Blue Smoke (6 page)

Tamar judged correctly that this would be the wrong time to reveal to James that she had been voting for Labour ever since it was formed. She looked at her son and her heart almost broke — because of his naivety, and because of his obvious ignorance of her beliefs and the way she saw the world.

She’d been pleased to see in him the sort of enthusiasm he’d shown as a younger man, before he went away to war, but was disturbed to discover that it was for something as crack-pot and ominous-sounding as the New Zealand Legion. It was reasonably common knowledge that the movement consisted of wealthy men made nervous by increased taxation, and enraged by the Coalition’s introduction of vaguely socialist measures. Tamar was not a socialist — not a politically active one any way — but her working-class roots gave her a sympathy with the so-called lower classes, despite her now privileged station in life. But James obviously didn’t feel the same way, not any more.

It was true he’d been raised at Kenmore in a very comfortable and happy home, had received a good private education and then gone straight into the army where his social status had helped his military career. But he’d had a real knack for soldiering too, and an affinity with his men that had guaranteed their commitment and loyalty. That had been proved both here in New Zealand and while
James had been over seas. In fact, Tamar suspected that the loyalty of James’s men — ordinary blokes from farms and blacksmiths’ forges and factories and coal mines — had been all that had kept him from the firing squad in France.

But that had been a long time ago, and James had changed enormously since then. His war experiences had isolated him, made him judgmental and narrow-minded, and turned his fear into sanctimony. And now it seemed to Tamar that his feelings of inadequacy, his desperation for respect and maybe even redemption, had propelled him into a situation where he was floundering, and he didn’t even know it. She wasn’t mistrustful by nature, but more than seventy years of life had made her wise and very shrewd, and if she wasn’t mistaken — and she hardly ever was these days — her son was being taken advantage of. ‘And what manner of support does Mr Peacocke have in mind?’

James looked at her, and for a moment a shadow of discomfort flickered across his face. ‘Well, public backing of the Legion’s policies, of course, attendance at meetings, that sort of thing. And perhaps some financial assistance.’

Ah, thought Tamar. ‘How much financial assistance?’

James shrugged. ‘The local members have all made donations.’

‘How much have you given?’

James looked affronted. ‘Really, Mam, that’s a bit personal. Oh, all right, five hundred pounds.’

Tamar closed her eyes briefly. ‘And how much has everyone else given?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing one bandies about, the amount one has donated.’

‘So you don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘What if you’re the only one?’

‘Oh,
really
, Mam, why must you be so suspicious! Everyone has
given something, or at least made a pledge to!’

‘So would I be correct in assuming that this Legion of yours is not very well funded.’

‘It’s early days yet.’

‘But aren’t most of the members wealthy land owners and businessmen?’

At this point James didn’t know what to say to his mother — she was right, and he wasn’t entirely clear regarding why there was so little money to finance the Legion’s activities.

He changed the subject. ‘It’s not just money you could contribute. It would be wonderful to have the Murdoch family name on the members’ list. Or even on the national council of delegates.’ He was starting to sound desperate.

‘Your name’s already on the members’ list. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Well, nothing, of course. But …’

‘But what?’

James looked his mother directly in the eye, and she had the distinct impression that he was blaming her for something. ‘
I
don’t run this station, Mam, you do. You and Lachie. I may be a Murdoch but I don’t have any influence at all when it comes to the family business. You’ve made sure of that.’

Tamar couldn’t deny this. ‘You will when the time comes, James, you know that.’

‘When the time comes!’ he exploded. ‘And when it does, there’ll be Joseph and Keely and Thomas and Erin as well!’

‘I don’t really expect that Thomas will be all that interested.’

‘You know what I mean!
I’m
the eldest, Mam, I’m the eldest Murdoch. When will that ever be acknowledged?’

Tamar stared at her son for a long moment; this tantrum had gone on long enough. ‘But you’re not my eldest child,’ she replied, though not unkindly.

James jerked back in his seat as if he had been slapped. Then he raised his hands and put them over his face, and Tamar wondered if he was weeping. But when they came down again to rest limply in his lap, she saw that his eyes were dry. Unfathomably weary, but dry.

‘Mam, you have to understand. I must be someone, I have to
mean
something. This is my chance to do that.’ He reddened again, embarrassed to have revealed so much of his private torment. ‘So will you consider lending your support to the Legion? Please don’t let me down.’

And then he added something that he didn’t really mean, and it made everything so much worse, but as he sensed his mother gathering the words to turn him down he was suddenly overwhelmed with panic and despair.

‘You’ve always favoured Joseph, and you treat Owen more like a son than you do me. I think I’m entitled to your support at least just this once.’

Tamar thought of the opportunities that James had been given during his life and, after he’d come home from the war, all the support and second chances and tolerance and forgiveness and patience.

‘No, James. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. Not this time.’

He picked up his hat and rose to his feet in one swift, angry movement. When the parlour door slammed behind him, Tamar remained seated, gazing unseeingly across the room.

‘Aren’t they a pack of malcontents with too much money and nothing better to do than whine about taxes?’ asked Lachie, helping himself to another large dollop of Creamoata and slopping it into his grandson’s Sergeant Dan bowl, made redundant now that
Robert had decided he was too grown up to use it. There were flecks of porridge in Lachie’s white beard and down the front of his work jersey.

‘Something like that,’ Tamar replied. ‘They seem to stand for just about everything I don’t. And do you know what really upset me, Lachie? The fact that he thought it would be something I’d actually want to support. He knows we give meat and what have you to the soup kitchens every week, and he knows how much I support what the girls are doing.’ Angrily, she buttered another piece of toast. ‘What on earth made him think I would want to join an organisation that wants to do away with social services, especially these days?’

‘Aye, it does demonstrate a wee lack of thought. Any way, I thought their main aim was to end the Depression?’

‘Apparently, but you and I would like to do that too, wouldn’t we? And we’re not advocating taking food out of the mouths of babes.’

‘Tamar, love, you always see things in black and white, don’t you?’

Tamar cut her toast in half. ‘Perhaps. Andrew used to say that too. But sometimes things
are
either black or white.’

Lachie blotted his lips, beard and jersey with a table napkin and burped discreetly. ‘Well, I’ll not be joining any New Zealand Legion. I’ve enough to do as it is without gallivanting about the countryside attending dreary meetings and throwing good money after bad.’ He looked across the table at Tamar and pulled a wry face. ‘And the lad wasn’t too happy about your turning down his invitation?’

‘No, he wasn’t. He stormed out without a word. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the door slam from up in the top paddock.’

‘His pride, do you think?’

‘I expect so.’ Although she knew that desperation had also been
driving her son. ‘I think he feels I’ve let him down in front of his friends.’

‘Well, he should have discussed the matter with you first, rather than the other way around.’

‘Actually, I suspect his “friends” approached him about it. I’ve never particularly liked Mr Roland Peacocke — far too arrogant and oily for his own good. I much preferred old MacGregor Sinclair before he retired.’

‘Perhaps the lad felt he had no choice in the matter.’ Lachie folded his napkin, took a last noisy slurp of his tea and pushed his chair back from the table. ‘God knows I’m fond of James, Tamar, but I think it’s high time he stood on his own two feet and stopped trying to curry favour from that crowd he’s mixing with. He didn’t used to be like that.’

‘He didn’t used to be a lot of things, Lachie,’ Tamar said harshly.

‘Aye, well, I can understand you being angry.’

‘I
am
angry. He said some very unkind things about the others. And about me. This bickering and bullying and mistrust of anyone who ever tries to do anything good for him has gone on for years, Lachie,
years
! Lucy’s oppressed by him, Duncan despises him and he scares Kathleen and Drew silly whenever he’s in one of his moods. I’ve had enough, I really have. This time he can get himself out of trouble.’

Lachie raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, trouble. You know it’s always his “trouble” when he gets this desperate.’

I
’ve bailed James out before, you know,’ Tamar said to Kepa.

They were in the living room of the little house on Marine Parade, with the French doors fastened open so that the smell of the sea wafted in on the spring breeze, together with the sound of seagulls screeching raucously over something dead on the beach.

‘And will you do it again?’ Kepa asked, his feet propped comfortably on a low table in front of him and a small glass of whisky on the arm of his chair. He loved these rare times when he had Tamar all to himself. Today they had all afternoon, and all night too, if they chose.

Tamar took a small sip of her brandy and shifted in her seat; if she sat too long in one position her bad leg would invariably become stiff, then she would have to use the despised cane the following day.

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘He does not want money for himself, though, this time, does he?’

‘Well, no, he didn’t ask for it directly, but he might as well have. I very much suspect that his fine and upstanding colleagues in the
New Zealand Legion have him over a barrel, Kepa.’ She rubbed a finger around the top of her glass, hoping to hear the crystal sing. It didn’t. ‘Well, I say “colleagues”, but I suspect that only a handful are behind this particular nasty little manoeuvre. Perhaps even only one. I don’t believe that the Legion is inherently bad, just somewhat misguided. But James must really have outdone himself this time to be in this sort of pickle.’

‘It may be your standing as a very successful station owner that they are wanting. You have influence in this area, after all.’

‘Not in those circles, I don’t.’

‘You do, Tamar. Obviously James has gambled himself into serious debt again, has borrowed from the bank and now cannot pay it back. Someone, perhaps this Roland Peacocke, has offered to cancel the debt if you agree to support this political organisation of his.’

‘How do you know that?’

Kepa shrugged. ‘I am simply guessing. But is that not what you are thinking?’

‘More or less, yes. I hope he’s only borrowed money. I hope he hasn’t taken out a mortgage on their house — Lucy would be devastated if they lost that. She would die of the shame.’

‘I doubt it. She would feel humiliated, yes, but I do not think she would die.’

‘But it would be disastrous for them, especially the children. I’m more than happy to do whatever is needed for my grandchildren and my daughter-in-law, but I’ve come to the point where I really have no compunction about letting James finally reap what he’s been sowing these last years.’

‘That is certainly a relief to hear,’ Kepa said, who would happily have abandoned James to his own inept devices ages ago if he’d had any say at all in the matter. He had never interfered in Tamar’s family, except where Joseph was concerned, and had no intention
of starting now. Tamar had very rarely denied her children anything, and in his view this recent change of conduct was not an altogether bad thing. ‘So that is that, then?’ he added, a note of admiration in his voice.

‘Yes,’ she replied adamantly. ‘It is.’

But he saw in her eyes how much it was hurting her.

In an elegantly decorated office not even a mile away in town, James sat on a rather uncomfortable chair with his legs awkwardly crossed and a large glass of brandy in his hand. The seat was low — deliberately, James thought, to place whoever was sitting in it at a disadvantage.

Opposite him, behind an enormous, highly polished mahogany desk, sat Roland Peacocke, leaning back in his high-backed leather chair and pondering James as if he were some sort of unique insect mounted on a card.

‘And she said no? Well!’ he said with some amusement. ‘And you were so sure she would be absolutely delighted with the idea!’

‘No, sir, I believe that when you made the suggestion I said she could well be interested,’ James replied.

He hated Roland Peacocke with a passion, and hated even more having to call him ‘sir’. He would give anything to cross the room and deliver a good hard punch to the man’s smirking, imperious, red-veined face. If he had the guts, of course, which he didn’t.

‘Now, James, I think you implied more than that,’ Peacocke said, swirling brandy around in his cut-crystal tumbler and sniffing it pretentiously. ‘I think, given what’s at stake, you implied a
lot
more than that.’

James said nothing, simply sat and waited for the next snide, derogatory comment.

‘If I remember correctly,’ Peacocke went on, ‘you took out the
mortgage on your house six months ago. To date you have been unable to meet a single repayment.’

I know that, you bastard, James answered silently. And you know it too, because you approved the transaction and you’ve dangled the bloody thing over my head like a guillotine ever since. He cringed at the thought of Lucy ever finding out — it would break her heart.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said out loud, ‘I’m aware of that, but I’ll be able to pay you soon.’

Peacocke suddenly leaned forward. ‘You know you can’t pay it,
I
know you can’t pay it, soon
everyone
will know you can’t pay it. And nobody admires a bankrupt, do they, James? Especially one from a family as illustrious as yours. And of course you’d lose your position here. So I strongly suggest that you go back and speak to your charming mother again. I’m sure she’ll be very keen to give us her full support if you just try a little harder.’ He reached for the brandy decanter and poured himself another tipple. ‘She’s an imposing and well-respected woman, and her commitment to the cause would be a real incentive for new members. She’s also known to be a very generous benefactor, which would certainly not go amiss as far as the Legion’s coffers are concerned.’

James nodded in meek agreement. He was being blackmailed and he knew it, but had no idea about how to extricate himself. He’d managed not to gamble for over a month so had avoided losing anything more — not that there was much left to lose these days: his savings had gone long ago and the bank now owned his home. In a way he’d felt immense relief as he had pushed his chair away from the card table that last time, knowing that if he didn’t go near the cards, or the horses, or the dogs, he could not continue to come to grief.

Some men were ruined by alcohol, and others by women or the poppy, but his nemesis had turned out to be gambling. Only for those brief moments when he was winning — and even, perversely,
when he was on the verge of losing — did he feel vital and alive again. It was completely irrational, he knew that, but the terrible elation gambling gave him was almost exactly the same as the dreadful but utterly seductive sensation he’d lived with night and day throughout the war — not knowing whether this time would be the last, whether he would live or die, win or lose. It had driven him insane then, and it was doing the same thing to him now, but he needed it. God only knew how long he would be able to keep himself away from it this time.

And now there was Peacocke. It had taken James some time to work out what lay behind his boss’s goading and insidious persecution, but he thought he’d finally narrowed the possibilities down to one or two likely motives. There was Peacocke’s commitment to the New Zealand Legion, of course, but James suspected that had only a minor role. More than anything, Peacocke was jealous — jealous of the Murdoch family fortune, of Tamar’s standing in the community and of her reputation as a shrewd businesswoman, and of James’s privileged life. It was rumoured that Peacocke himself had not come from a monied background, that he had clawed his way up through the banking hierarchy to reach his exalted position of manager, and as a result bitterly resented those who, like James, had not had to start at the bottom, and who would ultimately inherit more money than Peacocke could ever hope for.

How delighted the bastard must have been to discover that James was in such financial strife. And — even more rewardingly — why. James should have known from the cloying sympathy in the older man’s voice, the hand of condolence on his shoulder and the assurance that, yes, of course the bank could see its way to some sort of arrangement. But the minute the mortgage documents had been signed, everything had changed. Peacocke had started making thinly veiled remarks about James’s situation in front of
other bank staff, men whom James hoped had come to respect him, and sending unnecessary memoranda — inside sealed envelopes, thank God — reminding James when his repayments would fall due. But, James, having paid off a sizeable portion of his gambling debts, had not been able to make even one payment. His incomes from both the bank and the station were going straight to various card-playing opponents and bookies around town, leaving just enough to deter Lucy from becoming suspicious. Or so James hoped.

He had lost everything and now, just as Peacocke had hoped, his own mother had turned away from him and refused to help. Tamar’s rejection had wounded James to the very depths of his soul. No matter what had happened in the past, she had never shut him out like that before. She did not know the full story, the true magnitude of his problems, but she should have been able to sense that something was severely awry.

‘So, what’s it to be, James?’ Peacocke said cheerfully. ‘Another trip out to magnificent Kenmore Station, or do I need to start proceedings to foreclose on your mortgage?’

‘My mother made it quite clear that she didn’t want to be involved, sir. It really isn’t her sort of thing.’

‘That’s not what you said the other day.’

‘I was wrong.’

‘Go on, James. One more try, eh? Otherwise I might just be forced to have a very close look at the accounts Kenmore holds at this bank as well. These are hard times, James, hard times.’

James drained the last of his whisky and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he mumbled.

He felt sick, but he couldn’t tell whether it was the alcohol or his conscience.

His mother would not even speak to him this time, and as he drove away down Kenmore’s long driveway, humiliation, anger and hurt burning in his belly, he knew for certain that he could not rely on her for help.

But in the end he did not need to. A little over a week later he found himself sitting alone in his study, in the house that was no longer his, weeping hot, muffled tears of relief and shame. In his hand was a note from his brother Thomas, pinned to a personal cheque generous enough to repay what he owed the bank, and most of his remaining debts.

The note read:

James reflected for a moment on the inherent goodness and generosity of his younger brother, and burst into tears again, his
face in his hands. He didn’t know whether Thomas could afford this gesture or not — he seemed to know so little about his own family these days — and vowed to pay it back as soon as he could. Thomas had always supported him, and Keely and Ian too, even when they’d been children and had all teased him mercilessly for being so sensitive and gentle. Dear Thomas, the one who was always quiet, rational and unfailingly fair. Over the last few years, James had barely given him a second thought.

Through his tears he felt his shame burn even more intensely, remembering those terrible, surreal, fragmented days he had spent locked in a French farmhouse not far behind the front lines, awaiting court martial for killing his colleague and one-time friend, Ron Tarrant. Suffering from advanced shell shock, he’d barely been able to speak or to make any sense of what was happening to him. But he had recognised Thomas, who’d arrived from his unit as soon as he heard what had happened, and had used his lawyer’s skills before the trial, talking on the quiet to everyone who might help his brother’s case.

James had been acquitted for lack of evidence, sent to a convalescent hospital in England to recuperate, then returned to New Zealand. Thomas had known he’d killed Ron Tarrant, but he had also known why. And James had never really thanked him for his support, choosing instead to sink further and further into his own anguish, guilt and self-doubt. Yes, there had been a short period after he came home when he’d thought he could manage life after all, but then, without even realising it, he’d slipped gradually and inexorably back into his own private morass of misery. Now, nearly seventeen years later, he was still floundering around, up to his neck in fear, bitterness and bad decisions. For a fleeting, terrifying moment, his thoughts strayed to the shotgun locked in the cupboard behind him.

He rubbed his wet face with shaking hands and swallowed
painfully around the lump in his throat that threatened more tears, and realised he had probably reached his lowest point. He had finally, truly, become what he had always feared being — weak, inadequate, and a coward.

And, once again, his brother had come to his aid. But could Thomas be right? Could he stop this awful, destructive behaviour and turn himself around? Because perhaps — just perhaps — it wasn’t too late. James felt something deep within himself shift — only a fraction, but it was enough to give him the first prickle of hope he’d felt in years.

‘James? Is there something wrong?’

He lowered his hands to see Lucy poised in the doorway of the darkened room. She was balancing a tray bearing cups and a plate of biscuits, and peering at him worriedly.