Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  Ninetyminutes wasn’t exactly going to be a ‘virtual’ company but it was going to be pretty close. Especially in the early stages. We didn’t have the time or the money to employ our own experts on everything: we were going to have to use consultants. The most important of these was the web designer. Guy had selected a firm called Mandrill, and they called us to say they were ready with our design.

  Mandrill’s office was a large loft above a garment trader in one of the small streets just north of Oxford Street. Brick, pipes, skylights, precious little furniture, no internal walls. A folded-up micro-scooter rested against a cappuccino machine by the door. There were three islands of people working their computers around large curved black tables. We were met by two men and a woman. They intimidated the hell out of me. The men had tightly cropped goatee beards, carefully arranged combat trousers and T-shirts, hair cut just so. I had suddenly become an aficionado of shaven heads, but neither of the two men had had a simple ‘all over’ job. The woman, whose black hair was at least an inch longer than the men’s, sported an eyebrow stud and at least six rings in each ear. Against this, Guy’s all-black kit and inch-long blond hair looked so 1998. Owen and I weren’t even contenders.

  We crowded round a small table bearing a projector. The leader, one of the goatees called Tommy, asked for the lights to be dimmed and switched on the machine. It flashed a search-engine page on to the screen. We watched as Tommy typed the letters www.ninetyminutes.com. A click and up it came, our new logo on a light blue background. Another click and we were into the site. It didn’t look anything like the other soccer sites on the web. Most of these resembled the contents pages of magazines transferred to the Internet. Mandrill’s site, or rather our site, consisted of a series of dark blue bubbles floating on a light blue background. There was something about it that invited you to click to see what was in the bubbles. We clicked. And clicked. And clicked.

  ‘Nice,’ said Guy. ‘What do you think, Gaz?’

  ‘Cool. Yeah, cool.’

  ‘Let’s take a closer look at the logo.’

  Tommy clicked on the opening screen. The woman with the multiple earrings handed round a T-shirt with the new logo printed on it.

  ‘Obviously the real clothing will be better quality than this,’ she said. ‘But it should give you an idea.’

  The T-shirt bore the figures nine and zero, with a few strokes suggesting a stopwatch within the zero. Next to it was a tiny football, and the word ‘com’ in forward-sloping lower-case letters. It looked good.

  ‘It’s like a kind of mixture between Ralph Lauren and Adidas,’ Guy said.

  Tommy changed the screen. An image of a whiteboard splattered with scribblings appeared. I recognized Guy’s writing. Tommy zoomed in on the words ‘Adidas’ and ‘Ralph Lauren’.

  Guy laughed. ‘You’re just giving my ideas back to me!’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Tommy. The lights came up. ‘Well? What do you think?’

  Guy glanced at me.

  Mandrill were charging thirty thousand pounds plus one per cent of our equity. At this stage in Ninetyminutes’ life thirty thousand was a lot of money. But a well-designed website was vital. I nodded to Guy. ‘OK with me.’

  ‘What do you think, Owen?’

  ‘Cotton candy. It’s, like, pink fluffy cotton candy.’

  ‘But do you think they understand the technical stuff?’

  ‘It’s like I always say. No one understands the technical stuff in this country.’

  ‘Well, thanks for not calling them morons, Owen,’ Guy said, flashing a reassuring smile at Tommy and his team.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Gaz?’

  ‘I like it. I think it’s cool.’

  Guy smiled. ‘So do I. Tommy, we’ve got a deal.’

  Saturday came. We all worked in the morning, but Guy told me I had a mystery meeting in the afternoon. We took the tube to Sloane Square and then grabbed a cab.

  ‘Stamford Bridge,’ said Guy, as we climbed in.

  I smiled. ‘I didn’t realize you still went.’

  ‘Every home game, when I’m in London,’ said Guy. ‘And I intend to keep going. It is the point, after all.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  As a small boy my loyalties had fixed on Derby County, and I had stuck with them until university, making the trip up from Northamptonshire a couple of times a year to see a game. But once I started working, there never seemed to be the time. My interest in the game, both as a player and a spectator, had quietly slipped out of my life, unnoticed. The last time I had been to a football match was seven years before, with Guy.

  Then Stamford Bridge had been undergoing major improvements. There was still some work in progress, but I was amazed by the transformation. The ground was reached through the glitzy ‘Chelsea Village’ full of shops and bars. There were some families in the horde of people thronging the ground, but there were also some pretty frightening individuals. Thugs perhaps, but thugs with cash. Money was changing hands everywhere. I looked at my ticket. Twenty-five pounds. Extortionate. As we filed into the all-seater stadium and sat down in the warm spring sunshine with thirty-four thousand other people, all of whom were shelling out at least that much for their Saturday afternoon entertainment, I began to see that there really was a lot of money in football.

  The Blues were playing Leicester City. Within ten minutes of the kick-off I had forgotten all about websites and money, and was urging them on with the rest of the crowd. I cheered after half an hour when Gianfranco Zola calmly lobbed the ball over the Leicester goalkeeper. I cheered some more when an own goal from a Leicester defender put Chelsea two up. And then I felt the agitation and frustration boil up inside me as Leicester pulled back first one and then two goals in the last ten minutes.

  The draw at home had put paid to Chelsea’s hopes of winning the Premier League that season, and Guy was fuming. But it had been a great game to watch and, as I fought my way home on London’s creaking transport system, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. This was going to be fun.

  10

  July 1987, Côte D’Azur, France

  I leaned against the car door as the Alfa Romeo Spider took the hairpin bend fast. Too fast. Dominique was an aggressive driver. She had told me not to worry, she knew the road well, and it was some comfort to know that she had torn along this stretch many times before without killing herself.

  It was impossible to believe. Here I was, sitting in the passenger seat of a sports car, a beautiful blonde beside me, the Mediterranean below, the sun above, the air rushing past as we careered down the Corniche. It was one of those moments I wanted to freeze into my memory so that back in my grey life in grey England it would always be within reach, ready for me to take out and enjoy.

  And I had made love for the first time.

  I felt like punching the air and letting out a whoop of victory. But with Dominique beside me I had to keep cool. Even so, I couldn’t prevent a grin creeping across my face.

  Dominique saw. ‘Ça va?’

  ‘Ça va bien.’

  Actually, making love wasn’t quite the right description of what had happened. It was more like an explosion of adolescent lust. It couldn’t have lasted much more than two minutes. Dominique hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact she seemed to find the whole thing amusing, which didn’t bother me in the slightest. Afterwards, she had gone to get a cigarette. She had sat opposite me, naked, her legs crossed, and lit up. She offered it to me. I had never smoked, to be honest I didn’t know how, but I accepted the cigarette and took a long drag. She thought the paroxysm of coughing that resulted very funny. She kissed me. I stirred.

  She noticed and raised her eyebrows. ‘So soon?’ she said.

  I shrugged and smiled. ‘It looks like you get two for the price of one.’

  She giggled. ‘What a deal.’

  The second time took longer and produced much more sweat. I lay in a crumpled heap on the balcony as she took a quick shower.

  ‘Come on,�
�� she said. ‘I know we’re going to be very late, but we should at least try to get there before they leave. It’s only polite.’

  The gradient was levelling off and we turned onto a busier road with houses and apartment buildings on either side. We were nearing Monte Carlo. Nearing lunch with Guy and his father. Nearing the enquiring glances, the questions, the excuses. Since the moment when Dominique had led me up the stairs by the hand I had blanked out all thought of the consequences of what was about to happen. But those consequences were only five minutes away.

  I had slept with another man’s wife. I had slept with my friend’s stepmother. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. There were all kinds of justifications to myself that I could use, probably would use. Her husband had been unfaithful to her the night before. She knew entirely what she was doing. I hadn’t encouraged her in any way, I had been an accomplice rather than an instigator. This was France; married people in France had lovers, everyone knew that.

  But after I had argued it all through with myself, I knew the answer would still be that I had done wrong.

  I wouldn’t have changed the decision, though. I couldn’t have done anything else. For a moment I was being offered a small taste of life from another world, a life of money, sun, sex, beautiful women. I had seen glimpses of this life reflected through some of the other pupils at Broadhill, but I had never experienced it myself. Perhaps I wouldn’t experience it again. Carpe diem.

  How the hell would I deal with Guy and his father? There was no need to lie, just mumble. They would never find out. Dominique wouldn’t tell them. Just stay quiet and I’d get away with it.

  Dominique hustled the Alfa through the cramped streets of Monte Carlo, orange and yellow high-rise apartment buildings rising above us on all sides, and parked illegally by the port, blocking in a yellow Rolls. The restaurant was just over the road, and Guy, Tony, Ingrid and Mel were sitting at a table outside. A large man was sitting with them.

  ‘Darling, I’m sorry we’re so late,’ Dominique said, approaching Tony with a broad smile. He stood up and accepted her energetic kisses. The debris of a finished meal littered the table. ‘And Patrick! Comment vas-tu?’

  The stranger stood up with difficulty, almost upsetting the unsteady table with his stomach, and kissed Dominique on both cheeks.

  ‘David, this is Patrick Hoyle,’ Dominique said. ‘He is Tony’s lawyer. He is a very clever man. He lives here in Monte Carlo and saves himself millions of francs in taxes. Patrick, this is David Lane, a friend of Guy’s from school. A charming friend.’

  I shook Hoyle’s hand, which was damp. ‘Pleased to meet you, David,’ he boomed. He had a large, round head edged with black tufts of hair. He wore pink-tinted glasses and his skin was pasty for someone who lived in such a sunny place. He was also fat. Really, really fat.

  I mumbled something in return. I thought the ‘charming’ was a bit unnecessary and I tried not to go red.

  ‘We’ll just order a salad,’ Dominique said.

  The others seemed awkward, uneasy about something. Mel looked miserable, Ingrid cool, Guy mildly irritated and Tony pensive. Only Hoyle seemed comfortable as he poured himself another glass of red wine.

  Dominique gazed out over the multi-million-dollar motor-yachts that were crammed into the harbour in tight rows. ‘Ah, Tony, it’s such a lovely day, don’t you think?’ she said, giving him a dazzling smile.

  Tony was caught off guard. I knew they had been screaming at each other the previous night, and I’d seen them ignore each other before lunch. He looked at Dominique questioningly, and then turned his eyes to me. They met mine for a fraction of a second before I had time to look down at my menu in panic. But that fraction of a second was enough.

  He knew.

  I wanted a hole to open under my chair and swallow me up.

  He knew.

  And what’s more, I realized that the whole thing had been done by Dominique for just this delicious moment of revenge against her husband. He could fuck a child; well, so could she.

  I glanced over to her. She was chattering away, smoking a cigarette and smiling a smile of triumph. I couldn’t hear what she said. It was all meaningless anyway, and only Guy seemed to be responding half-heartedly to any of it. I didn’t hear anything at all. I was buried deep in my menu, wishing to God I was somewhere else.

  I felt used. Used and dirty. But I knew I didn’t deserve sympathy. Because most of all I felt stupid. I should have realized what Dominique was after, that all she wanted was to hurt her husband, that I had nothing to do with it. My self-esteem could cope with the idea that it was all just a laugh on her part, but not that I was an inept instrument in a piece of petty malice.

  What an idiot.

  Lunch was a nightmare of awkwardness. Afterwards, we set off for the beach, thankfully leaving Hoyle to return to his office. This time I made sure I was in the Jeep. Ingrid went with Dominique.

  The beach was just a small stretch of sand in a rocky cove beneath the cliffs upon which Les Sarrasins perched. It was difficult to get to: we had to scramble down a rocky path, and the waves rushed in with more vigour than at the sedate beaches of Beaulieu. It was flanked on one side by nudists and on the other by gays. There were very few other people there and in a better mood I would have thought it beautiful. It did at least give me the chance to lie down, shut my eyes and ignore everyone else.

  I spread my towel over a smooth rock next to Ingrid, lowered myself face down upon it and closed my eyes. I could hear activity around me. Guy and Tony had brought a cooler of beer and were getting stuck into it. It sounded like they were having some kind of father-and-son bonding session, but nobody else was interested.

  It made me sick. Tony had just screwed his son’s girlfriend and yet he was quite happy to drink and joke with him. Guy didn’t have a clue. The girlfriend in question was keeping very quiet, despite Guy’s efforts to bring her into the conversation.

  I felt a gentle tickle on my thigh. I turned and opened one eye. Dominique was lying next to me, leaning on one elbow, her uncovered breasts hanging down towards the smooth rock. A smudge on the inside of her forearm caught my eye, as though there were a patch of make-up that had picked up the sand. Odd.

  ‘Ça va?’ she said with a smile that could have been seductive, or could have been mocking, or could have been both.

  I turned the other way. It was rude, perhaps, but it was the only way to make my point I could think of.

  The other way was Ingrid. She too was topless, as was every woman on the beach apart from Mel. Although her skin was a lovely warm golden colour, her breasts were nothing like as full as Dominique’s, and she didn’t have Dominique’s curves. She was quite ordinary looking, really. But suddenly a girl my own age seemed so much more attractive than the supposed sophistication of Dominique.

  I realized that Ingrid was watching me through her dark glasses. She grinned.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said and closed my eyes, too wretched to feel embarrassed. The sun beat down on my back and I think I fell asleep.

  Some time later, I heard the hiss of a beer can being opened next to me. Then the shock of cold aluminium on my overheated back. My head jerked upwards. Tony was sitting where Dominique had been. I looked round. The others had gone. I scanned the waves and saw them splashing in the sea.

  ‘Want one?’ asked Tony.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said.

  He took a swig of his. He was sitting a foot away from me, staring out to sea.

  ‘If you touch my wife again, I’ll kill you,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  My throat went dry. I swallowed. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. Now tomorrow morning you are going to ring your parents in England. They are going to tell you that there is a family emergency and you have to fly home immediately. What the family emergency is, is entirely up to you. I will drive you to the airport and you will catch the four o’clock flight to Heathrow. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the ticket.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. Tha
t was fine with me.

  ‘Good. And let me make it absolutely clear. I don’t want to see you ever again.’ His eyes glinted. ‘If Guy invites you here or to any of my other properties you will say no. Do you understand?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, I think I’ll join them.’

  Without looking, he poured the remains of the beer over my stomach. I flinched as the cool liquid touched my skin, but I let him do it. I watched him climb down towards the waves: a rich, powerful man who wanted to prove to himself that he was still as young and good-looking as his son. Which, of course, he could never do. However much power he had, however much money he spent, however many young girls he seduced, he would always be twenty-eight years older than Guy. It was sad to see someone otherwise so successful in life fail to grasp this inescapable truth. But I wasn’t going to argue about leaving so soon. The prospect of six more days had been weighing heavily on me and now Tony Jourdan had given me the perfect way out. I wouldn’t miss him.

  As soon as we arrived back at the house I excused myself, saying I wanted to go and lie down. Guy walked with me back to the guest cottage.

  ‘What’s up with everybody, Davo?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said.

  ‘Everyone’s acting weird. Mel’s gone ice-cold on me. Something’s up.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘At least Dad seems in good form. You should talk to him more. He’s a great guy. It’s cool when you can talk to your parents like normal people, don’t you think? It’s hard to believe he’s forty-six. I just wish I’d had a chance to see more of him these last few years.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘What he’s doing with that French tart, I don’t know. Sure, she looks hot, but I think Dad can do better than that. What do you think? You’ve spoken to her more than I have.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Jesus, Davo, you as well! Cheer up, will you? What’s wrong with you? And why were you and Dominique so late for lunch?’

  I was going to have to lie. I answered Guy speaking to my feet.