A Perfect Husband

by Hilary Boyd

  Samuel, the flat-mate of Dillon’s friend Josh, was already at the desk in Studio 2 when Freddy arrived in the basement. And he seemed to have an impressively good grasp of the system. They spent the next hour or so putting the software through its paces. It was a welcome break for Freddy. Real work.

  *

  By ten o’clock, Freddy was back in his office. The room looked out onto the street and the stalls of the busy food market. He loved the shouts of the Cockney fruit and veg sellers, the clatter of crates, the hubbub of the jostling crowds. It had changed so much in the thirty years he’d been hanging about Soho, and even more in the nine years since he’d built his studio. And, like everywhere else in Soho, it had been gentrified.

  When he’d first been to the market there was a tall, broad-chested chicken seller called Ernie, who would gut the chickens and throw the innards, feet and all onto the striped red and white canopy, shouting as he did it, then scrape them off at the end of the morning. But he had packed it in years ago – nobbled by Health and Safety, no doubt – to be replaced by more sophisticated traders: there was now a falafel stall, a salad bar with kale a prominent ingredient, and a bakery company with fancy cupcakes and gluten-free chocolate brownies nestling in greaseproof paper. Freddy often bought one for his lunch.

  Pale-wood venetian blinds covered the glass between him and his assistant, Isla-Mae, the daughter of Max Blackstone, Freddy’s entrepreneur friend and multi-millionaire, and this morning he had closed them against the girl’s inquisitive stare. He liked Isla-Mae, who was a hard worker despite her spoiled upbringing, but she was nosy, always wanting to find out what was going on and having an opinion on everything that passed through her hands.

  His phone buzzed and he picked up the receiver.

  ‘Glyn’s here, Freddy.’

  ‘Thanks. Send him in.’

  Freddy took a deep breath, came out of the document he’d been perusing on his laptop and closed the lid.

  Glyn had been with the company since its inception. A genius, in Freddy’s opinion, at nurturing the artist, not letting his mix drown and dominate the original style, Glyn was hugely sought after by those in the know. Joachim – almost equally respected – was in charge of the dubbing studio. Overweight, late forties, with small, bright eyes, Glyn had a mess of thinning curls and a beard, shot through with grey, which looked as if it were an oversight rather than a style decision. Freddy had never seen him in anything but T-shirt and jeans.

  ‘Hi, Glyn, have a seat.’

  Glyn, normally easy-going and cheerful, looked solemn, awkwardly rubbing his hands together and staring past Freddy towards the window. His expression showed both embarrassment and vexation. ‘Wondered how it was going on the salary front.’ And before Freddy had had a chance to speak, he went on, in a rush, ‘See, Angus keeps telling us we’re just about to be paid, but nothing happens. Then I catch him this morning and he says the exact same thing: “It’s imminent, I promise. Just waiting for the bank.” And, well, here’s me thinking that can’t still be the case.’ His soft Welsh intonation was apologetic, but Freddy knew the man to be tough and forthright, not someone you could palm off with half-truths.

  Freddy sighed, feeling the painful drawing in his guts. His vision was suddenly blurred and he rubbed his eyes, stretched them open. ‘It’s been a bit of a tricky time, Glyn, I won’t lie to you.’

  The man on the opposite side of the desk looked at him steadily, waiting, Freddy was sure, for him to say it would, nonetheless, be all right.

  ‘We’ve had some bad debts recently, and—’

  ‘Who?’ Glyn interrupted him.

  ‘Umm, there’s been a few . . . I’m too soft, people take advantage. Jerome Kant, for a start . . .’

  ‘But he only booked a week.’

  ‘This time, but he hasn’t paid us for that massive chunk he did before Christmas.’ Freddy winced at the lie, hoped Glyn didn’t have any contacts in Jerome’s camp who would question his exaggeration. Because Jerome did owe them money, but, as his engineer had pointed out, only for a week’s worth of studio time.

  ‘You’re kidding me.’ Glyn gave a soft harrumph of indignation, and Freddy hurried on before he could ask for more details.

  ‘Then there was the work done on updating the mixing desks and the software. Those crooks charged me nearly double the estimate, but by the time I found out, it was too late. Angus had paid. I’m fighting them on it, but I don’t hold out much hope.’ This also was true, but the amount a mere drop in the ocean of the huge company debt. He could tell from Glyn’s expression that he was not sounding convincing.

  ‘So, you saying we’re not going to get paid? Or what’s the plan? I mean, the lads have got rent due, mortgages . . . If we knew it was definitely coming . . .’

  ‘God, I understand, Glyn. I haven’t slept for months worrying about it. But I was in Vegas at the weekend to meet a potential investor, and he seems solid, loved the studio’s profile.’

  Glyn waited, his mouth twisting as he chewed the inside of his cheek.

  ‘Worst-case scenario, if I haven’t got funds from somewhere by the end of the week, I’ll put my own cash in till things have settled down.’ He threw his hands up in an expansive gesture. ‘I won’t let you down, Glyn, you know that. What with one thing and another, these last few months have been a bit of a mess, financially. My fault, took my eye off the ball.’ He looked earnestly at the man opposite. ‘But we’ve been through lean patches before and come out the other side, right?’

  Glyn nodded uncertainly. Freddy had met Glyn when they were both working at De Lane Lea Studios in Wardour Street, when Freddy was still a sound engineer. When he had taken the leap and got his own place, he had poached Glyn, much to the irritation of their former boss.

  ‘And we will again. Your salaries will be paid, one hundred per cent, by next Monday. You have my word.’

  Glyn finally grinned, relief flooding his round face, and Freddy felt utterly ashamed at the faith the man placed in him. Not that he’d let him or the seven other employees down, even once, in the nine years they had worked together. And Freddy would find the money by Monday, he absolutely would.

  ‘Thanks, appreciate it. The lads’ll be mightily relieved. And I must say, it’s taken a weight off my own mind. The missus hasn’t been too well recently – I think I told you about the ME? They don’t think she’ll be back at work for a while yet.’ Glyn pushed on the arms of the chair and rose to his feet, stretching his hand across the desk to shake Freddy’s. ‘Wish I’d come to see you sooner.’

  ‘Door’s always open.’ Freddy got up too, waited till the Welshman had gone, then turned to stare out of the window, down onto the busy market.

  The universe is pitiless, he thought. It just goes on in exactly the same way, day in, day out, regardless of the train wrecks happening in people’s lives. A man could lose his wife to cancer, but the postman still delivers letters, the supermarket stays open, cars pile up and down his street, flowers bloom, the man still breathes and shits and thinks, however much he doesn’t want to any more. It doesn’t seem right, somehow, such supreme indifference.

  His phone rang. ‘Angus wants a word,’ Isla-Mae told him.

  *

  Max was waiting for him as he left the office around six that evening, standing in the street, his attention, as always, fixed on his large screen iPhone 6. Aware of Freddy standing beside him, he held up a finger for him to wait, then finished an email, his thumbs clicking away at the speed of light.

  ‘Done. Sorry.’ He grinned up at his friend. Max was small and solid, with short dark hair framing a face with wide blue eyes and dark lashes. It had the potential to be handsome if the bags beneath his eyes and the skin pasty from too much time working hadn’t detracted from that promise. He seemed perpetually on the edge, Freddy thought, despite his millions, his expression intense and questing, as if searching for something that r
emained for ever out of reach. If anyone saw the two of us now, Freddy said to himself, they would assume Max was the one with the problem, not me.

  ‘Where’s it to be?’ Max asked as they strode off towards Broadwick Street. ‘American Bar? Hix?’

  ‘American.’ Freddy wasn’t sure why Max offered a choice, as they both loved the bar in the Parisian-style brasserie, Zédel, and almost always met there. ‘Could murder a martini.’

  They turned left into Lexington Street, right into Brewer Street – past the rejected Hix – then left into Sherwood Street, making no attempt to talk until they’d arrived in the gorgeous art deco/beaux arts interior, the walls decorated with hundreds of black-and-white photographs and posters of people like the legendary French singer and actress Mistinguett. A series of long flights of stairs led them to the dark basement bar, where an immaculate blonde in a short black dress greeted Freddy and Max each with a kiss on both cheeks.

  ‘Mr March, Mr Blackstone, very good to see you,’ she said. ‘Is it just the two of you?’ The bar was popular and usually packed later in the evening, a booking essential, but Arianna and Chloë, the other maître d’, would always accommodate Freddy and Max, however busy.

  Installed in a banquette along the wall, Max ordered a beer, Freddy a very dry martini, straight up, with a twist. Only when the drinks were served, the olives and salted almonds placed in the centre of the small table, did they finally speak. Freddy was nervous. Max was his last chance of some instant cash for the salaries, but his friend knew him too well: he would sense immediately why the studio was in trouble.

  They went back thirty years, he and Max, becoming friends when both worked in a then-fashionable club in Great Queen Street called Zanzibar, Max as a barman, Freddy a waiter. Neither took his job seriously enough, but both were good at charming the famous clients into thinking they did. And it was at the club that Max had met Stew Kincaid, who had set him off on his path to riches by lending him a small deposit for a flat in Kensal Rise, which Max had done up and sold on, the first of many. He was now, by his own admission, worth around fifty million.

  Freddy decided not to beat about the bush. ‘I’m in really bad trouble, Max,’ he said, fortified by a sip of the cold, nearly neat gin.

  His friend nodded, waited for him to go on, leaning back against the dark leather and looking, for the first time, relaxed.

  ‘I should have told you before, as an investor. But it’s all been quite sudden. I can’t meet the salaries this month, people screaming for loan repayment . . . taxman . . . bank a daily nightmare.’ As he went on to detail the true extent of his failure, he felt suddenly on the verge of tears. It was so good to be able to talk about it to someone who wasn’t a victim of his recklessness. But Max, he felt, as his only shareholder, had a vested interest in the business staying afloat.

  ‘A proper mess, then,’ Max said. Originally from Darlington, his northern accent had softened a little after decades in the south, but the County Durham cadences were still very strong. Freddy, on the other hand, had carefully ironed out his Midlands accent and adopted standard English with ‘estuary’ leanings. He prided himself that only a trained phonetician would be able to pin him to a Leicestershire childhood.

  Freddy mentioned the sum he would need to get himself out of trouble. He’d fixed on an amount that he thought might be acceptable, not the amount he really needed.

  ‘Oh, my word.’ Max looked aghast. ‘How did that happen?’

  There was silence as both men sipped their drinks. The bar had filled up, the noise level now high, but Freddy liked that: it gave them the illusion of privacy. He waited for Max to say something, but his friend was just frowning at him.

  ‘I was wondering . . . hate to ask . . . you know I never have before . . . well, only once . . . twice if you count that time in Spain . . .’ He looked at the ceiling to stop his tears, swallowed hard. He absolutely could not break down. ‘I’m on the ropes, mate. The whole thing’s going to collapse like a house of bloody cards if I don’t find some money soon. Lily has no idea, Dillon’s wedding is at stake . . . I don’t need it all . . . just enough to pay the salaries and the wedding venue, get by until I can get the studio refinanced.’

  Max liked his wife, Freddy knew that, and he was shameless in playing the Lily card.

  His friend took a long breath, sucked his bottom lip under his top teeth in a familiar gesture. Then shook his head. ‘Is this the usual?’ His tone was sympathetic. It gave Freddy some hope.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, Freddy. Are you in this mess because you’re gambling again?’

  Again? thought Freddy. When have I ever not? But of course he’d told his friend that he had stopped after the time, about six years ago now, when Max had bailed him out to the tune of thousands, all of which Freddy had paid back. He had often quit, but only for short periods, the longest being when he met Lily. And he always meant to stop – every day of his life he meant to stop. But the ‘meaning to’ feeling, based more on guilt than resolve, only lasted till the much more powerful lure of the hit kicked in, and he told himself he would stop tomorrow.

  ‘No,’ Freddy said, looking him straight in the eye.

  But Max, from his sceptically raised eyebrow, clearly didn’t buy it. ‘Come on, Freddy, this is me you’re talking to.’

  Freddy lifted his glass and gulped the rest of his martini. He weighed up how much sympathy he’d get if he confessed the real truth, or stuck to a series of scarcely believable hard-luck stories about bad debts and overspends.

  ‘How long?’ Max was asking, before Freddy had a chance to decide.

  Freddy shrugged. There was no answer.

  His friend was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, his intense gaze resting on Freddy, making him squirm. ‘Fucking hell, Freddy,’ was all he said.

  ‘You don’t know how hard it is. I keep thinking . . . hoping . . . I always feel sure I’m going to win. And I do. They say a gambler always loses, but they don’t. I don’t. I won over twenty thousand the other night.’

  ‘And then lost it, by the sound of things.’

  ‘Not all of it—’

  ‘Please,’ Max interrupted. ‘No details. You’ve got a problem, man, a huge, destructive, unmanageable problem. Are you really going to wait till you’ve lost that fantastic wife of yours, your business, your reputation, before you get help?’ He didn’t sound angry, just frustrated and a bit bewildered.

  Too late, Freddy thought, as he waited for the refusal, which he now saw as inevitable. He didn’t want a lecture, didn’t need one. He knew all the arguments, knew Max was completely right. And a part of him didn’t want his money anyway. He hated being beholden to his old friend, who had started with as little as Freddy – basically nothing – back in the Zanzibar days, and had been so annoyingly sensible in every aspect of his business life since.

  ‘The day you can convince me that you’ve stopped, and stopped for a decent length of time, Freddy, I’ll up my investment in the studio. I believe in you. I hate to see you screw things up, but I’m not going to give you money just so you can lose it.’ He threw his hands up in a take-it-or-leave-it gesture.

  Too late, Freddy repeated to himself. You don’t understand. That’s way, way too late.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Max said, and Freddy could see that he genuinely was.

  Chapter 13

  Lily was nervous. She had not wanted this meeting with Stan, but he had sounded so upset, so insistent, she hadn’t known how to refuse. He had also begged her not to tell Sara, his desperation bouncing her into agreeing. And now she felt horribly disloyal to her daughter. Sara had made the decision – for better or worse – not to tell Stan till after the wedding, so he shouldn’t yet know about American Ted. But clearly he sensed something was up.

  The café she’d chosen was on the South Bank, near the Globe, roughly
halfway between Evelina’s and Guy’s, where Stan worked. She’d had a tiring morning with the children, one little boy having such a serious tantrum because he wasn’t well enough to go on the slide that Lily had thought he had stopped breathing. His little face was suffused with purple and he was rigid with frustration. It had reminded her of how she felt when she couldn’t get her breath.

  Stan was late, and Lily began to hope he wouldn’t show. But then she saw his familiar figure – tall and broad-­shouldered, dark hair flying in the wind, always rushing. Like a whirlwind he pirouetted through the crowded lunchtime tables and plonked himself down opposite her, breathing hard, pushing his metal-rimmed glasses up his nose with an exhausted sigh. ‘God, I’m so sorry, Lily. I got caught . . .’

  She smiled. ‘It’s okay. I haven’t been here long.’ That wasn’t true, but she was desperate to put him at his ease. They had always had a good relationship, Stan treating Lily like a surrogate mother at times, his own being a high-powered businesswoman in Hong Kong, where Stan had partially grown up.

  By the time the waiter had delivered the stand of small plates with the Greek mezze and basket of warm puffed pitta, Stan was already well into a rant about the hours he was expected to work and the toll it was taking on his personal life. He did not find it easy to talk about himself or his emotions – easier, by far, to focus everything on his beloved work. Lily just nodded sympathetically, waiting for him to run out of steam. But when he eventually did, his face fell into lines of such misery, she was shocked.

  ‘What has she told you?’ he asked, fixing her with his bright blue eyes, his look tormented.

  Lily tried to appear puzzled.

  ‘You must know, Lily. Sas tells you everything.’