Something Wicked (21 page)

Roderick Black came over to Edward and said how glad he was that his daughter had found a friend in Verity. ‘Mary tells me that you are engaged.’

Edward blushed. He was pleased but embarrassed that Verity had confided their secret to her room-mate. He had no idea how to deal with his new status. Somehow, it felt rather ridiculous to be engaged. It was something that happened to young people – like Guy and Sybil – not to middle-aged men. Black, seeing his confusion, added, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Have I been indiscreet? I didn’t realize it was a secret.’

‘Not really a secret. It’s just that we wanted to keep quiet about it until Verity – Miss Browne – is better. We don’t want to tempt fate.’

‘Of course, I quite understand. I will tell no one.’

Bruce-Dick, who had been listening, added his congratulations. ‘There have been rumours,’ he said coyly, ‘but we’ll be as quiet as the grave, won’t we, Alberta?’

It was possibly this rather unfortunate mention of the grave which made Black say, ‘It’s a lonely, worrying business for Mary and, I imagine, for Miss Browne. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they find a cure . . .’

He looked genuinely distressed and Edward felt for him. ‘I know . . . it’s wretched.’

Any friend of Jack Amery had to be suspect but he was prepared to keep an open mind as far as Roderick Black was concerned. Over rather indifferent mock-turtle soup followed by over-cooked beef washed down by watery claret they talked about the impending regatta. This, rather than Wimbledon or Lord’s, was Bruce-Dick’s passion and, encouraged by Black father and son, he became rather a bore about it. Harry, who had obviously done his homework, was able to keep his end up as his host recalled past regattas and records were rehearsed and argued over at – for Edward at least – tedious length and detail.

Guy was modest about his chances of winning the Diamond Sculls, or the Diamonds as he called it. He explained that there was an American by the name of Joe Burk from Penn Athletic Club who was said to be unbeatable.

‘I saw him on the river yesterday as a matter of fact. He’s very fit and very fast,’ he said ruefully. ‘And don’t forget, there’s also Habbits. I’ve never seen him scull badly and on a good day he can beat any of us.’

‘Habits?’ Edward queried.

‘L. D. Habbits of Reading,’ Guy laughed, ‘though, I suppose inevitably, we call him “Bad Habits”.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Edward said smiling. ‘And why is he so good?’

‘I don’t know, he just is. Mind you, he has very long arms.’

‘That helps?’

‘Yes. Normally when a man stands with his arms stretched out sideways, he’s as wide as he’s tall. If your arms are longer than normal and you stretch wider than your height you have greater leverage and, if you are strong enough to keep it up, then you go significantly faster. The instant the blades are covered, the whole weight must be lifted from the stretcher and applied to the oar handle and must stay like that until the hands come into the chest. I’m sorry, I’m being a bore.’

‘No, certainly not,’ Edward reassured him, impressed by his enthusiasm and scientific approach to the sport. ‘And do you name your boat? I mean, I know Trinity – that was my college – always call their boats
Black Prince
.’

‘Some are given names and some aren’t, there’s no rule. I always think that an eight pounding upstream with blades flashing is one of the most exhilarating sights you could ever hope to see.’

‘What is good rowing?’ Edward asked.

‘Well, to get pace, it’s what happens
between
the strokes that matters. A boat that wins is one that travels faster when the blade is out of the water so a good “finish” is essential. A prolonged feather against the wind and a lightning entry of the blade into the water is what makes the difference.’

Guy’s eyes blazed and even Harry smiled. Guy Black was clearly a young man to reckon with.

After dinner, Bruce-Dick asked the men if they would mind joining the ladies for coffee and to try some quite passable port. Edward had the feeling that he preferred not to risk an all-male inquisition although what he might have to hide he could not imagine. No one objected so they returned to the drawing-room. Guy, blushingly, invited Sybil to walk with him in the garden and she agreed, lowering her eyes and giving a shy nod.

Inevitably, the conversation among those left behind turned back to rowing and the regatta. Roderick Black had been a ‘useful oar’, as he put it, in his youth but now subsumed his own ambition in his son.

Taking Edward to one side, he said, ‘I don’t know whether Miss Browne mentioned it but I took her and Mary on the river.’

‘Indeed, it was most kind of you. She told me how much she enjoyed it. You picnicked, I gather, on Mr Amery’s lawn?’

‘Yes, that was tactless, I’m afraid. I had forgotten that Miss Browne was on the opposite side of the fence – a Communist, I mean. Do you know him?’

‘I do,’ Harry broke in. ‘We saw something of each other in Kenya.’

‘You were in Kenya, Lord Lestern? What a small world! I used to have some business interests there.’

‘But that’s not where you met Jack Amery?’ Edward asked.

‘No, I met him through his father, in the House.’

‘But politically . . .’ Edward probed.

‘Politically, he is to my right. There’s much about Sir Oswald Mosley I admire but he’s gone too far. I’ve told Jack that but he won’t listen. Were you involved with the film he was making in the colony, Lord Lestern? What was it called?’

When Harry told him Edward had the impression that Black knew its title but did not wish to appear too intimate with Amery.

‘He’s rather a wild young man, is he not?’ Bruce-Dick said, disapprovingly.

‘Do
you
know him too?’ Edward asked, intrigued.

‘Not really but I see him sometimes on the river. He rows well but he won’t put his back into it.’

‘Yes,’ Black said, ‘he was wild at Harrow. He was always doing outrageous things and whenever the police raided the Hypocrites Club, the ’43 or the Blue Lantern there were always Harrow boys there, usually including Jack. Discipline was very slack at the school at the time – so his father told me,’ he added as an afterthought, again, perhaps, not wanting to look as if he knew Jack well.

‘At least there’s no politics in rowing,’ Edward remarked.

‘I wish that were true,’ Black replied. ‘You obviously don’t remember but there was an almighty fuss last year when the victorious eight from Rudergesellschaft Wiking gave a Nazi salute in the Stewards’.’

Everyone looked glum for a moment.

‘I say,’ Edward said, as though he had just thought about it. He took out the photograph Harry had found in Amery’s bedroom. He had intended to show it to Bruce-Dick to see what he made of it but why not show it to Black as well? Presumably, he had never been into Amery’s bedroom so he would not have seen it before and would not know its provenance. ‘I found this photograph in an album belonging to a friend of mine’, he lied. ‘I borrowed it because it showed some of the Kenya crowd and I’m almost sure . . . that
is
Jack Amery, isn’t it?’ He pointed to a face in the back row.

‘Yes, that’s him, all right,’ Black agreed. ‘It must have been when he was making
Jungle Skies
.’

Bruce-Dick had got out his monocle and was examining the photograph. ‘Surely that’s Peter Lamming?’

‘Yes, that’s what Harry and I thought. It must have been taken – when? – fifteen years ago?’

‘What happened to him?’ Bruce-Dick asked. ‘I just remember he had that extraordinary year at Henley when he won the Diamond Sculls. It must have been just before he went out to Kenya. What did
The Times
call him? Of course! The Diamond Boy.’

‘He died – malaria, I believe. He’d only been married a year. A tragedy,’ Edward answered him. It suddenly struck him that he did not know for sure
how
Lamming had died.

There was an awkward silence until Bruce-Dick moved on to talk about the regatta which began in two days’ time.

‘The first day’s always the best,’ he said. ‘There are so many races – never a dull moment. There are always one or two very close ones whereas on the last day the finals can be something of an anticlimax.’

‘And Guy is in with a chance of lifting the Diamond Sculls? You must be very proud,’ Edward said to Black. ‘May I ask,’ he continued, turning to Mrs Bruce-Dick, ‘are he and Sybil engaged? I hope I’m not being impertinent but they seem so well suited.’

He knew he was chancing his arm but he was interested to see what reaction he would get and, damn it, he’d had to confess to being engaged to Verity. Perhaps ‘confess’ was the wrong word, he thought guiltily. Mrs Bruce-Dick seemed hardly able to answer him but eventually murmured that there was no engagement.

The party broke up early. Guy was sticking to a strict regime which involved no alcohol, early nights and two hours on the river early in the morning when most of Henley was thinking about breakfast. Bruce-Dick, too, had a busy day ahead of him. During the regatta, Phyllis Court was completely booked out and there were parties every night. As they left, he touched Harry on the arm and said in a low voice, ‘Dashed sorry about the time it has taken to get you a membership here. I think I can say you won’t have to wait much longer.’

As they strolled back to Turton House, their path illuminated by the light of a full moon, Harry was cock-a-hoop. ‘It’s all thanks to you, old boy. Can’t say how much I appreciate it. You know, I might stay in England after all. It’s not such a bad place once those toffee-nosed friends of yours stop acting as if my presence left a nasty smell under their collective nose.’

Edward pooh-poohed the idea that he had played any part in getting his friend into Phyllis Court but privately he offered up a prayer that Harry would not do anything outrageous and get himself thrown out. The people who mattered in a place like Henley were much stuffier than in Kenya. In Happy Valley, you could get away with murder if you were moderately discreet but not in England and certainly not in Henley.

The regatta was held from Wednesday 29th June to Saturday 2nd July. The first day was blessed by a cool breeze and high cloud, ideal for rowing. There had been a brief shower in the early morning but that hadn’t put anyone off and by midday the Stewards’ Enclosure and the Phyllis Court stands on the other side of the river were almost full. The Committee chairman, Lord Desborough, was well pleased. Along the booms that marked out the course, a host of small boats – mostly punts and rowing boats but including a few slipper launches – nuzzled one another for a view of the first heats. Two by two, like the animals entering the Ark, eights, fours and pairs dipped their gaily painted oars in the river, glacially calm but for the occasional wash from some large motor launch.

Along the course, progress boards recorded the state of the race. It was almost cruel, Edward thought, to watch two eights rowing their hearts out. Parallel at the start, one would forge ahead of the other – and once an eight was a length ahead, it was rare to see it overtaken. At the winning post, the dejection and exhaustion of the losers was in stark contrast to the elation of the winning crew. He remembered a coach telling him at Eton that he always exhorted his crew to row well even if the other crew seemed to be drawing ahead. ‘If you remember to row well,’ he opined, ‘you are much more likely to win than if you panic and try to row faster.’

‘And if you still lost?’ Edward had asked.

‘Then at least you will have given pleasure to those watching who know what it means to row well,’ was the somewhat
Through-the-Looking-Glass
response.

‘Which end do you pole from?’ Verity had asked as Edward tucked her into the punt Bruce-Dick had kindly lent him.

‘At Cambridge we pole from the flat end,’ he told her, ‘but at Oxford they pole from inside the punt.’

‘How absurd you men are!’ Verity giggled. She was feeling very much better and, when Edward had suggested watching a few of the races from a boat, she had been excited. She had never been in a punt before and enjoyed being so close to the water, sliding, swan-like, across the river. She began to understand the popularity of punting with young men as she lay back and studied Edward. From below, his beak-like nose and strong chin were more than usually evident. Each time he pushed against the pole, his biceps bulged, obliging her to admire his athletic physique. He had taken off his jacket but refused to remove the Old Etonian tie Harry had lent him. When she scoffed at him, he told her he felt underdressed without one and that, outside Eton, Henley Regatta was one of the few places it was quite legitimate to wear it. He knew he ought to be wearing a cap or a straw boater but he had never been a member of a rowing club and didn’t want to pretend he was something he wasn’t.

Edward didn’t know a great deal about the sport but he was particularly keen to see if Guy could do anything in the Sculls. As he, rather skilfully he thought, attached the punt to a boom without falling in, he noticed an acquaintance, George Bushell, who – according to the programme – was the regatta’s official photographer. Bushell had his apparatus in a launch and was positioning himself to record the first race.

‘George . . . I say, George!’ Edward called, inviting a disapproving look from a man in the neighbouring punt.

Bushell looked round to see who was calling his name. ‘Corinth! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a rowing man.’

‘I’m not – just an interested spectator.’

‘Can’t stop and chat, old boy, but here – let me take a picture of you and your lady.’

Without waiting for permission or introductions, he took his photograph. ‘Come to the exhibition on Friday,’ he shouted as his launch moved off. ‘In the Stewards’ tent . . .’

They returned to
terra firma
for a late lunch and, as the band played, ate smoked salmon and drank champagne. It really wasn’t what a good Communist should be doing, Verity told herself, but she suddenly realized that she didn’t care a damn. For the first time in months she was happy. Without being aware of it, she found that she had lost her faith in the Communist Party – not in Communism but in the
apparatus
of Communism. Like a Catholic who no longer went to Mass, she felt guilty but defiant. She was hearing from friends back from the war who wrote to her or visited her that the Party had intensified its efforts to destroy its allies. SIM, the Servicio de Investigación Militar, the Republic’s secret police, was now nothing more than a branch of Stalin’s NKVD. Many of Verity’s old friends and comrades had been ‘liquidated’. Conscripts – mostly boys of sixteen or less – were now trying to halt Franco’s inexorable advance. It was murder on a grand scale.