Gavin grinned. “I love a bit of complication. So go on, then.”
Jen shrugged. “Okay, but it’s a secret.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. Actually, I don’t hope to die. Why the fuck would I hope to die? But I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m doing a bit of corporate espionage.”
As Jen spoke she could feel elements of her mother rise up within her, wanting to show off, to impress Gavin with her dramatic tales of spying, and she squirmed slightly.
“Cool.”
Jen frowned. It was just “cool”? No questions? No looking at her with newfound respect and wonderment?
“Yes,” she continued. “It’s related to this whole corruption scandal in Asia. The Tsunami money? I’m . . . well, I’m leading the team trying to find out who’s involved from the UK.” Was she really this shallow, she wondered, as she spoke. Was she still desperate to impress Gavin? She was making it sound like she was working for the government, single-handedly running an investigation, when all she’d done was follow her father around and then discover that it wasn’t even him in the first place.
“That’s really cool. So who is it?”
Jen picked up her empty plate and took it over to the sink. “Oh, we’re following a few leads,” she said vaguely.
“What leads? Come on, this is interesting.”
He was sitting up now, looking at her expectantly. Jen sighed. This was her fault for wanting to sound good. She thought for a moment, then sat down again.
“Well, we thought it might be Bell Consulting. You know—they’ve got offices over there, government clients, and Axiom—the construction firm—well, they’re a client too. But it isn’t them, so I’m kind of back to square one.”
“Bell Consulting? That’s your dad’s firm, isn’t it?”
Jen nodded, feeling herself getting a bit warm. It was probably the curry, she told herself.
“And how do you know it wasn’t him?”
“I just . . . know.”
“What, because he told you?” Gavin laughed and Jen shot him a look.
“Maybe.”
He looked at her in mock amazement. “You’re serious, aren’t you! He told you he wasn’t involved and you believe him. Oh, Jen. Oh, little sweet Jen.”
“I am not little or sweet,” she said hotly, suddenly remembering why she’d been so keen to show Gavin just how much she was achieving on her own. She’d spent two years running around after him and he’d returned the favor by constantly making out that she was the one that needed looking after, that she was too naïve and trusting. Mind you, she thought to herself, I went out with you for long enough. Maybe you had a point.
“Look, he didn’t just tell me. There was more to it than that,” she said matter-of-factly, taking Gavin’s plate to the sink and washing it up. She felt self-conscious, defensive.
“Whatever you say.” Gavin was smiling to himself and Jen took a deep breath. She would not rise to the bait. She would not let him get to her.
“So this guy in the car today. He your boyfriend?”
Jen put the plates down. “Maybe.”
“What, he hasn’t made up his mind yet?”
She turned around, her eyes flashing now. “Maybe, if you hadn’t pitched up today. Maybe, if you weren’t waiting outside my flat, he’d be here now.”
Gavin grinned. “Oops. Did I get in the way? Hey, it’s not a bad thing to let him know he’s got competition, you know. It’ll keep him on his toes.”
“You’re not competition,” Jen said crossly. “And if you don’t mind, I’m going to make it an early night. Are you going to be all right on the sofa?”
“Do I have a choice?” His eyes were twinkling again and Jen sighed.
“No, you bloody don’t.”
As she moved toward the door, Gavin stood up, blocking her path. “So I guess it’s my fault you’re not shagging that bloke tonight, is it?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Shut up, Gavin.”
“Only, I feel like I owe you. You know . . .” He put his arms around her and leaned in to kiss her, an action that was so familiar to Jen and yet felt entirely and utterly wrong.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you, Jen,” he moaned as she pulled away forcefully. “What?” he demanded. “What’s the matter?”
Jen looked at Gavin and shook her head. “I’m not interested anymore, Gavin. You’re on the sofa, and I want you out tomorrow.”
He shrugged. “Shame,” he said with a little smile. “You’re pretty sexy, you know, Jen.”
As Jen made her way to bed, she wondered if Daniel shared that sentiment.
13
The next morning, sitting in his office, Daniel felt his mind wandering and forced himself to focus as his chairman droned on about the advantages of selling and then leasing their property portfolio. He found it about as interesting as watching paint dry.
“Why don’t you leave this with me?” he eventually suggested, desperate to get Robert Brown out of his office. He was feeling agitated, like a caged lion.
Robert nodded and got up to go. “How’s the growth strategy going?” he asked as he headed for the door.
Daniel paused for a second, trying to push the image of Jen out of his head—the elusive, beautiful Jen who made words like strategy and stakeholder sound sexy and exciting.
“Oh, you know, coming along,” he lied. The truth was that he was finding everything about his job arsewipingly boring at the moment. It was all growth charts and balanced scorecards and mergers and acquisitions, and nothing to do with books or marketing or customers. The stuff that he was actually good at.
“Well, let me know if you need any help.” Robert gave Daniel a little nod as he spoke, then left. Daniel got up and started pacing about his office. He had been in this job, what, ten months? Eleven maybe? And what had he actually achieved in that time? Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing. But what could he achieve when everything he used to do was now out of his hands? He had a team who dealt with publishers, another who dealt with publicity. There was a director of marketing, a whole division that dealt with customer experience, and as far as Daniel could see, there was nothing left for him to do except stare out of the window and wonder how the hell he ended up here.
He leaned over his meeting table and read a few headlines on the Financial Times, which was spread out on top of it. An investigation was being launched into the finances of an oil company. The share price of a manufacturing firm had dropped following a slow quarter.
Dull, dull, dull. He hadn’t gone into business to manage. He’d gone into business to invent, to find new ways of doing things, to innovate. And somehow he’d ended up here, at the top and bored out of his skull.
Damn it, he thought to himself, and picked up the phone.
“Anita Bellinger’s office.”
“It’s Daniel Peterson, from Wyman’s. Is Anita around?”
“One moment, please.” Daniel drummed his fingers on the table as he waited.
“Daniel? What a nice surprise! I didn’t think you had time for us publishers anymore. What can I do for you?” Anita sounded thrilled to hear from him.
“I wanted to talk through your list, if that’s okay. I thought maybe we could have lunch sometime.”
“Is there a problem, Daniel? I went through our list with your buyers last month and they seemed very happy.”
Daniel frowned. Of course she had. Yet another thing that he didn’t get to do anymore. “Anita, I just want to talk about books. Is that okay? I’m paralyzed here, staring at spreadsheets and listening to people talk about business process reengineering, and I want to remind myself what the hell I’m doing this all for.”
“I understand completely, Daniel. No problem at all,” Anita said quickly, hearing the frustration in his voice. “Look, I’m going away for Christmas, but we’ll set something up as soon as I’m back, okay? And Daniel, everything is all right, isn’t it?”
Daniel smiled gratefully. He knew he could depend
on Anita. She’d known him when he was just starting out, had done him huge favors and taught him everything he needed to know about bookselling, from deals with publishers to getting displays right. If anyone could get him excited about his job again, it was her.
“It’s fine, really. Look, thanks, Anita. I’d say I owe you, but you already know that, right?”
“Have a good Christmas, Daniel. Get some rest. And have some cash ready for all the books I’m going to tell you about.”
Daniel grinned and hung up, then turned back to his spreadsheet.
“And you’re absolutely sure that you’re following the diet I gave you?”
George stared petulantly at his doctor and huffed loudly. “You calling me a liar?” he challenged.
“No, George. I’m asking a question, that’s all. It’s your health that’s at stake here—if you don’t want to take it seriously, then I’m not going to force you.”
George lowered his eyes to the floor. Blasted diet. Buggering exercise program. It was inhumane—he was expected to survive on a diet of vegetables and walk ten thousand steps a day. Ten thousand! He’d carried the ridiculous pedometer the doctor had given him for one whole day and had made a grand total of 2,500 steps. And that had been a particularly exhausting day, too— he’d had no driver and a meeting in town, which meant walking out onto the street to hail a taxi. His doctor was becoming worse than Harriet—she’d always been trying to get him to eat carrots and vile things called chickpeas, but he’d had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. And didn’t intend to start now.
“I thought I paid you good money to look after my health for me,” he said sulking. George had no time for weakness—in others or himself—and the idea that he might be anything other than invincible was too much to bear. “Anyway, you chaps always over-egg the pudding, don’t you? Always very cautious. I’m more of a risk-taker. Live fast and—”
“Die young?” Dr. Richards interjected. “George, take it from me: You don’t want to die young. And you certainly don’t want to find yourself bedridden or incapacitated, do you?” George looked at his feet.
“No, I didn’t think so. So no more cigars. No more red meat. Get some exercise. And stay off the claret, okay?”
George shrugged. “I’m not happy about this,” he said crossly. “Not happy at all. I might still get myself a second opinion.”
Dr. Richards stood up and shook George’s hand warmly. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” he said with a smile.
George left Dr. Richards’s surgery in Harley Street and decided to walk back to his office and notch up some steps on that Woods pedometer. It wasn’t often he got time to himself during the day, and it was rather nice and bright. Bloody cold, but the English were built to withstand low temperatures, he thought to himself. It was the sun that got them into trouble.
He wondered what Jen was doing now. She’d be in Bell Towers, listening to a lecture or maybe working in the library. God, how incredible it all was. A week ago he had a daughter only in name. Today, he was a proper father again, and she was a little chip off the old block, too.
He wished he was allowed to brag about her. Tell Emily, tell his colleagues—particularly the ones who spoke endlessly about their offsprings’ achievements. But she’d made him promise not to, and anyway, he could wait. The last thing he wanted was for Harriet to get involved, after all. He had enjoyed some precious time with his daughter and he didn’t want anything to get in the way.
And of course he had to remember the circumstances. She was his daughter, but she’d been hiding in his office for God’s sake. He was pretty sure she believed him, but he had to be careful.
Maybe he’d call her. See if she was free for lunch. He quickly took out his mobile phone and dialed Jen’s number. It went through to voicemail.
“Jen? Just your father here, wondering if you’re free for lunch? If not, don’t worry. I’ll . . . well, I’ll talk to you soon, I hope. Work hard now! Cheerio.”
Did he sound ridiculous, he wondered? He probably seemed like an old man to her. It was easy to ignore the passing of time, to let years go by and assume that they hadn’t touched you, he thought to himself. That you were still the young, dynamic man you always were. But children had a way of bringing you crashing down to earth. Jen was, what, twenty-eight? He was fifteen years older than he’d been when she last saw him. His hair was graying, his stomach protruding, his face sagging. What must she think? Had it been a shock to her?
He frowned. Come on, George, he told himself gruffly. Snap out of it. You’ve got things to do. Still holding his mobile phone, he dialed another number.
“Hello, Paul Song speaking.”
“Ah, Paul. Just checking in to see how the trip to Acech went. Shall we meet at the usual place tonight? Say seven P.M.? Good, good. Look forward to it.”
Thrusting his phone back in his pocket, George upped his pace and strode back toward St. James.
14
The next day, sitting in one of his favorite restaurants, George eyed the juicy steak in front of him greedily. It was beautifully rare, just as he liked it. This was the food humans had been eating for years, not beans and bits of leaves. He was confident that the medical establishment would figure out pretty soon that all the advice they’d been handing out was just plain wrong.
“So,” he said with a smile, “got much planned over Christmas?”
His old friend Malcolm shook his head. “Nothing too eventful. Usual family gathering back in Surrey—son’s coming down with his two children, you know the sort of thing. Too much food and drink, and then back to work with an almighty hangover!”
George smiled and nodded, trying to feel happy that his own Christmas would be a rather more solitary affair. Peace and quiet, he said to himself—nothing like it.
“I imagine it’ll be nice to get away from the horror headlines for a while,” George said, washing his mouthful down with a gulp of Margeaux.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows. “Too right,” he agreed. “Bloody journalists stirring everything up. Ought to be a law against it.”
George nodded sagely. “So you’re bidding for the rebuilding work, I take it?”
Malcolm poured George another glass of wine. “Oh, I should think so,” he said with the hint of a smile. “Now, have you seen the pudding menu? I think we’re going to be in for a treat.”
Jen sighed and looked at Lara nervously. It was all very well, being all friendly with her father and arranging nice cozy lunches like the one they’d had yesterday, but that wasn’t going to help her now. “I know my pen’s going to run out,” she said, shaking her head. “Lara, lend me a pen, will you?”
Lara handed Jen a biro. “It’s not the pens I’m worried about—it’s whether my brain’s going to run out,” she said dramatically. “I bloody hate exams. Don’t see why we have to do them. Particularly not the week before Christmas. I mean, that’s just sadistic.”
Jen shrugged. They had about ten minutes until their first semester exam, and nerves were running high. She told herself she didn’t care if she passed or failed, but she knew deep down inside that she did. She’d never failed anything, and she wasn’t about to start now.
“Hi, Jen, hi, Lara.” They looked up to see Alan hovering above their table.
“Hi, Alan,” Jen said brightly. “Looking forward to the exam?”
He looked thoughtful. “It is always good to have an opportunity to consolidate your learning,” he said seriously. “But I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to it. More of a necessary evil. I have a question, though— would you say that stakeholder analysis should be part of the internal or external analysis? I mean, they’re a business’s stakeholders, so they’re internal, but they’re not in it, so they’re external. Right?”
“Oh, shut up, you bloody brainbox,” Lara said irritably. “I have no bloody idea, and if you only had a proper life, you wouldn’t either.”
Alan looked down at her with a confused look on his face. “I just
wondered . . . ,” he said defensively, then sat down.
“Well, it’s time to go in, I reckon,” said Jen, gathering up her things.
“Go in where?”
Jen turned round quickly. She recognized that voice. But it couldn’t be Daniel, could it? He’d be at work, surely?
It was Daniel. Looking utterly gorgeous in rolled-up shirtsleeves and dark-blue wool trousers. He grinned at Jen sheepishly and as he put his hand through his hair she felt her stomach flip over several times. She stood up quickly, nearly knocking the table over.
“Daniel! Hi!” she said in a voice that was slightly too high pitched. “It’s our exam. Starts in five minutes. So, are you . . . are you teaching here today?”
Daniel grinned. “No, just picking some of the consultants’ brains,” he said lightly. “I also wanted to say good-bye—I’m off to Northumberland to spend Christmas with the folks tonight.”
Jen felt a sudden stab of disappointment, but forced herself to smile. “Oh. Right. Well, um . . .” She wanted to kiss him. Wanted to wrap her arms round him. But she could feel Lara’s and Alan’s eyes burning into her, and anyway, it wasn’t like he was her boyfriend or anything. Once again, she cursed Gavin for having turned up unannounced. If he hadn’t been there on Sunday, she’d probably be kissing Daniel right now.
“See you when I get back?” he asked quietly, forcing her to lean in toward him, so close she could smell his skin.
“God I hope so,” she breathed, then pulled a slight face. “I mean, well, that would be nice . . .”
“I rather thought so, too. Good luck with the exam!”
As he walked away, Jen sank back onto her chair.
“Well, Alan,” Lara said in a deadpan voice. “Would your stakeholder analysis of that little interaction consider Daniel Peterson an internal or external influence?”
Alan stood up. “Since I don’t have a proper life, as you so kindly put it, I couldn’t possibly say.”
Lara shrugged. “Ready, Jen?”
Jen was still smiling inanely. “What? Oh. Yes. Yes, absolutely.” And, walking on air, she followed Lara and Alan into the exam room.
Learning Curves Page 12
