The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [438]
Once or twice Mr Webb had tried to say something. Something to do with the sun, apparently. It could hardly be that the light was bothering him because the blinds of split bamboo chicks had been unrolled and allowed only a muted glow to enter the room. Perhaps the old man had been thinking of agreeable evenings spent prowling with his secateurs and watching the sunlight gleam on the skins of his naked gymnasts as they swooped and swung and balanced, growing stronger every day. Walter found it disturbing, nevertheless, to see his friend lying there, breathing noisily in his tent of white muslin. Mr Webb’s eyelids were half open but his expression was vacant for the most part and he showed little sign of being aware of his surroundings. ‘This is how we all finish,’ mused Walter grimly.
‘It’s the end of an era,’ he said aloud to Major Archer who stood beside him in a respectful pose at his dying chairman’s bedside.
Because presently Mr Webb again tried to say something about the sun Walter decided that Miss Chiang should be recalled.
Perhaps he would find her presence soothing. After Mr Webb’s collapse the gymnasts and body-builders had been dispersed with a bonus added to their emoluments. Miss Chiang had declined indignantly when offered an additional reward for staying away from her former employer while he was in hospital. Now the Major was given the delicate task of running her to earth in some tenement in Chinatown and persuading her to return to visit the patient. She agreed without fuss and her presence did indeed seem to exert a soothing influence on the old man. She was still wearing one of Joan’s cast-off dresses and Walter, glimpsing her one day as she was leaving the Mayfair was taken aback, as much by her good looks as by the thought of her dubious relationship with old Mr Webb. ‘Who would have thought that Webb would end up like this with a half-caste holding his hand!’
Walter, these days, had little time to spare for visiting the sick. Business had never been more hectic and besides he was becoming increasingly preoccupied with the problem of finding a husband for Joan. Now that it had become clear that he was unlikely to inherit Mr Webb’s share of the business it had become more important than ever that she should make a sensible match.
‘What are your feelings for Jim Ehrendorf, if you don’t mind me asking?’ he enquired mildly one day, finding her alone.
‘Oh, he’d put his hand in the fire for me,’ she replied with a laugh.
Walter was silent for a moment, contemplating this reply which, though interesting, did not answer his question.
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘Of course I believe you,’ said Walter, laughing in turn. ‘What I wanted to know was what you feel for him?’
Joan shrugged, gazing out of the window, her eyes like green pebbles. ‘He’s all right. He gets on my nerves though, I’m thinking of chucking him one of these days … in fact, the sooner the better.’ Walter was satisfied with this reply.
Some days later, however, he thought of it again in a rather different light. For it happened that one day, in the course of a casual conversation while waiting for Joan to come downstairs, Ehrendorf said something which Walter, as a rubber producer, found unusually interesting, and which placed him in something of a predicament if he were to pursue his policy of replacing Ehrendorf in Joan’s affections with someone who would make a more suitable husband.
Walter’s predicament stemmed indirectly from the successful operation of the Restriction scheme’s tap for controlling the flow of rubber on to the market, of which he had originally been one of the chief plumbers. As a result of the recession of 1938 and the fall in price to five pence