God Is an Englishman (23 page)

“Most of them get their trip abroad if they come up to scratch,” he said,

“for Kate has an exchange system with French and Belgian houses. Many of the clients here have a preference for foreigners, and this promotes a two-way traffic across the Channel. Flavia comes from Rotterdam, I believe. That’s so, isn’t it, my dear?”

Flavia said it was so and poured the champagne, Avery disclosing it was four times the price of the best one could buy at a city mer chant’s, and that, although this was generally known, it was not resented.

“Kate’s overheads are prohibitive,” he said. “She not only has to pay for these fittings and all this gaslight but for a network of provincial procurers and also for police protection. Everything in London is damnably expensive just now but nothing more so than feather-bedded vice.”

Adam was interested by all he saw about him and admitted that the food was better than any he had eaten in London, but when Avery, with a yawn, told Olympia he was ready to retire to the private apartments, Adam had little inclination to follow his example and admitted as much. Avery said, lightly, “Ah, I was forgetting. You’re to become a bridegroom in a week or so. We shall probably see more of you in due course.” Then he and his partner passed up the gilded GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 117

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staircase, along the brilliantly lit gallery and out of sight.

Adam’s girl, Flavia, looked so bewildered that he felt obliged to explain Avery’s cynical comment, saying, “It’s true I’m getting mar ried soon but that isn’t the reason. I came here as a sightseer but you won’t lose on that account.” He saw her glance uneasily in the direction of the dais as she said, in her deep, guttural voice,

“I do not please you, m’sieu? Why do I not please you? Be so good as to tell me.

It is important that I should know.”

“You please me well enough,” he said, amiably, “but why should that matter to you? Madam has been paid the admission money, and I shall pay you whether we go upstairs or not.”

“Madam misses nothing,” the girl said nervously. “Last week Niobe was sent away for the same reason. Madam will not keep the rejected, m’sieu.” Adam said, suddenly, “How old are you, Flavia?” and she said she was twenty-five, and had been working in London for two years. “This is a good place,” she went on, “the very best in London, but I have not yet saved enough money to return home. Like you, m’sieu, I have plans. I hope to marry as soon as I return to Rotterdam.” Then, pleadingly, “Will you please follow your friend? For appearances’ sake?”

He said, cheerfully, “Certainly, for I wouldn’t like you to lose your situation on my account,” and got up, cursing Avery for involving him in such a situation.

Flavia led the way up the broad staircase and into a cubicle off the long passage, and even this confined space was oppressively overlit and enclosed in wall mirrors and ceiling glass. There was no furni ture in it but a bed and washbasin, and the only section of wall free of mirrors was hung with a crudely drawn picture of a cherubic girl glancing roguishly down on them whilst in the act of shedding her drawers.

The combination of Flavia’s uneasiness, and the torrid vulgarity of the apartment, produced in him a sensation of disgust, and this sur prised him very much, for he had never thought to feel squeamish in a whorehouse. He wondered, vaguely, if this was something else that might be credited to Henrietta’s account, and reacting to this felt half-inclined to accommodate the girl, if only to establish his indepen dence. But then he realised that the reason went beyond that, and had to do with a deeper and more private distaste for the idiotic trap pings of the house. He thought, sourly, “Good God, there must be a more adult way of satisfying a purely physical need. It’s months since I had a woman, and this poor creature is at least clean and personable, but I’ll be damned if I need titillating, like an old badger past his prime,” and he said, as she began pulling her gown GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 118

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over her head, “It’s nothing personal, you understand? Do you smoke?” and he offered her a cheroot, watching her rescue a little of her dignity as she sat on the edge of the bed exhaling little puffs of smoke. He said, for something to say,

“What will you and your fiancé do when you marry? Will you set up in business in Rotterdam?”

“In Aachen,” she told him. “He is a baker there and would be his own master.

But he has no money. It is therefore important that I bring a dowry.” Suddenly he was ready to pay tribute to the girl’s placid acceptance of realities and laid a sovereign on the washstand. “For your
dot,
mademoiselle,” and she looked confused, saying, “But this is not necessary, m’sieu. We are paid a percent-age of the house fee, and sometimes a gratuity. But only when the gentleman is pleased with the service.”

Her attitude increased his impatience with the place, with all its absurd, syba-ritic trappings, that somehow reduced the association of men and women to an obscene formula. To take her now in this bed, to watch himself sweating over her in half-a-dozen angled reflections, struck him as an act of a fool or a pervert, so that it suddenly became imperative to breathe fresh air and he went out and down the stairs, leaving her to stare after him with her puzzled expression, one hand fumbling with the fastening of her dress, the other covering his sov ereign, as though he might think better of the impulse.

He passed out into the street and made his way down the Haymarket to the Strand. Out here, with a night breeze blowing upriver, he could contemplate the general rather than the particular, wonder ing at the stresses that created a demand for places like Kate Hamil ton’s, and asking himself if a girl like Henrietta would be aware they existed in every city in Europe. It was odd, he decided, that men reckoned mature and successful in so many technical spheres should find it necessary to siphon their lust into the indifferent bodies of girls like Flavia and Olympia, who were reduced to borrowing exotic names in order to heighten the illusion of adventure. Most of them, unlike himself, had a home, a wife, and a largish family, and yet, if their wives had advanced a single step towards acquiring the tech niques of a spreadeagled harlot, they would be outraged. Why should this be so, when the words of the marriage service spoken in all churches they attended each Sunday acknowledged the needs of human beings to seek comfort in one another? Kate Hamilton, Flavia, and the starvelings of the Black Dwarf country, were all at one, evidence of a signal failure on the part of Western Man to match his technical achievements with self-knowledge and a real, rather than fraudulent, civilisation. Everything was topsy-turvey, every facet of this hustle GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 119

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into the future demanded a double-stand ard of values. It was practised in bed and in all the counting houses he had visited. It was present in the concept of Empire and in the conclaves of lawgivers at Westminster. One followed certain courses for gain or personal gratification but never, not even pri vately, admitted the truth concerning motives. Instead one groped for other, more specious reasons for worshipping money and mach ines, and clung to them, come what may, and for a brief moment he was able to stand back and contemplate the monstrous folly of it all, not only the mirrors and couches of Kate Hamilton’s shrine, but all that nourished it, the warehouses, the moored barges clustered in the Thames tideway, the helter-skelter scramble of every living soul down there to accumulate metal tokens representing an entirely fictitious security and independence. Then, slowly coming to terms with himself, he admitted his own purely voluntary involve ment in the chaos, thinking, “And who the devil am I to question it? I stole jewels and travelled thousands of miles to make my grab, and there’s only two reservations so far as I’m concerned. I’ll make it with dignity and, so long as it doesn’t involve detours, observing some kind of standards as regards the use I make of people.”

The resolve brought him reassurance so that he buttoned his coat against the keen breeze and strode down towards the Law Courts, turning away from the river towards his lodging.

3

Avery appeared unannounced the following evening, just as Adam was finishing supper. His mood, Adam sensed, was tetchy, and he seemed for once a little unsure of himself. When the table was cleared, and they were alone in the sitting room, he laid a banker’s draft on the table. It made payable to Adam Swann the sum of three thou sand, five hundred guineas. In spite of himself and a suspicion that enthusiasm of any kind irritated Avery, Adam could not conceal his gratification.

“This is getting on a thousand more than I expected, Josh. Your estimate was three thousand pounds, not guineas!”

“I’m sharpish but I’m not a thief,” he muttered, but Adam said, clapping him on the shoulder, “You’re a rum chap, Josh. I’m only trying to express gratitude and not solely on account of the draft. I could have wasted months exploring the ground on my own,” but here he stopped, seeing in Avery’s expression a positive distaste to have his patronage acknowledged.

“We struck a bargain,” he said, “and it’s turned out to my ad vantage as much as GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 120

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yours, so stop prancing about like a child emptying a Christmas stocking!”

“I’ll say thank you whether you like it or not, Josh. How much did you get for the stones?”

Avery’s head came up sharply and for a moment he looked deadly. “Now what the devil is that to you? Your share was more than you expected, so leave it at that, man.”

“I’ll do that readily enough,” said Adam, puzzled by the ex-cavalryman’s touchiness, “so long as you tell me if you disposed of all the rubies or some of them. Remember I made a condition that one three-carat stone was to be held back when the necklace was broken up, but I won’t hold you to that if you were up against stiff opposition, and I’ll wager you were.” Their eyes met at that and Avery’s looked troubled. He said, finally, “I’ll tell you something, Swann, something I freely admit I didn’t intend telling you when I came here. I kept one stone back. As a matter of fact I kept every stone back.

Twenty-nine of them are still in my bank, and they’ll stay there until you find you need more capital, as you will sooner or later. God help me, what does an eel like me
do
when he runs into an honest fool, with some kind of claim on his past?” Adam shrugged. “That’s for you to ask yourself, Josh.”

“Yes it is, and I’ve been asking it ever since you gave me a for tune in precious stones to dispose of, taking my integrity on trust. Well, I’ve come up with some kind of answer, and I’ll tell you what that man does, Swann. He’s persuaded to play the sentimental fool himself unless he’s a thoroughgoing blackguard, and I never was that, or not the kind those time-servers in India thought me.”

“I never did. Razor-sharp, maybe, but not a scoundrel. Perhaps because I took your troopers’ opinion into account, and they always thought well of you. Maybe you remember that.”

“I remember, damn it,” Avery said, “and I daresay it’s cost me the easiest money I’m ever likely to pocket. You did yourself a rare good turn reserving judgement on me, that day they drummed me out, Swann. If it had been one of the others, Roberts, or one of those popinjays who prattled about the honour of the regiment, he could have gone hang and be damned to him. But no, it had to be you, someone else who didn’t fit. Well then, here’s the aperitif, and we’ll discuss the main course in a moment,” and he laid a small leather box on the table, turned his back, and went over to the window.

The lid of the box opened by a spring and inside, on a bed of blue velvet, was a golden ring, slender at the waist but flattening to a broad shank, encrusted with small diamonds. The centre stone, the only one of real value, was a medium-sized GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 121

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ruby taken, Adam guessed, from the centre of the necklace. It was handsomely set and looked as if it had rested there ever since it was mined. But then something diverted Adam’s eye from the stone and looking closely at the shank he saw that a clever craftsman had inscribed there an insignia, or rather two insignias. On either side of the mount, each facing inwards, a swan had been engraved, and when he held the ring to the lamp he saw that in place of each facing wing was a wheel.

He said, quietly, “I don’t give a damn what you’ve done with those stones, or what you plan to do with them, Avery. This is a gesture on your part I’ll remember all my life.” And then, “This draft, it’s a personal advance, isn’t it? You’ve made no attempt to sell that necklace, have you?”

“I’m well secured so long as I’ve got rubies of that quality. Did I pretend they weren’t worth ten times that sum, even on our kind of market?”

“No, you didn’t, Josh, but there’s more to it than that.”

“Yes, there is. More than you know.”

Avery spun on his heels and stood with his back to the light so that his pale, triangular face was no longer disfigured by pock craters and the scar that ran diagonally across his forehead. He said, with a grin, “I’ve had a thousand field comrades, men I sometimes respected but would never have sought out in civilian life. Since then I’ve had a hundred associates, some I could trust at a pinch.

But one thing I’ve never had, someone of my own generation I could call a friend. Maybe it was thinking on that that encouraged me to play the fool over those rubies and your harebrained enterprise. I don’t know and may never know, but time could tell me. Here it is then, I aver aged those stones at five carats apiece.

A Burmese ruby of five carats fetches three hundred guineas in any saleroom, even a backstage auction. I knew that as soon as I took a good look at them, so work it out for yourself. To you, to me, to Hatton Garden, that necklace is worth at least nine thousand guineas. Subtract three hundred for the one I had made up for the dowerless bride, and about seven hun dred for recutting wastage. You still have a stake of nearly nine thousand pounds.”