Lynda Plante - The Talisman

Edward scared Skye as he shook his arm away violently and picked up his suitcase. ‘You’re not my brother, and you’re drunk out of your skull. You go your way, Skye — I’m going back to London.’

Skye couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He trailed after Edward as he rang for a taxi. ‘Eddie, what’s the matter? Has something gone on between you and the ol’ boy?’

Edward turned to Skye, his face like a mask. ‘There’s some land we should think about buying. I made a few discoveries when I was doing the collections — perlite’s there, make a bundle with it in the building trade. I think you should stay around here. No one can touch you about the press releases — you were just doing your job. Blame the whole scam on me. I think you should stay.’

Speechless, Skye backed away from Edward.

‘I’m going alone, Skye. Here’s the details of the land and some things for you to look into. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’m settled in London.’

Skye felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. He shook his head. ‘Oh, man, I don’t believe this. You’re just walking out on me, leaving me here? Well, fuck you, buddy boy — I’ll be on that plane with you...’

Edward sighed. He could see the taxi drawing up outside the gates. He signalled to it and the cab turned into the drive. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. You’re staying put, I might need you here. You’ve got nothing to leave for, and you’ve got enough cash to buy as many black boys and as much booze as you want.’

Skye gripped Edward’s arm. ‘You know I did all this for you, for us both... for you an’ me, buddy, an’ if you’re getting out of this fucking country, so am I.’

Edward stared at him, then reached through the open taxi window and touched Skye’s face. ‘You stay here, I need you here. We’re not through with this place, buddy boy. Now you’ve got the smell of money, think about doubling all those dollars... I’ll call you...’

Skye watched the yellow taxi drive away. He leaned against the villa walls, crying... then suddenly he was running to his car. He drove like a crazy man back to his bungalow, ransacked the drawers, knowing all the time it wouldn’t be there. He tipped out the last drawer and, sure enough, his passport and birth certificate were gone. He was so stunned at the implications, at how Edward had used him, that he collapsed on the bed. He had walked straight into Edward’s carefully prepared trap.

‘You bastard... Oh, you bastard...’

With a wondrous gleam in his eyes, BB surveyed the havoc he and Edward had wrought, revelling in it. Greed had made men he had thought were his friends grab at dried, dusty, empty earth — men who were too greedy to wait for the scientists to approve Edward’s theory.

He drove to the black area of town and pulled up outside a small shanty. Children gathered around the old black Bentley in the dusty road. BB banged on the broken-down door and called for Thin Willy.

A gnarled, thick-set man with muscles as strong as iron standing out on his arms, greeted BB warmly. They had a genuine affection for each other.

‘Time, Willy, it’s time.’

Willy nodded his thickly curled greying head and walked back into the house. He came out carrying two sticks of dynamite. BB put the keys to the Bentley into the black man’s hands, and they both climbed in. ‘Yours now, so you drive.’

Willy beamed his cracked-tooth smile and shook his head, laughing. Then he drove carefully, hunched over the wheel, to the Fordesburg mine, the only one BB had retained as it was in his wife’s name.

Willy parked the Bentley and took a torch to help the old man across the fields and the overgrown, unused tracks. With an iron rod he heaved away the massive stone that had been placed in front of the old shaft. At last it rolled back far enough for them both to squeeze through. Thin Willy guided BB, holding on to his arm, until they reached the first shaft, the gates rusted, the ropes rotting. Pulling hard, Willy looked with some trepidation at BB. ‘May not take your weight — twenty-five years a long time, boss.’

BB waved him aside and climbed into the old-fashioned cradle. Willy handed him the explosives, they shook hands, and then Willy began to turn the cradle’s wheel.

Far below Willy heard the clank of the bucket as it halted, and the echo of BB’s voice, then he felt his way out of the mine. He rolled the rock back into place. Two names were carved into the rock; John Van der Burge and Michael Van der Burge. Willy patted the rock and sighed. There was no record of the names of the other boys who had died with the two white boys, but then they had only been kaffirs.

Willy walked back to the Bentley. The promise he had made to BB more than twenty-five years ago was now fulfilled. He waited, the keys in the ignition, until he heard the low rumble and boom from deep below the ground. BB was laid to rest with the ghosts of his sons. He had gone the way he had chosen, with pride. Willy knew BB would make headlines one last time, as by morning the papers would have received his letter.

The letter did make headlines, and the photo of BB was centre page. He had taken total credit for the outrageous con trick, and by doing so also took all the blame. Edward Stubbs was cleared as being nothing but an innocent young student with a hopeful but foolish idea that he could find out with chemicals what the mighty bowels of the earth contained.

The rocks that fell around the old man, burying him, had the last laugh. They shed over the dead man a mound of small, pebble-like objects. Diamonds.

Edward was excited as the pilot requested the passengers to fasten their seat belts, they would be landing at Heathrow in ten minutes.

Eight long years had passed since Edward’s arrival in South Africa. He had always known it would take a considerable time, but had not anticipated just how long he would be away from England. It was 1954, and he stared down through the clouds at the City of London far below. The Thames was like a snake curving through the city. He leaned back against the headrest as the plane dipped and took up its position in the stack. He was moving into a new phase of his life; he was a multimillionaire and still not thirty years old. He felt as if he had the world in his hands, and laughed aloud. Edward Stubbs had done it, he had made it, and now he was back and determined to climb even higher. Money he had, now he wanted power.

Edward settled back into living in England. He had made a couple of half-hearted attempts to trace his brother, but there had always been some urgent matter that took precedence. A year after his return he drove in his new Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce back to the East End, back to his roots.

The Roller cruised along, past his old home, or rather the debris of where a prefab had once stood. He got out and walked along the entire road; he owned plot twelve, Evelyne’s house, he owned the corner site, the Meadows’ old house, plus the plot at the far end, Freda and Ed’s.

The council developers could not move with the land at each end and dead centre being privately owned, and they sold the whole stretch of land to Edward at a ridiculously low sum. The next time Edward drove along the old street he owned it, every brick and every piece of debris, the whole street, with the canal running along the back and direct views over the Thames.

Edward had formed a building company, bought it off the peg. It was already called the Barkley Company, and he liked it, liked the sound of it, repeated it in his mind a few times. Offices with a yard were purchased for the building company, and Edward stood up to watch the sign, ‘Barkley Company Ltd’, being painted. Four men were employed to erect corrugated iron fencing the whole way around the street site.