The Night Manager полностью

"Look at it this way," says Roper ― never drunk but the better for his own hospitality ― to a blue-rinse English heiress who gambled away everything one had at Vegas, darling, such fun but thank God one's houses were in trust, and thank God too for darling Dicky. "If the world's a dung heap, and you build yourself a spot of Paradise and put a girl like this in it" ― Roper flings an arm round Jed's shoulders ― "in my book you've done the place a favour."

"Oh, but Dicky, darling, you've done us all a favour. You've put sparkle into our lives. Hasn't he, Jed, darling? Your man's a perfect marvel, and you're a very lucky little girl and never you forget it."

"Dans! Come here!"

Roper's voice has a way of producing silence. Even the American bond salesmen stop talking. Daniel trots obediently to his father's side. Roper releases Jed and places a hand on each of his son's shoulders and offers him to the audience for their inspection. He is speaking on impulse. He is speaking, Jonathan immediately realises, to Jed. He is clinching some running dispute between them that cannot be resolved without the backing of a sympathetic audience.

"Tribes of Bonga-Bonga Land starving to death?" Roper demands of the smiling faces. "Crops failing, rivers dried up, no medicines? Grain mountains all over Europe and America? Milk lakes we don't use, nobody gives a toss? Who are the killers, then? It's not the chaps who make the guns! It's the chaps who don't open the larder doors!" Applause. Then louder applause when they see that it matters to him. "Bleeding hearts up in arms? Colour supplements wingeing about the uncaring world? Tough titty! Because if your tribe hasn't got the guts to help itself, the sooner it's culled the better!" He gives Daniel a friendly shake. "Look at this chap. Good human material. Know why? Keep still, Dans. Comes from a long line of survivors. Hundreds of years, strongest kids survived, weaklings went under. Families of twelve? Survivors bred with the survivors and made him. Ask the Jews ― right, Kitty? Kitty's nodding. Survivors, that's what we're about. Best of the pack, every time." He turns Daniel round and points him at the house. "Off to bed, old boy. Thomas'll come and read to you in a minute."

For a moment Jed is as uplifted as the rest of them. She may not join in the applause, but it is clear from her smile and the way she squeezes Roper's hand that, however briefly, his diatribe has granted her a lightening of the guilt, or doubt, or perplexity, or whatever it is these days that clouds her customary pleasure in a perfect world.

But after a few minutes, she slips silently upstairs. And does not come down again.

* * *

Corkoran and Jonathan sat in the garden of Woody's House, drinking cold beer. A red halo of dusk was forming over Miss Mabel Island. The cloud rose in a last ferment, remaking the day before it died.

"Lad called Sammy," Corkoran said dreamily. "That was his name. Sammy."

"What about him?"

"Boat before the Pasha. The Paula, God help us. Sammy was one of the crew."

Jonathan wondered whether he was about to receive Corkoran's confession of lost love.

"Sammy from Kentucky. Matelot. Always shinning up and down the mast like someone out of Treasure Island. Why's he do that? I thought. Showing off? Impress the girls? The boys? Me? Rum. Chief was into commodities in those days. Zinc, cocoa, rubber goods, tea, uranium, any bloody thing. Sit up all night sometimes, selling forwards, buying backwards, sideways, buying long, selling short, bulling, bearing. Insider stuff, of course, no point in taking risks. And this little bugger Sammy, nipping up and down the mast. Then I twigged. Hullo, I thought. I know what you're up to, Sammivel, my son. You're doing what I'd do. You're spying. Waited till we were anchored for the evening, as usual, sent the crew ashore, as usual. Then I fished out a ladder and pottered up the mast myself. Nearly killed me, but I found it straightaway, tucked into an angle beside the aerial. Couldn't see it from the ground floor. Bug. Sammy'd been bugging the Chief's satcom, shadowing him on the markets. Him and his buddies on shore. They'd pooled their savings. By the time we nabbed him, they'd turned seven hundred bucks into twenty grand."

"What did you do to him?"

Corkoran shook his head. "My problem is, old love," he confessed, as if it were something Jonathan might solve for him, "every time I look into your Pan eyes, all my chimes and whistles tell me it's young Sammy with his pretty arse shinning up the whatnot."

* * *

It is nine o'clock the next morning. Frisky has driven across to Townside and is sitting in the Toyota, trumpeting the horn for extra drama.

"Hands off cocks and pull on socks. Tommy boy, you're on parade! Chief wants a quiet tit-ah-tit. Forthwith, immediately, and get your finger out!"

* * *