I’m in my café on Moscow road. I consult my pocket watch. About now Paul is probably setting off for the big race at Crystal Palace. We decided I should stay away, which in this weather suits me fine. I’ll find out whether he won or placed lower down as soon as the race is over. I’m a bit apprehensive about the result, but I can’t do more at the track than I can do from the comfort of my café.
My American papers are spread in front of me on the table. I’m reading about what they call a budding bull market on the New York exchange. There was a sudden fall, a sudden panic resulting in a small crash recently. A little hole in the great dam of money straining behind the walls of the exchange. Quickly plastered over with more money from some very wealthy men. There are signs that there might be a bigger quake on its way.
I don’t know what to make of it. Some people say this boom will last forever, that the end of the war marked the beginning of better times. The rate of production we achieved then, and the prosperity it brought us, will rise forever. It sounds too good to be true if you ask me but I’m no economist, I am a pessimist. I’m happy for it to continue. Champagne tastes better than water after all.
In a matter of minutes Paul will line up to race. The odds are good, I’ve made sure they are, but that’s as much as I can do. I can’t make him win. Paul has borrowed, or been forcefully lent, a large sum of money by Mr Morton, to bet on himself. To try to make a dent in the Russian debt. I’ll finish my breakfast, go home. Take a drink, then dress warmly and head out. But I won’t stray far away from the café, as I’ve instructed one of the little boys to leave a message with the results of the race.
I’m about to light a cigar and order a second coffee. Last night was heavy and I need as much of the black gold as I can fit in.
The door opens and Miriam, white as a sheet, stumbles in. It looks like she’s been crying. Before I can recover from the shock of her finding me, and the fact that she wants to speak to me directly, a thing that’s never happened before, she tells me Paul has had a fall.
‘I know. I know,’ I say trying to placate her. Wishing she’d use a quieter voice, as my head is about to crack open.
‘How can you know?’ she asks, angry.
‘I made him wear that cast to drive up the odds.’ I quickly decide it’s best to be honest with her. I don’t really know where her sympathies lie, but if she’s siding with Mr Morton he won’t really mind my tactics, as long as we get the money back to him. But – and her being here, with mascara trailing her cheeks, just about confirms what I’ve suspected – if her loyalty leans another way, to Paul, then I might as well tell her the truth.
She grabs me by the collar and heaves me up from the seat, hisses angrily, ‘I know about that. The fake plaster. This is different. This is a real accident. You’d better come with me.’
She bundles me into a taxi outside, and between rasping breaths she explains that Paul’s been in a terrible accident, and is coming in and out of consciousness. She couldn’t stay with him for fear of being seen.
‘I thought you went to his races, and especially this one,’ she says, not without an edge, ‘I thought you cared about Paul.’
I start to explain, but she’s clearly upset, too upset to listen to my, and his, logic.
She tells me it was only when she gathered all the little boys, right after the accident, and started doling out money, that one of them gave up the information about my favourite café.
I’ve never seen Miriam upset before. She’s quite a sight. Eyes flashing, hands like little nervous birds. This is more than enough to confirm my suspicions. The ground disappears under my feet, but I have to go on.
***
On our arrival at Peckham, I immediately send one of the boys to Doctor Sanderson’s house, telling him to meet me at Copenhagen Street. Then I go and have a look at Paul. He’s lying on a camp bed in the officials’ office. He’s black and blue. Wrapped up in a blanket but still shivering.
I try to talk to him but he’s not answering. I put a hand on his forehead, try to wake him from his slumber but he can’t be contacted. I ask Miriam to find a car, then throw a roll of bills on the floor.
‘I’m buying the bed and your help for five minutes,’ I tell whoever is in the room.
Four officials, all in formal but frayed black, carry him out on the makeshift bier, Miriam and me walking behind like mourners. The rain which was just threatening in the morning is now coming down. Slow, heavy, unrelenting – English. Makes me pine for Zakynthos.
Miriam has found a covered lorry. The race officials, rain pouring off their top hats, help me load Paul onto the back of the lorry.
Miriam, with water running down her cheeks, plastering her hair to the sides of her head, jumps into the dry comfort of the driver’s cab. I take a seat on an empty crate in the back and knock on the partition wall three times to let the driver know we’re ready to go. As we drive through the streets, I realise Miriam must know where Paul lives. But to give her the benefit of the doubt, I also have to admit that she found me in an hour, in a small café across town, hidden behind a newspaper.
As we rock into motion I take Paul’s hand. I expect cold and clammy, but I get warm and papery. His face is bruised and bloody, and one eye is closed up. I rest my head on the back panel and hold onto him.
***
The house on Copenhagen Street is dirty, neglected, and a great source of income. Looking at Paul as he is examined by Doctor Sanderson I am ashamed of myself. Of what I have become. I send Rupert out to buy hot toddy for the doctor, Miriam, myself, and as an afterthought I tell Rupert to get some for himself too. Miriam and I still haven’t spoken, but I can see she’s worried. I hope she’s not worried about more than the investment Mr Morton has made into the body lying prostrate on the bed. It’d be better if she was viewing Paul as a piece of machinery.
Doctor Sanderson stands back and puts away his stethoscope, straightens his back and takes off his glasses. Rubs the bridge of his nose with a thumb and an index finger. He tells us that Paul needs to rest. Apart from concussion and bruised bones and a few cracked ribs, the damage is largely muscular. The sheer amount of bruising and blood lost will slow him down for a few days. I am to make sure he’s contactable on the hour and the half hour all through the night, for breathing purposes, as the main problem is not his body but the head trauma suffered. We should be thankful and worried at the same time, is the doctor’s conclusion. I try to give him some money, but he waves my hand away.
‘Get me tickets for his next race instead. If you look after him he will be able to race again, maybe even within six months, but it won’t happen automatically.’
‘He can’t stay here,’ Miriam says once the doctor has left.
‘I can’t have him at my house,’ I say. ‘Not officially. Maybe for a night or two.’
‘I can maybe house him somewhere. A hotel or something,’ she says. By the way she looks at him, at me, at the door, I can tell she wants to be alone with Paul, but I can’t give her that satisfaction. I don’t know why. And besides he’s not responsive. If he couldn’t feel Doctor Sanderson’s hard pokes into shattered ribs, he won’t be able to feel a woman’s light touch.
Eventually she says goodbye, and I stand in the room on my own, feeling the draught from the window. Listening to rodents and neighbours. I should maybe have asked her about the nature of their relationship, I’m happy I didn’t. What I don’t know I can’t lie about if asked. I kiss Paul gently on the forehead and go over to Madame Dubois’ rooms. I remind her about how she owes me a favour for letting her pay rent late, and that I want to borrow one of her girls, not for anything sordid, for something noble and at the girl’s normal rate of pay. She nods and promises to see to it.
Leaving a prostitute – a young girl called Olivia – to watch over Paul’s breathing, I go to my house. I soak in a bath. Then I dress as smartly as I can and head over to the Strand. Not to celebrate, that’s the last thing on my mind, especially as I’m now sober, but to bump into people. I’ve got a few names on my list. One of them the shipping magnate’s son, or indeed the man himself, but I’ve also read that Clarence Hatry is back from his Ivy League trip, so I set out to find him and his money. But anyone’s money will do. Mr Morton is away in Belfast or Dublin again – I can’t remember which – but he will hear about this within the hour.
I have to buy Paul time, and I realise I don’t care if that’s done by loan, theft, blackmail or worse. Maybe I can mix a dangerous cocktail of all these elements and serve them to Clarence Hatry? Putting on my twenty-four carat cufflinks, my heart soars at how low I’ve sunk, and how little I care.