The Touch (56 page)

In 1896 old Nasru’d-Din Shah was assassinated scant days before his fiftieth jubilee; the assassin, a humble Kerman, said he was acting under orders from Sheikh Kemalu’d-Din, who had thanked his kinsman the Shah for great kindness by preaching sedition and then seeking refuge in Constantinople. Extradited to face charges (the assassin was hanged), Kemalu’d-Din died en route, and Iran settled down quite peacefully under the rule of Muzaffar-ud-Din. The new Shah commenced his reign in a promising way by regulating the copper coinage and abolishing the ancient tax on meat, but beneath the surface the usual plotting went on.

For Lee it was an anxious time; a little oil was getting through and he was showing a profit, but not the millions that he knew would come.

UNAWARE THAT the new Shah was sickening, in 1897 Lee decided to visit England. He had been away from Kinross for nearly seven years and had deliberately dropped out of sight; letters to Ruby were given to a traveler passing through to post in some European city, and never revealed his whereabouts. So Alexander, searching for him, had not managed to locate him. The reason was simple: it didn’t occur to Alexander that Lee might go into the petroleum business, especially somewhere like Persia. Once Lee hurried out of India, he became the invisible man.

Only two items from Kinross accompanied him: photographs of Elizabeth and Ruby. His mother had sent them to him in India together with one of Nell, but somehow looking at a feminine version of Alexander didn’t please Lee, so that one he dropped in a pile of burning leaves. Taken early in 1893, just three years after his departure, they still came as a shock. Ruby’s, because she had aged so much, and Elizabeth’s, because she hadn’t aged at all. Like a fly in amber, he thought when he first saw it; not life finished, but life suspended. Though the ache was old, something that he didn’t feel unless inadvertently he put a hand on it. So the photograph was carried on his person but not looked at very often.

Mr. Maudling had finally gone the way of all flesh, to be replaced by an equally courteous and competent gentleman, Mr. Augustus Thornleigh.

“How much have I got left?” Lee asked Mr. Thornleigh.

Augustus Thornleigh studied him in fascination. The tale of Alexander Kinross’s first appearance at the Bank of England was still retold—the tool box, the buckskins, the battered hat—and here was another to add to it, the banker thought. Smooth skin weathered to the color of light oak, that bizarre pigtail, the darkness of the face and its strange light eyes. He wore a chamois suit surely pretty much like the one Sir Alexander had, but no hat, and the upper garment was more a shirt than a coat, open halfway down a chest the same color as his face. Yet his accent was elegantly pear-shaped and his manners impeccable.

“Something in excess of half a million pounds, sir.”

The fine black brows flew up, strikingly white teeth showed in a grin. “Dear old Apocalypse earns on!” Lee said. “What a relief. Though I must be the only Apocalypse shareholder who keeps withdrawing rather than depositing.”

“In one way, Dr. Costevan. Deposits do come in your name regularly from the Company.” Mr. Thornleigh looked mildly enquiring. “May I ask what your personal investments are?”

“Petroleum,” said Lee tersely.

“Oh! A coming industry, sir. Everyone is saying that the horseless carriage will replace the horse, which has the farriers and horse breeders in a fine fit of despondency.”

“Not to mention the saddlers.”

“True, true.”

They chatted on until a teller brought Lee the bank notes he had asked for, then Mr. Thornleigh rose to escort his client off the premises.

“You just missed Sir Alexander,” he said.

“He’s in London?”

“At the Savoy, Dr. Costevan.”

DO I, OR DON’T I? Lee asked himself as he hailed a hackney. Oh, what the hell, why not?

“The Strand—the Savoy, actually,” he said, climbing in.

Having nothing smaller, Lee gave the driver a gold sovereign which the man pocketed in a flash and pretended was a shilling for fear that the coin was a mistake. Not that Lee was there to witness this charade; he walked into the hotel and demanded a room from a smooth fellow in butler’s gear who was parading up and down the foyer.

Oh, bother! thought the fellow, how do I go about explaining in a tactful manner that this peculiar chap can’t afford us?

At which moment Alexander walked down the stairs wearing a morning suit and top hat.

“Complete to a tee, Alexander!” Lee called. “What a fop you’ve turned into in your old age!”

The Great Man seemed to cover the thirty feet in one bound, took the peculiar chap in a hard hold and kissed his cheek.

“Lee! Lee! Let me look at you! Och, far rather what you’re wearing than this pox doctor’s clerk’s outfit!” Alexander cried, smiling from ear to ear. “My dear boy, you’re a sight for sore eyes! Are you staying anywhere?”

“No, I was just asking for a room.”

“There’s a spare one in my suite if you’d honor me.”

“I’d be glad to.”

“Where’s your luggage?”

“Don’t have any. I lost all my European clobber in a little skirmish with some Baluchis about a thousand years ago. What you see is what you get,” said Lee.

“This is Dr. Lee Costevan, Mawfield,” said Alexander. “One of my fellow directors. Be a good chap and ask my tailor to come around tomorrow morning, would you?” Then off he went toward the stairs, an arm flung around Lee’s shoulders.

“No lift?” Lee asked, absurdly pleased to see him.

“Not these days. I don’t get enough exercise.” One hand groped for the pigtail and flapped it. “Have you ever cut it?”

“I trim the ends from time to time. Weren’t you going somewhere important?”

“Fuck important, you’re important!”

“Why do we all pick up my mother’s bad language? How is she?”

“Very well. I’ve just arrived from Kinross, so it’s a mere six weeks since I last saw her.” Alexander grimaced. “She won’t travel with me anymore, says it wears her out.”

His mouth went dry; Lee swallowed. “And Elizabeth?”

“Also very well. Absorbed in Dolly—did you hear about poor Anna? I can’t remember exactly when you disappeared.”

“You’d best tell me all of it again, Alexander.”

SO IN THE END no apology was tendered because none was needed; the two men sat over a long lunch in Alexander’s suite as if they had last met yesterday, yet last met a century ago.

“You’re needed, Lee,” Alexander said.

“If I can be part-time, yes, I’m happy to be needed.”

Which led to a description of Lee’s activities in Persia and his hopes for the petroleum industry. Alexander listened intently, intrigued by the fact that his own reminiscences of Baku had led Lee into this field.

“I didn’t realize at the time,” he said, “because I couldn’t speak any of the languages, that the locals had discovered how to refine the crude oil sufficiently to fuel their engines. But of course they couldn’t crack it to separate the best fractions, and Dr. Daimler hadn’t come along with his internal combustion engine either. Such a simple thing! Making the fuel work inside the cylinder instead of externally. I swear, Lee, that raw materials come along at exactly the right time to make some new invention not only feasible, but practical.”

But Alexander wasn’t in favor of the Persian enterprise. “I don’t know much about the country, but it’s bankrupt, volatile and very much at the mercy of the Russians. Thornleigh at the Bank of England says that Russia is going to try for control through banking, or a bank. Persia’s in need of loan money, and Britain’s behaving a bit like a girl who’s been proposed to once and confidently expects to be proposed to several more times, so why not say no for a while? Keep on with it as long as you can, Lee, but my advice is to get out the moment you can do so without losing your shirt.”

“I’m rapidly inclining to the same viewpoint,” said Lee with a sigh, “yet there’s more money in petroleum than in gold.”

“And being in on the ground floor is an advantage. However, I think you’ve made your move just a little too early. I’ve gone in a different direction—not petroleum, but rubber. We now have thousands of acres planted with Brazilian Para rubber trees in Malaya.”

“Rubber?” Lee asked, frowning.

“It’s becoming ubiquitous—used for almost anything. Motor cars need tires made of rubber, preferably a rubberized canvas outer tire and an air-filled inner tube of pure rubber. Bicycles have leaped ahead since pneumatic tires. Springs, valves, washers, waterproofed fabrics and over-shoes, rubber sheets for hospital beds, cushions, gas bags, machine belts, inked stamps, rollers—an almost endless list. They make electrical cable insulation of rubber now instead of gutta-percha, and there’s a rock-hard rubber called vulcanite that resists corrosion by acids or alkalis.”

He was away; Lee leaned back, stomach replete with a juicy steak, and watched the play of emotions cross Alexander’s face. He hadn’t really changed; he probably never would. Like most sinewy men, he had looked old when he was young and would look young when he was old. As thick as ever, the hair was almost white and gave him a leonine cast because he still wore it down to his shoulders, and the eyes had lost none of their obsidian fire; despite his insistence that he needed to climb stairs for exercise, he hadn’t put on an ounce.

Though his nature had softened again, perhaps due to the business with Anna and Dolly—Lee wasn’t sure. Just that the arrogance and imperiousness that Lee had seen in Kinross had now crumbled to reveal the old Alexander. As dynamic as ever, still possessed of that unerring instinct for what was the right thing to go into—rubber, for pity’s sake! Yet softer, kinder, more—merciful. Something had taught him humility.

“I have a gift for you,” Lee said, fishing in his shirt pocket. The photographs had to come out, and before he could transfer them to the opposite pocket Alexander had leaned across to pluck them from his hand. Still some imperiousness!

“Your mother I can understand, but Elizabeth?”

“Mum sent me three to India,” Lee said easily. “Of her, of Nell, and of Elizabeth. I lost Nell somewhere.”

“Ruby’s more tattered than Elizabeth.”

“I look at her far more often.”

Alexander handed the photographs back. “Will you come home, Lee?” he asked.

“First—here it is.”

A look of awe on his face, Alexander studied the coin. “An Alexander the Great drachma, and a very rare one! Superb condition—I would say, mint, except that’s impossible.”

“It was given to me by the present Shah of Persia, so who is to know? It might have sat untouched since your namesake left Ecbatana—the Shah said it came from Hamadan, which was Ecbatana.”

“My dear boy, it’s priceless. I can’t thank you enough. So will you come home?” he pressed.

“In a little while. I want to look at the Majestic first.”

“So do I. They say she’s the best battleship in the world.”

“I doubt that, Alexander. What possesses the Royal Navy to keep on putting their twelve-inch guns in barbettes instead of turrets? I think the American navy goes one better with turrets.”

“Whichever, the things are too slow—fourteen knots! And the Krupp steel is better armor than Harvey’s. Kaiser Wilhelm is beginning to build battleships too,” said Alexander, savoring his cheroot. “Personally I think that the Royal Navy is eating up too big a portion of the British Government’s money.”

“Oh, come, Alexander,” said Lee gently, “I may have been out of things for four years, but I doubt the British are hard up.”

“They have the Empire to rape, yes, but the business slump we’ve been enduring in Australia is worldwide. The truth of the matter is that building battleships is keeping men employed, for there are no ocean liner keels in the shipyards of the Clyde.”

“How are things in New South Wales?”

“Grim. Banks have been collapsing one after the other since 1893, though that was the worst year. Foreign investment capital was pulled out in a hurry. I tried to tell Charles Dewy years ago not to deposit in Sydney, but he wouldn’t listen. As well that Constance has two sons-in-law of shrewder disposition than Charles was.” The black eyes twinkled. “Henrietta is still unattached. I don’t suppose you’re looking for an excellent wife?”

“No.”

“Too bad. She’s a good girl destined, I fear, to be an old maid. Like Nell, she’s too fussy and too pushy.”

“How is Nell?”

“Doing medicine at Sydney University, if you believe that.” Alexander scowled. “Graduated with First Class Honors in mining engineering, then enrolled in second-year Medicine. Women!”

“Good for Nell. Medicine must be hard going for a woman.”

“After engineering? Rubbish!”

“She’s your daughter, Alexander.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“And what of federation?” Lee asked, changing the subject.

“Och, it’s a foregone conclusion, though New South Wales isn’t keen. I think that’s because Victoria is. There’s no love lost between those two colonies. Victoria will gain.”

“And the trade unions?”

“The shearers and general laborers have joined together to form the A.W.U.—the Australian Workers’ Union. The miners—coal, naturally—are as pugnacious as ever, and the Labor Electoral League is dying to try its luck in a federal parliament.”

“Which leads me to a burning question—whereabouts is the capital of the new nation to be?”

“By rights, in Sydney, but Melbourne won’t countenance that. The most anyone will concede is that the capital should be in New South Wales somewhere.”

“Anywhere but in Sydney, eh?”

“Too easy to make it Sydney, Lee. Oldest settlement, et cetera. I’ve heard every town from Yass to Orange. Still, one must be thankful for small mercies. Sir Henry Parkes can’t be the first prime minister because he died last year.”

“Good lord! There passes an era. Who’s the new Great Man?”

“No one. In New South Wales, a fellow called George Reid. In Victoria, Turner, though he’ll not be prime minister. It’s for all the world like the rivalry between England and France.”

“The French are well in the lead with the motor-car.”