Kane & Abel (1979) (26 page)

Alan Lloyd was sitting in a corner of the drawing room when the two boys arrived back at the Red House. He rose as they entered.

‘William,’ he said immediately. ‘I blame myself for authorizing the loan.’

William stared at him, not taking in his words.

Matthew stepped into the silence. ‘I don’t think that’s important any longer, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘William’s mother has just died giving birth to a stillborn child.’

Alan Lloyd turned ashen, steadied himself by grasping the mantelpiece and turned away. It was the first time either of them had seen a grown man weep.

‘It’s my fault,’ said the banker. ‘I’ll never forgive myself. I didn’t tell her everything I knew. I loved her so much that I never wanted her to be distressed.’

His anguish enabled William to be calm.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Alan,’ he said firmly. ‘You did everything in your power, I know that, and now it’s me who’s going to need your help.’

Alan Lloyd braced himself. ‘Has Osborne been informed about your mother’s death?’

‘I neither know nor care.’

‘I’ve been trying to reach him all day about the hospital contract. He left his office soon after ten this morning and he hasn’t been seen since.’

‘He’ll turn up sooner or later,’ William said grimly.

After Alan Lloyd had left, William and Matthew sat together in the drawing room for most of the night, dozing off and on, rarely speaking. At four o’clock in the morning, as William counted the chimes of the grandfather clock, he thought he heard a noise in the street. He looked up to see Matthew staring out of the window, and walked stiffly across to join him. They both watched Henry Osborne stagger across Louisburg Square, a bottle in one hand, a bunch of keys in the other. He fumbled with his keys for some time and finally stepped into the hallway, blinking dazedly at the two boys.

‘I want Anne, not you. Why aren’t you at school? I don’t want you,’ he said, his voice thick and slurred, as he pushed past William and walked into the drawing room. Where’s Anne?’

‘My mother is dead,’ said William quietly.

Osborne looked at him, disbelief etched on his face. He walked across to the sideboard and poured himself a whiskey, which caused William to lose his self-control.

‘Where were you when she needed a husband?’ he shouted.

Osborne didn’t let go of the bottle. ‘What about the baby?’

‘Stillborn, a little girl.’

Osborne slumped into a chair, drunken tears starting to run down his face. ‘She lost my little baby?’

William was nearly incoherent with rage. ‘Your baby? Stop thinking about yourself for a change!’ he shouted. ‘You know Dr MacKenzie advised her against becoming pregnant again.’

‘Expert in that as well, are we, like everything else? If you’d minded your own fucking business, I could have taken care of my own wife without your interference.’

‘And her money, it seems.’

‘Money. You tightfisted little bastard. I bet losing that hurts you more than losing your mother.’

‘Get up!’ William shouted at him.

Osborne dragged himself up and smashed the bottle on the edge of a table, splashing whiskey onto the carpet. He swayed towards William, the broken bottle in his raised hand. William stood his ground. Matthew came between them and easily removed the bottle from the drunken man’s grasp.

‘William pushed his friend aside and advanced until his face was only inches away from Osborne’s.

‘Now, you listen to me, and listen carefully. I want you out of this house immediately. If I ever hear from you again I shall instigate a full legal inquiry into what has happened to my mother’s half-million dollar investment in your firm, and I shall reopen my enquiries about who you really are and your past activities in Chicago. If, on the other hand, I do not hear from you again, ever, I shall consider the matter closed. Now get out before I do something I’ll regret.’

Osborne staggered out of the room. Neither of them heard his threat as the door slammed.

The next morning William visited the bank. He was immediately shown into the chairman’s office. Alan Lloyd was placing some documents into a briefcase. He handed a piece of paper to William without speaking. It was a short letter to all board members tendering his resignation as chairman of the bank.

‘Could you ask your secretary to join us?’ asked William quietly.

‘As you wish.’

Alan pressed a button on the side of his desk, and a middle-aged, conservatively dressed woman entered the room.

‘Good morning, Mr Kane,’ she said when she saw William. ‘I was so sorry to hear about your mother.’

‘Thank you,’ said William. ‘Has anyone else seen this letter?’

‘No, sir,’ said the secretary. ‘I was about to type twelve copies for Mr Lloyd to sign.’

‘Well, don’t,’ said William, ‘and please forget that it ever existed.’

She stared into the blue eyes of the sixteen-year-old boy. So like his father, she thought. ‘Yes, Mr Kane.’ She left, closing the door. Alan Lloyd looked puzzled.

‘Kane and Cabot does not need a new chairman at the moment, Alan,’ said William. ‘You did nothing my father would not have done in the same circumstances.’

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ Alan said.

‘It is as easy as that,’ said William. We can discuss this again when I’m twenty-one, and not before. Until then I would be obliged if you would run my bank with your usual prudence and wisdom. I want nothing of what has happened to be discussed outside this office. You will destroy any information you have on Henry Osborne, and consider the matter closed.’

William tore up the letter of resignation and dropped the pieces into the fire. He put his arm around Alan’s shoulders.

‘I have no family now, Alan, only you. For God’s sake, don’t desert me.’

When William returned to Beacon Hill, Grandmother Kane and Grandmother Cabot were sitting in silence in the drawing room. They rose as he entered the room. It was the first time William realized he was now the head of the Kane family.

The funeral took place quietly four days later at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral. No one but family and close friends was invited; the only notable absentee was Henry Osborne. As the mourners departed, they paid their respects to William. The grandmothers stood a pace behind him, like sentinels, watching, approving the calm and dignified way in which he conducted himself. When everyone had left, William accompanied Alan Lloyd to his car.

The chairman was delighted by William’s request.

‘As you know, Alan, my mother always intended to build a children’s wing for Massachusetts General, in memory of my father. I would like her wish to be carried out.’

W
LADEK REMAINED
at the Polish consulate in Constantinople for over a year, rather than the few days he had originally anticipated. He worked day and night with Pawel Zaleski, becoming an indispensable aide, colleague and close friend. Nothing was too much trouble for him, and Zaleski soon began to wonder how he would manage when Wladek left. The young man visited the British Consulate once a week to eat in the kitchen with Mrs Henderson, the Scottish cook, and on one occasion with His Britannic Majesty’s Second Consul, in the dining room.

Around them the old Islamic traditions were being swept away, and the Ottoman Empire was beginning to totter. Mustafa Kemal was the name on everyone’s lips. The sense of impending change only made Wladek more restless. His mind returned continually to the Baron and those he had loved at the castle. The necessity of surviving from day to day in Russia had kept them from his mind, but in Turkey they rose up before him, a silent procession: the Baron, Leon, Florentyna … Sometimes he could see them laughing and happy - Leon swimming in the river, Florentyna playing cat’s cradle in her bedroom, the Baron’s face strong and proud in the evening candlelight - but always the well-remembered, well-loved faces would melt away, and try as he might to hold them firm, it was always the last time he’d seen them that came back again and again: Leon lying dead in the castle grounds, Florentyna bleeding in agony, the Baron blind and broken.

Wladek began to feel that he could never return to a land peopled by such ghosts until he had made something of his own life. With that single thought in mind he set his heart on emigrating to America, as his countryman Tadeusz Kosciuszko, of whom the Baron had told so many enthralling tales, had done long before him. The United States, described by Pawel Zaleski as the ‘New World’. The name inspired Wladek with hope for the future, and perhaps even a chance to return one day to Poland in triumph.

It was Pawel who supplied the money for an immigrant passage to the United States. They were difficult to come by, and had to be arranged at least a year in advance. It seemed to Wladek as though the whole of Eastern Europe was trying to escape and start afresh in the New World.

In the spring of 1921, Wladek Koskiewicz boarded the SS
Black Arrow,
bound for Ellis Island, New York. He took with him one suitcase, containing all his belongings, and a set of papers issued by Pawel Zaleski.

The Polish Consul accompanied him to the wharf embraced him affectionately and bade him farewell. ‘Go with God, my child.’

The traditional Polish response came naturally from the recesses ofWladek’s memory. ‘Remain with God,’ he replied.

As he reached the top of the gangplank, Wladek recalled his terrifying journey from Odessa to Constantinople a year before. This time there wasn’t a lump of coal in sight, only emigrants wherever he looked - Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Slavs, and others whose racial background he hadn’t come across. He clutched his suitcase and waited in line, the first of many long waits he would have to endure before being allowed to enter the United States.