JACK OF DIAMONDS

It was a three mile walk back to the farm. Claire left shortly after four in the afternoon, hoping to keep up with the last of the day’s light. I should’ve taken the horse and wagon, that’s what I should’ve done, she told herself, switching hands as the handles of the cloth bag she was carrying cut the circulation off, turning her fingers blue. The knives grew heavier as she carried them, but it was no bother as far as she was concerned. I’d rather be weighed down with the knives, than a dust rag, she told herself. Life for women in this day and age didn’t leave one with a lot of options, she knew, and being a cook in one of the big Manor houses was the best a woman could hope for.

Being my own woman is better, she reminded herself, going over a mental checklist of what she needed to do for the morning’s pies.

If the sun wasn’t down by the time she reached home, it soon would be, she reminded herself, and with any luck, Reggie would be there to greet her. The sky was a clear blue, but fading, and although there were heavy clouds skirting along the horizon, they posed no threat, even if they looked dark and foreboding in the distance. She could feel the cold seeping across the dirt track they called a lane out this way, and picked up the pace, hoping a brisk walk would help stave off the chill. She could see mist laying across the fields, looking almost as if it were a blanket, and hoped it didn’t mean fog. It would be difficult enough once the sun went down, when the only light she’d have would be a slip of the moon and whatever starlight there was. Fog could make it more difficult considering the farmhouse was set back from the lane and hidden behind a small copse of trees.

She made it to the farm with dusk settling across the landscape. The clouds on the horizon were lined with colours of gold and grey. The hedgerows were looking more like stone walls put up by ancient tribes. Standing on a small block of wood, she searched the ledge over the doorjamb, finally finding the key and fitting it into the lock. The house was cold and dark, and she was quick to put her bag on the table, lighting the lamp in the middle of it. She turned the flame up and looked at the mess she’d left in her haste to reach Marlborough. It's never-ending, she told herself. She needed help, but had always been reluctant to ask Reggie; it was enough he tended to his own chores. She took off the long coat she was wearing and hung it on the hook behind the door, then found her apron and wrapped it around herself out of habit.

She bent over the stove, pulling the embers forward and scooping them out, dropping them into the bin. With the embers gone, she began breaking small pieces of kindling to start a fire. In no time at all she had a fire going and put the kettle on to make herself a cup of tea. She filled the wash basin with assorted dishes, pots and pans, placing it on the stove before filling a large pot with water from the hand pump Reggie put in after having moved in. She doubted he’d put it in himself, but she'd never admit such a thing to him.

She found it strange that Reggie hadn’t returned from London yet, but thought nothing of it for the moment. He could’ve been held up for any number of reasons, and now isn’t the time to fret, she told herself.

It took almost an hour for her to clean the kitchen the way she wanted it. The pots and pans were scoured and properly seasoned before she put them in their right place, hanging from hooks above the stove where they were easily accessible. She’d had over two dozen pie tins to wash and a dozen more loaf pans, there were assorted bowls, spoons, and knives, along with plates and platters.

When she was done, she took a small wooden bowl out from the cupboard under the counter, measured yeast into it, sugar, then poured warm water into it. Satisfied, she reached for a larger bowl, filling it with flour, salt, pepper, a splash of milk, then cracking three eggs into it before adding the proofed yeast. In no time she had a mound of dough out on the counter and began kneading it, returning it to the bowl and putting it to the side where it would rise overnight and be ready for the morning.

And who doesn’t like a loaf of fresh baked bread?

She rolled a cigarette, lighting it with the lantern on the table, letting her mind wander back to Marlborough Manor, all the while wondering how Artie was planning to reach the skull. She’d seen it plain as day—they both had, her and the Negro singer—and while they both stood quietly looking at it, Claire wondered if the woman was planning to somehow claim it.

Stranger things have happened, she told herself, and one of the strangest things was Artie breaking into Bedloe Manor and stealing that violin. Why he’d decided to take it, she had no idea—except that it involved a certain gangster Reggie was familiar with. She remembered the night when Artie asked Reggie to take the violin into London for him. As much as she’d tried talking Reggie out of it, she knew better than to push him too far. She’d overheard Artie telling Reggie that he planned to return to Bedloe Manor later with the horse. Once he’d ingratiated himself with the family—and he reminded Reggie that his father had gone to school with Geurnsey—but once he’d ingratiated himself to the family, he’d be free to pick and choose from whatever art treasures he felt he’d be able to resell later, in London. But first, he needed Reggie to do this one favour for him, and then they’d be squared as far as the past was concerned.

She didn’t know what Reggie owed him, and though she’d wondered briefly, again, she knew better than to ask too many questions. As much as she loved Reggie, theirs was a relationship of limitations, she told herself; those limitations being his temper. She also told herself that those occasions when he’d hit her had been well-deserved. She’d pushed him too far, and he’d simply reacted out of instinct. He was a man who understood the nature of violence he said, and though he swore he’d never be violent toward her, he’d failed to live up to that promise, hadn’t he—several times.

The problem was that she'd believed him. She’d believed in him as much as she’d wanted to believe in David, the man she’d hoped to marry and start a family with before the War. And how many women like me have suffered through the same loss, she wondered? How many men had gone off to War in those early months, never to return? Men like Reggie and Artie had proven themselves resilient though, hadn’t they? They had scars—Reggie’s chest was a roadmap of scars—but they also had nightmare memories. Reggie’s scars ran deeper than those she saw scratched into his chest, she knew. His came from childhood, and a life on London’s streets.

She knew he’d run with a bad crowd, but not to what extent. It was something they'd never discussed. The one thing she did know about Reggie was that he’d refused to let himself have children. What kind of man doesn’t allow himself to have children? He’d said this world was no place to raise kids, and while she understood his reasoning, it was never something she’d agreed to.

A woman needs children in her life—even if it’s only one.

She wondered if it was true, or only true for her. She lifted the burner plate off the stove and tossed her cigarette into it, then added three lumps of coal to the flames to help make it through to the morning, telling herself it was time to go to bed. She filled a pot of water and put it on the stove for the morning.

Claire heard Artie enter the farm house shortly after four in the morning. There’d been a splash of headlights through the window and the sound of a car door slamming. She could hear him stumbling in through the kitchen door, dropping something on the table—sounding like something she might hear at the edge of a dream, she told herself—and she rolled over, looking at her alarm clock across the room.

4:15 am.

It's time to be getting up soon anyway, she told herself. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, she pulled her nightgown on, cinching the belt tight. She wanted nothing more than to climb back into the warmth and comfort of her bed, but knowing there were another two dozen pies that needed to be made, she forced herself to get up. She padded out of the bedroom, wearing the thick woollen socks she’d slept in, and looked at Artie standing beside the table. She could smell the alcohol on him as much as she could see it in the way he swayed from side to side. Then she looked down at the table and saw the small sack in the middle of it; there were coins spilling across the table.

“How’d you get it?” she asked, walking to the table and looking down at the sack. She looked up at him and he shrugged briefly, grinning.

“I jumped off the railing and onto the chandelier, snatched it up, and then jumped back off again.” He was still grinning.

“You did what?” She made no pretence at believing him.

“I told you I’d get it for you.” He made a big show of bowing, as if he were some kind of performer on the stage. She picked up a coin and looked at it closely before looking up at him again.

“What do you mean you did it for me? You never said that’s what you were planning to do, and I certainly never said I wanted you to. I told you with all those houses empty, it might be the perfect time to break in and help yourself to whatever’s laying about.”

“Yes, you did; in fact, I remember you saying that the first day I met you. And it made a lot of sense at the time. But so did this,” he said, lifting the bottom of the bag and letting the coins spill out across the table top. He pulled a chair out from under the table and sat himself down—almost falling into the seat—and began fighting with the buttons of his shirt and trying to heel a boot off at the same time.

“Where’s Reg?” he asked a moment later, looking up at her and forgetting about the boot, concentrating on the buttons instead.

“Not back yet.”

“Not back yet? He only went to drop the violin off. It can’t have taken that long.”

“Well, he’s not back, is he? So, I guess it can take that long,” she added, picking up another coin and looking at it again. “These are all old. Half of them are guineas,” she added, looking at him.

“Yes, a gentleman always pays his tailor in shillings, and his barrister in guineas, my father used to say to us,” and having conquered the buttons on his shirt, he went back to fighting with his boot. He decided it might be easier to pull it off with his hands, so he lifted his foot up and placed it on his knee.

“And what do you pay in?” she asked, looking at his naked chest beneath the open shirt. She told herself not to let herself get distracted. She’d seen him with his shirt off numerous times.

He paused and smiled. “Well, I’m no gentleman, am I? I pay in pounds sterling. If a person were smart, he’d take these to a collector,” he added, mixing the coins in a hand and letting them slide through his fingers.

“Do you know any?”

"In London, maybe?” he said, a half smile and slight shrug bookending the statement.

“London,” she said with a sigh.

“Do you have something against going to London?”

“Going there? Why would I want to go to London?”

“Have you ever been?”

"Once or twice. Never for more than a day,” she added, gathering the coins up and filling the bag again. “Find some place to put these. I have work to do,” she said, tossing the bag to him. He dropped his foot and caught the bag, tossing it back to her before she even turned around.

“I told you, it’s for you.”

“No.”

“No? Why not?”

“Why not? Do you have any idea what this is worth?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he smiled.

“Sovereigns alone are easily over one pound each. There’s more than two hundred here. That’s probably more than I’ll make in my lifetime.”

“All the more reason to take it,” he smiled, picking his foot up again and placing it on his knee.

“I can’t just take it.”

“You said that. But you’ve yet to give me a good reason why you can’t. Look, there’s enough money in there that you won’t have to go to the bank—I mean, Reg won’t have to. There’s enough for you to buy a place and open your own bakery, or pie shop, if you want.”

“You can’t mean that,” she said, her voice a near whisper.

“Every word of it.”

“Why?” she asked, dropping herself into the other chair.

“Why?” he repeated. “Because that way, you’ll be able to get away from here.” He looked around the small kitchen, and smiled. “It’s nice. You’ve made it into a nice home, but you need to get away.”

“Get away? What do you mean? Why would I want to get away from here?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Claire,” he said, finally able to pull his boot off. “I’m in the next room. I can hear you both. I can hear him fucking you, just the same as I hear it every time he slaps you, and yet, you take it. Why do you take it?”

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” she said, looking down at the table.

“No? Then why do it at all?”

“What would you have me do?” she asked of a sudden, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks.

“You only have to say the word, and I’d be there for you. You must know that?”

“That’s sweet of you Artie—and I mean it. But that’s not how these things work, is it? A husband has the right to discipline his wife, and there’s nothing the wife, or anyone else, can do about it. It’s the law. It’s known as corporeal punishment.”

“I know what it’s called and you might think that’s true, but when I climbed through the window at Bedloe, Jenny Ashcroft was there.”

“You never said—”

“Yes, I did. I also told you that I beat her husband near to death.”

“Yes. I remember that, now that you’ve said it,” she said after a moment. “More than that, I remember asking myself why you’d do that?”

“Because he was going to rape her!”

“She’s his wife. She has no right to withhold herself—”

“And that makes it different? The fact that she’s his wife?”

“Yes! Don’t you know anything about what it means to be married?”

“But you’re not married! Or did you forget that?”

“I don’t have anywhere else I can go,” she said softly, looking at him through a veil of tears.

“And now you do.”

“What about Reggie? Do you think he’s just going to step aside and let me walk away?”

“You let me worry about Reggie. With what you’ve got there, you can get pretty far.”

“He’ll kill you if you get in the way.”

“He might, and he’s more than welcome to try. I doubt if he will, though.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“When I said he owed me a life for a life, I meant it.”

“You saved his life?”

Artie nodded.

“Aren’t you going to tell me about it?”

‘We served together; you know that much about us, right?”

“Of course. Why else would you be here?”

“It’s more complicated than just that,” he smiled, resuming his fight to get his second boot off.

“Do you need help with that?”

“I think I know how to undress myself.”

“You’re not undressing yourself. You’re taking your boots off,” she pointed out.

“A technicality,” he laughed.

She put the small sack on the table and slid it across to him.

“You can’t expect to give this to me and me not think that you have ulterior motives?”

“Why would you say that? Aside from the fact that it’s probably true?”

“When did you first know that you could do it?”

“Do what?”

“Climb up buildings like you do?”

“You can’t just climb anything. You have to have something you can hold on to.”

“Like your boot?”

He smiled as he pulled it off, dropping it on the floor.

“I hope you feel better for having gotten it off? I know I do,” she laughed.

“Very funny. I hope it was entertaining?”

“It was,” she smiled. “But tell me about the first time you climbed up a building. There must’ve been a first time?”

“The first time?” He was silent for a moment, and she watched him staring at his boots on the floor before looking up at her again. “I can’t really say when it was, but I was always daring as a boy. I remember I walked down the bannister from the top floor on a dare from one of my brothers.” He smiled as he paused, and she wondered if it was the memory of his mother’s face having come around the corner, or his brother’s, having taken him up on the dare? Either way, it was a desultory look that offered no apology as to the believability of the tale. She thought perhaps it was a lie, but he had the bag of money and she knew where it had been hidden.

“I remember there was a group of trees near the house—”

“What house was that?” she asked, telling herself not to overthink it.

“Rolvenden. We lived in Kent. But these trees were near the window, and I’d look at them, thinking a person could jump from a window ledge and grab hold of one of those branches and climb down.”

“What sort of tree were they?”

“Aspens, a willow—an oak tree—but it was the oak tree I was looking at. They grow tall, oak trees do, and they spread their branches out horizontally in places. I’d been climbing that same tree since I can remember. I remember, I climbed up as high as I could one time—I must’ve been fourteen, maybe fifteen—and looked in the window across from me—I think it was on the second floor. I could see my brother. He was fucking one of the maids in a room. He didn’t see me, but she did. She looked right at me…and smiled. Can you imagine? You’re being fucked by the oldest brother, and the youngest one pokes his head up out of a tree?”

“She should have died of shame.”

“Maybe. But she was a shameless slut, I’ll give you that,” Artie laughed at the memory. “It was the first time I’d seen a naked woman, and I think she knew it.”

“How long were you there?”

“How long? Until they finished!” he grinned. “He’d simply used her for his own needs, I found out later. I remember he pulled his trousers up and simply left the room when he was done—as if he was embarrassed, or ashamed of himself. I doubt if they even said two words to each other.”

“And you watched?”

“The whole time,” he smiled.

“You’re so disgusting.”

“What would you have me do?”

“You should’ve climbed back down.”

“What!” He laughed. “You can’t unsee something like that. Not after what she did once my brother left.”

“What did she do?”

“She walked to the window, and looked right at me. She wasn’t smiling; she wasn’t upset. She was half naked, pulling her maid’s dress up over her shoulder when she stopped. Then she pressed her tits up against the glass for me. It was a most amazing sight. She pushed them hard, and the nipple on the one looked like this big, brown, smear pressed up against the glass.”

“She did not!”

“Why would I lie about something like that?” he laughed again.

“What did you do?”

“I showed her my cock, of course! What would you have me do?”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“She ended up being my first fuck.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that, either. And this tree you were in?” she asked after a moment.

“A four or five foot jump from the balcony ledge to the branch I was on. I learned to jump; and, I learned to jump back, which is just as important.”

“A two storey height?” She sounded incredulous. “That’s when you learned you could do this?”

“The thought of sticking your wick into some girl’s warm, wet quim, is a great motivator,” he grinned.