The Sons of Adam (25 page)

‘Here, Father, here.’ Alan snatched a billiard chalk from the cue rack, and slashed a thick blue line right through the map from top to bottom. The line stretched for twenty-two miles unbroken. ‘I didn’t see it either at first. Not for two months. Like you, I was looking for something narrow. Something a mile or two in extent, even five or ten. But the fault is as classic as you can get. Every now and then you can’t see it. It’s hidden by snow or rockfall or subsequent geological accidents. But when you get far enough back from it – join up the clues – let yourself see the obvious – then what you have is one of the biggest natural pools ever discovered.’

Sir Adam stared at the thick blue line. His son was right. The fault was on such a vast scale, it was easier to miss it than to see it. But there it was: as perfectly mapped as you could hope to see.

‘By God, Alan, that’s a fault indeed.’

‘Yes.’

‘And once upon a time there was some oil there.’

‘Yes.’

The two men looked at each other: father, son; old man and oilman. Alan had done all the research he could, but the question remained: did the fault contain oil, or was it as dry as a bone? There are infinitely more faults than there are productive oilfields, and infinitely more bankrupt dreamers than there are wealthy oilmen.

‘You’ll drill there?’

‘If I can.’

‘Do you have any money?’

‘No, not a penny.’

For all Alan knew, the fault concealed an ocean of oil. Unless he could find some money to drill for it, it might stay there for the rest of time.

‘Will you borrow it?’

‘Against what? No one will lend it.’

‘So there’s nothing else for it, I suppose. Set up an exploration company and sell shares in the enterprise. It’s a shame to give away control, but inevitable, I can see that.’

‘I’m not selling.’

‘Not selling? But surely –’

‘I’m not selling.’

The years of war and hardship had hardened Alan. His voice was a man’s voice: strong and decided. His father opened his mouth – then closed it. If Alan wanted to be pigheaded about selling shares, that was up to him. In time, he’d understand that there was no other way to raise capital. No other way on earth.

The oil was there all right.

Four miles away from the rig where Tom and the others drilled, six miles from the boarding house and a full sixteen miles from the nearest railroad, a gimcrack exploration outfit struck oil at five and a half thousand feet. The well produced just eighty barrels a day: a good strike, but hardly colossal. All the same, the excitement produced was extraordinary. If there was oil in one place, there might be oil right next door. The remote little bit of rolling country, situated where the open plains meet the mountains, began to jostle with new arrivals.

Drilling crews arrived by the day. The boarding house overflowed. The road down to town became waterlogged and near impassable. The first frosts sharpened their knives on a northerly wind. When Tom and the others went out to drill they wore woollen gloves and long undershorts beneath their trousers.

The lights in the bar were red-shaded and, in any case, were turned down low. The place was crowded with oilmen: junior roustabouts and senior drillers. An evil-looking pianist knocked out depressive tunes on the piano, while the usual half-dozen prostitutes sat in a huddle at the end of the bar and shared a drink together before the night’s work started.

Tom sat apart at a table by himself. He was in town for the night only, to pick up some drilling goods from the railhead before returning next day to the well.

As he looked round the room, there was a sudden yell of laughter from the prostitutes in the corner. Tom grinned at them. And as he grinned, one of the girls caught his attention in a way that the others didn’t. She was dark-skinned and dark-haired. Her face was too sharp to be pretty in a normal way: her chin was too pointed, her nose was angular and her forehead too high. But there was something unusually alive about her face. Her deeply set eyes were intelligent, alert but anxious. It was as though someone sensitive and gifted had been forced to live through a period of suffering or danger. Tom recognised the look. His years in prison had attuned him. The girl attracted him and troubled him in about equal amounts.

Tom grabbed a passing waiter and indicated the girl. ‘D’you have any wine in this joint?’

‘Wine?’

‘Yes, wine. They grow grapes. They squeeze ’em. They bottle ’em. Wine.’

‘Sure, downstairs someplace.’

‘Can you bring me a bottle of wine, two glasses and invite that girl to join me?’

‘That girl? The –’ The waiter had been about to say ‘whore’ or something similar, but he checked himself in time. ‘The dark-haired one. Sure, right away.’

After what had obviously been a long search, the wine arrived, followed by the girl. As she slid off her stool at the bar, she exchanged a laugh with the other girls, then tugged at her blouse to make sure her cleavage was sufficiently visible. To make doubly sure, she unfastened a button and did what she could to make her narrow chest look full and buxom.

By the time she arrived, Tom was (to his own surprise) burning with a sudden anger.

‘I only asked you to share a drink. I didn’t expect you to start undressing.’

The girl didn’t sit, she remained standing. ‘That’s a pleasant way to greet somebody.’ The words could have come out tough, but actually they didn’t. Her tone was cool and the rebuke was deliberate, but not at all coarse. Partly it was her accent, which was mid-European and husky.

‘I only want to offer you a drink. I’m not expecting to … to … for God’s sake, I’m not going to pay you.’ Tom’s voice hovered between conciliatory and aggressive. His mood was similarly uncertain.

The girl did up her button, and arranged her clothes more decorously. She took a longer look at Tom – again, he noticed her gaze, which almost seemed to expect the presence of danger – then a glance back at her girlfriends. She sat down, placing her bottom down on the seat first, then sliding her legs round to follow. It was the delicate way for a lady to sit, the way a London debutante might sit, not a cheap whore in a two-bit Yankee oil town. She sniffed the wine, then sipped.

‘In that case you ought to have bought a better wine.’

Tom laughed defensively. ‘It’s all they have. I was sick of drinking beer. If you want, I can –’

She smiled. ‘It’s OK. I was joking. I’m sick of beer too.’

‘Tom Calloway,’ said Tom extending his hand.

‘Rebecca Lewi,’ she said. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’

Rebecca Lewi turned out to be solid gold. She was a Polish-speaking Jew from Vilnius in Lithuania. During the war, her family had been displaced, robbed, ill-treated and imprisoned. Somehow, they had found the means to pay for her and her twelve-year-old brother to travel first to Sweden, then on to America. They had arrived in 1916 and had been forced to wait more than three years before obtaining reliable news of the rest of the family. Her other brothers were either dead or in prison somewhere in Russia. Her parents were both alive and had hopes of resettling safely in Germany. She wanted them to come out to America, but they felt too old and too uncertain to make the move.

‘It will be good for them there, as long as the socialists don’t seize control.’

‘And your brother? The one you travelled out with?’

Rebecca’s face stiffened. ‘He came out here with tuberculosis. It was the main reason we came. I was terrified that they wouldn’t let him in, but even though the doctor on Ellis Island found the problem, he took pity on us.’

‘And your brother, he … ?’

‘He died. I did all I could, but …’ She shrugged. ‘The illness took him. Two years ago.’

‘I’m sorry …’ Tom tailed off, but a thought had struck him and must have been visible in his expression.

Rebecca answered his unspoken question. ‘Yes. The hospitals were expensive. I got into debt. Now I’m paying it off. I thought I would hate selling myself, but apparently one gets used to anything. I don’t want sympathy.’

Tom nodded. ‘All right. No sympathy.’

‘Good, and you?’ Rebecca changed the subject brusquely and decisively. ‘You’re English?’

‘Yes – or rather, no. I was. I’m –’

‘Right, you’re American now. Aren’t we all? We just jump off the boat, and presto! Two thousand years of history just goes up in smoke.’ She laughed. ‘Go on then. You were English. Not poor either, from the sound of you. But you came over here. No family. No cash. You’re working in a manual job. Why? Must be either prison, or debt, or –’

‘I was a prisoner of war for two and a half years. I almost died. There was nothing left for me in England when I returned. I’d sooner be poor here than the King’s Own Bootlicker back in England. And for your information, I enjoy what I do.’

‘You were a prisoner of war? I’m sorry. I was too hard on you. I apologise.’

‘That’s all right. It’s OK.’

‘No it isn’t. I hate it when I do that. I’m sorry.’

They finished the bottle of wine. Rebecca wiped her mouth and made a face. ‘That was horrible, but thank you.’

Tom laughed. The wine had indeed been awful, but it had been a pleasure to share it with someone who knew it. But Rebecca’s manner had changed once again. She wasn’t exactly looking at her watch or getting up to go, but she was clearly signalling that it was time for her to get back to work. Tom even realised that she was letting him know that if he changed his mind and wanted to pay her for sex, then she was available then and there.

Tom had no problem with prostitution. Back in France, he’d usually been able to find girls who’d have sex without presenting him with a bill, but when he hadn’t been able to, he’d paid for his pleasure without thinking twice about it. But Rebecca, from the very start, was different. He didn’t know why and didn’t really bother to ask himself the question. She unsettled him. Her businesslike approach bothered him and made him angry.

‘Back to work now?’ he said, with needless brutality. ‘Should be a profitable night, huh?’ He gestured at some young roustabouts who were already far gone in drink and were making leering faces at the prostitutes by the bar.

‘You promised no sympathy. This is what I get instead, is it?’

‘Hell, it’s just a business, isn’t it? What’s wrong with that? That guy there looks flush. Have a quick screw with him, you should be able to find another couple of clients before the place closes.’

Rebecca stared coldly back at Tom, then quite deliberately undid a couple of buttons on her blouse. She stood up and walked, hips swaying, over to the man he’d pointed out. She stood there for a moment, hand on hip, deliberately provocative, and was then clearly urged to sit down amidst a torrent of drunken lecherous laughter from the nearby roustabouts. Tom looked on with a strange mixture of jealousy, fury and confusion. He slammed some money down on the table for the wine and stomped out of the bar.

And as he left, he emerged into a town transformed. The air had been cold but now it was snowing thickly enough for the street to be carpeted in white. A team of horses that had been caught out on the wagon trail emerged from the newly frozen mire on to the main street, amidst a stream of curses and blue language. Tom stood transfixed by the sight.

He wanted money and he wanted it soon. Now, for the first time, he knew how to get it.

From tiny beginnings, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was becoming one of the world’s leading oil companies. This year it would drill and ship one and a half million tons of the precious liquid. Its refinery at Abadan was on the way to becoming the biggest in the world.

The Finance Director extended his hand. It was a small, dry hand without power in the grip. Alan shook it too hard and took his seat. Tea arrived in delicate porcelain, and the Finance Director fussed over cups and saucers like a maiden aunt taking tea with a bishop. Alan felt like a sunburned Persian bear, his hands still rough from his long stay in the Zagros.

‘The concession, yes, the concession,’ said the director, in his high-pitched voice. ‘We’d like all of it, of course. The split concession … well, it’s an
irritation
to us. I can’t put it more strongly than that – but, yes, an irritation certainly.’