“Thank you. You look well too. How are you?” Damn! She had also been determined not to appear interested in George. Maybe it was okay. “Are you still living in… Croydon?” That was better. The note of distain sounded quite good.
“Yes, yes. Nice little house. Very friendly.” Bugger! Why had he called it ‘little’? And sleeping on the sofa was anything but nice. Their starters arrived. The interval between ordering and delivery suggested that the avocados and prawns had been prepared to order by having the cling-film removed. The first mouthful also suggested that they had been waiting patiently in a very cold refrigerator.
“Lovely.”
“Mmm.” They ate in silence for a while.
“So, Maurice tells me you wanted to see me.”
“Well, there is quite a lot to sort out and I thought that… well… we might be able to sort it out amicably.” The waiter whisked away their plates. There’s the house and things like that.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. So… how are you managing? Everything okay?”
“Yes, yes; fine. But we can’t really leave things in the air, can we?” She paused. “Look… I’m really sorry about Susanna. It must have been dreadful. I mean…well… I think you behaved like a shit.., I actually had you followed for some time; did you know? But, well… I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So… I’m sorry.”
“Thank you Susan. That’s very, er… civilised of you. Actually I’m pretty much over it. You know me.”
“Yes. I do.” Their main courses arrived. They tucked in. The food was outstandingly average.
“Lovely.”
“Mmm, isn’t it?” They finished as much as they could without conversation. They were still chewing when the waiter presented the dessert menus and whipped away their plates.
“What are you going to do now, George? You can hardly shack up in a rented house in South Croydon for the rest of your life.” George had been thinking exactly the same himself.
“I’m not sure. I might go back to Greece and live quietly there. And cheaply. To be honest, cash is getting a bit short and I’ll have to start selling investments before long.”
“Let me pay for lunch, then.”
“No, no. It’s not that bad yet. Do you want a dessert? I really can run to that without difficulty.” He smiled.
She smiled back. “I think I’ll give it a miss, thanks.”
“Cheese? Coffee?”
“On the evidence of what we’ve had so far, I doubt they could manage either.” The waiter appeared to take their dessert orders. “I hope you enjoyed you meal sir and madam. Can I get you a dessert?”
“Yes, yes. That was great,” said George, “splendid. I don’t think we could manage a dessert. No, nor coffee. Just the bill, please.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Susan. “Shall we sell the house and split the money? There’s other stuff, too, isn’t there?”
“I suppose so. Have you got yourself a solicitor?”
“Yes. I have.”
“Well, why don’t we just get them to do the fighting, if there is any? We’ll… er… stay out of the settlement negotiations as far as possible. I’d like us to stay friends, if we can.”
“Oh yes! So would I.”
The bill arrived and George paid. He added a tip on top of the service charge. “Well, it was good to see you and I’m glad you’re all right.” He smiled to show he was being facetious. “You’ll be hearing from my solicitor, as they say.”
Chapter 50
He was further adrift than he had let on to Susan. The Deborah thing, whatever it was, had had more to do with Deborah than him and if he felt any emotion at all, it was relief when she had moved in with Natasha in Nicholas’ flat. He pushed any vague curiosity about the domestic arrangements in that ménage to the back of his mind but he felt alone and unloved again and in need of some affection or, at least, some company. Marianna had been overjoyed when Conrad and Lydia came back, Lydia restored to her full self again, Conrad quiet and smiling enigmatically as ever. Despite the obvious improvement in her spirits, George had felt unable to suggest that he should have the bedroom and Marianna should sleep on the sofa so there he remained, waiting every night for everyone else to go to bed before he could spread his blankets. The only good news had been a call from the Swindon police to say that they had information – presumably from someone arrested and interrogated – about the probable identity of the driver of the car that had killed Susanna and an arrest was imminent. George was a little surprised to find that it all seemed such a long time ago now. When Lydia would allow it, he took to cooking for the household so as to keep himself occupied. When she would not let him cook, he took to the pub. It was after a lunchtime session that he let himself into the house to hear Lydia saying,
“Ah! Here he is now. Hold on I’ll get him for you.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know. Female voice.”
“Hello?”
“George? Hello. It’s Jan. I’ve got Sir Alec for you. Hold on.” Not long before, George would have put the telephone down but either his confidence had grown of the beer had boosted his bravado.
“George! At last! It’s Alec. How are you?”
“Er… I’m fine, thanks, Alec. What can I do for you?”
“Lots, lots, far more than you think and I think I can do something for you too. Could we get together?” There was the sound of the pages of a diary being turned. “Do you know where my club is? Yes? Well, let me buy you a drink before dinner tonight; say about seven? I’ve got some exciting news for you so don’t be late. See you later.”
He was not late. His city suit fitted him again and, in the knowledge that he had returned to his normal size, he felt less apprehensive than he though he would as he walked up the wide, stone steps and into the building. The Bank’s Chairman was waiting for him, reading an evening paper, seated in a leather armchair, in the club’s lobby. He rose, folding the paper and extended a hand.
“Good to see you, George. Glad to see you looking well. Thanks for coming at such short notice.”
George had not known what to expect and was a little taken aback at the warmth of his greeting. “It’s good to see you too, Alec.”
Seated in the bar, Sir Alec raised a hand to call over a waiter. “What will you have, George? Gin and tonic?” And to the steward, “a Scotch, Islay malt, please.” The man moved silently away. “I’ve always had a weakness for Islay malts. Like the taste. Different. Right. To business. I’ve got a proposal to make to you but first of all I expect you’ve been avoiding me because you felt bad about what happened and doing a runner and all that. Am I right?”
“Well, to be honest, Alec. I never expected to see you again unless it was in court. After the Alice business, I thought… I still think… I would be last person you would want to see unless it was to exact some sort of retribution. I may have been a bit paranoid but I even thought that you would try to take some sort of legal action against me. That’s part of the reason I left the country for a bit. That and Susanna too, of course.”
“Yes, yes. I heard about that; bad business, very tragic. I didn’t know her well, of course but she seemed a very nice girl. Bit inadequate, that, I suppose, ‘nice’. Anyway, I’m sorry.” He paused to take add water to his drink and take a sip. “Mmm. Good stuff, this. Look, I’ll be honest with you. Right after you gave evidence to that tribunal I’d have sacked you if you hadn’t left. In fact, I was bloody furious. Sacking was the very mildest sanction I considered so it’s just as well you disappeared. However, that’s water under the bridge now.”
“It cost the bank over a million, Alec. I’m not surprised you were pissed off, to say the least. What I am surprised about is that you aren’t still considering arranging a contract to have me taken out of circulation on a permanent basis.”
“Oh, don’t fool yourself, George! I did think seriously about it. We even hired a private detective to find you but by the time
he did, I’d had time to think. You weren’t the villain of the piece. You told us over and again that the way we ran things actually encouraged some people to bully and harass others. I suppose we all just assumed you would dig us out of trouble like you always had. We should have listened and paid more than lip service to the equality issue. We do now. Young Nicholas is pretty much on top of sexual equality and all that. We’ve run workshops for the board and heads of departments and disciplined a couple of managers who couldn’t change their ways. You actually did us a favour, in a way, even if we didn’t thank you for it at the time. So I’ll do it now. Thank you, George. You helped us into the twenty first century. And you know what? You actually saved us nearly two hundred and fifty grand.”
George was taken aback. “Saved you money? How?”
“That silly bugger Brian Hastings who got us into trouble by being such a bastard to Alice for so long was due a bonus of well over a million that year. He didn’t get it, of course. We paid the tribunal less than we’d have paid him! Natural justice, I think. But, look, as I said, that’s water under the bridge now. You did the right thing and I admire you for having taken a stand so I want you to come back.”
“What? To the bank? But surely Nicholas is in the HR seat now. And by the sound of things, he’s doing a good job, too.”
“No, not HR. This is something different. It’s been in the air for several months but now it looks like it’s going to come to fruition quite soon. You remember we were thinking of opening an office or setting up somewhere in Eastern Europe? Well, what with one thing and another, it’s blown hot and cold for some time. All a bit risky, at least it was on our own. However, we have been talking to other people and we are pretty close to finalising a joint venture with a Russian bank that is well represented in the region, as well as another British house and a Balkan outfit. We are the main shareholders and I’ve insisted that we appoint the man… or woman, to run it. I want you to do it.”
“But I’m not a banker, Alec.”
“No, George, but we’ve got lots of bankers. You can more or less have whom you want as a number two. This job is going to be all about handling relationships, people, all the soft stuff that we didn’t take enough notice of until a few months ago. You’re ideal for the job. And I gather you’ve been extending your international expertise recently.” Was there a twinkle in Sir Alec’s eye?
“Well, Alec. I don’t quite know what to say. It’s very flattering…”
“You’ll want to think about it for a few days but I very much hope you’ll take it on. I have to put it to the remuneration committee, of course, but I’m thinking of your old salary plus about fifty per cent. It would be an expatriate package, of course. You could choose where to live but it would need to be accessible to most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. There’d be a share of the turnover. That may not be much in the first year but after that… And there’d be a house and so on. You know all about that. Matter of fact, Nicholas has already got you a nucleus of staff. He’s brought four girls over from Albania or somewhere and they’re going through some sort of familiarisation programme. You could be up and running in a month.”
‘Crafty bugger. I never thought Nicholas had that sort of political sense. He’s learning fast!’ That is what he thought but what he said was, “Actually Anna is from Macedonia.”
Chapter 51
The Mediterranean summer had given way to the brief autumn; almost winter but on a sunny day like today it was still pleasant to sit outside to finish the lunchtime bottle of wine. George was feeling relaxed and, perhaps because of the wine, well disposed towards the world in general. The bag of figs he had left in the house had provided a couple of months sustenance to the hoards of tiny fruit flies that still accompanied it to the dustbin when he threw it out and the place was at least as tidy as he had found it. Apart from last minute things, the few belongings he had originally brought from England and the things he and Susanna had acquired during their stay were packed and awaiting airfreight at the airport. A couple of days earlier he had spent an hour saying goodbye to his favourite beach, standing looking out over a grey, choppy sea and still admiring its garnish of broken plastic. He supposed he could have swum. There had not yet been enough rain to make he sea really cold but, despite the sunshine, there had been a chill in the wind and he had been discouraged. That was over, for now. To his surprise, Theodorus had seemed distressed when he paid the last of his rent and to his even greater surprise the landlord had refused to accept the full amount for the time George had been absent. The little house would be his whenever he wanted it and he hoped sincerely – and George was convinced he was sincere – to see George again next summer for a month at least. Nobody worked in southern Europe in August. It was not civilised and he, George, should return to the civilisation of Greece for at least a month, at least! There had actually been tears in the old man’s eyes when he heard of Susanna’s death. ‘Nice old guy,’ thought George ‘even if he has got some funny ways; just a different culture, really.’ He had paid a last visit to the little supermarket in the village, more out of sentimentality than need. He had had larger offices and was amazed on this visit as he had been every time before at how much and how much variety could be crammed into such a tiny space. He would miss being able to buy everything from parsley to printer cartridges from a single outlet and queuing to pay behind women with pastries, potatoes, pie dishes and pedal bins and schoolchildren with magic markers, maps and Mars bars. Andreas had a new girl working in the taverna. No surprises there, then. This one was more timid and mousy than Deborah. She was slower and less attractive, too but presumably fitted Andreas’ needs at least as well. Mrs Andreas glowered at George reassuringly. Several villagers greeted him instead of staring as if he was recently landed from Betelgeuse. He felt he belonged. And he did not feel threatened. Or anxious. The future was something to be welcomed and he was looking forwards to getting to grips with the banking joint venture.
He took another swig of the wine. It tasted a little sour; a sign that he had had enough. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement. A late-season, greenish lizard, restored to activity by the sun’s warmth, shot over the edge of the wall and disappeared into the geraniums at its foot. A second later, its pursuer appeared. The grey cat regarded George with a considering look as if uncertain whether to approach or turn and run. It reached a decision and, sitting down on top of the wall, began to lick a front paw and wash its face. To George’s surprise, it was joined by a kitten, then two more, one displaying the white paws inherited from its mother. The door to the kitchen opened.
“We’ve got an early start tomorrow so I’m going to put my feet up for an hour or two,” said Susan.
George looked up. “Good idea. I think I’ll join you.”
Say You Never Met Me Page 26