The Seventh Desert by Gerry Taylor
This is the sixth chapter (ex twenty two) of a novel about present-day slavery and gay sex.
Keywords: authority, control, loyalty, slavery, punishment, retraining, submission, gay, sex
This story is entirely a work of fiction and all rights to it and its characters are copyright, and private to and reserved by the author. No reproduction by anyone for any reason whatsoever is permitted.
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Chapter 6 -- The right of inquisition
The original file of Xavier LaGrange alias Maurice Saliège was quite well elaborated as a hoax file. As I read it, I had to smile at its deviousness and cleverness. Everything was just slightly off, but not so off that the slave would not be able to remember it. He had lived at Rue de Lyon 45, but had said Rue de Lille 45. He had gone to school at St. Marc, but had said St. Jean. Maurice had been an uncle of his mother's; Saliège, the surname of a cousin.
Xavier LaGrange had lied so much in the invention of his new identity that the interrogators at the slave centre had not been willing to let him off even on one single small lie or omission.
`When did you first have sex with a woman?'
`At fifteen, sir.'
`And with a man?'
`Never, sir.'
`Not even in the showers with the paratroopers?'
`That was ...en faisant du plat.... to make the pass, how you say?'
`You did?'
He shook his head, and said `No, sir.'
The interrogators' notes commented on an erection of some eight or nine inches and the piss slit of his cockhead was oozing clear precum.
If Xavier hadn't horseplayed, he surely had wanted to.
The questions went on and on. The answers again showing that the originals were near to the truth, but never quite one hundred per cent. I wondered whether this was a military technique on capture and interrogation and I resolved to ask those who had military experience.
The interrogators, whose initials, but not their names, were on the file, reported Xavier LaGrange's statement of remorse when he wrote verbatim in the file `Sir, I sorry I tell a lie. I not tell you a lie again. Sorry.'
The interrogators had put three ???' question marks after that statement as if not knowing quite what to make of it and then another comment at the end 30 strokes short cane' with two sets of initials.
So much for honesty and acceptance of facts at face value!
I left Xavier LaGrange to the tender mercies of his trainers. All his data, as indeed all that of the other invader slaves, would be double-checked for authenticity by Josh Green in the Grand Cayman and his own investigators world-wide.
While I am a man of my word, a Master must also be nobody's fool. Two thirds of these new slaves had tried to fool me with their re-invented identities, half-truths and downright lies.
I asked Mustafa how they had got such an amount of truthful information so quickly.
`Very simply, Master. A pair of clips are put on the slave's nipples and before each question, one of the clips is whipped with a small cord whip, ever so lightly. When the question is answered the other nipple and clip is struck. After some minutes, the slave has no time to think of a reply before answering immediately. Even the hardiest and most resistant of slaves is broken at the end of half an hour. They think they are answering only one question on its own, when in fact, it is the entire series of questions, asked out of order. I am in the process of double-checking everything online, Master. All new data have been correct so far.'
At the end of the first fortnight of training, I had all forty two slaves assembled, kneeling in the middle of the large training area of the al-Qatim centre where so much punishment and even more training had been delivered to them. It had been a mixed week according to all the trainers. While the dossiers had been extensively re-written, some of the slaves had not progressed in other areas of training at all, and would endure more in-depth punishment on the flogging frames as several other parts of the body were punished not just their backs and backsides. However, I had one announcement which I wanted the Head of Training to make.
`Your owner is not pleased with your progress in being trained as his slaves. He believes you need an incentive to perform better and an incentive to avoid the very low standards which you have achieved this past fortnight.'
The head of training took what looked like a table-tennis ball which I had given him from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
`To show the absolute power your Master has over all of you, he ordered the removal of your left ball before training began. At the end of your training and you will not know how many more weeks it will last, this group will be divided into three groups -- fourteen slaves in each group.'
He paused to let my words sink in, still holding aloft the `table-tennis' ball.
`At the end of your training the group which performs best will get an artificial prosthetic implant, a ball like this one,' and he moved his arm aloft to that they could see the prosthetic device clearly.
`The second group which performs only okay will stay as you are now. One ball only. Anyone in the third group which performs worst will be a candidate for losing also his right ball, because it will be useless to him. For slaves who turn out to be untrainable and worthless, I will recommend to the Master that you be castrated fully' and he put the white ball on the ground and raising his heel, he brought it down hard on the ball.
There was a `pop' which resounded around the hall and one of the slaves flopped forward in a dead faint. I think the message got through all right and if anything had been lost in translation, those who had not understood would soon enquire and find out from the others.
When I have to visit outlying parts of the Palace ground I usually call Bob Conrad to get me a sand buggy. On one particular day, I must have been silent, because as we drove to the compounds at the Lemon Palace, Bob observing my silence blurted out `Is everything okay, Boss?'
Having Bob keep silent until spoken to is one of life's unfulfilled tasks.
`Yes, Bob, I hope so. I hope so. Do you know, I think, I'll demote you again to slave?'
`For talking out of turn, Boss?'
`Oh, no, just to see your buns again. I miss seeing them each morning when you serve my table.'
`Boss, if that pleases you, I would love being an ordinary slave again. You know I have never wanted to be an assistant Supervisor.'
One of Bob Conrad's great qualities is that he always wants, and has a genuine wish, to please me, day in day out. That is a great quality in a good slave and in a slave's mentality. Not only that but he has a backside that fell off some divine applecart on the day of his creation!
`No, Bob, you are a fine Supervisor and you keep all the other serving slaves in line, but we can compromise. From now on you drop your shorts before coming to serve my table each morning....'
I did not have time to finish, when Bob said `Boss, you have a deal. No shorts for breakfast.'
At the slave centre, there was, however, expectancy in the air as to the promise and to the threat made at the end of the mercenaries' first fortnight of training. I nodded to the assistant, who started to read out a list of fourteen names. Each slave came forward when called and started to make a line. When they stood nervously in two lines of seven, the assistant announced, `as the Master promised, you will have an operation tomorrow and be given a genital prosthesis.'
The two lines of slaves were holding themselves in perfect 'display' position, clearly making a commendable effort to perform as required. The assistant then continued on, and started reading a second list of fourteen slaves.
The air of expectancy was worse than previously, because whereas before the possibilities of disaster being previously one in three, now they were one in two.
The two lines of seven slaves each filled up quickly. These were the slaves to whom nothing would be done genitally. Neither would they receive the prosthetic ball to balance their real one, nor be the object of further chastisement
This now left fourteen slaves looking decidedly frightened. One of the slaves went on his knees, so that his head was on the floor of the centre. It was the most complete and utter obeisance, born more out of despair than of the knowledge of not having completed the course successfully. But it showed a total placing of self in the hands of the Master.
One by one the remaining slaves dropped to their knees likewise as the realisation of their situation sank in.
I walked down the line slowly.
`On display' I said quietly and the slaves got to their feet and put their hands behind their heads. I stopped by the first slave in the line.
`Why are you in the this lower line-up? This is the one where all the Overseers agree that you are the worst group.'
He hesitated in replying and I said to him looking directly into his eyes `I will be disappointed with anything less than the truth. I despise a liar.'
`Sir, I was not really trying, hoping to be able to make an escape.'
His accent was American, soft, from the south.
`No one has escaped from Dahra in living memory. That is the truth as I know it. With satellite surveillance 24/7, as you say, that is now doubly impossible in my ownership as you will soon find out.'
I moved on.
As I passed a slave half-way down the line, he spoke and said softly, `Master, I will serve you. Please don't take my other ball. Please.'
It would have been so easy to have reminded the slave he would be punished for speaking when not spoken to first by his Master or to have said `you should have tried harder', but there are some in life whose span of achievements is limited to walking up and down a very limited number of life's steps and who have to rely on mercy.
I merely nodded to the slave and passed on. The whole spectrum of nervousness could be physically felt among the slaves.
All eyes were riveted on me when I spoke.
`I have six water-wheels on my farms. A slave just walks around inside them all the time, three hundred and sixty five days a year, pumping water to my gardens. A slave does not need his balls to do that. Nor does he need his eyes. He only needs a strong pair of legs. No eyes. No balls. Just legs. That's what a Master can do with a slave who does not work hard.'
Although we were inside the training centre, the heat was considerable and perspiration was running down the bodies of the slaves.
`You will each now be flogged with a camel cane thirty times for not progressing. I shall see you in one month again. If you have not improved by then, I will waste no more time on your training.'
Back at the Palace, I took another swipe at the pile of correspondence which my secretary had ready for me in several piles.
`Come on, Ben, work to do. Prepare a letter for the lawyer, Karim al-Kibbe, to say that the first part of the training of the new shipment has been completed and the second part in the Seventh Desert will soon be underway.'
`Yes, Master.'
I took up a pen and started to read and sign, to read and sign until I got writer's cramp.
In a large slave establishment such as mine, it is best not to give too many commands. It confuses. Simplicity is the key. Few orders rather than more are the order of the day, if you'll pardon the pun. Heads of Palace run the inside of my homes. Heads of Stables run the farms and grounds, and within each section well-trained slaves were in charge of each set of duties for themselves and others.
Some of my slaves have come from prisons in Europe where they would have been incarcerated for life. While it might be wrong to say that I did not take away anything from them but have given many a new reason to live -- serving me as opposed to serving a prison régime, I did not invent slavery for them. I have merely used it to my advantage.
As I am a late-comer so to speak in the ownership of slaves, many of my methods are unorthodox to the more tried and tested ways of Dahra and its centuries old practices.
Some of my Dahran neighbours never let their slaves talk except before they are bedded down for the night. My slaves talk among themselves when alone, and they talk to me only when addressed, with some notable exceptions such as Bob Conrad, my head of table, and Roge Harte with his Australian football programme, both of whom seem to talk all the time, saying whatever comes into their minds.
Of course, slaves can approach me, usually in the evening when I am sitting on the veranda after dinner, or walking in the gardens, and they wait until I tell them to talk. But, by and large, they are well-mannered, fall into step, some paces back.
While there is no compensation for the loss of freedom, the ultimate human bodily loss, my slaves have been shown by me how to have new lives with a clear purpose -- pleasing me as their owner. The loss of freedom is not only a loss of the right to physical movement or of civic powers and rights. Loss of freedom is also a loss of a state of mind and the forced acquisition of another set of thought processes -- those of pleasing a Master. And if the truth be told, now that I have substantial numbers of slaves, I do enjoy their ownership, the power I have over their lives, even to the number of times they can have sex, when and how they are to be trained, to mention but a few items.
My slaves also take great pride in being able to serve me better. One simple example of this is Klaas Oostende, my Dutch masseur, who surprised me by being in the slave line one evening after dinner as I listened to what the twenty or so slaves needed or were requesting, usually a change of partners or some such thing.
I looked on Klaas as he knelt before me.
`Klaas?'
`Master, you have not come for a massage for the past five evenings. I...'
I cut him off. Klaas was worried that I had not appeared for a massage at the pool for five days. It was nothing more than I had been very busy. In fact, a massage would have done me the world of good there and then.
Klaas, however, thought that something was wrong, that he was out of favour, that I no longer wanted massages -- ergo his career would be over.
`I have just been very busy, Klaas'.
He smiled at that piece of welcomed knowledge.
`Master, I have learned a new massage for tired shoulders, and have been practising it all week on those who come for a swim,' he said almost pleadingly.
I pulled his crew-cut head close and gave him a kiss on the forehead for all the slaves to see.
`Tomorrow, when I get back from work. A promise.'
`Thank you, Master,' a much relieved slave masseur replied with a smile. At times, it is very easy to please a slave and for a slave to please a Master with a simple attitude of servitude.
As I sat down at my desk, I noticed the tan folder. It is the colour of folders from either of the two slave centres in Dahra. The tan folder had been hand-delivered by special delivery. It surprised me as I had not requested it. I noticed that it now bore an embossed seal in the bottom right-hand corner of the House of Mustafa celebrating eight hundred and fifty years in the slave business, `serving the servant needs of the Sheikdom' as it was more discretely put.
Mustafa ben-Mustafa was intending to have a celebration on the day of his next auction some two weeks away to which I had been most politely and cordially invited. The House of Mustafa had certainly come into the modern age.
While each of the fifty slaves being put on auction had their summaries and photographs listed, he had his printer intersperse prints of dhows, feluccas, a trireme, a kamal - an old astronomical observation device and a pair of ancient looking oars. The caption read on each of these first pages `The experience of centuries....'
However, the latter pages were full of photographs of computers and servers, a satellite--no less--in orbit over the Gulf region, another of the ArabSat series which monitors the GPS bracelet on every slave's right ankle, a security procedure now being copied on criminals in various developed countries.
Here the caption continued `... and the technology of today.'
It was an elegant publication of an old profession and given the manner of its hand-delivery, it was an invitation difficult to eschew.
It is nice to be pleasantly surprised and surprised I was half way through June. My future home, the Lemon Palace was being built for me by David Tuttle, nephew of my sister and Scottish brother-in-law. He was a fine lad and one who I had in my bed to my great delight, a graduate engineer out of Edinburgh who had arrived the previous August to take over the management of the construction of the Palace out of the hands of architects Annan and Annan, who, though both local and internationally renowned, were finding that a construction such as mine at a mere twenty or so million euro needed only the attentions of an office junior or two. David Tuttle had put a stop to that and had at the same time lit a fire under their collective architectural backsides.
It is strange how you live when a second home is being built for you. You are interested, yet it is at a distance from you emotionally until it is complete and rounded off. I had tried unsuccessfully to buy art for it and after half a dozen pieces decided to leave such either to David or for a later date.
I also felt that I would have enough staff for it, so had not been on any slave-buying spree. It is quite amazing how in less than fifty months your entire perspective on the ownership of other human beings can change.
One evening after dinner, David Tuttle who had been quiet for the most part of it, among the various guests present and the usual medical colleagues from the Lime Palace itself, startled us all by saying over dessert, `Sir Jonathan, the Lemon Palace will be finished in about two weeks time.'
That was a conversation stopper. All eyes turned towards him and then towards me.
`David, this project according to the architects was a year and a half long one. It is just a year since the foundations were laid, and you are here, barely ten months since your arrival last August'
`Let us say, Sir Jonathan, that the architects finally saw reason and I must say that my two assistants, Zoran Stepkov and Jan Korda, are the most marvellously organised of people you could ask for.'
I did not want to correct David in front of the others by his referring to slaves as `people'. But he is young yet and does not know all of Dahra's set ways.
`So, when?'
`As I say, Sir Jonathan, two weeks and you can have a Palace warming any time you like.'
That brought a round of applause from the guests and I felt that a young engineer was lapping up well-merited praise and congratulations.
By accident more than by coincidence, Aziz al-Aziz was also dining with us that evening and that bit of news brought a gleam to his eyes.
`Aziz?'
`Jonathan, this is the best of news. Yes, indeed, you must celebrate it. Indeed, I would be honoured to organise such an event.'
Now that was a show-stopper as they say in the hospitality business. Again, there was a round of applause. Almost cynically I was thinking that some people do love a party. I was going to cry off and decline the offer, but suddenly, I felt in the mood.
`Aziz, please organise an official celebration of my new Palace in the true style of Dahra. I will tell, Pete Downings, my Head of Household there, that what you want is what you get.'
`We shall work glove in hand as you say in English, Jonathan.'
`Ah, yes indeed, Aziz! Hand in glove, I think.'
Aziz was beaming.
`Jonathan, I remember the parties at the Aloe Palace as a child. Now they were parties! Three, four days at a time. A birthday celebration once went on for a week. This must be a party to show off not just an important new building, it must be a party to show off the Master of the estates here, Sir Jonathan Martin, Knight of the Realm.'
I put it down to the after dinner drinks that the table toasted `Sir Jonathan Martin, Knight of the Realm'.
Aziz was on a natural high as he too raised his fruit juice in toast.
The dinner broke up soon afterwards and as is my wont, I decided to catch up on any paperwork left undone in the study.
Normally, Ben Trant has me cornered as soon as I have taken my evening swim and we get through a volume of stuff, which he then puts in order, types up and readies for dispatch the following morning while I have dinner.
There was a large slice of lemon-cheesecake on the table left over after the dinner. I took the plate, got a spare fork and went with the cheesecake into the study. Both Ben Trant and his assistant and lover, Gianni Centini, were there waiting for me. Ben bowed as he is accustomed to doing. As Gianni had not seen me during the day, he made a full obeisance, his forehead touching the floor before getting up and standing `at rest' beside Ben also standing in the prescribed fashion.
I pulled over a chair with my free hand, and sat down on it.
`The cheesecake was particularly good tonight. Lemon. Kneel you two.'
The two slaves knelt down, their legs wide apart, their genitals hanging loose and low between their legs.
`Lemon, Gianni. How do you say that in Italian?'
`Citrone, Master,' and his eyes followed the fork cutting into the moist dessert.
`Ah, yes, melt-in-the-mouth chittrone,' I garbled in my best imitation Tuscan accent.
Ben's eyes were now also on the dessert. I put a bit on the fork and extended it to Gianni's lips which opened. When the fork went inside, his eyes closed and he took the offering from the extended fork. The Master was feeding a favourite slave.
`Is it lemon enough, Gianni?' I enquired.
Gianni took it as if it were manna, nectar and ambrosia all wrapped into one.
`Delizioso, Master, delizioso.'
I handed Ben the plate with a smile and Gianni the fork and pulled up the chair to my desk to go over the various letters ready for signing.
There was also lying on the desk a tan folder, similar to the one which both slave centres in Dahra issue. To receive two tan folders in one week was exceptional. The centres do not compete for attention on that scale.
`When did this arrive, Ben?' I asked curious.
`It was hand delivered during dinner, Master. I merely took it out of its large envelope in readiness for you.'
`You have looked at it?'
`Yes, Master, briefly. I could see it was from Ahmed al-Atti. It has the crest of the al-Qatim slave centre on it and there is a covering note inside. It is for your information, but as it was not urgent, I did not interrupt the dinner.'
`Yes, indeed, Ben. Quite right,' and I smiled at another favourite slave as Ben shared another bit of the cheesecake on the fork with his gay lover.
The letter was simple and to the point. The al-Qatim computer had thrown up two cross references on two slaves in some new batches that had come in. I looked at the first and saw the family resemblance. I looked at the second and laughed aloud. One of the advantages of being rich is that you can indulge a whim. Ben had stopped feeding Gianni a piece of the cheesecake in mid-air when I had laughed.
`Master?' Ben asked puzzled.
`Nothing, Ben, two cross references that the computer at al-Qatim has thrown up. Send a note to Ahmed al-Atti that I shall go to see him on Thursday sometime after lunch depending on the traffic down to al-Qatim.'
`Yes, Master.'
`And Ben...'
`Yes, Master?'
`Gianni has just eaten the last bit of cheesecake.'
The general manager at Deckams in Dahra, the bank where I work, is Gustav Ahlson, an unflappable Swede in his late forties, who has the bank running as smoothly as a Saab engine. As his demeanour and mien rarely change, he can be read quite easily.
So when I walked into the executive canteen for my elevens as I usually do when not overloaded, Gustav was there at a window table, stirring his coffee and miles away in thought. He did not even hear me approach or sitting down opposite him.
He gave a start as he realised he had company.
'Jonathan, sorry. I was engrossed in thought.'
I smiled at him and waited. I know him well. He would marshal his thoughts and then speak. As I say, I knew him well, and so he did.
'I am thinking about yesterday evening. I had noticed that some of the rooms on the top floor of the Aloe Palace needed to be re-painted, as in Fiona and Pete's previous decorating they had not completed that floor fully. I told Olaf last night over dinner, as Head of Household, to get it organised. A discussion followed among the others who said that the fittings of the bedrooms on the first floor should be attended to first. I stayed silent during all of this after my initial instruction. I was, in fact, internally seething. It was put to a vote, as we have done in the past, and all of my compatriots, with the exception of Jon Lundt who waited to see how I was going to vote, voted for their own proposal. It was 21 to 2. Jon and I being the two. When silence descended after the vote had been taken, I said to those at table, `You have forgotten your status as my slaves here in Dahra. You have forgotten who I am and how I purchased you and now own you body and soul.' I left the dinner table and for the first time in over twenty years, I slept alone. The silence in my wake was tangible.'
Gustav was clearly upset at what had happened. I knew that the Swedes had strange ways of going about things. It simply had never occurred to me that any of them would vote against their own Master. And there, aha!, was the nub of the problem. They continued to regard the mild-manner Gustav as a Swede and not as their Master.
'How are you going to solve your problem?'
'I will speak to Olaf and Björn tonight. They must see that it was I who bought the Aloe Palace to be a home for me and a home for them as well.'
Privately I thought that if Gustav's slaves thought they were some sort of democratic commune, it was his own fault for letting it get this far. However, different folks have different strokes. Surely, I also thought, if Gustav and Björn had been lovers for all these years, they should be able to reach a viable compromise.
I backtracked in my mind to Gustav Ahlson's situation of almost a quarter of a century where he had been buying up the Swedish slaves that had come on the Dahran market. His own very altruistic and practical government had requested him to pose as the official buyer of their own citizens should the same ever get to the slave markets of al-Qatim and al-Mera.
Something had happened in the previous two years for no further Swedish slaves came on the market. It was clear to a blind man that the Swedish government had made some alternative arrangement to ensure that Swedes never got on the sales- and auction-room daises of the markets to have their foreskins pulled back and their back passages inspected by those who loved the blond neo-Vikings of that Nordic kingdom, and who, on each occasion over the past quarter of a century, had been pipped at the auction post by Gustav buying up his countrymen.
Gustav became very uptight at one stage in the past when he realised this and would not even talk to me about it. Perhaps he realised that he had been left out of a discussion to which he had been central for the best part of his working life. Simply omitted. Not even called by his Government or embassy to be offered an explanation. Taken for granted.
Gustav was my neighbour and my friend. If he wanted to run his household in a certain manner, it was not for me to interfere. I did, however, instruct my Head of Stables Yuriy Obov to leave the Swedes to their own devices when performing their field duties, so as to avoid conflicts between Gustav's slaves and my own.
To take Gustav's mind off his personal and Palace matters and to also give Colin Bowman, my other junior Partner at the Bank, a break from two large bond issues we had been handling, I insisted that both fly the New Concorde with me to the London board meeting of the Bank on the third Monday of June.
London was delightful as it only can be in that month. The Board meeting was not eventful in itself apart from one side issue. As we walked in towards the Boardroom, I spotted Tommy Elford, our Partner in Tokyo. He looked ghastly, a greyish colour and his pallor was simply unhealthy.
`Tommy, how are you?'
It is the stupid question we ask; even when we see our friends are unwell. The floor, on which the Boardroom is situated, has these nooks in the walls where busts of famous bankers are placed. We stood beside one of the Deckams who had financed both sides of the Peninsular War.
Tommy Elford opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. My eyes narrowed and I looked at him more closely.
`Tommy, how are you? Are you all right?'
He sort of gasped out, `Jonathan, I am bankrupt. I am going to have to speak with Charlie.'
Charlie Deckham is our esteemed Chairman.
`What happened? And how much?'
`A Russian deal. It was no different from half-a-dozen others and it went belly up. I'm down six million dollars. There is no way I can cover it.'
It was the measure of the man that he would not try to cover up his failure and that he would take his punishment like a man. He had been briefly my predecessor in Dahra, but the fates and a wife who did not like the Middle East had determined otherwise. So in a reshuffling of personnel, he had been transferred to Tokyo and I got Dahra. He had also tipped me off to the nickel discovery, which had been a great source of my initial wealth and that had cemented my friendship with the al-Akhri family.
`This was a private deal, not a Bank one?'
`A private one.'
`Then, Tommy, let's go into the meeting together and when it is over, we'll go downstairs and I'll transfer eight million to your personal account.'
Tommy started to say something, but I held up a finger.
`Not a word, Tommy, not now; not at the meeting and certainly not to Charlie afterwards.'
`Jonathan, I don't know what to say but thank you. I came today to hand in my resignation. I even thought of suicide, but with Janet and the kids, I just could not bring myself to do it.'
`Tommy, not a word! We'll look after this privately.'
The Partners -- that's what the Directors of our Bank are called - were now going in. I guided Tommy in by the elbow and sat him between Gustav and myself. The meeting was a half-year review. Results were good and the second half sounded promising. I saw Charlie Deckham looking at me twice. I saw him glance at Tommy Elford. He misses nothing that Chairman of ours.
After the meeting concluded, I went to one of the side phones and made a booking for an hour later for a private dining room at Il Quaglino where the prices are in direct inverse proportion to the size of the portions on your plate.
As I turned round to find Tommy, I found Charlie Deckham at my elbow.
`You didn't say a word today, Jonathan, nor indeed did Tommy, who may I say, does not look well at all. Dahra is doing fine. Tokyo is doing fine. So, I am presuming that there is a private matter that has Tommy looking the way he is.'
`Charlie, Tommy is fine and will be much better within the hour. He lost six Big Macs on a private deal. I shall cover it. It could have happened to anyone of us. We are not going in to lunch with the Board, Charlie. I have a booking elsewhere and now I just want to go downstairs to the main hall and arrange a transfer.'
I am glad for Tommy's sake,' Charlie replied. He has the branch performing to perfection.'
Though the private dining-room at one of London's more prestigious eateries was perfect for dining, Tommy was not. He looked at the menu and said, `Jonathan, I just cannot eat.'
I beckoned one of the two hovering waiters over and said `Two bowls of the consommé and some sparkling water. Then leave us. I shall ring if we need you for anything else.'
I noticed that the waiter was lip-reading as he had discrete transparent ear-plugs in either ear. It was the restaurant's way of saying that no one eavesdropped on customers.
The soup was served. The water was poured.
Tommy played with his soup, like a cat with a mouse.
`Tommy, stop that. Take a spoonful. It is good.'
I haven't eaten since Friday,' and he sighed as he sipped the edge of a spoonful of the soup. It is good.'
`Tommy, relax. The funds are now in your account as we speak. It is behind you. Forget about it.'
`Jonathan, I can't pay you back. I mean I won't be able to pay you back for a while.'
`I don't expect you to. It is a gift from one friend to another. Please don't ever mention it again.'
`It was supposed to be foolproof.'
He was, I gathered, referring to the deal.
`They all are, Tommy. They always are.'
`I just did not see it coming. I think I was set up. Jonathan, I just can't thank you enough. I keep seeing the faces of Janet and the kids.'
`Good, get them something nice from London. Get Janet something from Aspreys.'
`Jonathan, I will be on a budget for a while. There will be no Aspreys.'
`You weren't listening, Tommy, I transferred euro to your account. With the conversion rate to the dollar, you will cover your loss and have at least four Big Macs to tide you over until bonus time. You can afford something nice for Janet and it will show that all is well with you.'
`Why, Jonathan? Why this generosity?'
`Tommy, your transfer to Tokyo was the cause and beginning of my real wealth. It is I who have to be grateful to you. I walked into a situation that has made me rich. You say you have been set up. I think in one of my ventures that I have been set up as well, but in a different way. But that's a long story.'
`I have heard rumours, Jonathan, about you. You are supposed to have two Palaces in the desert, something about very profitable investments and that the Sheik considers himself under an obligation to you; that you dedicated a book on cacti to him or some such thing.'
`Yes, two nice Palaces and some gardens of which I am very proud, Tommy. Yes, the book is true; some investments of my investments have worked out well. I don't think the Sheik is under any obligation to me. Professionally perhaps to the Bank, as Deckams now handle a quarter of the Sheikdom's investment portfolio.'
`Does sainthood run in the family?'
It was the first bit of levity of the normal ebullient Tommy Elford that I knew.
`No, definitely not, and when you visit Dahra next, I will show you a thousand reasons why that is out of the question.'
He looked at me uncomprehendingly. I did not elaborate. I tried to get him to take some of the monkfish on the menu as it would sit easily on his stomach, but he declined saying that he did not want to press his luck. He put his head in his hands and with them in front of his face, he started to sob. It is always hard to see a man cry, but I let him cry and about a minute later, he used the crisp white linen napkin to dry his face and his eyes.
`Jigsaws,' I said.
Tommy looked at me.
`Get your two children jigsaws. I am told they are all the rage at present among children of all ages.'
He started to laugh and I joined in smiling. I hoped that he would soon get back to his normal good spirits.
The bill for the private lunch was four hundred pounds sterling. I thought that must be an all-time record for two bowls of soup, two bread rolls and some water, but if it was instrumental in bringing back my friend Tommy Elford's good spirits, then it was well worth it.
End of Chapter 6
To be continued