Fall From Grace Read online

  ‘You’re really playing with fire Paul,’ said Kelly, ‘you know that. If he’s as damaged as you say then he needs professional help.’

  ‘Yeah, I do know,’ said Paul, ‘but whilst there’s a part of him that needs me I’ll be there for him. If I end up looking like a twat, well then it won’t be the first time that love has done that to me. Look, I just know that you have to follow your heart sometimes and damn the consequences. Otherwise, you may as well be dead.’

  TEN

  Paul took the watch his father had given him into a jewellers shop on St. Peter’s Square in Manchester to have it valued. Kelly was right about it being a good idea. In any case he probably needed to get it insured.

  The man behind the counter was middle-aged and dressed in a rather formal three piece grey pin-striped suit. He’d lost the hair on the top of his head and there was growing evidence that perhaps he needed to think about getting bigger trousers. Paul was in a light brown suede jacket and blue jeans and the man’s face lit up when he saw him. Great, thought Paul. I always pull the Adonis types.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ The man asked with a smile so sweet it was like being greeted by a slice of strawberry cheesecake.

  ‘I’d like to get a valuation on this watch, please,’ said Paul as he handed over the watch in the box his father had presented it in to him. He watched the man’s expression suddenly change into a mixture of shock and bewilderment.

  ‘Could you wait here a moment, please? I’m the son in Rubinstein and Son. My father started the business and he’s the real expert.’

  ‘Is this a problem?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Oh no problem,’ said the man, all conciliatory smiles and rather camp appeasing gestures. ‘No problem at all. I’ll just be a few minutes.’ He then disappeared into the back of the shop.

  When the man came back he brought with him a rather elderly looking gentleman in the same kind of grey pin-striped three-piece suit, but he also wore a hat with a large rim and he had a short beard. He extended his hand to Paul. ‘I’m Saul Rubinstein,’ he said before turning to his son, ‘and this is my son Lionel. Now where did you get this watch?’

  The man’s tone was accusatory and slightly aggressive. It annoyed Paul.

  ‘Well if it’s any of your business, my father gave it to me,’ said Paul.

  ‘And where did he get it?’

  ‘He was given it as a present,’ said Paul. ‘But I don’t know why I’m answering your questions. I want the watch to be valued and if you can’t do that then I’ll take it somewhere else.’

  ‘Yes, alright, alright,’ said Saul, ‘I didn’t mean to offend.’

  ‘Well I’d hate to be on the receiving end when you did mean to.’

  ‘Let’s start again.’

  ‘I think we’d better,’ said Paul. ‘So, can you value this for me?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Then give it me back and I’ll take it somewhere else.’

  ‘Wherever you take it they won’t be able to value it for you,’ said Saul. ‘It is beyond the normal values of a wrist watch.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I don’t understand,’ said Paul, slightly confused.

  Lionel Rubinstein went over to the other counter on the other side of the shop where a young couple were looking for an engagement ring. Paul glanced at them enviously. They looked so carefree and in love, holding hands, touching, kissing, thinking about the future and never expecting anything to go wrong. He smiled and silently wished them every blessing.

  ‘You’ve heard of the Holocaust, Mr. Foster?’

  ‘It’s Paul and yes, of course I’ve heard of the Holocaust, Mr. Rubinstein.’

  ‘Then you will know of its origins in the Germany of the 1930’s? You will know that the lives of many Jewish people were snatched away from them and they were left with nothing but the yellow triangle the Nazi’s forced them to wear?’

  ‘Yes?’ said Paul.

  ‘Their livelihoods, their homes, all of their possessions were taken in raids where many suffered and some died. I was six years old. We were driven out of our family home, me, my parents, my four brothers and sisters. My father was in the jewellery business and even though I was young, I learned many things. At the end of the war I was the only member of my family left. The rest had all perished in Auschwitz. I made my way to England and married a Manchester lass. I’ve been here ever since. We have seven children, nineteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Lionel is our youngest and the only one who isn’t married. He has his own flat in the Northern Quarter but comes home every Friday evening for the start of the Sabbath.’

  ‘Mr. Rubinstein, I sympathise with your story, I really do,’ said Paul who didn’t think it was any surprise that the little Jewish princess Lionel was the only one of Saul’s children who hadn’t contributed to the continuation of the Jewish line, ‘but I just don’t understand the connection with me and this watch?’

  Saul Rubinstein held up the watch in the space between them. ‘Paul, only ten of these watches were made. They were all hand made by my father and my older brothers at our workshop which was above the retail shop in Berlin. The jewels came from our cousins who were in the diamond trade in Antwerp, Belgium.’

  ‘You’re saying this watch was hand made by your family?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Saul, ‘we never intended making anymore than ten. They were meant to be an exclusive line. Paul, we were the most prominent Jewish family in the jewellery trade in Berlin at that time and these watches would’ve sealed our place and the future financial security of our family. But then the Nazi’s happened. I’ve never set eyes on one of them since everything was taken from us. That is until now.’

  ‘My God,’ said Paul, looking at the watch. He’d been quite shaken by what Saul Rubinstein had told him. ‘That’s quite a story.’

  ‘And it’s all true,’ said Saul. ‘I can assure you of that.’

  ‘Oh I believe you, Mr. Rubinstein, I really do,’ said Paul, ‘I’m really not doubting you.’

  ‘Who gave it to your father?’

  ‘As far as I know it was an old girlfriend’ said Paul.

  ‘As far as you know?’

  ‘Well he only gave it to me the other day and… you see, Mr. Rubinstein, my Dad is dying. He has cancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘He wanted me to have the watch before he passed away,’ said Paul. ‘He’s an ordinary working-class man, Mr. Rubinstein. He drove buses all his working life. Considering the history of it I just can’t imagine how he would get involved with somebody who had something like this watch.’

  ‘Is your mother still alive?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘But as far as you know the watch was given to him by an old girlfriend?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Paul, ‘my mother doesn’t know anything about it. I know that much.’

  ‘Well then if you think your father could bear to tell you,’ said Saul. ‘You should ask him who she was and if he knows how this watch came into her possession. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’d be very interested to know.’

  *

  Dieter was having grave doubts about what Eleanor was about to do.

  ‘Are you sure you should be doing this, liebling? I mean, if it means telling more lies? The police are already highly suspicious’

  ‘I think it’s a bit late to worry about that,’ said Eleanor. ‘About seventy years too late.’

  The Kathy Jenkins interview had been published on the news website and had been picked up by all of the national dailies and had made Eleanor’s blood boil with rage. All of these matters had been left alone for so many years and throughout that time all the demons had been under her control. Now it was as if they were flying out of her castle windows without her being able to do anything about it. Well she was going to see about that. A few wings needed to be clipped.

  ‘Well I’m flattered by the invitation, Lady Eleanor,’ said Marius van Urk. ‘Even though more an
d more people are taking their news coverage from the net, it’s still been hard to get ourselves established as a leading news source.’

  ‘I’m not here to flatter anyone, Mr. Van Urk,’ said Eleanor. She’d rather taken to this fresh faced young man. He reminded her of some of the ones she’d met in her youth, ‘although that would be easy in your case.’

  Marius felt himself blush. He’d never been hit on before by a ninety-year old filthy rich woman before. Like all good colonials Marius was drooling about sitting in this massive 200-room house in the old country with all its traditions and history and this woman from another world. Lady Eleanor was physically a little frail, she had a walking stick at her side, but she was immaculately turned out in a Chanel style two piece and her hair was perfectly set in the brushed back style of elderly ladies of a certain age. There were more lines across her face than a Manchester A to Z but her eyes looked like they could freeze hell.

  ‘Your accent is quite fascinating,’ said Eleanor. ‘Your name suggests you may be from Holland? Or perhaps the Flemish speaking part of Belgium? I have so many friends in Antwerp and Bruges.’

  ‘You’re way off, I’m afraid,’ laughed Marius. ‘My mother is English, from Nottingham, where my grandparents and the rest of my mother’s family live, but my father is South African which is where I was born and brought up. My mother moved out there when she married my father.’

  ‘And she’s still out there?’

  ‘Oh yes, my folks are still going strong,’ said Marius. ‘They’ve been married for almost thirty years now.’

  ‘They must mourn the passing of the old days?’

  ‘The old days?’

  ‘When the right people were in charge,’ said Eleanor.

  Marius knew exactly what she meant. Since apartheid ended his family had lost their privileged access to the reins of society. But they were still rich. His father’s business was a vineyard in the Eastern Cape that had been raking in the cash since the end of apartheid had led to the world looking more favourably on importing South African goods. In the ‘old days’ it had just been Israel and a few fascist states that had comprehensively traded with South Africa. Now the whole world drank the country’s wine. But he would have to concede that wealth had not been re-distributed throughout the ‘new’ South Africa. Most blacks had stayed poor whilst some of their ‘comrades’ had got themselves very wealthy on the backs of the ‘cause’ they continued to profess to be fighting for. It sometimes left Marius to wonder what had really changed for the majority of his black compatriots. Unlike his Afrikaner father however, Marius had never been a fan of apartheid. He loved the spirit of what his country had become but the reality of it was what had made him leave for the UK. That and splitting up from his fiancée Yvette which had made him want to make a fresh start somewhere else.

  ‘Well I go back home once a year,’ said Marius. ‘They’re about a hundred miles east of Cape Town.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been there. But that was back in…’

  ‘…the old days?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Marius looked up at one of the pictures on the wall. It was of a slightly chubby man in the kind of shirt and tie that spoke so wildly of sixties Britain. ‘Who’s that, your Ladyship?’

  ‘It’s Ronald Kray,’ said Eleanor, who’d hidden her pictures of the Kray twins when the police had been there. ‘He was a great friend and a frequent visitor to my home here.’

  ‘Really? How so?’

  ‘Marius, people of my class have always got on famously with men from less savoury backgrounds. Look at my dear late friend and confidant Lord Boothby and his friendship with the Kray twins as an example. The aristocracy and the working classes have always held each other in mutual respect and each have always known their respective place in the order of things. It’s those dreadful middle classes who think they’re more important than they are.’

  Marius thought it was almost laughable how the British titled classes had such an affinity with the criminal world. He’d heard it a lot from his mother’s side of the family and it sounded like this stupid old bitch was no different.

  ‘I’m a very angry woman at this time, Marius,’ Eleanor went on. ‘I am one of the 91 hereditary peers they let remain in our rightful place in the House of Lords but I know that our days are numbered thanks to the sell-out out to the Liberals by our so-called Conservative Prime Minister.’

  ‘Isn’t that part of what being a coalition is about, Lady Eleanor? The two parties involved have to compromise?’

  ‘Coalition?’ she scoffed. ‘Compromise? They say they want the Lords to be a fully elected chamber but the masses don’t use the democracy they’ve got let alone what this coalition is set to impose on them. My blood is boiling, Marius. We must save England and restore the libertarian values of our Anglo-Saxon culture. They’d rather give equal rights to homosexuals than lower my taxes, so-called human rights have replaced tradition and all our power as a nation is being lost to Brussels.’

  ‘So you feel betrayed by the Conservative party on Europe?’

  ‘Utterly betrayed, Marius!’ said Eleanor. ‘Utterly betrayed! It’s another example of the Liberals punching above their weight and holding the Prime Minister to political ransom. My family and the rest of my class built the empire Marius, but now this country is being lost to cultures that are alien to it. There are too many mosques and temples being built. There has to be a stop to it.’

  ‘I’m an immigrant to this country myself, Lady Eleanor.’

  ‘And people like you are more than welcome here, Marius,’ said Eleanor. ‘It’s not people like you I’m talking about. I’m glad your paper contacted me because this could be my last ever chance to put my side across. People like me have been wronged against. We need justice, Marius. The white race in this country needs justice.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting, Lady Eleanor, but of course you invited us here to respond to the comments on our website made by Kathy Jenkins during her interview with me.’

  ‘And that’s what I’m coming to, Marius,’ said Eleanor. ‘I say again that people of my class are under attack from liberalism. The lies of Kathy Jenkins are part of that. Her father murdered her brother, Marius. Her father murdered her brother but she wants to put the blame on me because of something called class envy. Well she’s wrong, Marius. She’s wrong about it and she’s wrong about her claims. I saw what happened. Her father came rushing into the pool when he saw his son Peter and I in an embrace and in the struggle of pulling Peter off me he threw him against the side of the pool and he died. His father had killed him. He was tried. He was convicted. He was executed. If his daughter Kathy still can’t come to terms with that then I feel truly sorry for her. But she’s wrong, Marius. Her father murdered her brother and I was a witness to it.’

  *

  When Jake turned up on Paul’s doorstep out of the blue again, Paul had just got in from work and he was knackered. He hadn’t slept well since he found out the history of the watch his father had given him and was trying to work out how he could ask his father about it in his dying days. He needed to know who the woman was who gave it to him. That was the real mystery of it all as far as Paul could see. Whoever she was, where had she got it from?

  ‘You look miles away,’ said Jake.

  ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind, Jake.’

  ‘Got any room for some more?’

  Paul smiled resignedly. ‘What do you think the answer to that question is? Come on in.’

  Something about the way Jake looked at him filled Paul with all the lustful hunger that had always been so much a part of their relationship. And no matter how tired he was, just at that moment sex was all Paul wanted.

  ‘You want to talk?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I do, yes,’ said Jake.

  ‘Well I want something else first and for once in my life, I’m going to be selfish.’

  They didn’t need to say anything else. They just ripped each other’s clothes off and got dow
n to the business of making love right there in the middle of Paul’s living room floor. Paul rode Jake like a horse, arching his back and keeping his hands gripped firmly on Jake’s firm, wide shoulders. It was raw. It was sensual. It didn’t matter about anything or anyone else except the pleasure they were giving each other. Jake was used to Paul having a lot of sexual energy but he was really going for it this time and Jake was happy to respond in kind.

  ‘That was just what I needed,’ said Paul when they’d finished. They leaned against the wall in a post-coital embrace. Paul grabbed one of the throw-over’s from his sofa and wrapped it round them. ‘And now we’re cosy.’

  Jake squeezed him. ‘I wish we could stay like this forever.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Paul.

  ‘I was nearly dead, Paul.’

  ‘In the explosion that killed your friends?’

  ‘No,’ said Jake, his mind flooding with all the images that fuel his rage. ‘It was another day, another patrol, another reminder that we shouldn’t be there. I somehow got separated from the others. I was a sitting duck.’

  ‘You mean you were captured?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jake, ‘by our friends the Taliban.’

  ‘Jesus, Jake,’ said Paul. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They took me to some shack somewhere,’ said Jake. ‘They set me up for execution. There was a whole load of plastic sheeting on the floor ready to capture the blood. About ten of them held me. I was on my knees, they pulled me head back and had one of the biggest knives I’ve ever seen ready to do the job. They had a video camera set up. They were going to post the whole drama on the internet.’