Three Brothers (17 page)

When he had removed the syringe, and sealed it, he walked over to Sam. He whispered to him confidentially, in the high voice of Punch, “That’s the way to do it!” He went over to the relatives. “Does he have to pass water, do you think?” He approached the bed. “Do you need to spend a penny, Benjamin? Don’t fret. We’re used to it here. We would like you to use a bottle, Benjamin, if you can.” Once more he addressed the relatives. “A lot of patients can’t bring themselves to mention it. Not until it’s too late. So I always raise the subject myself.” There came a groan from the bed. “He’s probably not urgent, though, is he?”

He left the ward with the syringe but returned a few minutes later and sat down beside Sam.

“How did you end up here?” Sam asked him.

“End up? That’s a way of putting it, I suppose. Better than a prison or asylum, where a man of my talents might
end up
. But I’ll tell you something. It’s a horrible place at night. They say that suffering brings you wisdom. Understanding. Patience. Pain is supposed to purify the soul. It’s all crap. Bollocks. I’m sick of hearing it. Suffering makes you weak. It makes you helpless. It leaves you at everyone’s mercy. People you could spit on come to pity you. I’ve seen it. You are sick. They are healthy. They don’t want to care for you. They want to triumph over you. Or they want something out of you. Gratitude. Love. A mention in the will.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“It’s not a very nice world.”

A doctor came in, looked at Sam with a mild expression, and shook his head.

The three brothers sat side by side in the chapel of the crematorium, looking straight ahead. “It’s been a long time,” Harry said. “You’ve put on weight, Sam. The way I see it is this. We can look back and weep, or we can look forward. When did you last see Dad, Daniel?”

“Six years ago, I think.”

“Precisely. The same with me. You only saw him, Sam, because you still live in the house. We weren’t a family any more.”

They looked at the coffin as it slid slowly behind the curtain.

Their father looked back at them. He had no regrets now.

Easily led

N
OW THAT
Hilda Nugent had gone, leaving a scrawled note about Southend, Harry Hanway began to see Guinevere more frequently. He moved out of Notting Hill Gate, considering it now to be a seedy area, and rented a small flat in Walpole Street, off the King’s Road and conveniently close to the Flaxman mansion in Cheyne Walk.

He met Sir Martin, quite by chance, at the corner of Tite Street. “Hanway!” Flaxman yelled. He was wearing a dark overcoat and a black trilby, with a pair of brightly polished black shoes.

Harry was startled. He had been thinking of an appropriate present for Guinevere’s twenty-fifth birthday, and had not come to a satisfactory conclusion. And there was her father waving and shouting at him from the other side of the street. Harry walked over to him. “I’m delighted to see you, sir.”

“So you want to fuck my daughter, do you?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

“How
would
you put it? Shag? Penetrate? Deflower? Or none of the above?”

Harry tried to laugh. “I’m very fond of Guinevere.”

“Ditto.”

“I respect her.”

“Well, don’t go near her cunt then.” Sir Martin put his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “You know she’s a virgin, don’t you?” Harry made no response. “And I insist that she remains that way until the day of her wedding. She isn’t one of these London slags. Do you have a J. Arthur when you think about her?”

“Sorry?” He knew what Flaxman meant, but he wanted him to spell it out.

“J. Arthur Rank. Wank.”

“No. I don’t.”

“I bet you don’t think about her at all.” Harry really did not know how to respond to this. “Come and walk with me back to the house. I like you well enough, Harry. You’re a decent boy. And a good hack.” He clasped his arm with a very strong grip. “I want you to do a favour for me. I want you to stick it to Pincher Solomon.” Solomon was the owner of a string of betting shops in South London; he was known as “Pincher” because of his unorthodox ways of doing business. “I happen to know that he is defrauding the Revenue. I just can’t prove it.”

“So what—”

“Investigate him. Make him nervous. Get one of your financial people to drop a few hints.”

Harry knew that Sir Martin was bidding for a franchise in racecourse gambling. Pincher Solomon was obviously a competitor, and Sir Martin was willing to employ the resources of the
Chronicle
to blackmail or intimidate him. It would not have occurred to Harry to refuse his proprietor’s request. It was his newspaper, after all. So now as deputy editor, without consulting the editor, he began a dossier on Pincher Solomon and asked one of the financial journalists to consult the records of Solomon at Companies House.

He met Guinevere now two or three evenings each week; they walked by the Thames in the direction of Lambeth, and ate in an Italian or Indian restaurant at the upper end of the King’s Road. “Your father has told me to be careful with you.”

“That’s very good advice. For once.”

“Am I allowed to kiss you?”

“On the cheek. When we meet or part.”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“That is going too far.”

So they talked of other things. “Why is English life so unbearable?” she asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“One of my clients is dying in agony because she can’t get the right cancer treatment. And there’s my mother going on about pearl
necklaces
. It’s all so wrong. So—”

“Unfair?” In his childhood Harry had been surrounded by poor people, just a step away from destitution, and he had felt no pity for them.

“Worse than unfair. It’s evil.”

“Have you told your father that?”

“He just smiles at me.”

“He’s good at that.”

“You know,” she said to him on another evening as they sat in the Italian restaurant, “there are a lot of prostitutes in Limehouse.”

“Oh really?”

“All they drink is tea.”

Harry shifted in his seat. “Extraordinary.”

“Some of them go round to one of the flats in Britannia Street.”

“To a customer?”

“No. A friend. They call him Sparkler. I think he’s queer. Sorry. Homosexual. Sparkler has lots of stories.”

“I bet.”

“That reminds me. Do you remember Mrs. Byrne?”

“The one with the three children.”

“Sparkler told me that she had been scared out of her flat. Someone set fire to the front door.”

“Who?”

“That’s what he wants to find out. He knows the neighbourhood very well. He suspects the landlord—”

“Asher Ruppta. I remember him.”

“But it could just be a street gang.” She had been picking at a seafood pizza. “Who can tell? Who can know?” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “That’s not allowed. We are not meeting or parting.”

“I’m a very lucky person. Having you.”

“What do you mean—having me?”

“I mean, well—”

She really did not want her question to be answered. “There’s no such thing as luck. I don’t believe there is, anyway.”

“You make your own?”

“Well, put it this way. You are charming.”

“Thank you.”

“You are confident. Yes. I think you have made your own luck. I don’t know what drives you forward. Ambition, I suppose. I accept that.”

“I am ambitious for both of us, Guinevere. I love you.”

“I don’t think you actually love me. I think you love the
idea
of me. I am the heiress. I am the only child.”

“Of course. Everyone knows
that
. But I’m the best person to guide you. You said that I was ambitious. But I am also realistic, Guinevere. Maybe that’s why your father introduced us.”

Guinevere took him to a concert at the Albert Hall in the following week. “They say,” she told him, “that music soothes the savage breast.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Wait and see.”

“I feel sorry,” Harry said as they left the building after the performance, “for those musicians.”

“What do you mean?”

“Once they wanted to stand out. I bet every single one of them wanted to be a famous violinist. Or whistler.”

“Flautist.”

“They all expected to be the best. What is the word?”

“Virtuoso.”

“Exactly. They wanted to excel. But they ended up as part of a crowd. They must feel depressed when they wake up in the morning.”

“I’m sure they enjoy making music together.”

“You don’t understand the world.”

“I want a bit that’s rare,” Sir Martin Flaxman said to his butler, staring at a haunch of cold roast beef. “As if it’s just been carved from the cow. Speaking of which, where is your mother?”

“She has a headache.” Guinevere was sitting opposite him at the dining-room table.

“Headache? That’s a woman’s way of saying fuck you. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

Harry was sitting beside Guinevere. “I wouldn’t really know.”

“Is that so? Hark the vestal virgin sing. Are you keeping your promise to me?”

“Of course.”

“What promise?” Guinevere asked her father.

“None of your business.”

“I promised,” Harry told her, “to get him some details on a rival company.”

“That’s right. And I heard some good news yesterday. The old Jew has pulled out of the racing business.” He was referring
to Pincher Solomon. “That will teach him.” He took a thick slice of roast beef, and covered it with a mound of horseradish sauce. “I like it hot, Harry,” he said, drooling slightly at the mouth. “As hot as hell.” Then he put a boiled potato in his mouth, and swallowed it. Suddenly he burped. There was a scent of horseradish in the air. “I’m going to get rid of Havers-Williams.” He was talking about the editor of the
Morning Chronicle
. “He’s a useless bastard. He mumbles.” He took another bite out of the beef and horseradish. “I come from nothing, Harry. I’m a bastard. Did you know that?”

“I have heard.”

Flaxman laughed very loudly. “No. A real bastard. Wrong side of the sheets. Do you know how that makes you feel? It makes you feel different. It makes you feel special. I made my first deal in the army. I sold military supplies to civilians. Does that shock you?” Harry shook his head. “Well, it should do.” Flaxman swallowed another potato. “I am telling you this because you are almost part of the family. Almost. But not quite.”

Guinevere suddenly spoke up. “Let’s put an end to this nonsense. Do you want to marry me, Harry?”

“Yes.”

“Daddy, will you sign on the dotted line?”

“You see what a romantic she is, Harry?”

Lady Flaxman entered the dining room. “I warn you in advance, Martin,” she said to her husband, “that my nerves are bad today. Good afternoon, Mr. Hanway. What’s all this about marriage?”

“I was telling Harry, Maud, that he is almost part of the family.”

“Why he should ever want to be part of this family is beyond me. We are a frightful shower aren’t we, Mr. Hanway? Simply frightful.”

“He’s after my money.”

“Do you see what I mean, Mr. Hanway? There is no refinement here. No elegance.” Lady Flaxman was a tall, thin woman with a voice of the purest diction and a black dress of the most elegant cut. She wore her jewels as if she had inherited them. In fact she came from a family of small traders in Enfield. “Are you sure you aren’t making a most terrible mistake?”

“Oh no. I love Guinevere.”

“Love is a very small word.” Flaxman was sucking on a piece of fat. “For a very small thing.”

“You see, Mr. Hanway, my husband has no finesse. He is nature, red in tooth and claw.”

“I’m not the only one.”

With a pained smile she sat beside her husband. “Is there any beef left?” Then she looked, slowly and sorrowfully, at Harry. “Like a lamb to the slaughter,” she said.

“He is not being slaughtered, Mummy, he is getting married to me.”

“The married state is like a butcher’s shop, dear. Blood on the floor. Everything. The works.” She toyed with a piece of potato. “If there is to be a marriage,” she said, staring disapprovingly at her daughter, “it must be somewhere rural and delightful. A medieval churchyard. Graveyard. Yew trees. Bells. That sort of thing.”

“As long as there is no confetti,” Guinevere replied.

“Aren’t you supposed to tie an old boot to the car?” her father asked her. He was looking at his wife.

“We don’t want anything sexual,” she said. “My mother will be there.”

“The graveyard may come in handy.”

“Oh I really can’t bear it. I haven’t got the strength to fight you any more, Martin. Where is the horseradish?” Harry handed her a cut-glass jar and its acccompanying silver spoon. She spread the contents delicately, and then began cutting up
the meat in small squares. “I presume, Guinevere, that you will be wearing white?”

“If you say so, Mother.”

“It is not what I say. It is what you may or may not have done.” Sir Martin laughed. “It is not a laughing matter. A virgin bride is a wonderful thing. I should know. I was a virgin once. I was the cynosure of all eyes.” She popped a morsel into her mouth. “I am very feminine, you see, Mr. Hanway. I am my own worst enemy. I am easily led.” She glared at her husband. “Not that anyone considers my feelings any more. I might as well be deaf and dumb. I might as well be blind. Like those poor mice.” Guinevere looked towards her father and raised her eyebrows. “Of course,” Lady Flaxman announced to Harry, “there’s no question of children.”

“Mummy!”

“Guinevere is too frail. Too weak. It would kill her.”

Harry looked at his intended wife without any expression.

The wedding took place on a grey and overcast day. The ceremony in the Guards Chapel was, at Guinevere’s request, very simple. But she wore a white bridal dress, and Harry had bought a dark morning suit. They smiled pleasantly at one another when the union was pronounced by the priest. It was in fact Sir Martin who cried, sobbing quietly as he stood beside his daughter. As the newly wed couple walked down the aisle one of Harry’s colleagues remarked that he seemed very pleased with himself—“As well he might,” he added in a whisper. Guinevere, on the other hand, had an expression of faint bewilderment.