When the Lion Feeds

  A week before Christmas, Hradsky, their unacknowledged but undoubted king, called them all to a meeting in one of the private lounges of Candy’s Hotel. Who the hell does he think he is, complained Jock Heyns, ordering us round like a bunch of kaffirs. Verdammt Juden! agreed Lochtkamper.

  But they went, every last man of them, for whatever Hradsky did had the smell of money about it and they could no more resist it than a dog can resist the smell of a bitch in season.

  Duff and Sean were the last to arrive and the room was already hazed with cigar smoke and tense with expectation. Hradsky sagged in one of the polished leather armchairs with Max sitting quietly beside him; his eyes flickeried when Duff walked in but his expression never changed.

  When Duff and Sean had found chairs Max stood up. Gentlemen, Mr Hradsky has invited you here to consider a proposition. They leaned forward slightly in their chairs and there was a glitter in their eyes like hounds close upon the fox. From time to time it is necessary for men in your position to find capital to finance further ventures and to consolidate past gains, on the other hand those of us who have money lying idle will be seeking avenues for investment. Max cleared his throat and looked at them with his sad brown eyes. Up to the present there has been no meeting-place for these mutual needs such as exists in the other centres of the financial world. Our nearest approach to it is the Stock Exchange at Kimberley which, I’m sure you will agree, is too far removed to be of practical use to us here at Johannesburg. Mr Hradsky has invited you here to consider the possibility of forming our own Exchange and, if you accept the idea, to elect a chairman and governing body. Max sat down and in the silence that followed they took up the idea, each one fitting it into his scheme of thinking, testing it with the question How will I benefit? .

  Ja, it’s darn fine idea. Lochtkamper spoke first. Yes, it’s what we needCount me in. While they schemed and bargained, setting the fees, the place and the rules, Sean, watched their faces. The faces of bitter men, happy men quiet ones and big bull-roarers but all with one common feature, that greedy glitter in the eyes. It was midnight before they finished.

  Max stood upGentlemen, Mr Hradsky would like you to join him in a glass of champagne to celebrate the formation of our new enterprise. This I can’t believe; the last time he paid for drinks was back in sixty, declared Duff. Quickly somebody find a waiter before he changes his mind.

  Hradsky hooded his eyes to bide the hatred in them.

  With its own Stock Exchange and bordel Johannesburg became a city. Even Kruger recognized it; he deposed the Diggers Committee and sent in his own police force, sold monopolies for essential mining supplies to members of his family and Government, and set about revising his tax laws with special attention to mining profits. Despite Kruger’s efforts to behead the gold-laying goose, the city grew, and overflowed the original Government plots and spread brawling and blustering out into the surrounding veld.

  Sean and Duff grew with it. Their way of life changed swiftly; their visits to the mines fell to a weekly inspection and they left it to their hired men. A steady river of gold poured down from the ridge to their offices on Eloff Street, for the men they hired were the best that money could find.

  Their horizons closed in to encompass only the two panelled offices, the Victoria Rooms and the Exchange.

  Yet within that world Sean found a thrill that he had never dreamed existed. He had been oblivious to it during the first feverish months; he had been so absorbed in laying the foundations that he could spare no energy for enjoying or even noticing it.

  Then one day he felt the first voluptuous tickle of it.

  He had sent to the bank for a land title document he needed, expecting it to be delivered by a junior clerk but instead the sub-manager and a senior clerk filed respectfully into his office. It was an exquisite physical shock and it gave him a new awareness. He noticed the way men looked at him as he passed them on the street.

  He realized suddenly that over fifteen hundred human beings depended on him for their livelihood.

  There was satisfaction in the way a path cleared for him and Duff as they crossed the floor of the Exchange each morning to take their places in the reserved leather armchairs of the members lounge. When Duff and he leaned together and talked quietly before the trading began, even the other big fish watched them. Hradsky with his fierce eyes hooded by sleepy lids, Jock and Trevor Heyns, Karl Lochtkamper, any of them would have given a day’s production from their mines to overhear those conversations.

  Buy! said Sean. Buy! Buy! Buy! cUrnoured the pack and the prices jumped as they hit them, then slumped back as they sucked their money away and put it to work elsewhere.

  Then one March morning in 1886 the thrill became so acute it was almost an orgasm. Max left the chair at Norman Hradsky’s side and crossed the lounge towards them. He stopped in front of them, lifted his sad eyes off the patterned carpet and almost apologetically proffered a loose sheaf of papers. Good morning, Mr Courtney. Good morning, Mr Charleywood. Mr Hradsky has asked me to bring this new share issue to your attention. Perhaps you would be interested in these reports, which are, of course, confidential, but he feels they are worthy of your support.

  You have power when you can force a man who hates you to ask for your favours. After the first advance by Hradsky they worked together often.

  Hradsky never acknowledged their existence by word or look. Each morning Duff called a cheerful greeting across the full width of the lounge, Hello, chatterbox, or Sing for us, Norman. Hradsky’s eyes would flicker and he would sag a little lower into his chair, but before the bell started the day’s trading Max would stand up and come across to them, leaving his master staring into the empty fireplace. A few soft sentences exchanged and Max would walk back to Hradsky’s side.

  Their combined fortunes were irresistible: in one wild morning’s trading alone they added another fifty thousand to their store of pounds.

  An untaught boy handles his first rifle like a toy. Sean was twenty-two. The power he held was a more deadly weapon than any rifle, and much sweeter, more satisfying to use. It was a game at first with the Witwatersrand as a chessboard, men and gold for pieces. A word or a signature on a slip of paper would set the gold jingling and the men scampering. The consequences were remote and all that mattered was the score, the score chalked up in black figures on a bank statement. Then in that same March he was made to realize that a man wiped off the board could not be laid back in the box with as much compassion as a carved wooden knight.

  Karl Lochtkamper, the German with a big laugh and a happy face, laid himself open. He needed money to develop a new property on the east end of the Rand; he borrowed and signed short-term notes on his loans, certain that he could extend them if necessary. He borrowed secretly from men he thought he could trust. He was vulnerable and the sharks smelt him out.

  Where is Lochtkamper getting his money? asked Max.

  Do you know? asked Sean. No, but I can guess.

  Then the next day Max came back to them again. He has eight notes out.

  Here is the list, he whispered sadly. Mr Hradsky will buy the ones that have a cross against them. Can you handle the rest? Yes, said Sean.

  They closed on Karl on the last day of the quarter; they called the loans and gave him twenty-four hours to meet them. Karl went to each of the three banks in turn. I’m sorry, Mr Lochtkamper, we have loaned over our budget for this quarter. liver Hradsky is holding your notes, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mr Lochtkamper, Mr Charleywood is one of our directors. Karl Lochtkamper rode back to the Exchange. He walked across the floor and into the lounge for the last time. He stood in the centre of the big room, his face grey, his voice bitter and broken. Let Jesus have this much mercy on you when your time comes. Friends! My friends! Sean, how many times have we drunk together? And you, Duff, was it yesterday you shook my hand? Then he went back across the floor, out through the doors. His suite in the Great North Hotel wasn’t fifty yards from the Exchange. In the members lounge they heard t
he pistol shot quite clearly.

  That night Duff and Sean got drunk together in the Victoria rooms. Why did he have to do it? Why did he have to kill himself? He didn’t, answered Duff. He was a quitter. if I’d known he was going to do that, my God, if only I’d known. Damn it, man, he took a chance and lost, it’s not our fault. He would have done the same to us. I don’t like this, it’s dirty. Let’s get out, Duff! Someone gets knocked down in the rush and you want to cry “enough! It’s different now somehow, it wasn’t like this at the start. Yes, and it’ll be different in the morning. Come on, laddie, I know what you need. Where are we going? To the Opera House. What will Candy say? Candy doesn’t have to know. Duff was right; it was different in the morning. There was the usual hurly-burly of work at the office and some tense action at the Exchange.

  He thought about Karl only once during the day and somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much. They sent him a nice wreath.

  He had faced the reality of the game he was playing. He had considered the alternative which was to get out with the fortune he had already made; but to do that would mean giving up the power he held. The addiction was already seated too deeply, he could not deny it. So his subconscious opened, sucked in his conscience and swallowed it deep down into its gut. He could feel it struggling there sometimes, but the longer it stayed swallowed the more feeble those struggles became. Duff comforted him: Duff’s words were like a gastric juice that helped to digest that lump in the gut and he had not yet learned that what Duff said and what Duff did were not necessarily what Duff believed.

  Play the game without mercy, play to win.

  Duff stood with his back to the fireplace in Sean’s office smoking a cheroot while they waited for the carriage to take them up to the Exchange. The fire behind him silhouetted his slimly tapered legs with the calves encased in polished black leather. He still wore his top coat, for the winter morning was cold. It fell open at his throat to show a diamond that sparkled and glowed in his cravat.

  you get used to a woman somehow, he was saying.

  I’ve known Candy four years now and yet it seems I’ve been with her all my life. she’s a fine- girl Sean agreed absently as he dipped his pen and scribbled his signature on the document n front of him. I’m thirty-five now, Duff went on. If I’m ever to have a son of my own Sean laid down the pen deliberately and looked up at Duff. him; he was starting to grin. The man said to me once “They take you into their soft little minds”- and again he said “They don’t share, they possess”.

  Is this a new tune I hear? Duff shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Things change, he defended himself. I’m thirty five You’re repeating yourself Sean accused and Duff smiled weakly.

  Well, the truth is.

  He never finished the sentence; hooves beat urgently in the street outside and both their faces swung in the direction of the window. Big hurry! said Sean coming quickly to his feet. Big trouble! He crossed to the window. It’s Curtis, and by his face it’s not good news he brings. There were voices outside the door raised in agitation and the quick rush of feet, then Timothy Curtis burst into the room without knocking. He wore a miner’s overall and splattered gumboots. We’ve hit a mud rush on the ninth level. How bad? Duff snapped. Bad enough, it’s flooded right back to number eight. Jesus, that will take two months at least to clear, Sean exclaimed. Does anyone else in town know, have you told anyone? I came straight here, Cronje and five men were up at the face when it blew. Get back there immediately, ordered Sean, but ride quietly, we don’t want the whole world to know there’s trouble. Don’t let a soul off the property. We must have time to sell out. Yes, Mr Courtney. Curtis hesitated. Cronje and five others were hit by the rush. Shall I send word to their wives. Can’t you understand English? I don’t want a whisper of this to get out before ten o’clock. We’ve got to have time. But, Mr Courtney! Curtis was appalled. He stood staring at Sean and Sean felt the sick little stirring of guilt.

  Six men drowned in treacle-thick mud... He made an irresolute gesture with his hands.

  We can’t -’He stopped and Duff cut in.

  they’re dead now, and they’ll be just as dead when we tell their wives at ten o’clock. Get going, Curtis. They sold their shares in the Little Sister within an hour of the start of trading and a week later they bought them back at half the price. Two months later the Little Sister was back on full production again.

  They split their land at Orange Grove into plots and sold them, all but a hundred acres and on that they started building a house. Into the designing of it they poured their combined energy and imagination. With money Duff seduced the horticulturist of the Capetown Botanical Gardens and brought him up by express coach. They showed him the land.

  Make me a garden, said Duff. The whole hundred acres? Yes. It’ll cost a pretty penny. That is no problem.

  The carpets came from Persia, the wood from the Knysna forests and the marble from Italy. On the gates at the entrance to the main drive they engraved the wordsAt xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. As the gardener had predicted, it all cost a pretty penny. Each afternoon when the Exchange closed they would drive up together and watch the builders at work.

  One day Candy came with them and they showed it off to her like two small boys.

  This will be the ballroom. Sean bowed to her. May I have the pleasure of this dance? Thank you, sir she curtsied, then swept away on his arm across the unsanded boards.

  This will be the staircase, Duff told her, marble black and white marble, and there on the main landing in a glass case will be Hradsky’s head, beaLififully mounted with an apple in his mouth. They climbed laughing up the rough concrete rampThis is Sean’s room, the bed is being made of oak, thick oak to withstand punishment. They trooped with linked arms down the passage. And this is my room, I was thinking of a solid gold bath but the builder says it’s too heavy and Sean says it’s too vulgar. Look at that view; from here you can see out across the whole valley. I could he in bed in the mornings and read the prices on the Exchange floor with a telescope. It’s lovely, Candy said dreamily.

  You like it? Oh, yes. It could be your room too. Candy started to blush and then her face tightened with annoyance. He was right, you are vulgar. She started for the door and Sean fumbled for his cigars to cover his embarrassment. With two quicksteps Duff caught her and turned her to face him. You sweet idiot, that was a proposal! Let me go. Near to tears she twisted in his hands. I don’t think you’re funny! Candy, I’m serious. Will you marry me? The cigar dropped out of Sean’s mouth but he caught it before it hit the ground. Candy was standing very still, her eyes fastened on Duff’s face. Yes or no, will you marry me? She nodded once slowly and then twice very fast.

  Duff looked at Sean over his shoulder. Leave us, laddie.

  On the way back to town Candy had regained her voice.

  She chattered happily and Duff answered her with his lopsided grin. Sean hunched morosely in one corner of the carriage. His cigar was burning unevenly and he threw it out of the window. You’ll let me keep the Victoria rooms, I hope, Candy There was a silence.

  What do you mean? asked Duff.

  Two’s company, Sean answered.

  Oh, no, Candy exclaimed. It’s your house as well. Duff spoke sharply, I give it to you, a wedding present.

  Oh, shut up, Duff grinned, it’s big enough for all of us. Candy crossed quickly to Sean’s seat and put her hand on his shoulder. Please, we’ve been together a long time. We’d be lonely without you.

  Sean grunted. Please! He’ll come, said Duff. Please. Oh, well Sean frowned ungraciously.

  They went racing at Milnerton. Candy with a hat full of ostrich feathers, Sean and Duff with pearl grey toppers and gold heads on their canes. You can pay for your wedding gown by putting fifty guineas on trade Wind! She can’t lose -’Duff told Candy. What about Mr Hradsky’s new filly? I’ve heard she’s a good bet, Candy asked and Duff frowned.

  You want to go over to the enemy? I thought you and Hradsky were
almost partners Candy twirled her parasol. From the nimours I’ve heard you work with him all the time. Mbejane slowed the carriage as they ran into the crush of pedestrians and coaches outside the Turf Club gates. Well you’ve heard wrong both times. His Sun Dancer will never hold trade Wind over the distance, she’s bred too light in the legs. Frenchified with Huguenot blood; she’ll fade within the mile. And as far as Hradsky being our partner, we throw him an occasional bone. Isn’t that right, Sean? Sean was watching Mbejane’s back. The Zulu, in loin clothes only and his spears laid carefully on the boards at his feet, was handling the horses with an easy fan:iiliarity.

  They cocked their ears back to catch his voice, deep and soft, as he talked to them.

  Isn’t that right, Sean? Duff repeated. Of course, agreed Sean vaguely.

  You know, I think I’ll get Mbejane a livery. He looks out of place in those skins. Well, some of the other horses from the same stud were stayers. Sun Honey won the Cape Derby twice and Eclipse showed up the English stock in the Metropolitan Handicap last year, Candy argued.

  i IHuh, Duff smiled his superiority, well, you can take my word for it that trade Wind will walk the main race today and he’ll be back in his stable before Sun Dancer sees the finishing post. Maroon and gold, the same as our racing colours, ean muttered thoughtfully. That would go very wel with his black skin, perhaps a turban with an ostrich feather in it. What the hell are you talking about? complained Duff.

  livery. Mbejane They left the carriage in the reserved area and went through to the members grandstand, Candy sailing prettily between her escorts. Well, Duff, we’ve got the nicest looking woman here today.

  Thank you. Candy smiled up at Sean.

  Is that why you keep trying to look down the front of her dress? challenged Duff.

  You filthy-minded beast. Sean was shocked. Don’t deny, it, I Candy teased, but I find it very flattering, you’re welcome. They moved through the throng of butterfly-coloured dresses and stiffly-suited men.