Lynda Plante - The Talisman

She surveyed his body, sipped the thick black coffee and reminded herself not to use too many beans in the American coffee machine, a gift from one of her customers. ‘When will you come again, Eddie? Eddie...?’

He splashed cold water on his face, walked past her into the bedroom and began to dress.

‘Eddie, you hear me, when are you coming back? You don’t really give a tinker’s cuss about me, do you? You know, I thought you did, last night? What did you need, a room for the night? Eddie, you deaf? Why don’t you answer me?’

Slipping into his fresh shirt he started doing up the small pearl buttons. ‘Because I don’t like to be called “Eddieeee... Eddieee.”

‘Oh, all right, then, Stud, is that a better name?’ Furious with him, she opened her handbag and took out two folded tenners, chucked them on to the bed. ‘You got a posh voice, Eddie, you got all the right gear. You got the lighter an’ cigarette case, but that don’t make you any different from me. You’re goin’ through one school, an’ I’m goin’ through another, but we’re the same.’

He was putting his coat on, going to walk out on her. She blazed. Nobody walked out on her, she was somebody now. She certainly wasn’t going to take it from a kid from her own backstreet slum. She hurled a pot of cream at his head, but she missed and it spattered over her new wallpaper.

Dressed to perfection, his coat on, Edward snapped his overnight case shut. Then he gave her his smile, and she wanted to cry. ‘Damn you, Eddie Stubbs, damn you.’

Picking up a handkerchief from the dressing table she blew her nose.

‘I earn good money, Eddie, and with Johnny away you could stay here, stay with me. I know how to handle the punters, I could really make it... You like me, don’t you?’

He looked around her bedroom, picked up his case.

‘This isn’t for me, sweetheart, and nor are you... Thanks anyway.’

She followed him through into the small hallway with the pink rose-patterned carpet. ‘Will I see you again, then?’

He opened the door, gave her a wink and said, ‘Sure,’ then he was gone. When she went back into the bedroom she noticed that he had taken her twenty quid, and then she saw the cream dripping down the new wallpaper. ‘Me wallpaper, look at me bloody wallpaper.’

Evelyne Stubbs’ solicitors were taken aback when the smart young man presented himself as her son. He apologized, and said he had intended calling to see them months ago, but due to his studies he had never been able to get to London on weekdays.

They reviewed Evelyne’s will in detail. Edward had hoped that the land his mother’s house had stood on would be of some value. The whole street had been bombed, and they were building prefab houses — in fact they had already rebuilt part of the street and were rehousing the homeless.

‘The land, really, is virtually worthless. Of course, that may not be the case after the war, but at present there are vacant plots of land all over London, in some places more land than houses.’

Edward took their advice to retain the plots until they were worth selling. He then asked about Evelyne’s money in the Post Office; it was a simple matter of the verification of his signature and the money was his. He stopped at the first Post Office he came to after leaving the solicitors’ office, and withdrew the 123 pounds in cash. The assistant asked if he wished to retain the old book, as there was still one pound, fifteen shillings and sixpence of accrued interest.

Edward chuckled, slipping the book into his pocket. ‘I think I’ll leave that in, for emergencies, thank you.’

After opening a bank account — his first — Edward made his way to the station and sat on the train, waiting for it to leave for Cambridge. He had hoped, of course, that his mother’s land would be worth a lot more. He recalled the days of Miss Freda and Ed, the Meadows family, and how hard his mother had saved and fought for them not to be evicted. What had it all been for? To end up as a worthless piece of wasteland. He gave no thought to Alex, beyond being relieved that the solicitors had not mentioned him. It did not occur to him that half the money he had just banked rightly belonged to Alex, or that half the property was also his. All he could think of was that now he could continue his studies, not exactly in the lap of luxury, but with more than enough to see him through.

By the time he let himself into his rooms, Edward was quite cheerful. He had only just taken his overcoat off when there was a knock on the door. He recognized the light, nervous tap, and called for Walter to let himself in.

‘I’ve just been with the board again, it’s unbelievable. They’re sending me off to the War Office, to decipher bloody codes or something. I mean, how can they do it to me, smack in the middle of term?’

Edward commiserated. Poor, blind-as-a-bat Walter. He even offered to make the poor boy some cocoa, but Walter was so depressed he refused. Walter was nudging ahead of Edward in the tutorials, he was exceptionally clever...

‘You should take it as a compliment — only picking the chaps with specially high IQs. Never know, Walt, you may yet make a career for yourself in the Foreign Office.’

Walter picked at his spots, squinted and moaned that he was just completing an analysis of specimens down in the lab, he doubted if he’d be allowed to complete even that. Edward offered to take a look, and together they walked over to Downing Laboratory.

His hands stuffed in his pockets, Walter kept complaining until Edward patted him on the shoulder. ‘Think of it this way, you’ve got all the London cinemas — most of the pictures at the locals here are years out of date...’

Walter cheered visibly, and began talking about the possibility of working with microfilm. He lost Edward in the technical pros and cons of film-making.

But Edward was anything but lost when he read the results of Walter’s research — it was too interesting. They sat in the library, discussing Walter’s tests, then together they went over to the chemical laboratories.

Walter had drawn maps and detailed diagrams of many of the famous mines of South Africa. His tiny, meticulous print was difficult for Edward to read.

‘What I’ve done is to take all the famous mines and break them down into scales — where the strikes occurred, how they were discovered. This one, for example, is the De Veer mine, coming in at the west side angle — the west-end shaft was burnt out — check down the layers of basaltic rock, black shale, mela-phyre, and at eight hundred feet they hit quartzite. Smack in the middle you’ve got the different reef levels. Now, I reckon you should be able to tell the quality of the quartzite areas by the texture of the top basaltic rock — see? Look at the difference in quality — all those listed in Chart A, Chart B, have the same consistency. Now then, look at the mines that struck lucky, and look at the chemical formation of the top layer...’

They continued their talk until late that night. Walter was enthusiastic, excited. He believed he could, given the time, find some method of testing the top layer of rock and know, without have to spend millions on drills and pumps, just as they were able to test for oil, what areas were more likely to contain the precious minerals.

Edward asked if he could hold on to Walter’s precious papers and read them overnight. After hesitating for a moment, Walter agreed, and went off to pack his clothes. He was due to leave the following morning.

By dawn, Edward had copied all the notes. He congratulated Walter, saying he was certainly on to something, and he hoped they wouldn’t keep him away from college for too long.

Edward worked hard, taking Walter’s theories a step further, and was excited that he would have one hell of a paper for the end-of-term exams.