The White Father (29 page)

“He denies it, sir. He strikes me as the sort of boy who would tell the truth.”

Mr Brachs appeared to consider. “No one in this business tells the truth, Mr Martin. But I think you may be right. When have you arranged for him to come again?”

“On Wednesday. You did say, sir, that I was not to show him too much——”

“Quite.”

“He promises to have made up his mind about the contract by then. He still knows nothing, of course, about being Sammy Sweet. But judging by his performance this morning, I think he will accept our offer. He seemed to enter wholeheartedly into the Sway.”

“Good,” said Mr Brachs. “Very good. I am always pleased to hear that someone has his heart in his work. There is too much cynicism in the world today, Mr Martin.”

“Yes, sir. There most certainly is.”

“Give him,” said Mr Brachs, “as much as he asks for. Bargain with him, of course. But do not, under any
circumstances
, lose him.”

“No, sir.”

Mr Brachs smiled. “The Sway, Mr Martin, is going to sweep this country like a great epidemic. We will mount our campaign to catch the Christmas market. There will be, Mr Martin, many complaints of the season.” He laughed richly, full of phlegm, and his glasses sparkled. Martin chuckled nervously.

“I want,” said Mr Brachs mellowly, “I want people to be happy, Mr Martin. That is why I sponsor this new, this great new dance, the Sway. People will be happy doing the Sway, listening to the Sway, watching others do the Sway. The Sway will become part of our national life, Mr Martin. I am proud to be sending the Sway out into the world.”

Martin nodded, speechless.

“Good day, Mr Martin.”

Mr Brachs switched the channel of his set to his confidential secretary. “Mr Bray, please come here. Bring your copy of the Restaurant accounts and Jefferson’s memorandum.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

Mr Brachs watched as Bray rose from his desk, picked up a file and left the room. Then he switched off the set.

A moment later Bray opened the door of Mr Brachs’s office, and began the long walk down the room towards the desk. The window which ran the length of the Building was shuttered, and the three remaining walls were white and bare except for a single painting, halfway down the room and opposite the window, a vast burgundy-coloured abstract which seemed to lour at the visitor as he advanced over a thick mustard carpet. Twenty feet wide and ten feet high, the picture had an oblong shape at its centre, but the colours were so shaded that the edges of the oblong were almost imperceptible. The deep dark reds against the white wall exuded menace and power. The painter was Mark Rothko.

Apart from Mr Brachs’s desk and chair, the only furniture in the huge room was two low leather chairs and the
closed-circuit
television. Whereas all the other sets in the Building glowed bluely, Mr Brachs’s glowered with an angry amber. It stared at the visitor like a ferocious guard dog, radiating
aggression, ready to leap for the throat. There was nowhere to look except at Mr Brachs or it.

Flinching away from the Rothko, Bray finally reached the desk.

“Sit down, Mr Bray,” said Mr Brachs.

Bray sat down. The chair was comfortable, but so low that his head was only just above the top of the desk.

“I am worried, Mr Bray. I am very rarely worried as much as I am worried now. I am deeply perturbed. I am almost angry.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Brachs.”

“It is I who should be sorry, Mr Bray.” Mr Brachs looked at his fingernails for a few moments. “Tell me what you think of Jefferson, Mr Bray.”

Bray cleared his throat. “Mr Jefferson has been managing director of the Brachs chain of restaurants for five years. He has always been scrupulously honest. He is imaginative. He has done some very good work. He is, perhaps, a little
overconfident
.”

“You have read his memorandum on the accounts?”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“And does it satisfy you?”

“It does, yes.”

“It does not satisfy me, Mr Bray. It does not satisfy me at all.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Mr Brachs.”

“The restaurants are losing large quantities of foodstuffs each year. They are being robbed. Unscrupulous employees, possibly under the direction of a well-organised gang of criminals, are filching at every opportunity.”

Bray looked impassively at the television set.

“I want you, Mr Bray, to set up, without Jefferson’s knowledge, an enquiry into the chain of restaurants.
Meanwhile
, I have ordered Jefferson to keep a foolproof check on every tin, can, bottle, sack and case of food and beverage that enters every restaurant. A similar check is to be made on every tin, can, bottle, sack and case that leaves. I wish to discover whether the same number of tins leaves the restaurants empty as enters them full.”

“It is a large undertaking, Mr Brachs, and an expensive one. There will have to be a special staff recruited to do the counting.”

“It will not prove expensive, Mr Bray, if the check reveals the extent of the pilfering and waste. Someone is sabotaging our business. I am convinced that large quantities of food are being stolen. The first detailed reports will be received next week. We shall be able to make a preliminary judgement on the extent of the thefts then.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“I want you to organise your enquiry with great discretion. I am particularly anxious to know what attitude Jefferson is adopting towards my reforms.”

“Yes, Mr Brachs.”

“You understand, then, what I require, Mr Bray.”

“I do.”

“Good,” said Mr Brachs. “We are under constant watch by our enemies, Mr Bray. The man of business in the modern world cannot afford to relax his guard for a single moment. Socialists and Communists infiltrate ceaselessly.”

Bray, who knew Mr Brachs’s views on the trials of business, nodded. Mr Brachs regarded himself and his enterprises as a crusade for individual freedom against the increasing
dictatorship
of governments all over the world. He did not, like some businessmen, think that the world was a conspiracy against himself; on the contrary, he thought of himself and his businesses as a conspiracy against the world. Secrecy, therefore, was vital. The law required certain public statements of accounts. These had to be as misleading as possible, must contain as many vague headings as the revenue authorities would allow. The multiplicity of companies within the Brachs organisation was a way of concealing what was actually owned and by whom. Some of the subsidiary companies acted solely as holding companies for others which in their turn held them. They were blind alleys in the vast financial city which Mr Brachs governed, where long avenues of retreat ended in
pre-planned
bankruptcies and ramparts of financial obfuscation.

“That will be all, then, Mr Bray.”

Bray rose and started on the long trek to the door.
Unconsciously
he flinched again from the huge, threatening picture. When he reached the door he bowed towards Mr Brachs, who made no sign of acknowledgement, and went out.

Back in his own office he gave a few minutes to the restaurant accounts, frowned and shrugged. Then he.
summoned
three men to his office, gave them orders and dismissed them.

The fourth floor of the Brachs Building was very busy that afternoon, and Jefferson was in a foul temper. He was unable to leave his office until after eight o’clock.

As he put on his bowler hat and picked up his umbrella, he said to his secretary, “Let’s just hope the old man goes right off his head before he thinks up another crazy scheme like this.”

“You’d better not let Mr Brachs hear you talking like that,” she said. She even gestured at the television set. She was fond of Mr Jefferson.

“That bloody thing,” he said, pointing his umbrella at it. “You can’t even get the Test Match on it. What the hell is the use of a television set you can’t even get the Test Match on?”

“Good night, Mr Jefferson,” said his secretary.

“Good night,” he said.

A full report of his remarks and gestures lay on Mr Brachs’s desk within an hour of his leaving the Building.

*

The noise, thought Shrieve, as he clutched a glass of warm red wine and listened to Pete Harrisson taking off on a little fantasy of his own known among his friends as “When You Come At The End Of A Perfect Day”, the noise was cheerful, anyway. He smiled at Jackie Harmer and said, “Don’t you carry earplugs?”

She shook her head and said, “You get used to it in time.”

“I’m afraid I must be what you call a square,” said Shrieve. “I find it all rather wearing. Why don’t they play something
quiet for a change? It’s like Piccadilly Circus on Boat Race night.”

“Oh, I expect they will soon,” she said. She grinned. “I think it’s very noble of you to have come at all.”

“He supports me,” said Shrieve, “so I feel it’s only decent to make an effort to find out what it is he does and support him in my turn.”

“You know he’s been offered a contract to sing this new song called the Sway?” said Jackie. “That’s more like having
something
done to you than doing it yourself.”

“He’s actually been offered a contract?”

“Oh yes. And Pete says it’s quite a decent one—not the usual cheating kind at all. He thinks they really want to turn Edward into something.”

“How simply awful,” said Shrieve.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Jackie. She grinned at him again. “I think jazz is all right, but pops—well.”

“I’m not sure that I can tell the difference.”

“Then I’m afraid you
may
be a bit of a square. I think
everyone
ought to be able to tell the difference, if he listens at all, that is. They aren’t a bit alike. For instance, listen to Pete. He plays jazz. It’s a sort of creative improvisation within limits.”

“Ah, I see,” said Shrieve gravely.

“Only, of course, this group doesn’t improvise much, Edward’s arranged it all in advance. But even within the arrangement they’re allowed to take off sometimes and do what they like. This is one of Pete’s special solos now.”

“And does he always play it the same way?”

“Oh no. That’s the point. I suppose if he ever felt he’d played it perfectly, then he’d always try and imitate that time. But in fact he doesn’t have a set piece here at all—it’s just a tune he goes crazy over and lets off whatever steam he happens to have around at.”

“Have around at?” muttered Shrieve, bewildered.

Jackie didn’t hear him. “He’s great,” she said. “Listen to that! It’s a parody of Cat Anderson,” she explained.

Shrieve leaned back against the wall and stopped trying to
follow her. The music was, as he’d decided earlier, cheerful; there was that to be said for it. And the way the young danced nowadays, though odd, to put it mildly, was rather charming. They seemed to avoid all contact with each other except at the finger-tips, and even these were only used, as it were, as marker-buoys to be rounded from time to time. He didn’t see how anyone knew who was whose partner, but perhaps they’d got it all worked out among themselves.

The number came to an end amid loud applause and Pete took an ironic bow. He then said into a microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to hear a sensational new rocking number, the Sway. This was recorded by Edward Gilchrist here only this morning, and we haven’t got any parts for it, so excuse any wrong notes. Actually, from what Edward says, there are only about four notes involved, so we should do all right. There’ve been a lot of new dances recently, and you may not have heard of the Choke. But if you have, the Sway’s the same thing, we think. Anyway, everybody Sway!”

There was a guitarist with the band tonight, and Edward had hummed the tune to him. The Sway sounded just acceptable on the solo guitar, but when Pete’s trumpet and Greg’s saxophone joined stridently in, it sounded even more crude and vulgar than with the Swaymen and the girls. Edward shut his eyes and hoped for the best.

“Sway,” he sang, “everybody sway.”

Shrieve listened, amazed and amused. So this was how Edward hoped to make his fame and fortune! The song was tuneless, the beat unimaginative and the words lacked, simply, humour or intelligence. Yet the Sway seemed somehow familiar, he thought. Perhaps all the popular “rocking” numbers sounded the same—he had heard, or rather
overheard
, enough of them on the radio. Yet this
was
familiar, surely?

He looked at the dancers. Few of them knew either Choke or Sway and only two or three couples were risking it. Suddenly he pushed himself away from the wall and watched them closely.

“Good God!” he said.

“What is it?” said Jackie. She was listening with a sad, almost resigned, expression on her face.

“Good God Almighty!” said Shrieve. He turned to her, his face a long exclamation mark, mouth hanging open, eyebrows high. “It’s the Ngulu dance they’re doing!”

“It’s the what?” said Jackie.

“It’s the Ngulu dance! Watch me! Come on!”

He seized her by the arm and pulled her to the dance floor. She followed him, wondering what on earth he was talking about. He began to shuffle and sway, clapping his hands, doing what the other dancers were doing, only better.

“It’s simple,” he shouted to her over the din, “just follow what I’m doing.”

He began to do his imitation of a giraffe. A small interested crowd gathered quickly round them. “It’s easy!” he called. “Easy!”

Jackie did her best to follow him. The crowd failed to recognise a giraffe in his contortions.

“Hey, who’s he?” said a man with a fringe of beard.

“Don’t know,” said his girl. She jangled her bracelets. “But he certainly knows how to Sway.”

“Sway, sway, sway,” sang the band in chorus above the plucking and twanging of the guitar.

Edward led them, clapping his hands maniacally and gyrating about the stand in his usual parody.

“Where did you learn?” shouted Jackie. She was picking it up fast.