Circles of Time (15 page)

“Not at those odds,” William said. “It's a false favorite anyway. She'd never win at a mile and a half on sloppy wet grass.”

“There's Rangers Spurs—or Wolverhampton at Leeds,” the footman suggested. “Not that I've anything against Ainsworth. And I'd say you've Bonny Bell in mind, sir. What hasn't raced since Chester.”

William grinned at him. “You've got the nose for it, too, don't you!”

The gardener turned a page of
Ladburn's Sheet & Gentleman's Racing Guide
and ran a thick thumb down one column. “Saw it meself, of course. She could be primed for a killin' and that's for sure. Then again …”

“Yes,” the footman said knowingly. “They may have her in a bit too deep.”

“Granted,” William said. “But I don't think so. She's got the weights and they've put O'Grady on her. Do you remember O'Grady at Gatwick last April? That man's a demon with the rain in his face and his mount over the fetlocks in mud. I won't influence you fellows, but I like a tenner of my share on her to win. I know we can get ten—even twelve to one on her.”

Lester and the gardener exchanged glances. Then the gardener nodded curtly, stuck his racing guide back into his pocket, and stood up. “Done. I'd best be off. There's a drain clogged out back. Punt a tenner for me, too, Les.”

The footman opened the biscuit tin and removed a fat pile of pound notes held together with a twist of string. He also removed an account book and a stubby pencil. “Ten pound each it is then. I'd best be gettin' over to Tybald's in Hampstead Road before the odds go down on her.”

“They won't,” said William. “If it weren't for the covenant, I'd say we punt the whole pile.”

“Oh, no, Master William,” Lester said solemnly. “The ten-pound limit stands.”

“I quite agree, Lester, and a sound covenant it is, too. I'd like to draw five or six quid from my account.”

“Very well, sir.” Lester counted out thirty-six pounds from the stack and made two notations in the ledger book, his lips moving as he wrote out the transactions: “Tenner each—Bonny Bell—fourth—Ainsworth. Six pounds—Master William's account—debit.” He placed the balance of the money back into the biscuit tin along with the ledger book and closed the lid. “Done is done, sir. And good luck to us all.”

H
E COULD NOT
drive a motorcar with any degree of safety or comfort. The strain of manipulating the pedal was too much for his knee. It was a minor price to pay. There were taxis and most of his friends had cars. He took a taxi at three o'clock in the afternoon to his club in St. James's Street. His father had sponsored him into the club—one of seven in which Lord Stanmore claimed life membership—on his seventeenth birthday. Heppleton's had held a reputation since 1790 for being a “young man's” club and and been popular for over a century with Etonians and the more affluent subalterns in the Brigade of Guards who sought relief from the subdued atmosphere at the Guards' Club or the Marlborough. Heppleton's had been something of a “hellfire club” during the regency years and had scandalized London with lurid stories of beautiful young harlots draped naked across divans for the casual convenience of rakehell members. The tales may or may not have been true, but they were cherished to the present day as part of the Heppleton tradition. It was comforting to the membership to dwell on the distant past, for the immediate one did not bear thinking about. After the first battle of Ypres in 1914, the club secretary had made the solemn gesture of placing empty brandy goblets on the top shelf behind the bar as a memorial to members killed for king and country. By 1916 the shelf could hold no more and the custom was abandoned. The ranks of glasses still stood, and the club was just now emerging from their shadow.

William made his way into the oak-paneled and leather-chaired smoking room, past the bar where a small party of visiting Americans were noisily celebrating their release from Prohibition. In 1919, in a move to keep Heppleton's solvent, the Membership Committee had broken with tradition and spread welcoming arms to all members of the Yale, Harvard, and Princeton clubs. The Americans had responded by spreading a great deal of money around, to the satisfaction of everyone except a few diehards. To William, the Americans were anything but “a raucous intrusion of leatherstocking colonials,” as one member had put it. They had a guilt-free capacity for enjoyment, which he found enviable.

He took a chair near the fire and stretched out his bad leg toward the warmth. When one of the green-jacketed servants hurried over, he ordered a large whiskey, asked for a copy of
Country Life
, and requested the result of the fourth race at Ainsworth when it came over the wire.

“We're not using the wire today, Mr. Greville,” the servant said in a whisper. “Mr. Jukes has a
wireless.
Think of that! Can't
get
it away from him. Been sittin' in that little cubbyhole of his behind the desk and toyin' with it by the hour.”

“And he gets the races and the football results on it?”

“Indeed he does, sir. I understand there's a broadcasting station at Writtle. Music mostly, but every hour or so they give the sports. Mr. Jukes has a license from the post office to listen in so it's all quite legal, Mr. Jukes says, although Mr. Abersworth does not take too kindly to a wireless aerial being run up the side of the building, sir. To the roof, sir, and coiled about a chimney pot.”

“How curious.”

“Indeed it is, sir—and a savage waste of a man's time, if you ask me.”

He sipped his whiskey and thumbed through the pages of the magazine. Members came and went, and eventually two of his friends arrived, complaining of the cold rain and the deathly dullness of the day.

“What's on for tonight, Willie?” one of them asked.

“I don't know. Thought I might try the Mardi Gras in Dean Street again.”

“Prettiest bints in London are down Chelsea way. The Palais de Dance in Beaufort Street, near the bridge. Asked a daisy of a flapper there one night if I might hold her hand. Know what she said in reply? ‘A fuck's as good as a handshake, Johnnie!' Would you believe it!”

“All too well,” a young man named Osbert said dourly. “It's all part of the conspiracy I was telling you about, David. One can see it happening.”

“What conspiracy is that?” William asked.

“Oh, don't pay any attention to Osbert.”

“You don't have to take my word for it, old boy,” Osbert said. “You can read it for yourself in Henry Ford's book,
The International Jew.
”

“That's just Jew baiting, pure and simple.”

“Yes,” William said. “I read a copy of the
Dearborn Independent
when I was in New York last year. Utter rot.”

“Granted he gets a bit potty at times, but you can't deny that Jews control the Bolshevik world revolutionary movement and are determined to undermine the entire structure of democratic society.”

“Oh, Lord,” David Hadlock moaned, “what's that got to do with my being offered a fuck in Chelsea?”

“It shows a deterioration of moral standards—a cunningly planned erosion of social mores and codes. I saw it happen in Italy after the war, until the
fascisti
brought some sense of order and control back to the country.”

“Mussolini!”

“A great man, David,” Osbert said quietly. “And Umberto Pasella … D'Annunzio and the noble
Serenissima
—great men all.”

William yawned. “Let me stand you chaps a drink.”

Osbert checked his wristwatch. “Sorry. Promised to meet a fellow at Boodle's. But let's have a proper chat one evening, Greville.”

David shook his head as he watched the man leave the room. “Old Ozzie has undergone a sea change since the Eton days, I can tell you. Altogether a sensible sort. Now he's caught up in the notion of forming the British League of Fascisti. Ever hear of such nonsense? Can you imagine an Englishman worth his salt joining something with a wop name!”

“He doesn't know what to do with himself.”

“No. Hates Oxford like poison. No excitement to it. Misses the fun of flying over the Dolomites and dropping bombs on poor ruddy sods of Austrians.”

“Yes—must have been a lark.”

He could feel one of his depressions coming on, creeping over him the way the gray evening was creeping over the windowpanes. They rarely lasted more than a few minutes and he was incapable of doing anything about them. They came and went like a dark and dismal tide. No specific cause. What the Negro singers called “the blues.”
Got the blues so bad I think I'm goin' to die....
It was that kind of feeling. He lit a cigarette and stared fixedly ahead. David was talking, but he couldn't hear a word.
Been in that place, but I ain't goin' back no more.... Yes, been in that place, but I ain't goin' back no more.... Goin' to pack my bags, hop the train to Baltimore....
That yearning to be someplace else, moving on—to Baltimore—to heaven or hell. Just the blues. The regrets that could find no other name. That inner bleakness of soul that the Negro jazzmen understood so well and could articulate better than an Eton “old boy.” The jazzmen would have found a voice for night sliding in across wasted days, a trombone moan for nothingness.

“You're not smoking?”

“What?”

“Not smoking, old boy. Just holding your silly fag in front of your face.”

William turned away and dropped his smoldering cigarette into an ashtray. The servant was hurrying toward him from across the room.

“Mr. Jukes apologizes, Mr. Greville, but there was a delay in the wireless transmission. He has the fourth at Ainsworth now.” He glanced at a slip of paper in his hand. “Bonny Bell was the winner, sir, with O'Grady in the stirrups. Paid off at fourteen to one.”

“What happened between Chelsea and Leicester?” David asked.

“One goal to nought, Leicester, Mr. Hadlock.” The servant shuffled through some other slips of paper before hurrying away.

“Blast.”

“I won a lot of money,” William said dully. “Quite a bit.”

“On the horse, you mean? How much did you have on it?”

“Ten pounds to win.”

David whistled softly through his teeth. “Ten bloody quid at fourteen to one? I'd say let's go out and have a bang-up time, but I'm down to my last dollar till next week.”

“I don't want your five bob. My treat.” He felt shaky, but the depression was fading. He stood up and stretched his tall, powerful frame. “Let's start off with a double whiskey at the bar.”

“It's really not fair, old chap.”

“Oh, shut up, David. What's money for?” He tapped his pocket. “A fiver and change. Not enough to do it up brown. I'll give Jukes an IOU for thirty quid.”

“
Thirty?
We could hit every ruddy club in London with that much!”

“We jolly well will, too, or die trying.”

An' drive those blues away … oh, yeah, drive those blues away....

Drinks at the bar with the Americans—fine fellows all—then off to Scott's for oysters and stout followed by a smashing dinner at Rules in Maiden Lane. They were feeling in top form as they sauntered out of Rules at 10:30 full of roast beef and Burgundy. A taxi idled at the curb as they stood beside it planning the night ahead.

“I say Chelsea,” David insisted. “Pick up some girls, touch a few spots, and then go back to my digs. I have a gramophone and a few passable records.”

“There are prettier girls at the Mardi Gras, or the Apollo in Greek Street—and bloody good Negro bands. Better class of girl than Battersea Bridge, anyhow. Might find a couple with a posh little flat in Mayfair.”

“If we do, your thirty quid'll melt like snow.”

“Don't be daft. These days they're more likely to pay us!
And
take us to the Savoy for breakfast.”

Soho was crowded with a Saturday-night throng. As the taxi crawled along Frith Street, they could see half a dozen Black Marias parked nose-to-tail down an alleyway and what looked like a battalion of bobbies strolling two by two from Bateman Street to Soho Square and back again.

“What's up, driver?” William asked.

“Raidin' the Sixty-Six Club tonight, or so I 'eard.”

“Let us off at the square.”

“As you want, guv'nor.”

“Poor old dim-witted coppers,” David said as they got out of the taxi. “Look at the poor blighters, just strolling about, gazing into windows, pretending not to see the Sixty-Six Club's sign. It's too bloody marvelous. They'll bust in on the stroke of midnight waving their silly warrants and there won't be a living soul in the place.”

William was not that sure of the dim-witted quality of the Metropolitan Police. They were within pouncing distance of the discreet little sign that marked the “66” Club's door, but their presence was too obvious to be taken seriously. DORA's target for the night could be any one of a dozen or more after-hours drinking and dancing clubs in the cluttered maze of Soho streets and alleyways. But which one? It could be the Mardi Gras. Dean Street was only a short walk—or a bobby's lumbering run—from where they were now congregated. Not that William cared. He had been through the inconvenience of more than one raid. Nothing much happened in them except that the customers were hustled out into the street and the owners, barmen, and any known criminals were hauled off to the police station.