Golden Boy

by Rosemary Friedman

  ‘Do you think he’s changed his mind?’ The solicitor had drawn a succession of boxes which he was shading in.

  ‘I spoke to him last night.’ Dennis Bowker was at the window.

  ‘I’m due in Didsbury at one.’

  ‘And I have to get back to the office.’ The accountant looked up at the clock.

  ‘Not here yet?’ Barbara Bowker, in her tweed skirt and silk blouse, came back into the room. ‘It really is too –’

  An imperious ring of the front doorbell accompanied by a rattling of the letterbox, released the tension which had been building up and galvanised everyone into action.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Freddie was the first on his feet.

  On the polished red step, beneath the porch, stood two police officers.

  ‘Harvey Peters?’

  Dennis Bowker was at Freddie’s shoulder.

  ‘Bowker,’ he said. ‘This is my house. Can I help you?’

  One of the policemen consulted a paper. ‘Sorry to trouble you, sir. There must be some mistake.’

  They had turned to go, when Freddie said, ‘Hang on a minute. We were expecting Harvey Peters.’

  ‘In that case…’

  ‘You’d better come in.’ Dennis Bowker stood back, and the police officers, removing their flat caps, stepped inside.

  Like a man who was drowning, Freddie stood in the oak-panelled hall as the video of his life fast-forwarded before his eyes.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident, sir,’ one of the officers said.

  ‘A motor vehicle accident,’ his companion added.

  ‘Looks like Mr Peters dropped off on the motorway,’ the first officer took up the reprise. ‘His car hit the central reservation. It caused an extremely nasty pile-up –’

  ‘Is he…?’ Freddie said.

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir…’

  ‘Dead on arrival.’

  ‘Apparently this address was found on him. The officer thought he lived here.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure it was Harvey Peters?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘He was identified at the hospital. The other two gentlemen were badly injured.’

  ‘That’s it then.’

  Freddie was not talking about the death of Harvey Peters – that would come later. He was referring to the demise of the Bowker & Page deal, on which he had been pinning his hopes, and which represented his personal salvation.

  ‘I’m afraid it is, sir.’

  Back in the dining-room the accountant and the solicitor gathered up their papers and stowed them away in their briefcases. Despite the fact that he had to drive back to London, Freddie changed his mind about the whisky. In a tangible silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock and the voice of Barbara Bowker babbling over and over about the lobster and champagne she had laid on for lunch, none of them was able to meet the others’ eyes.

  When the solicitor and accountant had left and Barbara Bowker had gone upstairs to lie down, Freddie sat with Dennis Bowker, who had opened his collar and removed his hand-painted tie, one on either side of the table, making inroads into the whisky bottle. They did not bother with lunch.

  When Jane rushed back to Chester Terrace before dinner, eager to hear the good news about Bowker & Page, she found Freddie slumped at the kitchen table next to an empty litre of Black Label.

  ‘Freddie! What’s happened?’

  He had certainly been hitting the bottle lately, but she had never seen him so drunk.

  In an voice that was almost incoherent, Freddie gave her a blow by blow account of his disastrous day in Manchester.

  With the deaths of Gordon, of Sidonie, and of Harvey Peters, his life had begun to look like the final act of Macbeth in which the stage was littered with bodies. It had taken on the air of Grand Guignol. He tried to keep his mind on the widowed Iris Peters, on the three fatherless children, on the baby yet unborn, but as the tears formed in his bloodshot eyes, he despised the fact that he was weeping for himself.

  In Charles Holdsworth’s office, Freddie stood looking out of the window onto the lines of traffic, like Matchbox cars, in the street below. Charles was with a client. He would not be long. His secretary had asked Freddie to wait.

  It was three weeks now since he had returned from Manchester. He had been putting off talking to Charles.

  With the collapse of the Bowker & Page deal, and his package from Sitwell Hunt already swallowed up by outstanding bills, he had – Thomas Glidewell’s generous loan notwithstanding – already reached the revised limit of his overdraft. With no prospect of any further money coming in, his financial situation was extremely serious. His new resolve, inspired by Sidonie and reached on the M1, had been short-lived.

  Charles Holdsworth, steaming into his office, full of apologies at having kept his friend waiting, stopped short when he saw Freddie. He was in need of a haircut and hadn’t bothered to shave.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘As well as can be expected.’

  Charles was ill at ease with the older man. He sat down at his desk. Thinking it wiser to steer clear of Freddie’s appearance, he broached the subject of Harvey Peters which was what Freddie had come to talk about.

  ‘Poor Harvey. I still can’t believe it. Three kids and another one on the way…’ Rotating his chair, he flicked at the executive toy on his desk. ‘Poor bugger!’

  Poor bugger indeed. Freddie thought, and not for the first time, that it would have been more appropriate, more convenient for all concerned, if he had been the one who had dropped off to sleep, painlessly and conveniently on the motorway.

  ‘In the midst of death we are in life…’ Charles said, misquoting. ‘I’m doing what I can for Iris Peters.’ He looked at Freddie speculatively. ‘What are we going to do about you?’

  What Freddie had come to tell Charles was that he was thinking of pulling the rug on himself, rather than wait for the mortgage company and Derek Abbot to do it. Although socially still unacceptable, the stigma attached to bankruptcy had recently diminished. The number of bankruptcy announcements in the Public and Legal Notices section of the Evening Standard was an indication that it was an option being taken by an increasing number of people, who, for one reason or another, and often for no fault of their own, found themselves in a similar position to himself. According to the statistics, more than 25,000 people had declared themselves insolvent in the past year alone. This was due not to a decline in moral responsibility, but to the fact that the 1986 Insolvency Act allowed individuals to go broke without having to go to court. They were now able to retain their personal possessions and could win an automatic discharge at the end of three years. They were still stripped of their plastic however, lost their credit rating, were unable to stay in a hotel without mentioning in advance that they were undischarged bankrupts, and were precluded from having their own bank accounts or becoming directors of companies.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do for me! If I’d had as many job offers in the past few weeks as I’ve had lunches…’ Freddie said bitterly.

  Charles had never seen Freddie like this. It made him uncomfortable. He had a sudden thought. Then dismissed it. Then decided that, in the circumstances, it might just be worth mentioning.

  ‘I don’t know if this would be of any interest… We had a board meeting the other day. My chairman’s extremely keen on opening another branch.’

  Freddie held his breath.

  ‘The only trouble is, I’m afraid it’s in Singapore.’

  ‘Singapore!’ Freddie said.

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Not really. A long time ago. I spent a few days there on my way to the Great Barrier Reef, before I went up to Cambridge.’

  It was in Singapore that, as an 18-year-old, Freddie had been relieved of his virginity. It was a long time since he had thought of Amy Low – with her smooth limbs, her persuasive fingers, her butterfly kisses – who had taught him that just as a good cook needs more than a liking for food to put him amongst the chefs du r
ang, any lover worth his salt must start his apprenticeship on the nursery slopes of sex. By the time Amy Low had finished with him, Freddie could put a five-course banquet on the table.

  Wearing a brilliant yellow dress, with a purple orchid in her burnished hair, Amy had picked him up as he sat over his Tiger beer in a Scott’s Road Bar. Although he had made it quite clear to her that he was on an extremely tight budget (his trip had been financed by a lucky premium bond given to him as his fifth birthday present by his father) and had no money to spare for her services, Amy had taken a fancy to the handsome young Englishman, and he had spent the entire three days of his stay in her company. It was like going to school. From the time Amy had removed her clothes in her little bedroom, decking herself out – to Freddie’s surprise – from head to foot in jewellery, to the moment of his departure from Changi airport, when, like a small bright bird, she had flung herself into his arms, sworn undying love for him, and made him promise to return, he had walked another planet.

  At first the young Freddie had only to approach Amy’s scarlet mouth, appraise her minuscule waist, gaze at her upturned breasts, to light the blue paper, reach the meridian, of his passion. She did not need to touch him. Later, her caresses obliterated by the hanging fronds of her jet-black hair, she showed him, giggling – Amy found sex amusing – how to delay his pleasure in order to augment it. Eschewing the Jurong Bird Park, the Mandai Orchid Gardens and other tourist attractions, he had spent the rest of his time in Singapore playing Sultan and Concubine, Burglar and Maiden, and Wailing Monkey Clasping a Tree, with Amy, who had walked on his back with her tiny feet and massaged his body with the pollen-scented fluid which gushed prematurely from it.

  When Freddie declared himself hungry, Amy took him to her favourite restaurants. Sitting opposite him, she selected – with a delicate, red-tipped finger – bamboo baskets, tiny barbecued pork buns, deep-fried taro rolls and parcels of rice steamed in lotus leaves, from the dim sum pushcart, and taught him how to eat ‘sweet, sour, bitter and salty’ for the sake of his health. Leaning across the table, she fed him with titbits of shrimp and chicken and prawn and squid and Chinese sausage, which she dipped, with dainty chopsticks, into saucers of spicy chilli and black bean sauce, before putting them into his mouth.

  One evening she took Freddie home to visit her mother in Bukit Panjang, a faceless tower block on a Housing Development Board Estate. Madam Low, a descendant of the early Chinese settlers who had intermarried with local Malays, had a shrine in her kitchen to the household gods who reported back to the spirit world on the behaviour of the family, and handed out appropriate rewards and punishments. She cooked them pon tauhu, clear soup, and babipong tay, a beef stew with bamboo shoots and mushrooms, and when Freddie, who could eat no more, left some of the food she pressed upon him, tears welled up into her eyes. Amy explained that her mother was still haunted by the Japanese occupation, during which she had lost four babies as a result of undernourishment, and that food must not be wasted and peace must be treasured, and that she could not bring herself to throw anything away.

  Standing in Charles Holdsworth’s office, Freddie imagined that he could still hear the sound of Amy’s smooth gold bangles, the rings in her ears which tinkled as she moved, but it was the suspended chrome orbs of Charles’ executive toy, bumping one into the other.

  ‘…It would mean spending at least six months in Singapore,’ Charles was saying.

  Freddie wondered how life had treated Amy Low.

  ‘Would you be interested?’

  ‘I’d certainly like to give it some thought.’

  Setting up a new bank in Singapore, which would no doubt carry a substantial salary, would enable him to postpone the question of voluntary insolvency at least for a while.

  ‘I’m really sorry to see you like this,’ Charles said at the door. He meant Freddie’s appearance.

  ‘Like what?’

  Freddie was touchy lately. Charles had trodden on his toes.

  ‘Nothing.’ Charles put an arm round him. ‘I’ll have a word with the chairman and be in touch.’

  Outside, in Pall Mall, Freddie pulled up the collar of his crumpled jacket – he was no longer fastidious about his clothes, there seemed to be no point – and went in search of a drink.

  Thirty-five

  Since the collapse of the Bowker & Page deal for which he had worked so hard and on which he had been pinning his hopes, it seemed to Jane that Freddie was intent on destroying himself. In addition to his mental apathy and physical neglect, he had become increasingly suspicious and was convinced that she was having an affair with Piers Warburton.

  ‘You and Piers…’ he said once, in the small hours.

  Jane, unable to sleep herself, was aware that on the far side of the bed, which might just as well have been in another country, Freddie was wide awake. In the old days he had crashed out the moment his head hit the pillow, to wake again, refreshed, six hours later. Now he had trouble sleeping. She had found a bottle of Temazepam (labelled Mrs L Lomax) in the bathroom. Freddie was not used to drugs. He had never needed to take so much as an aspirin. The pills left him tired and irritable in the mornings, while seeming to do little to improve his night’s sleep.

  ‘It was obvious when he came for dinner – I note you sat him next to you – Piers hardly spoke to anyone else.’

  ‘Piers hardly speaks.’

  ‘He sat at your feet afterwards, like some… You went to see him at the bank. Someone I know happened to see you.’

  ‘It’s no secret.’

  ‘You were dancing with him at the Ball.’

  ‘Of course I danced with Piers. I also danced with James, and Charles, and Peter.’

  ‘It was the way you were dancing. You couldn’t put a piece of paper between you. I’m not a fool. How long has it been going on?’

  ‘It hasn’t been going on.’ Jane tried to keep her voice light. ‘Freddie darling, please, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve just told you.’

  Jane sat up and leaned on her elbow. ‘Piers has always been jealous of you, Freddie. You know he fancies me. We laughed about it. It’s always been a joke.’

  ‘I don’t find it particularly amusing.’

  ‘You used to.’

  There were so many things that Freddie used to do. He used to be light-hearted. He used to be caring. He used to be interested in his appearance. He used to go jogging. He used to party. He used to entertain his friends. He used to visit Lilli on Tuesdays, lately he had stopped. He used to go to the opera. He used to make love to her. He used to listen to music. He used to sing. Now he did nothing. Nothing but raid the fridge for anything he could lay his hands on, and put on weight. Nothing but sit in front of the TV in the afternoons with his feet up on the table (like Lavender’s Tony), watching old movies (The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno) the flickering images of which did not, Jane was sure, even get as far as his brain. Nothing but fall asleep in the armchair. Nothing but find fault with herself and with Rosina. Nothing but try to convince them, in his maudlin moments, how useless he was as a husband, as a father, as an employer (although Jane had offered to manage without Lavender, Freddie, with a flash of his old good nature had refused to deprive her, in her present condition, of her weekly wage). Nothing but drink.

  It was the amount of alcohol which Freddie was consuming which worried Jane more than anything. She was frightened that he would get cirrhosis of the liver, softening of the brain.

  Unable to talk to Freddie, and at her wits’ end, she told Freddie she was meeting Bingo, and went to meet Piers for lunch in the City Pipe. Freddie would kill her if he knew.

  Shortly after she left, Freddie had a mysterious call from Conrad Verger, who, on some urgent pretext which he was unable to divulge over the telephone, persuaded him to meet him for a drink in the bar of the City Pipe.

  Making his way down Albany Street he was surprised to discover that not only was the walk to Great Portland Street taking him longer than usual,
but that he was out of breath. Reaching the station, he bought a ticket, fed it nonchalantly into the ticket barrier, walked down the stairs and into an almost empty, graffiti-daubed, train. Sitting beneath a poster ‘Discover the Many Faces of Kent’, opposite an American tourist wearing white socks and reading Time Out, he wondered what Conrad could possibly want. Rumour had it that Verger, catapulted (according to the City pages) into Gordon Sitwell’s shoes, wearing his coveted crown – but without his father-in-law’s years of corporate experience behind him – had been responsible for some exceedingly unwise decisions, and was getting the bank into a thorough mess. Freddie could not have cared less about Sitwell Hunt International. He had erased it from his mind with the remorselessness of which, since he had been 9 years old, he knew that he was capable.

  In the school playground, Timothy Hodson, renowned tomentor of juniors, and the possessor of a new racing bicycle, had snatched Freddie’s lunch box. Freddie, two years younger and half the size of his aggressor – he showed no signs yet of his adult stature – had told him, in front of his open-mouthed claque, that if he did not give the lunch box back immediately he would not be responsible for the safety of the new bicycle. The older boy had sneered. Bicycles, by common consent, were sacred. He did not return the lunch box. The sight of Hodson, salivating over the sandwiches made with love by Lilli (who got up early every day to prepare them), had been experienced by Freddie as a personal attack. Borrowing a hammer from the woodwork room, and making for the bicycle shed, he had cold-bloodedly set to work on the red and chrome Raleigh. There had been repercussions. A long session between Lilli and the Headmaster. Freddie had been suitably disciplined and his pocket money withheld for a year to make retribution for the bicycle. While he remained at the school, Freddie was treated with the greatest of respect. Nobody messed with him again.

  As the Circle Line train drew level with the Barbican, Freddie stared at the advertisements on the platform for Manon and The Barber of Seville. Since Lohengrin with Wichmann, and Tristan und Isolde with Sidonie, he had not been to the opera.