At four o’clock, Jacob did something he had not done once before in his life; smiling to everyone, he walked out of his office on a Tuesday afternoon before the office closed.

  “You have Colonel Brigandshaw’s appointment in my diary, Miss Cohen?”

  “Three o’clock in this office tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Splendid.”

  “You don’t have an appointment, Mr Rosenzweig.”

  “I’m going home. Have all my guests confirmed?”

  “Mr Hollingsworth is bringing a friend as you asked. His wife is home in California. Mr Pearl too but won’t be bringing a young friend. Colonel Brigandshaw will partner his niece, I think he called her, his nephew a friend of Genevieve’s.”

  “Colonel Brigandshaw was married to Genevieve’s aunt, God bless her soul. The Goldbergs?”

  “Unfortunately, the chairman of the board said he and his wife would not be able to attend. They have a prior engagement.”

  “A shame Mr L’Amour is out of town. What about the flowers?”

  “They are to arrive an hour before the guests together with the flower arranger. Why not a caterer, Mr Rosenzweig?”

  “Vida is the best cook in the whole wide world. She just loves doing everything for me, Miss Cohen.”

  Miss Cohen waited for the lift doors to shut before shaking her head and gave the closed door a bitter smile.

  “She’ll have me out if I’m not careful. Poor Mabel. Everything! I’ll bet she does everything.”

  Only when she sat back at her desk, the space outside the glass door empty in front of the lift, did she recognise the true origin of her emotion. Miss Cohen at thirty-eight, two years younger than the new girl from Germany who had bowled over her boss, realised she was jealous. Wondering why she hadn’t tried seduction herself, she wound the letterhead into the top of her typewriter and began hitting the keys as hard as possible, reading off her shorthand of Jacob’s words as she furiously typed.

  “Who would ever have thought he had it in him?” she mumbled to herself between clenched teeth. “I’ve wasted ten years of my life here. Instead of running around New York all the time it was staring me right in the face.”

  Jacob was still smiling as he walked into Tiffany’s ten minutes later. Even though he was not the dashing young man from fifty years ago, working in his father’s London office on the pittance of a salary ‘commensurate’, as his father had put it, ‘with his knowledge of merchant banking’, he now had the money to buy his lady diamonds to place round her beautiful neck. He would make Vida happy the way she was making his whole life worthwhile once again, invigorated by the transfer of her youth to his old body. He had done so much for so many and put up with Hannah’s affairs, now it was time before he died to spoil himself, to enjoy himself, even make a fool of himself if that was the way it turned out.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Diamonds. Diamond necklaces, to be precise. I would like to see your diamond necklaces.”

  “How much do you wish to spend?”

  “As much as necessary. Tonight we throw our first dinner party. Tomorrow, who knows. Do you think being selfish is wrong, young lady?”

  “Buying diamonds for a lady is not selfish.”

  “Oh yes, it is.”

  “How old is your wife?”

  “She is forty, so she says. And no, you don’t have to look that shocked. The lady is not my wife.”

  “Let me see what I can find.”

  An hour later spent in pleasure, Jacob pointed out the necklace he wanted.

  “Please send the bill to my bank.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, sir. We have to know the bank will honour your cheque.”

  “But the bank is mine.”

  “We all have our own bank.”

  “I own the bank, kind lady. Sir Jacob Rosenzweig, late of Rosenzweigs London. Now plain Mr Rosenzweig of Rosenzweigs New York. You have heard of the Rosenzweigs, Merchant Bankers?”

  “Yes, yes I have. Can you confirm your identity?”

  “Please phone Miss Cohen at my office.”

  “Right away, sir… So you wish me to send your office the bill?”

  “Indeed, I do.”

  Taking out a wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, Jacob handed the girl his business card.

  Gerry Hollingsworth described it later to one of his cronies in California as the whore giving him money for her services; banks entertaining their borrowers was new to him. In his experience, finding money to make a movie was all ‘sell, sell, sell’. Only one in four ever made money. But the bank taking equity in the film, owning part of the cinema rights, meant Gerry as producer of the film was not required to give old Jacob Rosenzweig his personal guarantee for the bank loan to finance the making of Holy Knight. If the film failed to make a profit they each lost their own investment, both of them writing off the film to other more profitable projects.

  Unlike Max Pearl, the publisher, sitting opposite across the dinner table, the money for the film came before anyone knew what it even looked like. At least Max had had the chance to read the complete book before he published Holy Knight. Had the chance of making a judged assessment of its worth before committing a cent to the publication. The poor sod who had to ‘sell, sell, sell’ was the author Robert St Clair, sitting next to him, and without a bestseller to his name what chance would he have had in the rat race of commerce, Gerry asked himself? When everyone wanted to ‘have it made’ before they committed a cent of their own money. How many times had he said ‘it’s a something’ to some wavering investor like Harry Brigandshaw on the other side of the table looking bored.

  Giving a sidelong look at the lady at the top of the table, Gerry would have put money on the necklace round her neck being brand new by the way it sparkled. All the diamonds he had given away dulled down without regular cleaning. Twice Gerry had seen her fingers go up to her throat and touch the diamond necklace, as if to make sure it was still there. And diamonds they were, of that Gerry was certain. The real thing had a very specific look to it, like the rare face of an honest man.

  Of course he knew the prize of the evening was Genevieve sitting next to the young man with the same odd way of speaking as Harry Brigandshaw, an accent to Gerry that sounded like speaking with a clothes peg stuck to the nose, and the one with the nasty questions when it came to putting Harry’s money into the film. To some extent, the well-known author in Robert St Clair was a prize. Even Max Pearl as a well-established publisher would be asked to literary circles.

  So that had to be the answer to the evening; Jacob was showing off his wares and his power to the girl at the end of the table, the not unattractive girl who was wearing the diamonds and wisely keeping out of the general conversation other than to smile and to listen. Lucky old bastard. Young enough to be his granddaughter, if Gerry knew anything about young girls on the make.

  Making a mental note to find out who she was, Gerry idly studied the rest of the décor in what looked like a spanking new dining room. Max Pearl was holding court on the subject of Jewish poets, a subject Gerry, a Jew converted to the Church of England in a second step out of trouble, the first being changing his surname, knew nothing about. Gerry did not even look Semitic, something prominent in the face of the girl listening with bated breath to every word gushing out of his well-oiled mouth as Max warmed to his subject, helped by the odd pull from his glass of expensive wine.

  The cut crystal chandelier, over the centre of the long, antique table covered in George the Third silver, was the central point for the interior decorator, whoever he was; what Gerry would describe in a film as the central point, the commanding presence that dominated everything down below. An exquisite vase, solitary on a pedestal and brimming with fresh cut flowers, stood behind the lady sitting at the head of the table. Between the Georgian silverware were lines of flowers in shallow holders, each of which were joined back to back down the centre of the table. Instead of keeping the different types of flowers apart, just the heads floating in the slim troughs of shallow water were mixed, giving a flow of colour from one end of the table to the other, a touch that had caught Gerry’s professional eye when Jacob first ushered them into his sumptuous dining room, the sideboards groaning with trays of food in ovenproof pots and covered dishes brought in by a bemused girl through the door that Gerry guessed led to the kitchen.

  Whoever had decorated the room or arranged the flowers knew what they were doing, as did the cook, Gerry found out, when he helped himself to his supper, lifting the lids from the covered dishes one by one, the large whisky he had drunk in the lounge on arrival sharpening his appetite. Next to him he watched the girl he had brought from the agency helping herself to food, the girl still struck dumb by the presence of Genevieve. The agency girl wasn’t the best he had seen in New York but good enough for one night just the same, the thin waist and large bottom just to Gerry’s taste when it came to his women. Something that once, long, long ago, had attracted him to his wife.

  Sipping his wine, his stomach pleasantly full, Gerry watched them all around him, wondering what each of them were really thinking in their heads. Staring more at Genevieve, something he had done since finding her and giving her a part in one of his films, he was confronted by the mismatched eyes that first made men look at her, one blue, the other almost the colour of coal. But then they flashed at him with a daggered look of annoyance, and Genevieve held her spread fingers over her face to keep his look away from her, a gesture he knew all too well, his level of frustration peaking instantly at the rejection. Only when she looked at the young man, who had asked too many good questions at the meeting in his hotel earlier in the afternoon, did her expression change to a soft and dreamlike wanting, the yearning written plainly all over her face. Forcing himself to remember how much money Genevieve had made for him, Gerry turned his attention to the whore in the seat next to him, trying to rack his brain for her name.

  “Sonja,” she said quietly so no one else could hear, a professional who knew her job without having to be asked a question.

  Liking the girl just a little, Gerry took a sip of his wine, first raising his glass to Harry Brigandshaw in the hope of cementing the deal he hoped they would make before Harry left for Africa.

  Then he turned back to the girl he had hired for the evening, putting his hand on her knee just under the table, the girl moving his hand far down and back up again, over the silky smoothness of her flesh, making Gerry forget everything else in the room. Then he smiled; if there was one thing Gerry hated in life it was amateurs and this girl was not an amateur. ‘If a job’s to be done, do it properly,’ he told himself, the girl stopping his hand just before he reached her panties. ‘The rest, as it should do, would come later,’ he told himself removing his hand.

  Idly he wondered how old she was, a question, like all the other times, he never asked. She did her job. He did his by paying her. It was the law of life. The way it should be. The way he liked. Emotions, when it came to women, always got in his way.

  Then his eyes strayed back to Genevieve, one of the few women who had come into his life and got away. Maybe it was the challenge of one still to be had that kept him going. Kept him making his films. And, like old Jacob at the end of the table, kept him making the money that kept the world going round. The money, without which everything in the modern world, a world they were all forced to live in, would stop. Trade, he told himself, it was all about trading. Keeping the flow of money going from one to the other.

  “Is she all right, Harry?” he heard Jacob say as he brought his mind back to the guests at the table. Making the world go round.

  “They are all all right, Sir Jacob,” said Tinus, bringing Gerry out of his private thoughts.

  Then Gerry watched the three of them look at each other across the table, Gerry wondering who they were talking about, his mind racing, looking for an angle in his ongoing battle with Rosenzweig. What could young Tinus Oosthuizen know about that could interest Jacob Rosenzweig so intensely? Like remembering the young man’s name, a name that had confirmed after the meeting with Brigandshaw, there was something else to be found out about Jacob Rosenzweig; information in Gerry’s world was often as important to trade with as money. At least the young girl who had come with Genevieve was flirting with him. Probably wanted a part in a film. Again, he would find out her name. Unlike some people, Gerry was no good at remembering names until he needed them. He was in New York another few days. Gerry only liked young girls. Then the girl smiled at him, making up his mind; she was worth a small fling. Who knows, he said to himself, she might even be worth a part in a film.

  As evenings went in New York, it was a pleasant one. Generally, people were getting what they wanted including the woman at the end of the long table who, once again, had touched the diamond necklace decorating her throat. ‘Bugger must have spent a fortune,’ Gerry told himself, wondering why.

  For Harry Brigandshaw there was an element of déjà vu. The weekends at Hastings Court, surrounded by strangers with everyone in the same boat trying to have a good time, reminded Harry of the dinner party. What people wanted to say to each other was left unsaid in favour of trivial, polite conversation or a dissertation on poets that Harry suspected bored Max Pearl as much as everyone else.

  Jacob wanted to talk about Rebecca to Tinus, the last in the room to see his daughter and grandchildren. Gerry Hollingsworth wanted his money for the film. Robert wanted Freya who was back in California looking after their children. Genevieve would have preferred to be alone with Tinus by the look of her watching his nephew. And the young girl, hanging on every word spoken by Gerry Hollingsworth, would have more likely preferred to talk about getting herself a part in a movie.

  For Harry, the only way to talk to friends was around a campfire. With the lions roaring in the background. His back to a log. The Zambezi River at his feet. The crimson red of an African sunset reflected in the slowly moving surface of the river. The sparks from the big fire rising to the lower boughs of the riverine trees as the birds of Africa called out to each other, telling each other where they were roosting for the night for when the quickly fading light was too dim to see. To have around him men sparring with their words. So when they spoke what they said was worth the listening. Something of value to add to the mutual pleasure of watching the fire burn. The day’s travels in the bush tired all their bones. Each with an eye on their own spot on the ground where they would sleep round the same fire, taking turns to feed it to keep the predators from coming too close. Each doing in his turn what was necessary from individual habits formed from years of living in the bush. Tomorrow’s breakfast baking deep underneath the dead ashes of last night’s fire wrapped in river mud clay, the birds cooking just right for the dawn.

  He was a much simpler man than those sitting around him at the dining table other than Tinus. All the great display of wealth would never for Harry compare to the Zambezi River, the morning calls of Egyptian geese echoing stridently in the dawn. Only in Africa was he free to roam without the questions, the rules, the obligations. What had made men live cheek by jowl with each other in great cities was beyond Harry’s comprehension. Rebecca was the lucky one, living on Elephant Walk.

  “Jacob, do you ever take a holiday?” he asked during a lull in the conversation.

  “Where would you like us to go, Harry?”

  “Elephant Walk. My nephew and I are going out to the farm when we leave America. I have the mind to build a great dam across the Mazoe River to irrigate thousands of acres of oranges. Tinus has made a preliminary study. Why don’t you come with us? Fly to England and take the boat to Cape Town. Fly to Salisbury. Ralph will meet us at the station.”

  “Are you looking for money to build the dam?”

  “No, Jacob. As I said on the phone, I wish to give you some of my money to invest in America.”

  Only when Harry had finished talking did he realise everyone else had stopped too.

  “Bring Vida, Jacob. Give her a holiday. Maybe Africa will be to your liking.”

  “Oh, I’ll like it all right. But what would Rebecca say? Never go where you’re not wanted, Harry.”

  “It was her idea to Tinus,” Harry lied.

  “Who is Rebecca?” asked Vida into the silence.

  “My estranged daughter,” said Jacob. “Ralph is my son-in-law.”

  “I can look after Abercrombie Place while you travel,” she smiled.

  “Anyway, the invitation stands,” said Harry trying to recoil from what was becoming an awkward situation. “If war breaks out the journey may be impossible. Why I am going so soon. Like here in New York, I want to have my affairs in order in Africa before the world goes mad again.”

  “Vida, shall we all take coffee in the lounge?” said Jacob Rosenzweig getting to his feet, his crumpled napkin left next to his half-finished bowl of apple crumble.

  When Jacob reached the lounge ahead of the rest of them he dabbed his eyes and recovered his self-control, the invitation, coming out of the blue, having caught him unawares. What was so far away was suddenly very close. The girl called Amy brought in the coffee but the evening was over. Like a sand castle on the beach at Brighton Jacob had watched as a child when the sea came in, all his hard work was collapsing in front of his eyes. The others were making their excuses to go their respective ways. No one liked being made to feel uncomfortable.

  Harry Brigandshaw was the first to leave, the one with nothing to lose, avoiding Gerry Hollingsworth on his way out with his nephew, Genevieve and her friend close behind. Robert St Clair, was the next to go. Max Pearl, drunk, closely followed. Hollingsworth was all for sitting around for a nightcap by the look of him, the girl he had brought not caring one way or the other. There was only one way to get rid of Hollingsworth in a hurry.

  “Gerry, you’ve got your money for Holy Knight,” said Jacob, tired of all the innuendo.

  “Wonderful, Jacob. We’d better be off. Lovely evening. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I’ll come across with the papers tomorrow.”

 

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