England Made Me (7 page)

‘No,' Krogh said, ‘no. I don't understand it.' He was embarrassed. Correctness was the quality he most valued: the correctness of a machine, the correctness of a report. It was necessary at times, he thought coldly, for men to go with women as it was necessary at times not to disclose certain assets, to conceal the real value of certain shares, but there was a way of doing these things, and he watched with astonishment and suspicion the Minister nibbling the edge of a macaroon. A tiredness touched him at manners he could not understand and words he did not appreciate, and he thought for the second time that afternoon of his bed-sitting-room in Barcelona and the little model that ticked him into fortune: into great wealth, into great influence, into this weariness and this anxiety. He had entered the American market, he had to be prepared for American methods.

He thought of Chicago. He had been happy in Chicago, a Chicago quite untouched in those days by gang warfare. It was a long time ago, before Barcelona; he could not remember now why he had been happy. He could remember only these things: ice on the lake, a room in an apartment-house with a hammock bed, the bridge on which he worked and how one night when it snowed he had bought a hot dog at a street corner and ate it under an arch out of the wind's way. He supposed that he had friends, but he could not remember them, girls, but there was no face left him. He was a man then still unconditioned by his career.

Now he was hopelessly conditioned by it: even here in the light airy white-walled room, catching the Minister's eye over the spirit kettle. He knew that presently he would be suffering the usual cross-examination: did he see any hope at all for rubber? what were the chances of a boom in silver? Saõ Paulo coffee, Mexican railways, Rio improvements, and finally the thank-offering, the patronage: I told my broker to buy two hundred of your last flotation, as if Erik Krogh should be grateful to the author of
Viol and Vine
for the loan of two hundred pounds.

The voices came towards him in waves, breaking where the Minister stood above his Rockingham china, rippling towards him, dying out several yards away, receding in a rush, to rise and fall again over the tea-table. Even the hawk-faced woman had retired; no more than the others did she feel capable of talking financially; not all his patient vigils at the opera, his stately fox-trots with Kate in conspicuous places, his evening parties in the presence of collected editions, had served to convince them that he was a man who cared for the same things as themselves. And certainly, he thought, opening
Viol and Vine
again at random, they are right: I don't understand these things. If only Kate were here.

The man-servant opened the door and padded to his side. ‘A long-distance call from Amsterdam, sir.' The phrase braced him, and he was momentarily happy, following the servant from the room, down the bright pictured passage to the Minister's study. He waited till the man had gone before he lifted the receiver. ‘Hullo,' he said in English, ‘hullo. Is that Hall?' A very small, very clear voice replied, scraped and cleaned and polished by the miles between: ‘It's me, Mr Krogh.'

‘I'm speaking from the British Legation. Tell me. What happened on the Exchange?'

‘They are still dumping stock.'

‘You bought, of course?'

‘Yes, Mr Krogh.'

‘You kept the price steady?'

‘Yes, but . . .'

Yes, but – it was the same doubting voice, with the faint Cockney intonation, that had inserted itself into the bed-sitting-room at Barcelona. I tell you there is no serious friction. Yes, but – He thought of Hall with irritation; the man had no quality but fidelity; it was odd to think how they had once spoken on such level terms that they had been Jim and Erik (not Hall and Mr Krogh), borrowing each other's boiler-suit, drinking together at the wine shop near the Bull Ring.

‘Go on buying. Don't let the price fall more than half a point.'

‘Yes, Mr Krogh, but –'

If he had been less trustworthy he would have been a director now and not Laurin. Hall and Kate. Kate and Hall. ‘Listen,' Krogh said, ‘the stock is nearly worthless. Much better for it to be in our hands. We don't want questions.' One had to explain things to Hall as to a child.

‘If the I.G.S. can afford it . . .'

‘Of course it can afford it. We have Rumania now, in a week or two America.'

‘Money's close.'

‘I can always get money.'

‘Three-minute call up,' the exchange said.

‘One moment,' Hall said, ‘one thing more.'

‘What's that?'

‘Three-minute call up.'

‘Dongen's . . .' Hall's voice was snipped in two like a piece of tin; the telephone whistled and moaned, a fading voice said: ‘
Une femme insensible
,' and then silence and a gentle tapping at the door.

‘Come in,' Krogh said.

‘My dear fellow,' the Minister put his head round the door, entered on tiptoe, ‘I don't want to disturb you, but I must snatch a moment away from these harpies. A disgusting woman has just chipped one of my cups. Oh dear, I see you are still phoning.'

‘No,' Krogh said, ‘I've finished,' and he hung up the receiver.

‘What a life,' the Minister said, ‘tied to the end of a phone. Money, figures, shares, morning till night. You weren't even at the opera yesterday, were you?'

‘No,' Krogh said, ‘I had meant to go, but something intervened.'

‘You know,' the Minister said, ‘the other day I took some of your last issue.'

‘You could do worse,' Krogh said.

‘Of course, I never really expected to be able to get any. I am so slow about these things. I was quite astonished, my dear fellow, to find that the lists were still open. After twelve hours.'

‘Money is more close than it was.'

‘Of course, I don't speculate. Really it's because I regard Krogh stock as gilt-edged . . .' He flitted, a grey worried phantom, from door to window, from window to bookcase. There was something on his mind.

‘Not gilt-edged at ten per cent, Sir Ronald.'

‘I know, I know, my dear fellow, but one trusts you. As a matter of fact, I've done – will you have a whisky? – something which a few years ago I might have thought rash, Krogh. I've put a lot of money, a damned lot of money for me, into this last flotation. It's sound, isn't it?'

‘As sound as the parent company.'

‘Yes, of course. It must seem odd my asking you like this, but I've never put so many eggs into one basket before. Damn it, Krogh, a man at my age should not have to worry about money. My father never had to worry. Consols were good enough for him. But today one can't even trust Government stocks. Labour governments, moratoriums, everything is so uncertain. Do you know, Krogh, in the last year two friends of mine have been ruined. Really ruined, I mean. Not a question of selling the car or the hunters, but left high and dry with about twenty pounds a week. It makes one think, Krogh, it makes one think.'

‘You have a few Metallic Industries, haven't you?'

‘Yes, a couple of thousand. They've been doing very well. Not Krogh stock, of course, my dear fellow, but still very fair.'

‘If you will let me advise you,' Krogh said, ‘I should get in touch with your broker first thing in the morning. I think they will pass a hundred and twenty-five shillings tomorrow, they may even reach a hundred and thirty, but tell him to sell as soon as they reach a hundred and twenty-five shillings. They'll drop to eighty shillings before the end of the week.'

‘That's very good of you, very good of you indeed. Now if only your list hadn't closed, I really believe that a few more eggs in that basket –'

‘Ring up my secretary, Miss Farrant, tomorrow. I think I might be able to spare you a thousand or so at par. For friendship's sake,' he said with an icy attempt at geniality. The Minister pattered up and down the room in excitement, swinging his monocle, talking of rubber, of Rio Improvements, recurring again and again to Metallic Industries; there was something fawn-like in his greed; it was robbed of half its grossness by his manner, childlike and inexpert. Krogh watched and listened with faint irritation; he stood stiffly against the bookcase which contained a few of Sir Ronald's own works:
Silverpoint
and
Once at the Mermaid
and
A Pilgrim in Thessaly
. Part of his stiffness was pride, part the dislike he could not disguise for the amateur in finance, and part was simply the gawkiness of the poor past: the wooden cottage and the nights on the lake, the wild geese and the Chicago bridge.

‘When did you last see the Prince?' Sir Ronald said.

‘The Prince, the Prince,' Krogh said, ‘oh, it was last week, I think.' A little chiming clock told out the hour. ‘I must be off,' he said, ‘the Wall Street prices will be through.' But after twenty years of prosperity he was still uneasy, still afraid of a slip in manner which would betray his peasant birth. He watched the other man with a hungry anxiety – whether to bow, or to shake hands, or simply to smile and nod; for the moment he was absorbed as deeply as over a question of finance.

“Then if I telephone –' the Minister said, whirling his monocle.

Suddenly, from out of what distant past Krogh could not say, a joke emerged of the crudest indecency; it came with the warmth of an ancient friendship renewed; it surprised him into a smile of rare humanity.

‘What's the joke, my dear fellow?' the Minister asked with astonishment.

But the joke, like an old friend, could not be passed on: it belonged to a different, a harsher, shabbier, friendlier period. He was ashamed of it now, he could not introduce it to new friends, not to the Minister nor to the Prince nor even to Kate: give it food secretly and money, and pack it away; it at least would never come back for blackmail; but it left him with a sense of loneliness, of dryness, as if his life now were narrower instead of infinitely enlarged. ‘And when they got to the bawdy house . . .'

‘It was nothing. A thought. I must be going.'

But the telephone rang. The Minister took up the receiver, then passed it to Krogh. ‘Yours, my dear fellow. I'll leave you to it. Ring the bell when you've finished and Calloway will show you out.' He pressed Krogh's arm affectionately and tiptoed away. Once he put his head back to remind Krogh: ‘I shall ring up tomorrow at eleven.'

‘But it's impossible,' Krogh was saying. ‘We've got informers in every department. What were they doing?' When he heard the Minister speak he said: ‘I'll be back immediately. Get hold of Herr Laurin; he knows how to talk to these men.' He was impatient; he started for the door; he did not want to wait for Calloway, but in the passage the delicate sound of tea-cups, the sight of the gold-framed dignitaries restrained him. He stiffened and went back and rang the bell.

“Not a nice evening, sir,' Calloway said, pulling at his coat. ‘More of that nasty mist we had yesterday.'

‘A taxi, please.'

He watched Calloway standing in the middle of the road with two fingers raised and thought: he wanted to talk to me; even Calloway, I suppose, buys shares. Or perhaps he only wanted to gossip about the weather. How does one speak to people? How does one address a man with different interests, different standards? A troop of cavalry rode between him and Calloway; the bald man in the short black jacket was momentarily hidden by a moving grove of brass and plume. The officer saw Krogh on the steps of the Legation and nodded and waved his white-gloved hand; the horses tossed their heads and stepped lightly under the lamps, waving their chestnut tails. Everyone on the pavement stood still and watched them go by, smiling at the troopers, as if something young, lovely and irresponsible were passing. Only Calloway seemed unmoved as he looked this way and that way and signalled for a taxi.

The monogram over the entrance to the court was unlit. The ring of small blackened bulbs reminded him of a tarnished steel brooch. He said sharply to the porter: ‘Why are the lights here not turned on?'

‘Herr Laurin sent a chit the other day. The lights were to be turned off after six.'

‘Turn them on immediately,' Krogh said.

On his desk was a typed list of the Wall Street closing prices; outside the tape ticked like a sewing machine.

‘Is Miss Farrant back?'

‘Not yet, Herr Krogh.' Her substitute, thin, grey, with a nervous tick in one eyelid, waited by his desk.

‘This strike: when did news come of it?'

‘Just after you left the office, Herr Krogh.'

‘And it's called for tomorrow?'

‘Tomorrow at noon.'

‘At how many factories?'

‘Three.'

‘The leader?'

‘Our informant at Nyköping reported Andersson . . .'

‘Was it a dismissal,' Krogh asked, ‘or a mere matter of wages? This must be settled tonight.'

‘The report from Nyköping – it is there, Herr Krogh, by the flowers – suggests that there's American influence . . .'

‘Of course,' Krogh said, ‘that's obvious. But what's the excuse?'

‘They have some story about the low wages you are offering in America; undercutting there, unemployment.'

‘Why should they trouble about what happens in America?'

‘This man Andersson passes as a Socialist . . .'

‘You must get Herr Laurin here. Immediately. We can't waste time. He knows how to speak to these people.' It was the one thing Laurin was good for; he had promoted him to the Board for no other reason than this: there were times when one needed a man of no particular qualifications except amiability, the power of getting on with his fellow men.