‘Of course I would. Do you think I’m an infant?’
‘We did it when your mother married that man, my son-in-law.’
‘You hate my father,’ said Vera sadly.
‘We saw through him, that’s all. It wasn’t difficult. We saw him for what he was. An opportunist. I saw that in him maybe even before he saw it. But your mother was determined. You couldn’t stop her. Even her mother couldn’t stop her. She said she’d give her a wedding and give her a pearl and give her away and that would be the end of it. Never speak to her again. And she never did.’
He shook his head and laughed again without humour, out of amazement, perhaps. ‘Far as I knew. Of course she wasn’t speaking to me either. When she stepped up to the priest Belle wore one rosee pearl in each ear, a perfect match they were. Your grandmother got them in Kuwait and had kept them all that time.’ He looked very thoughtful then. ‘She sold everything she could make a gain on. They were freshwater pearls from the bottom of the sea. It’s a magical thing, that. We also took our pension pearls and made a necklace so close to the earrings you’d have sworn they came out of sister shells. They got married and that was that. Hamilton Drew took it all. He took my daughter. He took the pearls. He took–’
He stopped.
‘What did he take?’
The old man thought about it for a while.
‘He took my name, that’s what he took. He took my good name and used it for his own ends.’ He brooded and when he spoke again he was back on the Romans.
‘You know Seneca had to chastise Roman women for wearing so many pearls. You can read about it, go look it up. Emperor Caligula’s widow wore pearls in rows and lines all around her head, her bodice, her sleeves and her hem. She wore them hanging from her ears, around her neck, on her wrists, and on her fingers. When she went out into the streets people had to look away so as not to be blinded. And it became the fashion. Ladies began to wear them on their feet, on their shoe buckles, in the thongs between their toes and between their legs too, no doubt.
‘Do you know why Rome invaded Britain? Your teachers probably told you something about Gauls and Caesar. But that’s all hooey. The real reason was the Romans wanted British pearls. They were freshwater pearls, found in lakes and streams, small and of poor colour, some said. But the Romans were desperate. The rage for pearls consumed them. Finally they had to pass laws, prohibiting persons of lower rank and unmarried women from wearing them. This greatly increased the number of marriages, as you can imagine.
‘But you see–and here’s the rub, my dears–pearls have always been connected with wars and theft and ugliness. It’s just the opposite of all that purity. Conquered people had to pay a tribute in pearls, just as they did in women, and in slaves. There was once a battle lost by an emperor called Pezores. I don’t remember what country was his. But he wore an unrivalled pearl in his right ear. Just as he was about to be killed by his enemies, Pezores tore this pearl from his ear and threw it ahead of him into the pit. Emperor Anastasius, the victor, was furious. He promised five hundred gold pieces to anyone who would comb the pit, full of dead men and dead horses. And hundreds did, pawing through that gore. But no one found the pearl. It was lost for ever, with the dead.’
Here James Lowinger shook his head. Vera knew they were talking about her mother again. And Keiko screwed the lid of the thermos back on, and put the tiny china cup back in the cloth bag that she hung around her waist, and they stood up and turned back along the beach.
It was as if he had run into a wall.
What was the wall? Vera wondered. It was the wall of death, perhaps. Belle had gone into it. Her grandmother, the Captain’s wife, must have gone into it, and now he himself was looking at it.
On Sundays when it rained, Keiko kept James at home. He coughed now, and when he coughed his whole body was wracked. Vera went out alone. She walked in the grey drizzle and thought about pearls, and slaves, and women. A fresh pearl white and perfect was beautiful. It had a value beyond price. But a marred pearl was worthless. A woman about to be married was ‘bored’ by a man; an eel could prise open the oyster shell and feed on the animal inside, swallowing the pearl as well.
James Lowinger could talk about pearls in literature, he could talk about pearls in history, pearls of the conquered and the conquerors. But any story hung subject to cancellation, as he rambled. Her grandfather said he did not want to tell. But he did want to tell. It was as if he had come home to tell her something. But the story began long ago; he could not tell it all at once.
‘You know I don’t want my stories falling on the wrong ears,’ he said, teasing.
‘Who do you mean?’
He put his finger alongside his nose. ‘You know who I mean.’
‘You don’t mean Keiko?’
Of course he didn’t. He held out his hand to her; his face was lit with the pleasure he felt in her nearness.
‘You mean Miss Hinchcliffe?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Vera. She is no more than a functionary.’
‘You mean my father then.’
‘Oh, interesting suggestion. My son-in law,’ he said. ‘My erst-while son-in-law.’ James Lowinger took full responsibility for the error in judgement that had put Hamilton into the family: this weak link was his, not his beloved Belle’s and certainly not Vera’s. ‘What an unnatural cruelty! Do I still have a son-in-law when I have no daughter?’
Some days he mentioned the book again. Some days he said he had already got it half written. But he certainly would not finish. The problem was, he said–
‘I know, Grandfather. It puts you into an impossible struggle between truth and loyalty. You told me.’
‘Good girl, you remember.’
When James was ill Keiko nursed him and Vera went to school in a rage and fought with her friends and went after school to Homer Street, even though he was not there, to stare at the ukiyo-e. A silent Miss Hinchcliffe sat over her typewriter.
‘Where is Mr McBean?’ Vera asked her.
‘There is no Mr McBean.’
Vera did not believe this.
‘But his name is on the door,’ she said stubbornly. ‘See? Lowinger and McBean.’
Miss Hinchcliffe smiled in a pinched way. ‘I know it seems that way.’
‘Is he in the Far East, the way my father is?’
‘I told you there is no one called Mr McBean.’
‘Wherever he is, it is time for him to come back,’ said Vera.
‘Aren’t you going to go for coffee?’ Hinchcliffe would say.
‘Not by myself,’
One day when James was ill in bed, Kemp came down from the office above and took Vera to the coffee shop with him. When they burst in through the door shaking rain from their umbrellas, Roberta looked up with hope that the Captain would be with them. Malcolm the mailman was there, at the end of his rounds. The hatter was telling stories about the sailors and how one would come ashore and buy a smart hat, a Borsalino, say. Then he’d go on a big tear and lose it. The hatter could go around the bars and pick up lost hats in the morning if he felt like it. And the next day, before his leave was up, the sailor would come back and buy the same one again.
They murmured appreciatively at this homely story and then it was silent in the triangular café with its three booths.
Roberta said, ‘How is he?’
And Vera burst into tears.
The men