London and the South-East

by David Szalay

  The effect of the spliff seems to make his whole being vibrate slightly. He wonders if Eddy might have told Murray, yelling in the pandemonium of some club, what was going to happen on Monday. Today. Drunk, after a line or two of coke, he might have told him. Paul hopes that he did. It would spare him the worst. The desire to lie down, to sleep is becoming overpowering. He struggles to finish the spliff. It is pathetic – he thinks – how unnatural he was in Eddy’s presence on Friday. He is useless at subterfuge. And there had been something odd about Murray too. Preoccupied with his own performance, he had not noticed it at the time. As he stubs out the unfinished spliff, however, he has a distant, unsettling sense of this oddity, but it is lost in dark, swirling clouds, and seems unreal.

  9

  ALCOHOL DRINKS AS a way of life started for Paul, he supposes, in the Northwood days. Simon was a serious drinker. They would get drunk at lunchtime every day, and then go back to the Cheshire Cheese after work. That the pub was so quaint made it seem unserious somehow. And everything was going well – money was being made – the boozing was exuberant, not morose. Now, when he is sober, there is always a sense that he is waiting for something.

  Walking out of Delmar Morgan, Paul’s first thought had been of alcohol drinks. It was eleven, and the pubs had just opened. In truth, part of him had started thinking of alcohol drinks the moment Eddy had said, ‘There isn’t a job for you here, Paul.’ And a part of him had – if he is honest – even been pleased to hear those words. He had immediately felt licensed, permitted, almost obliged, to go out and drink until he was very drunk. There was nothing to stop him doing that anyway, of course – he had money – but he was not the sort of uninhibited alcoholic who pours a beer, or mixes a Bloody Mary, first thing in the morning. He did not have – as George Best is said to have had – a wine bar by his bed, so that waking in the middle of the night (probably still in his clothes, lights burning silently all over the house) he could top up his blood-alcohol level before passing out again. Paul’s alcoholism still operated within limits – very substantial limits – but limits nonetheless, and to exceed them he had to have, he himself insisted on this scrupulously, a reason. Of course, he could always find a reason – and he always did – but it was nevertheless a sort of luxury to have a real reason; and terrible misfortunes, disasters, vicious setbacks and disappointments, were superbly fit for purpose. His shock and humiliation, his stunned sense of collapse as he walked down Victoria Street, were entirely unfeigned. His legs were trembling under him. He felt awful, weepy, as if he’d been beaten up, and he entered the first pub he saw, which was the Albert.

  ‘There isn’t a job for you here, Paul.’

  All he had said then, lamely, was, ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No.’

  There was an awful silence. Then Paul said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What don’t you understand?’

  ‘What do you mean there isn’t a job for me?’

  ‘I mean – there isn’t a job for you.’

  He had stared at Eddy for some time, simply unable to believe the turn that things had taken. And surprisingly, he found himself thinking of a sexual fantasy which Eddy was said to have often played out with Kim – the Pig had told him about it – in which he would pretend to be ‘a whole rugby team’. How, Paul had always wondered – and, for a few moments, he wondered again – does one man pretend to be ‘a whole rugby team’? And he was thinking of this – involuntarily, it just popped into his mind – as he stared at Eddy with persistent disbelief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eddy said, eventually.

  Though it was the pivotal point of these events, Paul remembers little of what was said in Eddy’s office. The earlier part of the morning, however, he remembers well. It had been his intention to take the seven forty train from Hove, which would have got him to Victoria at eight forty-eight. As it was he had come to consciousness, sunk in the seat cushions of the sofa, on the unfamiliar fabric, at about seven thirty. At first he thought it was still the middle of the night – the wide silence, the darkness (except for the glowing Christmas-tree lights) and the steady, intense, sleep-deprived ache in his own head all told him that it was. Then he heard the radio start, overcheerful as always, but this morning horribly, insanely so – the gabbling DJ actually seemed insane – and lifting his head, he saw through the ajar door that the lights in the kitchen were on. Heather was in there, moving around. It must have been her arrival downstairs that had woken him. Sitting up in numb agony, he listened to the blood singing in his ears.

  He missed the eight eleven by a few minutes. The next train was not until eight fifty-five. He might have tried to get the eight forty-four from Brighton, via Haywards Heath, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon and Clapham Junction, getting in to Victoria at nine forty-three, but he did not understand what the well-meaning Network Rail employee was saying to him. In a state that might be described as ‘static hysteria’, he stared at her through the thick plastic of her window, hearing but not comprehending her conscientious, electronically mediated voice. That he had to wait for forty minutes seemed especially vindictive. He had showered, shaved and dressed – hardly able to master his tie – in frantic haste. With wild-eyed emergency, he had commandeered Heather, still in her dressing gown, to drive him to the station. And there he waited, singeing his mouth on an overpriced coffee, sitting on a red metal bench.

  At nine twenty-three the train left Gatwick Airport, and while it was somewhere between there and East Croydon – travelling through a landscape that seemed confused about its own identity, the closes and shopping centres plonked down in ploughed fields, the dormitory towns overspilling their valleys – Murray would have arrived at Park Lane Publications. Certainly, by the time the train stopped at the expansive platforms of Clapham Junction, at nine forty-nine, the scene that Paul had spent the weekend imagining would have started to play itself out. He looked at his mute, unpowered phone. There would be missed calls from Murray. From Lawrence enraged howls, tirades of horrid abuse. He would have to listen to them later. He felt slightly sick, as the train stood in Clapham, to think of what was happening in Holborn. The train was moving on, through the roofy chaos of south London, through Battersea, past the late-autumn trees of the park, trundling over the river where it curves by the disused power station with its four cream chimneys. It was exactly ten when it wheezed to a halt alongside the platform at Victoria. The station was so much more pleasant, he thought, in a moment of flat tranquillity as he crossed the spacious concourse under the cast-iron mock-Gothic of its translucent vault, than London Bridge or Blackfriars. Of course, normally he would be there earlier, in the thick of the rush hour. He was very late, and hurried through the streets, agitation and exhaustion wrestling in him to set the overall tone.

  He wished he was looking better. In the lift, on the way up, he surveyed himself in the mirror. His hair, short, greying and parted in the middle, was somewhat fluffy. His skin waxy and inhomogeneous. His eyes set in deep empurpled recesses. And a zit or a cold sore was starting to appear at one end of his lipless mouth. He is used to receiving discouraging news from his reflection, but this was very bad – the awful night heavily imprinted in his face. Installed on the cream leather of a Mies van der Rohe chair, screened by the orange-pink expanse of an unfurled FT – he had been appalled by his inability to understand anything of the newspaper’s text, until he realised, after a few moments, that it was in German, an edition of FT Deutschland – he tried to prepare himself for his meeting with Eddy Jaw. When he had announced himself to Gwyn – ‘I’m here to see Mr Feltman. I’m a bit late. Paul Rainey’ – she had looked at him sceptically, and phoned through. She herself was extraordinarily healthy-looking, the skin of her face flawless and rosy, her green eyes shining as if polished, her black hair taut, with a surface like watered silk. She looked, Paul thought, like something out of an advert. ‘Mr Rainey’s here,’ she said quietly. When Eddy had finished speaking she put down the phone. ‘Mr Feltman’s busy just at
the moment,’ she said. ‘He’ll be with you as soon as he can. If you’d like to wait here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Paul said, though something went wrong with his throat, and almost no sound emerged.

  ‘That’s okay.’ He did not like the smidgen of pity he thought he saw in her smile. And he sat down, and hid himself behind FT Deutschland in shame. After a few minutes, he lowered it. There was no ashtray on the table in front of him. ‘Um, I’m just nipping out for a smoke,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. If Mr Feltman …’

  Gwyn nodded, but did not speak.

  Outside on the pavement there was a little hollow pillar, waisthigh, for cigarette butts, and he stood next to it, in the traffic noise, smoking and trying to pull himself together. Movement, the struggle to get there, had to some extent distracted him from the fact that he was in a truly terrible state, and sitting behind the German newspaper, he had felt himself quite quickly falling apart. He had thought he might have to be sick, but that had passed. He definitely needed to get out of there though. To move, to get some fresh air into his frowzy, hurting head. He looked at his watch – it was ten thirty.

  When he stepped from the lift, Gwyn said, ‘Mr Feltman was here a minute ago. I told him you’d just popped out.’

  ‘Oh. Er. What did he … say?’

  ‘He said he’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  Paul sat down wearily on the leather seat and waited. He was sweating – waves of grimy sweat oozing from his scalp, his forehead, the backs of his hands. His clothes, fresh that morning, seemed stale and smelly. A day that had begun with such intemperate speed had turned into a day of endless, stupefying waiting.

  He had just picked up The Times – though he had no interest, none at all, in what it might say – when the door opened and Eddy came in, not wearing a jacket, his torso sheathed in a long waistcoat with stubby lapels, his shirtsleeves full and blouson. His trousers were in the same mild plaid fabric as the waistcoat. He seemed to have had a haircut since Friday, a severe crew cut that emphasised the fleshiness of his face. To Paul’s surprise, he did not seem at all angry. In fact he was smiling. For a moment he looked at Paul, as if sizing him up – there was something odd about this look – then he said, ‘Paul, mate. Step this way.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Eddy,’ Paul started gruffly, getting to his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  They went through the door – Eddy, the perfect gentleman, letting Paul precede him with a tight smile. The sales floor on the other side was very large, very open, very light, the walls on two sides being floor-to-ceiling glass; nevertheless it was a sales floor like all the others that Paul had worked on. Eddy led him through the hubbub of pitches. The atmosphere was perhaps more serious, more focused than at PLP, the suits perhaps, on average, slightly smarter, but essentially it was the same. The same scrawled-on whiteboards, the same messy work surfaces, the same dog-eared directories of leads. And Paul experienced a sinking of his spirit, a sort of tired sigh, seeing it all.

  Eddy held open the pale oak door of his office. ‘Come in,’ he said. His manner had altered markedly. He seemed tense. One of the walls of his office, the one opposite the door, was glass, but the room was not particularly light because it faced, at close quarters, the blind side of another building. It was huge, though, with a dark, corporate three-piece suite in one corner, a massive desk, a smaller desk with two computers on it, one of them switched on, a screen saver frantically scribbling. There was a widescreen TV. Photos of Eddy’s children in silver frames. An old-fashioned hatstand on which his raincoat and jacket hung. On the desk was a little sign which Paul, waiting to be invited to sit, leaned in to read. It said: If you don’t smoke I won’t fart. He smiled. Eddy moved round the desk to his black leather throne. ‘Have a seat,’ he said tersely. He was obviously nervous about something.

  ‘So …?’ Paul tried to sound upbeat.

  Eddy looked at him. The look seemed furious, and Paul did not understand why. He shook his head. ‘What is it?’

  What happened next, exactly, he does not remember. Eddy may have said, ‘I’ve got bad news for you, Paul.’ He does remember that among the objects on Eddy’s desk was a miniature bronze cannon – chosen for its resemblance to the one on Michael Corleone’s desk in The Godfather Part II – and that Eddy was holding it, as if trying to draw strength from the cold brown metal. He put it down. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Really. I’m sorry, Paul.’

  ‘You’re sorry?’

  ‘I am.’ Eddy had picked up the cannon again.

  ‘Why? What are you talking about?’

  Petulantly, as if irritated with him for not having heard what he seemed unable to say, Eddy said, ‘For fuck’s sake, Paul, why would we want you here?’

  Paul only restated the question, as if he had not understood it. ‘Why would you want me here?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Eddy laughed, horribly. ‘No, I don’t know either. Look, Paul …’ he said, but then stopped, leaning forward, and laughed again – or was it a sigh? – in the same quiet way, as if helpless, shaking his head and lowering his eyes.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Eddy’s face was suddenly serious, but a persistent smile still seemed to be trying to force its way in, through his lips. ‘Nothing’s funny,’ he said. ‘It’s really not funny at all.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘This. This situation.’

  ‘What situation?’

  ‘This situation. This situation in which we find ourselves.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘There isn’t a job for you here, Paul.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No.’

  And Paul remembers asking, ‘Why isn’t there a job for me?’ His voice was quiet, level, slightly hoarse.

  ‘Look at you!’ Eddy was saying. ‘You look terrible. Probably up all night drinking.’ With a pained sense of injustice, Paul silently objected to this, shook his head – he had specifically not been drinking the night before. ‘You show up an hour and a half late! I’m trying to run a serious business. You’re a mess. All over the place. A fucking alcoholic. I don’t need that here. You’ve got to try and sort yourself out. I mean it.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I was late,’ Paul said. His face was suffused with embarrassed, submissive heat. The situation was hellish, bewildering – far worse than any envisaged worst-case scenario. ‘Are you sacking me because I was late?’ he asked – the question straightforward, humble and seemingly without anger. It was Eddy who seemed angry. ‘No I’m not sacking you because you were late!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not sacking you. You never had a job here.’

  Seeming slow and stupid in his shock, Paul said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  Eddy had not wanted Paul to come to the office. He had left a message on his phone soon after eight o’clock telling him so – an awkward, peremptory message (he had intended to leave it on Sunday but had procrastinated) telling him that the job had ‘fallen through’. He understood that Paul must be in shock, and even found himself feeling sorry for him. ‘Look, Paul,’ he said, after a long pause, his tone suddenly softer, ‘this wasn’t really my idea.’

  ‘Whose idea was it?’

  Eddy waited, as if wondering whether to say. Then he said, ‘It was Dundee’s.’

  ‘Murray’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Paul seemed puzzled.

  ‘Murray’s going to come and work here. He’ll be looking after the people you recruited.’

  ‘Murray’s going to work here?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the people I recruited?’

  ‘Yes, if they’re good enough.’

  Paul does not remember what he felt on hearing this. Probably nothing. The situation had already numbed him.

  He remembers Ed
dy saying, in answer to some question he had asked, ‘He said he couldn’t. He thinks they don’t like him. He said they liked you. If you recruited them, there’d be a better chance they’d come. That’s what he said. And he said if he approached them, they’d probably talk to you.’

  ‘Murray approached you?’

  ‘Not really. I just bumped into him …’

  ‘That night in the Penderel’s?’

  ‘In that pub, yeah.’

  When he asked why it had been necessary to exclude Murray, Eddy said that it was because Murray had wanted to know whether Paul would exclude him. If he wouldn’t, Eddy said, the whole thing would not have happened. Murray would only do it, so he said, if he first saw that Paul would be willing to do the same to him.

  ‘Murray’s very upset, actually,’ Eddy said. ‘He feels like you’ve stabbed him in the back.’

  ‘I’ve stabbed him in the back?’

  ‘That’s what he feels.’

  The conversation ended with Paul saying, matter-of-factly, ‘I need a fag.’ Eddy just nodded, grim but sympathetic, as if he, an ex-smoker, understood. As he got up to leave, it was not clear in Paul’s mind that this was it, that he would not be coming back to Eddy’s office after his cigarette to continue their chat. But as soon as he was on the noisy sales floor – Eddy did not follow him out – it was obvious that there would be no reason to return. Eddy would certainly not expect him to – there was nothing more to be said, and that solemn nod, it was now clear, had been his way of saying goodbye.