Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  yet – no sagging. Some people began to age in their twenties, or even before; not me, thought Bruce. I do not sag. Pas moi!

  He left the flat, bounding down the common stairway two steps at a time, his footsteps echoing against the walls. Then out on to the street and a quick walk uphill and around the corner to the Cumberland Bar, where George Salter was waiting for him.

  They shook hands. “Long time,” said George.

  Bruce nodded. He liked George, whom he had known since Crieff days. They were an unlikely pair, in many respects; George, who was much shorter than Bruce, with fair, close-cropped hair and a slight chubbiness, lacked Bruce’s dress sense and feeling for the cool. His clothes, which always seemed slightly too tight for him, would never have been worn by Bruce; poor George, thought Bruce, with amusement; he really doesn’t get it.

  For all his failure to keep up with Bruce, George admired his old friend immensely. At school, he had worshipped him, to be rewarded with the occasional invitation and the general sense of privilege that went with being associated with somebody such as Bruce. He would have liked to have been as confident as Bruce was; to have had his flair; to have been able to talk like him – which I shall never be able to do, he concluded miserably, simply because I’m not clever enough. Bruce is clever.

  George bought Bruce a drink and they made their way to a table.

  “I hear you’ve resigned,” said George. “Fed up?”

  Bruce Meets a Friend

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  Bruce looked carelessly at the door. “Absolutely,” he said. “I was bored out of my skin. It was the same thing every day, that job. Sheer tedium.” He paused, and took a sip of his pint of Guinness. “Of course, they begged me to stay.”

  “Offered more money?”

  “That sort of thing,” said Bruce. “But no deal.”

  George smiled ruefully. “I admire your determination,” he said. “Last time I was offered more money to stay, I accepted it like a shot.”

  Bruce looked at his friend. Would anybody seriously have offered George money to stay? It seemed a somewhat unlikely claim.

  “So what now?” asked George. “Are you looking around?”

  “I’ve got a few irons in the fire,” Bruce said casually. “One, in particular. The wine business.”

  George’s expression revealed that he was impressed. Bruce would be an ideal wine dealer in his view. He looked the part.

  Bruce inspected his fingernails. “Yes,” he went on. “It’s an interesting business, one way and another. You have to know what you’re doing, but I’ve got the basics and can pick up the rest as I go along. I thought that I might do the MW course.”

  George was enthusiastic. “Great idea. You’d have no difficulty with that. You’d walk it. Remember how easy you found Higher Physics.”

  “Maybe,” said Bruce. “It’s not in the bag yet, though.”

  There was a silence, during which Bruce glanced at George once or twice. An idea was forming in his mind. It was strange, he thought, that it had not occurred to him before, but it was really very obvious once one began to think of it. George, for all his shortcomings, had one major asset. He had capital.

  “Are you interested in wine?” Bruce asked.

  “Very,” said George. “I don’t know as much about it as you do, of course. But I like it. Sure.”

  Bruce thought quickly. If he had some capital at his disposal, then he would not have to look for a job in the wine trade: he could make his own job. He could take a lease on a shop somewhere in the New Town and start from there. Wine was 80

  Agreement Is Reached

  expensive, and one would need . . . what? One hundred thousand to start with?

  He picked up his glass and tipped it back to drain the dregs of the Guinness.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” he said to George. “And then I want to tell you about a scheme I’ve just thought up. And it involves you!”

  George looked up at his friend with frank admiration. He had always wanted to be Bruce, but never could be; a silly, irrational desire.

  “Great,” he said. “Me? Great.”

  25. Agreement Is Reached

  “All right,” said Bruce. “This is the deal.”

  George smiled at him. “Go ahead.”

  “You’ve got some capital, haven’t you?” Bruce said. “I don’t know what you’ve done with it, of course. But I assume that it’s reasonably intact.”

  George shrugged. “Reasonably,” he said. “The market’s taken a hit, but I was never very keen on those dot-coms, and so I’m all right. Fairly safe stuff, I think.”

  Bruce lowered his voice. “Do you mind my asking: who manages it?”

  “Most of it is with a stockbroker over in Glasgow,” said George. “He moves it around.”

  “Bonds?”

  “Some,” said George. “Equities. A property fund. They say that you should spread the risk.”

  Bruce laughed. “And they’re right,” he said, adding: “Except sometimes they’re so careful that you have no risk at all. They let things stagnate.”

  George frowned. “Do you think . . . ?” He tailed off.

  “Yes,” said Bruce. “I’m prepared to bet that you’re safe as the proverbial Banque d’Angleterre, but just as dull. Nothing’s ever Agreement Is Reached

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  going to happen to your capital. Pure stagnation, George, my friend.”

  George looked at Bruce with his small, pale eyes. “But . . .”

  “But if you look to see who’s really making money,” said Bruce,

  “who’s really coining it in: it’s the venture capital people, that’s who.”

  George took a sip of his beer. “I thought that they didn’t necessarily do so well. There’s risk there, isn’t there?”

  Bruce exploded into laughter. “Didn’t do too well? Have you seen the return they get? Twenty, thirty per cent. Easy.” He paused. “Of course, some of their projects don’t come up with the readies when the time’s come to offload, but those are the exceptions. Believe me, I’ve seen it.”

  George smiled weakly. “You make me seem very unadventurous.”

  Bruce patted him on the shoulder. “Just a bit, George. Just a bit.” He paused. The moment was right, he judged, and he was confident that George would agree. “But listen, here’s the plan. I’m prepared to cut you in on my wine business in return for an investment from you. We’ll split the profits down the middle, but you needn’t lift a finger. I’ll run the business. I’ll do the work. You . . . you’re the venture capitalist. This is your chance to get a piece of the action.”

  He watched for George’s reaction, which was slow in coming.

  For a moment he wondered if he had been too quick to bring up the proposition, in which case he could merely give him time to think. George was not particularly quick on his feet – he had never been – and perhaps he would need time. But he would surely come round in the end, which should be in no more than an hour or so. In Bruce’s experience, George always came round to his suggestions.

  George looked down at the table. “How much are you thinking of ?” he asked.

  Bruce looked his friend in the eye. “We don’t want to be under-capitalised,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than starting a business at half-cock. If you do that, then you give the opposition a head start. I’ve seen under-capitalised businesses go under time and time again.”

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  Agreement Is Reached

  “Have you?” asked George. “Which ones?”

  “Too many to mention,” Bruce replied quickly. “Believe me.”

  “So how much?” asked George.

  “One . . .” Bruce faltered, and stopped. “Fifty thousand,” he said. “Fifty thousand will set us up as long as the lease is not too expensive. Do you think you could manage that?”

  George puckered his lips. It was a weak, fleshy gesture, thought Bruce, but he controlled his irritation and smiled encouragingly at his friend.

 
; “I suppose I could,” said George, hesitantly. “I could sell some bonds and switch the funds. It wouldn’t break the bank.”

  Bruce chuckled with delight, leaning forward to pat his friend on the back. “You’ve just made the best decision of your financial life,” he said. “We’re going to be going places together, you and me.”

  George moved his lips in a hesitant smile. “I hope so.”

  Over the next hour, Bruce outlined his plans. They were still in an incipient state, but they gathered flesh as he went along.

  He knew of a suitable shop, as it happened. He had surveyed it for the firm and the lease had then fallen through. He would Agreement Is Reached

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  be able to get it from the landlord for a reasonable rate if they moved quickly. And then there was the stock. That he could get from the wholesalers, although he would probably have to go and buy some of it himself from the growers. That would be fun, and he could take George along too, although . . .

  perhaps not. George was slightly heavy-going – although very generous, it had to be admitted, and a most loyal friend – and a trip to Bordeaux would hardly be improved by his tagging along.

  George suddenly smiled. “We could go and buy the wine together,” he said brightly. “You and me. We could fly to Bordeaux and then hire a car and drive round the vineyards, sampling the product. That would be great.”

  “Yes,” said Bruce. “We might do that. Although we wouldn’t be able to leave the business too long, you know. Maybe it would be best to order from wholesalers.”

  “You’re the expert,” said George.

  Later, back in the flat, Bruce sat in his chair and contemplated what he had done. After George’s agreement, which had really been given remarkably promptly, it had occurred to him that he should perhaps have given his friend some time to mull over his proposal – perhaps a day or two. He also wondered whether it was quite right to spring the suggestion on him in the Cumberland Bar, in a social setting. But he quickly disposed of these objections. George was a responsible adult – even if a slightly malleable one – and he had given his agreement voluntarily. And the proposition itself was not a bad one. It was not as if he were asking him to invest in some highly speculative mining shares; quite the contrary. He was offering him a stake in a business, with stock, and premises, and, what was most important of all, expertise. There was no substitute for expertise; that was the real capital of a business and their venture would have it in abundance.

  And then there was the question of the name. Anderson would have to come into it, of course, and Salter too, in recognition of the source of the capital. Anderson and Salter, Vintners. That sounded good. But Bruce had a better idea, and the mere thought 84

  Bertie’s Idea

  of it thrilled him: Anderson et Salter, Vinotheque. Brilliant!

  thought Bruce. World beating!

  26. Bertie’s Idea

  While Bruce and George were having their meeting in the Cumberland Bar, during which they sealed the terms of their forthcoming partnership agreement, Bertie and his mother were in a George Street clothing shop. Bertie needed new socks, Irene had decided, as did Stuart. It was extraordinary how male socks migrated; virtually every wash produced a deficit of socks, but never of shirts or towels or indeed anything else. She had tried the expedient of securing each sock to its partner with a twist of thread, but this had simply resulted in the loss of two socks rather than one. It defied belief.

  “Perhaps socks dissolve,” Bertie had suggested. “Or go down the plug hole.”

  “Possibly,” said Irene. “But we must be rational, Bertie. These socks cannot disappear in the washing machine – they must get lost at some other stage in proceedings.”

  “But then they’d turn up,” said Bertie. “And they don’t, do they?”

  “We shall have to leave the issue for the time being,” Irene said firmly. “There is a rational explanation for everything, as you well know.”

  “Except missing socks,” muttered Bertie.

  Irene chose to ignore this last comment. One had to combat irrational, magical thinking in children, but there were times and places to do this, and this was neither. One also had to choose one’s issue, and the problem with missing socks was that the rational interpretation seemed quite inadequate. It was the sort of issue on which Arthur Koestler might have expressed a view, and perhaps had even done so, for all she knew.

  Now, standing in a corner of Aitken and Niven in George Street, she surveyed the available socks. Stuart would get grey Bertie’s Idea

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  socks, as usual, as they seemed to suit him so well, while Bertie would get a couple of pairs of dark green ones – if they had them in his size. She picked up the socks and began to examine them. Bertie, seeing his mother occupied, drifted off. He had spied a rugby ball which was displayed on the top of a low cabinet. It had been signed by several players and behind it, on a stretch frame, was a rugby shirt. All Blacks, the legend on the shirt said, and Bertie’s heart gave a leap. They were very famous, those All Blacks, and they performed a frightening ritual dance before they played. Bertie had seen that on television and had been struck by the fierceness of it all. It must be very intimidating to face the All Blacks at Murrayfield and see them dancing this frightening dance right in front of you. Would he be brave enough to stand up to it, he wondered, or would he run off the field and back into the dressing room? It would be entirely understandable if one did that, although the crowd would not like it at all. They would boo and jeer, Bertie thought, if half the Scottish rugby team ran off the field in the face of the war dance of the All Blacks.

  Bertie’s gaze moved on from the rugby shirt. There was a framed photograph behind it, propped up against a stack of drawers in which various rugby garments were stored. He moved towards the photograph and stared more closely at it.

  It was a photograph of a smiling man, and it was signed. Bertie read the signature: Gavin Hastings. He stood back and looked at the picture. He liked the look of Mr Hastings, who seemed to be gazing out at him in a kind way. It would be nice to know somebody like Mr Hastings, who might invite him to watch rugby with him or who might even toss a ball to him for him to catch. What fun it would be to play rugby with Mr Hastings.

  Bertie turned away. His mother was still looking at socks, examining the labels in order to exclude any which contained nylon. It would take her a long time, thought Bertie; Irene was a slow shopper and liked to scrutinise everything very carefully before she bought it. This could have its difficulties. There had been more than one unseemly row with the local greengrocer 86

  Bertie’s Idea

  when he had asked her to stop squeezing the avocado pears to determine their ripeness. And the fishmonger had also objected when Irene had so shamelessly picked up his fish from the slab and smelled it very carefully, wrinkling her nose with disgust as she did so. Both of these occasions had embarrassed Bertie, in spite of his being used to her behaving in this fashion. It would be nice to have a normal mother, he had thought; but even normal mothers could be embarrassing to their children.

  Bertie looked about him. He usually found shops rather boring, but this one, he decided, was fairly interesting. He looked at a rack of dinner suits, reaching out to feel the velvet, and behind that – what was that? – a row of kilt jackets in green tweed with buttons made of horn. Then Bertie saw a sign pointing into the next room, and stopped. School blazers, it said.

  Glancing over his shoulder at his mother, Bertie made his way over to the few steps that led down into the next room. He moved forward slowly, and peered in the direction indicated by the sign. Yes, there they were! A whole row of Watson’s plum-coloured blazers, in all the sizes. Bertie approached the rack. He reached out to touch the sleeve of one of the blazers – one that would be about his size – and then, in a sudden rush of excitement, he slipped it off its hanger and began to put it on. He could hardly believe that he was doing this, and his breath came to him in short, excited gasp
s.

  There was a full-length mirror nearby and Bertie turned sideways-on to get a glimpse of how he looked. He saw the reflection of the badge, that wonderful crest, and he smelled the new-wool smell of the fabric. It was a perfect fit, just perfect, and he looked so good in it – just like a real Watson’s boy. And it was while he was standing there, looking at himself in the mirror, that Bertie’s idea came to him. It was an idea that was quite simple, when one came to think of it, but of immense significance for Bertie. It was a bold plan, an astonishing plan, but there was no reason why it would not work. All one had to do was to be brave.

  And then, from behind him, so unexpected as to make him start, a voice: “Well, young man. Well?”

  Chapter title

  87

  27. Socks

  Bertie looked up at the man who was standing behind him. It was one of the assistants, smartly dressed in a dark suit. He was peering at Bertie through half-moon glasses and his expression was bemused.

  “Well, young man,” he said again. “Is that a good fit, do you think?”

  Bertie glanced in the mirror again. “Yes,” he said nervously.

  “I was just trying it on. I wasn’t going to steal it.”

  The man laughed. “I didn’t for one moment think you were going to steal it,” he said. “Good heavens, no. I assumed that you were trying it on for size. And you say that it fits?”

  Bertie unbuttoned the blazer and began to take it off. “It fits very well,” he said. “It’s very nice.”

  “It’s a good brand, that one,” said the man, taking the blazer from Bertie and dusting it down before replacing it on the rack.

  “Tell me, do you enjoy Watson’s?”

  Bertie looked down at the floor. “I don’t go there,” he said sheepishly.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “You don’t go there? But you were trying on the blazer . . .”