‘Mr Clarke!’ It was Marcia’s voice. ‘Mr Channing would like to see you in his office please.’
Oliver’s heart lurched. Now what had he done? ‘Now?’
‘Of course. If it had been another time I would have specified it.’ Old bag. God, he hated her. One day, one day, he’d tell Bard Channing what she was really like, behind his back. He pulled on his jacket – a new one he’d bought that lunchtime, from Paul Smith, too expensive really, but he didn’t have anyone else to spend his money on, Greece had failed him in that respect – and hurried along to Bard’s office.
‘Go straight in please.’
Bard was on the phone; he waved at Oliver to sit down. He didn’t seem angry. He didn’t even seem cross. There was a glossy brochure on the coffee table, with details of an organisation called the World Farming Federation. Oliver started flicking through it.
‘That sort of thing interest you?’ Bard had put the phone down.
‘What? Oh – yes, it does, actually. If I’d been able to do a gap year I’d have gone and worked for someone like that.’
‘You should do it still. You’re very young. Take a leaf out of Barnaby’s book.’
‘Yes,’ said Oliver, thinking of Barnaby, drifting about whatever bit of the world took his fancy, cushioned by his father’s money, untroubled by any urgent necessity to finish his course, earn his living.
‘I’m serious. If you want to do that, I’d help you. It’s important, do that sort of thing while you can.’
Oliver stared at him. ‘Thank you, Mr Channing. Thank you very much.’
‘It’s one of my favourite charities, that one,’ said Bard, ‘people doing something positive, not just sitting about on their arses, waving collecting boxes.’
‘But surely, aren’t they waving one at you?’ said Oliver looking at the brochure.
‘What? Oh, yes, in a way. I have a charitable trust and they’re a major beneficiary. But they do something useful with the money. That’s what I mean.’
‘Yes, I see.’ Yes, and save yourself a lot of tax at the same time. Don’t be so cynical, Oliver; he’s just made you a fantastic offer.
‘Anyway, I just wanted to have a chat,’ said Bard, ‘see how the holiday went.’
‘It was great,’ said Oliver, who had indeed enjoyed it, in spite of the shortfall on its romantic content: the scuba diving, the windsurfing, the heat. ‘And Mum is really much better for it. Thank you very much, Mr Channing, we all really appreciated it.’
‘Good. Excellent. And I understand your mother isn’t after all going to see Mrs Booth?’
‘No. No, I believe that’s right,’ said Oliver awkwardly. He had hoped it wasn’t going to be mentioned.
‘She told me in her letter that you’d explained I wasn’t keen on the idea. And that therefore she wasn’t going to do it. Very sweet of her, and I appreciate that, Oliver. I think between us we saved her quite a lot of distress. Not that Mrs Booth would have meant any harm, but – ’
‘No,’ said Oliver. ‘No, I really don’t think she would. I think she’s really nice, as a matter of fact.’
He spoke firmly; Bard was looking at him, amusement in his eyes. ‘You’ve got guts, Oliver,’ he said. ‘I like that.’
What did you say to that? Oliver was silent.
‘Anyway, that was all. Oh, and I’ve told Mr Barbour to put your money up. Just a couple of grand a year. You weren’t on a proper salary before; more of a probationary thing. You’ve worked very hard, done well. You’re an asset to the team. I hope you’ll stay.’
Oliver was so astonished he dropped the brochure. It fell onto the floor and he sat staring at it, thinking he would never again see the WFF logo without feeling a mixture of pleasure and unease. Pleasure that Bard Channing should value him, and say so and show his appreciation in so extremely generous a way, and unease at the feeling he was being rewarded for rather more than being a good runaround boy for Pete Barbour.
‘Mr Townsend? Hallo, young fellow. This is Douglas Booth.’
Duggie sounded odd; slightly strained and shaky, while clearly trying to sound jocular. Gray had been doodling rather lethargically, waiting for Alan’s call; he sat up sharply.
‘Hallo, Mr Booth. How are you?’
‘Fine, fine. Could do with a bit more sun, of course, but so could we all. Look – you’ve been tallking to my wife, haven’t you? I heard your message on her answerphone.’
‘I certainly have, Mr Booth.’ Christ, this was difficult. He shouldn’t have done that. How to play it, what to say? Thank God for the original lie; he went for it feverishly. ‘I’m doing a piece about timeshares. Hers was an obvious one to include.’
‘Yes indeed. Clever girl. Very clever.’
‘She certainly is,’ said Gray, thinking even in his distraction that ‘girl’ was hardly a label he would attach to Teresa.
‘But – well – look.’ Booth sounded embarrassed, awkward. ‘Look, she’s got some funny ideas. About – well, about Channings. I don’t know what she said to you, but I wouldn’t like you to – well, to get us all wrong.’
‘Mr Booth,’ said Gray carefully, ‘I do assure you I would never think Channings was anything but absolutely pukka, blue chip, gilt edged, all the right things. You know?’ Christ, this was difficult; like working your way through a quicksand. One false step and you were down, done for.
‘Yes, well, that’s what I hoped you’d say. Thing is, in your section of the profession, you have to get things absolutely right. Well, don’t you? Black and white. No half truths, no rubbish. Not like the tabloids.’
‘No, absolutely not.’
There was a very long silence. Then, ‘Look,’ Booth said very quickly, as if he didn’t want to be able to change his mind, ‘look, I don’t suppose I’m making a lot of sense. I wonder if we could meet. I’d like to – well, talk a few things through.’
‘Yes, of course we can. When would you – ’
‘Well, I’m tied up all day here. Lots of meetings and so on. And I’ve got to go away for a few days. But maybe next week – say a week tomorrow? How would that be?’
‘Fine, Mr Booth, absolutely fine. Let me buy you lunch.’
‘Oh no, no need for that. And do call me Duggie. Everyone else does. No, this is on me. Shall we say the Reform at one? Rather than a restaurant. Quieter, and all that. And I hardly need say, this would be – ’
‘Confidential? Of course. Don’t even think about it any more.’
‘And you’ve nothing planned on – well, on Channings, for the next week’s paper, then?’
‘No Duggie, I promise you. My word. As a journalist. You know how valuable that is. Seriously, I promise. Nothing planned at all. Although – ’
How to play this exactly: didn’t want to frighten the old chap off. But while he was rattled, while his defences were down, it was a good time for a question.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I did notice your share price was down a bit. Earlier.’
‘Really?’ And there was the old Duggie again, smooth as a putting green. It was the instant change that told Gray he was lying; he was back on course, playing his usual role, the one in which he was word perfect. ‘Oh, I never take much notice of all that. It goes down and then it goes up again. Bit of a rollercoaster that whole thing, as you well know. I daresay by tomorrow morning you could see something different.’
Yes, and I bet you know why, thought Gray. God, this was a sexy old business. God, he loved it.
He smiled into the phone. ‘I expect you’re right. It’s all OK there, is it? With the Docklands thing and so on. Must be a hell of a burden, that.’
‘Oh, not really. We’ve come through a lot worse. And you know Bard. He’s very good at pushing water uphill, you know. Very good.’
Yes, thought Gray, while appearing to walk on it; and then, getting lost in his own metaphors, said, ‘I’ll see you next Tuesday, Duggie.’
‘Yes. Tuesday, that’s right. Now look, let me say again’ – less
smooth again now, not with the old script – ‘I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. There’s nothing wrong, you understand. It’s just – well, you know, it’s the old two and fourpence scenario.’
‘What’s that one? I don’t think I – ’ said Gray. He was beginning to think he was going mad himself.
‘Oh, surely you know it? Famous case of Chinese whispers. Someone in some battle or other, out in India I think it was, this was in the old days before radio communications of course, sent a signal down the line saying “send reinforcements, ready to advance”, and by the time it reached HQ it had become “send two and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”. You see what I mean, don’t you?’
‘I certainly do,’ said Gray carefully. ‘No, we certainly wouldn’t want any of that kind of confusion, Duggie. I’ll see you next Tuesday, then.’
Now what the hell was all that about? And what kind of desperation would drive Douglas Booth to ring him up? What on earth had Teresa been saying to him? And how had he found out she had been talking to him anyway? Unless she had told him herself – and if so, why should she try and rattle him, get him worked up?
He flicked back his answering machine, listened to her message again. Listened to her voice, amused, relaxed, thanking him for a nice time at the Ritz, and wondered what the hell Duggie had thought she might have been going to say to him.
Alan Ferrers called him at five.
‘You’ll like this.’
‘What? About the shares?’
‘Oh, I’m not telling you now. I want you waiting for me at Corney’s in half an hour with a nicely cooled bottle of Bolly.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Gray.
Alan came in looking very cheerful. ‘How are you, my son?’
‘I’m fine, Alan,’ said Gray grinning at him, thinking that actually with a touch of poetic licence and the merest tweak of biological possibilities, he could actually be Alan’s father, rather than the other way round. ‘And yourself?’
‘Good, good. Hiked the old bonus up a bit. Partly thanks to your friends at Channings.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah. Bought and sold a few of their shares, made a tiny bit. Price has gone up again. Right back to three quid.’
‘Well, in that case you should be buying this,’ said Gray.
‘Should maybe, but shan’t. Taking a very nice girl out to dinner. Very nice indeed. Excellent prospects there, I’d say. Can’t be long.’
‘So who was it?’ said Gray.
‘Who was what?’
‘Alan, don’t fuck about. Who bought the shares? You’d better tell me, otherwise I’m going to stuff this bill right up your arse.’
‘OK, OK. Two offshore trusts, apparently. One in the Cayman Islands, one in Jersey. And you can work out what that just might mean, I’m sure. Given the little hiccup earlier.’
‘I wouldn’t even think such a thing,’ said Gray.
Chapter Eleven
The pain was particularly bad that morning. It had been a filthy night. He had hoped it would be easing by now: it was, after all, five days since the crash. But it wasn’t. It seemed to be getting worse. It waited for him, lurking darkly, building up steadily towards the end of each four-hour period, as the dope wore off. The leg was the worst: a hot, searing agony. He could almost see the fractured, jagged bone pushing against his flesh. He had begged the little night nurse for an extra jab, the wonderful exquisite jab that took him floating away from it, and she had asked the sister, but Sister had simply told him he was already having more than was good for him, that he should try and relax and take deep breaths when it got really bad – ‘Sounds like childbirth,’ he had said, grinning at her – but that made the pain in his chest and his ribs worse. The nights were terrible: the long hours of dark, lonely wakefulness, counting the minutes until his next fix. It wasn’t bloody fair; he felt sure if he had been in some smooth private hospital he could have had all the stuff he needed. And then there were all the attendant miseries, humiliations: the bedpans, the blanket baths, hearing the other patients groaning, snoring, being sick. Christ, it was awful. Awful.
Naomi had been to see him twice now; she didn’t say much, didn’t stay long, just brought a lot of books, some fruit, told him he was lucky to be alive and other such uplifting clichés and left again. She hadn’t brought the children, which would have cheered him up; he knew she was still angry with him for leaving them alone while he went to get Hattie’s Calpol.
‘If Jasper hadn’t gone next door to the Duncans they’d have been alone for hours. Anything could have happened. Why didn’t you at least ask someone to listen out for them?’
‘I didn’t think of it,’ he said. Clearly Martina Duncan hadn’t mentioned the vomiting. That was extremely nice of her.
He looked at his watch: eight o’clock. The day seemed to have gone on for hours and hours already; it felt like mid-afternoon. He looked at the lad in the next bed; he had been brought in during the night concussed, both arms and a leg broken, in need of surgery after falling off a drainpipe. Burgling no doubt. He was unconscious still from the anaesthetic: lucky sod, thought Liam. You just wait, mate.
The nurse came over to him, looking officious.
‘Good morning, Mr Channing. How are you today?’
‘Bloody awful,’ said Liam.
‘Dear oh dear,’ she said. ‘Pain any better?’
‘No. Worse. What are you doing?’ he said as she started to pull the curtains round his bed.
‘I’m going to check your dressings. For infections. We don’t want you getting gangrene, do we?’ She was smiling at him, clearly thought it was funny; he could have hit her.
‘I wouldn’t care,’ he said.
‘I think you would. Now then, let’s have a look. And then it’s time for your wash. Your bottle need emptying?’
‘No,’ he said wretchedly.
‘You’re not drinking enough,’ she said severely, ‘you must get more fluids down, it’s very important. Now then, off with that jacket. Come along. Oh and by the way Mrs Channing, Mrs Francesca Channing that is, phoned. She’s coming in this morning to see you. A very nice stepmother you’ve got. That’s the third time, isn’t it?’
Liam lay back on his pillows and the pain didn’t matter any more, nor the prospect of having his dressings changed, nor even the desperate daily misery of having his private parts washed, none too gently, by an outspoken Australian junior nurse.
He felt suddenly filled with pure pleasure, and for two reasons; the first was the simple and indeed delightful prospect of seeing Francesca, spending time with her, studying her, talking to her. The second was a rather more complex one, of savouring something that had been conceived in the long hours of pain and misery and resentment at the person who had actually brought him to this, was ultimately responsible for his accident: his father. It was intriguing and brilliant and delightful, that concept: when it had first come to him, after she came to see him the day after his accident, as she had kissed him, and as he lay there, looking up at her, taking her in, the warmth, the closeness, the smell of her, when he had realised what he might be able to do, he had felt it physically, a slug of shock and delight, and he had lain for hours, distracted from his suffering, working it over in his brain, examining it for potential of which there was plenty and flaws of which there seemed few. It was a relationship between him and Francesca, the beautiful, desirable and not entirely happy Francesca – and what it would mean to him in terms of revenge against his father. Delicious, glorious, and hitherto unimaginable revenge.
It really had had been a stroke of genius, Gray thought modestly, coming to this charity auction of Francesca’s. It was a glorious opportunity to do a little background research. His slow progress on his story was beginning to drive him mad. Perhaps if he met Channing this evening socially, he might even agree to talk to him after all. Although probably with this latest débâcle, his son all over the papers after his undoubtedly self-inflicted car crash, he would probably b
e more wary than ever.
He had been put on a table with, inevitably, the PR for the charity, a reporter from one of the glossy free-sheets and a terrible woman called Daphne something who, she told him, was social editor on some magazine or other. He was greatly enjoying watching Tim Kennedy quite literally squeezing money out of people. Tim was clever, very clever. He had already charmed, cajoled, flattered, eased £20,000 out of the occupants of the ballroom of the Grosvenor House and was set to at least double that before he had finished. He was one of that small, elite breed, the charity auctioneer; capable of persuading people (as he had that evening) to pay up to £5,000 for a rather worn teddy bear (provided it had just a bit of a well-publicised past with an aristocratic owner), £6,000 for a very mediocre picture (provided it was signed by the celebrity who had painted it), £10,000 for a weekend for two at the Sandy Bay Hotel in Jamaica (providing the weekenders were photographed enjoying it within the pages of the Tatler). And now he was working them up, with an almost sexual fervour, for the pièce de résistance of the evening: a part share in a racehorse, by the name of Sweet ’n’ Sour Charity.
He started gently. ‘Come along now, ladies and gentlemen, can we have a start of – what – ten thousand pounds for this magnificent animal. A two-year-old, several wins on the flat this season, an entire horse – so potential for breeding. Ten thousand to start bidding for this superb creature. Correction, part of this superb creature. That part, indeed, for all I know. (Much laughter.) Yes, I’m told that that part is included in the price. That and a twenty-five per cent share in the rest of him. And yes, I’m told a share in the fruits. A twenty-five per cent share in the fruits. That is extraordinarily generous. So come along, ladies and gentleman, do I hear ten thousand? No? Nine? What was that, sir? Five? Oh, per-leese. That is a serious insult. To the horse, to me, to the charity. Come along now, please. Seven? Six then? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to lose my job: yes, Mr Channing? Six? Excellent. Who is going to offer me more than six? Six thousand pounds for this gorgeous animal. Thank you, sir, six thousand five hundred, seven, thank you, madam …’
The Dilemma Page 29