by Jenny Colgan
‘Yeah,’ said the temp. ‘Lots of us get stains on things. Plus you just can’t believe someone might be getting laid.’
‘That’s not true!’ said Sven. ‘Marcus hasn’t got a girlfriend, either.’
‘That’s because I’ve had a boyfriend for the last four years,’ said Marcus. ‘Tosser. You I mean, not him.’
Sven looked grumpy. ‘Well, I just hope they won’t be at it all over the office, that’s all. It’s disgusting and it’s bad for morale. What if they break up and start fighting all the time?’
Arthur and Gwyneth walked in together, gazing into each other’s eyes. They were practically holding hands.
‘Oh … Welcome back, everyone,’ said Arthur. ‘What have you all gone so quiet for?’
‘Nothing,’ they said at once.
‘Um … we’re not on the cover of the newspaper,’ said Marcus. ‘You might want to get onto Howard. Ooh, and I was at my – ehem, my friend’s at Christmas time. He lives in Slough. I’m sorry, seeing as you’re just back and everything, but he showed me this …’
Marcus pulled out the Slough Daily. There was a huge picture of Ross and Fay on the front: ‘Slough looks Definitely Set for Glorious Triumph in European Challenge’ read the headline. ‘Exclusive by Howard Phillips’.
‘Oh crap,’ said Arthur. ‘Happy New Year.’
The train to London was dirty, smelly and packed. January torpor and a smell of wet blazers had settled over all the inhabitants.
The three weeks since Christmas had been a blur of activity; of trying to tie their presentation together in a way that made it coherent, practical, legal, pragmatic and not completely barking.
Arthur and Gwyneth had tried to fit in as much time together as possible, but it wasn’t easy. At the very least, there would be three other people walking in, calling their mobiles, and the sheer weight of work meant that a few late snatched meals were as much as they could manage.
For Arthur, though, these were everything. He couldn’t get enough of this girl. She was everything to him. He had to find a way to tell her how he felt: more than sex, more than spending time with her.
Gwyneth was enjoying it – much more than she’d expected. For someone with such a lanky frame and awkward manner, he was surprisingly commanding in bed. But he hadn’t indicated where this was going at all. Sometimes, even lying in his arms, she couldn’t read what was going on in his head. She worried then that this was just a ‘thing’ to him; a passing affair, even on the rebound. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to force the issue. She wasn’t one of those clingy, insecure women. She was a consultant!
Marcus had spent night after night tweaking Excel sheets, juggling numbers and budgets to come up with a sum that was going to be acceptable to the burghers of Brussels. Sven had spent long hours arguing about ice (at least, they assumed that was what he was arguing about) with Johann on the phone and pretending to do long calculations whilst in fact entirely trusting in the professionals. His graphs of expected people flow were slightly more reliable, based on years of research done by other people. Traffic, however, was still causing a headache. Like all towns run on cars, Coventry had been overstuffed with them for years. There weren’t many easy ways to accommodate more, and especially not with Rafe popping up and whispering, ‘Light Railway! Trams!’ every hour on the hour, when he wasn’t filling in the hundreds of official plans required for the siting of a maze, subsection (d) Points 1.1 through 6.4 in the official ‘Maze Siting’ portion of the council’s extraordinary forms department. Occasionally Rafe wondered whether there really was an entire department devoted to maze siting, but he was too busy between the maze and haggling with electricity suppliers to worry about it too much.
The lights part of the festival should, if it came together, be entirely spectacular. There wouldn’t just be patterns visible from the sky: forests of lamp-posts would be put up, sponsored by local businesses; tall buildings would have rotating patterns set up in the windows; Coventry would become – hopefully – a living, breathing light bulb.
‘As long as we have fireworks, too?’ asked Gwyneth
‘Of course, my love.’
‘And perhaps just a Very Small tram,’ ventured Rafe.
‘No!’ said Arthur.
Now they were all tense, sitting on the train surrounded by other people hollering into phones, or listening to insanely irritating buzzes coming from loud Walkmans.
‘I used to do this every day,’ whispered Gwyneth.
‘What – swallow the urge to kill?’ said Arthur.
‘Yeah. Pretty much. Commute, I mean.’
‘How did you manage?’ asked Sven in wonder.
‘Lots of people do it, you know, Sven,’ said Gwyneth. ‘It’s not exactly like being tortured.’
‘It feels exactly like being tortured,’ said Sven. ‘Don’t you think, Sandwiches?’
Sandwiches poked his head through the luggage rack, where he had been ignominiously dumped by station staff.
‘Hnrgh,’ he said.
‘I thought he’d have been happier in the guard’s van,’ said Marcus.
‘Actually he quite likes being up high,’ said Sven. ‘Gives him a certain lofty sense of satisfaction.’
‘When did you stop commuting?’ asked Arthur with interest.
‘Only when I came to you,’ said Gwyneth. ‘Oh, gosh, that’s odd – that must have been around about the same time my nervous rash cleared up.’
A man in a striped shirt sitting in front of them abruptly stopped scratching the back of his neck.
‘And about the time I managed to remember how to get myself a decent night’s sleep.’
Another man, wrapped up in his overcoat, snorted and jerked awake, his eyes bright red and rheumy.
Gwyneth shook her head. ‘You know, I once really thought I missed London.’
The train drew to a halt and sat there for no reason for forty-five minutes.
‘But actually, maybe the sticks aren’t so bad after all.’
The city was heaving with smartly dressed men and women rushing everywhere down ancient streets in some great hurry. Arthur was conscious that in his best suit, a navy wool M&S job, he actually looked like shit in comparison to all these men with their handmade pinstripes and fat bottoms.
‘All of these guys have back ends like Sandwiches,’ said Sven loudly. Sven was wearing a black t-shirt with ‘Anthrax’ written on it, and a dinner jacket of entirely uncertain origin. Gwyneth was trying to get him to button the jacket to hide the slogan, but it was an ongoing battle.
‘And lots and lots of money,’ said Marcus gloomily. ‘I’d take the arse.’
They drew closer to the address, laden down with flipcharts and slides. They’d drilled and gone over the speech so many times, Arthur knew it in his sleep, not that he’d had any.
‘Do ray me fa so la …’
Marcus kicked Sven sharply on the ankle. ‘Arthur! Sven’s singing!’
‘He kicked me!’
‘Stop it, you two,’ said Arthur in anguish. ‘You just need to behave for one day, okay? Is that too much to ask?’
They both shrugged. They had reached the building named in the letter. It wasn’t any old building, though – it was a cathedral. A huge, pink, pointed, jagged structure that looked like a church, but worshipped money, politics, power … It towered thirty storeys off the ground, the shards of windows glistening in the light.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Rafe. ‘That is not a friendly place.’
‘You don’t think it has dungeons, do you?’ said Sven anxiously.
‘No, but there’s probably a speedy exit chute for those of us who don’t make the grade.’
They all gazed at the façade, which glistened like one of Johann’s ice palaces in the early morning sunlight.
‘Well, nothing ventured …’ said Arthur. ‘There’s no moat, after all …’
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said the doorman. ‘Can I see your passes, please?’
Arthur looke
d at him. ‘Um, we’re here for the European Culture meeting.’
‘Yes, sir. I need to see your special authorization.’
‘Special authorization? I have a letter here …’
‘No, sir, I think I’m going to have to talk to my superior.’
Arthur turned to the others, who were eyeing him suspiciously. ‘No, there wasn’t anything else in the envelope we were sent. Unless somebody has been secretly opening the post and eating the contents.’
Sandwiches gave his most innocent look.
Suddenly Gwyneth caught sight of someone getting into the lifts at the far side of the lobby.
‘Oh crap – look,’ she said.
Ross waved at them as the doors of the lift started to close. ‘I’m sure you’re not carrying any hazardous materials,’ he said, ‘but I thought I’d better warn the staff just in case.’
The doorman’s supervisor, who looked to be about six foot five, was on his way over.
One hour later, slightly uncomfortable after a fairly thorough search, the five made it up to the waiting room. Ross and Dave sat killing themselves laughing in a slightly over the top fashion.
‘You pigs,’ said Rafe.
‘Leave them,’ said Arthur. ‘They’re not worth it.’
‘All’s fair in love and business, mate,’ yelled Ross.
‘This isn’t business!’ said Arthur. ‘This is service. There’s a difference.’
Ross leaned forward. ‘What? What are you talking about? What century are you living in? You take this money from whatever you like, boyo, but it’s still about getting the punters through the doors, to look at whatever their plebby little hearts want to see. It’s about money in and that’s all. And if you can’t see that, you’re a bloody idiot.’
The two men stared at each other, colour running high. Finally Arthur sat back and shook his head.
‘I feel sorry for you,’ he said simply.
‘You won’t,’ snarled Ross. ‘When I’m waving at you queuing in the job centre, scratching your scabies and wondering if you could afford one Viagra tablet to remember what an erection felt like.’
‘Mr Maudrin?’ said a young receptionist. ‘They’re ready for the Slough delegation.’
‘Right, love,’ said Ross. He got up, and, suddenly, winked at Gwyneth. ‘I’m sure we could find some room for you though, darlin’.’
The Coventry group sat, bored and adrenalin-fuelled at the same time, in the large waiting area on the thirty-fifth floor. Alongside them there was a German party, who were still having a sensible, reasoned conversation about – well, Arthur couldn’t tell, but certainly no-one was slagging off anyone else’s dog’s behaviour, or attempting to sleep with people. Likewise the Italians, who seemed entirely and hopelessly nonchalant about the whole thing. In his head, Arthur compared Coventry to Verona in a cultural competition. The results, even in the head, did not really bode well. Meanwhile, Marcus and Sven were arguing again about whether or not it would be possible or tasteful to have giant truck wars on the ice. Rafe and Gwyneth had their heads together, deep in conversation. Arthur thought he wouldn’t have to get much closer to hear the phrase ‘light railway’.
Custard creams, small unpleasant mints in glass jars, lime and orange cordial – all were consumed, refilled. Mouths felt gritty, heads stuffy with the air conditioning and the knowledge of the ordeal to come. Sandwiches snoozed happily on the fake fibre carpet. If the Slough party – the only other British attendees – had come out, they had done it a different way. Now a crowd of insultingly tall and attractive Scandinavians were filing in, speaking loudly and confidently. Arthur ran over his speech for the eleventh time. Perhaps just as well, he thought, not to have gone with the jesters and minstrels. Might not have gone down so well here, in a world of quietly whispered petitions and hushed corridors, where unimaginable amounts of money, for unimaginable purposes, were whisked back and forth, invisible. Perhaps, Arthur thought unhappily, perhaps Ross was right after all. These were money people; grant givers, life changers. Nothing idealistic was going to impress them. Hard-headed, EU PLC … oh God. Maybe they’d got everything wrong, at every step.
‘The Canterbury panel, please?’ said the young receptionist. They sat there, until she coughed and said, ‘Sorry – I mean, Coventry.’
‘Well, that’s a good start,’ said Arthur.
He moved to the door.
‘Sir, you can’t take that dog in there,’ a receptionist was saying to Sven.
‘He’s my guide dog,’ said Sven. ‘I have no sense of smell.’
The receptionist breathed in deeply. ‘Well, that’s obviously true,’ she said.
Sandwiches concentrated very hard on being well behaved.
‘All right, then.’
And she shepherded them down the corridor and into the main boardroom …
Walking through the door was an extraordinary experience. Everyone hesitated and blinked. The people in the room were obviously expecting this reaction and smiled patronizingly. Outside, they had been sitting in a bland corporate reception, with basic leather sofas, beige carpet and floor-to-ceiling windows.
They had just stepped into a Georgian drawing room.
Sash windows were gently lit by wall lamps. The walls were moulded plaster, painted soft shades of white and eau de nil. A huge wooden fireplace dominated the far end of the room, its beautiful proportions framing the perspective. A fire burned in the grate.
Oil paintings hung on gold chains from the picture rail, and in front of them was a seemingly endless table, polished so sharply it looked like a mirror. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of trouble and a lot of expense to bring this here, and wanted you to know it.
Standing on the threshold between what felt like the new world and the old, Arthur felt caught, like a child in front of the headmaster. He squeezed his eyes shut. What would his slightly more famous ancestor have done in the circumstances?
Slain a dragon, he expected, smiling ruefully to himself. He stepped forward, first out of the group.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the man at the centre of the panel on the far end of the skating-rink table. ‘I’m Jean-Luc d’Aragon.’
Afterwards, Arthur could only shake his head whenever he thought about it. It was such a stupid coincidence, he nearly laughed out loud. Again there were three figures seated at the end of the table. But these ones didn’t talk, or rudely ask what he was doing. They didn’t seem to react at all to anything, but sat calmly, unhurriedly, waiting for Arthur’s motley band to organize themselves.
‘Hello,’ said Arthur, finally. He introduced himself. ‘I’m leading this project … with Gwyneth Morgan.’
D’Aragon looked at them. A tall, saturnine Frenchman, he had very fine features; it looked like the planes of his face were pulled back from his nose, which was pointed. He looked at them as if there was nobody there.
‘Welcome then,’ he said. ‘I’m chairman of this panel, I am from Brussels,’ – his accent was so faint as to be almost undetectable – ‘and these are my colleagues, Miss Hauns and Mr Obute.’
Both nodded slowly.
‘If they ask us three riddles I am so out of here,’ said Gwyneth. Arthur was suddenly thinking the same thing.
‘Well, maybe this time they’ll ask some proper algebra,’ said Marcus.
But they didn’t. That was the curious thing. They sat and watched – not even taking notes – as Arthur fumbled with the overhead projector; as Marcus set out clearly their financial implications and projections; as Sven tried to convey just how necessary to life was a good ice-maker; as Rafe waxed lyrical over his admittedly beautiful, if entirely fictitious photographs of what Coventry would look like if it was turned into a city of light. There were statistics of people input, parties, festivals, fireworks – the maze was shown, and Rafe even had a video of people running through his cress fascimile, which had eventually – but after a remarkably long lifespan for underfoot cress – succumbed to frost.
Gwyneth spoke
of the city; Le Corbusier and Walter Moses; the post-war rape of the town that many considered worse than what the Luftwaffe had done. The renown for ugliness and the longing for improvement. She talked about public art and the Angel of the North, La Defence, the failures of the London dome, and the strength of the community. She was magnificent. Arthur looked at her, full of pride and love.
‘And,’ she finished, ‘it’s just an addendum, but we would love to provide some sort of alternative to driving to these attractions. Something along the lines of a light railway.’
Arthur was so surprised he nearly contradicted her there and then. Rafe beamed. None of the judges so much as indicated they had heard.
Arthur stepped up to the lectern, feeling quietly confident. ‘Thank you for listening,’ he started, tentatively. ‘I think you can see from this … We’re a really committed team, and we know exactly what we want to do in Coventry. I don’t want to repeat what my – ahem – colleague has said, but, if you look at Glasgow … and, erm …’
Suddenly, it was as if a cold wind blew through him. He started, put off his stride completely. His words had run out. What had seemed so clear and passionate in his mind about what he wanted to say had deserted him. The others were still looking at him expectantly.
D’Aragon was staring straight at him, with a disapproving look. Arthur felt his mouth grow thick and sticky. This couldn’t be happening. This was not the time to get stage fright. He had things to say, goddammit. People’s jobs were depending on this. His bloody town was depending on this. And these … these people, that bloody dragon man, whoever the hell he thought he was, just sitting there … and he was supposed to be impressing him. But maybe he couldn’t impress him! Maybe he wasn’t the leader after all! Maybe he wasn’t destined to do this. Because if he was, he wouldn’t be making such a bloody hash of it now, would he?
This flashed through his mind in seconds, although it felt like hours. The others started to look at him with some concern. The judges showed no change of expression whatsoever.
Arthur desperately tried to swallow his panic. He didn’t feel as if he could tear his eyes away from d’Aragon’s face.