by Alan Keslian
The next weekend I went to visit my sister and stayed overnight. Of my previous social life, prior to my affair with Tom, there was little to go back to. Old friends had, not surprisingly, found others to have meals with or go with to concerts or the theatre, and I reconciled myself to being on my own much more. In gay pubs and clubs picking anyone up somehow proved impossible for me, and my expeditions ended, however late the hour, with my return to Chiswick alone.
My friendship with Andrew survived; he and I occasionally went together to see a film or a play, and we continued to have Sunday dinners together. Neither of us mentioned Tom.
Some time ago he had talked about everyone’s life having ‘compartments’, for instance home and work being largely separate, and that division being a good thing because if events in one compartment went badly wrong one could still be happier in the others. Yet despite the fat salary, the high-flown job title and the Mercedes, aside from my friendship with Lizetta, work at Lindler & Haliburton gave me little satisfaction. The technical role, which had engaged my mind with system innovations and new user demands, was largely behind me and my days were now mainly taken up with trying to match budgets and expenditure, with staff issues, endless paperwork and interminable meetings. An unsettling prospect loomed ahead: that my career would end the way my old boss’s had, and after decades of resentment I would take early retirement, thankful to escape the pressures of the job and the patronizing attitudes of the partners, to be replaced by someone younger, keener, and more up to date.
A family man, assuring himself that such a sacrifice at work was worthwhile for the benefit of his offspring, could perhaps accept life on these terms, but for a gay man – childless – it would lead to a growing sense of dissatisfaction, of having expended all those years to gain material wealth but no happiness. Were not the newspapers endlessly running stories of rich show business stars and heirs to fortunes driven, despite their money, to self-destruction?
If I was no longer with Lindler & Haliburton for money and the conceit of working for an established City firm, then what was I there for? What were the rich rewards for? To keep me miserably alive? And the more the years crept by and my abilities were worn away in the firm’s service, the harder it would be for me to switch to something new.
Chapter 7
The daily onslaught at work prevented me from brooding, but the true nature of the change from being half of a couple to being what might optimistically be called unattached or available became clear within a week. The word desperate might be a better one for my state of mind. Tom, evidently, had tired of me, but my notions before his departure that I might be tiring of him had been delusions.
At Lindler & Haliburton a myriad of technical and staffing issues filled my days and left me tired in the evening and at weekends. Peter’s absence in the US made work more predictable, probably less stressful, but less interesting too. He was anxious to keep up with office politics and retain as much influence in the firm as possible, and we exchanged e-mails every couple of weeks.
He flew back to London for the quarterly meetings, and on the first of these return visits invited Lizetta and me for lunch. Caroline and Vincent, a new client he had recruited at the last Hotel and Catering Exhibition where the firm now had a small stand, joined us at the restaurant. At first Vincent’s presence puzzled me, business lunches with clients usually being separate events from social meals with colleagues or friends. Momentary but very expressive eye contact between him and Lizetta after we had ordered our meal revealed that to her he was more than a business client with us to be entertained. He was not a handsome man, balding and a bit overweight, but he had a warm friendly smile and an easy confident manner.
Later, when we were on our own, she pretended that their affair was my responsibility, saying that they would never have met had I not encouraged Peter to involve the firm in the Exhibitions. They lunched together a couple of times and arranged to meet for dinner a couple of weeks later, and after it she took him back to her flat. He ran a management consultancy specialising in work for the tourist industry and was married, but not – according to Lizetta – happily.
Caroline, wearing a charcoal business suit tailored perfectly to her figure, sat next to me on my right. Events at the Hotel des Amis, now over a year ago, were clearly forgotten. After the first course she took my hand in hers for a few moments and said she thought it was unfair that so many good-looking men were gay, blatantly teasing Peter by making up to me in front of him. Pleased to be able to make a fresh start with her I made ambiguous comments about not wanting to be stereotyped and saying that, like a lot of gay men, I found some women very attractive. For a while Peter ignored us.
As usual he dominated the conversation. He pressed Lizetta for information about the old codgers and whether any of them was planning retirement. He had heard that one of them was going to hospital every week for outpatient treatment. ‘Anything serious?’ he enquired, obviously hoping that it was.
‘That’s not for me to say, or for you to ask,’ Lizetta answered.
‘Oh come on, what’s ailing him? Gout, heart condition?’
‘None of those things.’
‘What is it then? Bladder?’
‘You won’t get anything out of me. You may as well drop the subject.’
‘We’ve eliminated a few things. What’s left? Cancer? Come on, we’re all dying to hear the grisly details.’
Caroline intervened. ‘Lizetta is quite right to say nothing. Anyway Mark and I don’t want to hear about all this, and I’m sure Vincent doesn’t either.’
‘Bah! All right, let’s hear from one of you then. Mark, sitting there flirting with my wife, what’s happening to you in that fast moving high-tech world of yours?’
‘For some unknown reason the IT Unit’s work has been remarkably stable for the past month or two,’ I said, daring to hint that his absence might be the cause.
‘You sure? In the States change, not stability, is normal. Except for the very biggest partnerships which have their own IT consultancy arms, the middle-rankers are shutting down their own IT Units and contracting the work out. Could be the new trend, saves employing a gang of expensive technical experts who claim they have to be there for reasons nobody else understands. If it’s happening in the States, won’t be long before it happens over here. Maybe you should think about a move to one of the companies taking on the work. Jump aboard now before the bandwagon starts rolling.’
This warning may have been typical Peter bravado, but there had been a few articles in business computer magazines recently about companies doing exactly what he described. City firms were constantly being reorganised, merging, or shifting away from old static markets into new expanding ones. We had to adapt in a world of frequent reorganisation where people often changed from job to job. ‘Thank you for raising the subject,’ I said ironically.
Caroline came to my aid: ‘The demand for IT staff is as high as ever, at the moment they’re the last people who should worry.’ She looked directly at Peter. ‘Would it be possible for us to act as though we have come out to enjoy each other’s company over a meal, not to bully everyone into submission?’
‘Hmph! What are we going to talk about then? Shopping?’
Vincent diplomatically began an anecdote about a recent assignment his company had completed. The owner of a guest house in a small Midlands town had asked them to recommend ways to improve business. The consultants who went to investigate discovered that he created problems for himself by finding fault with his guests and constantly putting them right, but was completely unaware that by doing so he was putting people off. The man boasted about getting the better of his guests, proudly telling of an occasion when shopping in the local supermarket he saw a couple of his clients buying food; he followed them back to the hotel and used a shortcut to sneak in through the back entrance to await their return. As they came in through the front door he challenged them by asking if they knew that guests were not allowed to take food
up to their rooms for environmental health reasons. When they pretended not to have any food with them he asked to look in their bag.
Vincent’s gentle humorous manner, the way he smiled and chuckled as he spoke, infected us all. The guest house proprietor, he said, also had a dog, a neurotic terrier that would growl and snap at people at the front door. In the breakfast room he allowed it to pester hotel guests for titbits. The dog would alternately whine pitifully and growl, and if anyone was brave enough to proffer a scrap of food it would snatch suddenly at their fingers leaving teeth marks on their hand. The most difficult thing about the assignment was finding a way to explain to the owner, without causing offence, that he himself was the cause of his lack of bookings.
Vincent’s genial way of speaking made even Peter relax. Nevertheless the remarks about the possible new trend in computer services were probably right. Why should an outside company not be hired to replace the IT Unit, much as Ferns and Foliage were contracted to supply the decorative plants? Whether such a change would be beneficial, no one could know for sure until afterwards. Yet if rival firms began to put out their IT work Lindler & Haliburton would almost certainly follow their lead.
The following Sunday in Chiswick I mentioned the subject to Andrew over dinner. ‘What would happen to your job in practice?’ he asked. ‘Presumably the company that took it on would need experienced staff and you could find a job with them.’
‘Possibly, yes. And someone at Lindler & Haliburton would be needed to deal with the contractor, making sure a good service was being provided, costs were tightly controlled, authorising necessary changes and so on. But that would be a less senior job than the one I have now. Otherwise it might mean redundancy.’
‘It could be your opportunity to make a real change. What sort of redundancy payment would they give you?’
‘I don’t know. Redundancy is always a risk in the City. Worrying about it could make you neurotic. You’d never withstand all the pressures if you let vague doubts about the future get to you. The firm’s IT Unit is actually quite efficient. The current arrangement may well be the most cost effective.’
‘Maybe, but you’ll have a major influence over any decision. With Peter out of the way you can probably make the arguments for and against look as good or bad as you want. Is there anyone except Peter who knows enough to challenge you?’
‘He’s not completely left the scene, and he could be back in a year’s time. Contracting out the IT services could take longer to arrange than that.’
‘You must control developments as far as you can. The big questions are do you really want to make a complete break and go into business for yourself, and, if so, doing what? A hotel for instance?’
‘You’re going miles and miles ahead of me. Why a hotel, except that you’re keen on the idea? Another job that makes use of my current skills might be the best thing. Anyway, what about the people who work for me?’
‘They’ll find other work, or take redundancy like you.’
‘That may not be so easy for some of them – they’re not all ideal employees.’
‘You and that friend of yours in Personnel will do what you can for them. You have to think of what’s best for you. Even the flowers in the meadow compete with one another to have room to grow.’
The possibility of me setting up a small hotel had somehow become an occasional topic for speculation. Perhaps I had unintentionally encouraged him in the idea by telling him about Georges and the Hotel des Amis, and about a weekend I had spent in Brighton some months after starting work with Lindler & Haliburton, driving down in the then newly acquired Vauxhall to stay in a pleasant bed and breakfast that advertised in the gay press. Nothing exceptional happened, but somehow everything was so enjoyable, the guest house proprietors were friendly, and for once, there and later in a gay bar, I fell easily into conversation with interesting people. I picked up a handsome, sensitive, intelligent Canadian in a club on the Saturday night, – only a one-night stand but somehow an exceptionally happy, satisfying one-night stand – and in the morning when we sat together at the breakfast table, the man who served us discreetly pointed out, with a gentle encouraging smile, the note at the foot of the breakfast menu saying that additional meals would be charged at so much per head.
But opening a guest house was perhaps, for me, merely a subject for amusing discussion, an imaginary escape route when pressures at Lindler & Haliburton were heavy, no more than an occasional pleasant day dream. Providing somewhere to stay that was comfortable and clean for gay men visiting London, making them welcome and hearing something of their lives was appealing, but new businesses set up by inexperienced people usually fail. There was a high risk of bankruptcy.
Yet the idea must have begun to take hold. At the last Hotel and Catering Exhibition a fresh-faced young salesman in a brand new suit persuaded me to buy a subscription to the trade magazine The Caterer and Hotelkeeper. If what lay ahead for me at Lindler & Haliburton was what had happened to my old boss in the IT Unit, a growing dissatisfaction which worsened with age, even festering into bitterness at wasting my life there, a radical change now while most of my working life still lay ahead would make sense.
Peter gave me another little stimulus to think about my future by sending me a copy of an article from the Wall Street Journal extolling the virtues of corporations concentrating on their ‘core business’ and contracting out most of their support services. Not surprisingly the author was a director of a company which provided office services and computer systems to several major US corporations, and predictably he made all he could of the benefits whilst skimming over potential drawbacks. In a clever piece of low key marketing he concluded that such arrangements might not suit everyone, but recommended that all organisations, private and public, evaluate the use of outside service companies as an option. How difficult it would be to argue against that, and once an evaluation began the door would be open to persuasive people such as himself.
Peter’s motive was not one of animosity towards me – he was careful to explain that he wanted me to be aware of the trend rather than be surprised and overtaken by developments – but what if he was discussing the subject with others in the firm? The same day, as though collaborating with Peter to spur me into action, Andrew rang to suggest having another look at Goodmans Villa, the house he had taken me to see almost two years ago. It was no longer on the market but he thought if we approached the owner she might be willing to lease it to us.
‘What started you thinking about that place again?’
‘I happened to pass it the other day and rang the estate agent for a chat. There would be no harm in making a few enquiries. If we could get a lease on it for say ten or twenty years we should be able to make it pay.’
‘There’s still a job for me here at the moment. Maybe the hotel is a long way in the future, something for my retirement.’
‘What harm would there be in having another look at the place, if I can arrange it? If you don’t want it maybe I could raise some money and let it out as flats. That’s what it’s being used for at the moment.’
‘London is full of flats and hotels. What’s special about that particular house? Why now?’
‘Why not now? We may be able to do a good deal on the house. There is an impasse between the property company that has bought up half the neighbourhood and the owner of Goodmans Villa who doesn’t want to see them tear it apart. If she would give us a long enough lease at the right price, we could make a viable business out of it. There’s nothing to lose by going to see it again. Since we last went the flats have been re-let, but the agent will take us for a look round.’
He seemed determined, and no good reason to refuse came to mind. After fixing a date for the visit he surprised me further by saying that Tom would be back and suggesting he come with us. He knew the circumstances of our break-up, and should have been aware that I would be reluctant. With sham indifference I said, ‘Why should he want to come? He’s not interested in buying it,
is he?’
‘He could be useful – his practical experience of plumbing and wiring – but if you’d rather he didn’t come… ’
Giving away my hurt feelings I said, ‘If he’s working for you again and you really want to bring him I suppose it’s your decision. Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t need to be there… ’
‘Don’t think too harshly of him. Tom’s no saint, but the two of you can be friends, can’t you? Put up with him for my sake, even if he’s out of favour with you.’
The estate agent arranged to collect us from the garden centre by car. Arriving fifteen minutes early, I found Tom and Andrew together in the staff room upstairs and responded sullenly to Tom’s greeting, avoiding looking at him. To my annoyance, Andrew excused himself saying he had to make a ’phone call, leaving Tom and me together sitting beside the table used by the garden centre staff during their breaks.
‘You been all right?’ he asked.
I would have preferred silence. ‘So-so.’ Making an effort to be polite I asked: ‘How was Manchester?’
‘Did OK, plenty of work.’
Annoyed even more by his casual manner I said pointedly: ‘I tried to ring you.’
‘I was staying in a caravan on the site, working every day except two. It wasn’t easy to get to a ’phone. Hardly saw Manchester, none of the gay bars, nothing like that.’
‘They wouldn’t let you out to send a postcard?’
‘Wasn’t like that.’ He looked up, his face miserable. ‘I thought about calling you but wasn’t sure what to say. You might have been angry with me.’
What was he talking about? ‘Why should I be angry with you?’
‘Andrew’s told me things. I thought you ought to have a chance to find somebody who would be more like your sort of people.’
Had our break up come about because of some off-hand remark of mine to Andrew about Tom and I not having all that much in common? What could Andrew have said to him? ‘What do you mean, my sort of people? What sort of people are they?’