Stephanie Page 8

‘D’you mean the pushers?’

  ‘No, the bigger men. Those who supply the pushers.’

  He looked at her again, blew out a breath. ‘I grew up to be tolerant of the way men make their money. I think of the “ judge not, that ye be not judged” business. But all the same …’

  ‘All the same?’

  ‘Yes, all the same. There are degrees of frightfulness, aren’t there.’

  The big car hummed through a still almost bare countryside. Stephanie was often surprised at the lateness of the trees, how they clung to their leaves so far into autumn and were loth to bud again until spring was half-over.

  Peter Brune laughed. ‘Of course if my pet theory were followed it would do away with the drug barons.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘It’s not an original idea, of course. Just take the ban off drugs. Allow them to be on sale in shops, like candy or fish fingers.’

  She looked at him. ‘All drugs?’

  ‘Not all at once. Begin with marijuana and the amphetamines. If that achieves its object, then move on to what is called the hard stuff later.’

  She stared at the chauffeur’s head, wondered if he could hear. ‘ I know the argument. But I’m … surprised that …’

  ‘It should come from me? Well, look at it this way. A man on, say, heroin, which is the most addictive and the most expensive, he needs about a hundred pounds a day to buy his requirements from pushers. If he could buy it legitimately, even with a heavy government tax, it probably wouldn’t amount to thirty-five pounds a week, so he wouldn’t need to commit a crime to get that sort of money. The police today calculate that eighty per cent of crime is drug-related. Therefore if you allow the free sale of drugs, what will happen? You create – or greatly enlarge – a drug culture. You destroy – or greatly reduce – a crime culture. And you save vast amounts of money.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  He smiled at her again. ‘Dear Henry Gaveston, I know, does not agree with me at all. Probably your father would not. But I have come to take a rather jaundiced view of human nature, my dear. If people want something they will generally get it. If it is such a need as a drug need they will go to any lengths to get it. Also in considering these things there is the awful lure of the forbidden. What Poe calls “ The Imp of the Perverse”. Many people wouldn’t bother to try drugs – to persist with drugs, for you do have rather to persist at the beginning – if there wasn’t this challenge to them. Yes, if you legalised drugs there would be a huge increase of junkies lying in the street. But old people would be able to go out at night without fear of being mugged.’

  Almost home. From this altitude you could see many of the gleaming spires.

  She said: ‘And d’you think if that happened your clinic would be more or less full as a result?’

  ‘It isn’t my clinic, by the way … Well, it’s anybody’s guess, but I’d expect the need of ten times as many clinics – and ten times less work for jails. Addicts are irresponsible but they’re seldom violent. Analgesic drugs tend to make people sleepily contented, not aggressive as an alcoholic would be.’

  ‘Not even when suffering withdrawal symptoms?’

  ‘They’ll feel extremely unwell, I agree – until they get the next fix. But it varies enormously from person to person.’

  After a moment she said: ‘ It would be a funny world. May I ask how you came to take an interest in drugs in the first place?’

  His big mouth moved into the half-smile it was always promising. ‘Guilt, I suppose.’

  ‘Guilt?’

  ‘Of a sort. I suppose it’s behind a lot of my so-called philanthropic ventures. My father began life humbly enough. He inherited a firm from his father making machine tools; but between the wars he turned to small arms; he patented one of the first automatic weapons. Ever heard of the Brune Repeater? No, it has long since gone. But he expanded rapidly and made a fortune selling his weapons abroad. When the Second World War came along he simply quadrupled his fortune by being patriotic!’

  ‘But does that mean –’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I have any special emotional tie-in with drugs. Any more than I have with paraplegics at the Gladstone Centre or cancer patients at the Royal Marsden – though the last may have some relevance … But I’m convinced from the firm’s records that, in the thirties particularly, my father was fairly unscrupulous whom he sold arms to; so I like to make up a bit of leeway on his behalf in the Heavenly Register. Actually I met Lord Worsley when he was still alive, and he interested me in the project. But as you know, it’s only one of my interests …’

  ‘Of course. Which include large gifts to the university and to St Martin’s.’

  ‘Oh, those. But those are special. In memory of 1951–53. When I was up, I mean. I still think of them as among the best years of my life, if you’ll forgive the cliché.’

  They were in Oxford now. In a few minutes they would be turning into Broomfield Road.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I don’t talk as freely as this to everyone.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you often provoke confidences?’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t know.’ And then: ‘ Do you know Errol well?’

  ‘Is it the next on the right, or the one after?’

  ‘No, three more.’

  ‘Three more, Parsons,’ Brune said in a louder voice. ‘Then it’s to the right.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He leaned back. ‘Do I know Errol well? No, not well. But I’ve known him – oh, ten or fifteen years. I met him first in Corfu. I have a house there, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘You must come and spend a holiday with us. Have you been to the island?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Most of it is ruined, but it has great natural beauty, and there are a few secluded spots. My house is about three miles from the sea.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d love to come sometime.’

  Peter Brune’s eyes narrowed as if coming into the sun. ‘I knew Errol’s first wife, Elena. They ran a hotel on a popular beach. He’s very good company … But who am I to tell you that?’

  Stephanie laughed again. ‘Well, yes, I agree.’

  ‘I used to go to the island twice a year, in May and September, so I saw quite a lot of them. Then he left Elena – who doesn’t accept divorce, so according to her he is still her husband. I believe he and Suzanne went through some sort of a ceremony in England. Have you met Polly?’

  ‘His daughter? No.’

  ‘Quite the Greek beauty. Or will be in a few years. But why d’you ask?’

  ‘I wondered. He seems very well off now.’

  ‘He’s in the leisure business, and travel, I think – and that sort of thing has rocketed in the last few years.’

  They had turned into Broomfield Road, and the car stopped at number 17.

  ‘I’m really very grateful,’ Stephanie said. ‘Will you come in and have a drink before you go on?’

  Peter glanced at his watch. ‘Well, I think probably …’

  ‘There are one or two questions I still want to ask you.’

  He looked quizzically at her. ‘Put like that, how could I refuse?’

  II

  After Peter Brune had gone, Stephanie took a second much-needed drink and got out her books: Schools loomed like a thunderstorm rumbling in the middle distance. She had not so far actually skipped a tutorial but she had recently admitted to Bruce Masters that she had simply not been working. They both knew this wouldn’t do if she were to make a decent showing at the end of May. How be concerned with an academic life when real life clutched at you, red in tooth and claw?

  Yet she felt in a way relieved for having partly shared her problem with somebody else. Was Peter Brune’s sardonic solution either credible or remotely acceptable? Surely not in a civilised country. Yet the converse, the situation as it was developing now, was scarcely less acceptable. And the drug importers were making millions out of the situation. No wo
nder Errol was rich! What did one do about it? What could one do about it? It was perfectly plain that she had at least to break with him. His money was evil money. The flowers he had sent her, the theatres he had taken her to, the luxurious first-class trip to India, all bought with evil money.

  She pulled across an old exercise book and saw a quotation from Seneca she had scribbled down last year: Actio recta non erit, nisi recta fuerit voluntas … An action will not be right unless the will be right; for from there is the action derived. Again, the will will not be right unless the disposition of the mind be right; for from thence comes the will. Would her action, if she took action, be right, and for those reasons? She threw the book across the desk and picked up Cervantes. She read for a while, and then the bell rang.

  She swore under her breath and went to the door, half fearing it might be Anne Vincent. And it was.

  ‘Darling, I’m not stopping,’ Anne said. ‘I’ve brought you some fresh strawberries. They were in the market, flown in from somewhere, and I couldn’t resist them.’

  ‘Oh thanks. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘And a carton of cream. Regale yourself while you wage war on the books.’

  Saying all the time that she wouldn’t come in, she came in, and saying anyway she mustn’t stop, she perched on a corner of the desk and chattered away.

  ‘What’s wrong with your leg?’ Stephanie asked.

  ‘What? Oh that. Didn’t I tell you?’ Anne stared at the bandage above her knee. She affected the prevailing fashion for sweeping skirts, so this part of her anatomy was seldom seen. ‘I fell off my bike in the High. Some bloody fool with a car squeezed me into too small a space, and I was so concerned to tell him what I thought of him that I didn’t look where I was going. I thought it would need stitches but Dr Hillsborough said it would be okay.’

  ‘Bad luck.’ Stephanie put the water on for coffee; there was no way now of avoiding a session, and if it was brief it did not so much matter. ‘That the old man or Jeremy Hillsborough?’

  ‘Jeremy. He’s quite dishy now, isn’t he, now he’s wearing contact lenses.’

  ‘Is that what it is? I didn’t know.’ In fact Stephanie, who had been three times to the Hillsborough surgery for minor ailments, didn’t really find Jeremy Hillsborough dishy at all. She supposed there was always a special appeal to a susceptible girl like Anne in a moderately good-looking unmarried doctor of thirty-odd. To Stephanie there was an air of extra confidentiality about the lanky Jeremy that jarred. If you went to him with a sore throat you felt he expected you to confess you had missed two periods and what would he advise?

  ‘Do you know Jeremy’s friend, Dr Aran Jiva?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Reasonably well. Chiefly he’s a friend of Tony Maidment’s. Why?’

  ‘Nothing really. He’s no looker, is he. People laugh at him with that pince-nez. Is he a Paki?’

  ‘No, Indian. At least – I don’t know whether he’s a Muslim or a Hindu. I’m surprised you haven’t met him before.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen him about often enough, but I went to one of Anthony Barr’s breakfasts this week, and he was there. Holds himself aloof.’

  ‘Well, he’s older, isn’t he. And takes himself seriously.’

  ‘Right. D’you like him?’

  ‘He’s quite pleasant.’

  ‘He seems to have lots of money. Some of these orientals have, of course. Tell me, Steff,’ Anne said, ‘talking of money, do people try to borrow from you?’

  ‘Here? Sometimes. Not often.’

  ‘There’s this girl Charlotte Harris. Shares with me and Penny at Mrs Asher’s. She’s always in money trouble; she’s borrowed from me three times – not big money, but I’m not all that well-heeled – swears she’ll repay next week, never does. I think it a bit thick.’

  ‘Have you asked her?’

  ‘More than once. But I don’t like to be too hard. Of course she says it’ll be all right in a week or two, I give you my oath, et cetera. You know. Oh, is that coffee? Thanks.’

  Stephanie said: ‘I think you’ve got to write it off as a bad debt. Put it down to experience.’

  ‘Right. Yep, I suppose so. Hell, I wish I didn’t take sugar, I know it’s bad for the complexion. It’s one reason I’d like to get away from Mrs Asher’s.’

  ‘What, the sugar?’

  ‘Oh, Steff. No, you know.’ Anne wafted the steam delicately away with her hand. ‘What used to be called morality has gone out of the window long since, of course. You sleep as you want and with anyone you fancy. Penny spent the night at Magdalen last week! … But borrowing money without any real, serious intention of returning it – that’s still morally wrong, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is in my book,’ Stephanie said.

  ‘Right. But it really is disagreeable. My parents lash out cash to enable me to live like a lady, not to subsidise some wet, feeble girl who lets her own grant dribble through her fingers.’

  The coffee was helping. For once she began to feel like work. Just as soon as Anne could be edged out … She might even be able to concentrate.

  Anne fidgeted with the bandage then let her skirt slip down. She glanced at the mantelpiece.

  ‘Talking of Tony Maidment, you must be going to his twenty-first, aren’t you? You know him so much better than I do.’

  ‘Well, yes. I accepted but it’s been so frantic since I came back that I’ve forgotten to put the card up. Is it next Sunday?’

  ‘Right. I expect it’ll be quite a do. His mother’s rolling, and he’s the third baronet or something.’

  ‘Or something.’

  ‘I confess I was scared witless that I might not get an invite, me being only in my first year and really only knowing him through you. But it came. I’m thrilled. What are you going to wear?’

  ‘I haven’t thought. Anne, I don’t want to sound blasé, but things really have been rather wild since we flew back from Delhi. I had to see my beloved parent. As you know he’s more or less confined to a wheelchair, and I’ve been neglectful. Then other things crowded in – not least the fact that I’ve been skipping work and Finals are only a few weeks away …’

  She hoped Anne would take the hint.

  She did at last. She was eased off the corner of the desk and towards the door, where she turned and said: ‘Is Errol going with you to Tony’s party?’

  Stephanie was suddenly unreasoningly angry. She swallowed down her first reply and made an effort to speak in a controlled way.

  ‘Darling, does it matter to you?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Look, you don’t go with people to a birthday party. You don’t make up a group to go together the way you do for a college ball or a commem. ball. I’ve been invited and I shall go. You’ve been invited and I imagine you’ll go. I don’t even know whether Errol has been invited, but I don’t think he’ll be there because he will probably be in Holland. That satisfy?’

  Anne blinked. ‘Oh, yes. Oh, right. I only asked.’ The bite in Stephanie’s voice had not been altogether disguised.

  Stephanie said: ‘ Because I’m having an affair with Errol doesn’t mean we have to live in each other’s pockets. Get that?’

  ‘Right. Oh, right.’

  The anger was blowing itself out as quickly as it had come. She was startled by it herself, as if only now consciously realising the degree of the tensions within her. ‘Let’s see, what time is it on Sunday?’

  ‘Eight. Shall I pick you up?’

  ‘No, thanks. Thanks all the same, Anne. Let’s go under our own steam. If the party tends to drag I might come home early – I’ve so much work to do.’ ‘Right,’ said Anne for the twelfth time as she was ushered out.

  Chapter Six

  I

  Errol Colton came back from one of his meetings in London and parked his BMW in the drive. He slammed the door and went into the house and immediately up the stairs to his study on the first floor. It was a room covered with his photographs. Every wall was full. On the desk in a rack were let
ters which had arrived and were waiting for him – among them one from Stephanie, whose distinctive handwriting it was easy to recognise. In happier times he had likened it to a succession of telegraph poles striding across the page.

  At first he did not look at any of the letters but with unsteady sweaty hands unlocked a drawer and took out a snuffbox, a small mirror, a straw and a razor blade. He put some white powder from the box on the surface of the mirror and assembled it in a thin line with the razor blade. He put the straw into each nostril in turn and sniffed until all the powder was gone. Then he put the things away and began to read the letters, though he could not concentrate on anything. Stephanie’s was only a single sheet of paper and he had barely glanced at the contents when his wife came in.

  She was an elegant young woman with raven-black hair and a slightly hooked nose which did not seem to detract from her good looks. Her expression was not welcoming.

  ‘You didn’t let me know when to expect you.’

  ‘What? Oh, I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘Are you going to use the car again?’

  He poured himself a brandy. ‘The car? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t you usually put it away?’

  ‘Later.’

  He was down around the mouth, and a bad colour.

  ‘There’s something to eat if you want it,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Er – no thanks.’ He sipped at his glass.

  ‘You look green. What’s wrong? Is it one of your headaches?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Well, you don’t look it.’

  Conversation had been no more fluent than this over the last week. It spouted and died, with no common interest in keeping it going.

  She said: ‘The men haven’t been about the pool. We want it for the Perrys on Sunday.’

  ‘Have you rung them?’

  ‘Of course. But you’d better ring again.’

  ‘Remind me in the morning.’ He put down Stephanie’s letter and went to the window. Following a heavy shower, the declining sun, so pale after India’s, was glistening on the wet gravel drive and the leaves of the laurels which screened the house from the road. He waited for the white powder to steady his nerves. ‘Polly get away all right?’