JACK OF DIAMONDS

Ten days after Reggie’s died, Artie was on the train, heading for London. It’d been a difficult time dealing with lawyers and the estate. But he and Claire sorted things out enough to realize Reggie actually owned the property. The more Artie looked into things, the more he realized Reggie had planned for his future by documenting everything. That came as something of a surprise, considering what he knew about his friend. He left a Will leaving everything to Claire outright. It was for her to do with as she felt inclined—and those were the actual words he’d used—while the lawyer she hired out of Chumley Grove suggested she sell the property immediately. He told her that as a woman, it would be too much for her to take on, and Claire told him she’d have to think about it. He made the mistake of telling her she had two days to make up her mind; she told him he’d be lucky if he had two days before she fired him.

Speaking later, Artie told her she could always let the property out and thus be guaranteed to have a monthly stipend. He was certain a lawyer could set it up for her—any lawyer, he was quick to add—and was also quick to add that his uncle was probably better suited to give advice than he was. Artie smiled and asked her if she really thought she could see herself as a farmer in five years time—living by herself, he added, because there’d be no time for her to meet another man. She smiled and shook her head slowly.

“I can’t picture another man in my life, Artie,” she sighed. “Not right now.”

“Give it time, Claire. Reggie might not've been perfect, but he wasn't the last of a breed, either.”

“I couldn’t picture Reggie as a farmer the first time I met him, either,” she said, her smile nothing more than a brief lift at the corner of her mouth. “But he was, wasn’t he? He’d toughed it out; he figured it out, too, in the end. But no, you’re right, this isn’t the life for me. I just don’t want to let it go right now.”

“If you sold the land, you could open a pie shop in town.”

“And what about deliveries? I can’t drive one of those things,” she added, looking at the truck parked along the side of the house. "I can't be bringing the horse and wagon into town for deliveries, either."

“It’s not hard to learn. I could teach you to drive the thing, if you’re really interested,” he added.

“Teach me?”

“Why not?”

“I never made life here easy for you, did I Artie?” she asked, looking up at him in the soft sunlight. She held a hand up to block the sun, and he stepped to the left for her, his tall frame casting a shadow across her.

“Life isn’t meant to be easy, is it?” Artie smiled. “Not here, not in London, not anywhere for that matter. It’s something I’ve learned over the years. My father said it to me first, though. I didn’t understand why he said it at the time…not until I got older.But the gist of it is, that as the youngest, there won’t be anything left for me by the time I come into my inheritance. You see? Life isn’t meant to be easy. When he dies, he’ll leave me with nothing but my name.”

“Then why are you going to London?”

“I have a few questions, been nattering at me.”

“Questions? Like what?”

“Like, what was Reggie in Plymouth for in the first place?”

“What do you think happened?”

Yes…what do I think happened? he asked himself, looking out of the train’s window at the countryside passing by. He could see the berth's reflection in the window. The countryside was a blur behind him; the woman reading her book, was looking over at him once in a while. She'd been watching him since they'd first boarded the train together in Plymouth. She was the only other occupant of the berth, and he supposed she thought she'd be the only one all the way to London. What she didn't know was the Artie had followed her specifically, knowing she was Charlie Sabini's mistress. It was her he'd stolen the bracelet from, all those years ago.

He looked up at the pale moon, a thin white slice hanging up in a light blue sky. It was almost invisible with the lights in the berth giving the window its mirror-like qualities. The green, rolling hills of the Devon countryside reminded him of France during the war. He could even see willow trees dancing in the distance, their naked branches lashing at the sky.

“Have you ever been to France?” he asked the woman’s reflection before he turned to look at her. She was a young woman—no older than he was—and striking as far as he could discern. She wore hair in long ringlets, cascading over her shoulders, and for a moment he wondered if it was natural, or if she’d had it done for her trip out to London.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked. She seemed to be taken off-guard by the question.

“Have you ever been to France? Not Paris, or the other cities, but the countryside?”

“I’m sorry, no,” she smiled politely, turning her attention back to her book.

“It’s much the same as this,” he smiled, pointing out of the window.

“Is it?” She looked at him again. “And you know this, why?”

“I was there during the War,” he added, smiling as he turned to look out of the window again.

“Of course. I’m sorry. I should have realized,” she replied.

“Are you going to London, then?” he asked after a moment.

“Have we changed trains?”

He smiled.

“I can honestly say I deserved that,” he said with a light laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning forward and placing a finger between the pages of her book. “That was uncalled for on my part. For most of my life I’ve been told not to speak to strangers—and I was assured that I’d be the sole occupant of this car—”

“What? Are you apologizing for calling me to task?” he laughed again. “It was a dumb question in the first place. Of course you’re going to London. Where are you staying?”

She’d started reading again, but dropped her hands on her laps and smiled at him. It felt genuine, he thought—or as genuine as he thought a woman like her could be. He could see there was laughter in her eyes though, and a glow to her face. It almost seemed as if she was properly embarrassed just speaking to him, but excited at the same time. All he had to do was keep her talking. If he could keep her occupied, or distracted long enough, perhaps he could keep her off balance enough for the seduction to succeed.

“Soho.”

“I’ll be tramping about in Mayfair myself,” he smiled. “We’re practically neighbours.”

“Are you there for business? I mean, you look like you might be involved in a business of some sort. Are you a barrister? Or a solicitor, even?”

“I’m in business, of a sort,” Artie smiled.

“Rather a strange sort of answer, that.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“That depends now then, doesn’t it?” she asked, a defensive posture to her attitude.

“Are you married?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

“I beg your pardon?” She seemed confused, and blushed a darker colour. He wondered how she was able to control herself to such an extent.

“I was wondering if you were married?” Artie smiled.

She put her finger between the pages of her book and looked at him again. Her eyes were a deep blue, hidden behind a thin pair of spectacles. He cheekbones were prominent, her lips small and upturned, painted as if she were a vamp in the cinema. There was a hardness about her he couldn’t pin down, but then, he knew she wasn’t the woman she was pretending to be. He'd come into the berth with a purpose.

He knew she was more than just another street fanny.

“And if I was?”

“I’d ask you where he is,” Artie laughed, looking under a cushion.

“And if I said he’s in Soho, waiting?”

“I doubt if I’d believe you,” Artie said, trying to look serious. “I think you’re more inclined to telling people—such as myself—that you’re married for that very reason. That way, you don’t have to get into long, boring, conversations with people like me.”

“You’re very good at this,” she smiled.

Artie regarded her for a moment. He wouldn’t let himself trust her, but the thought of seducing her appealed to him now more than it had when he’d first followed her on to the train.

“I find it helps, in my line of work,” he smiled back.

“And what line of work is that?”

“I’m a thief. I steal women’s hearts,” he added.

“Do you, now? And how do you propose to steal mine?” she asked, a coquettish smile playing on the edge of her lips.

“Did you know there was a tunnel up ahead?”

“Before we go any further, what’s your name?” she asked.

“Solomon.”

“Solomon? I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Solomon. Now tell me, how do you propose to seduce me once the train breeches the tunnel?”

“Would you like me to tell you, or should I show you?”

“If what you’re proposing is what I think it is, perhaps you should show me?”

Artie woke up in a sweat.

He was quick to tell himself he wasn’t frightened, but the dream had been a little more realistic this time, a little more intense. Disconcerting if you want to be honest. Certainly not what he would’ve considered in the way of a childhood reckoning. Not that anyone would ever confuse such a dream with childhood reckonings. The dream had been about the War. A lot of people have vivid memories about the war, he told himself, it’s all a matter of adjusting yourself to those memories. You have to understand that once you’ve gone though it—you lived it, you lived through it, you fought it and ultimately survived…then it can’t hurt you anymore, can it? It was after all, when it came right down to it, just a dream. He’d had them before. Once you get your head around that idea—that, and the fact that you can never die in a dream, he reminded himself—it makes it easier to accept that dreams are not real.

But what had happened had been real enough, and there was nothing he could do to change that, he told himself. It only served to remind him of Reggie. He’d also had a recurring nightmare he’d never shared with anyone. The only way Artie knew of his secret was discovering Reggie closeted alone one afternoon in the woodshed; Reggie had been weeping

“Don’tcha have any memories that haunt you?” Reggie had asked, visibly shaken.

“I have one I can’t seem to shake,” Artie replied, nodding on the tail end of a cigarette. He looked at Reggie and tried to force a smile. “Maybe two?”

“One?” Reggie said with a slow nod. There was a moment of silence that felt as palpable as a heart beat, and Artie shifted, feeling uncomfortable. “That’s all it takes though, isn’t it? It might be enough to fuck you up for the rest of your life--that’s what they told me, Artie--for the rest of my life. Unless I talk to someone about it.” He was looking at the callouses on his hands before turning his attention to a stain on his trousers.

He was looking anywhere, as long as he didn’t have to look at me, Artie told himself, remembering how difficult it had been for both of them.

And who can blame him?

“The mind is its own place, Reg. You can make a Hell of Heaven in it, or a Heaven of Hell, it doesn’t make much difference. But dreams can’t hurt you, Reg. You have to believe me as far as that goes. You can’t die having a dream. They already tried to kill, and failed, remember? Dreams are nothing but memories. You ever have that dream where you're falling off a cliff, or something? You always wake up. You just gotta learn to control it, and live with it.”

“Live with it?”

“That’s what I do.”

“I s’pose your better at it, then.”

“I’d like to say you’ll get used to it, Reg, but I can’t. You just gotta learn to live with it.”

He sat up on the edge of the bed, looking down at the woman sleeping. Her breath was slow and measured. The morning had dawned dull and overcast, with a promise of rain. The light—what little there was—seemed somehow muted coming in through the thin sheers. The sheets were pulled back part of the way and before he pulled them up, he looked at the roundness of her buttocks, the softness that was her left breast; the nipple large and flat in the dull light.

Certainly not what it looked like last night, when I was fucking her, he told himself, but then, that was last night, wasn’t it?

So why the dream then? And why now?

He stood, taking care not to wake her, and still naked, walked to the window and looked out over the city where it spread out six stories below. There wasn’t a lot to see. Many of the town homes in Mayfair were just as tall. And there's a certain majesty about the view, he thought. It was a view he knew he’d never be entitled to; it wasn't something he might inherit--there was nothing for him there--instead, it was something he had to earn.

By hook or by crook.

It’d been months since he’d been to London, and while he told himself he’d come specifically for answers about Reggie, he knew the memory of the dream would haunt him for the rest of the day. I’ll probably be haunted by it for the rest of my life. He wondered if he’d be having the same dream if he lived to be a hundred? If it’s a recurring dream, does that mean it’s never meant to end? He pictured himself at ninety-seven, looking down at the young man’s face, only to have it snatched away again—just like it’s been snatched away for the last ten years, he told himself.

He stared at his reflection in the window, looking as the woman stirred on the bed, throwing the sheet off her once again. But the memory of the boy’s face was still fresh in his mind, even as he remembered pulling the trigger and watching him fall to the ground forty feet below. He’d been so young, he remembered thinking. How old was he, he wondered? That’s the question I always asks myself, isn’t it? Sometimes, he thinks it’s a nightmare because he didn’t know how old the boy was. There was no answer though, and he thought his search for the answer would drive him crazy.

But it was the climb up the side of the church that had frightened him awake tonight. He’d never felt that fear in a dream before, not climbing up the side of a building; it didn’t matter how high it was. He supposed the church had reminded him of what fear was—as if remembering the church was a reminder of what was waiting for him at top.

And that makes no sense to me.

A woman he’d once spent the weekend with in Paris told him he tensed up during the night as he slept, kicking his feet and moving his legs as if he was running. He’d even looked down at his hands when she said it, remembering how his fingers had bled on the masonry and bricks broken up by cannon fire. He’d been unable to explain himself to her, and told her maybe it'd be better if she left. Was he honestly unwilling to face the horror of what he’d done, she asked him? He thought he had.

Does that mean I can't accept what I did, or is it a matter of whom I did it to?

His only solution had been that she had to leave.

In order to understand what the War had to offer, you had to have been there, or at least been touched by it in some way. She didn't understand what that meant.

He looked at the clock on the mantle and picked up the telephone on a side table near the window.

“Tea please. Room 608.” He listened. “Toast. For two. Marmalade.”

She stirred, slowly rolling over and stretching her arms over her head as she smiled up at him. He was sure she was making certain he saw the shape of her breasts, as much as she meant for him to look at her soft, downy, quim. Her nakedness was something she took great pride in. And why wouldn’t she? She was a full-bodied and voluptuous woman.

“I like a lover who trims my quim while sitting in the tub with me,” she all but purred.

Artie turned to look at her.

“I’d be happy to trim your cunt, but first, I’d like to have my tea.”

“Tea? You’d put having a cup of tea over trimming my quim?” she laughed. “I must say, you’re the first person to have ever said that to me.”

“I like the fact that you said person, and not man,” he was quick to point out. “If we’re going to spend the day with each other, who’s to say I can’t fuck you before I trim your quim, while I trim your quim, or after I trim your quim? After all, we have all day, don't we?” he added with another smile.

“Do you promise?” she teased.

He turned away from the window and looked at her again.

“Does this have the look of someone who might be lying to you?” he grinned, his erection standing full of life. “In fact, if I were to walk over there right now, and you stayed just the way you are, I believe I’d be able to make it a perfect fit.”

“A perfect fit?”

“Like this,” he laughed, and walking to the bed grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. She screamed out at the sudden shock of his attention as he pushed his erection into her mouth.

“See? A perfect fit,” he added, feeling her wrap her arms around him and pull him deeper into her mouth.