Blood Stones (23 page)

‘I had the laugh on David Wasserman,' he said. ‘I wish you'd seen his face when I told him we were meeting Ivan Karakov. He'd spent half an hour telling me how hard he'd tried to persuade the bugger to give me an interview, and how impossible he'd been. So I just said, I wish I'd known because you'd already arranged it. Through a mutual friend. He was really rather pissed off.'

‘Not as pissed off as Clara,' she giggled. ‘I get up her nose … you ought to have heard her when I telephoned. Taking it for granted that you'd come and leave me all alone on my bed of pain.' She smiled up at him. ‘I'd forgotten about Jean Pierre's dinner party. He was so kind today, I asked him to be godfather.'

‘Jumping the gun, aren't you, darling? We'll be home when it's born. I wonder what it is?'

‘I'm not going to find out,' she said firmly. ‘They can scan all they want, but they're not going to tell me. You don't want to know, do you? It would spoil it.'

‘Whatever you say,' he agreed. ‘And now, Lady Liz, I think it's time you went to bed. Come on.'

‘Life,' Elizabeth said happily, ‘is going to be a nightmare, I can see.'

8

‘How much longer do you think we'll have to stay here?'

Reece looked at her anxiously. She was frowning and she hadn't spoken much since he came back. The light shone on her brown hair from behind; he wished she wouldn't go to the hairdresser. He hated it cut short and crimped into curls. He liked it as it used to be when they were young, long and dark, hanging in waves past her shoulders.

‘I don't know; not too long.'

‘I hate London,' she said. ‘I want to go home.'

Home was their flat in Johannesburg. When their parents died they had sold the house on the Cape where they were born and moved to the great gold capital, where Reece got his first job and she began taking a secretarial course. They had a little money, but not enough to manage without both working, though he hadn't liked the idea at first. She was so precious to him and not strong; she had never been strong. He was afraid something might happen to her. He could remember one night when she had a fever – he was about twelve and she was ten – and he had sat outside her door all night, crying because he thought she was going to die. Nothing had happened between them then. Nothing would ever have happened if she hadn't started it. Their father kept a general store in a small town on the Cape. He had come out from England as a young man, and married an Afrikaans girl.

They had been a dour couple, wrapped up in their business and the minutiae of their daily life; the brother and sister grew up within certain set limits. If they did wrong they got a hiding; if they were good they didn't get one. The first time his father took the stick to his sister nearly drove Reece mad. He was a sallow, puny boy, and when he flew at his father, kicking and punching out, the old man sent him flat on his face with one push. Reece had realized then how much he hated his father, how much he hated everyone except Joy. They were alone in the world, the small world of the shop, with its stuffy smell of soap and paraffin and stale food, and the hard, dry, sun-scoured world outside, where the dust rose from the streets and nothing ever happened.

‘The moment I can, I'll take you back,' he said. ‘I promise.'

‘You're always promising. Last time you said it wouldn't be more than six months. It was a whole year. Now we're back, and you still don't know how much longer we'll have to be here. I miss the sun. I'm always getting colds. You went on ahead and I had to come over by myself. I was frightened sick in the plane. You know how I hate flying. I thought you might have waited for me.'

Reece put down the book he was reading. He knew the signs. She was discontented and spoiling for a row; he dreaded those rows; they made him sick inside. They upset her, too, in spite of the fact that she provoked them. She looked pinched and red-eyed for days after they'd had a quarrel, and he couldn't help making it up. He'd had a hard day and he wasn't going to fight that night. He wanted to sit quietly at home with her and read, or listen to music.

He said patiently, trying to explain, to placate her, ‘I couldn't help it. Mr Julius wanted me to go immediately. I've been trying to see that daughter, and she won't even answer and let me in. He's so worried about her. Be reasonable, Joy. She's like a gun at his head. I feel so sorry for him.'

‘Well, I don't,' she said angrily. ‘She's filthy, marrying a dirty Kaffir! Why should he care what happens to her? He should let her die in the gutter. That's where she belongs.'

Reece didn't answer. He knew his sister in this mood. She looked up at him, her eyes bright with malice.

‘Don't forget what he owes you,' she said. ‘One day someone should tell him …'

‘Don't talk like that, Joy.' For a moment his voice was quite sharp and his face was the face the outside world knew; he seldom spoke or looked like that at his sister, but when he did she lost her ascendancy over him. She had once or twice suggested he should blackmail Julius Heyderman, and she still couldn't realize that he would never do it. ‘Anything I've done for Mr Julius he's more than paid back. I've told you not to mention that business! It's all over. He knew nothing about it.'

‘He didn't have to,' she said, ‘it's a great thing to be a Heyderman. You can do what you like and someone like you bails him out. And that daughter.'

‘She doesn't matter,' Reece said. They had forgotten about their disagreement because the Heydermans and the Harrises were their favourite topic. They roused a mixture of jealousy and interest in his sister, who plied him with questions about them all. She took a malicious delight in the rivalry between the two men, but she couldn't quite make up her mind who she wanted to win. Julius would, of course; her brother would see to that. She'd read a book once about the Chinese tongs and thought how well the description of the hatchet men fitted her brother. Everyone was uneasy with him, except her. She could twist him round her finger. And nobody knew; nobody had any idea. ‘The only thing that matters is to keep Mr Julius away from scandal. And anxiety. A man with his responsibilities can't be worried about family matters all the time. He'd never be able to run the business.'

He spoke about his employer as if the dictator tycoon were a kind of benevolent English head of department being protected by a devoted spinster secretary. He had brought that attitude with him to Diamond Enterprises when he was still a minor employee; his readiness to tackle difficult problems caught his senior's eye. Somehow the word had got round: if there's some dirty work you want done, someone threatening a lawsuit against the company, someone who is making a noise about the price they got for their diamonds, put Reece on to it; he'll sort them out. And he did. He was said to know people in the Joburg underworld, one of the toughest crime capitals in the world. Once or twice he had been seen going down streets at night where no respectable person was safe. And everything that was said about him was true.

It began when he was sixteen and his sister came into his bed, whispering and pleading and guiding his hands to her. He hadn't known until then what he wanted, or that he had been wanting it from his first signs of puberty, but it happened between them, and they had shared their secret and their guilt. There was no cause for jealousy between them, because she never encouraged men and he wasn't aware of other women. They drew closer and closer; by the time their parents died they had been lovers for nearly ten years, and they felt and spoke and behaved alone as if they were married. But it was a lie, and it took its toll; it had made an outcast of Reece before he ever went out into the world, and he behaved like an outcast. He hated and despised people because he knew how they would hound him and his sister down in horror. He had no pity and no scruples because he felt instinctively that he had forfeited the right to both himself. The world and all the smug, respectable people in it would think that what he and Joy felt for each other was dirty. So he looked on the world with the same eye. When he became personal assistant to Julius Heyderman, for the first time in his life he worked for a man he could admire, a giant among pygmies.

Heyderman bound Reece to him with confidences, and he gave the insignificant, dull-seeming man a sense of importance and self-respect because a man like Julius Heyderman held him in regard. Reece hero-worshipped him, and would do anything for Julius Heyderman because he had given him the means to protect Joy.

They had a fine collection of classical records, and a superb hi-fi player. They had been to several concerts at the Festival Hall, and sat holding hands in the deepest enjoyment. They hadn't made friends in London any more than in Johannesburg. They had agreed to that long ago. They had their world and it didn't admit attachments.

She wasn't as dark as he was, nor as thin. She had a round, petulant face and hazel eyes. She was thirty-eight, but she looked much younger, as if her maturity had stopped in the very early twenties. She was the type of woman who would look young for years, and then crumple like a paper bag.

Reece couldn't understand why she was so irritable and snappish at times. He did everything for her, spoiled her and paid her more attention sexually than most men were said to do with their wives.

But she wasn't always like that; she made it up to him after she'd been quarrelsome. Really, they were very happy, perfectly suited.

‘Joy, I tell you what we'll do. I'll get seats for that new production at the Old Vic tomorrow, and we'll have a night out. We'll go to the theatre, and have a nice supper afterward. How would you like that?'

‘That'd be lovely,' she smiled. ‘I'd like to do that.'

They settled down in contentment with their books for the rest of the evening.

‘Mummy?'

‘Yes, darling.'

‘When's Daddy coming back?'

Susan Andrews put down her darning. Their daughter was doing some homework at the desk by the window in their sitting-room. Susan was glad of her company. Ray had been away for over a month, and she was very lonely.

‘I don't know, darling. He said in his last letter he hoped to be back soon, but I don't think he will be, or we'd have heard.'

‘He's a long time,' the child said. ‘What's he doing out there, Mum?'

‘Trying to make a business agreement, darling. But it's slow going.'

Susan had tried to take it all in from his calls and letters, but it was difficult; it was especially difficult to visualize Ray building a relationship with an ex-Communist Russian. To her, all Russians were Communists and not to be trusted. She tried to write back intelligently, but her letters always ran away with her and she ended by sending him pages about Frances's skating lessons or Peter's last letter from Canada. The refrigerator had gone wrong, and there was a sudden warm spell; everything was off when they went to make breakfast in the morning and the repair people hadn't come for two days. Their friends the Simpsons had been round and they'd had a very pleasant evening; it had cheered her up. She'd had an invitation from Mrs Arthur Harris for a company dinner at the Dorchester for one of the South African gold mines directors. She was terrified having to go without Ray, but she supposed she'd have to; she thought it advisable to get a new dress, but couldn't make up her mind whether to buy something locally or go to town for it. She missed him dreadfully, and when did he think he'd be getting back? Would he cable her the very minute he knew?

That dinner invitation was hanging over her like the sword of Damocles. When she first opened it, she decided not to go; to accept and then be ill. Then she worried in case somebody knew she was only making an excuse, and of course it would reflect on Ray. All these things had a bearing on a man's career, and it was getting worse. Big industries felt they had a stake in their executives' private lives; the wrong wife can ruin the most promising man. She had heard that said several times, and wondered miserably whether it applied to her. They were so happy, she and Ray and the children. Ray was brilliant, at the top of his profession. Why couldn't they be content with that and leave her out of it? She had nothing to contribute, and she admitted that humbly. She wasn't a great wit or good at making conversation, and she wasn't a beauty and a socialite like James Hastings' wife, or sophisticated like Valerie Kruger. Why couldn't Mrs Arthur Harris let her stay quietly at home waiting for her husband and not put her through this ordeal? It was a compliment, of course, to be asked. She said that loyally to herself. It showed that Ray was much closer to Arthur than anyone else for him to ask her when her husband was away. She had written her note of acceptance and stuck the engraved card on the mantelpiece in the mirror frame. It watched her like a threat, and there were only five days left. She had been hoping and praying that Ray would be back in time; then it wouldn't be so bad. He knew she was nervous and he always stayed close and looked after her. It wasn't so bad when Valerie Kruger was there because she used to come to Susan's rescue and keep her out of Christa Harris's way. Mrs Harris was a woman that Susan found it impossible to like, loyal as she was to Arthur personally. There was something about the way the other woman shook hands and said hello that made Susan instinctively look down to see if she'd spilled something on her dress before she left home. One went to these awful formal parties and had one drink before dinner and talked about nothing to people who kept looking round while you were speaking in search of someone more amusing or important. And you ate the dinners, often listening politely to the conversation going on between your neighbour on the right and his neighbour, and sipped at the wine, and longed to go home. The coffee stage was the worst, because Arthur was very expansive after brandy, and he kept his guests sitting on, talking about the business, until his wife gave the peremptory signal and got everybody up. Susan had seen her do that once when her husband was in the middle of a sentence. She had felt terribly embarrassed for him and thought it the most ill-bred thing she had seen in her life. There wasn't much choice in her wardrobe. She had worn everything before, and she knew she wouldn't look right in any of them. Short or long. The wretched card didn't say. Just black tie. If only Ray were here he could have made enquiries, or asked Kruger's mistress Ruth Fraser what she was wearing. The recognition given to that relationship had shocked Susan. None of the other wives liked Ruth; what wife would, with that background – confidential secretary, mistress? She stood her ground at all the parties, Dick's big diamond blazing on her engagement finger. She had always been friendly to Susan, and Susan was too self-effacing to realize that it was because she had been nice to Ruth when they met. There was a long red silk jersey dress that Ray liked very much, but it was three years old and she decided definitely against it. She had a black silk cocktail dress which was quite nice, but she'd worn that last time she was invited to a theatre party, and her best, the short green faille, which Ray had paid for as a present, was too summery for autumn.