The Stone That Never Came Down (15 page)

XVIII

Valentine Crawford had a TV set again. It had suddenly occurred to him that a trained repairman could find and fix up a set that nobody else wanted. So far as helping to keep Toussaint amused was concerned, he was kicking himself for not having thought of it before. So far as the window it opened for him on the world was concerned …

A smooth-cheeked young BBC interviewer was saying, “Marshal, it’s a great honour for us to be the first foreign newsservice permitted to question you about your policies!”

To which a snort from Marshal Dalessandro, heavy-set, going bald, wearing civilian clothes of course, framed by the tricolour Italian flag.

“First of all, I’d like to ask whether you don’t think that by closing your frontiers with other Common Market countries–”

Dalessandro interrupted. “We the people of Italy have been cheated and lied to about the Common Market. It was a confidence trick. With it has been stolen our national pride. To be made into mongrel beggars is disgusting to a person of honour.”

“I’m not sure I–”

“So recently as the week before Christmas in London was a demonstration of Italians bribed to England by promises of good work and high wages, left unemployed and so poor not to pay their fare home. Who would not complain? But as they did speak out, a man drove a car into the meeting of them, and broke a man’s legs, and was hardly punished.”

“If I know the case you’re talking about, he was convicted and–”

“And fined twenty pounds!” Dalessandro snapped. “Pounds? What are pounds these days? It is to say no more than twenty francs, or twenty marks! More than that, too: have they not lured Italians to Germany with the same lies, and sent them home by force when they were not any longer wanted there?”

“It’s true that the foreign labour-force in Germany has been somewhat overlarge these past few–”

“Excuses! We in Italy are sickened of excuses!” Dalessandro barked. “What they wanted was cheap labour. When it stopped being cheap, they changed their minds. They lied!”

“But given the degree to which the Italian economy has been integrated into the rest of Europe, are you not worried by the fact that the West German government in particular has said it won’t stand for what you’ve done? And the French have adopted the same attitude. Millions of–uh–of kilos of French farm-produce, for example, are spoiling at the frontier stations which you closed when you imposed your new protective tariffs.”

“There has been wild talk of reopening our frontiers by arms. Let them try. Let them only try!” Dalessandro leaned forward. “We the people of Italy have discovered again our pride. With God’s help”–he crossed himself–“we shall guard it against all comers. No matter the cost, in life itself. We are decided.”

He sat back and set his jaw defiantly.

“Cissy!” Valentine said.

“Yes, honey?” Prompt, she came and leaned over the back of his chair, putting her arms around his neck and kissing the top of his head. For an instant a pang of old doubt assailed him: having her live here with him, the reaction of the neighbours …

–The hell with ’em! She’s a better wife for me at sixteen, and a better mother for Toussaint, than the other ever was! And if she likes it, and her mother likes it–well!

“Cis, I think them stinking buckras gon’ kill us all.”

“What?” She drew back and came around the chair to his side, staring. “But you been planning all these clever schemes to fix ’em! You got a dozen of ’em nailed to rights by their own laws!” She pointed at a stack of paper on the table in the middle of the room. Since returning from hospital, he had reviewed several past incidents where at the time he had thought there was no case to be brought under the Race Relations Act, but now saw how a charge could be made to stick. It was as though his repeated reading of that and related legislation had all by itself turned him into a lawyer.

“So what’s the use of fixing ’em one by one when they’re lining up for a world war?” he rapped.

“You–you joking!” she said, appalled.

“No, I can read it plain as a newspaper. It goes this way. Them French and Germans say they won’t stand for the Italian take-over. The Italians say shit on
you!
So they try and push through with guns, and the Italians fight back. And the Italians in America say, we got to get in on the Italian side, and the Germans over there say hell, no. So we got two camps lining up. Now the Americans don’t like the French, so they send their carriers and battleships to support the Italians. Anyhow they want to break up the Common Market ’cause it’s an economic rival for them. Meantime the Russians see this big rich capitalist bloc doing all the things it says in their creed must happen to it, like quarrelling over the loot. So they move into Yugoslavia like they did in East Germany and Hungary because they see their way to carving off a chunk or two of where the local Communist Parties are strong, like the big industrial cities, and–”

“Man, you going too fast for me!” Cissy complained. “I don’t know about all these here economic forces.” She hesitated. “Matter of fact, I guess you been talking too much about that in class since you got home. Like we only had five today, right? ’Stead of ten or fifteen!”

“But it’s important!” Valentine clenched his fists. “I’m explaining how there’s going to be a nuclear war!”

Into the brief pause that followed broke the shrill yammer of the doorbell. She rose, sighing.

“Man, you surely have changed since that buckra cut you up. If this goes on …”

And, unlatching the door: “Yes?”

A strange voice answered. “Is Mr Valentine Crawford at home?”

“Ah … Who are you?”

“He doesn’t know me, but … I’ll be damned! Cissy Jones!”

Valentine jumped to his feet and hurried in Cissy’s wake. As he came up to her, she said in amazement, “Why, Mr Fry! I was in your class when I was–uh–eleven, twelve!”

There stood a white man with a brown beard, smiling at her.

“Hey, this here’s one of my old teachers!” Cissy went on, turning to Valentine. “He’s the one they sacked ’cause he talked back at the man from Moral Pollution–I told you about him.”

“May I come in?” Malcolm said, and Cissy hastily stood aside. The weather was once more bitter; the forecasters said it would continue like this until April or even possibly May.

After which there was much bustle of chairs being moved and Toussaint being shown off–better, though still coughing a lot at night–and tea being made and …

“Mr. Crawford, I see you were watching the TV news just now,” Malcolm said eventually. “I presume they included the interview with Marshal Dalessandro which they used in the early-evening bulletin?”

Valentine gave a wary nod.

“What do you think of the situation?”

“Won’t make too much difference what I think, in the long run,” Valentine said. “I’ll be dead. So will you, which I guess is a consolation. And him, and the rest of you.”

“Honey–” Cissy began in agitation. Malcolm cut her short.

“Don’t worry, Cissy. I entirely agree with Mr Crawford. The chance of war hasn’t been so extreme since nineteen thirty-eight. And this time there are likely to be very few pieces left for the survivors to pick up.”

“He’s been saying the same,” Cissy acknowledged.

“I’m not surprised,” Malcolm said. “So, unless I’m much mistaken, he’s an ideal person to help us prevent it.”

“Prevent it?” Valentine echoed with scorn. “Not a hope! You buckras are built for killing, that’s all you’re good for. You’re the ones who fight world wars, and we’re the poor buggers who get slaughtered!” He grimaced. “Might not be a bad idea to let you get on with it. The people most likely to survive would be my people, and we’d make a better world than you’ve done.”

Casting his eye around the room, Malcolm spotted a paperback and shot out his arm. “Are you saying Chaka Zulu was less bloodthirsty than Napoleon or Bismarck? Chaka, who stood in the door of his hut at the beginning of every year and ordered his impis to ravage a season’s journey in whatever direction he cast his spear?”

Disconcerted, Valentine said, “You–uh–you studied up on Chaka?”

“I had a lot of black kids in my class. Like Cissy. I thought I ought to be able to tell them about African history as well as the Battle of Trafalgar and the Wars of the Roses!”

“That’s a fact, Val,” Cissy put in. “We all liked him a lot, Mr Fry, because he could answer questions like about Africa and places.”

“Ah … Okay, Mr Fry. I’m glad to hear it. Makes you pretty much of an exception! But what’s all this about being able to stop the next war?”

Malcolm explained.

“In times of trial,” said the Right Honourable Henry Charkall-Phelps from the screen of the TV in Lady Washgrave’s drawing-room–which when not in use could be disguised as an elegant commode in the gracious style of Queen Anne’s reign–“the British people have never failed to respond with magnificent determination and unquenchable resolve. One can only hope that if this crisis does develop further, it will not prove to be the case that the dilution of our culture which we have sadly had to endure, the injection from abroad of traditions which are foreign to us, one can only hope that these forces will not prove to have weakened our glorious heritage. Speaking for myself, while I did indeed have misgivings a short time ago, I have been wonderfully reassured by recent events. In particular, I’m comforted and given new hope by the splendid response we’ve seen to the New Year’s Crusade organised by the Campaign Against Moral Pollution … of which as you know I’m a patron. No more convincing gage could have been given to the world of our determination to sacrifice mere sensory gratification in favour of those higher and more admirable aims which in periods of open conflict are the sole justification for what we do: patriotism, love of freedom, and national honour!”

“How true!” sighed Lady Washgrave, clasping her hands. “How very true! And how well put, moreover … Oh, dear!” As the chimes of the front doorbell intruded. “Tarquin, be so kind if you please as to see who that is and state that I am not at home!”

But Tarquin was already on his way.

“You seem, Home Secretary, to be taking the present European crisis somewhat more seriously than the majority of your colleagues,” ventured the TV interviewer. “Last night when the Prime Minister addressed that meeting in–”

“One does receive the impression,” Charkall-Phelps broke in, “that certain persons take nothing seriously at all. It could well be argued, in my view, that a nation lacking strong leadership can scarcely be regarded as a nation.”

He smiled frostily. “However, kindly do not attempt to lead me into a discussion of that nature. For myself, I have every confidence in the people of Britain.”

“Thank you, Home Secretary,” the interviewer said, and spun his chair to face another camera. “Well, I have to confess that I wasn’t expecting such a forthright declaration from Mr Charkall-Phelps! Over in our other studio we have a group of journalists who–”

Lady Washgrave used the remote control on the arm of her chair to cut off the sound as Tarquin re-entered the room.

“Who was it at the door?” she demanded. “And–and what is that package you are carrying?”

He held up for her inspection an oblong box, flimsily wrapped in tissue which the rain had soaked; it was just over thawing-point tonight, and the wind was carrying what felt like half the ocean aloft.

Through the wrapping, a brand-name and a chart of enticing candies could be discerned.

“It was a–uh–a young
coloured
girl, milady,” Tarquin said. “Accompanied by her little brother, a boy of about six, I’d estimate. A most sweet and well-mannered child, very disappointed when I said you were not at home.”

He proffered an envelope on which the name “Lady Washgrave”, ink-written, had run in blue tears.

“Possibly this note will explain the purpose of their visit?”

“Ah … Yes, of course.” But as she took it, she kept casting nervous glances at the box. It was so easy to disguise a bomb in a small container nowadays, and one was aware that certain dissident elements … including coloured ones …

She read rapidly, and her mind changed on the instant. “Oh, Tarquin, listen to this! It touches my heart! The handwriting of course is not of the most legible, but … Well, one must make allowances, must one not? And certainly even if the doctrinal content of the cults which such people adhere to is questionable, there’s little doubt of their sincerity. The letter says, ‘Dear My Lady Washgrave’–isn’t that sweet?–‘We think what you’re doing with your Crusade is wonderful and Mam says it’s all right if me and my brother give you these sweeties. God bless you and amen, love from Cissy!’”

Tarquin beamed. “How delightful! And they must have gone to so much trouble, too. I’m well aware that these are your preferred brand of sweets, but in view of your reluctance to associate yourself with commercial advertising it must have been remarkable insight which enabled the little girl to make such a correct choice.”

He was peeling off the outer wrappings as he spoke.

For one last heartbeat Lady Washgrave felt a pang of alarm. There were certain associations connected with this make of candy. Whenever the late Sir George wished to put her in a mood to tolerate his–ah–animal urges, he had invariably prefaced the evening with a gift of just such a box as this one. Or rather, the large size, containing not half a kilo but a full kilo …

Then Tarquin was extending the open box for her to make a selection.

“It does occur to me,” he murmured, “that since no reference is made in the note to a male parent, they may well be fatherless … I do wish you had seen them, milady. The little boy in particular was charming, like a walking doll.”

“Oh, indeed, they can be delightful,” Lady Washgrave conceded. She popped a red sweet into her mouth, and poised her hand undecided between a blue and a yellow one to follow. “If it were not for the work of agitators, who infect them with dreams they are simply not equipped to accomplish …”

She picked up the yellow one, on reflection. And said, “Perhaps you would like one also, Tarquin?”

“Thank you, milady.”

He took the blue one.