Pride and Avarice

by Nicholas Coleridge

  ‘This view … and the garden … it’s heaven,’ Serena said, taking in the immaculate borders and parkland beyond, gently sloping to the banks of the Test. Every tree was perfectly formed like illustrations in a children’s encyclopedia. Artfully placed between the horse chestnut trees she could see the stone doughnuts of a Henry Moore and the pitted bronze torso of an Elizabeth Frink.

  ‘Oh, don’t look too carefully,’ Dawn implored. ‘It all needs sorting out. I’ve told James, though he still needs persuading, he’s quite a sentimental old thing in some ways. But I’ve had several top garden designers over and they agree with me. We’re going to strip out all the beds this autumn and start again. And take them organic. I gave James an article about Prince Charles to read and all his wonderful ideas. My long-term plan is to take the whole estate organic.’

  ‘And James agrees?’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t know yet. But they’ve always supported organic at his family supermarkets, so we should do it here too. I’ve already told the head gardener to take the vegetable garden organic.’

  ‘And what news of the children?’ Serena asked.

  Dawn looked momentarily uncomfortable. ‘Well, it hasn’t been easy,’ she said. ‘I freely admit that. Gemma’s taken it very hard. It probably just needs time, that’s what I keep telling myself. She’s been down here to visit with Archie and Mandy, she knows she’s got a standing invitation. But I know she wishes Ross and I were still together.’

  ‘And how about the others? Debbie and Greg?’

  ‘Oh, Debs is fine about it now, I think. She wasn’t at first, of course. She’s working for Ross. I hear she’s doing very well, though obviously I haven’t heard Ross’s view. We don’t speak much these days. I don’t know if you’ve seen him at all?’

  ‘Oh, once or twice, here and there,’ Serena replied vaguely. She decided to play down Ross’s frequent visits to the cottage in case Dawn thought she was taking his side. ‘He seems fine. Working very hard.’

  ‘He’s always worked hard. That was part of the problem. Work always took priority.’

  ‘And what about Greg and his politics? I heard he found a seat.’

  ‘Yes, he’s going to be an elected Member of Parliament after the next General Election.’

  ‘A constituency somewhere up in the West Midlands, isn’t it?’

  ‘Droitwich and Redditch. Where Ross’s family came from originally. Well, it’s quite an achievement for him, I must say. Though I wish he wasn’t standing for Labour.’

  ‘Really? I thought you supported them yourself?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Dawn replied quickly. ‘It was Ross who was for Labour, I’m a lifelong Conservative. James donates a great deal of money to the party every year. Privately, of course. Pendletons plc supports all the parties equally, they have to be even-handed.’

  ‘All the same, it’ll be exciting having a son in Parliament. He might introduce you to Tony Blair.’

  ‘That’s what I said to Greg. James has met Tony several times, of course, being a Captain of Industry. I can’t wait to meet him. I can’t help rather liking him, even though he’s Labour and has that awful pushy wife. But Greg doesn’t have much time for Tony Blair, he’s keener on Gordon Brown. He wants him to take over, and Mollie does too which surprises me.’

  ‘How is Mollie? She used to be such an awkward unhappy thing, her father was always beastly to her. But now she’s got away from Miles, I’ve heard she’s blossomed.’

  ‘She and Greg came down for Sunday lunch recently.’ Dawn looked mildly anxious at the memory. ‘Greg was being very tricky all day, getting at James about every little thing. Thank heavens Mollie was there too. And Hugh. They got on like a house on fire, which was lovely and rather saved the situation.’

  Peter could hardly believe he was finally holding the CD in his hand: an actual, finished, pressed CD of The Cormorant’s Cry in its plastic jewel case, with the printed sleeve and lyrics inside the box. The record company had couriered four copies to Scotland and a Fedex van driven sixty miles to deliver it. He removed the disc from the case and slipped it into his laptop and, what’s more, it played. The opening track, ‘Keeping it Real,’ echoed around the sitting room … ‘The lobster farmer with his creel … in wind and rain, he keeps it real.’

  He played the album right through, then in euphoria rang Davina and told her, then tried Sam, Archie and Mollie. Sam was down in London on a Freeza Mart shoot, so no change there, she seemed to spend every third week in London these days. Her mobile went straight to voicemail so he left a message. Archie was out at a meeting, so he tried Gemma and talked to her for ages and she said she’d order a CD on Amazon right away. The more he’d got to know Gemma the more he liked her, and he hoped Archie was being kind to her; somehow, he doubted it. Finally he tried Mollie on her mobile who picked up on the third ring and said she was attending an inter-school sports event near Droitwich, meeting Greg’s voters, as she put it. Greg was in Hammersmith at a policy forum, so she was flying the flag on his behalf.

  ‘Is it ok? Being up there on your own, I mean?’

  ‘Fine. I’m getting used to it, and I’ve met some nice people. I didn’t know this part of England before, so it’s interesting. Different to Hampshire.’

  He told her about the CD arriving and she was sweetly overjoyed. ‘I’ve got a rock star for a brother. The kids at school are going to be so impressed. It’ll do wonders for my cred.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Rock star’s pushing it a bit. It’ll probably sell about twenty copies.’

  ‘No, it won’t. I’m buying thirty-four for starters. One for every kid in my class. Plus a copy for us, of course. Actually, maybe I should buy one for every voter in the constituency, or do you think they’d say it was bribery. What do you reckon?’

  ‘It might jeopardise Greg’s chances … if they hated the music.’

  ‘Of course they won’t, it’s great. Remember Italy? I was the one who always said you’d make it. You’re the new James Blunt.’

  ‘Thanks, Mollie. I do not want to be the new James Blunt, thanks very much. Nick Drake maybe, but not James Blunt.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the new Peter Straker?’

  ‘Nothing. Except it’s Pete Straker now. That’s what they’ve called me on the CD. Pete sounds more real, apparently. It was my record company’s idea.’

  ‘Pete then. It’ll take some getting used to, Peter. I mean Pete.’

  Peter laughed. ‘I think you’re still allowed to call me Peter. It’s just my stage name, as it were.’

  ‘Greg’ll be pleased anyway. He’s always banging on about how the Strakers are too posh and we’ve got posh names. I have to call myself Moll up here, which I hate.’

  ‘He makes you do that?’

  ‘And I’m not allowed to say we’re from Hampshire. That’s too posh as well. We say Hammersmith or Shepherds Bush. And of course we never mention Chawbury—Chawbury Manor or Chaw-bury Park. Or Dad working for the Tories.’

  ‘Your husband’s a clown, you know that.’

  ‘He’s not actually. He’s doing it all for good reason. He wants to be an MP so he can change things, make things better for ordinary people.’

  Peter grunted.

  ‘He really does,’ Mollie insisted. ‘I know what he’s like, he’s really sincere about it. It’s like you with your music. You’re both idealists, just in different ways.’

  62.

  Almost everyone at Freeza Mart House knew something was going on, but very few were in on the secret. Those that were paced the corridors with mysterious smug expressions designed to prove they were part of the magic inner circle. Delegations of investment bankers, M&A specialists and corporate lawyers got out of the lifts on the corporate floor, from where they were collected and ushered into Ross’s presence. Ross himself arrived earlier and earlier at the office and stayed later, regularly leaving not much before midnight. The night watchman in the underground car park complained he’d never known such comings and goings, and he could
n’t concentrate on his television for people expecting him to open and close the security gates.

  Debbie, who had been told nothing, was aware only of a sharply increased demand for property leaseback reports and projections, which must be completed to ever shorter deadlines. When she asked her dad what was up, Ross shrugged and said, ‘Sorry love, I can’t comment. If anything’s happening, you’ll find out soon enough.’ Archie, as number three now in Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, was one of only a dozen executives in on the plan, and felt daily more self-important. When Gemma asked why he was getting home so late, and peered at him suspiciously, he said, ‘Sorry Gems, my lips are sealed. Your dad will kill me if I breathe a word.’

  As weeks passed and the plan progressed, higher and higher levels of security were put in place. Meetings with bankers no longer took place at Freeza Mart, but at safehouses in Mayfair or in hotel conference rooms, the more anonymous the better, at the Millenium Hotel in Grosvenor Square or in a suite at the Carlton Tower. It was recommended Ross’s office be swept for bugs in advance of the announcement, and this process be repeated on a regular basis. The press releases and communiqués Archie worked on with his department, and with the advisors from Goldman Sachs, were not allowed to be printed off the system, and enhanced firewalls and security codes were installed by an external IT company that specialised in counterespionage.

  At the centre of everything was Ross, presiding over every meeting, micro-managing each detail, challenging every assumption and step of the plan. Goldman Sachs had their senior retail managing director leading the team, supported by a scarily bright vice president, three associates all with MBAs and two analysts fresh out of university. Within two weeks they’d generated Excel spreadsheets, thousands of pages long, tabulating both the Freeza Mart and Pendletons businesses, with every store and lease as well as cashflow and overhead. They were now working on a computer module to demonstrate how an amalgamated business, with combined revenue but much lower overheads, would be so compelling. ‘We have to anticipate everything,’ Ross told his executive group at their daily strategy update. ‘However they react, whatever they say or do, we must have thought of it first and got all our ducks lined up in a row. Remember, we’re barely forty percent their size, in revenues anyway, and their advisors will be every bit as smart as our own. They’re going to resist us every step of the way. The only way we’re going to pull this thing off is by being that bit smarter and not screwing up.’

  As an exercise designed to sharpen their perception of enemy tactics, four Goldman bankers devised a shadow defence strategy for the target, including every piece of mud they might conceivably throw at Freeza Mart. ‘Make no mistake, it’s going to get dirty,’ Ross predicted. At the same time, he detailed Archie’s Communications team to compile briefings on every member of the target’s board of directors, including all non-execs and advisors, but concentrating on the four Pendleton brothers and their families. ‘I’m giving you guys a week to pull it together,’ Ross told them. ‘Then I want every last detail: strengths, weaknesses, whatever you can find. Political leanings, friends in high places, journalists and business editors likely to take one side or another, pro or anti. Anything in fact, the good as well as bad. Got that?’

  Archie nodded.

  ‘Grand. You can present your findings next Friday at eight thirty a.m.’

  After everyone had left his office, Ross opened the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved the leather-framed photograph he knew was inside. It was an A3 colour picture of Dawn taken out riding at Chawbury. For years, the picture had sat on the window sill in his office, but after she’d left him he’d put it away in the drawer.

  Looking at it, he felt a furious desire to get even.

  James Pendleton may have stolen his wife, but now he was going to steal James’s family company.

  The Cormorant’s Cry had been out for six weeks but, as Peter gloomily told Sam, you wouldn’t really know it was out at all. It had made no waves. Nor was it available in any record shops so far as he could tell. There was no record outlet in Durness, so he’d driven over to Scrabster, then down to Wick, in the hope of seeing his CD on sale, but the supermarkets sold only the top twenty and mindless compilations, and he’d returned to the cottage feeling downhearted. To make matters worse, Mollie and Gemma both went into HMV and Virgin Megastores in London and couldn’t find a copy either, and Mollie said there weren’t any in WHSmith or Tesco in Droitwich.

  He pestered the record company, but the sales department stopped taking his calls. Phoebe in publicity said she’d asked around but couldn’t get anyone interested in writing anything. The CD had been sent out for review but, so far, nothing had materialised. ‘All the space is going to Coldplay,’ reported Phoebe. ‘And Westlife are reforming.’ So far as anyone knew, not one track from the album had been played on any radio station. It was desperately disappointing.

  ‘I might as well not have bothered,’ Peter told his sisters. ‘It’s not like I was expecting to be number one or anything, I’m not naïve. But I did hope it’d get played at least a bit, and get some reviews. It’s sunk without trace.’

  ‘Probably just needs time,’ Mollie said, trying to cheer him up. ‘The people who’ve bought it are bound to love it, and they’ll be playing it all the time, and their friends will hear it and want it too. It’ll be a word of mouth thing.’

  ‘I wish I thought you were right. The thing is, you can’t buy it anywhere, it isn’t for sale, it’s not in any shops. So no one can buy it even if they wanted to, which they won’t because they’ve never heard of it, because it’s not on any playlists. That’s the truth.’

  ‘It must be in some record shops, surely.’

  ‘Maybe one in the Portobello Road. Probably on a barrow.’

  Mollie sighed. ‘That’s so annoying for you, and so stupid, it’s such a brilliant record. I’m playing it all the time in the car. And the kids in my class like it too. I told you I gave them all copies.’

  ‘I’m amazed you could find any. Where did you?’

  ‘Well, actually, direct from the record company. I went round to their office and bought them there. They said that would be easiest.’

  ‘You see.’

  ‘Well, try not to get depressed. I love the album. So does Sam. She’s got it on her iPod.’

  Peter laughed. ‘It’s probably the only thing you two have in common—saying you like my music. It’s very sweet. Thanks, Mollie.’

  63.

  The news of Freeza Mart’s hostile takeover bid for Pendletons electrified the financial markets. At 8.00 a.m. precisely the offer was announced in the stock market and the offer document posted, an immense wodge of paper with laminated covers, 140 pages long including 36 pages of appendices. The takeover was the lead story on the lunchtime television news across all channels, and the headline in that afternoon’s Evening Standard with a front page photograph of Ross taken on the roof of Freeza Mart House, and a photograph of James being collected from outside his flat in Cadogan Square by his chauffeur. Ross looked marvellously confident in his picture, with the skyscape of London unfolding behind him. James looked harassed by the press attention, as though he’d been caught on the hop, which indeed he had been, having had not the slightest forewarning. He had, in fact, intended to spend the morning with his curator, assessing whether or not to bid for various paintings at the forthcoming Sotheby’s Contemporary sale in New York.

  Dawn was being driven up from Hampshire when the story broke, and remained blissfully unaware for the whole journey being immersed in classical music. She had set herself the task of listening to the complete works of all the great composers, concerto by concerto, so there would be no gaps in her cultural education. They were driving round Chiswick roundabout when she spotted the Evening Standard poster on a garage forecourt: ‘Freeza Mart in Pendletons takeover drama.’ At first, she assumed it was Pendletons taking over Freeza Mart, rather than the other way round, and felt cross with James that he
hadn’t told her. But when she read the story, she was aghast. How could Ross possibly make such a fool of himself? And he might have warned her, because this was going to be very awkward for her personally. At noon, she read, the Board of Pendletons had announced its rejection of the offer.

  By the evening, Newsnight had put together a twenty minute segment about the bid, heavily biased towards Freeza Mart in the opinion of Dawn who watched it with James and Hugh in the book-lined study where the television lived. The whole angle of the report was anti-Pendletons, saying they’d missed out on growth opportunities and lacked a strong management team. A helicopter had hovered above several of the Pendleton family’s homes, including Longparish Priory, filming the magnificence of their houses, and Dawn could actually see herself sitting on the terrace in her sunhat, reading a newspaper, so the film must have been made several days ago. Ross was interviewed in his office explaining why he’d decided to make the bid, and how he’d enhance shareholder value. ‘I’m sorry to say they’ve taken their eye off the ball at Pendletons. They’ve been asleep at the wheel, and have developed no digital strategy.’ The tone of the interview with Ross was laudatory, and he was allowed to speak unchallenged about his revenue growth and market share gains. Watching his father peering at the screen, Hugh saw James flinch again and again, hating their business results being interrogated and criticised so publicly, and hating his home, and the homes of his brothers, being paraded across the television. For James it had been a hideously uncomfortable day in every way. Ross had rung him out of courtesy to inform him about the bid, but James didn’t feel he’d handled the conversation well, still feeling awkward about the Dawn situation. When one of their advisors had spoken about a ‘dawn raid,’ James’s first thought was of his wife. And then his telephone had started ringing and never stopped, with rival bankers calling to offer their services, which James considered opportunism at its worst, and all his brothers ringing constantly, and the press asking for a reaction. And then there were all his non-execs wanting to muscle in and give their advice, and talking about their corporate and fiduciary responsibilities, and frankly he just wished they’d all go away.