‘An oilman, eh?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Well, good for you, Tommy. You’ve a fine piece of land to begin with.’
Tom had his concession.
Not legally, of course – the boy was only eight, after all – but his all the same. For the first time in his life, he felt he had something equivalent to what Guy had, to what Alan had, to what Sir Adam had.
And not just equivalent. Better.
Because, young as he was, Tom had understood something from the very start. He couldn’t have put his understanding into words, but he understood it all the same. And he was right.
Because oil isn’t just oil, the way cabbages are only cabbages, or steel is only steel. Oil is more than a liquid. It’s more than another commodity. Oil isn’t precious, the way gold is, because it sparkles nicely and looks pretty on a lady’s neck.
Oil makes the world go round. Even in the opening decade of the twentieth century, its massive power was becoming visible. Cars ran off it. Ships burned it. Factories needed it. On land and sea, the world went oil-crazy. Navies were converted to burn oil. Armies packed their shells full of high explosive made with oil by-products. And every day chemists found new uses for it; speed records were being shattered with it; men dreamed of powered flight with it.
But even that wasn’t the reason why oil mattered.
The reason was this. Man doesn’t make oil; God does. If you’ve got a big enough field and a big enough bank account, you can build yourself an auto factory. Don’t like cars? Then get a bigger field and build yourself an airplane factory. Or start an airline. Build a store. Open a bank.
Oil isn’t like that. Not anyone can start up in the oil business. To start in oil, you’ve got to have some land that sits over an oilfield. No matter how rich you are, if you don’t own the drilling rights, you don’t have squat. And that’s the reason.
Oil isn’t just fuel, though it’s the best fuel in the world.
Oil isn’t just money, though it’s the closest damn thing to money that exists.
Oil is power, because everyone wants it and there’s only so much to go round.
‘Talibus orabat dictis arasque tenebat,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘cum sic orsa loqui vates.’
He walked around the schoolroom at Whitcombe House tapping out the rhythm of the Latin with his hands. Tom and Alan sat with their schoolbooks lying closed in front of them. They would have looked out of the windows, except that the schoolroom windows were pitched deliberately high, revealing nothing except a wide, bare square of sky. Tom yawned.
‘Sate sanguine divum, Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno,’ continued the schoolmaster. ‘Creeley, translate for me, if you please.’
Tom said nothing. He didn’t move to open his books.
‘Creeley, if you please.’
Silence.
The schoolmaster frowned. ‘Montague, then. Translate for me, if you would.’
Alan too sat like a stone, staring down at his desk. Unlike Tom, who actually enjoyed these moments, Alan found them difficult – difficult, but in this case essential.
‘Am I to understand that neither of you has prepared today’s lesson? Creeley? Montague?’
Then Tom spoke. ‘Please, sir, we would prefer to study Persian.’
Six minutes later, the two boys were standing in front of Sir Adam. A cane lay on the table in front of them. The cane was yellow and knobbled all the way along its length. It wasn’t an implement they’d seen used very much, but that didn’t mean it mightn’t be now. Tom and Alan stared at it unhappily.
‘You won’t learn your Latin?’ said Sir Adam.
Tom shook his head, slightly but definitely.
Alan echoed his twin’s gesture, but added, ‘We don’t mind learning Latin, Father, but we think it would be better to learn something useful as well.’
‘Persian? That’s your idea of useful, is it?’
The two boys exchanged glances. So close was their communication, they hardly had to speak to understand each other. It was a fact of life that the adults of the family needed to get used to. Alan nodded slightly to Tom, as though to confirm some invisible agreement.
‘It’s for the oil, you see,’ said Alan reasonably. ‘We’re going to need to speak the language.’
Sir Adam held his hand over his mouth. The two boys looked back at each other, then at the bamboo cane.
‘If you boys want to learn Persian, I suppose that might be arranged,’ said Sir Adam. ‘What I don’t like is the fact that you didn’t prepare your Latin lesson. That’s no way to win an argument.’
‘Oh, but we did,’ said Alan.
‘You did? That’s not what –’
‘Of course we did, Father,’ Alan interrupted, supplying a quick translation from the morning’s lesson. ‘We only said we didn’t because we didn’t think anyone would take notice of us otherwise.’
Sir Adam frowned. ‘You could have asked. If you had –’
‘I did ask,’ said Tom, interrupting. ‘Twice. Two weeks ago at breakfast. Again last week.’ He spoke with a kind of flat stubbornness; not exactly asking for trouble, but quite ready for it if it came. ‘You kept saying maybe.’
‘Very well, then. Persian it is. I shall give you the first few lessons myself, until I can find a schoolmaster to take over.’
‘Thank you, Father.’
It was Alan who spoke, but with the two boys it hardly mattered which of them said the words: each always spoke for them both.
‘Good. Then it’s back to your Latin. At least, I assume so. Unless you have any other ideas I should know about?’
His tone was sarcastic, but sarcasm has a habit of bouncing off eight-year-olds. The two boys exchanged glances again. This time, it was Tom’s turn to speak.
‘Thank you, Uncle, yes. We think it’s high time we learned some geology.’
Tom’s face looked perfectly innocent, but Sir Adam knew that the look concealed a will of steel. The older man was exasperated, but proud. Proud and fond. He rumpled the two boys’ heads.
‘Geology too, eh, Tommy? Very well then, geology too.’
