by Daisy Waugh
Because apart from anything else Maurice Morrison believed passionately in health-and-safety-in-the-work-place. (Passionately enough, the PM himself had once humorously remarked, that when he talked about it, as he often did, he could say it – health-and-safety-in-the-work-place – so quickly it sounded like a single word.) Not only that, sitting on his desk at his office in Westminster there were documents awaiting his signature which actively supported the implementation of many more health-and-safety-in-the-workplace regulations, specifically for unkindly treated persons in the sixteen-to eighteen-year age group. Until this moment his myriad of magnificent companies had safety records which were impeccable. Unimpeachable. His employees benefited from some of the most rigorous safety directives of any employees in the land.
Meanwhile, needless to say, in other parts of the country, in companies not owned by him, terrible work-related accidents were happening every day. He knew because he had the statistics here in front of him. And did any of those make the front page of the Evening Standard? They did not.
He sighed with frustration, momentarily forgetting that of course by far the most serious infringement recorded that day, and the single reason the Minister for Kindness was cowering, so alone and angry, in his Zone-of-Zones, had occurred at an airy wine bar in Fulham which was part of a chain of airy wine bars, which was part of an empire, which belonged to—Him. Seventeen-year-old Albanian busboy and illegal immigrant, Gjykata Drejtohet, had been employed at Simply Organic for only a week when the accident had happened. At about 8.30 p.m. and for an hourly rate of £1.20 less than the lawful minimum, Gjykata had been carrying the remains of two large salads and a half-eaten portion of potato skinz back towards the kitchen when he tripped on an uneven floor surface, stumbled into an open beer hatch by the side of the bar and cracked his head on a metal ladder. Sixteen hours later he was still unconscious and the newshounds were keeping a vigil outside the hospital where he lay.
Maurice felt terrible. Of course he did. He had a young son of his own: Rufus, aged twenty-three. Maurice had already tried to imagine, twice, how he would feel if Rufus had fallen down a manhole and on a metal ladder at his place of work. But he couldn’t do it. Rufus, who was actually in the middle of a postgraduate course at Yale, tended to look where he was going. But that wasn’t the point.
The point was Gjykata Drijitohit. Drejtohet. Gjykata Drejtohet, who had been an outstanding busboy, according to the wine bar staff: bubbly and willing, hardworking – and very, very good at English for someone who had only emerged from the tunnel (it now bloody well transpired) about three weeks earlier. The point was, it was a tragedy. And the other point was, it wasn’t Maurice Morrison’s fault.
With another heavy sigh, he picked himself up from his cowering place, and risked a tiny peep through the Zone-of-Zone’s slatted blinds. It was teeming with people down there, all of them journalists, no doubt. Two bloody great satellite vans had joined the throng since he last looked. He should have stayed at home, bided his time, worked out a strategy. Except reporters were lurking for him there, as well. Even, if the housekeeper was to be believed, at his irritatingly remote castle half an hour north of Inverness. There was absolutely no escape.
As he stood there in the semi-darkness, in his bright white office, with all the slatted blinds pulled closed, he felt more tempted to cry than he had since the day his mother died, fifteen years ago. Where was his family now, when he needed them? Where were his friends? Rufus was at Yale of course, and his daughter and two ex-wives no longer spoke to him. But what about the friends? The people he trusted and the people who trusted him? He tried to conjure a face – the face of that sort of friend, where trust flowed freely between them, to-and-fro, to-and-fro…Maurice Morrison felt a blast of icy loneliness. Because not a single face came to mind.
It was just at that moment, that rare moment of fear in his frantic, successful life, that the call came from General Maxwell McDonald. With an animal-like whimper and without pausing for a moment’s thought, Maurice Morrison leapt onto the telephone.
As soon as the General learnt the astonishing news that Morrison had accepted his invitation, he whisked himself off to his dressing room for a sprucing, returning to the library twenty minutes later with his thick grey hair flattened against his head, and wearing a regiment tie with a stripe which indicated the great significance of the occasion.
‘Charlie?’ he said. ‘It’s confirmed! I’m on my way to fetch him right now. We’ve devised a plan to get the hounds off the scent, so to speak, and I’m to pick him up at…’ The General paused, took a precautionary look around the room, and finished his sentence in a whisper – ‘I shall tell you later. Tell Jo…Tell Jo – ha ha! She will be surprised, won’t she? Tell Jo he’s going to need…a lot of towels and things. Soap. Bath bubbles and so forth.’
Jo was a pragmatic woman and Maurice Morrison was a catch beyond the reaches of even her contacts book, a catch beyond her wildest dreams. In fact he made her own little victories with Nigel the tennis player (due at Fiddleford the following morning) and Princess Anatollatia the would-be stripper (due in time for dinner) look paltry. So she took the news of the General’s coup with her usual professional good grace. What did it matter, so long as they all paid? ‘Well done to him,’ she said. ‘Now then,’ as ever getting straight to the crux of the matter, ‘someone’s got to break the news to Messy.’
‘Well – Grey,’ said Charlie casually, ‘I would have thought. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Grey?’
‘Crikey!’ He laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?’
She was amazed – and slightly irritated, though she couldn’t have explained quite why, but it made her feel overlooked somehow and pregnant and insignificant and unattractive.
‘Jo, you’re incredible! It’s completely bloody obvious!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘Not remotely. I mean I don’t mean to be horrible but—’ She grimaced. ‘Charlie, she’s very large.’
‘Not as large as she was last week,’ Charlie said simply. ‘Anyway she’s not that large.’
‘Yes, she is,’ snapped Jo, before she could stop herself.
Charlie looked at her. ‘No, she isn’t.’
‘Yes, she bloody well is.’
‘Jo,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
They found Grey in the kitchen crouching over the minute ingredients of a sauce to accompany that night’s paupiettes of salmon. The kitchen, as usual when Grey was working, looked like a bomb site. There were dirty saucepans, vegetable peel and half-empty packages on every surface and all over the floor.
‘Ah, Grey. There you are,’ said Charlie, weaving his way through the mess. ‘The, er – Oh! What are you cooking there? Looks delicious.’
‘I suppose you’re wantin’ me to tell Messy the news about Morrison,’ Grey said, without bothering to look up.
‘Ah-ha! You’re a step ahead of me again. But since you mention it…’
‘Do your own dirty work.’
‘He’s quite right,’ said Jo. ‘Why the Hell should Grey do it? One of us should do it.’
‘Anyway,’ Grey continued blithely, ‘Messy won’t be leavin’ here in a hurry. Have you not seen how much blubber she’s lost recently?’ He laughed. ‘Would you leave a place that was doin’ that to you?’ But then suddenly he slapped his knife onto the kitchen table. ‘…Fuck it. I don’t want her gettin’ upset. I’ll go and talk to her.’ He strode out of the room.
Charlie looked across at Jo. ‘See what I mean?’ he said.
But she looked strangely unamused. ‘See what you mean, what?’ she snapped. ‘I suppose you think she’s pretty fabulous too, do you, Charlie?’
‘Me?’
‘I know you do, anyway. I’m not stupid.’
‘I don’t think she’s “fabulous”,’ he said irritably.
‘Why not?’
‘What? Oh, come on, Jo. Of course—I mean—She’s not exactly hideous. Obviously. What’s a
ll this crap about?’
‘It’s not crap,’ she said vehemently – the more so because she was suddenly terrified she was going to cry. She knew how unreasonable she sounded but she couldn’t help it. It was only a reflection of how utterly, uncontrollably unreasonable she felt. ‘Don’t be so fucking patronising.’ She glared at Charlie – who was reeling slightly, stunned by her onslaught – and walked silently back to the attic.
Grey rarely ventured out of the house, except to fetch ingredients in Lamsbury, so Messy took it as a great compliment that he should have walked all the way to her garden – or what she increasingly considered to be her garden since nobody else ever went near it. And he looked magnificent, she thought: unkempt and gigantic in his big black coat, striding purposefully towards her, his shaggy dark hair blustering this way and that, his dark eyes fixed on her…
He drew up beside her and paused, his hands in his trouser pockets, half a smile on his lips, so much warmth and humour in his brown eyes. ‘Hi there, Beau’iful,’ he said at last.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘very funny.’
He glanced vaguely around the garden, which in spite of all her work was still chaotic.
‘It’s lookin’…better…up here…’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ she said enthusiastically and then laughed. ‘I mean – this little corner, anyway.’
‘Aye. The rest of it’s a mess…But you never know, darlin’,’ he added, ‘maybe they’ll let you stay long enough to turn the whole place around. You could stay here for ever. Like me.’
‘Ahh,’ she said wistfully. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’
‘But I pay, you know,’ he said suddenly – surprisingly – because he didn’t often feel the urge to justify himself. ‘I pay every week. And I work, too. Aye. I’d be ashamed otherwise.’
‘And I pay too,’ said Messy defensively. ‘I’ve nothing to be ashamed about. Those stupid magazine people this morning paid us—’
‘Och I know, Messy. I know that. That’s not what I meant.’
‘Everyone seems to think I’ve got so much money.’
‘Aye. You keep sayin’.’
‘But I spent it all…Well, didn’t you? I mean when you were famous and it was just pouring in? Didn’t you spend it all?’
He laughed. ‘I’ve got a bi’ o’ money tucked away.’ He nodded, more to himself than to Messy. In fact he had nearly a quarter of a million gathering interest in his bank account. After the scandal broke, his record company had been keen to disassociate themselves from him as quickly as possible. Rather than face the publicity of a possible court case, they had allowed Grey to keep hold of all of his initial advance. ‘Don’t you go worryin’ abou’ me.’
‘I wasn’t. I was just asking.’
‘I know you were, darlin’. I know you were.’
He gazed down at her angry face – her perpetually angry, suspicious face. She was beautiful. In London, where he’d seduced at least forty per cent of all the passably attractive women who crossed his path, Grey had found it easy, not to say automatic, to know how to delight them. But Messy was altogether more difficult. She was absurdly insecure, always bristling, always on the cusp of taking offence. And yet he couldn’t help liking her: her frankness, her humour, her intelligence – but above all the aura of peaceful loneliness which surrounded her. It was that which made him wonder – made him occasionally dare to wonder – if he hadn’t at last found a kindred spirit, a solitary soul just a little bit like his own.
‘Anyway,’ he said eventually, suddenly noticing that he’d been staring at her for ages and that she was beginning to blush. Again. ‘I came to give you some bad news. Have you seen the papers today?’
‘I gave up reading them weeks ago.’
‘Your friend from the telly show – Mr Morrison – he’s run into a bit o’ trouble.’
‘Good.’
‘Aye. Except he’s scurryin’ down here to join the party. So to speak. He’s on his way here now. The General’s gone to get him. Do you mind?’
‘Mind?’ she laughed. ‘Of course not! How intriguing…Why, what’s he done?’
‘He’s been murderin’ his employees, I think. If you believe what the papers say.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said gleefully. ‘Poor Mr Morrison!’
His chauffeur’s brilliant success in sending the journalists off his trail, followed by the long and peaceful journey with the General, had quickly restored Maurice Morrison to his usual effervescent form. By the time his host was demonstrating the efficacy of his new remote control gates, any doleful thoughts regarding the unfortunate busboy had long since left his head. Not only that, since he’d been in the General’s car he had received a telephone call from the Big Man Himself, offering thoughtful condolences and assuring him that his position in government was not in imminent danger, at least. It had been gently suggested that if he lay low for a few days, and turned up (assuming the family would have him) at the boy’s hospital the following Friday, with flowers etcetera, then all would almost certainly be forgiven.
‘What marvellous gates!’ babbled Morrison to the General, with an accent much truer to his roots than the one he’d chosen for Question Time. ‘Did they cost a fortune to restore? I bet they did. D’you know, James, I know a fantastic chap in – well, just outside Guildford as a matter of fact – who does the most tremendous restoration jobs on exactly things like this. Absolutely marvellous. I must give you his number when I’m back in town. Ahhh! Look at that cedar tree in the moonlight…and…is that a clock tower?…Goodness! A stable yard! Victorian if I’m not mistaken…how fascinating. Tremendous! Lucky you! D’you know I’ve been looking for a decent house in this part of the world…But they’re so hard to come by…OH I SAY!! Look!…Queen Anne? Well, of course it is. I suppose it’s been in the family for centuries…’
Maurice Morrison had kept up a pretty consistent monologue since Leigh Delamere service station, when he had waved adieu to his chauffeur and climbed furtively into the General’s car. And that was quite a long time ago. Not that the General minded. He preferred to listen than to talk, or just to tune out and think his own thoughts. He found Morrison’s company rather soothing. Quite like being with a girl, in fact. Except of course Morrison was a Minister in Her Majesty’s Government – and one, the General couldn’t help noticing, with exceptionally good manners.
‘Here we are…oops,’ the General said vaguely, yanking on the handbrake and skidding slightly on the gravel. ‘Welcome to Fiddleford…The house where I was born…Home to Maxwell McDonalds since 1801.’
‘Fabulous!’ said Morrison. ‘And very well driven, if I may say.’
Jo and Messy had independently decided to make a bit of an effort for Maurice Morrison’s arrival. At about seven o’clock, just as he was drawing up outside, they both suddenly noticed little marks on their clothing, and went upstairs to change.
‘Happy coincidence,’ Grey drawled.
Charlie smiled. ‘Is he supposed to be very attractive, this man? I didn’t realise.’
‘Aye, he is. He’s a lady-killer.’ Grey took a gulp of his gin. ‘Good-lookin’…Charming…Powerful…’
They were in the drawing room at the time, lounging peacefully on opposite sofas, staring into the fire and waiting for the evening to begin. Anatollatia (the stripping princess) had called, sounding very self-pitying, to say she probably wouldn’t make it in time for dinner after all, but Grey’s feast was all prepared and an extra place had been laid up for her in the dining room just in case. Charlie and Grey felt very tranquil as they waited, idly contemplating the magnetism of their future guest. It would be their last tranquil moment for some time, because, outside, the whirlwind of energy which was Magnetic Morrison was just then erupting through the front door—
‘OH! I SAY!’ His voice echoed through the hall and into the drawing room. ‘But this house is a hidden treasure! Have you had a lot of filming done here?’
‘…And he’s extremely rich o’ course. But you
know that,’ muttered Grey. ‘And very, very sincere. That’s what gets to the ladies. Every time.’
‘Shh!’ Charlie laughed, climbing unenthusiastically to his feet. ‘Shut up. He’s coming through.’
The door flew open, and the boy-preferring lady-killer burst in. ‘Hullo! Hullo! Charles? Sorry to barge in on you like this.’ He grasped Charlie’s hand with both of his. ‘I’m Maurice. Maurice Morrison. May I congratulate you, Charles, on having such a beautiful house? And may I thank you, also, for coming to my aid at a time of such great personal adversity.’
‘See wa’ I mean?’ muttered Grey.
Charlie’s face cracked. ‘I hope…’ said Charlie. But Maurice’s look of sincere attention was making it very hard for him to stop grinning. ‘I hope everything works out,’ he said feebly. ‘Glad you made it anyway. And I’m sorry about the boy. You must feel terrible.’
‘Indeed I do,’ said Maurice mournfully. ‘Of course, as I explained in my statement this afternoon, which you may already have heard, it was, and continues to be, very much against our company policy to have our cellar hatches open at any time while customers are on the premises and I am, in conjunction with local environmental health officers, in the process of inquiring about that oversight. The manager assures me that under normal circumstances the hatch is not only closed but padlocked. So we can only wonder, you see…I mean the mystery remains who unlocked the hatch, who opened it—who left it open—’
‘And why the fuckin’ busboy wasn’t looking where he was going,’ snapped Grey. ‘This isn’t a press conference by the way.’
‘Oh, I think that’s a little harsh,’ said Maurice, a touch of frost passing over his sun-kissed face as he turned to scrutinise Grey – disconcertingly handsome, Maurice noticed, and still lounging rather annoyingly on the sofa at the far end of the room. ‘Hullo, by the way. I’m Maurice. Morrison. How do you do?’
‘Grey McShane,’ said Grey. ‘How do ye do? I’m so sorry to hear of your troubles, Mr Morrison.’