by Hugh Canham
‘Greg, be reasonable!’
This went on for some time.
At last, Jasper said, ‘If you take the stock including the teddies, I’ll keep the MD. I’ll put him in charge of the share sale agreement and tell him if he does well I’ll transfer him to another of my companies. I happen to have a vacancy anyhow!’
‘Okay,’ I said, reluctantly.
I had, of course, to ask the bank to increase its loan facilities by £500,000. They didn’t seem too keen.
‘Look,’ I said to the manager, an old friend, ‘I promise I’ll sell the stock ASAP; moreover, I’ve got a buyer lined up for two of the freehold shops which will show a profit of two hundred thousand over their book value!’
Eventually, the bank very reluctantly agreed.
So in addition to Jasper’s lawyers and accountants, the said MD, apparently called Horace, presented himself in my board room at 10 o’clock on Friday morning to supervise the share sale agreement on Jasper’s behalf. He looked positively bursting with self-importance and pleasure. He had on what was obviously a brand new three-piece suit – dark blue this time. But he looked very sour again when I, as is my invariable practice, retired from the meeting after about five minutes, having explained that if they wanted me for anything they should just ask Gloria, who would contact me. This was why I liked to hold these meetings in my own office. Gloria would be dealing with any amendments to the agreement anyhow – I hate listening to lawyers arguing over obscure and footling points. I wanted to get on and try to unload some of the stock, particularly the teddy bears.
The worst feature of asset stripping is that you’re always lumbered with things you know nothing about – like toys. It wasn’t long, however, after I’d settled down in my office that I had a message from George calling me into the board room to discuss some trivial point. After I’d dealt with that, I took him out into the hallway and in no uncertain terms told him not to trouble me with anything unless it was world-shattering.
‘I pay you to protect me, so please get on with it. I’m very busy.’
There were no further interruptions as I continued to phone various toy wholesalers. By about twelve o’clock I’d made absolutely nil progress, I was getting angry and needed a drink, all the more so because I knew I shouldn’t have one. I called Gloria into my office.
‘Look, darling, you’re going to have to help me with this sale of the stock. You’ve got nieces and nephews I know, so you must know something about toy shops. Ring round a few and see if any of them are interested in buying teddy bears.
‘Right,’ said Gloria, ‘how big are they and how many?’
‘Well, all the print-out says is 10,000 – various sizes.’
‘Quite a few for one shop to buy!’
‘Yes, of course!’ (Oh God! It sounded as though Gloria was going into one of her sulks.) ‘Just ask if they’d be interested in some, and you’d better order me a sandwich as I seem to be stuck here. And you’d better see if those guys in the board room want some, but lay off the prawns, ham and pork.’
‘I’d have never thought of that!!’ said Gloria, eyeing me frigidly. (Yes, definitely, she was going into a sulk.)
By five o’clock I’d only been summoned once more by George and I’d found two wholesalers who might be interested in about a hundred teddies each. Gloria said she hadn’t had any time to ring anyone. She’d been too busy processing the amendments to the share sale agreement and getting sandwiches and cups of tea and coffee. I don’t believe she’d tried very hard!
At seven o’clock Gloria informed me that ‘They were ready for me,’ and I followed my usual routine. Armed with a copy of the Evening Standard which I was scanning intently, I entered the board room and sat down.
‘Now, is everything agreed?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said George.
I looked round the meeting and said very forcefully, ‘Has anyone got any points to raise before I sign? Anything at all?’
‘There is one thing, sir,’ said the Managing Director.
‘Ah… and what is that?’
‘Mr Cohen has just offered me another job within his organisation and if it’s all right with you, sir, I should like my name deleted from the list of employees you are taking over with the company.’
I restrained myself from smiling.
‘If that’s what you’d prefer,’ I said, somewhat coldly, ‘it’s fine by me.’
So we deleted his name and both signed the document and initialled the deletion. As was my custom, I briefly nodded to everyone and left.
‘Never thank any of them,’ my father used to say, ‘they’ll only try and charge you extra!’
I’d taken a shower during the afternoon and my friend Tina was, as arranged, in the reception waiting to be taken out to the dinner. Gloria was chatting to her rather icily. Tina looked magnificent. She had on red shoes with heels about 5 inches high, skin-tight black trousers and a very low-cut white top out of which her huge bosom looked in imminent danger of escape. Her long, blonde hair lay on her shoulders.
‘Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, sweetheart,’ I said as I sat down very close to her on one of the big white sofas in the reception. ‘I’ve just been finalising a deal.’
The weary-looking lawyers and accountants straggled out of the board room clutching their heavy briefcases, through the reception and out of the front door casting, I thought, longing eyes both on Tina and Gloria and no doubt going home to their boring wives and children.
2
I’d taken Tina out a couple of times previously and I was hoping she would provide a good substitute for Zoë. She was sexy and funny – particularly when she’d had a few drinks. But was she temperamental, and this evening particularly so! The dinner party with a few business acquaintances was in a private room in a restaurant in Jermyn Street. You always hope something may come from these dos. Five of us chip in a bit each and ask some friends. I was feeling very happy, having bought Toy Boy Limited and unburdened myself of the morose Managing Director, but Tina was distinctly ‘off ’. While we were all having a glass or two of champagne before sitting down, I put my arm around her hips and gently stroked her bum. She had seemed to quite like that sort of thing, even in public places, but tonight she flounced away immediately and stood three paces away glaring at me.
‘Do you know your breath smells?’ she hissed.
How do you reply to that? Tina moved away and when we all sat down (it was very informal), she plonked herself down between a wheeler-dealer called Roger and a lecherous old bugger unbelievably called Jesu, who both seemed very pleased with the arrangement. When I had recovered from this slight, I found myself having to fill the only vacant chair between Belinda and a rather plain girl I’d never seen before.
Having had nothing to drink for two days, the three glasses of champagne I’d slurped down before dinner had rather gone to my head. Also, I was very hungry after the frustrations of trying to sell teddy bears.
‘You don’t know anyone who wants to buy an awful lot of teddy bears, do you?’ I asked the rather plain girl.
‘Er… no,’ she said pursing her lips. ‘What an odd thing to ask. Do you sell toys?’
‘Not usually,’ I said, ‘but I am at the moment.’
Scanning the table, I still couldn’t make out which of my acquaintances the girl had come with. I didn’t like to ask her as I felt I’d made one false start already and she was obviously rather prim! Not for her the plunging cleavage. She had on a plain black skirt and a white blouse which was fastened closely at the neck with a small brooch. As the blouse was a sort of loose-fitting, billowing affair, it was impossible for me to see what her bust was like, or indeed if she even had one. There were about twenty of us altogether. Belinda, on my left, I knew quite well. She was the long-standing mistress of a property developer, who sat winking at me (or was it at her?) from the other side of the table. His wife was also there. How do people get away with these things?
‘Do you know this gir
l on my right?’ I whispered to Belinda, trying to direct my supposedly bad breath away from her nostrils.
Belinda, who had her reading glasses on at the time and was suspiciously surveying what the waiter had brought her, peered past me over her glasses, glared at the young lady and said in a loud voice, ‘No, Greg, never set eyes on her before!’
I can’t remember much about the rest of the evening. Belinda, I think, got up and left early. I remember having a large Armagnac and then the rest is a blank.
I surfaced in a strange bed in a strange bedroom. It was dark. I felt around my body. I had my underwear on. I badly needed a pee. Somebody must have helped me to bed. This was terrible! In a lifetime of late parties I’d never not made it home before. I sat up slowly and tried to get up. Then I lay down again – very quickly. The bedroom was rotating, then a door opened and a female form dressed in white entered and turned on the light. ‘Oh God, it’s a nurse,’ I thought, ‘I’ve been taken to hospital.’ I tried to focus on the female form. It slowly resolved itself to someone who looked rather like the girl on my right-hand side the night before. She wasn’t wearing a nurse’s uniform. She was in a white dressing gown.
‘How are you feeling?’ she said. Yes, it was definitely her.
‘I think I may come round in a minute or two.’
‘Would a cup of black coffee help?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Sugar?’
‘No thanks. Here, wait a minute. How did I get here?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘I’ll tell you when I come back with the coffee.’
While she was gone I tried to look at my watch, which was still on my wrist. It seemed to be ten o’clock. Then I remembered ‘Sir Will’ was running at Sandown. I had to be there. Racing started at twelve forty-five. He was in the two-thirty, so I must get home and change as quickly as possible!
‘Now you’ll feel much better when you’ve drunk this. Just let me prop you up a bit with this extra pillow.’
After half a cup of her coffee, I felt much better. It was very strong and black.
‘Look, I must get up. I need to go to the loo, and I’ve got to get to Sandown races. I’ve a horse running.’
‘That’s good. But don’t you want to know how you got here?’
‘Of course, later. But I must get home and change and get to Sandown by one-thirty at the latest. His race is at two-thirty. Where are we now, by the way?’
‘Quite near last night’s restaurant.’
‘But how near?’
‘Knightsbridge.’
‘Oh good.’
‘So you’re close to your home?’
‘Yes, I live in Brook Street. But why am I here?’
‘You seemed – well, a little disorientated shall we say, and nobody left at the dinner knew exactly where you lived. So I said I’d bring you here. It’s not far.’
‘How did we get here?’
‘I couldn’t get a taxi so we walked. But you did stagger quite a bit, particularly round Hyde Park Corner!’
‘You’re very kind!’ I hoped silently that I’d behaved myself. I know I’m given to bottom-pinching and other antisocial behaviour when drunk.
‘I couldn’t leave you all alone in the restaurant at nearly midnight, now could I? Not after you’d been so nice to me all evening.’
‘Was I?’
‘Very.’
‘Ah… good!’
‘And you kept kissing me!’
I didn’t ask for any further details, but obviously my breath wasn’t all that repulsive! Then I had a thought…
‘How would you like to come to the races with me,’ I said, ‘as a reward for looking after me?’
I was sure she was going to look prim and turn me down but to my surprise she said she’d love to.
We arrived at Sandown just as the second race was starting. Jane, for that was her name, didn’t seem at all impressed with my Aston Martin. She made rather a fuss about lowering herself into it and took off a rather silly knitted woollen hat she was wearing once she was inside. But she did appear to know about horses and patted Sir Will in his box while he was being saddled. Normally he doesn’t like strangers but he didn’t seem to mind Jane. My totally neurotic trainer, Jim, muttered out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Strewth, where’d you get ’er from… not yer usual!!’
I just smiled and shrugged and asked, ‘What price are we?’
‘Six to one; seven to one some places. We stand a good chance, at least of a place.’
From Jim, that was optimism.
It was bitterly cold and I felt like a very large whisky and something to eat. But there wasn’t time.
‘I shall put something on Sir Will – yes I will,’ said Jane as we stood in the parade ring. Sir Will did indeed look in good condition as he walked round. I couldn’t really figure out Jane. During our car ride she told me she’d lived in her flat off Knightsbridge for a year, which I thought very wealthy for such a young girl. She must only be about twenty-three or twenty-four. Her father lived in the country. Mummy was dead and she didn’t have any brothers or sisters. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do yet; she’d only just finished at university.
As I walked up the steps to the area reserved for owners and trainers and watched the twelve runners go down to the post, I noticed Jane standing about 20 yards away. She’d left us to go and put a bet on and she obviously didn’t like to come into the owners’ and trainers’ section without being invited. She looked a strange little figure, I thought, with her tweed overcoat, woolly hat, and some rimless spectacles which she’d just put on. I thought it best to leave her where she was as I wanted to concentrate on watching the race through my binoculars. Jim made awful grunting and gurgling noises beside me. He always did this during a race when one of his horses was running.
It was a 2-mile chase so they set off at a cracking pace up the hill. Sir Will was in the lead at the first ditch.
‘Silly bugger,’ muttered Jim – this was aimed at the jockey – ‘I told him to keep off the pace!’
Then some moments later at the water jump where Sir Will was still in front, ‘Stupid fool! He’s sure to make a muck of the Railway fences with nobody in front of him!’
Sure enough, Sir Will duly hit the top of the first Railway fence pretty hard and was headed for the first time. He also made a mess of the second Railway fence and that put him back in fourth place.
‘Oh Christ, he’s finished now!’ moaned Jim beside me. ‘The stupid cunt, I’ll never let him ride for me again!’
It certainly looked to me as if Sir Will would finish out of the first three. But rounding the final bend and coming to the Pond fence, Sir Will got a second wind. He jumped the Pond fence into third place and drew up alongside the two leaders at they toiled up the Sandown Hill.
Jim had fallen silent. Then as the three horses approached the final fence and jumped it in a line, he bellowed beside my left ear, nearly causing permanent injury,
‘Come on my son!!’
As usual, I uttered a prayer to Allah (I’ve often found they work) and Sir Will duly came first by half a length.
‘Thank Christ for that!’ uttered Jim, scampering down the steps. ‘Come on, Greg!’
But something was gripping my arm. It was Jane’s hand.
‘Wonderful!’ she said. ‘What a wonderful race, wasn’t it? Congratulations!’
Jim didn’t seem to think the jockey was such a cunt any longer as he dismounted in the winners’ enclosure. He threw his arms around him.
I collected a rather nice silver cup which I gave to Jim for safekeeping and then looked round for Jane. Eventually I found her sitting on the bench beneath a tree, by the paddock. This seemed a very odd place to be as there was a freezing cold wind and it had just started to snow. Almost everyone else had disappeared inside.
‘Come on,’ I said, patting her shoulder jovially, ‘let’s spend some of my winnings on some cha
mpagne and maybe something to eat. I hope you put a lot on him, I certainly did.’
But she didn’t seem at all keen. ‘I don’t usually drink during the day,’ she said.
‘Oh come on, it’s nearly dark already,’ I said. ‘There are only two more races and at this rate they’ll need floodlighting for the last one. Just something to eat then?’
‘Okay, if you like.’
We found a table in the ground floor restaurant and I could hardly wait for the champagne to arrive. I did eventually persuade Jane to have one glass with her fish while we watched the next race on one of the monitors in the restaurant. Jane was silent throughout. We could hardly see the race – it started to snow very hard just after the off.
‘Bet the last will be cancelled!’ I said.
And then I caught sight of two very lovely young ladies coming into the restaurant. One was dark and the other blonde, undoubtedly both enhanced by their respective hairdressers, and I was very pleased when I realised that I was vaguely aquainted with the dark girl. She was the daughter of another trainer I had a couple of horses with. They removed scarves, coats and hats and sat down at a table almost next to us. I waved.
‘Well, hello there, Greg,’ she called out. ‘Congratulations! Are you treating us to champagne after your win?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I said, ‘come and join us. There are two more places here. Er… it’s Lucy, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right! And this is Katherine.’
‘This is Jane.’
‘Howdy!’ said Katherine.
I poured them out some champagne and ordered another bottle.
‘Wonderful race, Greg,’ said Lucy grasping and squeezing one of my hands.
‘Yes, wasn’t it!’
‘The final race on the card has been abandoned owing to the deteriorating weather conditions,’ the loudspeaker announced.
‘Oh God,’ said Lucy, ‘and I was hoping to have put a big bet on that!’
‘Yip, we were, weren’t we Lucy?’
‘I think I’ll be going,’ Jane said.