‘So much,’ she shouted, ‘how I like to see young men about my place. So should Petra marry one of you, so should I have him also with me. Platonic, of course. You think it over, perhaps?’
‘I should be charmed,’ said Gavin, with a gallant glance at Petra, ‘but, unfortunately, I am already bespoke.’
‘Ah, what is that “bespoke”?’ retorted Rebekah. ‘So I am bespoke to a bargain Esau Levy offers me, but beats me to it that Jacob Bernstein, isn’t it? You are believing the stories in what you are calling the Old Test, no?’
‘Well, I’ve read the story of Esau and Jacob,’ admitted Gavin cautiously, recognising the identity of the Old Test.
‘So comes round history. But am I defeated?’ Rebekah demanded.
‘I am sure you were not,’ said Gavin, who felt that this was indeed a certainty.
‘Just as this first Jacob is having to be scared for his life of this Esau, so I am scaring the pants off Jacob Bernstein. We are in America, visiting my son Philip and my other daughter Sarah, so I report Jacob Bernstein for spitting on the sidewalk.’ She chuckled richly.
‘Oh, dear!’ said Gavin, with becoming gravity. ‘Did he really do that?’
‘How should I know? I do not go with him on the sidewalk. But they are already wanting to get the goods on him in New York, so any excuse to arrest him, you see, and then grill him about what else he does besides spitting on sidewalks. Oh, they get plenty on him before he is through with them. It is costing him five thousand dollars in bribes before they stop grilling him and are putting him in the clear. He does not muscle in on my “bespoke” any more.’
‘I can’t say I blame him. Well, now, Mrs Rose—’
‘I sit down, so you can sit down, too,’ said Rebekah handsomely. ‘But please to lower yourself careful. This room is furnished by Petra. Interior decoration she is doing. I am paying the fees since six years. She studies here, she studies there — nothing but money to be found, and her father dead and an expensive funeral, nothing spared.’
‘You’ve been paid back with six per cent interest, you know, Mother,’ said Petra, smiling at Gavin. Rebekah gravitated, like an elephant perched on a medicine ball, and embraced her daughter warmly.
‘She is a good girl, and pays rent of this flat,’ she said, beaming. She released Petra, who calmly sat down. Rebekah followed suit and Gavin lowered himself carefully into the chair from which he had risen.
‘So now,’ said Rebekah, hopefully, ‘you are inviting us to visit your home in exchange hospitality, no?’
‘Well, not this time, I’m afraid,’ said Gavin tactfully. ‘This time I’m here on duty. I want to ask you a few questions, if you won’t mind.’
‘For Income Tax I have an accountant.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. All I want to know is whether you spent the war years in England.’
‘Of Black Market I am also innocent.’
‘I bet you
‘He means it, Mother,’ said Petra, in her mild, sad tones. Rebekah inflated her bosom.
‘So shall I be slaughtered to do the police a good turn?’ she enquired grandly. ‘I am in England the whole of the war.’
‘Had you any relatives in Germany or in any of the Occupied countries?’
‘No, thank God, I had not. I do not count those Colwyn-Welch people. Anyway, they came to no harm except to be in among the bombs, but who was not? Opal and Ruby were interned — so they say! — but Binnen went underground and was heroine of Dutch Resistance — never caught.’
‘And your children?’
‘Petra here was sixteen when the war ended, Sarah, then married and all time in America, was thirty, and Philip, also in America and married, was twenty-six.’
‘He was drafted, then?’
‘Yes, but not to leave America. He has bad eyes. Good for clerical work (he pays so much for his glasses)- should be on National Health, like in England-but not the good eyesight for shooting people.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Rose. You’ve been extremely helpful.’
‘Now you tell me how comes this questioning.’
‘It’s top secret at present, but it may help us to get our hands on a very dangerous criminal.’
‘You are giving me police protection, then?’
‘Yes, if you like, but it isn’t really necessary. Even if the criminal finds out that I’ve been here, there wouldn’t be any indication that what you’ve told me might be material evidence, so don’t you worry.’
Petra showed him out.
‘I can see what you’re getting at,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Gavin. ‘I’m sorry it had to be so obvious. Don’t go in for too much family loyalty, though, will you?’
She smiled. She really was a most attractive woman, he thought, and much less of a dumb cluck then Laura had led him to believe. A modest, unassuming man in many ways, he did not allow for the influence of the accident of sex, or the determining factor of his own good looks and charm.
