Odds against sh-1 Page 2

I wanted nothing. My form. My trouble. I’d had what I wanted most in the world and lost it irrevocably. I’d found nothing else to want. I stared at the ceiling, waiting for time to pass. All I wanted was to get back on to my feet and stop feeling as though I had eaten a hundredweight of green apples.

  Three weeks after the shooting I had a visit from my father-in-law. He came in the late afternoon, bringing with him a small parcel which he put without comment on the table beside the bed.

  ‘Well, Sid, how are you?’ He settled himself into an easy chair, crossed his legs and lit a cigar.

  ‘Cured, more or less. I’ll be out of here soon.’

  ‘Good. Good. And your plans are…?’

  ‘I haven’t any.’

  ‘You can’t go back to the agency without some… er… convalescence,’ he remarked.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘You might prefer somewhere in the sun,’ he said, studying the cigar. ‘But I would like it if you could spend some time with me at Aynsford.’

  I didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘Will…?’ I began and stopped, wavering.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She won’t be there. She’s gone out to Athens to stay with Jill and Tony. I saw her off yesterday. She sent you her regards.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said dryly. As usual I did not know whether to be glad or sorry that I was not going to meet my wife. Nor was I sure that this trip to see her sister Jill was not as diplomatic as Tony’s job in the Corps.

  ‘You’ll come, then? Mrs Cross will look after you splendidly.’

  ‘Yes, Charles, thank you. I’d like to come for a little while.’

  He gripped the cigar in his teeth, squinted through the smoke, and took out his diary.

  ‘Let’s see, suppose you leave here in, say, another week… No point in hurrying out before you’re fit to go… that brings us to the twenty-sixth… hm… now, suppose you come down a week on Sunday, I’ll be at home all that day. Will that suit you?’

  ‘Yes, fine, if the doctors agree.’

  ‘Right, then.’ He wrote in the diary, put it away and took the cigar carefully out of his mouth, smiling at me with the usual inscrutable blankness in his eyes. He sat easily in his dark city suit, Rear-Admiral Charles Roland, R.N., retired, a man carrying his sixty-six years lightly. War photographs showed him tall, straight, bony almost, with a high forehead and thick dark hair. Time had greyed the hair, which in receding left his forehead higher than ever, and had added weight where it did no harm. His manner was ordinarily extremely charming and occasionally patronisingly offensive. I had been on the receiving end of both.

  He relaxed in the arm-chair, talking unhurriedly about steeplechasing.

  ‘What do you think of that new race at Sandown? I don’t know about you, but I think it’s framed rather awkwardly. They’re bound to get a tiny field with those conditions, and if Devil’s Dyke doesn’t run after all the whole thing will be a non-crowd puller par excellence.’

  His interest in the game only dated back a few years, but recently to his pleasure he had been invited by one or two courses to act as a Steward. Listening to his easy familiarity with racing problems and racing jargon, I was in a quiet inward way amused. It was impossible to forget his reaction long ago to Jenny’s engagement to a jockey, his unfriendly rejection of me as a future son-in-law, his absence from our wedding, the months afterwards of frigid disapproval, the way he had seldom spoken to or even looked at me.

  I believed at the time that it was sheer snobbery, but it wasn’t as simple as that. Certainly he didn’t think me good enough, but not only, or even mainly, on a class distinction level; and probably we would never have understood each other, or come eventually to like each other, had it not been for a wet afternoon and a game of chess.

  Jenny and I went to Aynsford for one of our rare, painful Sunday visits. We ate our roast beef in near silence, Jenny’s father staring rudely out of the window and drumming his fingers on the table. I made up my mind that we wouldn’t go again. I’d had enough. Jenny could visit him alone.

  After lunch she said she wanted to sort out some of her books now that we had a new book-case, and disappeared upstairs. Charles Roland and I looked at each other in dislike, the afternoon stretching drearily ahead and the downpour outside barring retreat into the garden and park beyond.

  ‘Do you play chess?’ he asked in a bored, expecting-the-answer-no voice.

  ‘I know the moves,’ I said.

  He shrugged (it was more like a squirm), but clearly thinking that it would be less trouble than making conversation, he brought a chess set out and gestured to me to sit opposite him. He was normally a good player, but that afternoon he was bored and irritated and inattentive, and I beat him quite early in the game. He couldn’t believe it. He sat staring at the board, fingering the bishop with which I’d got him in a classic discovered check.

  ‘Where did you learn?’ he said eventually, still looking down.

  ‘Out of a book.’

  ‘Have you played a great deal?’

  ‘No, not much. Here and there.’ But I’d played with some good players.

  ‘Hm.’ He paused. ‘Will you play again?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  We played. It was a long game and ended in a draw, with practically every piece off the board. A fortnight later he rang up and asked us, next time we came, to stay overnight. It was the first twig of the olive branch. We went more often and more willingly to Aynsford after that. Charles and I played chess occasionally and won a roughly equal number of games, and he began rather tentatively to go to the races. Ironically from then on our mutual respect grew strong enough to survive even the crash of Jenny’s and my marriage, and Charles’ interest in racing expanded and deepened with every passing year.

  ‘I went to Ascot yesterday,’ he was saying, tapping ash off his cigar. ‘It wasn’t a bad crowd, considering the weather. I had a drink with that handicapper fellow, John Pagan. Nice chap. He was very pleased with himself because he got six abreast over the last in the handicap hurdle. There was an objection after the three mile chase — flagrant bit of crossing on the run-in. Carter swore blind he was leaning and couldn’t help it, but you can never believe a word he says. Anyway, the Stewards took it away from him. The only thing they could do. Wally Gibbons rode a brilliant finish in the handicap hurdle and then made an almighty hash of the novice chase.’

  ‘He’s heavy-handed with novices,’ I agreed.

  ‘Wonderful course, that.’

  ‘The tops.’ A wave of weakness flowed outwards from my stomach. My legs trembled under the bedclothes. It was always happening. Infuriating.

  ‘Good job it belongs to the Queen and is safe from the land-grabbers.’ He smiled.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so…’

  ‘You’re tired,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ve stayed too long.’

  ‘No,’ I protested. ‘Really, I’m fine.’

  He put out the cigar, however, and stood up. ‘I know you too well, Sid. Your idea of fine is not the same as anyone else’s. If you’re not well enough to come to Aynsford a week on Sunday you’ll let me know. Otherwise I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Yes, O.K.’

  He went away, leaving me to reflect that I did still tire infernally easily. Must be old age, I grinned to myself, old age at thirty-one. Old tired battered Sid Halley, poor old chap. I grimaced at the ceiling.

  A nurse came in for the evening jobs.

  ‘You’ve got a parcel,’ she said brightly, as if speaking to a retarded child. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  I had forgotten about Charles’ parcel.

  ‘Would you like me to open it for you? I mean, you can’t find things like opening parcels very easy with a hand like yours.’

  She was only being kind. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  She snipped through the wrappings with scissors from her pocket and looked dubiously at the slim dark book she found inside.

  ‘I suppose it is meant for y
ou? I mean somehow it doesn’t seem like things people usually give patients.’

  She put the book into my right hand and I read the title embossed in gold on the cover. Outline of Company Law.

  ‘My father-in-law left it on purpose. He meant it for me.’

  ‘Oh well, I suppose it’s difficult to think of things for people who can’t eat grapes and such.’ She bustled around, efficient and slightly bullying, and finally left me alone again.

  Outline of Company Law. I riffled through the pages. It was certainly a book about company law. Solidly legal. Not light entertainment for an invalid. I put the book on the table.

  Charles Roland was a man of subtle mind, and subtlety gave him much pleasure. It hadn’t been my parentage that he had objected to so much as what he took to be Jenny’s rejection of his mental standards in choosing a jockey for a husband. He’d never met a jockey before, disliked the idea of racing, and took it for granted that everyone engaged in it was either a rogue or a moron. He’d wanted both his daughters to marry clever men, clever more than handsome or well-born or rich, so that he could enjoy their company. Jill had obliged him with Tony, Jenny disappointed him with me: that was how he saw it, until he found that at least I could play chess with him now and then.

  Knowing his subtle habits, I took it for granted that he had not idly brought such a book and hadn’t chosen it or left it by mistake. He meant me to read it for a purpose. Intended it to be useful to me — or to him — later on. Did he think he could manoeuvre me into business, now that I hadn’t distinguished myself at the agency? A nudge, that book was. A nudge in some specific direction.

  I thought back over what he had said, looking for a clue. He’d been insistent that I should go to Aynsford. He’d sent Jenny to Athens. He’d talked about racing, about the new race at Sandown, about Ascot, John Pagan, Carter, Wally Gibbons… nothing there that I could see had the remotest connection with company law.

  I sighed, shutting my eyes. I didn’t feel too well. I didn’t have to read the book, or go wherever Charles pointed. And yet… why not? There was nothing I urgently wanted to do instead. I decided to do my stodgy homework. Tomorrow.

  Perhaps.

  TWO

  Four days after my arrival at Aynsford I came downstairs from an afternoon’s rest to find Charles delving into a large packing case in the centre of the hall. Strewn round on the half-acre of parquet was a vast amount of wood shavings, white and curly, and arranged carefully on a low table beside him were the first trophies out of the lucky dip, appearing to me to be dull chunks of rock.

  I picked one of them up. One side had been ground into a smooth face and across the bottom of this was stuck a neat label. ‘Porphyry’ it said, and beneath, ‘Carver Mineralogy Foundation’.

  ‘I didn’t know you had an obsessive interest in quartz.’

  He gave me one of his blank stares, which I knew didn’t mean that he hadn’t heard or understood what I’d said, but that he didn’t intend to explain.

  ‘I’m going fishing,’ he said, plunging his arms back into the box.

  So the quartz was bait. I put down the porphyry and picked up another piece. It was small, the size of a squared-off egg, and beautiful, as clear and translucent as glass. The label said simply ‘Rock Crystal’.

  ‘If you want something useful to do,’ said Charles, ‘you can write out what sort they all are on the plain labels you will find on my desk, and then soak the Foundation’s label off and put the new ones on. Keep the old ones, though. We’ll have to replace them when all this stuff goes back.’

  ‘All right,’ I agreed.

  The next chunk I picked up was heavy with gold. ‘Are these valuable?’ I asked.

  ‘Some are. There’s a booklet somewhere. But I told the Foundation they’d be safe enough. I said I’d have a private detective in the house all the time guarding them.’

  I laughed and began writing the new labels, working from the inventory. The lumps of quartz overflowed from the table on to the floor before the box was empty.

  ‘There’s another box outside,’ Charles observed.

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘I collect quartz,’ said Charles with dignity, ‘and don’t you forget it. I’ve collected it for years. Years. Haven’t I?’

  ‘Years,’ I agreed. ‘You’re an authority. Who wouldn’t be an authority on rocks, after a life at sea.’

  ‘I’ve got exactly one day to learn them in,’ said Charles smiling. ‘They’ve come later than I asked. I’ll have to be word perfect by tomorrow night.’

  He fetched the second lot, which was much smaller and was fastened with important looking seals. Inside were uncut gem quartz crystals, mounted on small individual black plinths. Their collective value was staggering. The Carver Foundation must have taken the private detective bit seriously. They’d have held tight to their rocks if they’d seen my state of health.

  We worked for some time changing the labels while Charles muttered their names like incantations under his breath. ‘Chrysoprase, Aventurine, Agate, Onyx, Chalcedony, Tiger-eye, Carnelian, Citrine, Rose, Plasma, Basanite, Bloodstone, Chert. Why the hell did I start this?’

  ‘Well, why?’

  I got the blank stare again. He wasn’t telling. ‘You can test me on them,’ he said.

  We carried them piece by piece into the dining-room, where I found the glass-doored book shelves on each side of the fire had been cleared of their yards of leather-bound classics.

  ‘They can go up there later,’ said Charles, covering the huge dining-room table with a thick felt. ‘Put them on the table for now.’

  When they were all arranged he walked slowly round learning them. There were about fifty altogether. I tested him after a while, at his request, and he muddled up and forgot about half of them. They were difficult, because so many looked alike.

  He sighed. ‘It’s time we had a noggin and you went back to bed.’ He led the way into the little sitting-room he occasionally referred to as the wardroom, and poured a couple of stiffish brandies. He raised his glass to me and appreciatively took a mouthful. There was a suppressed excitement in his expression, a glint in the unfathomable eyes. I sipped the brandy, wondering with more interest what he was up to.

  ‘I have a few people coming for the weekend,’ he said casually, squinting at his glass. ‘A Mr and Mrs Rex van Dysart, a Mr and Mrs Howard Kraye, and my cousin Viola, who will act as hostess.’

  ‘Old friends?’ I murmured, having only ever heard of Viola.

  ‘Not very,’ he said smoothly. ‘They’ll be here in time for dinner tomorrow night. You’ll meet them then.’

  ‘But I’ll make it an odd number… I’ll go up before they come and stay out of your way for most of the weekend.’

  ‘No,’ he said sharply. Much too vehemently. I was surprised. Then it came to me suddenly that all he had been doing with his rocks and his offer of a place for my convalescence was to engineer a meeting between me and the weekend guests. He offered me rest. He offered Mr van Dysart, or perhaps Mr Kraye, rocks. Both of us had swallowed the hook. I decided to give the line a tug, to see just how determined was the fisherman.

  ‘I’d be better upstairs. You know I can’t eat normal meals.’ My diet at that time consisted of brandy, beef juice, and some vacuum-packed pots of stuff which had been developed for feeding astronauts. Apparently none of these things affected the worst shot-up bits of my digestive tract.

  ‘People loosen up over the dinner table… they talk more, and you get to know them better.’ He was carefully unpersuasive.

  ‘They’ll talk to you just as well if I’m not there — better in fact. And I couldn’t stand watching you all tuck into steaks.’

  He said musingly, ‘You can stand anything, Sid. But I think you’d be interested. Not bored, I promise you. More brandy?’

  I shook my head, and relented. ‘All right, I’ll be there at dinner, if you want it.’

  He relaxed only a fraction. A controlled and subtle man. I smiled at him,
and he guessed that I’d been playing him along.

  ‘You’re a bastard,’ he said.

  From him, it was a compliment.

  The transistor beside my bed was busy with the morning news as I slowly ate my breakfast pot of astronaut paste.

  ‘The race meeting scheduled for today and tomorrow at Seabury,’ the announcer said, ‘has had to be abandoned. A tanker carrying liquid chemical crashed and overturned at dusk yesterday afternoon on a road crossing the racecourse. There was considerable damage to the turf, and after an examination this morning the Stewards regretfully decided that it was not fit to be raced on. It is hoped to replace the affected turf in time for the next meeting in a fortnight’s time, but an announcement will be made about this at a later date. And here is the weather forecast…’

  Poor Seabury, I thought, always in the wars. It was only a year since their stable block had been burned down on the eve of a meeting. They had had to cancel then too, because temporary stables could not be erected overnight, and the National Hunt Committee in consultation with Radnor had decided that indiscriminate stabling in the surrounding district was too much of a security risk.

  It was a nice track to ride on, a long circuit with no sharp bends, but there had been trouble with the surface in the Spring; a drain of some sort had collapsed during a hurdle race. The forefeet of one unfortunate horse had gone right through into it to a depth of about eighteen inches and he had broken a leg. In the resulting pile-up two more horses had been ruinously injured and one jockey badly concussed. Maps of the course didn’t even warn that the drain existed, and I’d heard trainers wondering whether there were any more antique waterways ready to collapse with as little notice. The executive, on their side, naturally swore there weren’t.

  For some time I lay day-dreaming, racing round Seabury again in my mind, and wishing uselessly, hopelessly, achingly, that I could do it again in fact.

  Mrs Cross tapped on the door and came in. She was a quiet, unobtrusive mouse of a woman with soft brown hair and a slight outward cast in her grey-green eyes. Although she seemed to have no spirit whatever and seldom spoke, she ran the place like oiled machinery, helped by a largely invisible squad of ‘dailies’. She had the great virtue to me of being fairly new in the job and impartial on the subject of Jenny and me. I wouldn’t have trusted her predecessor, who had been fanatically fond of Jenny, not to have added cascara to my beef juice.