom were beautiful.
‘Fraternization doesn’t seem to worry you men. What would happen if one of those English girls came in here with a German man?’
‘She’d be shown the back door. We have to have standards, you know.’
‘Double standards, you mean.’
‘Of course. What else makes the world go round?’ But he smiled as he said it and his charm almost persuaded her that he only half-meant what he had said.
He took her home early to the billet where she was staying for the weekend. ‘There’s a curfew on and some of the MP’s can get a bit bloody-minded if they catch an officer with a good-looking girl. Pity you’re not staying here at the Atlantic, you could have invited me up to your room.’
She let that pass. ‘I stayed here with my parents when I was a child.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You did it in style. I came to Hamburg for a week before the war. I stayed in a dreadful sleazy little room over behind the Reeperbahn. Girls kept knocking on my door all night.’
‘Poor you.’
Saturday night he took her to a cabaret in the cellar of a bombed-out theatre. This time there were plenty of Germans, men as well as women; some of them looked remarkably well-fed for people whose official food ration was supposed to be only 1000 calories a day. Nina peered through the cigar and cigarette smoke, listened with her Berlitz-acquired ear to the conversations going on around her.
‘They are making business deals!’
‘Black marketeers,’ said Davoren. ‘This cabaret is the sort of stock exchange for it all. If you want to make any money on your PX issue, this is the place to come.’
‘I don’t need money.’ He knew nothing about her or her family; she revelled for the first time in anonymity, as if it were some sort of vice. ‘Do you come here and sell things?’
‘No. I’m not really interested in money. I shouldn’t say no to a fortune, but I don’t care for this piecemeal way of getting rich. Oh, I daresay in ten or fifteen years’ time some of those jokers will be fat, rich pillars of society – that is, if Germany ever gets off the ground again. And some of our own chaps are making a nice little bundle. But it’s not for me.’
‘Don’t you have any ambition? I don’t mean for this sort of thing. But – ’
‘Not really. I’m a day-to-day type. I’ll probably stay on in the army and if I don’t blot my copy-book I’ll retire as at least a brigadier. All that without having to fight another war – I’ll be dead before there’s another one.’
‘My God, what a limited vision!’
‘Oh, it has its compensations. You, for instance. Would I have met you if I’d been back in some office in London trying to make my fortune?’
‘What did you do before the war? Had you any ambition then?’
‘I had just come down from Cambridge when my country called me. I started out to be an archaeologist, studied Arabic, was going to dig up all Tutankhamen’s relatives. But I grew tired of that and I read History instead. One of the things I learned from that was that ambitious men usually finished up dead ahead of their appointed time.’
‘You should have met my grandfather. He was ambitious at ten and he lived till he was eighty.’
‘Ah, but did he succeed in his ambitions?’
‘Up to a point,’ she said and he smiled, mistaking her caution.
Then a man came to their table, bowed to Nina, clicked his heels and shook hands with Davoren. He was small, blond, tanned, athletic: ten years ago Nina could see him springing off vaulting-horses into posters extolling the Youth Movement. Or spurting out of starting-blocks in pursuit of Jesse Owens and the other black Americans at the Berlin Olympic Games. Davoren named him as Oberleutnant Schnatz, late of the Luftwaffe.
‘A good German, aren’t you, Rudi? Well, not a Nazi. But his morals aren’t the best.’
Schnatz smiled, unoffended. ‘Morality is only a matter of degree, Tim, you know that. After what we have been doing to each other for the past six years, what is a little black market?’
‘Rudi went to Oxford,’ Davoren explained. ‘They always had less concern for morality there than we at Cambridge. We played tennis against each other, each of us got a Blue. Baron von Cramm once tried to seduce him at Wimbledon, but I never got that far. What can I do for you, Rudi, though the answer is no, in advance.’
Not even Vassar, let alone Kansas City and the Barstow School, had prepared Nina for the decadence she was witnessing. Two girls went dancing by, arms wrapped round each other, oblivious of the sneers of the men watching them. Three whores came in, sat down and were in business at once; three pink-cheeked British subalterns fell on them like choirboy rapists. Four men sat at a corner table, heads close together, greed giving them a family resemblance. Evil, or anyway sin, hung in the air as thick as the cigar and cigarette smoke and Nina shivered with the thrill of it. She knew that back in the Thirties Kansas City had been known as America’s Sin City, but it could never have been like this. Without knowing it she was suffering from the tourist’s astigmatism, seeing foreign evil as worse and much more interesting than the home-grown variety.
‘I understand your lady friend is an American. I’m looking for contacts in the American zone.’
Nina saw Tim Davoren sit up a little straighter in his chair, felt his legs brush against hers under the table as they tensed. A thin blonde girl with a clown’s face had come out on to the small stage at the end of the cellar and was singing Little Sir Echo in German; or so Nina thought, till she caught some of the words and realized it was an obscene parody that had the audience who understood it holding their sides. But she was listening with only half an ear, more intent on Tim Davoren and Rudi Schnatz.
‘Rudi old chap, you’re asking for a poke in the nose. British heavyweights have never been much good, but I think I could flatten you.’
‘You are twice my size, old chap. I’m not Max Schmeling.’
‘I shouldn’t have threatened you if you were.’
‘You may not be brave,’ said Nina, ‘but I’ll poke anyone in the nose who says you’re not gallant.’
Schnatz smiled, taking her remark as encouragement for himself. ‘Miss Beaufort, I would not wish to get you in trouble either with Major Davoren or your American authorities. But there is a lot of unrest in the American zone, I’m told. A lot of GI’s wish to go home. Some of them may like to make some money to take home with them. If you should hear – ’
‘Go away, Rudi,’ said Davoren, ‘and don’t trouble the lady. I mean it.’
Schnatz looked at him, then at Nina: neither of them was smiling. The rest of the room laughed its head off at the clown singer; the lesbians rose behind Schnatz, hand in hand, heading for their bed. He bowed to Nina, nodded to Davoren and went away, disappearing behind the lesbians into the smoke and laughter.
Davoren took Nina’s hand, pressed it. ‘I know Rudi wasn’t a Nazi and I don’t think he’s a criminal, not at heart. But if he should try to get in touch with you again, give him – I think you call it the bum’s rush. Those chaps are going to get into an awful lot of trouble one day.’
Sunday night he took her to bed, in his room in the big house where he was billeted with seven other officers. He was surprised when she told him she was a virgin and he lay back on the pillow and scratched his head as if puzzled and worried.
‘You mean you’ve never had a lover?’
‘Depends what you mean by lover. I don’t think I’ve actually been in love. I had crushes on several boys I met at college and I had what I suppose you call affairs. But all I did was some heavy petting. I never went all the way.’
‘All the way. It sounds like jumping off a cliff.’
‘To a girl, losing her virginity is like jumping off a cliff. You only do it once. Lose your virginity, I mean. After that I suppose it becomes, um, a habit.’
‘Don’t ever think of love-making as a habit. The postures of it are ludicrous, but it’s still a beautiful experience. And beautiful experiences are not the result of habit.’
‘How many girls have you made love to? You sound like Casanova. Where are you going?’
‘To get the international defence weapon – a French letter. You obviously haven’t come prepared.’
‘I think my father would die if I got pregnant.’
‘I don’t see the connection, unless American fathers have some sort of umbilical union with their daughters.’
‘Would you marry me if you got me pregnant?’
‘Are you proposing to me?’
‘I don’t know – am I? Good God, how things sneak up on you! I think I am in love with you.’
He kissed her gently. ‘You’re far too honest, darling heart. And too forward. You should have let me speak first.’
‘Shut up and get back into bed.’
But as he entered her she knew she had indeed spoken too soon, that he was not in love with her.
She went back to Frankfurt next morning with Colonel Shasta who asked her no questions but looked as if he had the answers anyway. All he said when they got back to Frankfurt was, ‘Take care, Nina. Germany right now is no place to make commitments. You’re very young.’
‘You sound like my father, Colonel.’
‘I’m trying to. I have a daughter your age back home.’ Then he asked his only question: ‘Does Major Davoren know who your family are?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You’d better tell him, then. It may tell you, one way or the other, whether his intentions are honourable or not.’
But she didn’t tell Tim, at least not for a couple of months. They met each weekend in villages and towns between Frankfurt and Hamburg, finding accommodation in inns and small hotels that had not been requisitioned by the Military Government. By the time she found she was pregnant he had told her he loved her and she believed him. Or wanted to.
They were in a village on the border of the American and British zones. From the inn they could see the white empty fields stretching away under the grey sky; the dark green river appeared unmoving as it curved below the village. Beyond the river a small copse looked like stacked firewood, black and leafless; two blackbirds sat motionless on a fence, like ebony ornaments. It seemed to Nina that all the seasons had stopped forever in an eternal winter. Despite the fire in the grate in their bedroom she felt cold, colder and more miserable than she had ever felt in her life before.
‘I didn’t expect you to be pleased. But I hoped you’d – understand. At least that.’
He stood beside her at the window, but not touching her. From the side of the inn came shouts and laughter as some children fought their own war with snowballs.
‘I do understand – if that’s the word you want. I’m not an utter bastard, darling. And I’d be pleased, too – in other circumstances.’
‘What other circumstances?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me your family is rich? Really rich?’
‘Who told you?’ she demanded.
‘Simmer down. Wasn’t I supposed to know? Rudi Schnatz told me – evidently he made his contacts in the American zone after all. I suppose my English insularity is to blame – if I were really educated I should have known that you are right up there with Barbara Hutton and that other American heiress – Dorothy Duke? Doris Duke. But I’m not educated. I obviously took the wrong subjects at Cambridge.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake stop it! None of that’s important – ’
‘You thought it was or you would have told me. Were you afraid I’d fall in love with your money instead of you? You didn’t trust me, that’s the important point.’
She knew he was right. But she was too worried and upset to make concessions; unaccustomed to crises, she reacted selfishly. ‘What are we going to do then? I’m not going to have an abortion.’
‘Well, that leaves only one alternative, doesn’t it?’ He sounded disappointed that she had vetoed an abortion; or perhaps her angry and frightened ear only made him sound that way. ‘We’ll have to get married.’
‘Have to? Good God!’
The children had given up their snowball fight and gone elsewhere. The inn was suddenly quiet, listening. She bit her knuckles, stifling any further outburst. Ladies never made a show of themselves: her mother stood invisible in the corner of the room, telling her how to behave. But her mother would never have got herself into this situation and there was no knowing how she would have reacted if she had. All the decorum Nina had been taught in Kansas City meant nothing in a cold room in an inn in faraway Germany.
‘I think we’d better spend the rest of the weekend talking this over. I’m sorry I got you into this, darling. Really.’ He moved to take her in his arms, but she pulled away.
‘No, I want time to think. Don’t touch me – please. I can’t stay the weekend – Colonel Shasta wants me back in Frankfurt tonight. They are expecting trouble from the GI’s – there’s a lot of talk about demonstrations. They want to go home. Colonel Shasta wants us all off the streets, just in case.’
‘Do you want to go home, too?’
Suddenly she did want to go home. She felt miserable, frightened and selfish; the poor of the world would have to wait. Unconsciously she put a hand on her belly, as if the baby were already apparent. ‘I’ll have to. I don’t think UNRRA would want this sort of bundle for Europe.’
‘Stop that sort of talk! Cheapening yourself isn’t going to help.’
She did up her camel hair coat, pulled on her gloves. ‘We can’t talk to each other in this mood.’
‘I’d better see you back to Frankfurt.’
‘I’ll be all right. I’m not the helpless little mother just yet. I’ll call you during the week, when I’ve thought some more. No, don’t kiss me – ’ She was close to tears: to have him kiss her would be like turning a key in a dam.
‘I’ll marry you,’ he said quickly. ‘Despite your family.’
He had made a mistake in adding the last sentence. She shook her head, realizing how much she belonged to those back home. She hadn’t escaped by coming to Germany: she needed now, possibly always would, the security in which she had been brought up.
‘I’m part of our family and they’re part of me. That’s something we’d have to understand right from the beginning. They won’t be against you – why should you be against them?’
He sighed. ‘I wasn’t drawing battle lines. But if we marry, I’m marrying you, not them. I’d say the same whether they were rich or poor. I’ll ring tonight to see if you got back all right.’
Driving back to Frankfurt in the jeep Colonel Shasta had lent her, Nina was only half-aware of the traffic. She did not see the US Army truck that stayed behind her all the way from the village north of Kassel right through to the outskirts of Frankfurt. As she came into the city she had to slow; traffic had thickened and after a few blocks came to a halt. She leaned out of the jeep and up ahead caught glimpses of soldiers spread out in a thick human barricade across the road. She could hear chanting, loud and angry: she had never thought the word Home could have any threat to it. At once she felt frightened and looked about for a way to get out of the traffic jam. She was not normally nervous and she wondered if approaching motherhood made one so; then she ridiculed the thought, laughing at herself. The row with Tim had just upset her, all she really wanted was to get back to her billet and burst into tears.
‘We’ll get you out of this, Miss Beaufort.’ The GI, earflaps of his cap pulled down, thick woollen scarf wrapped round the lower half of his face so that his voice was muffled, had come up quietly beside the jeep. ‘It looks pretty ugly up ahead. Just back up and follow us.’
She wondered who the soldier was, that he knew her name. Probably someone she had met on one of her visits to a military office; it was impossible to recognize him behind the scarf and earflaps. She put the jeep into reverse and followed the army truck as it backed up and swung into a side street. The sound of the chanting demonstrators was drowned now by truck horns being punched to the rhythm of the chant. Then a shot rang out and the blaring horns and chanting suddenly stopped. A moment later there were angry shouts and the sound of breaking glass. In a moment of imagination she wondered if she was hearing echoes of the Thirties: had the streets of Frankfurt clamoured like this when the SS had been rounding up the Jews? Street lights came on in the gloomy afternoon and the scene all at once became theatrical, a little unreal, a grey newsreel from the past. But the angry, yelling soldiers streaming down through the stalled traffic were real enough, frighteningly so.
She looked back and saw the GI gesticulating to her from the back of the army truck, which had turned round and was facing down the side street. She slammed on the brakes of the jeep, jumped out and ran to the truck. The GI reached down, grabbed her hand and lifted her easily, as if she were no more than a small child, into the back of the truck. The canvas flaps were pulled down and abruptly she was in darkness.
‘Thanks. I’m glad you came – ’
Then a hand smothered her face and she smelled chloroform on the rag that was pressed against her nose and mouth. She struggled, but an arm held her, hurting her. Then the darkness turned to blackness.
2
‘My name is McKea, Magnus McKea,’ said the tall American major in a voice that sounded slightly English; Davoren wondered if he had been an actor before he had joined the army. ‘I’m with the legal staff down at Nuremberg on the War Crimes thing. Colonel Shasta suggested I should come up and see you. It’s about Miss Beaufort.’
Davoren laughed, leaning so far back in his chair to let the laugh out that he looked in danger of falling over backwards. He was in his office in the big house on the Kasselallee, the walls papered with maps that he no longer looked at. Orderlies came and went in the corridor beyond the open door, all of them armed with the piece of paper that made them look as if they were too busy to be asked to do something by an officer or NCO. He was safe in British Army occupied territory and here was some Yank come to accuse him of something that was the best joke he had heard in ages.
‘You mean Miss Beaufort’s condition is a war crime?’
Major McKea looked puzzled. ‘Don’t joke, Davoren. Kidnapping is a crime, period.’
Davoren sat up straight, suddenly sober. ‘Good Christ – she’s been kidnapped?’
‘Yesterday some time. She didn’t return to her billet last night – ’
‘I know. I rang the billet, but some girl said she thought she’d seen Miss Beaufort come in and go out again.’
‘She was mistaken. Miss Beaufort never got to her billet. Her jeep was found abandoned in a Frankfurt suburb last night. An hour later Colonel Shasta got a ransom note to be passed on as quickly as possible to her father. He signalled Washington and they got in touch with Kansas City. I was brought in to represent Mr Beaufort till he gets here – my father is the Beaufort family lawyer. Nina’s father is being flown over by the Air Force. He’s expected in Frankfurt sometime tomorrow.’
Davoren was silent, but his face was expressive enough; he was too close to the war, to the cheapness of life, to be hopeful. Then he looked across at McKea. ‘I’m sorry I laughed. It was a stupid private joke.’
‘You said something about Miss Beaufort’s condition. Is she pregnant?’
Davoren nodded. ‘Does her father know about me?’
‘I don’t know, unless Nina wrote him. I don’t think anyone knows about you, except Jack Shasta. He thought you should be told.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me last night?’
‘I don’t know. I guess he was too concerned with getting in touch with Nina’s father.’ He lit a pipe, puffed on it. ‘I’ve known Nina since she was just a kid. We were never close, she’s about ten or twelve years younger than I, but I always liked her.’
Davoren saw the enquiring look through the haze of pipe smoke. ‘I love her, if that’s what you’re asking me. I didn’t think of her as just someone to jump into bed with.’
McKea ran a hand over his crew-cut, thinning red hair. ‘I didn’t mean to imply – sorry.’
Davoren got up, closed the door against the traffic in the corridor. This was no longer British Army occupied territory: it was his own and very personal, too. He remained standing, his back to the maps on the wall. The maps were pre-war, marked with towns that now were only rubble: they only seemed to deepen the lack of hope he felt. Nina could be buried anywhere in the havoc.
‘Is there any hint of who’s kidnapped her?’
‘Nothing definite. We think it’s probably Krauts. God knows, they have enough reason to be asking for money.’ It was difficult to tell whether McKea was critical of or sympathetic to Germans. But then he said, ‘The country’s full of communists and socialists, you know.’
Magnus McKea came from one of the oldest families in Kansas City, Missouri, a family whose conservatism had a certain hoariness to it. The army, and Europe itself, had opened up his tolerance, but he still tended to suspect any liberal thought that fell into his head, as if it might be the beginning of a brain tumour. He had a slightly fruity voice that almost disguised his Middle West twang. He had been fortunate or unfortunate enough, depending on one’s point of view and ear, to have had an English grandmother who had refused to speak to him if he spoke to her in what she described as a nasal infection. His grandmother, in earlier times, would have been scalped for her arrogance towards the natives. He had not enjoyed Europe, neither the war, the Nuremberg trials nor the havoc and misery that passed for conquered territory. All he wanted was to go home, but he had too much sense of duty to demonstrate towards that end.
‘Oh? I thought they’d all been killed off by the Nazis.’
McKea wasn’t sure whether Davoren meant to sound sardonic or not. ‘Not all of them. Half a million dollars, which is what they’re asking – what’s the matter?’
‘The Beauforts are that rich?’
‘I shouldn’t imagine Lucas Beaufort would miss half a million dollars. Finding the money is no problem – I believe he is bringing it with him this evening. In the meantime we’re looking for leads to the kidnappers, just in case – ’
‘Just in case they don’t hand Nina back to her father?’ Davoren tried to keep any emotion out of his voice; but he was suddenly afraid for Nina’s safety. ‘Are you expecting me to give you a lead?’
‘We thought you might have a suggestion – ’
Davoren clicked his fingers. ‘Rudi Schnatz! Do you have transport?’
‘I have a jeep and driver outside – ’
‘Let’s use it!’
McKea, a man accustomed to taking his time, had to hurry to keep up with Davoren as the Englishman led the way out of the house. They got into the jeep, Davoren gave the driver directions and twenty minutes later they pulled up outside a decrepit old house just off the Elbchaussee. On the other side of the street a row of bombed-out houses, like jagged gravestones, was an ugly testimony to the recent past. On a broken wall was scrawled a plea for the future: Let Communism Re-Build These!
‘You see?’ said McKea. ‘They’re not all dead.’
‘It’s in English. Maybe some of our chaps put that there.’
McKea said nothing, dismayed that communists might have fought on the wrong side; he had already decided that the Russians at Nuremberg were the enemy of the future. Even the British, usually so reliable, had tossed out Churchill for Attlee and his socialists.
Davoren led the way up the chipped and cracked marble steps to the house. This had once been one of the best areas of the city, but all its smug dignity and prosperity had gone with the bombs. Davoren thought of the ruined sections of London and wondered which would be re-built first. The Yanks were already talking of re-building Europe before the Russians got too strong.
Rudi Schnatz was in a worn woollen dressing-gown with some sort of crest on the pocket: his day was just beginning. ‘I say, old chap, it’s a bit strong, isn’t it, busting in on a chap like this?’
Davoren pushed into the two-roomed flat, away from the prying frightened faces that had already appeared at the other doors in the hallway and on the landing above. McKea, more polite, less belligerent, followed him, closing the door against the curious.
‘Rudi, I don’t have any time for manners.’ Through the open door to the bedroom Davoren saw a naked girl sit up in a big brass-railed bed; then she lay down quickly again, pulling the blankets up over her. ‘We’re looking for Miss Beaufort – she’s been kidnapped.’
Schnatz pulled his dressing-gown closer round his throat, almost a feminine gesture. ‘Please, Tim – you don’t think I’ve kidnapped her, do you?’
‘If I thought that, you’d be out in the jeep now and on your way to the Provosts. No, I want to know who your contacts are in the American zone. The ones who told you who Miss Beaufort was. Is.’ He corrected himself, like touching wood.
‘Are they the ones who have kidnapped her?’
‘We don’t know. For Christ’s sake stop wasting time with bloody questions – this has got nothing to do with you! Tell me who your contacts are, where we can find them!’
‘I don’t know that I can do that, old chap. Honour among thieves, you know – ’
Davoren grabbed him by the front of the dressing-gown and lifted him off the floor. The Englishman’s face was dark with anger, heightened by his bared teeth: he looked on the verge of a fit. ‘Tell me who they are, Schnatz, or I’ll break every bone in your body!’
There was a muffled scream from the other room. McKea crossed to the door and closed that one, too. He didn’t have the true spirit of the conqueror, he was too much the lawyer. He just hoped Davoren wouldn’t try to kill the little German, though it looked very possible. But he wouldn’t interfere, not in the British zone.
Schnatz struggled, unafraid, ready to fight the bigger man. He gasped something in German and Davoren let him go so that he fell back on his heels.
‘Who are they? Their names, bugger you, their names!’
Schnatz pushed back his long blond hair, shook his head. ‘You’re acting just like the Gestapo, old chap – ’
‘Their names!’
‘Burns and Hiscox. They are with the Supply outfit just outside Frankfurt on the road to Fulda – ’ Davoren was already on his way out of the room and Schnatz shouted after him: ‘Don’t tell them I sent you! If they’re not the ones, I’ll still need them – ’
Outside in the jeep Davoren said, ‘Drive me back to my office, I’ll get my own car and driver.’
‘I think you can safely leave it to us. After all, it’s in our zone – ’
‘Don’t start drawing bloody boundaries! Back to my office, driver, and get a move on!’
The driver looked at McKea: who did this goddam limey think he was? But McKea just nodded and the driver let in the gears and they sped back through the city.
Davoren picked up his own driver and the commandeered Mercedes which was his staff car. He invited McKea to ride with him in the more comfortable car and the American, after a moment’s hesitation, accepted. They sat in the back seat while the Mercedes sped down the autobahn after the jeep. Davoren had calmed down, seemed almost morosely quiet. McKea stared out at the passing countryside, now fading into the thickening dusk. He preferred Germany at night, when so much was hidden by darkness. It was a relief from what he read and listened to at Nuremberg during the day.
At last Davoren said, ‘What’s Old Man Beaufort like?’
‘Autocratic. Devoted to Nina – she’s his favourite. Until we find the kidnappers, he’ll probably choose you to blame for what’s happened. We’ll have to tell him, of course. I mean, about – ’ McKea could see the driver in front of them half-turn his head, one ear cocked to follow the conversation.
‘I’m already blaming myself,’ said Davoren, careless of the driver. ‘For everything.’
3
Nina had a headache and felt ill. So far she had had no morning sickness; but she was sick this morning. And cold and miserable and afraid. She sat on the floor of the bare room, wondering where she was. She could hear no sound from outside except the occasional harsh cry of a bird; she recognized country silence, remembering vacations spent on the Beaufort plantation down in the south-east corner of Missouri. The two men who had kidnapped her had fed her army rations last night and again this morning: at least they were not going to let her starve. They had given her two army blankets, but even with those and still wrapped in her camel hair coat, she had not been able to sleep for the cold. She had never felt worse in her whole life and only an effort kept her from breaking down and weeping helplessly at her plight.
The door was unlocked and one of the men came into the room with a mug of steaming coffee. He was the one who had been driving the truck and she had not seen him until she had woken up in this room last night. He was a small man, in uniform and wearing a parka with the hood up; Air Force dark glasses covered his eyes. In the gloom of the room, with the only light coming through the cracks of the boarded-up window and through the half-open door, it was impossible to distinguish his features. He was just a dark body and head with a rough soft voice.
‘Get this into you, honey. Sorry we can’t give you any heat, but we don’t want people coming around asking why smoke’s coming outa the chimney. If your daddy don’t fool around, you oughtn’t to be here too long.’
Nina stood up, took the mug and almost scalded her throat as she gulped down the coffee. The man stood looking at her and she suddenly felt even more afraid: was he going to rape her? She tightened her grip on the mug, ready to hurl it if he moved towards her.
‘I’m just looking at you.’ The man’s voice was most peculiar, as if he had a small bag of sand or gravel in his throat instead of a voice-box. ‘We put a price of half a million bucks on you. You think you’re worth that much?’
She almost said, My father would think I’m worth much more; but she was not so cold and miserable that her mind had stopped working. She suddenly realized how dangerous wealth could be. It was said that kidnapping in America had originated in Kansas City; people must have been abducted in colonial times, but it had been turned into a modern profession by gangsters in her home town. They had even kidnapped the city manager’s daughter; Lucas Beaufort had wanted to broadcast a plea that the kidnappers come back for the city manager, too. The spate of abductions had frightened the wealthy citizens and for a while no children of rich families went anywhere without an escort. When Nina had gone to college her father had wanted a private guard assigned to her, but the Vassar board had been firm that their campus should not be turned into a security camp. From her early teens Nina had been aware that great wealth made her and her sisters different from other children, but, despite her father’s concern, she had never really thought of it as endangering her. Now, chillingly, she knew better.
‘Why are you doing this?’
But even as she asked she knew it was a foolish question, and the man laughed. ‘You ain’t that dumb, Nina. We’re doing it for money. Ain’t that what your old man and his old man worked for, screwed people for? We come over here, us GI’s, to fight for a better world, that’s what they told us. You need money for a better world, if you’re gonna enjoy it properly. My partner and me, we been making a little on the side. But you’re worth more than a truck-load of cigarettes, more than a whole PX.’
‘They might hang you for kidnapping. They wouldn’t do that for selling things on the black market.’
‘The Krauts spent three years trying to shoot my ass off, but I survived. I think my luck’s gonna hold. Nobody’s gonna hang me. You work for UNRRA, but you don’t know nothing about the real world. The real world is made up of people without money, and I don’t mean just Krauts. We gotta take risks, we wanna get anywhere. You’re lucky, you’re never gonna have to take a risk in your whole goddam life!’
He sounded abruptly angry, though his voice didn’t rise. He went out of the room, slamming the door behind him and locking it. Nina put the mug down on the floor, began to walk round the room in an effort to turn the blocks of ice in her shoes back into feet. She heard an engine start up outside and she went to the window and tried to peer out through the thin cracks between the boards. But all she could see was snow, a blank white mockery.
The truck, or whatever it was, drove away. When its sound had faded she stood listening, ears alert for any sound in the house. She could hear nothing; then the house creaked as if to reassure her that she had been left alone. She made up her mind that she was going to escape.
She had always been a resourceful girl, though never as good at practical matters as Margaret and Sally. She hoped she could get herself out of a locked, boarded-up room. One could not be more practical than to know how to escape from kidnappers.
Buoyed up by her own determination, she began at once to seek a way out of the room. Ten minutes later she was as depressed and miserable as when the kidnapper with the husky voice had come in. There was nothing in the room that she could use as a club to bash the boards away from the window; the door was too stout to be broken open and the lock would have defied Jimmy Valentine or any other cracksman. She sank down to the floor beside the fireplace and began to weep.
Then something fell into the grate, a lump of soot, and she heard the flutter of wings in the chimney. She sat up, waited, then crawled into the fireplace and looked up. A film of soot floated down on to her face; but high up in the chimney she could see a small square of light. She withdrew from the fireplace, sat on her haunches and considered. Weighed her strength and size (would the chimney be too narrow and too high?) against the urge to escape. Weighed, too, her determination against her fear that the men would come back, find her trying to escape and vent their anger on her.
She measured the width of the chimney with her hands, decided it was wide enough to take her shoulders and hips. She took off her coat, knowing the bulk of it would handicap her once she began climbing up the narrow space. But she would need it once she was outside the house; she put the belt of it through the loop inside the collar, tied the belt round her waist and let the coat hang down between her legs. She pulled the knitted cap she wore down over her face to just above her eyes, pulled on her gloves. Then she crawled into the fireplace, stretched her arms above her, eased herself upright into the narrow blackness of the chimney and began to climb.
She was glad she was wearing stout winter shoes; she searched for and found tiny crevices in the chimney wall into which she drove her toes. The chimney had not been cleaned in years and she had climbed no more than her own height when she began to feel she was smothering. A bird suddenly fluttered out of the top of the chimney in a panic; soot cascaded down on her and she shut her eyes and turned her face downwards just in time. She lost her grip and went plunging down, scraping against the bricks, taking more soot with her. She hit the floor of the fireplace, feeling the jarring shock go right up through her body to her skull; but she remained upright, unable to fall over because the chimney held her like a brick corset. She held her breath, feeling the soot in a thick cloud about her face, waiting for it to settle, then she opened her eyes and stared into the blackness.
It seemed that every bone and muscle in her body hurt; her knees and ankles felt as if they might be broken. Her arms were trapped above her head; she could feel the pain where her elbows had been scraped as she fell. Her right knee felt as if there was an open wound in it and her right hip as if it had been kicked by a horse. She wanted to gasp for breath, but she was afraid that would mean sucking in a lungful of choking soot. She thought of the baby inside her, wondered if it was already beginning to miscarry. She was frighted, ready to scream, discovering, now, for the first time in her life, that she was claustrophobic.
But she held on to herself, didn’t bend her knees, kept herself upright in the black prison of the chimney. She was on the point of hysteria, but, without recognizing it, something of the iron she had inherited from her parents and grandparents kept her from breaking. She continued to stare into the blackness, smelling the burned wall only an inch or two from her face, willing herself to believe that it was not going to collapse in on her and smother her. She was no longer cold, she could feel sweat running down her face and body. Some instinct told her that all she had to do was survive the next minute or two. If she didn’t, if she gave in and retreated from the chimney, she knew she would never enter it again. And the chance of escape would be gone.
Then the hysteria passed, gone all of a sudden, as if wiped away by her will. She started to climb again, feeling more confident with every foot gained; soot continued to float down, but she ignored it, holding her breath till it had gone past. Her body was just one large ache, but she kept climbing, elbows, knees and ankles scraping against the brickwork. Then, all at once it seemed, the blackness turned to gloom, then there was light and a moment later her head cleared the top of the chimney.
She scrambled out, holding desperately to the chimney so that she would not slide off the snow-covered roof. She was on top of a farmhouse that was more ruin than building; the only rooms left intact were the one in which she had been imprisoned and the room immediately below it. The rest of the house was a shell; charred timbers, a tumble of bricks and a big bomb crater told their own story. All around her the fields lay white and empty.
It took her another five minutes to get down from the roof. Twice she almost fell; snow slid down beneath her like an avalanche and fell into the yard. Then she was down on the ground, stumbling through the mud and snow, running like a crazed person, whimpering like a child. She fell down twice before she realized she had tripped over the coat between her legs. She stood up, gasping for breath, giggling hysterically at herself, and struggled into the soot-blackened, mud-stained coat. Then, steadying herself, she walked out into the lane beside the yard and began to hurry away from the farm.
4
Davoren and McKea were stopped twice for speeding by military police, so that it was dark before they pulled into the warehouse on the Fulda road where the supply company was headquartered. The place seemed deserted and it took them a few minutes to find a soldier who could tell them where the adjutant was.
‘What an army!’ said Davoren. ‘How did you chaps manage to win the war?’
‘We won it, that’s the point. It’s over and everybody just wants to go home. Don’t you?’
But Davoren didn’t answer that, going instead to look for the adjutant, who told them, ‘Burns and Hiscox? Sure, they’re on weekend passes. They went off Friday night. I understand they do a little business on the side.’
‘You condone that?’ said Davoren.
The adjutant was fat, bald, homesick and not inclined to take any moralizing from an unknown Englishman ‘The war’s over, mac. Didn’t you know?’
Outside the office Davoren spat into the dirty snow in the cobbled yard. But he made no comment on the adjutant, just said. ‘Do we send your MP’s looking for Burns and Hiscox?’
‘We can’t go looking for them ourselves.’ McKea himself had a sour taste in his mouth at the sloppy moral attitude of the supply adjutant. ‘I understand how you feel, Davoren. But I think we have to do this through the proper channels.’
‘Bugger channels!’ Then Davoren threw up his arms and let out a loud sigh that was almost a moan of pain. ‘You’re right. But Jesus Christ – ’
‘Let’s go and see Jack Shasta. He may have heard something further.’
Colonel Shasta was in his office, even though it was Sunday night. ‘I’ve been trying to call you, but Hamburg said you’d left, didn’t know where you’d gone. It’s a helluva way to run an army, I must say.’
Davoren looked at McKea, grinned, looked back at Shasta. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’
‘We’ve been doing some sleuthing,’ said McKea, all at once liking Davoren. ‘We think we might have a lead. If you get in touch with the Provost-Marshal – ’
‘There’s no need,’ said Shasta. ‘Miss Beaufort is safe.’
‘Where?’ The heart did not leap, said practical-minded medical men: but Davoren felt something rise in his chest. ‘Where, for God’s sake?’
She was asleep in her billet, a house on the edge of the bombed ruins of the old city. The other women in the house did not try to stop Davoren as he walked in, asked where Miss Beaufort’s room was and went straight upstairs and into the room without knocking. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her still asleep. She had been bathed and fed; her muddied and blackened clothes were in a heap in a corner of the room. But even in sleep her face showed the strain she had been under. She whimpered even as he looked at her and her body shook in a quick spasm. He bent and kissed her, feeling weak and empty himself, demolished by relief and love.
Nina opened her eyes, saw his face close to hers and started away in fear. Then she recognized him and her arms, the elbows decorated with chevrons of medical tape, came out from beneath the blankets and went round his neck.
‘Let’s go home.’
‘Just what I had in mind,’ he said, thinking of England.
5
They went home to Kansas City two months later.
Burns and Hiscox did not return from their weekend leave and were officially posted as deserters and never heard from again. Since kidnapping was not classified as a military crime, armies having indulged in it for centuries, they were not listed as suspected kidnappers. Military authorities, who had not even bothered to start a file on the Beaufort case, promptly forgot about it and went back to wondering what the hell one did with the peace when one had won a war. The black market continued to flourish, becoming a major industry, and the fed-up GI’s gave up demonstrating and went back to gold-bricking, fraternizing and all the other important functions of an occupation force.
And Lucas Beaufort returned to Kansas City with his half a million dollars still unpacked. But not before meeting Nina’s brand-new fiancé.
‘Are you sure of him?’ The army had given him a room which they kept for VIP’s. Generals, senators, even Bob Hope had stayed in the room, but Lucas was unimpressed. They had left no presence that made him feel he was in better company than himself. ‘He seems rather – cavalier, I think is the word.’
‘Wasn’t that what Grandfather was?’
‘Not towards your grandmother. Only towards his business partners.’ Lucas had no illusions about his father. ‘Major Davoren says he wants to take you back to England. But he admits he has no prospects there, none at all.’
‘I have my own money.’
‘I’m sure he knows that.’ Then, seeing the angry flush in her face, said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have, Daddy, and I’ll never forgive you for saying it. Not about the father of my baby.’
‘Dear God!’ Lucas normally had only a social relationship with the Almighty. He attended Sunday service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where he sat in a reserved pew and wondered why God, if there was a God, answered the prayers of men like Roosevelt and Truman. ‘You mean you’re –?’
‘Pregnant. Enceinte. Schwanger. Or as the English put it, a bun in the oven.’ Then, because it hurt her to hurt him, she impulsively put her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy – I shouldn’t have said that. But you made me so angry – you’re not being fair to Tim – ’
Lucas took her hand in his. His face had a handsome boniness to it, but only his family ever saw it softened into his true good looks. ‘Nina sweetheart, all I want is to be sure that you are happy. It’s just that I have to re-adjust – your mother and I always expected you to marry someone from back home – ’
‘That’s it, Daddy. You don’t really want me to have a mind of my own. You don’t want me to be anything but a Beaufort – ’
‘All right. I’ll talk to Major Davoren.’ Lucas didn’t know how to cope with a daughter who showed such independence. Already back in Kansas City Sally and even young Prue, only five years old, were showing they had minds of their own. Only Margaret, the one to whom he showed the least favouritism (and was ashamed for his prejudice), seemed content to do what her parents wanted. ‘But do you mind if I try to persuade him to come back to Kansas City? There’s no future in England, not under that fellow Attlee.’
Nina made the concession, now secretly wanting to go home to Missouri. She had had enough of Europe, or anyway post-war Europe. All her charity had been frozen out of her by her fear for her own safety. She was ashamed of her selfishness, but she was not the first to discover there are limits to one’s self-sacrifice; she was even more ashamed that her limits had been so shallow. The older hands had been right: she had just been a rich kid playing at being a do-gooder.
‘But don’t press him, Daddy. Let him make the decision.’
Tim Davoren had stayed in Frankfurt and later that day Lucas, who had been in the city only once before, took him on a guided tour. ‘This is where the Rothschilds began, did you know that?’
‘So I understand. Goethe, too.’
‘Gurter? Never heard of him.’ Lucas had not been interested in the humanities at college; stick to the money subjects, his father had advised him. ‘I was here in 1936. The Rothschild house was still standing then. Right over there.’
Tim Davoren knew he was being tested: for Nina’s sake he showed interest. ‘From small acorns etcetera, as they say in Kew Gardens.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucas, his suspicions rising again. ‘I take it you are not very interested in the making of money?’
‘I don’t think I have the talent for it.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily disqualify you. Gamblers have no talent, but they are interested in making money. Do you gamble?’
‘Not knowingly. But I suppose everyone gambles one way or another.’
‘What are your talents, may I ask? I understand you are a good soldier, that you won the Military Cross. It’s not much of a career, though, is it? Not in peace time.’
‘I’m getting out of the army. I thought I might try teaching.’
‘You’d soon tire of that,’ said Lucas, as if he had known Tim all his life. ‘You wouldn’t think of coming back to Kansas City?’
‘What would I do?’ Tim kept his voice deliberately flat, a characteristic he had just before he was about to erupt.
‘You could take your choice,’ said Lucas, not entirely undiplomatic. ‘Come back there and see what offers.’
Tim walked in silence letting his anger subside. He recognized that the older man was only trying to do the natural thing, protect his daughter. But he also recognized that Lucas was already trying to assert some authority over his future son-in-law. And that’s just not in your book, Tim old boy.
‘I’ll talk it over with Nina.’
Lucas walked in silence, too. Then he seemed to accept that he could ask for no more. He nodded, then said, ‘She tells me she is pregnant. How did that happen?’
‘The usual way,’ said Tim.
Lucas stopped, looked as if he were offended, then suddenly let out a gust of laughter, surprising Tim, who had decided that the older man had no sense of humour at all. ‘Of course! Damnfool question – damn good answer. I’ll tell her mother that. You’ll like her mother. Has a sense of humour, something I haven’t got. Gurter? You don’t mean Go-eth, the poet, do you? You don’t like poetry, do you?’
‘Only if it rhymes,’ said Tim, and Lucas seemed satisfied.
That evening Tim had dinner with Nina and her father, then took Nina back to her billet. He had sent the Mercedes and his driver back to Hamburg; they walked home through the ill-lit streets, careful of the ice on the cracked sidewalks. They stood just inside the doorway of her billet and, bundled up against the cold, embraced each other like a couple of bears.
‘Darling heart, you shouldn’t have told your father you were pregnant, not yet. You’re too honest. Never be more than discreetly honest with people you have to live with.’
‘Will that include you, too?’ She kissed him, silencing his answer. She still had not recovered from her ordeal and she was in no condition to suffer lovers’ truths. ‘Mother would have guessed in time. Girls usually don’t have babies six months after they’re married.’
‘Did what happened to you – there won’t be a miscarriage?’
‘I think he, or she, is going to be indestructible. I haven’t even felt nauseous.’ Then in the darkness, unable to see his face, she said, ‘You don’t mind going home with me to Kansas City?’
His head was stiff and unmoving against the light in the windows of the house opposite. ‘No,’ he said quietly.
But she wondered if he was being only discreetly honest with her. She was too afraid to ask. She drew the dark head towards her, felt for his lips with hers and kissed him, seeking a true answer there. But already she had learned that lips were no more truthful than the tongue.
Lucas Beaufort went back to Kansas City relieved and satisfied. Nina and Tim were married quietly by an army chaplain a week after he left, with Colonel Shasta and Major McKea as their witnesses. When Lucas arrived back in Missouri it was announced without fanfare that Miss Nina Beaufort, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Lucas T. Beaufort, had been quietly married three months earlier to Major Timothy Davoren, only son of the late Mr and Mrs Clive Davoren of London, England. If anyone in Kansas City wondered why a Beaufort girl, the first one to be married, should have wed so secretly, no one voiced their wonder in public. Not even when she arrived home in March 1946 obviously pregnant.
Word of the kidnapping had got out. However, since the kidnappee had escaped unhurt, the kidnappers had not been caught and no money had been handed over, editors gave the story only a narrow spread in their newspapers. Who in the rest of the world thought anyone from Kansas City was interesting? Even Harry Truman was at pains to say he came from Independence, though cynics said that was only a play on words to show he was not Tom Pendergast’s man. Anyone passing through the two places wasn’t sure where Kansas City ended and Independence began.
Edith Beaufort, adamant that she had to meet her new son-in-law before anyone else in Kansas City saw him, insisted that she and Lucas go to New York to meet the Davorens as they got off their ship. She liked Tim as soon as she met him and he liked her.
‘You’ll do,’ she told him. ‘You’re much better than I expected or hoped for.’
‘A bad advance report from Mr Beaufort?’
‘Just say unenthusiastic. You’re not American, specifically not from the Midwest, that’s the main thing against you. He ignores the fact that he’s only two generations removed himself from England. And his grandfather left under a cloud, as they say.’
‘No cloud over me,’ said Tim. ‘The sun shines on me all the time. Especially when Nina is around.’
‘Your charm is obvious, but I like it,’ said Edith. ‘If there is any charm from our local men, it’s accidental and biennial. My husband is a good example. But I love him, Tim, and I hope you will love Nina just as much.’
They rode back from New York in a private railroad car. Nina and her mother watched the two men gradually thaw towards each other, but the thawing was slow, like two polite icebergs cruising down from Greenland. They were half-way between Columbus, Ohio, and St Louis before Lucas slapped Tim on the knee at one of the latter’s jokes. By the time they got off at Kansas City they were Tim son and Lucas old chap and moved in a common cloud of cigar smoke. Nina and her mother felt the future was secure.
There were four cars at Union Station to meet the train. One car contained the other three Beaufort sisters and Edith’s secretary, Miss Stafford; one car was for Lucas and Edith; another was for the newly married couple; and the fourth took the luggage. They moved out to a fanfare of flash-bulbs from the press photographers.
‘Do you usually travel in convoy?’ said Tim as he and Nina settled back in the pre-war Packard.
‘Only for weddings and funerals. Darling, please – take it all for granted. Please?’
He laughed: nervously, it seemed to her, though she had never thought of him as having nerves. ‘I’m not overwhelmed, but I’m certainly whelmed. Even that – ’ He nodded at the glass partition which separated them from the chauffeur. ‘We have those in England still, but I thought it had all gone out in democratic America.’
‘Don’t refer to it as Democratic America,’ she said, misunderstanding his adjective. ‘Daddy is a Republican. This car belonged to my grandmother – you can see how old it is. She didn’t believe in servants listening to their mistress’ conversation. Neither do I. What’s wrong with a car with a glass partition?’
‘It’s not just the car. It’s just everything. The private railway carriage, your father bringing half a million dollars to Germany in a couple of suitcases … Take it for granted, she says.’
‘It’s the only way.’
‘You were born to it. I’ll try, my love, but don’t blame me if I occasionally get a glazed look in my eye.’ Then a little later he said, ‘What’s this?’
‘Home.’
‘Well, I suppose King George has to say the same when someone asks him about Buckingham Palace. Where are we going to live?’
‘We’re having our own suite for the time being, in that wing there. Daddy is going to build us a house in the park. Something smaller,’ she added as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
‘Let it be as big as you want,’ he said expansively. ‘If I’m going to take it all for granted, I may as well not be cramped.’
Nina was relieved at how her three sisters took to Tim. ‘He’s absolutely out of this world!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘He’s thrilling!’
Sally, equally thrilled, rolled her eyes in ecstasy. ‘And he’s got you pregnant – already! He’s a quick worker.’
‘Most husbands are,’ said Nina, wondering how much her mother had told her sisters. ‘That’s what wedding nights are for.’
‘Are you going to have a baby?’ asked Prue, already that mixture of shrewdness and romanticism that would plague her all her life. ‘You’re a bit fat. I’ll look after it if you don’t want it.’
‘We’ll look after it together, darling. What do you think of Tim?’
‘He’s got funny eyes. They’re always looking at things.’
Tim’s eyes were indeed always looking at things, Nina noticed as the weeks went by. He made no comment, but his eyes were too sharp and observant for someone who was resigned to taking everything for granted. And, as if his eyes were a mirror of her own, she began to see things from a new angle and in a different light. For the second time since meeting him she saw the family wealth as something not to be taken for granted. You think you’re worth that much? the kidnapper had asked her. And she wondered just what she was really worth in Tim’s eyes.
He had refused to take a job in the Beaufort bank or the oil company or the lumber business or with the railroad. He considered going to work for the granary company, but that would have meant living away from Kansas City and Nina refused to do that; small town living, or even small city, was not for her. The same reason ruled out living and working on the cotton plantation down-State. So he went to work for the Beaufort Cattle Company in the stockyards.
‘What do you know about cattle?’ Nina asked.
‘Nothing. But your father tells me he knows nothing about lumber, but he’s president of the company. Is that right, Lucas?’
‘He’s got you there, sweetheart.’ Lucas smiled at his daughter, telling her how pleased he now was with her husband. He had half-expected Tim to settle for the cushiest job offered him, but he had turned out to have a wide streak of independence in him. ‘But I have fellers who know the business and they see I don’t make any mistakes. I’m putting Tim in as a vice-president of the Cattle Company and he’ll soon learn.’
‘I think you misunderstood me, Lucas. I don’t want to start as a vice-president. I’d rather go in as an ordinary worker, right at the bottom.’
‘Cutting off the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue. ‘George took me down to see the man doing it.’
‘I think you had better eat alone in the nursery from now on,’ said Edith. ‘And, Lucas, I think you had better have a word with George.’
They were in the big panelled dining-room where Lucas insisted that they eat every evening. The table could seat thirty, but two leaves had been taken out of it, reducing it to a size that did not ridicule the family sitting at it. Nina and Tim sat on one side, the three younger sisters on the other, and Edith and Lucas sat at the ends. Thaddeus and Lucy Beaufort had always dressed for dinner, but when they died and Edith took over the running of the house she had abolished that rule. She loved dressing up, but the fun went out of it if one had to dress every night.
‘George is only teaching her the facts of life,’ said Sally. ‘It’s the new society. I was reading about it in Time magazine. Things are going to be different. Are you going to be a modern mother, Nina?’
‘I’m not going to take the baby down to the stockyards, if that’s what you mean. And I think I’ll do without George’s help.’
George Biff, standing in for the butler on the latter’s night off, came in with the dessert. He was not a handsome Negro, but he had a broad friendly face and he moved with the light grace of a man who had been both boxer and musician.
‘Caramel custard tonight, ma’am. Just poor folks’ stuff.’
‘It’s crème caramel, George. French and not poor folks’ stuff. And Mr Beaufort would like to see you in his study after dinner.’
‘It’s about the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue.
‘Could we change the subject?’ asked Tim. ‘Otherwise I’m likely to lose my taste for this delicious crème caramel.’
Later Tim and Nina walked round the park, unconsciously following the paths and habit of Nina’s grandparents. A warm breeze blew up from the south and the maples that screened the house from the parkway whispered secretly in the darkness. Twice the Davorens passed security guards patrolling the big railed fence, but Tim made no comment on them. Nina now took it for granted that he was taking everything for granted. Including guarding against any further kidnapping of a Beaufort.
‘How did George come to work for your father?’
‘He’s Daddy’s favourite charity, though charity is never mentioned. When Daddy was a young man his one passion was jazz – ’
‘You’re pulling my leg. He seems more like Gilbert and Sullivan.’
‘No, really. He used to go down to 12th Street almost every night. Even after he married he used to go down there at least once a month. That was where he met George. George used to be a prize-fighter, but he also played trumpet in several bands. He used to stand in sometimes with Count Basie, when the Count was just plain Bill Basie.’ She giggled. ‘George once told me that Basie’s signature tune in those day was called Blue Balls, but he had to change its title when his band went on radio.’
‘George seems to spend a lot of his time instructing the Beaufort sisters in genitalia. I hope he never showed you his own.’
‘That’s a dirty remark and I should kick you in yours for talking about George like that. He loves the lot of us and I think he’d die for any one of us.’
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘Well, one night he got into some sort of argument with a gangster we had here in the Thirties, a man name Johnny Lazia. The next night Lazia sent two of his men back to the Reno Club and they shot off all the fingers on George’s right hand. Daddy was there and saw it all. He took George to the hospital in his own car, paid all the hospital expenses, then he brought George home and he’s worked for us ever since.’
‘What happened to Lazia and his gangsters?’
‘Nothing. Daddy went to the police department, but they just didn’t want to know. Lazia was hand-in-glove with Tom Pendergast and the police didn’t want to tread on the boss’ toes.’
‘I’m getting a new respect for your father.’
‘I’m hoping that one of these days you and he will understand each other exactly. You’re still getting used to each other. I think he admires you for wanting to start at the bottom. But I wish you’d chosen somewhere less smelly than the stockyards.’
6
Michael Lucas Davoren was born on Labor Day, 1946 – an appropriate day, as his mother remarked, since his birth was not easy. He came into the world reluctantly and for the first minute of his life was as poor as he would ever be. Then the two doctors and the nurse and all the trappings took over; his swaddling clothes might have been a coronation robe. Lucas and Edith made sure that their first grandchild, even if his name was not Beaufort, should begin life in proper Beaufort style. The nursery was re-decorated and re-furnished, a night- and a day-time nurse were engaged. Toys that would not be used for months or even years swamped the nursery and Edith even ordered a bookshelf of children’s books.
‘He has the best library of any illiterate in America,’ said Tim.
‘Don’t be churlish, darling,’ said Nina. ‘All grandparents get carried away like that.’
‘But Christ Almighty – what are they leaving us to buy him? I’d like to bring him home something, but there’s nothing he hasn’t got!’
‘You’re bringing home the smell of the stockyards.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He softened, stroked her golden hair as it lay on the pillow beside his own dark head. ‘By the time our next one comes along I’ll be taking it all for granted again.’
But there were to be no more children for Tim and Nina. Her gynaecologist, Dr Voss, was a man who delivered babies and punches with the same precision. ‘Your uterus is useless from now on. Forget about any more children. Consider yourself lucky young Michael came out okay.’
Tim got over the disappointment soon enough, but it remained with Nina not only for the next few months but for years to come. She reacted by slipping into the attitude of her parents and spoiling Michael unrestrainedly. He was not allowed to utter a yelp without being picked up and soothed; breezes, draughts and heavy breathing were kept from him as if they were gusts from the plague. Tim was the only one who didn’t spoil him, breathing anthrax, foot-and-mouth and a dozen other animal diseases all over his only son. Michael survived both treatments.
In February 1947 the Davorens moved into their new house.
‘I love it,’ said Tim and Nina knew that he meant it. ‘It’s – comfortable. What a home should be.’
They were walking round the paths, a habit each of them looked forward to, knowing it was a way of being together for a while before going back to the main house and dinner with the family. Now they had moved into their own house Nina decided she liked the routine and they would keep it up.
‘I’m keeping the staff to a minimum. I don’t want us overrun.’
‘Good idea. For starters, could we fire the nurse? I think it’s time Michael stood on his own two feet.’
‘He’s less than six months old. Don’t you think he’s a bit young for that?’
‘Not if his mum and dad stand on either side of him.’
His tone was easy, almost flippant, but she knew he was serious. She was too happy to argue; besides, the idea appealed to her. It would be another way of showing him that she could be independent when she tried. She had begun to fuss less and less over the baby, who was now allowed to cry sometimes for two minutes before being picked up.
‘All right, the nurse goes. I’m so happy, darling.’ She squeezed his arm and he returned the pressure but said nothing. After a moment she said, ‘But you’re not. What’s the matter?’
He was silent for a few steps, the gravel crunching beneath his feet like the sound of his thoughts being sorted out. ‘I think I made a mistake going to work at the stockyards. The chaps I work with in the yards are all right, but the fellows in the office, the manager and two or three others, think I’m after their jobs. My future down there has about as much promise as a steer’s.’
‘Well, we’d better speak to Daddy – ’
‘We shan’t speak to him. This is between you and me.’
‘I didn’t mean that he should put any pressure on those men. I meant he can find a position for you with one of the other companies. Something where you don’t come home smelling like Buffalo Bill.’
They had reached the house. He said nothing until they were inside and upstairs in their bedroom. Then he took her by the shoulders and pressed her down on the bed.
‘Are we going to make love? Before dinner?’
‘Sit up. You talk about me being sex mad. Sit up.’ She raised herself and he sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Now listen to me. From now on you don’t go near your father regarding anything about me. If I want him to do something, I’ll go to him myself. Understand?’
She stared at him, then slowly nodded. ‘You’re not taking things for granted, are you? Not even now.’
‘Certain things, yes. But I’m not going to become your father’s puppet. Hold it – ’ He held up a hand as she started to protest. ‘He doesn’t think of himself as a puppet-master, but that’s what he is. With you, your sisters, me, everyone who works for him. The only one who escapes is your mother.’
She was about to argue with him, but only out of her loyalty to her father. Then she realized she had no argument: what he had said was true. At least in regard to herself and her sisters; she had no idea how much power her father wielded over those who worked for him. She had been brought up in a private world: even the years at Vassar and the six months in Germany had been only half-opened windows on the world at large. She knew that money, in a money society, was power; there had been a teacher at Vassar who had taunted his students with that lesson. She was all at once conscious of the fact that she was ignorant of what everyone outside the family thought of Lucas Beaufort. The kidnappers in Germany had taught her nothing except that the family wealth could make her father vulnerable from certain angles. But at the same time she wondered how many children in other families, rich or poor, were in the dark as to what the rest of the world thought of their fathers. Public opinion was a prism she had never examined.
‘All right,’ she conceded, tasting disloyalty for the first time and not liking it. ‘What are you going to do? Go into business on your own?’
‘Doing what? I told your father once that I thought of being a teacher, but I know now I’d be no good at it. I don’t have enough patience to care whether someone would learn anything from me. As for going into business, what could I do? Take off your dress.’
‘Making love is no answer. We have a problem – ’
He took his hands from her, rolled over on his back and looked up at the bed canopy. It was a copy of a French tapestry: Diana stood with her hunting dogs, like a greyhound trainer who had lost her shirt at the races. Her blue silk eyes looked straight down at the bed, a voyeur who amused him. But not this evening: he was beyond amusement. None of the goddesses, especially Diana, could help him. Except, perhaps, one of the bitch-goddesses and he had never trusted any of them.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he said listlessly.
A long time later she wondered if that was the moment when his defeat began. But right then, the telephone rang. She leaned across him and picked it up.
‘Darling,’ said her mother, ‘I have a wonderful idea! You must have a house-warming party.’
Nina felt the string being pulled: her mother, too, was a puppeteer. ‘Mother, I don’t think I really want a party just now – ’
Underneath her she saw Tim looking at her expressionlessly. His face was close to hers, only part of it visible: his one eye was like a dark marble, telling her nothing. She lifted herself from him, put her hand over the phone.
‘Mother wants us to throw a house-warming party.’
He shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against her stomach. ‘Why not? We haven’t played host to anyone since we got here.’
She sat up, turned her back on him. ‘All right, Mother. We’ll have a party. Just one thing, though – I want to plan it all on my own.’
There was silence at the other end of the line. At last, with a sigh that was a plain reproof: ‘Of course, darling. But if you need any help – ’
7
‘I hate to admit it,’ said the railroad president, ‘but there have been worse Presidents than Harry Truman.’
‘In some banana republic,’ said the banker. ‘Not in this country.’
‘I believe in the work ethic,’ said the banker’s wife. ‘I don’t know what the workers would do without it.’
‘Women’s rights?’ said the retired general. ‘If they’d been important they’d have been discussed at Potsdam. Right, Ethel?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said his wife. ‘Permission to stand easy now?’
Nina moved through the froth of party talk, feeling a pride that was new to her: hostess in her own home. The party was already a success, an instant house-warming; Nina took smug secret pride in the knowledge that it had been due solely to her own efforts. She had chosen the caterers, showing her independence by ignoring her mother’s usual choice; she had made out the guest list, splitting it between her parents’ friends and her own. It had disturbed her that she had created an awkward moment by asking Tim if there was anyone he would like to invite.
‘Only Bumper Cassidy. But I don’t think he’d fit in. He’s my sidekick down at the yards.’
‘Darling, invite him!’
He had shaken his head. ‘He would only feel out of place and so would his wife. She’s a waitress in a joint on 12th Street.’
‘My, how you get around when I’m not with you. Sidekick. Joint on 12th Street. You’re becoming more American every day.’
‘Tell your father. It’ll make his year.’
She approached her father now, sliding into his arm as he crooked it out for her. ‘Nina, it’s the best party I’ve been to in years. Where’d you get that band?’
‘George was my talent scout. I got them specially for you.’
‘Great. I haven’t heard music like that since I was a young man and used to go to the Old Kentucky Barbecue down on the Paseo. How much are you paying them?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘Don’t spoil them. I can remember when you could get Hot Lips Page for three dollars a night. Where’s Tim?’
‘Out on the veranda dancing with Sally.’
Tim had already danced with Miss Stafford, Edith’s secretary, a plump plain woman who was a snob but likeable and who thought Tim was a real-life version of Ronald Coleman. She lived in the past and Tim played up to her with a courtliness that made her laugh but didn’t offend her by mocking her. She was only one of his conquests among all the women, family and staff, on the Beaufort estate.
Now he was charming Sally who, at her first adult party, was in seventh heaven and Tim’s arms, floating inches above the floor. ‘You dance like Ginger Rogers. Or a ballerina. Why don’t you become a dancer?’
‘I hate indoors. You know what my ambition is? To win the Indy 500.’
‘Sally my love, don’t be a racing driver. Stay feminine.’
‘I’m not a lesbian, if that’s what you’re thinking – ’
My God, what happened to the innocent girls of my youth? ‘Nothing was further from my mind. I don’t think they allow lesbians into the pits at Indianapolis.’
Sally shrieked, clutching him. ‘Oh Tim, I adore you! Divorce Nina and marry me!’
‘A child bride – just what I’ve always wanted. But don’t they hang a man for that here in Missouri?’
‘Daddy would fix that.’
‘Just the man I’d ask. Can I tear myself away now and dance with Meg?’
‘Oh God, her. Look at her – all those boys hanging around – ’
‘You’ll be like that yourself some day.’
‘Oh God.’
Tim left her, moved across to Margaret and took her away from the six boys hanging around. ‘Thanks for rescuing me. Boys that age are so gauche. I think I like older men.’
‘We have our uses. Would you mind backing off a little? Your sister, my wife, is watching us.’
She blushed and was embarrassed, proving she was still only seventeen going on eighteen. ‘Oh God. That’s the way boys expect you to dance.’
‘The gauche ones. Some older men, too. But not this one, not in front of his wife.’ They danced sedately for a while, Jane Austen set to A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Then he said, ‘Let’s head down towards your mother.’
‘Are you working your way through the Beaufort women tonight?’
‘All of them. I have a date with Prue at midnight in her room.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s man-mad. At six.’
Smoothly as a gigolo he left Margaret and took Edith in his arms. They moved back down the veranda to There Goes That Song Again, which someone had requested and which the band was playing as if they had been insulted.
‘Tim, we don’t seem to talk to each other very much these days.’
‘I’m so busy being a bread-winner, husband and father, I don’t have time for other women. But let me know when Lucas is out of town and I’ll pop over.’
Edith didn’t respond to flirting. ‘Were you a philanderer before you met Nina? You have a way with women.’
‘Would you expect me to admit it if I had been?’
‘Unhappy men sometimes do stray, just as a diversion.’
‘What makes you think I’m unhappy?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean you and Nina. That part is happy enough. But you don’t really like America, do you?’
‘America is a very big country.’
‘All right. Kansas City. You don’t like it, do you?’
He smiled, took her through some intricate steps which she had a little difficulty in following. ‘That would be tantamount to saying I don’t like the family, wouldn’t it?’
‘Tantamount. You sound like Walter Lippmann. Yes, I suppose it would be tantamount to saying you don’t like us. But I don’t believe that.’
‘Edith – don’t worry. I love you all. I’d love you even more if we didn’t live quite so much on top of each other. Offended?’
‘No, I just missed my step.’ The band, on orders from Lucas, had thrown There Goes That Song Again out the window and had started in on Make Believe Rag. Lucas stood by the band, foot tapping, face thirty years younger. ‘You can’t blame me, Tim. I’ve never tied Nina to my apron strings.’
‘Edith, when did you ever wear an apron? I’m not blaming anyone in particular. It’s the circumstances – ’ He appreciated her intelligence and tact in not asking for an explanation of the circumstances. ‘Nina and I should have gone down to live on the plantation. I think I’d have made an ideal Massa Tim.’
‘You can still go down there. Do you want me to talk to Nina?’
‘Take your apron off, Edith.’
‘What? Oh. You mean stop interfering? It’s difficult for a mother like me not to interfere. I grew up in a social frame of mind where mothers expected their daughters to marry within their own circle. Their own class, I suppose you’d call it in England.’ Despite her respect for perspective, Edith’s world was still small and she felt safe in it. The kidnapping of Nina had had an effect on her, the depth of which not even Lucas suspected. She had presented a brave, calm face to everyone at the time, but in her secret self there was wreckage, the realization that the world was full of enemies for people like themselves. ‘You’ve met all our friends – there are practically no outsiders. Some of the younger ones, maybe, have other ideas – Nina, for instance. The war changed things. I try, Tim, but it is difficult for me. Lucas and I are selfish, I know, but we want our family around us. And we think of you as family, Tim.’
But I’ll always be an outsider; but not for the reasons you think. He had belonged to a middle-class family who had always had enough money to get by, mainly because their wants and ambitions had been small. His father had been a suburban solicitor who had been more than content with his house in Ealing with a modest mortgage on it, the second-hand Wolseley car and membership of the local tennis club. Wealth, real riches, was something the family never thought about, as they never thought about the families who had the wealth, the Grosvenors, the Cavendishes, the Howards. Perhaps it had something to do with the English system: he might have been different had he been an American. Ambition, even envy, was not considered off-side in this country. He was handicapped by his upbringing, by a mother and father who had, without ever mentioning the subject, taught him to be satisfied with his lot. But these days he felt like a man who, accustomed to everyday sunsets, was all at once confronted with the pyrotechnics of Judgement Day. It was an image he never confided to Nina. Something else he also never confessed to her, and only reluctantly to himself, was that he was afraid of the seduction of money. Since coming here to Kansas City he had realized he had a weakness he had never suspected in himself: if he had enough money of his own he would be nothing but a hedonist. That was the ultimate and real reason for not taking the Beaufort riches for granted. It was not something he could explain to Edith.
He handed Edith over to Lucas, collected Nina and took her into the buffet supper. ‘It’s a marvellous success, darling. We should do this more often.’
‘You’re really enjoying yourself? Truly?’
‘Darling heart – ’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Truly.’
8
The stockyards’ strike began on the day the Paris conference on the newly announced Marshall Plan opened.
‘Truman should be running this country,’ said Lucas, ‘instead of trying to run Europe. We’ve got enough damned Reds here without trying to stop the Reds over there. Let ’em look after themselves.’
‘I don’t think there’s a Red down in the yards,’ said Tim. ‘Except Red Ludwig, the feed man, and he makes you look like Joe Stalin. I didn’t think it was possible for a man to be so far to the right without falling off the edge of the world.’
‘Well, someone’s stirring up this trouble. Wanting seventy-five cents an hour as the minimum wage – if we give them that, there’ll be no end to their demands. You get that now, don’t you?’
‘Yes. But the minimum is forty cents an hour.’
‘Are you supporting the demand?’
‘They’re letting me stay neutral. The chaps appreciate my position. But there’s a lot of solidarity down there, Lucas. You won’t employ union labour, but these chaps are as solidly together as if they were a union.’
‘You sound as if you do support them.’
‘I told you, I’m neutral. But I’m leaning a little your way in telling you just how strong their feelings are. They’re not going to back down. I think you ought to meet with them.’
‘I’m not meeting with anyone. I’ve got fellers down there to run the company – I don’t believe in interfering.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Nina, who had been sitting quietly listening to their discussion. ‘I’ll bet you’ve already told management to say no to the men.’
‘A Red in my own family,’ said Lucas. ‘Emma Goldman.’
They were sitting on the enclosed back porch of the Davoren house. Tim and Lucas had played two sets of tennis on the court behind the main house, then they had come across for a beer. Even though they had played late in the afternoon, the July heat had been too much for Lucas and he was exhausted and testy. He was also very red, but in the circumstances of the discussion Nina diplomatically did not mention it. She placidly knitted, a pursuit she had taken up in the past month, telling Tim it would not only keep her occupied but would save them money on Michael’s clothes, a thriftiness which Tim, with a perfectly straight face which she hadn’t missed, said he appreciated. Occasionally she looked out towards the lawns where Michael was crawling around under the benevolent eye of George Biff. The nurse had been got rid of and George, without asking or being asked, had taken over.
‘You’re behaving like Grandfather.’
‘You don’t know how your grandfather behaved.’ Something more personal than the strike had made Lucas irritable. He had always fancied himself as a tennis player, but Tim, playing at only half-pace, had beaten him without the loss of a game.
‘I do know, Daddy. We had a teacher at Vassar who gave us a short course in labour history. Grandfather wasn’t quite as bad as Rockefeller and Henry Ford at breaking strikes, but he was bad enough. I was ashamed when the teacher told us what Grandfather did here in, I think it was 1924, some time then, when he locked out the railroad workers.’
‘Your teacher didn’t show much taste by mentioning that with you in his class.’
‘You don’t learn history by being squeamish. I knew he was trying to make me uncomfortable, he was that sort of man. But I checked and found out he was telling the truth.’
‘There are two sides to every dispute.’
‘Maybe you should go down to the yards and listen to the men’s side.’
Lucas, still red and sweating, wiped his face with his towel. He looked at his favourite, sensing, as he had for some time, that he was losing her day by day. He supposed this happened to all fathers when their daughters married; he wondered how Edith’s father had felt. A father’s rival was his son-in-law and all at once he felt a stab of jealousy towards Tim. He stood up, picked up his racquet and headed for the door with the abrupt departure that was an occasional characteristic of his, as if he had heard a whistle that called him to some other place.
‘Thanks for the game, Tim.’ The screen door banged behind him, a thudding first-act curtain.
‘That’s not the end of our argument with him,’ said Tim.
‘Do you think you should take a week off till all this blows over? We could go down to the plantation, you could do some fishing – ’
‘It’s not going to blow over in a week. The men are as stubborn as your father. And I think it would be cowardice for me to walk out before it was over.’
‘You’re not neutral, are you? You’re on their side.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Not if you think they’re right. I just can’t imagine how people live on those sort of wages. They can’t live much better than those people I worked amongst in Germany.’
‘Oh, they live better than that. Nobody down at the yards is starving and they’ve all got a roof over their heads when they go home. But Bumper Cassidy told me, even with him and his wife working, they’ve never been out of debt in the fifteen years they’ve been married.’
‘Is he going on strike?’
‘He’s one of the leaders.’
She folded up her knitting, put it away in the expensive embroidered sewing bag that had cost her ten times the price of the wool she was knitting. ‘Don’t get involved, darling,’ she said and went out to Michael and George Biff, closing the screen door quietly behind her.
George picked up the baby, brushed the grass from him. ‘You stopped spoiling him, Miz Nina, he’s a good kid now.’
‘George, when did you become an expert on child raising?’
‘I had six brother and four sisters, all younger’n me. They started yowling, I belt ’em over the ear. They’s all grown up, nice people.’
‘But all deaf in one ear.’
He grinned, bounced Michael up and down in his arms. ‘Miz Nina, a little paddy-whacking never hurt nobody.’
‘If ever I see you paddy-whacking Michael I’ll knock you down.’
His grin broadened. ‘Ain’t never gone a coupla rounds with a lady. You want six-ounce or eight-ounce gloves?’
Each of them knew how far their banter could go before she lost her authority. There were always certain hints, which she recognized, that he loved and respected her: he had said ‘ain’t never gone a coupla rounds with a lady’ instead of ‘with a woman.’ Such small gestures were always there behind his easy cheek.
She took Michael from him, kissed the flushed chubby face. He was blond like her, but there were traces of his father in him, glimpses of the future. ‘I’ll let my son defend me when he grows up. You just watch out.’
Tim went to work next day and came home that night worried and upset. He showered and changed and went out with Nina and the baby for their walk round the park. She could see that something was troubling him, but she contained her impatience. It was after dinner, when they were having coffee in the living-room, before her patience finally ran out.
‘Well, what happened today?’
Inger, the Swedish maid, brought in fresh coffee. Nina had a staff of three helping her run the house and Inger was the brightest of them, a plump plain girl whose eyes and ears were like magnets for every splinter of gossip dropped about the house. Nina waited till she had gone out of the room again, then she repeated her question.
‘Nothing happened.’ He sipped his coffee, then leaned back in his chair, the big red leather wing-back that she had bought specially for him, and sighed. ‘It’s tomorrow something’s going to happen. Your father is bringing in scab labour.’
‘Daddy or the company managers?’
‘Same thing. He’d have to okay it. They’ve recruited them from down in Arkansas and they’re bringing them in by truck tomorrow morning. They announced it to us this afternoon, just as if they were asking for a flat-out confrontation. We’ve been locked out.’
‘We?’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I’m with the men. I can’t be otherwise – I think they’re entitled to what they’re asking for. I don’t want to be an agitator or anything like that, but I have to support Bumper and the other chaps. I find I have a social conscience, something that’s never troubled me before.’
‘Do you think you should go over and tell Daddy what you’re going to do?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good. If he doesn’t understand the men’s reasons for the strike by now, no amount of explanation will convince him I’m doing the right thing. He’s living in the past. He still believes in the sanctity of capital, right or wrong.’
‘I don’t understand him.’ She could feel anguish boiling up inside her, less bearable because she was unprepared for it. She had wanted her father and Tim to be friends, though she had known there would always be powder there to explode a division between them. She had not expected the powder train to come from the direction of the stockyards. ‘He’s basically a kind man. He’s charitable – look at the money he’s given to charity. The Foundation isn’t just something he inherited from Grandfather – he believes in it.’
‘It could be from a sense of guilt. I don’t know, I’m not judging his charity. But he’s like a lot of rich men – we have them in England, too – as soon as the workers start demanding a little more, they think they’re endangered, they’re going to have another revolution on their hands. From what I’ve read, John D. Rockefeller was like your father. He gave away millions with one hand and with the other hit a worker over the head with an iron bar. I don’t mean he wielded the iron bar himself, but he condoned it when it was done by others.’
‘Daddy would never allow any violence.’
‘There’s going to be violence tomorrow when those scabs turn up.’
‘You better not go to work tomorrow, then. I don’t want you getting hurt.’
But when she woke in the morning he was already gone. Distressed, she couldn’t eat breakfast. She tried to bathe the baby, but he was in one of his playful moods and she got short-tempered with him and finally called in Inger to take over. She dressed without showering, careless of what she put on, then hurried across to the main house. Her mother was having breakfast in her bedroom, planning her day with Miss Stafford.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
Edith looked at her, then nodded at Miss Stafford. ‘That will be all, Portia. Tell one of the gardeners to look at the tennis court. Mr Beaufort was complaining about it night before last. He said he got some bad bounces.’
‘Another beautiful day,’ Miss Stafford said to Nina and went out of the bedroom.
‘Now what’s all this? You know your father is always downtown by this time. He’s in his office at eight every morning.’
‘Did he say if he was going down to the stockyards?’
‘He and I never discuss his business.’ But she patted the newspaper that lay on the bed beside her breakfast tray. It was yesterday’s Star; it was one of her idiosyncrasies that she always waited till the news was at least a day old before she read it. That way, she said, she got a better perspective on whether the doom-sayers of yesterday had been proved correct today. It also buttressed her optimism because the doom-sayers were usually wrong. ‘You’re worried about the strike? I think you can leave it safely with your father to deal with. He’s a reasonable man in business, they tell me.’
‘Mother, how would you know? You said you never discuss business with him. This strike is serious. And Daddy is being pigheaded about it. I’m worried, Mother. Tim has gone to work this morning – there’s going to be trouble – ’
‘Darling – ’ Edith put her tray aside, patted the bed. ‘Sit down here. I can’t remember when I last saw you so upset. You’ll have to trust Tim. That’s what wives must do – ’
‘Oh Jesus!’ Edith said nothing, but her face stiffened and a deep frown appeared between her eyes. Nina flopped on the bed, hugged her mother. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to swear. But you don’t know what could happen down there this morning. It’s not just a question of trusting Tim – ’
‘Darling, I know we both live a sheltered life. Me more than you. But I don’t think that even out there – ’ She waved a hand vaguely towards the windows, towards the green thrones of trees, the pikestaffs of the iron fence, the outer world beyond the moat of wealth. ‘Even out there I don’t think women interfere in their husbands’ affairs. We just have to trust that they know what they are doing, that they are doing the right thing – ’
‘One of them will have to be wrong this morning, Tim or Daddy. They can’t both be right, not about this strike. And I think Daddy is the one who’s wrong this time.’
Edith looked at the newspaper headline covering the strike story: perhaps the doom-sayers were going to be right after all. She was not foolish, she did not believe she lived in the best of all possible worlds, only in a tiny corner of it; but she had not been bred to go looking for what was wrong with the world, her plea for perspective was only play-acting and she knew it. Her equanimity was only cowardice genteelly disguised.
‘I’ll talk to him tonight – ’
‘It may be too late then.’ Nina kissed her mother, slid off the bed. ‘Whatever happens down at the stockyards today, there’s going to be a hell of a scene here tonight. I’m going to tell Daddy a few truths.’
She left her mother, ran downstairs, out of the house and back towards the stables where all the cars were garaged. She drove her MG out into the cobbled yard and almost ran down George Biff as he stepped in front of her.
‘Where you going, Miz Nina?’
‘None of your business! Out of the way – please, George!’
He came round, slipped into the passenger’s seat beside her. ‘You rushing off down to the yards, right? You damn foolish. You ain’t gonna solve nothing like that.’
‘I’m not trying to solve anything – all I want is to bring Mister Tim home before the trouble starts.’
George looked at his watch. ‘It gonna start, it already started. I talked to Mister Tim this morning when he come to get his car. He told me about them scabs coming in. You gonna drive or you want me to?’
She argued no further. It took them twenty-five minutes to get to the stockyards, caught as they were in the morning peak-hour traffic. One or two of Nina’s friends saw them, waved cheerfully; they had no problems, none of them had a husband on his way to do battle, scabs, scabs. The morning was already hot, the eye-scalding sunlight an omen in itself. As they drove down towards the yards the smell of livestock hit them suddenly, as if they had driven through an invisible gate into another atmosphere. Police cars blocked the roadway up ahead and beyond the cars they could see trucks and a crowd of men. Nina parked the car, switched off the engine and at once they heard the shouts and booing of the men above the bellowing of the cattle in the yards.
George Biff put a hand on Nina’s arm as she started to get out of the car, but she took his hand by the wrist and dropped it back on his knee. ‘I’m going up there, George, so don’t try and stop me. I want to know what’s happening.’
‘I can find out – ’
She relented. ‘We’ll find out together. Come on.’
As they got to the line of police cars a sergeant blocked their way. ‘Okay, you two, this is no place for you. You with the lady, boy?’
‘He’s with me, yes,’ said Nina, squarely facing the thickset, overweight officer. He had a Southern accent and she resented his calling George ‘boy’. She wondered what his attitude was towards the strikers. ‘My name is Davoren – my father owns the Beaufort Cattle Company, where all the trouble is.’
‘You can say that again, there’s trouble, all right.’ The sergeant’s tone hadn’t altered. He knew who she was, even if he hadn’t seen her before; but he wasn’t impressed by rich girls who took niggers driving with them in imported sports cars. ‘That’s why you better turn round and go back home. We’ll take care of the trouble if it gets any worse.’
A young policeman came running down from the trucks, looking hot, angry and as if wishing he were somewhere else. ‘Sarge, you better come on up there. Those pickets, they’re not gonna let the trucks through. It’s getting rough.’
‘You buzz off, you understand?’ the sergeant said to Nina, then he lumbered up the road after the young officer.
‘We better do what he says,’ said George, sweat beginning to glisten on his dark face. ‘Looks like it gonna get pretty bad in a minute.’
The yelling had increased and the horns of the trucks had begun to blare; strident echoes rang in Nina’s ears, Frankfurt and Kansas City merged, she was suddenly as afraid of the past as of the present. She started to run towards the disturbance, but George grabbed her arm, held her back. Utterly distraught now, as if the yelling and the truck horns blaring were an omen, she struggled against his grip. The cattle in the yards on either side of them began to mill, bellowing loudly, raising dust that blew up and floated across the road like the smoke of an explosion. Down here on the flats beside the river the sun bounced back from the roadway, splintered itself on the windshields of the police cars. The stockyards became a cauldron of heat and dust and panic and anger.
‘Stay here! Don’t come any closer – you hear me? Stay here!’
George pushed her back towards the MG, then turned and ran up towards the trucks and the yelling crowd.
In the front line of the crowd Tim was struggling to edge towards the side. He had no desire to be a ring-leader in what was going to be an ugly encounter. He had been standing talking to Bumper Cassidy, both of them watching the blocked trucks carrying the scab labour, when suddenly the situation had got out of hand. The pickets had been rocking the trucks, trying to force the drivers to reverse; one of the drivers lost his head, threw a wrench and a picket went down with blood gushing from his face. Next moment the whole mob had surged forward, pickets clambering to get up at the men in the trucks like pirates boarding a convoy of galleons. Whistles blew and the police came in at the mob of strikers from the other side of the trucks.
Tim knew he was in danger. Mob mindlessness had taken over; if there was a cool head among the three or four hundred men it was having no effect. Bumper Cassidy, beside Tim, had responded to the uproar with a reflex action; he was a big, bald-headed man who, if he was lost for words, was never lost for fists. A man fell out of a truck and Bumper hit him on the way down, stopping him for a moment in mid-air as if the blow from his fist was stronger than the pull of gravity. Then a police baton hit Bumper on the side of the head and he fell sideways against Tim, who went down in the stampede.
Tim fought his way to his feet, hitting out indiscriminately; a man he worked with every day, blind with rage, threw a punch at him and he just managed to duck under it. Choked with dust, blinded by sweat, gasping for breath in the stifling heat, he found himself being swept round in the mob as in a whirlpool. Suddenly he was on the edge of the big melée, but in a worse position; he thudded up against the railings of a yard, felt a searing pain across his belly as a steer’s horn swept by. He was spreadeagled against the fence, the fighting crowd behind him hammering him there; right in front of him the stampeding cattle thundered by, eyes white-wild, their bellowing as brutally bruising as if they were running him down. Their horns went dangerously close as some of them thudded into the fence; he fought to push himself away from the railings but the crowd threw its weight against him, unaware of him. For a moment he thought of trying to climb over the fence, but knew at once that that would mean almost certain death.
He began to fight his way along the fence, punching and swiping at everyone in his way. He had almost reached the edge of the crowd when something hit him behind the ear; he went down, dazed, had no strength to pull himself up again. Then he felt someone lifting him, a black man who was faintly familiar; he clung to the man as the latter began to drag him out of the riot. He was dimly aware of a policeman appearing out of nowhere, baton raised; the black man let go of Tim with one hand, swung at the policeman and the latter went down. Tim was dragged over the fallen officer, then the black man picked him up in a fireman’s lift and carried him out of the yelling, struggling crush and down the road. He was dumped into the seat of a car that was also vaguely familiar, he felt someone kiss him, then he passed out.
‘Get going, Miz Nina!’
Nina swung the MG round, ignoring the shouts of the police sergeant as he ran down towards them, and took the car down the road with a screech of tyres.
9
‘Disgraceful!’ Lucas looked as if his bones wanted to blow him apart; all arms and legs and rigid body, he stalked up and down his study. ‘The papers have got on to the story! The two of you down there like damned agitators. And George hitting that policeman – Goddam it, what got into you?’
‘You can’t blame George for anything he did – he was just trying to rescue Tim.’
Nina had never seen her father so angry; but she was surprised at her own total unconcern for his reaction. All she cared about at the moment was Tim, lying in their bedroom in the house across the lawns with twelve stitches in the wound in his belly, two broken ribs and a slight concussion. She was off-balance emotionally, as if there had been a subsidence within her, a breaking-up of levels that had sustained her all her life up till now. There had been worries and doubts in the sixteen months she had been married to Tim, all brought on by Tim’s sometimes prickly attitude towards her father: there had never been any open quarrel but at best his attitude had always been one of guarded geniality, his smile not hypocritical but a defence that neither of her parents had recognized as such and had never penetrated. The evidence had been growing in her mind for months, but only today had it all suddenly formed itself into a pattern that she acknowledged. It was no news to her that Tim had never really accepted her father, but it had come as a shock to learn that her father returned the attitude.
‘I’ve had to talk to the chief of police, get him to drop the charge against George. Damn it, you know what they could do to him – a Negro hitting a white officer! And you took George down there with you, let him get into that situation!’
‘I didn’t do any such thing!’ She never had fought with her father like this; she burned with both shame and temper. ‘George came of his own accord – to help me. And he went into the mob to help Tim because he had some spark of humanity in him – something I think you’ve forgotten!’
She had hurt him, she could see that, but he wasn’t a weak man: he did not retreat behind a whine of reproach for her betrayal. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. The company has always been fair with its workers – it isn’t inhumane to object to their greediness. They get a fair share in wages of the profits – ’
‘It’s nothing to the money we have!’
‘Don’t be naïve. You don’t run a business that way. The Cattle Company has to pay its own way – whatever else we have doesn’t enter into it. You’re talking like some woolly-minded socialist. If you got that from your husband – ’
‘I didn’t get it from my husband – he has a name or have you put it out of your mind? He’s never attempted any propaganda with me – I think he’d laugh his head off if you called him a socialist. I worked it out for myself – I think the men are entitled to what they’re asking for.’
‘They get a living wage – ’
‘A living wage isn’t enough! God, Daddy, you’re still in the last century – I don’t think I’ve ever looked at you properly. Grandfather must have put blinkers on you when you were born – ’
Her voice had risen; she was almost shouting. The study door opened and Edith came in quickly, closing it behind her. ‘I told myself I was not going to interfere. But this has gone on long enough and loudly enough – too loud, all the servants can hear you. I think you had better apologize to your father, Nina, then go home and cool down. You’d better cool down, too, Lucas – your voice has been just as loud as hers.’
‘I’m not going to apologize! Tell your husband to come into the twentieth century – he just doesn’t know what’s going on in the world!’
‘My husband?’ said Edith.
But Nina had already rushed out of the room, past George Biff standing in the hall, his face grey with pain and emotion; then she was running across the lawns, through the afternoon heat, like someone fleeing a catastrophe she couldn’t face. Margaret and Sally, coming up from the tennis court, called to her, but she didn’t hear them. She ran towards her own house, tears streaming down her face, but even in her distress she knew the house was no real haven, that it had never really belonged to her and Tim. It had been a gift from her parents and she ran now through the strings that bound it to the big house that dominated the park.
Tim lay flat on his back in the bed, a low pillow under his head. He tried to sit up when she came into the room, but winced in pain and lay back at once. ‘What’s the matter? For Christ’s sake – Nina! What happened?’
She had flopped on the foot of the bed, hand over her face, her head shaking from side to side. She struggled to control herself, the sobs coming up as great gobs of pain in her chest. He reached for her, but she got up and moved away, waving a dumb hand for him to remain lying down and not hurt himself. She should have stayed downstairs till she had composed herself, but she had come headlong up the stairs to the one true haven that was all her own, him.
He waited impatiently for her to tell him what had happened. At last she was in control of herself, had cooled down, as her mother had advised; she was tearless now, dried-out and cold, more than just cool. She told herself she owed no more allegiance to her mother and father.
‘I got nowhere with Daddy.’ She told Tim all that had been said and argued in her father’s study; as she talked, she felt the distance increasing between her parents’ house and her own. ‘He’s hopeless – he’ll never see things our way.’
He misunderstood her, thinking she was talking only about the strike. ‘Bumper phoned me – the men are going back to work. They haven’t announced it yet, but Bumper says they’ve all recognized now that they can’t win.’
She had to concentrate to think about the events of the morning: she had been preoccupied with the wide empty horizon of the future. ‘Oh – you mean they’re giving up? So easily?’
‘Don’t criticize them. It’s too easy for us – ’
‘But you were hurt – for them! Daddy will laugh at us – ’
‘I don’t think he’s that heartless or undiplomatic.’
She moved up closer to him on the bed, took one of his bandaged hands in hers. ‘Darling, let’s go away.’
He stared at her closely, his eyes wary in his bruised and grazed face. ‘You don’t mean just for a holiday, do you?’
‘No, I mean move away from here, go somewhere else to live. Anywhere – I don’t care – ’
‘I think you’d better sleep on it – ’
‘I don’t want to sleep on it! For God’s sake, stop being so damn careful of me – I’m not doing this just for you! I’m thinking of me – of us, both of us. And Michael – ’ She was infested with pessimism, was building fears on fears without any real foundation. She had been too well protected, even from the knowledge that her father had another set of loyalties, ones outside that to her and her sisters. ‘Let’s go to England! You’d like that – ’
He searched her face as if it were strange territory: he had never known her to look and sound like this. He sensed the seriousness in her: what she had just suggested may have come off the top of her head, but she felt it deeply. The decision she had made was bigger than her decision to marry him. But he wasn’t hurt by it.
‘All right, we’ll go back to England. But you have to promise me – we tell your parents together and you have to make them understand it was a joint decision on our part.’
‘But it isn’t – ’
‘Yes, it is. You may have suggested it, but you’re not to tell them you did. You’ll hurt them enough just by going – you don’t have to rub it in by letting them know you had to talk me into it.’
It was her turn to look searchingly. ‘Why are you being so careful of their feelings? They’ve never been that way about yours.’
‘I’m being careful for your sake, darling heart. You may want to come back here some day – ’
‘Never – ’
He shook his head on the pillow. ‘You’ll want to come back. Perhaps not to live, but you’ll want to come back for visits, long ones. There’s not just your parents – there are your sisters. You’re too attached to them to want to turn your back on them.’
10
Lucas and Edith took the news as Nina had expected: as if she had turned a gun on them. Lucas did not speak to her for two days, going out of his way to avoid her. But Edith, after her initial shock, did not surrender her daughter without a fight.
‘If we’ve made mistakes, Nina, then all I can ask is that you forgive us. It won’t happen again.’
‘It will, Mother. Daddy will never change. He thinks he owns us. Not just all of us, but Tim, too.’
‘You’re mistaking love for ownership. Maybe he shows it the wrong way, but it is love. I know him better than you.’
‘That’s why you can make excuses for him. But I can’t, Mother – not any longer.’
Then she tried to explain her departure to her sisters. She got them together in what had been the old nursery and was now a games and television room. But all the artefacts of their childhood were still there: dolls, toys, finger-paintings. It was a museum now for the older girls, but it was Prue’s retreat and domain. She was delighted to have her sisters as her guests. She sat playing with her dolls, only occasionally cocking an ear to the conversation. But Margaret and Sally were in tears.
‘Oh God!’ wailed Sally. ‘We’ll miss you terribly!’
Margaret wiped her eyes. ‘I suppose I knew marriage was going to break us up some day. But not like this. Daddy is like a zombie.’
‘I think I’d like a zombie doll,’ said Prue.
‘Oh God,’ said Sally; then wiped her eyes. ‘If you go, Nina, can I have your MG?’
‘How mercenary can you get?’ said Margaret. ‘Nina, how does Tim feel? We’re going to miss him as much as you. He’s part of the family.’
‘That’s just what he’s not. Daddy doesn’t think so. Will you come and see us when we’re in England?’
‘Of course,’ said all three; then all four of them had another big weep. ‘God, it’s just awful!’
Later Margaret walked back with Nina to the Davoren house. Purple clouds boiled above then and a wind whipped the trees to life. There were tornadoes further south, but so far no warnings had been issued for this area. It was a good day for being miserable.
‘If there’s anything I can do to help – ’
‘Better not take sides,’ said Nina, linking her arm in her sister’s. She had never been as close to Margaret as to Sally and Prue, but now she was grateful for Meg’s comfort and presence. She wanted someone to talk to, and her mother had failed her. ‘Just watch out when it comes time for you to fall in love. Please yourself, not Daddy. Is there anyone you’re serious about right now?’
‘No.’ But Margaret seemed to close up; Nina felt her arm stiffen slightly within her own. ‘Well, maybe. But we haven’t talked about it. I could be crazy about someone else this time next year. Did you fall in and out of love once a month when you were my age?’
‘I was crazy for half a dozen boys. It was a wonder I didn’t have half a dozen babies.’
‘You mean you went all the way with all of them?’
Nina laughed, beginning to feel a little better. Her sisters were indeed a comfort, she really was going to miss them. ‘I always said No at the last moment. I must have been a terrible tease. But I was afraid of losing them. I’m – I don’t know, I used to fall in love too easily. I did with Tim, all in a weekend.’
‘You’re not sorry about that, for God’s sake?’ Margaret pulled up, her arm jerking Nina to a halt.
‘Of course not. But I break out in a cold sweat sometimes. I mean I might have missed him, never met him, if I’d married one of the others.’
Margaret nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I’m trying to teach myself to be patient. But it’s hard, isn’t it? Oh, there’s Tim! I didn’t know he was up.’
‘He’s not supposed to be.’
But Tim was sitting in an armchair on the wide rear porch, a book open on his knees, a pitcher of lemonade on the cane table beside him. Inger, the maid, hovered over him, a Swedish angel who would gladly have fallen if the master had tempted her. Nina had already decided that, if she and Tim had not been leaving, then Inger would have had to go.
The maid went back into the house and Nina and Margaret sat down on either side of Tim. ‘Who helped you out of bed? Inger Nightingale?’
‘Only after she’d given me some Swedish massage. They have some marvellous ways with their hands – ’ He grinned at her, then at Margaret. ‘When you marry, Meg, don’t be jealous of your maids. No husband in his right mind would ever dally so close to home. What do you think of our news?’
‘I’m heart-broken. But I think you’re doing the right thing. I just wish you didn’t have to go all that way, to England.’
Nina picked up the book from his lap. ‘All the King’s Men.’
‘I thought it was about your father.’ Then he pressed her hand. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t make snide remarks like that.’
She kissed him and went inside to supervise Michael’s lunch. Tim watched her go. ‘I hope she knows what she’s doing, Meg. It’s going to be a bigger wrench for her than she realizes.’
Tears suddenly sprang into Margaret’s eyes, surprising him: she had always struck him as the least emotional of the sisters. ‘Oh Tim, why did it have to happen?’
‘I don’t really know. The fault isn’t all your father’s. Just learn from our mistakes. Be sure the man you marry will be one your father approves of. You may have to wait till the right one comes along, I mean a chap you love who also meets your father’s approval, but it’ll be worth it. Don’t let some chap bugger up things for you the way I have for Nina.’
‘You haven’t – buggered up things for her. She loves you – isn’t that all that matters? I just hope I’m as lucky as she is.’
‘You’re sweet.’ He put a finger against her cheek. ‘Just take care. You Beaufort girls have got everything in the world but a guarantee of happiness. And nobody has that.’
Chapter Three (#ulink_89972d79-8551-5ded-8d02-6c423738def4)
Nina (#ulink_89972d79-8551-5ded-8d02-6c423738def4)
1
By the time the Davorens were ready to leave for England, Lucas had thawed out towards both of them. It was not in his nature to beg forgiveness and he could only go just so far in his rapprochement with them. He left it to Edith to make a last-minute effort to talk Nina and Tim into staying.
‘I’m sorry, Mother. I’m glad we’re friends again with Daddy, but I think we need to get away from him. For a while, anyway. Once we’re on the other side of the Atlantic, maybe he’ll learn not to be so possessive.’
Edith, standing amidst the Sèvres china, the Persian rugs, the silk drapes, said, ‘I feel like a mother must have felt a hundred years ago when her family left her and headed West.’
Nina laughed, a little too heartily; but it was a good excuse to let out some of the emotion in her. ‘You don’t really think you’re a pioneer woman!’
Edith had not lost her sense of humour. She looked about her, then laughed and took her daughter, the pioneer sailing for England, in her arms. ‘You know what I mean. I never dreamed I’d be losing any of you – ’
‘You’re not losing us, Mother. You’ll just have to get used to the idea that the world has got bigger.’
Even Lucas, when it came time to say goodbye, conceded that fact. ‘We’re investing overseas – in oil, for a start. I suppose it was inevitable. Can’t get used to it, though. I don’t like the thought of foreigners telling me what I can do with my money.’
‘Why are you doing it then?’ said Tim, more at ease with Lucas than Lucas was with him. ‘You don’t need the money.’
‘Washington approached us. I never thought I’d be doing that feller Truman a favour, but he is the President, God help us. They want us to expand over there in the Middle East before the Russians get in. Beaufort Oil is going into a place called Abu Sadar on the Persian Gulf.’
‘You can stop off and visit us in England when you’re on your way to the Gulf.’
‘I won’t be going out there, I’ve got fellers to do that. But Edith and I will come and visit you – ’ He put out his hand, for a moment looked as if he was going to break down and plead with Tim to stay, not to take his favourite daughter away from him. ‘We’ll come whenever you ask us.’
The departure was a quiet one, with no farewell parties. Nina went round and said goodbye to her friends, discovering only as she was leaving them that none of them was really close to her. Tim went back to the stockyards only once, to say goodbye to Bumper Cassidy, who wished him well and invited him back for the next strike – ‘Next time we’re gonna get what we ask for.’
Magnus McKea, home now from Europe, glad to have Nuremberg behind him, came to say goodbye to both of them. ‘My father is retiring and I’m taking over the law office. That means I’ll be dealing with your father direct, Nina. If there’s anything – ’
‘We’ll let you know if there is, Magnus. Will you handle my funds for me, send money across when we need it?’
She was alone with McKea for the moment. There was a tacit agreement between her and Tim that they would need her money to live comfortably in England, but she had become self-conscious about it, as if it were some sort of family birthmark better left ignored. She welcomed the idea of Magnus as her own lawyer, even if he was also her father’s.
Magnus himself was a little dubious. ‘I’m your father’s lawyer first. If there’s any conflict of interest, I’m afraid I’ll have to take his side.’
‘We’ll risk that. I’m hoping any disagreement between Daddy and us is over for good.’
The final farewells were said at home, then George drove them to Union Station. Lucas had decided against a public goodbye, in case there should be a reporter or two waiting. It was as if he saw Nina’s going away as some sort of defeat for himself: he didn’t want it spread across the newspapers for all to see. It was bad enough that people in their own circle knew what had happened, even if they could only guess at the reason for the Davorens’ departure.
George carried Michael into the station. ‘I’m gonna miss him, Miz Nina.’ Michael, a year old now, laughed without restraint, the only one young enough not to feel the pain of the occasion. ‘Gonna miss you and Mister Tim, too.’
The Davorens crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, a booking that Nina had sentimentally insisted upon. They spent a month at the Savoy while they looked about for a place in the country. Tim raised no objection to their staying at the hotel, even though Nina was footing the bill; she wondered if he was letting her indulge them before they got down to living on his terms.
They found a house to lease and a business to buy at the same time and in the same place, Stoke Bayard, a village on the River Thames near Henley. The house was on a ten-acre island in the middle of the river, connected to the main bank by an arched bridge over a tributary of the main stream. The business was on the edge of the village, a boat-yard which built punts and skiffs and, in summer, rented them out to fishermen and picnickers who came down from London.
The house was a pre-1914 summer pavilion, a seven-roomed folly or, as Tim described it, a family of gazebos. ‘I love it,’ said Nina. ‘It just proves not all the bad taste is in America.’
‘It’s not practical. We’ll freeze in winter.’
But they went ahead anyway, because she insisted, and leased the house for a year and moved in as the best summer England could remember began to turn into an equally beautiful autumn. Tim took over the boat-yard and the one full-time worker as the last of the summer visitors began to dwindle away.
The yard stood at a bend in the river and looked up to the house on the island. Tim would sometimes see Nina on their front lawn with Michael and they would wave to each other; life seemed idyllic, with his work so close to his home and no Lucas to worry about. He even forgot about the prospect of winter in the pavilion built for summer.
His sole full-time employee was an Australian artist who lived opposite the island with his wife and two small daughters. He had done his apprenticeship as a boat-builder back home in Australia and he was still working at his trade while he established himself as an artist in England.
‘Australia is a bloody cultural desert.’ Steve Hamill was a short chunky man with a thick moustache and a rolling gait that suggested he had been a sailor; but he was scared of the water and couldn’t explain why he had become a builder of craft to sail upon it. ‘I suppose it’s like that in the Middle West, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tim. ‘I was never much of a one for culture.’
‘I’ve got no education to speak of, but I know where the soul of art is. Right here in Europe. All I’ve got to do is absorb it, get it into me, and then I’m going to be the most successful bloody artist ever came out of Aussie.’
‘Perhaps I’d better buy one of your paintings now while I can still afford your prices.’
The Hamills lived in a large caravan which Steve had redecorated. It stood in one corner of a field like something forgotten by a carnival that had moved on. Near it he had built himself a small shed that was his studio.
Eileen Hamill was a pretty girl with auburn-tinted bangs and a quiet manner that suggested she took a long view of everything. Her whole life seemed to be Steve and their two small girls; she was prepared to wait forever for him to be the artist he wanted to be. But Tim, who had now developed a very personal eye for such things, wondered how long her patience would survive the cramped, uncomfortable life in a caravan.
While Tim looked at Steve’s paintings in the shed, Nina sat with Eileen in the caravan and sipped tea and ate home-made scones. The two small Hamill girls, delighted to have a living doll, played with Michael on the grass at the bottom of the caravan steps.
‘I grew up in the slums back in Melbourne,’ said Eileen. ‘The only time I ever got out of the city was when the local church took us on a picnic. To live like this – it’s heaven.’ Then she added, ‘Though I don’t know what it will be like in the winter.’
Nina was still adjusting. Life for her had suddenly been reduced to a much smaller scale. She could not imagine living in the confined quarters of the caravan; she wondered how the Hamills made love, sleeping so close to their children. She couldn’t see herself under Tim with two pairs of bright curious eyes peering over his shoulder. She smothered a giggle at the thought, coughed and made out some tea had gone down the wrong way.
‘But at least it’s our own and it’s better than living right on top of each other as they do in London. Even in the slums back home we had a backyard. But we keep hoping we’ll have something bigger in a year or two. You have to, when you’re an artist. Hope, I mean.’
Nina went across to the shed to look at the paintings. Taking Steve Hamill as no more than a working man with perhaps enough talent to have given him some ambition, she was surprised at the sensitivity of his paintings. His wife and his children were subjects in all his work, but they were not portraits; they were dream figures in a world in which the rough, casual Steve would have looked as out of place as a cubist dustman in a Watteau landscape. There were thoughts in Steve Hamill’s head that he could never express in words, that had to come out through his rough, broad-fingered hands.
Nina and Tim bought three paintings and two sketches and Steve shook his head at them. ‘I hope you’re not being charitable.’
‘We’re buying them as an investment,’ said Tim.
‘You want your heads read. My stuff an investment? Well, it’s your money. I hope you’re not leaving yourself short.’ He and Eileen had no idea who Nina was, nor did anyone else in the village; she was enjoying her anonymity, the first time in her life she had not been a Beaufort. ‘How about twenty quid each for the paintings and a fiver for the two sketches? Or am I asking too much?’
Going back to the pavilion, Tim carrying the paintings and Nina carrying Michael straddled across her hip, Nina said, ‘I wonder what it’s like to start at the bottom like that?’
‘You’ll never know, darling heart.’
‘I couldn’t live in cramped conditions like that. I was thinking, how do they make love with everything right on top of them? Including the children.’
‘The poor have had to do it that way for centuries. They hold their breath, which accounts for the pop-eyed look among the poor. It’s only the fortunate who can expose their privates in private. Shall we go in and try a little exposure?’
‘It’s five o’clock. Cinq à sept, as the French say. I’ve always wanted a lover to call on me before dinner. What shall we do with Michael?’
‘Hang him on the wall with the paintings.’
2
Autumn slipped into winter. The river lost its sparkle, the songbirds went south, the sun came out only occasionally as if it too was being rationed by the austerity-minded government. Tim and Nina made friends in the village, but gradually Nina began to feel homesick. Food and Christmas gift parcels arrived from Kansas City like insidious propaganda: come home, said every tin and package. But she said nothing and if Tim noticed any change in her, he also said nothing.
She and Tim and Michael had Christmas dinner alone. The table was loaded, but all the food had come in cans from America. Each of them put on a brave face, but Michael was the only one who laughed and enjoyed himself without restraint. Tim had suggested having the Hamills join them, but they had gone up to spend Christmas with some Australian friends in Earls Court. Despite fires in every room the house was cold; it seemed to have a chill of its own that had nothing to do with the weather outside. A winter wind scavenged the trees, seeking the last of the leaves; yesterday’s rain had turned to ice under the hedgerows, like negatives of shadows. When the phone rang at four-o’clock in the afternoon Nina rushed to it as if it were a lifeline thrown to her across the Atlantic, though she knew nobody would call her from Kansas City.
‘We’re here,’ said her mother, sounding warm and comfortable, as if she herself were centrally heated.
‘Where?’
‘In London, of course. At the Savoy. We were going to surprise you, be down with you for Christmas dinner, but the boat was delayed by storms. We – ’
‘Mother, who’s we? All of you?’
‘No, just your father and Meg. Your father had to come over on business – ’
‘What about Sally and Prue?’ She wanted to see them all. She still couldn’t believe her mother was in England, knew this had to be a dream and she might as well dream for the most.
‘Sally’s been left with a tutor. She’s been neglecting her school work for that blessed car you gave her. Can you imagine, she got only nine per cent in history. American history, too.’
Nina laughed and laughed: Oh God, she was glad to hear anything about any of them! ‘Prue?’
‘Has the measles. How is my grandson? How do we get down to see you?’
‘Mother, we’ll come up!’ All at once she didn’t want her parents to see where she and Tim were living; not in this season with the house as cold as it was. She was afraid they would use it as an excuse to criticize Tim, blame him for making her and Michael live in such Spartan conditions. She did not want her Christmas, which had suddenly become Christmas, spoiled. ‘We’ll have dinner at the hotel with you … No, we were going to have it tonight anyway … No, I don’t have enough for us all …’
‘Two Christmas dinners in a day?’ said Tim.
They drove up to London in the pre-war Jaguar SS they had bought when they had moved down to the country. There was still petrol rationing, but Tim got a business quota for the boat-yard and, in the spirit of spivvery of the times, each weekend he filched a gallon or two and it added to the small family allowance they got. Being able to drive up to London was a luxury in itself, another way of feeling rich.
‘Why didn’t you ask them down to the house?’
‘I thought you’d like a break – ’
He said nothing and she knew she hadn’t convinced him.
But any uneasiness vanished as soon as the family reunion took place. Her parents greeted Tim with the same warmth as they did her. It seemed that all was forgotten and this was a new start. Nina went into the main bedroom of the hotel suite with her mother, Margaret and Michael, the latter swamped with attention from his grandmother and aunt. Lucas and Tim sat down in chairs by the window and looked out on the dark river and the bombed ruins along the south bank.
‘Nina’s letters said you were doing well with your boat business.’
Tim himself had never written and he wondered how much Nina had boasted of him as a successful boatman. He said cautiously, ‘It’s too early to tell. I took over at the end of the season. I shan’t really know how things will go till the end of next summer.’
‘Well, if you need any finance … Or shouldn’t I offer that?’
‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ But the last thing he would ever do, he told himself, would be to accept money from Lucas. ‘Why are you here? Edith said you were on business.’
‘The oil company is expanding. We’re setting up an office in London, then we plan to branch out with gas stations all over the country. I’m afraid I’m an internationalist now. Never thought I would be, but a man has to change, I guess.’
‘How’s the project going in the Middle East?’
‘Abu Sadar? The place is floating on oil. Our only problem is keeping on the right side of the Sultan. He’s okay, but he’s got some sons who want to meddle. We’re starting to educate them in America now, you know? Bringing the young fellers to Harvard, Caltech, places like that. A mistake, I think. Educate the natives, you buy trouble for yourselves. Their ignorance is your bliss.’
‘That one of your own?’
Lucas laughed, slapped Tim on the knee: the armistice was complete. ‘I think it was one of your Foreign Ministers talking about the British Empire. Well, shall we go down to dinner? I guess you’re hungry as a horse?’
‘A whole stable,’ said Tim, wondering if he looked as stuffed as he felt.
The Savoy produced a cot and Michael, worn out by all the fuss made of him, was put to bed in the care of a chambermaid. Then the Beauforts and the Davorens all went down to dinner.
Tim sat between Margaret and Edith; it was the former who engaged him. He had never seen her so animated and voluble; she kept grabbing his arm to turn him back to her every time he attempted to say a word to Edith. She looked beautiful and, yes, sexy (he was surprised to find himself looking at her in that light). It occurred to him as he looked across the table that, compared to Margaret, Nina looked tired and drab. He chided himself, because he knew it was his fault.
‘Nina looks tired.’ Edith managed to get a word in. ‘Has she been unwell?’
‘The excitement has just got to her.’ But he knew it was more than that.
‘We miss her, Tim. I have to tell you that, even though you’ll dislike me for it. We miss you, too. And that last isn’t an afterthought.’
‘Of course it isn’t!’ Margaret grabbed his arm from the other side, swivelling him round; at least she was preventing him from eating, a relief he hadn’t expected. ‘We all do miss you! We’re here for a week, you’ve got to spend every day with us – ’
‘I’m a working man – ’
‘Oh bushwah! Close your old boat-yard down – give your men a vacation – ’
‘With pay? That would give your father a stroke.’
But nothing, it seemed, would give Lucas a stroke right now. All his attention was on Nina; he had re-possessed his favourite, if only temporarily. He caught Tim’s glance and he flashed a smile, the across-the-table smile, the dental fireworks that mean nothing. Or did the smile mean nothing? Tim wondered if there wasn’t a spark of triumph in it, that Lucas was beginning a new battle in which he had already made a gain.
Edith suggested that Tim and Nina stay up in town that night, but Tim, feeling perverse, said they would have to go back. ‘But tomorrow is a holiday,’ said Nina. ‘Boxing Day.’
‘You never know, there may be some fools wanting to go out on the river.’
‘Business is business,’ said Lucas understandingly, nodding in agreement. Then: ‘But maybe Nina and Michael could stay.’
Did he say that too innocently? Tim looked across at Nina and was disappointed to see how eagerly she had greeted her father’s suggestion. He felt suddenly jealous; and then, just as abruptly, didn’t care. The other side of the coin of jealousy was indifference; it was his first experience of how the coin could flip without warning.
‘Stay a couple of nights,’ he said, ‘then bring your mother and father and Meg down to our place. I’m sure they want to see where we live.’
Nina’s face was blank. ‘A good idea.’
Nina and Michael, her parents and Margaret, came down by chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce the day after Boxing Day. The big car rolled through the village and the villagers stopped and looked after it when they saw Nina sitting in the car. It drew up at the boat-yard and Steve Hamill came into the office where Tim was struggling with a stock list.
‘The wife’s outside. Yours, not mine. In a bloody great Rolls. I must say she looks at home in it.’
Tim went out to the car. It was a cold day, a wind coming in from the ice-works of Russia, and only Lucas got out of the car. ‘Nice little place. Bit primitive though, isn’t it?’
‘We preserve the primitive here in England. It’s part of our tradition.’ He tried to keep the acid off his tongue; he wasn’t looking for another battle. ‘It seems to work.’
‘Couldn’t work in these conditions myself.’
‘Lucas – ’ He couldn’t resist it; even so he diluted the acid with a smile. ‘You’ve always worked in a board-room. These conditions here are no worse than those I worked in at the stockyards. Did the chaps there ever get their raise?’
‘No. But we gave them a fifty-dollar bonus for Christmas.’
‘Your place in Heaven is assured.’
‘You’re too cynical, Tim.’
‘No, just whimsical. You bring it on in me. Shall we go down and look at our house? The conditions there are a little better. Just.’
Lucas and Edith were appalled at the conditions that Nina and Michael had to live in; they didn’t appear to worry about Tim, he was English and accustomed to such living. They said nothing to him, though doing a poor job of disguising their reaction; but they had a lot to say to Nina when Tim took Margaret for a walk round the small island. Edith kept her mink coat on all the time, as if to emphasize her feeling that the fires, blazing though they were and supplemented by electric radiators, were useless in such a house.
‘You can’t live like this. You’ll have to get a better house. It’s not fair to Michael. He’ll grow up crippled with arthritis or something.’
‘I couldn’t live in these conditions myself,’ said Lucas. ‘We’ll have to do better for you.’
Nina shook her head. ‘This house was my mistake, not Tim’s. I’ll look around for something better. But you’re not to say a word to Tim, understand? He’s working hard and he’s perfectly happy.’
Out in the grounds Tim was saying, ‘Perhaps the boat-yard is not what I want for the rest of my life. But it’s a start.’
‘I still think you should have stayed in America,’ said Margaret. ‘You liked all our creature comforts, I know you did. You should have gone out to California, started something there.’
‘How did you know I liked the creature comforts?’
‘I know you better than you think. Prue used to say you were always looking at things, and you were. While you were, I was looking at you. And you lapped up everything the family could offer you. Everything but Daddy wanting to run you the way he runs the rest of us.’
They had been walking arm-in-arm, but now he moved away from her on the pretext of pulling off a switch from one of the willows that lined the river bank. He swung the switch back and forth, taking the heads off the yellow reed-feathers along the bank, like a destructive schoolboy who, for reasons he couldn’t name, had to abuse nature. Then he stopped, regretting the reed-feathers lying like gold dust on the thin snow that had fallen last night. He looked sideways at her, again like a schoolboy.
‘What else have you observed about me?’ He felt uncomfortable with her; her very youth somehow made her formidable. ‘Never mind, I don’t want to know. But obviously I should have been looking at you more closely.’
‘You could have done worse.’
At first he didn’t catch what she meant. Then he burst out laughing, more with surprise than amusement. ‘Meg, for Christ’s sake – ! I don’t play around – ’
‘I know that. That was why it was all so hopeless.’ She said it flatly, with no dramatics.
It might have been better if there had been dramatics: then he could have put it down to a crush on him. But he realized, with sickening certainty and no conceit, that she was in love with him. He slammed the willow switch against the trunk of a wych-elm, a substitute for her. He wanted to whip some sense into her, could feel the anger building in him as he stared at her.
‘Jesus God Almighty – Meg, do you know what you’re saying? Of course you do – ’ He saw the pain in her dark eyes. He threw the willow switch into the river, afraid of the angry trembling in his hands. He walked on and she fell into step beside him but did not put her arm in his this time. ‘Meg, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to put all this out of your head. I’m married to Nina and I’m in love with her and that’s that.’
‘Don’t you think I know it? I shouldn’t have told you. But it slipped out.’
‘You’ve got to be sensible – ’ He sounded as if he were talking to a schoolgirl; and he didn’t want to sound that way. This was far more serious, for himself as well as for her, than a fleeting schoolgirl fantasy. He began to wish she wasn’t so damned adult. ‘You’ll be unhappy, I suppose, for a while. But you’ll make me unhappy. And Nina, too, if she ever found out.’
‘She won’t. I’m not a bitch. And I said I’m sorry I told you.’
Out of habit he went to kiss her on the cheek, as he had done innumerable times; but at the last moment held himself back. ‘Let’s go back to the house. One thing I’m glad of – there are no tears.’
‘There may be tonight,’ she said. ‘But you’re safe for now.’
The Beauforts went back to London in the afternoon, Lucas and Edith convinced that Nina had condemned herself to a life of poverty, Margaret angry and ashamed that she had exposed her feelings to Tim. They stayed another week in London but did not come down to Stoke Bayard again. Tim and Nina went up to visit them and Nina stayed at the Savoy with Michael for a couple of nights. Edith and Lucas said nothing more about the way in which the Davorens were living, but when Tim came up on the last day Lucas took him aside.
‘I meant what I said, Tim. If you want to expand that boatyard, call on me. Don’t go to a bank. No point in getting into their clutches,’ he said with a banker’s smile.
Nor in yours, Lucas old chap. ‘I shan’t think of expanding for at least another year.’ He returned Lucas’s smile, turning the conversation into a joke between them: ‘If you want any help with the oil fields out in Abu Sadar, call on me. My Arabic is rusty, but I can always brush it up.’
‘Didn’t know you spoke Arabic. The young fellers all speak English out there, but the old guys never bother to learn. You’d think they would, dealing with us all the time.’
‘Just what we English used to say in our Empire days.’
‘You being whimsical again? You can’t joke about the Arabs. They’re going to be a pain in the ass to us some day. Well, now we’re off to Paris – Edith and Meg want to go. Never liked the French myself. They’re a pain in the ass, too. Never can trust them.’
‘What about the English?’
Lucas winked, refusing to take the bait. ‘Time we were leaving.’
Farewells were said. The Beauforts hugged Michael, squeezing affection into him as if giving him blood. Nina hugged and kissed her parents and sister; Tim watched carefully, alert for any sign that she wanted to go home with them. He shook hands with Lucas, kissed Edith on the cheek. Then he had to say goodbye to Margaret.
He took her hand, felt the tension in her fingers. ‘Enjoy Paris. I was there only once, but I loved it.’
‘Why don’t you come with us now?’
He kissed her quickly on the cheek, extricated his fingers from hers. ‘I’m a working man with a wife and kid to support.’
He turned away from her, still feeling the tension in her even though he was no longer touching her.
3
It snowed heavily during the night and for the next two days. All the pipes in the house froze, and Tim moved Nina and Michael down to a hotel in Henley. He went back to the house and invited the Hamills and their children in to join him; they would be a little more comfortable than in their caravan. Tim stoked up the fire in the living-room, kept it going twenty-four hours a day, and he and the Hamills camped in the room. They boiled ice for drinking water and poured hot water down the toilet to break up the ice in the sewage pipe. Nina phoned twice a day from the hotel and Tim, lying unconvincingly with a half-frozen tongue, told her things were fine. On the third night the snow turned to rain and it rained for the next three days. By then Tim, telling Steve Hamill not to worry about the cost, had insisted that Eileen Hamill and the two little girls be moved down to join Nina and Michael in the hotel at Henley.
On the sixth morning Tim, who had been dozing in a chair, half-awake all night, sat up as Steve shook him. ‘We’ve got to get out, mate. The bloody river’s at the front door.’
Tim hastily did up his boots. He looked around the living-room, at first saw nothing that he wanted to save from the flood; then he noticed Steve’s paintings and sketches hanging on the wall. He grabbed them and raced upstairs with them, wrapped them in blankets and laid them on the bed in the main bedroom. When he got downstairs and into the hall Steve was at the front door with a skiff.
‘Lucky I got this before the bloody thing went under.’ The water was rising by the minute, flooding into the house through the open door. ‘We better head for the boat-yard. And pull like buggery. If we can’t get across that current, we’re going to finish up half-way to France.’
Brown water, looking as thick as soup, was rushing down past the house as they slid the skiff away from the front door. The island had already disappeared; the house stood in a brown swirling waste. The usually placid Thames raged past in swift, yellow-flecked ropes of current. Logs and trees bobbed and whirled like drowning dancers; a panic-stricken dog went by, only its head showing, chasing a sheep’s carcase. The rain was still falling, shutting out the slopes of the valley, deadening every sound but the hiss and death-rattle gurgle of water.
As soon as Tim and Steve pushed off they had to start rowing furiously. The current swept them straight at the raised bridge that connected the island to the main bank; but there was no island and no bank and it stood like an upturned long-boat stuck on a hidden reef. Tim saw the bridge rushing at them; he dug in his oar and they skidded past with inches to spare. Then he quickly started rowing again. They had to row diagonally across the river if they were not to be swept round the bend and past the boat-yard. A mile downstream there were a lock and a weir and the thought of crashing into one or plunging over the other made him and Steve row furiously.
The river was normally forty to fifty yards wide at the bend; now it was closer to a hundred. The current tore at the skiff, muscling it off an even keel as it struggled sideways across the wide sweep of the bend. Tim was blinded by rain and each time he opened his mouth to gulp in air he choked on the water he took in. Cold and stiff, he must have pulled a muscle: every time he pulled back on the oar he wanted to yell with the pain in his side. He had got into the skiff without any thought that they might be in any real danger, but now he saw they stood a better than even chance of having the skiff overturned and their being flung into the river. He saw Steve, the man afraid of water, throwing frantic glances back over his shoulder, looking for the far bank and safety.
Everything flung itself against them as they battled their way across the current: the swirling water, the rain, logs and debris. A dead cow hit the skiff head-on in a blind charge; the boat swung round, tipping dangerously, and for a moment Tim thought they were going to go under. Then the skiff righted itself, the two men dug in their oars and they swept down towards the tiny jetty that ran out from the slope below the yard. They hit it with a thud, the skiff splintered and tipped over and Tim and Steve were flung into the freezing water.
Tim grabbed at the jetty as the water tore at him, pulled himself up on to it. He clutched at Steve as the latter was about to be sucked under the platform. Water was already lapping over the jetty and Tim could feel it moving on its pilings. As Steve struggled out of the water, the whole jetty leaned dangerously to one side. Both men scrambled to their feet and ran.
They leapt on to the cobbled slope as the jetty was swept away by the flood. They staggered up the slope and sat down heavily, exhausted by their efforts, weak with relief at their narrow escape. It was fully a minute before they stood up, both of them wavering on unsteady legs.
‘Jesus wept!’ Steve Hamill let out a cry of agony. ‘Look at that!’
Coming downstream, like runaways down a hill, were his caravan and studio shed. They went past at speed, the caravan a bright mocking note, bobbing and dancing like something on a carnival carousel, in the brown raging flood. As it went past the boat-yard the shed, which had been upright, suddenly tipped over. Its floor opened and paintings and canvases shot out and went skimming down the river, riding the current like gaily-coloured surf-boards that had lost their riders.
Tim looked at Steve. The Australian’s face was wet, water streaming down his cheeks, but it was impossible to tell whether it was rain or tears. The look on his face, however, was that of a man seeing his life’s work going pell-mell down a huge drain.
4
The rain stopped the next day, but it was almost a week before the flood fully subsided. The yard lost two-thirds of its boats, sunk or smashed; all the moorings and slipways and the work-shed went downriver. Tim and Nina, the house abandoned, living now in the hotel in Henley, drove up at the end of the week and took stock of the damage. Eileen Hamill stayed at the hotel to look after the children and Steve drove up with the Davorens.
‘It will take us at least six months to get things back to normal,’ Tim said. ‘We’ll never be ready for summer.’
‘What about the insurance?’ Nina asked. ‘Maybe we could buy all the boats we need.’
Tim looked around at the havoc. ‘The insurance won’t cover everything by a long chalk. You want to stay on, Steve?’
The Australian shrugged. He was utterly depressed, unrelated to the casual, happy man the Davorens had known. ‘I’m willing. But I don’t know if the wife wants to. Did she tell you? One of my paintings finished up stuck under the bridge all the way down at Henley. She saw some kids chucking stones at it, using it as a target. She’s more upset at what happened than I am. I think she’d like to move somewhere else, right away from here.’
Tim took Nina’s arm and they walked back to the car. The sky had cleared and the sun was shining; the flood-damaged valley was exposed pitilessly in the pale silver-gold light. Upstream the island was above water again; even at this distance it was possible to see the mark just below the upper-storey windows of the house where the flood had peaked. The boat-yard was thick with mud and debris, all of it beginning to smell as the sun shone on it. It looks like a battlefield, Tim thought. And I’ve just lost the battle.
‘I hate to say it, but I don’t want to start all over again. And that’s what it would mean.’
Nina felt a mixture of surprise, relief and disappointment. She had never seen him defeated before; or anyway so ready to accept defeat. In the time they had been married he had made compromises, but always with a wry insouciance that let her know he was granting concessions to please her. But this was a surrender of himself for himself: for the first time she saw a weakness of character that she had never suspected.
‘What worries me is what will happen to Steve?’ He looked across at the Australian moving through the wreckage of the yard; Steve picked up a rudder, looked at it as if wondering what to do with it, then threw it aside. ‘You should have seen the look on his face when everything he owned went past here the other day. I think it was then I realized how lucky we are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We could lose a lot. This, for instance – even a lot more.’ He gestured at the yard. ‘But we could never lose everything. He was telling me yesterday. He has exactly fifty-two pounds in the bank and that’s all.’
Her disappointment in him was giving way to relief for herself. My character is no better than his. ‘I don’t want to stay here if you don’t. But what will you do?’
He had done a lot of thinking: that was evident as soon as he spoke. ‘I could go to work for your father again.’
‘Back in Kansas City?’ She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
‘Not just yet, perhaps later. I could work for the oil company now it’s set up an office in London. I don’t know what I’d do, but I’m sure your father could find something for me.’ There was just a hint of sarcasm in his voice, as if he were adding salt to his own wounds.
‘We’ll have to call him right away. They’re leaving Paris for Cherbourg tomorrow, to catch the ship.’ She was pushing him, but she was confident now she was taking no risk.
They called Lucas that afternoon at the Crillon in Paris. ‘Sure, I can find a place for you,’ said Lucas. ‘I’m sorry about the boatyard. You sure you want to come and work for me?’
‘Lucas, it wasn’t exactly easy for me to make this decision – ’
‘Sure, I understand. But I had to ask.’
Lucas came to London alone, on the boat train. Edith and Margaret had wanted to come back to London for a few more days, but he insisted that they take their booked passage on the Ile de France from Cherbourg. He expected some heated discussion in London and he did not want any interference from the women. He expected he would get enough from Nina.
He was right. ‘You can’t do this, Daddy! You can’t expect us to go out to Abu Sadar, taking Michael to a place like that – ’
‘You and Michael don’t have to go. All I’m asking Tim to do is go and learn the business at the source. He said he could speak Arabic – that’s not much, but it’s more than he has to offer in the London office.’
You son-of-a-bitch, thought Tim, using an Americanism because it had just the right amount of bite to it. There were four-letter words on the tip of his tongue, but he held those back. He was surrendering to Lucas and he was going to do it as gracefully as possible. To do so, he knew, would take some of the edge off Lucas’ satisfaction.
‘I’ve given it a lot of thought since you called me, Tim. If I put you into the London office, I’d have to move someone sideways to make way for you – ’
‘Why do you have to move someone?’ Nina demanded. ‘The company is big enough – just make another position.’
‘Tim wouldn’t like that, would you, Tim?’
The old son-of-a-bitch is co-opting me on his side while he’s cutting my balls off. ‘We don’t want any nepotism. At least none that will show.’
‘I’m not going to Abu Sadar and I’m not letting you go!’
‘Drop your voice, darling heart, or we’ll be thrown out of here.’
‘We shouldn’t have invited her to lunch,’ said Lucas. ‘Women should be left out of business discussions.’
Lucas had checked into the Savoy again and Tim and Nina, leaving Michael with Eileen Hamill, had come up by train. They were having lunch in the Grill, a setting not designed for family rows.
‘Do you want to go to Abu Sadar?’ Nina said.
‘Not really. Certainly not without you and Michael.’
‘It’s no place for women and children, not yet awhile.’ Lucas looked at the dessert trolley as a waiter approached with it. ‘I’ll try the baked custard. You’ll only need six months out there. You’ll get the feel of the business and then you can come home to Kansas City, to head office. Don’t you want dessert, Nina?’
‘And what do I do?’ Nina dismissed the waiter and the dessert trolley without looking at either. ‘Sit here in London twiddling my thumbs?’
‘I think what your father is suggesting is that you should go back to Kansas City. Or is that a wild guess, Lucas?’ The sarcasm was as smooth as the baked custard which he, too, had ordered.
‘Do you need to go to the ladies’ room?’ Lucas said to Nina.
‘No, I don’t! Dammit, Daddy, what are you trying to do?’
‘Tim will go into marketing when he comes back to head office. That suit you, Tim?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Go and powder your nose, Nina. When you come back we’ll have it all worked out.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ She looked at Tim for support, but he shook his head, a gentle movement that she almost missed. But his message was in his eyes: your old man has won, darling heart. Abruptly she stood up, almost knocking over a waiter, and plunged blindly across the room and out to the ladies’ room.
‘Do you agree she and Michael should come home?’
‘As she asked you, Lucas, what are you trying to do? Are you stuffing me and having me mounted like some sort of trophy?’
‘This is good custard. Think I’ll have some more. Stuffing you? I take it that’s a euphemism for a stronger term. No, I’m not. I’ll remind you, you came to me asking for a job. I didn’t have you flooded out of the boat-yard.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’
‘Cut out your whimsy. That’s your trouble, you don’t take anything seriously enough.’
‘You’re wrong there, Lucas old chap. I know this is bloody serious. You’re trying to break up my marriage.’
‘That’s where you are wrong. I’m not trying to break up your marriage. But I don’t want my daughter and my only grandchild traipsing round the world after you while you try to make a living at trades you have no training for. I can make a good career for you in oil. You’re intelligent and if you can sell oil as well as you sell yourself, you’ll be a success in no time.’
‘You’re a past-master at flattery.’
Lucas ignored the comment. ‘I can’t bring you in cold and dump you on the marketing vice-president back home. That’s why you have to go out to Abu Sadar. While you’re out there Nina and Michael can live in comfort back home in your own house.’
‘I still feel I’m being stuffed. But as the ladies say, if rape is inevitable you may as well lie back and enjoy it. No ladies of my acquaintance, I hasten to add.’
‘You’d never need to rape any woman. You’re too good a salesman.’
‘No more flattery. It’s going to my head. Yes, I think I’ll have some more baked custard. I’ll probably get nothing like this out in Abu Sadar. Unless you’ll send me food parcels?’
Lucas smiled, knowing he had won. ‘I’ll see if Sears Roebuck send food parcels.’
Nina came back, face made up, spirit repaired. Before she even sat down she knew that everything had been decided, that her father, this time with the acquiescence of her husband, had claimed her back into the family. She was angry at Tim for his surrender, but her anger at herself was only slightly less. She would be glad to be returning home.
‘I think I’ll have some dessert, after all. No, not baked custard. I’ll have a couple of éclairs. I always over-eat when I’m unhappy. When do you leave for Abu Sadar?’
‘He goes as soon as possible,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ll stay on until you’re ready to leave, then you and Michael can come home with me. The Queen Mary is sailing next week.’
‘How appropriate. Just like old times.’
‘There was nothing wrong with old times.’
‘There is if you persist in trying to hang on to them. I see you’re ready for your coffee. I’ll have a double brandy with mine.’
‘The good life,’ said Tim, trying to salvage something out of the lunch, the past and the future. ‘I thought we had said goodbye to it, but it seems I was wrong.’
Chapter Four (#ulink_ed6deef4-9370-5722-9cc8-eee5ab223c3f)
Nina (#ulink_ed6deef4-9370-5722-9cc8-eee5ab223c3f)
1
It was another two months before Tim and Nina got away to their respective destinations. Lucas, an army of staff always standing by to do his bidding, had little idea what faced a man in a one-man business. The boat-yard could not be disposed of by just walking away from it; over the two months Tim gained an education in the failure of a business if in nothing else. Steve Hamill stayed on till the final winding-up.
He protested in strong terms when Tim said he and Eileen and the two children were to stay on at the hotel in Henley with the Davorens. ‘I can’t fork out that sort of money! I’ll spend the rest of my life paying you back.’
‘It comes out of business expenses. You won’t have to pay it back. No argument, Steve.’
On the last day Tim gave him a cheque for a thousand pounds. It was Nina who insisted that the Hamills be given that much and the money came from her own account. ‘Two years’ wages!’ said Steve. ‘What’s going on? I don’t want charity, mate. I know who Nina is now. The wife did a bit of looking up – she got in touch with the American embassy, they told her who Old Man Beaufort was – ’
‘It’s not charity. It’s a down payment on your first painting that has a thousand pounds price tag on it.’
‘You want your head read. If ever I get more than two hundred and fifty quid for a painting of mine – ’ He looked at the cheque and Tim saw the temptation in his face. ‘Money. It drugs you, doesn’t it?’
The question was too much on target, though he was sure Steve had not meant it to be personal.
They said goodbye to the Hamills and went up to London by train. The Jaguar SS had been disposed of and a property developer had bought the boat-yard site, wreckage and all. They checked into the Savoy again and Nina went shopping while Tim spent a week in the London office of Beaufort Oil. Nights they spent making love.
‘I’ll be worn out by the time I get to Abu Sadar.’
‘That’s the idea.’ He was highly sexed, something that had never troubled her in the past. But now there was just the lurking doubt. ‘Then you won’t be chasing the Arab girls up the date palms.’
‘I’d never think of doing it up a date palm. I’m going to miss you. I don’t mean just this. But you, just being with you.’
She could only answer him with tears, clinging to him as if she were losing him forever. They had not discussed her father; all they talked about was what they would do when the six months’ separation was up. When it came time for them to say goodbye down at Southampton, where Nina was to board the ship for New York, she was surprised at how emotional Tim became when he held Michael for the last time. There were tears in his eyes as he kissed the child.
‘Don’t let your father take him over. He’s our son and that’s what he’s going to stay. He’s not going to be known as Lucas’ grandson. Promise me?’
‘I promise. If he has to have a surrogate father, how about George Biff?’
‘Couldn’t be better. Goodbye, darling heart. Don’t look at any other chaps.’
‘Let’s make love as a final reminder.’
‘Here? I don’t think the sports deck was meant for that sort of sport.’
The ship sailed and Tim went back to London and two days later flew out to the Middle East. He hated the place: the desert, the discomfort, the tightly enclosed living among the small oil community. But he hid his feelings from those he worked with and was popular with them. He became acquainted with some of the American-educated young men and idly wondered if, as Lucas had predicted, they would provide trouble in the future.
He had been there three months when he flew up to Beirut with one of the engineers. The engineer, who had a girl friend, left him to his own devices. He met an English dancer from one of the night clubs, took her home and went to bed with her. In the morning she asked him for fifty pounds.
‘I don’t do it for love, love. When my legs have gone and my bosom’s drooping, I want to live in as much luxury as I can afford. I’m the original whore with a heart of gold. Only I have it in a bank and I keep adding to it every week.’
He handed her the money. ‘That’s penance, not payment.’
She kissed him. ‘You married men. Your conscience stands up as your cock goes down. Shall I see you again?’
‘I think not. Take care of your bullion.’
He went back to Abu Sadar, wondering how many people in Kansas City would think of him as a male whore when he went back there.
Nina had arrived home with mixed feelings that stayed with her like a dull fever for a month after her return. She missed Tim and she hated her father for what he had done to them. But she welcomed the security and warmth of being back home with her sisters.
‘How’s your love life?’ she asked Margaret.
‘She’s going out with an ancient man.’ Prue was now seven, bright and observant; she still had the innocence of childhood but was looking forward to losing it. ‘He’s a professor.’
‘He’s not a full professor and he’s only twenty-eight, for God’s sake.’ Margaret, trying to please her father, had elected to go to the University of Missouri instead of Vassar; but Lucas, disappointing her again, had taken her decision for granted. ‘He’s teaching me politics.’
‘Hah-hah,’ said Sally, who was beginning to show some of the beauty of her older sisters. She was still a tomboy, still mad about cars, but Nina noticed that when a boy called on Saturday evening to take her out she was as feminine as any of them. She had begun to learn that boys didn’t like kissing a grease-stained cheek, no matter how mechanical-minded they were. ‘That Frank Minett is more interested in Daddy than he is in you.’
‘What about you? Who’s your regular boy-friend?’
‘She’s got dozens,’ said Prue, the gossip columnist. ‘She goes out with anyone who’s got a sports car. She’s going to get into trouble some day, that’s what I heard Daddy tell Mother.’
‘Not in a sports car,’ said Nina, winking at Margaret and Sally. ‘Where does this child get her education?’
‘Reading books. She reads everything she can find. She brought home Forever Amber the other day from school. God knows where she got it.’
‘I think I’d like to have lived in olden times,’ said Prue. ‘Men liked women in those days.’
That six months was, up till then, the most drawn-out period Nina had ever lived through. Each day fell reluctantly from the calendar; a week was a long treadmill that never got her anywhere. She attended dinner parties put on by her parents, went to other parties with Margaret, took up with old schoolfriends; but all the distractions were only a way of filling in time and were not always successful. Sometimes, desperately hungry for Tim, she thought of taking off to join him but she knew she could not take Michael with her and she put the idea out of her mind. Once again she began to spoil Michael, lavishing on him all the attention that normally he would have had to share with his father.
That year, 1948, spun itself slowly off the globe and into the fog of history. The new nation of Israel was proclaimed; Arab armies invaded Palestine. Nina suddenly worried that Tim might be caught up in another war; but he wrote her reassuringly, telling her that the Arabs would never be united against a common foe. President Truman announced that the 80th Congress was the worst in history, a judgement that Lucas agreed with, though it gave his Republican conscience a hernia to say so. The Russians blockaded Berlin and some people began to wonder if Germany was to be another battleground so soon. Thomas E. Dewey was nominated as the Republican candidate for the coming Presidential elections and Lucas accepted a nomination to the Missouri Republican committee; Harry Truman was nominated again by the Democrats and Lucas at once gave a quarter of a million dollars to the Dewey campaign – ‘It’s worth it to get rid of that feller Truman.’ General Pershing, D. W. Griffiths and Babe Ruth died within a month of each other, each of them taking a little glory with them into the grave. The New Look, which had come in the year before, turned into an Old Look; but bobby-socks were still fashionable, proving that bobby-soxers were not as fickle as their older sisters.
Dr Kinsey appeared, to tell the world what it had long suspected, that the next door neighbours had their secrets too; people who had thought they were perverts suddenly discovered they were normal and rushed back to bed, some even neglecting to pull down the blinds. Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living was published and some people, who never looked at an author’s name, bought it thinking it was a sequel to Dr Kinsey’s Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. Women readers anxiously waited for Dr Kinsey’s promised book on female sexual behaviour, hoping to learn something that their husbands the dirty beasts, had experienced with the whores out at tha place on the edge of town. The months spun slowly away and Nina, careless of news or history, waited for Tim to come home.
He arrived back in time for Michael’s second birthday. ‘Good God, how he’s grown! What’s George been doing – stretching him?’
‘He thinks George is God Almighty. You’re going to have your nose put out of joint for a while. He doesn’t remember you, you know.’
‘Do you?’
She kissed him hungrily, glad that she had insisted that none of the family should come to the airport with her. ‘Don’t ever let us be separated again. I’ve practically dried up inside. I’ve had such a yen for you.’
‘Me too,’ he said, the dancer in Beirut forgotten.
Nina had bought a new car, a Buick, which she drove herself. Michael sat between them, looking up curiously at this stranger, not frightened of him but still cautious. ‘I thought you said he could talk?’
‘Give him time. He’s got to get used to having a strange man playing around with his mother.’
‘I hope he’s not going to be a two-year-old prude.’ He smiled at his son, who continued to look suspicious. ‘What does he think of his grandfather? Is he God Almighty too?’
She drove in silence for a while, as if concentrating on getting him home unscathed. She wondered if he felt that he was coming home, but was afraid to ask him.
‘Don’t start fighting with him, please darling.’
‘There won’t be any fighting. I’m a pacifist in family matters now. Totally spineless. I just want the major share of my son’s attention and affection, that’s all.’
‘You’ll get it,’ she promised, not wanting to spoil a moment of his homecoming. ‘Look, he’s already smiling at you. He has your smile, you know. Everyone comments on it.’
He looked steadily at her for a moment, then he relaxed and grinned at his son. ‘Five teeth. Is that my smile?’
The reunion with the family went off without incident. Tim was kissed warmly by Edith, Margaret, Sally and Prue, Lucas just as warmly shook hands. He was part of the family again and no one seemed to have any doubts that he might want it otherwise. Nina watched him being charming to everyone, but behind the smile and the banter she sensed a certain restraint, a reserve of feeling that he was not going to squander on this first day home.
She had been living in their own house ever since she had first returned from England and today she had prepared the place specially for him. He had always liked flowers, azaleas and camellias being his favourites, and every room glowed with their colours. She introduced him to the new staff she had engaged on her return, a cook and two housemaids, then she took him into the living-room. On the wall above the fireplace was one of Steve Hamill’s paintings.
‘The other paintings are in your study and the sketches in our bedroom. The more I look at them, the more I like them.’
He looked around the room, but in his mind’s eye he was looking all around the house and the estate. It was all so much better than anything he had lived in since leaving here a year ago. For want of a better phrase, let’s say I’ve come home.
‘Let’s have a look at the sketches in the bedroom.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
A long time later she would remember that first night of reunion. It was perfect: the playing with Michael before he was put to bed, the dinner alone for just the two of them, the love-making when they went to bed for the night. She had never been happier, her mind completely wrapped in the joys of the moment; she did not have to make any conscious effort to shut out tomorrow, the world was just this house and time was only now. Even the pain of the six months’ separation was forgotten.
Tim went to work in the oil company and, as far as Nina could judge, seemed happy and successful in his job. He went out of town, to New York, Washington, Chicago on business, but he was never away for more than two nights and he always called her each night. September became October; then November and the elections loomed. Republicans across the nation, Lucas not least of all, prepared to welcome President Dewey.
‘We must have a party,’ said Lucas. ‘We’ll have something to celebrate – a man of our own in the White House after sixteen years of those goddam Democrats. We’ll have the party on Election Night.’
‘Mightn’t that be a little premature?’ said Tim. ‘I’m not so sure that Truman won’t win.’
‘Care for a small bet? I’ll give you ten to one.’
It was a moment before Tim said quietly, ‘All right. I’ll put up five thousand dollars.’
Lucas looked as if he was going to laugh, then he frowned as he saw that Tim was serious. ‘That’s a lot of money for you. You’ve never been a gambling man before.’
‘No. But didn’t you once tell me that this country was built by men who took chances? Your father included.’
‘They didn’t back losing Presidents. Still, if you want to throw your money away … Five thousand. That’s half what the company’s paying you a year, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. So if I win I’ll be five years ahead.’
‘You might also be out of a job,’ said Lucas, but managed to smile as he said it.
Harry Truman came home to Independence, worn out by his whistle-stop campaign by train across the country. But on the front page of the Star, which had not endorsed him, he showed the old chirpy confident smile – ‘The people are going to win this election, not the pollsters.’
‘Bull,’ said Lucas, tying his black tie in front of the dressing-table mirror; Edith had decided that a Republican victory should be celebrated in proper style. ‘The pollsters are right, every one of them. He can’t goddam win!’
‘Watch your language, sweetheart – you’re starting to sound like him.’
Though the word had not then been coined to describe them, the Establishment of Kansas City was there that night at the Beaufort party. The celebration started as soon as they arrived; guests were drinking champagne toasts to victory within ten minutes of being inside the house. There was a television set and a radio in every room; the big house resembled a luxury campaign headquarters. The men looked rather sombre in their tuxedos, but the women provided a look of bunting: gowns of every colour swirled through the rooms, visible symbols of everyone’s gay spirits. Lucas had sent George Biff down to 12th Street to recruit a band; it jammed its way through a score of numbers, playing with such verve that one would have thought that every member of the band was a ragtime Republican. The only number they didn’t play was The Missouri Waltz, Mr Truman’s own favourite.
Nina, radiant in pink, was enjoying herself immensely. She had no interest in politics, but tonight’s party had all the bright revelry of parties she could remember from her girlhood. She danced with old boy-friends, hugged old girl-friends, raised her glass a dozen times in victory salutes with her parents’ friends. Then, wanting a respite, she went out on the wide enclosed veranda with Magnus McKea.
‘Where’s Tim?’ he asked.
She had been enjoying herself so much she hadn’t missed him. ‘Probably trying to dodge Daddy. He has a bet on, you know. He thinks Mr Truman will win.’
‘God forbid. I hope he’s not broadcasting it.’
‘Tim is more discreet than that. What time will we hear the first returns?’
‘Not for another hour at least. By then all the crowd should be pie-eyed, the way they’re going. Ah, Mr Minett. Quite a night, eh?’
Frank Minett was a heavily-built, medium-height man who looked several years older than he actually was. He was ambitious and that gave him a certain spurious aggressiveness which not-too-observant people mistook for confidence. But he was out of his depth in this house tonight, acutely aware of the power and money that he would never have.
‘Quite a night, Mr McKea. I was looking for Meg – she wants me to explain the trends in voting as they come in.’
‘No need for that,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s going to be a landslide all over.’
Then, looking through the wide french doors into the living-room, Nina saw Tim and Margaret come into the room, both of them looking a little dishevelled, as if they had been out in the rain and wind that had sprung up. Margaret said something to Tim, held his hand while she smiled at him, then went to join her mother and father. Tim looked around, saw Nina out on the veranda and came out, patting down his wind-blown hair. There were rain-spots on the shoulder of his dinner-jacket and a smudge of lipstick on his shirt.
‘You look as if you’ve been celebrating already,’ said Magnus.
‘He’s backing Mr Truman,’ said Nina. ‘What’s he got to celebrate?’
Magnus and Frank Minett seemed to retreat without actually moving. Neither of them was married but they recognized the electricity in a marital storm.
‘Oh, there’s Meg!’ Minett was gone as if he had been jerked away by an invisible wire.
‘Think I need a refill,’ said Magnus, not even looking at his almost full glass. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Well,’ said Tim when he and Nina were alone, ‘my deodorant can’t be working.’
‘Your charm must be working. You have lipstick on your shirt.’
He smiled, unabashed. ‘Meg’s. Or did you think it might be someone else’s?’
Suddenly she felt ridiculous, wondering what had made her so jealous and suspicious of Margaret. He seemed only mildly concerned, as if perplexed that she should suspect him of any sort of philandering with Margaret or anyone else.
‘Sorry. I think I’ve had too much champagne.’
It was only later, just as she was about to drop off to sleep in his arms in their bed, that it came to her that he had made no attempt to explain why Margaret’s lipstick was on his shirt. But that was after they had made love and she knew from experience that the mind had a way of shooting off at tangents after sex, thought trying to re-establish itself again after animal instinct.
The party began to wind down around midnight when it became apparent that Dewey was not going to have a landslide victory after all, that in fact President Truman was leading in the early returns. Magnus McKea got on the phone to the Star and came back to report that the political writers were now working on second, revised drafts of their columns.
‘They tell me that Harry Truman is out at Excelsior Springs, has gone to bed and is sound asleep. The man’s too damned cocky.’
‘Going to sleep while feeling cocky – that’s no mean feat,’ said Tim. ‘We had a Prime Minister who used to go to sleep, Stanley Baldwin, but that was because he couldn’t stay awake once he sat down in the Commons.’
‘You’re looking cocky, too,’ said Lucas.
‘Would you make out the cheque to cash, just in case you decide to commit suicide before the banks open? I don’t want Magnus as your executor freezing all transactions.’
The men grouped around the television set in Lucas’ study. A few women, Margaret included, hovered in the background. Edith had looked in once or twice, but like most of the women at the party she knew better than to intrude too much. When things were going bad politically, men found women a nuisance. Politics, Lucas had told her, was a male disease that the weaker sex should avoid.
It was Nina, inoculated by too much champagne, who intruded. She breezed into the study, looked at the glum faces, then announced, ‘Cheer up, for God’s sake! It’s not going to be the end of the world if Truman wins!’
‘Darling heart,’ said Tim, the only cheerful face in the room, ‘you are risking being scalped. I believe the gentlemen here are just about to join the Indians.’
Frank Minett laughed, then strangled it as several of the black-tied Indians looked at him as if he should be scalped. Margaret, sitting on the arm of his chair, cuffed his ear. Lucas didn’t even glance at him but looked at his favourite as if she had hit him with a poisoned arrow.
‘Nina, we’re not worried about the world. It’s what that feller can do to this country that concerns us. Now please stop acting like a high school cheer leader.’
‘I think I should make a confession – I voted for Mr Truman.’ She had not, but she was in a rebellious mood; something had gone wrong with her evening and she wasn’t sure what it was. ‘I’m disgusted that anyone from the Midwest could vote for a New Yorker like that Tom Dewey.’
‘I apologize for my daughter, gentlemen,’ said Lucas.
‘He feels like Mrs Brutus,’ said Tim. ‘Darling heart, you shouldn’t stab Caesar in this temple.’
‘I think you’re both drunk,’ said Margaret, coming to her father’s aid.
‘French champagne,’ said Tim. ‘It wouldn’t have happened if we had been drinking domestic stuff. Never trust the French. Remember saying that, Lucas?’
‘I hate to say it,’ said Magnus McKea, ‘but I think it’s all over. I shall go home and get drunk. On domestic bourbon.’
‘Spoken like an honourable loser,’ said Tim. He sounded as recklessly rebellious as Nina; she had never seen him so opposed to her father in public. He was smiling all the time, seemed in high good humour, but he was getting malicious satisfaction from the fact that he looked like winning his bet with Lucas. ‘I’ll be over in the morning, Lucas old chap. Shall we leave the wake, darling heart?’
Nina took his arm, ‘Bear up, Daddy. You only have to wait another four years. Who knows whom you’ll find?’
Next day, after he had collected his cheque from Lucas, Tim went downtown to the Muehlebach Hotel and managed to shake hands with President Truman. ‘My father-in-law Lucas Beaufort asked me to give you his congratulations, Mr President,’ he lied.
The President’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses. ‘I’ll bet. Ask him if he’d like to come to Washington and work for me. I’m looking for someone to run the social welfare programme.’
Tim went across and deposited his cheque in his account in the City and Country Bank. The teller’s eyes went up when he saw the amount and the signature; Tim was tempted to tell him what the cheque represented, but refrained. Last night’s champagne was now a sour taste in his mouth. There was also another sour taste, the memory of what had happened with Margaret in one of the empty rooms above the stables. His sense of guilt was doubled by the knowledge that he had enjoyed being with her and that he could be tempted again.
He stood outside the bank in a drizzle of rain wondering where he might go. He was thinking of the ends of the earth, but eventually he went home. Or what, in today’s mood, passed for home.
2
Though they never came to open warfare and they were always polite to each other, the gap between Tim and Lucas widened. Nina only slowly became aware of it, because Tim never mentioned it. She also slowly became aware of a change in him, a retreat into himself. It was not so much a shutting-out of her as that he seemed to become absent-minded about her. He was just as passionate in bed; but then it is difficult to be absent-minded about sex unless one is a professional. But the light-hearted courting of her that had been such a custom of his was now only an occasional whim. She wondered if this was how it was with all marriages, if husbands and wives, though still in love, stopped being lovers. On a couple of occasions when he went off on business trips he neglected to phone her at night. She even, to her shame, began to look for signs that he was having an affair with another woman, but there was none. Her one stab of jealousy towards Margaret had already been forgotten, put out of her mind by the fact that Margaret’s time now seemed taken up with Frank Minett.
‘Is he getting serious?’ she asked one day when she had volunteered to pick up Margaret at the university. ‘Prue tells me he’s always hanging around the house.’
‘Prue notices too much. Yes, he’s serious. But I’m not. The trouble is, Daddy thinks he’s just great. He wants Frank to leave the university and go into the bank.’
‘I thought Frank’s subject was politics, not economics.’
‘Frank’s subject is anything that’s going to get him to the top.’
‘You sound as if you don’t like him.’
‘Oh, I like him all right. But I’d like to do my own choosing, not have Daddy do it for me – which is virtually what he’s doing. You were lucky. I mean, choosing Tim without any interference from Daddy.’
‘Oh, he tried to interfere. He’ll never forgive Tim for being independent.’ She paused. ‘Have you noticed any change in him lately? Tim, I mean.’
Intent on driving, she did not notice Margaret’s careful glance at her. ‘No. Why?’
Nina took her eyes off the road for a moment. ‘You sound as if I shouldn’t have asked you that question.’
‘Maybe that’s how I do feel. He’s your husband – we shouldn’t be talking about him.’
‘We’ve been talking about Frank.’ She knew she had made a mistake. If Margaret herself had been married it might have been different, but Margaret had no experience to draw upon, had, as far as she knew, never been in love, not really in love. ‘No, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s just that – well, Daddy’s turned his back on him. Tim’s not going to get anywhere in the oil company.’
‘How do you know? Has he told you?’
Nina turned the car in through the gates of the estate, nodded to the security guard as he saluted them. ‘No. But I recognize the signs. It’s going to be the stockyards all over again. I’m beginning to think we should go away again.’
‘Where would you run to this time?’
Nina jerked the car to a halt, skidding it in the gravel. ‘That sounds so – so brutal!’
‘It’s true, isn’t it? If you take Tim away from here again – ’
‘For your information, I didn’t take him away last time. It was a mutual idea – ’
‘You still went, that’s the point, and it didn’t work out. You’re never going to win your fight with Daddy by trying to beat him from a distance.’
‘You’re talking about transferring to Vassar next semester. Is that how you’re going to win your fight over Frank?’
‘My case is different. I’m not married to Frank and not likely to be. I just want to get away from here for a year or two. I’ll come back eventually because I don’t think I’d want to live anywhere else. But Daddy’s not going to run my life the way he’s tried to run yours and Tim’s. Thanks for picking me up.’
She got out of the car and ran up the steps and into the big house, not looking back. Nor did Nina look after her: instead she looked across the lawns to where Tim, George Biff and Michael were playing with a tennis ball. Tim had been spending a great deal of time with Michael and George; as a mother she was delighted but as a wife she sometimes felt she was in the way. She looked at the man’s world there on the green lawns and suddenly wished for another child, a daughter. She drove on down to the stables, garaged the car and walked back up the winding path. The air held the promise of a hot dry summer to come and she wondered where she, Tim and Michael could go to avoid it. Perhaps to Minnesota or even Maine. A long way from her father.
‘Two and a half years old and he has the reflexes of Fred Perry,’ said Tim, showing his chauvinism when it came to sport.
‘And Sugar Ray Robinson, too,’ said George, who wouldn’t have known Fred Perry from Suzanne Lenglen but knew his boxers. ‘He gets beat at tennis, he can knock out the referee.’
Michael was a sturdy child, big for his age and seemingly without fear. He tumbled about the lawn, chasing after the ball when it was thrown to him, falling over and coming up gurgling with laughter. It was obvious that his father had now become his particular favourite, even over George. He saw Nina, threw the tennis ball at her, then rushed at her and almost bowled her off her feet.
‘Terrific tackler, too,’ said Tim. ‘We’ll put him down for Cambridge next year. Eton or Harrow first, then Cambridge.’
‘He’s going to be educated in England?’ She meant to say it lightly but it came out tart. Which was her real feeling.
‘I thought we’d discussed it.’ He managed to get the proper light note; he tossed the ball high into the air and caught it to his son’s great delight. ‘English education is still the best, despite the socialists.’
Michael saw his aunts, Sally and Prue, come out of the rear of the big house. He screamed at them, then galloped off towards them. Tim nodded at George. ‘Keep an eye on him, George. Don’t let the girls spoil him.’
‘No chance. He’s like me, a man’s man.’
As she and Tim walked towards their own house, Nina said, ‘I don’t think we’ve said a word about Michael’s education.’
‘No, we haven’t. That was why I was surprised when your father told me everything was arranged.’
‘Nothing is arranged! Did you argue with him?’
‘I no longer argue with your father. In another nine or ten years, when Michael is ready to go to boarding school, your father may no longer be with us. He’s almighty, but I don’t think he’s immortal.’
She changed the subject abruptly. Criticism was not one of her pleasures, especially of him. ‘Why home so early?’
‘I’ve decided I’m working too hard.’
‘Are you getting lazy?’ She smiled, straining to be light.
He bounced the tennis ball on the close-cut lawn as they walked. ‘Yes, I think I am. Or put it another way – I ask myself is there any point in working? Daddy, I’ve learned, is invincible. He is never going to allow me to be sacked from the oil company – he would never let that happen, for your sake. But I’m never going to get very far up the ladder, either. The truth is, I am not a businessman at heart. The thought of selling millions or billions of gallons of oil doesn’t thrill me in the least. And the word has got through to Daddy that the marketing division finds me less than enthusiastic.’
‘What’s got into you? You sound, I don’t know, shiftless. You were never like that before.’
‘I think I was, only you never saw it. Neither did I. Darling heart, don’t be offended by this. I’ve decided I like being a rich girl’s husband, but I’m not going to work at it. Steve Hamill had a word to describe me – a bludger. If one can swallow one’s conscience, and I’ve been chewing mine for some time, there’s no pain at all in being a bludger. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the way it is going to be, I’m afraid. I enjoy luxury. Just as you do,’ he added unmaliciously.
‘I was born to it,’ she said, as if that were some sort of argument. But he was unimpressed and she went on, ‘What are you going to do, then?’
‘I’ll do what all the other bludgers – ’
‘Don’t use that word.’
He looked at her quizzically, bounced the ball a few times. She felt awkward, somehow naked; this was a crisis in their marriage and she was unprepared for it. From the maples at the rear of the park there came the plaintive note of a mourning dove; but across the lawns the laughter of Michael, Sally and Prue was a counterpoint. Somewhere a lawn-mower whirred and out on the parkway traffic growled, hummed and sighed. In the midst of an ordinary day, surrounded by the security that she treasured, she felt her life falling apart. She stared at him for some help, but he was blind to or ignored her silent plea.
‘I shan’t make myself conspicuous. I’ll fill in my time so that, if nothing else, I’ll look busy. But most of all I’ll concentrate on being a father. Just to make sure Michael doesn’t grow up in my image.’
‘Whose image do you want for him?’
‘Not your father’s.’ He smiled, but still managed to sound good-humoured.
She felt bewildered, first by Margaret’s outburst, now by this casual declaration by Tim that he was throwing in the towel. True, she had orginally wanted him to become part of the family, though at the time she had not really appreciated how much that surrendering of his independence would mean to him. But in the three years they had been married she had come to see his point, to share his determination to be his own man and not her father’s. He was not becoming her father’s man now. What was worse, he was settling for being her man, letting her money keep him. Her disappointment in him sickened her, yet she knew that she was the one who had planted the seed of corruption.
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Jon Cleary
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Триллеры
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: From the award-winning Jon Cleary comes a story of four sisters – Nina, Margaret, Sally and Pru – the beautiful and wilful daughters of Lucas Beaufort, the richest man in Kansas City.Nina, Margaret, Sally and Prue – the four beautiful and spoilt daughters of the richest and most powerful man in Kansas. They took what they wanted and loved whoever they pleased. Their father could buy them anything they desired, but even his wealth could not buy them happiness.