by Jenny Colgan
‘So what I’m trying to say is …’
What was he trying to say? It seemed confused in his head; or a silly thing to want to do, or a waste of time, or a pointless lie, or, or …
The silence was definitely lengthening now. Somebody cleared their throat quietly. Arthur felt so stupid. The tension levels in the room were sky-high. Transfixed by the judge’s eyes, he could still feel the others’ gaze upon him, concerned and frightened. He was frightened. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he catch his own tongue and …
God, he remembered Lynne saying something: not to worry about the dragon. Well, she was bloody wrong, wasn’t she? Here he was, making a Big Idiot out of himself, and his entire department, and … the sweat was bursting out of his forehead … He thought of Lynne suddenly. She would be so disappointed in him. He tried to remember what she had said – that these men were neutral, that was all.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came a very soft sound, almost inaudible. Sandwiches’ head whipped up and he looked towards the door. D’Aragon’s eyes briefly flickered in that direction. It was only for a millisecond, but his hold on Arthur was broken at last.
Arthur staggered backwards, as if he had been hit. What did he think he was doing? He was only giving a speech, for goodness’ sake. He’d done it a hundred times before – albeit for less lofty aims – and he’d do it again, and he really had to get over himself. He almost laughed in disbelief.
The sound grew louder, though it still wasn’t loud. It was now, clearly, the faint timbre of a lute playing. The minstrels must have got in after all, thought Arthur, shaking his head. They must have found out about the meeting and decided that they were required to accompany the speeches. Well, they were right.
He cleared his throat and stepped forward once again.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Anyone who doesn’t want to be part of this project – the biggest, the most important thing that has ever happened to our town – they can go. I include everyone,’ he nodded at the judges. ‘But I want to be able to tell my children that one year I was there at the best thing that ever happened to Coventry, that made people believe in it in a way they couldn’t have imagined. And that it wasn’t the easiest thing we ever did. But I feel sorry for every Coventry man and woman that won’t be doing it with us.’
The music began to swell to a crescendo, and he raised his voice.
‘I want, every year that goes by, for people to remember Coventry and what it meant to us. There aren’t many of us, but we will struggle, and work, and create something to remember, so that in one year – when our names are forgotten and everything is past – it won’t be forgotten that Coventry did something and it meant something, and it was all because of you and it started today.’
Arthur found he was pounding his fist on the lectern, and that he was faintly out of breath.
The music faded away as quickly as it had begun. Unbelievably, the others applauded quickly. Then stopped abruptly and looked round, faintly embarrassed.
‘Yeah,’ said Arthur. ‘Well, um, thanks.’
‘Sorry about the musicians,’ said Arthur to the young receptionist.
She looked up at him in confusion.
‘What musicians?’
They were directed to a large room at the top of the building, where all the prospective teams were waiting to hear if they would be called back. A faint aura of anxious sweat was overlying the carefully applied deodorant, the new shirts and expensive aftershave. One of the teams – Arthur couldn’t tell where from – Turkey perhaps? – was going through their entire presentation all over again, with one obvious boss character haranguing them at every stage.
Rafe sat next to him with his eleventh cup of coffee of the day. ‘I thought … it was all right, wasn’t it?’ he asked keenly.
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘I think it was … all right. Good enough is another matter.’
Gwyneth came over. ‘My two favourite boys!’ she said. ‘I am SO pleased that is over with. What happened to you?’ she nudged Arthur playfully.
‘Stage fright, I expect. Didn’t you think there was something weird about that d’Aragon bloke?’
‘Apart from the fact that he was named after a terrifying mythical beast?’
‘God, yeah.’
Gwyneth shrugged. ‘No weirder than all the other complete weirdos I’ve met since I started this project.’
‘Yeah,’ said Arthur again. ‘Hmm.’
Ross and his posse passed by their sofa. Immediately Ross nudged Dave in the ribs, who shouted, ‘God, we were GREAT in there,’ and the whole team gave an enthusiastic round of applause.
‘You laid it in right. High cash, high profits, fast cars, fast food …’
‘Nothing like it,’ said Dave. ‘I’ve never seen a panel spontaneously clap before.’
‘Go bite him, Sandwiches,’ said Sven. ‘Fast food.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Ross, turning round with exaggerated slowness. ‘Didn’t see you lot there. Don’t you have a train to catch back to the sticks?’
‘As opposed to the buzzing metropolis of Sluff?’ said Marcus.
‘Soon will be, mate. Soon will be. Had them eating out of our hands in there. And D’Aragon tipped us the wink.’
Are you sure he didn’t just hold you in his hypnogaze? thought Arthur, but he kept it to himself. He didn’t want to talk to this crowd, but he couldn’t stop himself asking, ‘Where’s Fay?’
‘Sorry mate, tired her out!’ Ross laughed, until he saw the appalled faces of even some members of his own group, in particular a large snotty woman called Niamh, who sneered at everything. ‘She ain’t been too well.’
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘I don’t know. She’s a human being who’s accidentally taken up with a big fat rat. Why wouldn’t I be worried?’
Ross shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She just keeps mooning around.’
‘How would anyone notice any difference?’ said Gwyneth under her breath.
‘Has she seen a doctor?’
Ross looked at Arthur full on. ‘Keep out of this. In fact, you should just keep out of all of THIS,’ he swept his arm around the room, ‘if you’ve got any sense. Unlikely.’
Arthur thought he’d never hated another man more than he did at that moment. ‘It’s in the laps of the gods now, Ross. Nothing to do with you or me.’
‘That’s right, sunshine,’ said Ross, turning away suddenly. ‘You believe that.’ A camera flashed, and Ross flashed a grin to reach it.
‘Thanks Ross!’ said the voice. ‘That’ll go down great on the front page! Well done!’
‘Howard,’ said Arthur, with resignation in his voice.
‘Oh, hello, Arthur. How are you? You’re looking well. Um, sorry I can’t take your photo. Unless you want to look really sad, you know, like you’ve just been defeated.’
‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘No, I won’t do that.’
By six o’clock, the mood in the room was poisonous. Except to Rafe, who was stretched out fast asleep. Sandwiches was watching Howard’s every move and growling almost imperceptibly every time he as much as twitched. Howard had been desperate to go to the toilet for nearly ninety minutes, and was trapped in a tight and encircling hell of his own.
Finally, at twenty past six, the receptionist entered the room. The air immediately sparked with tension. Rafe woke up and accidentally rolled off the sofa.
‘Sorry,’ he said, but no-one was paying him any attention.
The receptionist looked around. ‘Could the Helsinki team report upstairs, please.’
There was no inflection, no emotion in her voice at all. It wasn’t clear what she meant – was this it? Were the rest of them all just to go home?
The tall Scandinavians stood up, brushing themselves down and looking as puzzled as everyone else.
‘Fuck,’ said Gwyneth sharply under her breath. Arthur stilled her.
‘Don’t … we have no idea why they’ve just been called.’
‘Because they’re Finns,’ said Sven. ‘Prejudiced bloody panel.’
‘How could they possibly be prejudiced towards Finns?’
‘Well known fact. Everyone is,’ said Sven, and stuck out his bottom lip.
‘Well, don’t panic. Yet,’ said Arthur. ‘You never know – it could be like Big Brother and they call them out in reverse.’
‘Yes, because the panel looked like the fun, game-playing types.’
Nothing else happened. No-one had told the rest of the teams to leave, and no-one had wanted to ask if they were dismissed, in case it showed a defeatist attitude. So the groups sat stock-still, heavy of shoulder, shadows gathering under reddening eyes.
After another twenty minutes, the receptionist appeared at the door again. Once more, faces popped up eagerly, like hungry dogs at six o’clock.
The receptionist cleared her throat. ‘Could the Bonn team …’
No-one heard what she said after that; the exhalation of relief – or anger, from the German contingent – was so strong.
The teams trooped out one by one, their attempts to look stalwart belied by the pricking ears and tilted heads trying to pick up the rap of the receptionist’s heels on the long corridor each time she returned. Cleaners came in, worked around them and disappeared again, and however well soundproofed the offices may have been, there fell on the building the undoubted sense of a place uninhabited; they were intruding into the world of the office at night, when computers hummed and backed up, and complied, and janitors polished floors, and phone lines picked up information and messages from the side of the world still bathed in sunshine.
Ten o’clock came, eleven. It was after midnight. They were all exhausted. At eleven thirty precisely, the receptionist had appeared, framed in the doorway, to remove one of three remaining teams. It had been the Italians, the team from beautiful Verona. Perhaps, Arthur thought, Verona didn’t need any money to make it beautiful, to make it cultured. Verona was fine as it was, and people loved it. Coventry wasn’t fine. It wasn’t loved. It needed them.
He snuck a glance at Ross. And now there were two. Slough was the only other team left. Ross’s people were slumped in a corner. Some of them were asleep already, but he couldn’t make out Ross’s eyes, hidden in the moonlight.
Arthur crept to the high window and peeked out over London. The lights of the London Eye were glowing, and Tower Bridge could be seen, raised, and letting through a great ship. It was beautiful. Arthur smiled ruefully. Okay, so Coventry wasn’t so hot on the great bridges and towers and wheels stake. But still …
He thought of the cathedral he was standing in, and closed his eyes for a second. Suddenly, briefly – later, he realized he must have drifted off for a second – he was on the horse again. But alone this time. He was riding like the wind down the passageways of this pink monument, scattering papers behind him like a blizzard, vaulting the reception desk, pursued by … he couldn’t tell, but he was definitely being pursued. He found himself pounding into the Georgian state room, and the white mare effortlessly, gloriously vaulting the shining table, which was now made of ice, and as cold and as sharp as steel.
He could see the dragon veer up now, and join in the chase. But he was too far behind. The horse galloped over desks, over photocopiers. It wasn’t just this office now, it was Coventry too, and many other places where he’d sweated and worked and poured years and centuries and …
The horse spilled coffee over desks but did not stop. Printer toner exploded over everything but they went on without stopping. Computer disks, ring binders, hanging files, desktop toys, calendars, reminders, circulars, memos, staplers, pagers, ties, vouchers; all went whirling into the great maelstrom of the horse’s wake, chaos erupting behind them, until they reached the great window and Arthur realized there was no stopping them now, and they broke clean through the glass and were soaring, high, shadowed against the cold, bright, clear stars and the wild empty night, over the land, the motorway, the delays, the accidents, the stalled train sulking in a siding, the lone hitchhiker, the greasy, overlit service station, the hurtfully orange sodium bulbs, and only a small child, tucked up in the back of the car, tiny on the great road, and supposed to be sleeping whilst his parents made an absurdly early start in an ever-defeating attempt to beat the traffic – the perpetual, endless traffic – saw them as they flew and pointed his finger and gleefully cried out, ‘horsie’ as his parents sighed and bickered as to whose turn it was to get him back to sleep.
‘Well, well,’ said the quiet voice.
Arthur immediately snapped back, to find himself leaning on the window ledge, his nose practically pressed against the glass to the city below.
Just as he noticed Ross standing beside him and staring out at the view, a soft tongue licked at his hand. Silently, Sandwiches had left Sven’s lap and come over to stand next to Arthur. Arthur felt ridiculously grateful and scratched the dog’s head under his hand.
‘More of a cat man myself,’ said Ross.
‘Yes, you would be.’
Ross sniffed, then glanced behind him. ‘It’s all right, they’re all asleep.’
Arthur looked at him strangely. ‘What do you want?’
Ross shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. I just thought, you know. Here we are, still. Just the two of us. You must be doing something right.’
‘And your point is?’
‘I don’t know. Just, you know, maybe we shouldn’t always be working apart.’
‘Yes, well, you started it by trying to fight me and calling me a tosspot.’
Ross shrugged again. ‘Yeah, whatever. I was just thinking, you know, maybe turn things into a joint operation …’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Arthur, speaking as quietly as he could through his anger. ‘You think we’re going to win and you want a piece of the pie. Great. Actually, that makes me feel really good.’
‘I don’t think that at all,’ spat Ross. ‘I was trying to do you a favour. Help you out.’
‘What are you getting at?’ Arthur stared at him in the darkened room.
‘Well, you know … might be able to find a place for some of your staff when you lose this competition.’
Arthur blinked rapidly. ‘Christ, Maudrin, you are absolutely unbelievable.’
‘What? It’s reasonable.’
‘You want Gwyneth.’
‘She’s the only one with half a brain in your lot.’
‘Unbelievable! Just when I think you couldn’t possibly slime any lower, you surprise me.’
Ross shrugged. ‘Fair enough, mate. It’s not like I have any trouble sorting out your birds.’
‘Excuse me? You picking up my leftovers, you mean.’
‘I don’t think she’d go back to you, mate.’
‘Well, you stay away from Gwyneth. She’s mine.’
‘And she knows that, does she? That she belongs to you?’
‘Just bloody keep your hands away from my stuff!’
Arthur couldn’t remember being so angry.
Ross put up his hands.
‘Wow, calm down, mate.’
‘Yes, perhaps you should calm down,’ said Gwyneth.
Arthur turned round, his heart draining down through his boots.
‘You weren’t talking about me,’ she said. Arthur couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question.
‘Er …’
‘I didn’t know you “belonged” to him,’ said Ross with a sneer. ‘Don’t want to dabble in anyone else’s property.’
Gwyneth stared straight at Arthur as Ross slouched off.
Arthur closed his eyes. Crap, crap, crap. This was all he needed. He couldn’t believe it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he started.
‘Forget the macho bullshit,’ she said. ‘Believe me, in this job I’ve got used to that.’
He looked at her. ‘But …’
‘What did you mean, Arthur? What am I to you? I w
ish I had one fucking sign, one tiny idea. I mean, I’m sleeping with you, so I’m your property? Is that what you mean?’
Arthur stared at her, caught completely off guard. It had never even occurred to him that his adoration wasn’t clear and absolute. He opened his mouth to speak, when he felt Sandwiches push him to face the door. There, looking as perfectly made up and set as she had done sixteen hours earlier, stood the young receptionist.
Chapter Twelve
Immediately everyone stood up and started patting themselves down, but in the midst of all the confusion, Gwyneth didn’t take her eyes off Arthur for a second. What was … he was …
She realized, watching Arthur stare at her, that he had truly no idea, no awareness of his inability to communicate with her – God, maybe with Fay, maybe with all women. Why was it so hard for him to make even the tiniest gesture towards her, when he was quite happy to get involved in some macho pissing contest with a short-arsed tosspot from Slough? The jerk.
Arthur could feel his blood galloping through his veins. He strained forward to hear the receptionist, even though she hadn’t started speaking. She waited until everyone was up, dazed. Rafe had a big chunk of hair sticking up from his head. The entire room was completely quiet, apart from Howard hopping from foot to foot, still trying not to go to the toilet.
The receptionist stared at them blankly. Arthur could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead. Oh, God.
‘You are all required upstairs,’ said the receptionist. Then she closed her mouth and walked out.
At first there was silence, as people tried to take in what she’d just said. Then pandemonium, as everyone tried to scramble to the door to follow her.
‘If they’re going to make us work together, I’m going to get Sandwiches to bite off the bollocks off every single one of you,’ said Sven loudly to Ross’s team as they left the room.
The room looked exactly as they’d left it. Again, the three judges sat at the far end of the table, with only d’Aragon rising to greet them. He smiled an unpleasantly tight smile, like a crocodile.
‘Welcome back,’ he said.