HIS OTHER SON (2 page)

           
“And
how long have you been head of security with the Yellow Beach Corporation?”

           
“Eighteen
years,” Phil
Ryker
said modestly.

           
Ray
turned to Carl Anders who was walking on his left side, his face a mask of
bored indifference. “You see…Carl, is it?” Anders nodded. “You see, Carl. Here
is a man whose boots you aspire one day to fill. Do you see yourself as Head of
Security here sometime in the future?” Ray glanced round at Phil
Ryker
.
Ryker
was still smiling,
knowingly this time.

           
“I
haven’t given it much thought.
Perhaps, yeah, perhaps one
day.”

           
Ray
nodded his head slowly. “Then in that case let me give you some sound advice.
Next time I come in through those gates remember that I never was, am not and
never likely will be, your buddy. Got that?”

           
Anders
looked at him sharply. Ray was stone faced. Phil
Ryker
let out a belch of laughter and slapped Stock on the shoulder.

           
“You
shouldn’t have stayed away so long, Ray. It’s been really quiet around here
since you left.”

           
Anders
was staring at Ray, his hands balling into a fist. He realized he’d been
insulted, and he didn’t take being insulted lightly. The last man who did it
found his face smeared around the walls of Clancy’s bar in Upper Burbank. But
there was nothing he could do about it this time. He wasn’t gifted with a
startling IQ, but he had enough intelligence to realize you didn’t cream the
only son of your employer in the grounds of his own house and expect to hang
onto your job. He tucked the insult away in a dark corner of his mind. One day
he’d bring it out and dust it off, then God
help
Mr.
Ray wise-mouth Stock.

Anders stayed by his post at the door as Phil
Ryker
and Ray entered the house. Inside the hall a small,
balding, fat man was being helped into his astrakhan coat by Edwards, the
family butler, while an ugly woman in a mink stole and violet rinse stood by,
berating the fat man in a whiney hectoring voice for drinking too much and
embarrassing her. Edwards looked up from his task as
Ryker
and Stock entered but his only reaction was a slight rising of the right
eyebrow. He’d been doing his job too long and was too professional to let
anything distract him from his duties.

           
“I do
hope you had a pleasant evening, sir, madam,” he said unctuously, casually
dusting the dandruff from the collar of the fat man’s coat. “Would you like
your car brought up to the house?” The unspoken question was
, “Do you think
you can make it across the forecourt without falling on your face?”

           
“We’ll
manage, thank you, Edwards,” the woman said, having a break from her tirade.
She took her husband firmly by the arm and guided him out through the front
door.

           
“I
wouldn’t like to be in his shoes tonight when they get home,” Phil
Ryker
said under his breath.

           
The
noise of the party was spilling out of the ballroom into the hall. There was a
small band playing a competent but soulless rendering of
Just the Way You
Are
, and someone was crooning a poor imitation of Michael
Bublé
. A
woman was laughing hysterically and a man’s voice boomed, “Hey, Joe, you old
son of a …where have you been hiding yourself?”

           
Edwards
studied Ray for a moment, and then said, “If you’ll accompany me to the
library, sir, I’ll tell Miss Caroline you’ve arrived.”

           
“Thanks,
Bert,” Ray said. He’d called Edwards, Bert for as long as he could remember
because it was the only thing that could ruffle the prissy little Englishman’s
feathers. Edwards’s cheeks reddened and Ray knew he’d hit his mark.
Accompany
me to the library, my ass
, he thought, and wondered if the rest of the
household were going to treat him in the same way.
The
wayward son, the black sheep.

The last time he’d visited
the house it had ended in acrimony. Perhaps now he’d been relegated to persona
non-gratis. To be received in the library was a privilege reserved for trades
people and lesser executives of the Yellow Beach Corporation. Oh well, Ray boy,
just you remember that if Caroline and the rest of them want to play these
kinds of games, then they’re only following your lead and playing to your
rules.

           
“Catch
you later, Ray,” Phil
Ryker
said, and sauntered back
to join Carl Anders at the door.

           
“If
you’d be so kind, sir,” Edwards said, making quick little beckoning motions
with his hand. He led the way across the marble floored hallway.

           
“I
can find my own way to the library, Bert. Don’t trouble yourself.”

           
“It’s
no trouble, sir, I assure you,” Edwards said, his voice heavy with irony.

           
“No,
I’m sure it’s not,” Ray said, and started to follow.

           
The
main staircase was shaped like a horseshoe with the stairs coming down on
either side of the hall. At the top was a landing with a long corridor leading
from it. As he passed under it Ray glanced up.

           
“This
isn’t a fancy dress party, is it?” he said.

           
“I’m
not sure what you mean, sir.”

           
Stock
shook his head but walked back to the centre of the hall where he could get a
clear view of the landing. The landing was brightly lit and empty, yet just
before he passed under it Ray was sure there had been a figure standing there.
A figure wearing a robe similar to a monk, complete with cowl to cover the
head. He stood for a full minute staring up at the landing but no one appeared.
He shook his head and followed Edwards through to the library.

           
The
room was just as he remembered it.
A large dark room, the air
pungent with the smell of stale cigar smoke and musty old books.
There
was an unlit fire made up in the grate and over in the corner a small bar, a
touch totally out of character with the room. Books covered two walls while a
third was given over to a six-foot by three-foot oil painted portrait of Ray
Stock’s father, Randolph Stock.

           
Stock
left Edwards by the door and walked across to the portrait, standing before it,
his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his Levis in a subconscious gesture
of defiance. “Hello, you callous old bastard,” he said quietly. He heard a
click behind him and turned to see that Edwards had gone and had shut the door.

           
Ray
poured himself two fingers of
Chivas
Regal at the bar
and sat down in one of the two club chairs that flanked the fireplace. On a
side table next to the chair was an ashtray with a half smoked Havana cigar,
lying in a small nest of grey ash, and a magazine folded open on an article
about diamond mining in the Transvaal.
Evidence that his
father had recently occupied this seat.

           
He
shifted uncomfortably then rested his head against the back of the chair and
closed his eyes. The library was far enough away from the ballroom to render
the sounds of the party almost inaudible. If he concentrated he could just pick
out the melody of the tune the band had moved into.
Evergreen
.
He sipped his whisky, put the glass down on the table next to the ashtray, and
let
himself
drift for a while.

           
It
had been a long tiring day. At seven o’clock that morning he’d been out on the
ocean with a group of Minnesota businessmen, schooling them in the art of game
fishing. They’d been slow learners, and poor sailors. Three of them had thrown
up over the side before they’d even left the harbour. He’d brought them back
just after five in the afternoon, collected his money from the leader of the
group, a small skinny man with a receding hairline and a more deeply receding
chin. His name was Herb
Whitehead
; the rest of the
group called him Sir, so Ray guessed he was their boss.
Whitehead
had wanted to book him for the following day and had been very put out when
Stock told him no. It seemed that Herb
Whitehead
wasn’t used to people saying no to him. He offered Stock double the fee, but
the refusal was the same and they’d parted company on less than amicable terms.

He went back to the room he
rented above Eddie
Meeson’s
chandlery and showered,
then went down to the Red Snapper bar and got quickly drunk on a lethal mixture
of bourbon and tequila. He remembered the blonde girl’s approach but remembered
nothing more until the hotel room and the hour of passionate, but slightly
desperate, sex that followed.

           
A long tiring day.
He hoped the night wouldn’t be so
demanding but that, he knew, was just wishful thinking.

“God, you look a mess.”

           
He
opened his eyes to see his older sister, Caroline, standing over him. He hadn’t
heard her enter the room; he must have been dozing. He rubbed his eyes with the
heels of his hands and got to his feet. “Hello,
Caro
,”
he said yawning.

           
She
glared at him. “I thought you could have at least made an effort to look
somewhere near human.”

           
“You
know your trouble,
Caro
, you’re a snob.
Always judging people by the cut of their clothes and their Gucci
shoes.
I always felt you only married Martin
Devereaux
because he wore Armani suits and had his toupee trimmed at Vidal Sassoon’s.”

           
She
aimed a slap at his face but he caught her wrist mid-flight and lowered her arm
gently. “I think, in the circumstances, we should at least
try
to be
civil to each other, what do you say?”

           
She
wrenched her arm away and turned her back on him. “Christ, you’re impossible. I
knew it was a mistake to invite you back here.”

           
“Look
why don’t you go out and come back
in,
and we can try
again. I don’t want a war with you
Caro
. It was the
old man I fell out with, not you.”

           
“You
turned your back on the family when you walked out of here. Not only father,
but mother and me too. Do you really expect to be welcomed back here with a
laugh and a song?”

           
He
picked up his drink and drained the remainder. “No, but I didn’t expect a
re-enactment of world war two either. Why don’t you fix yourself a drink, sit
down and we can talk this thing through.”

           
For a
moment more she stood there with her back to him, rigid, stiff and straight,
then her shoulders sagged and began to shake and he realized she was crying. He
reached out and took her arms, turning her to face him, then pulled her gently
towards him and let her cry on his shoulder. They stood like that for half a
minute then she pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes with a delicately
manicured hand.

“You smell of fish,” she
said.

           
“Gets into the fibres, difficult to shift.
Sorry.”

           
“Your
room’s upstairs just as you left it. There are still clothes of yours in the
closet.”

           
He
sighed. “How
is
mother?”

           
“Doctor
Cooperman comes morning and evening to give her morphine. He seems to be at a
loss, says she’s on borrowed time.”

           
Caroline
went to the bar and poured herself a vodka tonic. Ray watched her, noting that
the years were not treating her kindly. Caroline still had her slender figure,
but her raven hair was turning grey at the temples, expertly masked by
undoubtedly expensive colouring, and the skin of her neck was starting to
crepe. And there was a certain slowness of her movements that seemed to add about
ten years to her own forty-one. She was dressed elegantly tonight for the party
in a black designer creation, but even that seemed to age her. He felt a
genuine pity for her as he watched her take her first sip of the drink. She
turned to him. “Can I get you one?”

           
“
Chivas
Regal.
Please.” He held
out his empty glass to her. She poured the whisky into a clean one and handed
it to him.

           
“I’d
like to see her,
Caro
,” he said, as she came and sat
down opposite him.