Fault Line - Retail (5 page)

‘Absolutely.’

‘Maybe I’ll be better off with black.’

‘Maybe.’

We set the pieces up again. I pushed the queen’s pawn two squares out. Oliver responded in kind. So far so safe.

Then I suddenly became aware that we were being watched. A little boy of five or six, dressed in a cowboy’s outfit, complete with Stetson and gunbelt, was staring at me from a few yards away. His chubby cheeks and the fringe of golden hair visible beneath the brim of his Stetson gave him a cherubic appearance, but his set, stubborn frown and a gleam of hostility in his eyes spoilt the effect. He pulled out his plastic revolver and pointed it at me. ‘Hands up,’ he chirped.

I obeyed theatrically, but Oliver merely grimaced and said, ‘Go away, Adam.’

‘Hands up or I shoot.’

‘Just go away.’

Adam didn’t seem disposed to issue a second warning. He took aim at Oliver and pulled the trigger. A cap detonated, making me jump with surprise. But Oliver wasn’t surprised at all. ‘
Maria
,’ he bellowed, without looking up from the chessboard.

Adam had fired two more caps and added a cackling laugh before the au pair came hurrying into the room. ‘Adam,’ she called. ‘Stop bozzering your brother.’

‘Half-brother,’ Oliver murmured.

‘The varmint won’t surrender,’ Adam objected.

‘I will,’ I said, raising my hands again.

Adam glared at me. ‘You don’t matter.’

‘Well, that puts me in my place.’

‘Come wiz me, Adam,’ said Maria, beckoning to him. ‘You should be out of the ’ouse in the sunshine.’

Adam looked unpersuaded by the argument, but he went anyway, sticking out his tongue at his brother –
half
-brother – as he left.

‘He hates me,’ said Oliver neutrally as soon as we were alone again.

‘He was just playing.’

‘If you gave him a real gun, he’d be happy to shoot me.’

‘Come off it.’

‘It’s true. But I shouldn’t complain. The feeling’s mutual.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Yes, I do. Now, are you going to move?’

I tried to turn my attention to the board, but it wasn’t easy. I advanced a knight and bishop. Oliver did the same. I made a few more moves. Oliver’s responses were swift and subtle. I sensed he was taking control again. The game was somehow beginning to slip away from me.

Then another interruption came to my rescue. And it was doubly welcome. Vivien wandered in, tousle-haired and yawning. She was wearing a loose silky dark-blue shirt and a pair of tight, faded jeans. Unlike me, she really was dressed casually. And she looked devastatingly lovely as she wandered towards us through a pool of sunlight.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, stifling her yawn as she caught sight of me.

‘Saved by the bell,’ Oliver whispered to me across the board. ‘
La belle dame sans merci
, that is.’

‘Hello, Vivien,’ I said, smiling in what I thought was a debonair way. ‘Your brother’s giving me a chess lesson.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she replied, returning my smile. ‘He beats everyone.’

‘Jonathan’s actually quite good,’ said Oliver.

‘Wow! That’s high praise.’

‘Do me a favour, Viv. Make sure he doesn’t sneak any pieces out
of
position while I go up to my room, will you? I’ve promised to lend him one of my books. It could take me a while to find it.’

I couldn’t complain that Oliver had failed to honour our deal. The wink he gave me as he bounced up from the couch underlined the point. He’d gift-wrapped an opportunity for me. What I made of it was up to me.

Vivien watched her brother leave with a slightly bemused expression, then sat down on the couch. ‘You two only met on Thursday, right?’ she said, mixing a frown in with her smile.

Reckoning my near-collision with Oliver on Tuesday was a subject best avoided, I nodded.

‘Well, it’s good to know he’s found someone he can play chess with.’

‘You don’t play, then?’

‘Not any more. Getting beaten – no, thrashed – by my kid brother time after time rather put me off. I prefer tennis.’

‘Between you and me, so do I. How about a game some time?’

‘All right. Why not?’ It wasn’t the most enthusiastic of responses. I wondered if I’d gone just a little too fast. ‘So, you’re working at Wren’s?’

‘Yes. Until September.’

‘Then off to London?’

‘The LSE.’

‘I bet you’re looking forward to it.’

‘I certainly am. I expect you feel the same about Cambridge.’

‘I suppose so. At the moment, though, it just seems so far away.’

‘Going on holiday before then?’

‘I’ve nothing planned. Normally, Mother and Greville go to Scotland and we go with them. But they’re staying here this summer. Greville’s too busy to get away.’

If he was, it could only be because of his rumoured negotiations with Cornish China Clays. Vivien would surely only think me stupid if I pretended I hadn’t heard about them. ‘A lot of the staff think they’re going to be taken over by CCC.’

‘Do they?’

‘Yes. They do.’

‘Well, I can’t say, I’m sure.’ She smiled awkwardly. ‘Perhaps we could talk about something else.’

We could. And we did, starting with a lament about the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. We’d progressed to music – she was into Bob Dylan and I was doing my level best to pretend I was too – when Oliver strolled back into the room, conspicuously empty-handed.

‘Sorry, Jonathan,’ he announced. ‘Looks like I must have left that book at school.’

I shrugged. ‘Never mind.’

He zeroed in on the chessboard and snapped out a move, then flashed a disingenuous grin at his sister. ‘Was that the great god Dylan’s name I heard as I came downstairs, Viv?’

Vivien rolled her eyes. ‘Oliver has no interest in music.’

‘She’s right.’ Oliver turned his grin in my direction. ‘But thanks to the volume she plays Dylan’s records at, I’m word perfect in his lyrics. She tells me they’re what makes his stuff worth listening to. But I don’t really get it. The times they are a-changin’. A hard rain’s a-gonna fall. I mean, we all know that, don’t we?’

‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ sighed Vivien. She got up to go. As she did so, the sickening realization hit me that I’d passed up the chance to ask her out.

Then Oliver said, ‘About Tuesday night, Viv.’

She stopped and frowned at him, puzzled, I sensed, that he was raising the subject – whatever the subject was – in my presence. ‘What about Tuesday night?’

‘I’m not going.’

‘Oliver,
please
.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘But I told them you’d be there.’

‘You should have asked me first.’

‘How could I? You’d already flounced out.’

Oliver looked across at me. ‘Our Great-Uncle Francis is staying at the Carlyon Bay, Jonathan, with his wife,
la stupenda
Luisa. We’d been over to see them when I met you on Thursday. After I’d left, without the hint of a flounce, I might add, Vivien accepted an
invitation
to dine with them on Tuesday – an invitation that included me. The evening will be gruesome. I’m not going to put myself through it and that’s that.’

‘I can’t go alone,’ Vivien protested.

‘Find someone to escort you, then. Someone other than me.’

‘How can I do that? It’s you they want to see, not some nonexistent boyfriend.’

‘Well, they’re not going to see me. Hey, Jonathan, could you stand in for me?’

‘Oliver, please don’t be difficult,’ said Vivien. ‘Jonathan doesn’t want to go.’

‘Well, you either go with him or you go alone.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Really.’

‘Are you sure?’ Vivien asked, looking at me sympathetically, believing her brother had pushed me into volunteering. ‘I mean, if Oliver’s going to dig his heels in’ – she shot him a glare – ‘I’d be …’

I smiled at her. ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’

‘All right, then. It’s a date.’

Oliver and I returned half-heartedly to the chess game after Vivien had gone. My thoughts were already fixed on Tuesday night. I’d have to share her with Great-Uncle Francis and his wife, of course, but it was a start – a very good start, in fact. Thanks entirely to Oliver.

‘I want you to do something for me during your dinner
à quatre
on Tuesday, Jonathan,’ he said, as he idly manoeuvred me towards defeat.

‘What’s that?’

‘You do know why he’s here, don’t you?’

‘Your great-uncle? No. Should I?’

‘Come on. You can put two and two together.’

‘All right. Something to do with CCC taking over Wren’s.’

‘Everything to do with it. There’s a full board meeting fixed for Thursday to vote on the deal. It’s sure to go through. Barring some last-minute hitch.’

‘Is there likely to be one?’

‘Not so long as Great-Uncle Francis votes in favour. His and Mother’s shares will swing it whatever Great-Aunt Harriet thinks.’

‘She’s opposed?’

‘She wants the family to stay in control of the company.’

‘What do you want?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a vote. Grandfather left Vivien and me some of his shares, but they’re held in trust until we’re twenty-one.’

‘By which time Wren’s will no longer exist.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’re not looking for something that will … wreck the deal, are you, Oliver?’

He looked at me oddly. There was a shadow behind his eyes. ‘If only it was as simple as that.’

‘What is this really all about?’

‘I told you. It’s better for you not to know. That way, your question will sound … innocent.’

‘What question?’

‘The one I want you to put to Great-Uncle Francis.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Mention to him that we’ve played chess a few times. Say you can’t understand why I always win. Tell him I’ve explained why, but you can’t understand my explanation: that you have to be able to see what each piece – what any object – truly represents. As an example, I’ve said to most people a pig’s egg—’

‘A
what
?’

‘A pig’s egg. Clay workers’ slang for a large feldspar crystal. But never mind. The point is for you to pretend you don’t know what it means. Tell Great-Uncle Francis I said that to most people a pig’s egg is just a grey pebble, but to someone who really looks at things it can be the key to everything. Naturally, you asked me what a pig’s egg is, just like you did a moment ago. But all I’d say was: ask my great-uncle; he’s an expert.’

‘An expert in what?’

‘Crystallography. He has a small collection of crystal specimens found by Wren’s workers over the years. So, he can easily tell you what a pig’s egg is. But I want you to study his expression carefully
while
you relate to him what I said to you. I’ll want to know exactly how he reacts.’

‘How should he react?’

‘Just study him, Jonathan. Form your own opinion. Then report to me. I’ll meet you in the cemetery on your way to work Wednesday morning. You can tell me then how it went.’ He paused, then sat back on the couch. ‘And checkmate, by the way.’

According to Oliver, it was a bad idea for me still to be with him when his mother and great-aunt returned from church. They were likely to ask me a lot of questions and, for the moment, the less they knew about me the better. I had the impression there was nothing unusual in this. His secrecy wasn’t just a stratagem. It was his natural state.

I considered saying goodbye to Vivien, but we’d already made an arrangement for Tuesday evening and I was irrationally afraid she might change her mind if I gave her the chance, so I left Oliver to the Sunday papers and slipped out of the house.

The dog was still parked in a sunny patch on the drive. He gave me one rather lazy farewell bark as I passed. Then I heard a first-floor window slide open and Vivien called down to me: ‘Jonathan!’

I looked up and met her wide, disarming smile. ‘I’m just off, Vivien,’ I said. ‘I’ll—’

‘Wait there.’ And with that she vanished.

She reappeared, breathless, at the front door, no more than a minute later. I started back to meet her, but she signalled for me to stay where I was.

‘I’ll walk down the drive with you,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder at the house as she caught up with me. There was a perplexing hint of furtiveness to her behaviour.

‘Your brother’s a real demon on the chessboard,’ I said, smiling at her and noticing how the breeze moved a stray lock of hair across her forehead.

‘Not just on the chessboard. Look, about Tuesday—’

My heart sank. She
had
changed her mind. ‘When I said it’d be my pleasure, I meant it.’

‘It’s nice of you to say that.’

‘It’s true.’

‘You might regret it when you meet Uncle Francis and his wife.’

‘I’ll risk it.’

‘OK, but you don’t know them. Or me. Or Oliver, really. Which could be awkward. I mean, they’ll wonder what on earth you’re doing there –
why
I’ve brought you. So …’

‘So?’

‘Maybe we should meet before then. Just the two of us. To get properly acquainted. What do you think?’

What I thought was I could hardly believe my luck. But all I said, with a mighty effort of self-control was, ‘That’s a good idea.’

Vivien said she was free that evening and I assured her I was too. In St Austell on a Sunday, even in August, there was little chance I’d be anything else. We agreed to meet at the Rashleigh Inn, by the beach at Polkerris. It was the other side of Par but I declined Vivien’s offer to collect me in her car. Mum’s curiosity, once aroused, was formidable.

I caught a bus to Par and walked along the coast path from there to Polkerris. I was sitting outside the Rashleigh with a drink, watching the last swimmers and sunbathers drifting away from the beach, when Vivien arrived. She was wearing a sleeveless blue and white sweater-dress and huge diamond-shaped sunglasses that she immediately made a joke of. ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,’ she said, whipping them off and laughing. She looked inexpressibly lovely.

She let me buy her a Cinzano and accepted a cigarette. She talked about how at Cambridge she’d miss the sea and insisted I tell her what I did at Wren’s, despite my assurances that the work was even more boring to describe than to do.