‘I was pleased for her. I think Oliver was too. In his way. Greville’s never tried to replace Father. He’s … quite sensitive, actually. And he’s given Mother Adam, of course, who’s adorable.’
‘I’m not sure Oliver agrees with you there.’
‘Oliver tries to ignore him. But you can’t ignore a five-year-old.’
‘Did Greville know your father?’
‘Yes. They served in the RAF together. It was through Father that Greville got a job at Wren’s in the first place. According to Aunt Harriet—’ She broke off. ‘But she tends to exaggerate everything, so …’
‘What has she exaggerated in this case?’
‘Oh, well, according to her, Greville was in a bad way after the war and Father did him a big favour by persuading Grandfather Wren to take him on. Now he’s in charge of the business and look what he’s planning to do with it.’
‘Sell it to CCC, Oliver tells me.’
‘Ah.’ She looked mildly surprised. And something else: impressed, I think. ‘He said that, did he?’
‘He also mentioned the special board meeting on Thursday. It’s what’s brought your great-uncle home, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I was going to tell you myself. You see, Uncle Francis doesn’t like Greville. Never has. He and Mother have fallen out over it. That’s why he and Luisa are staying at the Carlyon Bay rather than Nanstrassoe. I don’t want you to be surprised if he says anything nasty about Greville over dinner.’
‘I’ll try not to be. Families, hey?’
‘Exactly … Actually, Greville’s doing the best he can for the family with this deal. Wren’s has no future as an independent business.’ Says who? I wondered. Everyone except unworldly exaggeration-prone Great-Aunt Harriet, I assumed. ‘Uncle Francis knows it’s finished. But he might still want to let off some steam.’
‘Thanks for warning me. I think I’ll be able to cope.’
‘Yes.’ She studied me for a disarming moment. ‘I think you will, too.’
FIVE
I LAY AWAKE for an hour or more that night agonizing over the position I’d put myself in. Oliver was up to something. I knew that much for certain. If I told Vivien what I knew, she’d be grateful. It might even draw us closer together. But Oliver would rightly feel betrayed. I couldn’t predict how he’d react. And I didn’t want to betray him, anyway.
By the following morning, I’d decided what to do. I’d say nothing to Vivien until I’d given Oliver fair warning. When we met on Wednesday, I’d put it to him that his sister was worried about him and so was I; that I hadn’t appreciated how difficult it had been for him to recover from the shock of his father’s death; and that unless he told me what he was after in Wren’s records I’d have to let Vivien know he was certainly after something.
That still left me committed to putting the question Oliver had prepared for me to his great-uncle on Tuesday night. But taken at face value it was an innocent enquiry. And I was interested to see what effect it had. The more I discovered about the Wren family, the better I understood Vivien. And the better I understood her …
I expected Monday to be quiet and uneventful. But since the close of the previous working week I’d ceased to be just another anonymous temporary employee and become, as I was shortly to understand, someone Greville Lashley had decided he needed to take the measure of.
It was pushing towards noon in the accounts section, the atmosphere composed of equal parts dust, cigarette smoke and lethargy, when Maurice Rowe took an internal call that brought a scowl to his unlovely face. ‘Mr Kellaway,’ he barked across the room at me after banging the phone down, ‘get yourself up to Mr Lashley’s office.’ (He would never normally have addressed me as Mr Kellaway. It was a sure sign that he viewed the summoning of menials under his charge to the boss’s domain as deeply suspicious.)
‘Mr Lashley … wants to see me?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Evidently.’
‘But … why?’
‘Ours not to reason, boy. Cut along.’
I cut.
‘Go on in,’ said Joan Winkworth when I arrived. My hesitant knock at the door of the inner office received no answer, but Joan nodded for me to proceed, so on I went.
The managing director’s office doubled as the boardroom, accommodating a long polished conference table overlooked by framed photographs of scenes from Wren’s corporate past: workers filling clay sacks at the Charlestown dry; a clay ship with sails rigged nosing out of the dock; a digging gang posing for the camera, shovels in hand, in a new pit; a Wren’s lorry loaded with children on a Sunday School outing; and old Walter Wren, whiskered, waistcoated and merely middle-aged, shaking hands with the Prince of Wales some time before the First World War.
I had the opportunity to peruse these because Greville Lashley was in the middle of a telephone conversation when I entered. He waved a hand casually at me, signalling for me to stay, and continued with the call, leaning back almost horizontally in a well-sprung swivel-chair. His desk was set across one end of the conference table, forming a T. Behind him was a large crescent window overlooking the yard. His rockings on the chair carried him in and out of a broad shaft of sunlight that gleamed on his collar-length Brylcreemed hair and the gold band of his wristwatch. He looked his normal suave self – and younger than his fifty years. It took no great effort of the imagination to picture him in sheepskin-lined jacket and flying helmet, climbing into the cockpit of a Spitfire to do battle with the Luftwaffe. He had manliness and style in bucketloads.
‘Tell them it comes with my personal guarantee,’ were his closing words in the telephone conversation. Then he dropped the receiver into its cradle, causing the bell to tinkle, and treated me to a frowning smile of scrutiny. ‘Jonathan Kellaway?’
‘Yes, sir. I—’
‘Sit down.’ He pointed to a chair. ‘You’re a fast mover, I must say.’
‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘Less than a month in our employ and already you’re playing chess with my stepson and dating my stepdaughter.’
‘Well, I …’
‘Not that I object to fast movers. Quite the reverse. I find they’re essential if you’re to get anything done in this world. I’m one myself. Obviously.’
I couldn’t see why it should be obvious, but Lashley’s wolfish grin almost defied me not to draw the conclusion that he was referring to the ultimate reason he’d succeeded George Wren as chairman and managing director of Walter Wren & Co. – marriage to his late friend’s widow, no less: a smart career move, as it had turned out.
‘Now look, Jonathan, the thing is this.’ His ready use of my Christian name was doubtless calculated to put me at my ease, though somehow it didn’t. ‘My wife worries about Oliver. Small wonder, considering what he experienced when his father died. I’m sure you know all about that. It’s common knowledge. So, I’ll say no more about poor old Ken. A sad loss, though, especially for his children. I can certainly never replace him and I’ve never made the mistake of trying. Oliver spends too much time alone and probably too much time thinking. Never think more than you act. That’s my motto. The reverse also applies. Balance, you see. Balance in everything. The point is that if you can … bring him out of himself … we’d be grateful. All of us. Me included.’
Whether he’d actually winked at me then I wasn’t sure. I somehow felt he had. The implication was clear: Greville Lashley’s gratitude was a thing worth earning.
‘Vivien’s an attractive girl, Jonathan. Very attractive. I wouldn’t blame any red-blooded young fellow setting his cap at her, as I gather you have. Well, happy hunting is all I can say. She’s fussy. I can tell you that much. Now, here’s my concern. These are … delicate times … in Wren and Co.’s affairs. Change is in the air. And change is good. Worrying for some. Exciting for others. But good, overall. Without it, business stagnates. And a stagnant business isn’t a prosperous business. You understand?’
‘Er … yes, sir.’
‘I gather you’re going
to study economics at university.’
I was surprised and more than a little disturbed by how much he seemed to have found out about me. ‘Er, yes. I am.’
‘So I don’t need to lecture you about the need to upgrade British industry. The white heat of the technological revolution and all that. In short, the future. It’s what I have to plan and prepare for. It’s what I am planning and preparing for. Delicately, as I say. Sensitively, I like to think. The staff are wondering what’s going to become of them if we merge with Cornish China Clays. Actually, they should be wondering what’s going to become of them if we don’t merge with Cornish China Clays. There’s a board meeting later this week. Has Oliver mentioned it to you? Or Vivien?’
‘As a matter of fact, they both have, sir.’
Lashley nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. And have you mentioned it to your … colleagues in Accounts?’
‘No, sir.’ It was true. I hadn’t. But they’d find out about it without me well before Thursday. I had no doubt of that. In all likelihood, neither did Lashley.
‘Good. That shows … restraint on your part. But I’d like to think you might also be capable of something more … active.’ He smiled at my puzzled expression. ‘You’re on good terms with Oliver. With Vivien, as well. And I gather you’ll soon be meeting my wife’s uncle and his signora. As a result, it’s possible you may learn something over the next few days that has a bearing on the outcome of Thursday’s board meeting. Some … obstacle to progress. You follow?’
‘I … suppose I do. But—’
‘It may even be something you don’t realize has a bearing. Something … apparently insignificant but … strange, odd, inexplicable.’ His smile urged me to see through the opacity of his words. ‘If anything remotely of that nature comes to your attention, Jonathan, I want you to alert me to it. A quiet word, nothing more. In complete confidence.’
Something strange, odd, inexplicable. Such as Oliver’s determination to gain access to the basement. Yes, that would certainly count as all those things. Except that maybe to Greville Lashley it wouldn’t be inexplicable. If I confessed what I’d done now, how would it end? The sack? Or recruitment to some charmed circle of his acolytes?
‘You probably think Wren’s is a dead-end outfit and china clay’s no business for a clever and adventurous young man,’ Lashley continued. ‘I wouldn’t blame you. But you have to see the big picture. The future is written, Jonathan. In words and numbers. We generate more every single day. And that means more paper. Good God, that computer CCC have spews out scrolls of the damn stuff. So, worldwide demand for china clay to fill and coat paper is only going one way: up. And it’s not just about paper. A growing population needs more of everything. Coffee cups. Toothpaste. Pill capsules. Condoms. Particularly condoms, if it isn’t going to grow too much, hey?’ He laughed and I made an effort to join in. ‘Well, there’s china clay in all of them. That’s the point. Them and hundreds of other products. It’s going to be a worldwide industry. And I aim to be at the heart of it. Along with a few people who have what it takes to support and, who knows, one day succeed me. The sky’s the limit. No … wait. There’ll be dozens of components containing something manufactured using china clay in whichever Apollo makes it to the Moon. So you see? The possibilities are literally limitless. Think about it, Jonathan. Just think about it.’
Greville Lashley evidently saw merger with Cornish China Clays as his stairway to success – his and anyone’s who clung to his coat-tails. It sounded like pure bombast to me. He was surely too old and too marginal to CCC’s concerns to gain anything from the deal beyond a comfortable run-in to retirement. He called it a merger, but it was really a takeover. Wren’s would be swallowed whole. And that would be that.
By then, I’d be on the lower rungs of my own stairway to success, in London. The only reason I had to tread carefully at Wren & Co. in the interim was Vivien. I was half in love with her already and we hadn’t so much as kissed. I couldn’t bear the thought of alienating her by antagonizing her brother or some other member of her family. But the secrets I was keeping were piling up alarmingly. Something had to give. I just had to hope it wasn’t something Vivien would blame me for.
Pete Newlove naturally demanded to know what Lashley had wanted with me. I was forced to admit I’d been to Nanstrassoe at the weekend. But chess with Oliver was the limit of my contact with the family in the version of events I treated him to. I claimed not to have seen Vivien at all. Pete seemed to accept this, partly, I think, because it reinforced his impression of her as utterly aloof. He also accepted that Lashley hadn’t said a word to me about Thursday’s board meeting, of which, as I’d anticipated, word had reached him on the jungle telegraph.
‘It all gets settled this Thursday, Jon. Nothing for you to worry about, of course. But for the rest of us toilers it’s D-Day. D for decision. D for dole queue. We’ll all be sweating on the top line.’
I felt sorry for Pete. He had every right to be worried and obviously hadn’t the least suspicion I might be holding out on him. It was just as well his sister was a chambermaid at the Carlyon Bay Hotel rather than a waitress. I was in the clear, I reckoned. For the time being, at least.
I did some juggling of the facts for my parents’ benefit as well: Oliver had asked me to accompany him and his sister to their dinner with Great-Uncle Francis and his wife; I’d barely exchanged two words with Vivien on the subject. Mum was so pleased to see me togged up in my one and only suit come Tuesday evening that she accepted the story at face value. Likewise the arrangement I’d supposedly made to walk up to Nanstrassoe and set out with them from there.
In fact, I only went as far as Alexandra Road, where I loitered outside the Capitol cinema until I saw Vivien’s bright yellow Mini bearing down on me.
She was beautiful whatever she wore, but the elegant brocaded velvet jacket and fern-patterned silk trousers she’d chosen for our evening at the Carlyon Bay added a new level of maturity to her appearance that I found almost as intimidating as it was alluring.
‘Uncle Francis didn’t sound pleased when I told him Oliver had turned down his invitation,’ she said as we sped away. ‘He cheered up a bit when he heard he’d be meeting my new boyfriend, though. Well, that’s what he sort of assumes you are and I didn’t like to complicate things by disillusioning him. I hope that’s not going to be awkward for you.’
‘Desperate,’ I said with a smile. ‘It’ll be sheer hell.’
She took one hand off the steering-wheel long enough to slap my shoulder. ‘Beast.’
‘Actually, I think the role’s perfect for me.’
She cast me a sidelong glance. ‘Do you now?’
The Virginia creeper-clad Art Deco palace of seaside relaxation that was the Carlyon Bay Hotel was hardly my normal stamping-ground. Entering it that evening with Vivien made me feel as if it easily could be, though. Her company carried with it a charge of life-changing possibilities.
The weather was warm enough for parties to be sitting under parasols out on the terrace. But Francis Wren, we were informed, was waiting for us in the lounge. ‘Cold by Capri standards,’ Vivien murmured as we went through.
And so it clearly was, to judge by the light sweater Francis was wearing under his blazer. He was a ruddy-faced, white-haired man in his mid-sixties, with too much fat on his stocky frame. But his handshake was firm and there was a hint of steeliness in his blue-eyed gaze. His blazer, cravat and weatherbeaten complexion gave him the look of a veteran yachtsman whose best yachting days were behind him.
‘Luisa’s still titivating,’ he explained, urging us to be seated and to join him in a gin and tonic. ‘Women, what, Jonathan?’
I smiled, as if drawing ruefully on extensive experience of the fair sex, which won me a sharp look from Vivien before she diverted Francis into a rambling account of how he and Luisa had been passing their days. Idly was the sum of it. A little reading; a little swimming; a lot of sun-lounging; and a minuscule amount of tennis. If he’d been studying a
merger proposal document in advance of Thursday’s board meeting, he didn’t mention it.
That subject disposed of, he’d just turned his attention to the minor mystery (to him) of my sudden appearance in Vivien’s life when Luisa arrived in a cloud of perfume and a shimmer of midnight blue. Gowned, stoled and multiply pearled, she had the full voice and stage bearing of the opera-singer she’d once been. She also had instantly infectious jollity, pinching Francis’s cheek, triple-kissing Vivien and clasping my hand while gazing at me with big, brown, spikily lashed eyes. Her hair was dark and glossy, drawn back to show off the fine bone structure of her face. She was no longer young, but she still had glamour as well as charm.
I wasn’t to be spared an account of myself, but I kept it as brief – and factual – as possible. Vivien and I had met through Oliver (true) and hadn’t known each other long (also true). Vivien intervened deftly to insist Luisa describe to me the setting of their villa on Capri.
But that proved difficult. ‘You have to see it to believe how heavenly it is,’ Luisa explained. ‘Have you ever been to Capri, Jonathan?’ I shook my head. ‘Ah, but you will, now you and Vivien are friends. And then … you will understand.’
Capri with Vivien: a dream of everything that was delicious and unattainable. But it wasn’t unattainable. And I willed myself to believe it could actually happen.
Meanwhile, there were the hazards of fine dining to be braved. I was more of a stranger to four-star hotel restaurants than I wanted Vivien to realize, but dinner passed without my using the wrong cutlery or drinking too quickly. I managed to make some contributions to the conversation that weren’t completely stupid. And I even caught Vivien smiling at me on several occasions in a way that seemed, well, affectionate.
Francis said nothing directly about the travails of Wren & Co. and remained tight-lipped when Luisa referred to ‘Thursday’s meeting’. He was happier bemoaning the state of his homeland under a Labour government and took it in good part when Vivien said he sounded like a reactionary old colonel, pointing out that he really was an old colonel and was entitled to be reactionary. Altogether, he wasn’t anything like as crusty as he looked.
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