Read Online Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard - Free Book Online Page B

Swan senior’s activities while working for the East African Railways and Harbours Administration that sat ill with his self-righteous outpourings. A few judicious hints on the subject when the two were eventually left alone together ensured no further broadsides came Swan’s way. A sullen truce prevailed, during which his father contented himself with complaints about Chamberlain’s war leadership and the scandalous difficulty of hiring decent domestic staff in England compared with Tanganyika. When Swan left the following morning, his mother waved tearfully to him from the front gate, while his father scowled at him from the driveway behind her. If he had known he would never see either of them again, he might have gone back and crafted a tenderer farewell. But he did not know. How could he?
    Next day was his first in the gallery. Little more was required of him than to mind the shop during Cardale’s frequent absences. The knowledge of the art world he had picked up from Meridor would have been an advantage if there had been many customers to impress with it, but they were few and far between. He looked the part, according to Cardale: that was all that really mattered.
    The direness of the current trading climate drove them to an early lunch at L’Escargot in Soho, where it was possible to imagine for a pleasant couple of hours that there was no war under way in the world. Cardale disclosed he was a widower who had also lost a daughter, though he had a young grandson to remember her by. ‘I rattle round a too-big-by-bloody-half house in Richmond with the nipper, his nanny and a grumpy cook. It’s not exactly how I imagined it would turn out.’ The daughter, it emerged, had died in childbirth. The father of her child went unmentioned. He was evidently not on the scene. Swan felt genuinely sorry for Cardale,though he was aware that the second bottle of Pomerol might have contributed to the sentiment.
    He also became aware, late in the proceedings, that Cardale was gently pumping him for information about Meridor’s Picassos. When were they bought? Which dealer were they bought from? How much had they cost? Swan could not help. The pictures had all been acquired before his appointment as Meridor’s secretary. It was Cardale’s turn to be vague when Swan asked what Meridor had bought from
him
. ‘Second-division Impressionists, as I recall, old man. He probably sold them all on at a healthy profit. Shrewd fellow, your boss.’
    Cardale had plans for the afternoon that did not involve returning to the gallery. Swan volunteered to open up for a couple of hours solo. It promised to be an undemanding stint.
    And so it was, until the arrival of a customer whose manner and appearance were not those of the average St James’s gallery browser. He was a lean, sleek-haired, sallow-skinned fellow in a pale suit and two-toned shoes, with a heavy five o’clock shadow. Swan liked the look of him not at all.
    ‘Can I help you, sir?’
    The man broke off from ogling a bathtime-in-the-harem piece of Victorian kitsch and treated Swan to a hostile glare. ‘Where’s Cardale?’ he growled.
    ‘Out at present, sir.’
    ‘I’ll bet. Well, give him a message when he crawls back, will you? Tell him patience is on ration like everything else and he’s had as much from us as he’s going to get.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘You heard. Tell him.’ The man levelled a stubby forefinger at Swan. ‘Got that?’
    ‘Very well. Who shall I say the message is from?’
    The man smirked. ‘He’ll know.’
    Swan felt strangely unsurprised by this turn of events. No one, in his experience, was ever as wealthy or as honourable as they caredto imply. Meridor; Cardale; his own father: they all had feet of clay. But maybe his father was right about one thing. Maybe he should follow his brother’s example and join the Army. War service was an escape route of sorts.
    He assumed it would be the following day before he had the chance to pass on