Spanky

by Christopher Fowler

  We had reached the glass wall of the furnishing store. Spanky opened the door for me. ‘I have an appointment elsewhere,’ he explained. ‘Read the note I’ve left on your desk, and act upon it. Your career is about to undergo a change of fortune.’

  Chapter 11

  Careerism

  It was one of the oldest and grandest dining-rooms in the country. The crystal globes of seven great chandeliers loomed over our heads. Along one wall, before an acreage of hand-etched mirror, ran an inlaid mahogany bar stocked with over a hundred malt whiskies. Tables were circular, vast and separated from each other by a distance of a dozen feet. There were as many waiters as there were tables, and a strict hierarchy was observed among them.

  An opaque view of the business district could be discerned between the heavy crimson curtains that draped the far wall. I had the impression that light never penetrated the room very deeply. Presumably the elderly members who dined here preferred not to be reminded of the passing time. I was standing by the reservation desk waiting for Spanky to show up, knowing that if he didn’t I was lost.

  I had never eaten in such a smart restaurant, and had certainly never set foot inside a place like this. According to Spanky, the Sir Richard Steele Dining Room had once been the recipient of every prestigious restaurant award, although its five-star rating had grown somewhat tarnished in the post-war years. Max had been shocked to the core when I had followed my personal daemon’s instructions to invite him here. His lunch with Darryl had of course been cancelled, as my colleague had been forced to take indefinite leave.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ The familiar low voice at my side. Spanky was wearing a dress-suit of deep maroon wool, a starched wing-collar shirt and a red bow-tie. He looked like a cross between Oscar Wilde and Bertie Wooster.

  Why are you dressed up? Are you eating with us?

  ‘How did you guess? Were you surprised when Max accepted your replacement invitation?’

  You could have knocked me down with a feather. Where have you been for the last two days?

  ‘Preparing your future, old chap. Nothing too grand at the moment, but I’ve made a start on it.’

  However did you get Max to agree to have lunch with me?

  ‘Your boss is that perfect combination: a foodie and a snob. How could he have resisted the temptation to dine here? You told him your father was a member?’

  And his father before him.

  ‘Nice touch. I’ll guide you through the social etiquette, but the small talk will be down to you.’

  What are we here for?

  ‘You’ll see. I had to pull a lot of strings to get this table at such short notice. This isn’t one of those flash-in-the-pan fashionable restaurants. It’s old money. The reservations list here makes Quaglino’s look like McDonald’s. Just before you order, a portly gentleman with a grey moustache will approach your table. When he recognizes you, it’s important that you recognize him equally. He’ll shake your hand and with any luck, join you both for lunch.’

  Who is he?

  ‘Look sharp, you’re about to be taken to your table.’

  The walk across the huge dining-room seemed to last forever. I was the youngest person here by a decade, younger even than most of the waiters. I could feel people staring as I crossed the thick-pile carpet to one of the best-appointed tables. Spanky had already seated himself on the far side, across a hectare of dazzling linen. The waiter pulled out my chair and unctuously solicited my attention.

  ‘Perhaps sir would care for an aperitif while awaiting his guest?’

  ‘Order yourself a dry sherry.’ Spanky named a particular bottle, I forget which, and I did as I was told. He heaved open the leather-bound menu and flicked through it, chuckling. ‘They’ve got a cheek charging twenty-seven pounds for steak tartare.’

  How am I ever going to pay for this?

  ‘Oh, I forgot.’ He felt in the pocket of his jacket and tossed over a wad of fifty-pound notes. ‘Use those. Don’t worry, they’re not forgeries. It’s legal tender. Restaurants like this adore cash. They respect it more than plastic, which they still regard as newfangled and vaguely disreputable. You must remember to tip the sommelier separately.’

  The who?

  ‘The wine waiter, you clod. Why has so little knowledge of social etiquette survived to this era?’

  I looked around at the other diners. Grey men in grey suits, nearly all of them overweight, a few haughty women with terrible teeth. I recognized several: Margaret Thatcher quietly talking in one corner, looking old and tired. Senior cabinet ministers. A legendary cabaret singer whom I’d long assumed was dead. I half expected to see Robert Maxwell tucking into the turbot.

  ‘I know, it’s not a very impressive sight, is it? Captains of industry. The men and women who hold the reins of the country. What a pitiful shower. Where are the great leaders now? Instead of the Gladstones, we’re left with the Pitts.’ Spanky looked blankly at me. ‘A little political humour there.’

  I’m sorry, I apologized, I’m nervous. What am I going to say to him? What can I talk about?

  ‘Here’s your chance to find out.’

  Max was shuffling across the floor towards us. I hastily rose, knocking my napkin on to the floor. He was obviously more impressed with the restaurant than he was with me, and waved me back down into my seat. Once he had been seated and had ordered a drink, he turned toward me and stroked his jowls, a look of puzzlement settling on his face. I knew he had little respect for me. Perhaps there was something I could do this lunchtime that would begin to change his opinion.

  ‘Well, Martyn, I must be paying you too much if you can afford to eat here.’

  ‘Oh God, I knew he was going to say that,’ groaned Spanky, lolling back in his seat.

  Shut up!

  ‘I don’t do it very often,’ I replied, following Spanky’s original line. ‘Only with my father.’

  ‘I was due to have lunch with your unfortunate colleague, young Darryl.’

  ‘I know—’

  ‘You didn’t know,’ hissed Spanky, kicking me under the table.

  ‘I know—that he must be feeling terrible today,’ I covered. ‘He may lose his eye.’

  I could see Max was more interested in getting his hands on the menu than discussing the welfare of an employee. ‘So,’ he asked, eyebrows rising toward the red leather volume, ‘to what do I owe this pleasure?’

  To what does he owe this pleasure, Spanky? Help me!

  ‘Perhaps I should explain the purpose of this lunch,’ said Spanky. I could see him leaning forward on his elbows from the corner of my eye. ‘Stall him for a moment.’

  ‘Shall we order first?’ I asked Max.

  ‘Good idea.’ He opened the vast menu and began to peruse the endless pages with great relish.

  Spanky turned to me. ‘Okay, listen carefully. I went through your boss’s private correspondence. Six months ago he was made a generous offer for his horrible furnishing business. The potential buyer was a gentleman named Neville Syms, a wealthy member of the old school who owns a fair amount of office space in the West End. He was on the look-out for a business that was ripe for expansion, one he could disperse into his cash-draining empty properties. As you must know, Thanet’s books are looking very solid. Max does very well out of the place, and could easily afford to expand. It seemed like a marriage made in heaven, but Max failed to take up the offer.’

  Why? What was wrong with it?

  ‘Syms is a drunk. He holds his booze well and he’s still highly respected in the business community, but drinking and horses are his main interests. Max was worried that he’d run the business into the ground without a good manager. Syms offered to bring one in, but Max wouldn’t trust his company to a stranger. It was too big a risk. So he left the offer on the table. Syms is still stuck with buildings he can’t let, but Max won’t play ball. That’s the current state of play. You could have found this out yourself, you know, just by keeping your ears open around the office. Here comes Syms, righ
t on time.’

  A rotund racing-character of a man was waddling toward us. His clothes made him look like an eccentric turf-accountant. He was wearing a loud chequered waistcoat, a fob watch, a navy blazer with gold buttons, corduroy trousers and brogues.

  ‘I know he looks like a lunatic, but everyone fawns over him because he has so much property in Westminster, and his daughter’s married to a minor royal.’

  You’ve done a lot of research on this, haven’t you? However did you get him here?

  ‘That was the easy part, the communication system in the late twentieth century being what it is.’

  ‘Max! You old devil! I didn’t know you ate here!’

  Syms pumped my boss’s hand, shaking his entire body. He already sounded half-cut. Max smiled awkwardly, trapped between two states: irritation at someone he didn’t want to see, and elation for being recognized in such a prestigious venue. As soon as the hand-pumping had slowed, he singled me out for presentation.

  ‘I don’t think you know my, er—’ he began, but Syms cut in.

  ‘Of course I do! Why, his father and I are old, old friends! How the devil are you, young Martyn?’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ I replied in amazement. Syms punched Max on the shoulder with unnecessary force. ‘I understand this young man is a damned good business manager. Did you know he looks after all his father’s financial affairs? Of course, he’s far too modest ever to admit it. Makes the chap a fortune, I hear. Wish he worked for me.’

  Max stared over as if seeing me for the first time. I looked at Spanky, who was examining his nails in an exaggerated fashion.

  ‘Are you about to have lunch? D’you mind if I join you?’ Syms looked first at Max, then at me. And Max held out the chair for him.

  After that, it was pretty plain sailing. Within the hour, the idea was firmly planted in Max’s head that some sort of merger could be rearranged with Syms, with me elevated to the prime position of area manager. I was amazed at the speed with which he wrote Darryl out of the equation, and me in. So much for business scruples. The lunch took on an air of celebration. The beauty of Spanky’s plan lay in its sheer simplicity; Max knew he would be able to keep me under his watchful eye, while Syms had seemingly been brainwashed into having complete faith in me. I just couldn’t understand how this had been accomplished.

  By 3.45 p.m. we were on cognac and cigars, and Syms was arranging visitations with his lawyers. He went on and on, planning prime West End sites and conjuring images of infinite profit while his prospective partner nodded greedily. I had never seen Max looking like this. As he watched Syms trace his fork across the tablecloth it was clear that he had fully succumbed. In a matter of hours he had been transformed from a sourpuss into a happy man. He kept smiling at me. It was grotesque. He had the wrong kind of mouth for smiling. Too many teeth.

  I paid the bill, which stopped my blood circulating for a moment when I unfolded it, and tipped the correct amounts to the right people, thanks to Spanky’s continual good advice. In a unique gesture of magnanimity, Max gave me the remainder of the afternoon off.

  I walked back across the park with my daemon.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I asked as soon as we were alone, ‘how did you nobble him?’

  ‘Nobble him? My dear fellow, he’s not a racehorse.’ He withdrew a cigar he had taken from the restaurant and lit it with great concentration. ‘I told you, I’m not going to keep explaining my methods.’

  ‘Just once more.’

  ‘Oh, very well. I simply visited Syms as your father . . .’

  ‘You’ve never met my father.’

  ‘All right then, as someone I imagine to be similar to your father—and proposed a deal. I told him he’d be in with a chance if he championed you.’

  ‘But why would Syms believe him? I mean, you?’

  ‘Because your father had the right credentials.’

  ‘I suppose you forged documents to make him look good.’

  ‘Nothing so complicated or dishonest, I assure you.’

  ‘Aside from the moral issues involved here, how could I ever live up to everyone’s expectations? I think I should be allowed to prove my own worth.’ It felt as if I was getting deeper into an area of high risk with every passing day.

  ‘Of course you should, but this way you’ll actually be offered a chance. Opportunity is nine tenths of the battle. I know you’re up to it. Examine yourself and think about your capabilities. Soon you’ll be able to show everyone what you can really do.’ He blew a stream of blue smoke in my face. ‘I mean, you don’t have to thank me or anything.’

  ‘I’m very grateful, it’s just—’

  ‘What, Martyn, what?’ Spanky cried, exasperated. ‘You’re finally going to get all the things you wanted in life. Why must you feel so guilty all the time? You want to meet another beautiful woman? We’ll do it tonight. You want a career with a future? I’m about to hand you the key. I can’t give you limitless wealth or movie star looks. I can’t change the world around you. I can’t halt famine, prevent disease or end political corruption. I can only show you how to change yourself to suit your own ends. Isn’t that enough?’

  I tried to explain how I felt, but my emotions wouldn’t articulate themselves into words. I wanted what he was offering; it just felt wrong to get it this way. Looking back, I suppose it all seemed too easy, like looting a store or jumping a queue. I remembered my father saying that money only had a value if it was earned.

  Spanky suddenly removed the cigar from his mouth and watched me, his forehead creasing. ‘You’re thinking about your family again. As soon as I try to read your thoughts you close them off to me. Why?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I lied. ‘My parents are very ordinary and boring. You wouldn’t be interested in them.’

  ‘We’ll soon see, won’t we?’ He kicked at a stone on the path, and where it landed a purple orchid grew, forcing its way through the grass as if appearing through time-lapse photography. With each step Spanky took, I noticed that tiny sapphire flowers were springing up in his footprints.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think I should meet your parents this weekend. Don’t you?’

  I certainly did not, but the matter was out of my hands. So, on the Saturday afternoon of the following weekend, I reluctantly took Spanky down to meet them.

  Chapter 12

  Parenting

  Twelvetrees is a suburban estate in Kent, a satellite town of clipped emerald lawns and gleaming cars and neat rows of identical houses with fake lead-light windows. It was built to provide homes for first-time buyers and young families who needed a base from which to commute to the city. As the recession hit, it became populated by retired couples who could no longer afford the upkeep of larger houses, and families whose breadwinners had died and whose businesses had failed.

  Twelvetrees had few shops and virtually no local amenities; after all, the residents were supposed to be commuters, shopping in the city. The area took its name from the dozen tall elms that rose in a single line across the brow of a hill. According to legend, the trees formed a natural barrier that once hid highwaymen from their victims. In the late nineteen seventies they were torn down, and the hill was levelled so that the hideous conglomeration of banjo crescents and cul-de-sacs that constituted the town could be built over the site. The name was then resurrected to commemorate the site of natural beauty that had been destroyed by the estate.

  My parents had moved here over a decade ago, and still didn’t know anyone. My father never noticed the austerity of our surroundings because he spent most of his waking hours at the office.

  As we walked along the street leading to my family’s house, Spanky peered over the concrete fence separating the pavement from the barren brown fields. A car backfired, and starlings were shocked like cinders into a lowering sky.

  ‘God’s green earth,’ he fumed. ‘See what they’ve done to it.’

  ‘You should try being stuck here as a teenager, hanging around
in bus shelters looking for something to do.’ We were both wearing raincoats to counteract the change in the weather. I had asked Spanky why he couldn’t stop the rain from touching us with his powers, and he’d explained that he could only make it appear as if we weren’t getting wet. His illusions were fun, but it seemed that they didn’t have much practical use.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Martyn. I want to be prepared. And don’t give me that stuff about how I wouldn’t be interested. I need to know everything before I can help. They’re the root of your problems. Parents always are.’

  I wondered how much I could admit to him, or myself.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Their names are Joyce and Gordon. Joyce is very quiet. She used to have a job before we moved here but Gordon made her give it up. She doesn’t go out much now. Watches daytime TV and cleans the house all the time. She won’t talk to the neighbours, says they’re common. She suffers from fits of depression and cries over nothing at least once a day. Gordon disappears to the office whenever there’s a crisis, which is most of the time. Mother likes to pretend he’s a busy executive and not just a low-paid timeserver in an insurance firm. I don’t think he can handle the pressure of being at home. He’s more comfortable staying at work. A few years ago they stopped going on holiday together. Gordon says he can’t afford the time off, and Joyce wouldn’t go without him. My sister, Laura, is agoraphobic and hardly ever comes out of her room. She makes my mother look like a socialite. My brother, Joey, as I think you know, is dead.’

  ‘When did he die?’

  ‘Just over four years ago. This is the house.’ I went to open the gate for Spanky but he passed right through it before I had the chance. The paved pathway led to a pebbled glass door decked by ornamental carriage lamps. At first there was no answer when I sounded the doorbell chimes. Then a vacuum cleaner stopped, and I could see the blurred form of my mother approaching. Spanky had asked me not to call them first. He wanted to catch them unprepared, in order to study them under normal circumstances.