‘No arguing with that,’ said IdrisPukke, taking a large bite out of a veal pie with a boiled egg in the middle. ‘Koolhaus came to see me looking for a job.’
‘He’s already got a job,’ said Cale.
‘He’s an able young man – very. We know him and he knows us. It’s a waste. He can make himself useful.’
‘I’m not going to leave Simon deaf and dumb again. Offer him more money.’
‘He’s ambitious. We could lose him and it would be best to keep someone who knows a great many of our secrets inside the fold. He could be a great nuisance, too.’
Cale munched absentmindedly on a red velvet cupcake.
‘All right. Put him to work with Kleist or Vague Henri for a month. See how it goes. If he’s got the right stuff send him to keep an eye on things in West Thirteen. But he takes Simon with him.’
‘Arbell will try to stop him.’
‘If Simon lets her then he’s out. Send Koolhaus on his own.’
They sat in pleasant silence for a few minutes enjoying their tea.
‘You should go and see Riba,’ said IdrisPukke at last.
‘Because?’
‘We need to make more use of her.’
‘I tried that already. She’s learnt gratitude from her old mistress.’
To his great irritation, IdrisPukke laughed.
‘You’ve got a very elevated expectation of other people’s capacity for gratitude.’
‘Not any more, I haven’t.’
‘I disagree; you asked her to betray her husband – and a brand new husband at that. You didn’t even give her time to become disillusioned with him.’
‘Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny. I stopped that ungrateful cow from being disembowelled while she was still alive by that mad bastard Picarbo.’
IdrisPukke kept on eating a cake during this rant and when he’d finished eating put down his plate and said, ‘You know I’d forgotten what a drip you can be.’ Cale was startled but not by the refusal to grant that his resentment was entirely justified. ‘You think you’re so much above everyone else – don’t deny it.’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Cale.
‘Then why are you so surprised that other people don’t live up to your standards? You can’t have it both ways, sonny. You need to make your mind up. Or in future stick to performing your magnanimous acts of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the heroic and exceptionally virtuous.’
IdrisPukke poured Cale a cup of tea and tinkled the bell. It was a mocking present from Cadbury for Vague Henri, bought when he discovered he ordered high tea every afternoon.
‘You rang, sir,’ said the butler.
‘More tea, Lascelles,’ said IdrisPukke.
‘Very well, sir,’ said Lascelles and left.
‘You claim you expect nothing of others yet you clearly expect some of them to give up everything. Why?’
‘Only people I risked my life to save.’
‘There’s a difference between what people ought to do and what they’re capable of doing. You’ve never had a wife or a father to split your loyalties. I’m sure it cost her a great deal to turn you down which is why you should show some backbone and make use of her guilt. She’ll want to help you prove she’s not thankless.’
‘They should have trusted me.’
‘No doubt. But they were afraid.’
‘I know what it means to be afraid.’
‘Do you, now? You see I’m not sure that’s true – or not true enough.’
Lascelles came back with the tea and after that IdrisPukke changed the subject.
29
‘You’re still angry with me,’ said Riba, more statement than question.
‘No. I’ve had plenty of time to cool down. I realized I asked too much from you.’
She was not convinced by his claim of forgiveness but it was equally necessary for her to act as if she were. Guilt and policy demanded it – her husband wanted to establish good relations with the newly powerful Cale.
‘How are you?’
‘As you can see,’ said Cale, smiling.
She said later to her husband, ‘He was pale the way yellow-green is pale.’
‘And you?’
‘Very well.’ There was a pause as she struggled to decide whether to tell him. But she wanted to – and desperately.
‘I’m going to have a baby.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’re supposed to say: “How wonderful, my dear, I’m so very happy for you.”’
‘I am … I am happy for you.’ He laughed. ‘The thing is I can’t believe, not really, that a small person can grow inside another person. It doesn’t seem possible – that it could really happen.’
‘It’s true,’ said Riba, laughing herself. ‘When one of the maids let me see her tummy when she was seven months I screamed when I saw the baby turn over and her stomach bulging – it was like watching a cat in a bag.’ They both smiled at each other – affection, calculation and resentment layered one on top of the other. ‘Now you have to ask me when I’m due.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘When am I going to have it?’
‘When are you going to have it?’
‘Six months.’ Another pause. ‘Now you ask if I want a boy or a girl.’
‘I don’t really care.’
She laughed again – but nothing, of course, could be the same.
‘I want your husband’s help.’
‘Then I’ll arrange for him to come and see you.’
‘I’m not being insulting, but I want actual help not what the Hanse have been offering up to now.’
‘Which is?’
‘You tell me. Better than that – show me.’
‘I’m just his wife. I can’t speak for him, let alone the Hanse.’
‘No, but you can speak to him. You can persuade him not to beat around the bund with me. There’s no time. I mean it. If he stays on the sidelines and I win I won’t forget – by which I mean I’ll close down the Hanse from here to the life to come.’
‘What if you don’t win?’
‘Then he’s got nothing to worry about, has he?’
She was uncertain about what to say. ‘It’s not just a question of what he believes or wants. The Hanseatic League don’t have much experience of the Redeemers. They think their reputation is just scaremongering. That’s what they want to believe. You mustn’t say I told you this but they won’t send troops, not at any price. There’s nothing he can do about that – and if you ask for them the Hanse will keep you waiting for an answer for months.’
‘What can I ask for?’
‘Money, perhaps.’
‘I don’t need money – I need administrators, people who know how to order and supply, warehousing, delivery – all the stuff the Hanse knows how to do. I don’t need money, five hundred good people will do.’ It was a figure plucked from the air. ‘With so few it doesn’t have to be official. The Hanse don’t have to be seen in it. But I want them and I want them now.’ He looked at her, and smiled. ‘I lied about the money. I want the money as well.’
As Riba got into her cab to leave she was watched from two storeys above by Vague Henri. He was remembering the time he hid behind a small hillock in the scrublands and watched her bathing naked in a pool, all gorgeously chubby curves but muscularly plump and wetly soft, and he was recalling the tingling in his chest as she unmindfully parted the folds between her legs. But that was another world.
Two minutes later, Vague Henri joined Cale for what was left of afternoon tea.
‘How was it?’ he asked.
‘Nobody loves us,’ said Cale.
‘We don’t care,’ replied Vague Henri.
That night Cale held Artemisia in his arms for the last time. If their nakedness and embrace implied warmth there was a great cold distance between them for all the touching of their skin. Cale, inexperienced in the reasons why she never closed her eyes any more when he kissed her face, was unsure what he felt or what to do about it: he’d never liked someone and then stopped liking them before. How could something so close as being inside someone – how strange it was, how strange – turn into such a vast distance so quickly?