by Jon Teckman
‘Are you all right, Joe?’ Olivia asked, when I failed to respond. ‘You look a little pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Well actually, you know, now you mention it, I could do with a little air. Listen, why don’t I ask the driver to drop me a block or two from the hotel and I’ll find my own way down in a few minutes? To be honest, I’m a bit nervous about being snapped coming out of the cab and going into the hotel with you. We’ve been out all day. People may start to talk. I’m sorry, Olivia, but I just can’t risk being on the front pages of the world’s press. I’m a married man, remember?’
These words hit her hard. The fire inside her stunning eyes burned even brighter – the first sign of an impending storm. ‘How could I ever forget?’ she said, turning away from me.
‘I promise I’ll come back. What room are you in?’
‘Here, I’ll write it down for you, English. Make sure you won’t forget.’ She reached inside her handbag and pulled out a small notebook and tiny pencil. She scribbled something down while I leaned forward to ask the driver to stop at the corner of Piccadilly and Park Lane. ‘You will come back to me, won’t you, English?’ she said – Celia Johnson meets Scarlett O’Hara. ‘Perhaps this will persuade you.’ She popped the folded piece of paper into the breast pocket of my jacket, and planted a kiss on my cheek which somehow managed to be both chaste and teasingly erotic at the same time.
‘Of course, I will,’ I lied as I gave the driver twenty pounds to cover the fare and scuttled off towards the nearest Underground station, like the pathetic crustacean I now so closely resembled.
MILL HILL, NORTH LONDON
I was home early. As soon as the children had been despatched to bed, I slipped out of my suit, threw on something more comfortable and got myself on the outside of a large glass of wine. I was already on my second when Natasha emerged from the kitchen with our dinner balanced on two trays and we settled down in front of the telly.
‘You seem a bit tense tonight, darling,’ she said as she swapped my food tray for her glass of wine and pressed the remote control to release Coronation Street from its frozen-framed paralysis. ‘Tough day?’
I could hardly tell her that I had spent the afternoon watching cricket with a Hollywood A-lister and then resisting her amorous advances. ‘Oh, you know,’ I replied, ‘the usual bollocks. Bennett’s still on the warpath and giving me a hard time over that bloody presentation. Nothing I can’t handle, love.’
‘Well, you can understand him being a bit on edge, can’t you? He’s probably terrified that Ms Finch is going to make another play for him. And he’s in enough trouble at home already. Sandra’s gone absolutely mental about it.’
I sipped my glass of wine and crammed some mashed potato and minted lamb into my mouth and contemplated my fate. In whichever direction I looked, the web of deceit and lies I had created was spinning out of control, strangling all those unlucky enough to be caught up within it. We finished our meal in silence as Natasha watched her favourite soap opera and I tried to think of a way to escape the one going on all around me. Then, emboldened by a third glass of wine, I attempted to cut my way out.
‘Do you think you’d react like that?’ I ventured, sticking a sacrificial toe in the piranha-infested waters. ‘Like Sandra Bennett?’
‘Pardon?’ my wife replied.
‘I mean, if I told you that I’d slept with Olivia Finch? Or you found out from someone. How do you think you’d react?’
‘What, after I’d stopped laughing, you mean?’
‘If the thought is that ridiculous, then yes.’
‘You know exactly how I’d react,’ Natasha said. ‘I’ve always made it absolutely clear how I feel about adultery and it wouldn’t matter if it was Olivia Finch or Polly or that barmaid at the King’s Head with the large breasts and the lazy eye. The first thing I’d do is cut your balls off with the rustiest knife I could lay my hands on. Then I’d kick you out of the house and change all the locks and make bloody sure that the next – and final – time you laid eyes on the kids would be at the custody hearing. Which you’d lose. Why, dear? Was there something you wanted to tell me?’
‘No, nothing,’ I said as I started to clear away the dinner plates, ‘just checking.’
Natasha settled herself back down in front of the telly and the waters closed over the conversation, consigning it – for now at least – to the depths. I settled down with my newspaper and made a half-hearted attempt at completing the cryptic crossword, but neither my heart nor my mind were really into the task. I was starting to contemplate giving up and heading for a hot bath and an early night when my mobile phone rang. I picked it up from the arm of the sofa and checked the display: ‘Bastard’ it read. ‘It’s Bennett,’ I said, hoping Natasha would tell me not to ruin our wonderful evening by taking the call.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it then?’ she asked, adding, ‘In the other room.’ I raised myself reluctantly from the sofa and pressed the appropriate button on the phone as I shambled through the door.
‘You fucking useless twat!’ Bennett roared as soon as the connection was made. ‘You were supposed to be sorting this mess out and you’ve made it even worse, you moron. Listen to this text I’ve been sent now.’ All was quiet for a few seconds, then the phone burst back into life. ‘Right. I can’t actually read the text while I’m talking to you so I’ll forward it and you can ring me back when you’ve read it. I’m warning you, West, I’m taking this straight back to Bill Davis in the morning. I am fed up to the back teeth with this whole bloody business.’ Then the phone went dead. Seconds later, I heard the polite ping of an incoming text and opened it to reveal:
Thanx a bunch English. I waited 4 U all evening and U never showed up. So we’ve had some fun and now I’m dumped again?
Well I’m not having it, U faggot. U’ll pay 4 this.
The second I finished reading, the phone rang again.
‘So what should I do now?’ Bennett yelled. ‘She’s all over me. This is completely out of hand, West, and I blame you for the whole bloody thing.’
‘I really don’t understand this,’ I stammered in reply. ‘She was fine when I dropped her back at the hotel. Are you sure it’s from her? On the other hand—’ I started, but Bennett had already begun to talk over me.
‘Your mate Guttenberg certainly seems to think she’s behind it. Sounds like she’s told him I diddled her. I tell you what, West – whoever is behind this, I’m going find them and have their bloody guts to restring my squash racquet.’ Suddenly, and with an audible clunk, a penny dropped on the other end of the phone. ‘What were you going to say then?’ Bennett said.
‘When?’
‘Just then. You said, “On the other hand”, but then you didn’t say what was on the other hand.’
‘What?’
‘What is on the other hand, you cretin? You said “On the other hand” and then you stopped. What were you going to say? What is on your other fucking hand, West?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just that as I dropped her back at her hotel, she said erm …’
‘Said what?’ Bennett insisted, the irritation rising in his voice again.
‘Erm, well, she said that she would be in her hotel room that evening in case you wanted to drop by.’
‘And what did you say? I take it you put her straight?’
‘Not exactly,’ I said after a lengthy pause, ‘I told her I’d pass the message on to you.’
‘You did what?’ yelled Bennett. ‘Why in God’s name did you do that, you useless turd? You were supposed to be sorting this mess out not making it worse. Are you deliberately trying to stitch me up?’
‘No, I’m not. I promise you I’m not, but, well …’ I was skating bandy-legged on thin ice and it was starting to crack under the weight of my circumlocutions. ‘I just said I’d ask you. I didn’t promise her – I just said I’d try. I never had any intention of actually asking you. I was trying to get her off your back, Joseph. She’s flying ho
me tomorrow.’ I could tell that Bennett had stopped listening to me. I could hear him cursing under his breath and occasionally more volubly.
‘My wife is going completely crazy here, thinking I’m having an affair with this ruddy woman and it’s all your fault, you imbecile,’ Bennett raged. ‘I’m going to call Bill Davis right now and suggest the three of us meet first thing tomorrow. I’ll see you there at seven thirty.’
‘What did he want?’ Natasha asked when I returned to the living room.
‘He wants me in early again tomorrow,’ I said. ‘There’s more trouble in LA.’
CITY OF LONDON
When I got into work the next morning, I made straight for Bennett’s office. He was a few minutes late, which was unusual for a man who considered having to go home to his wife and children an inconvenient interruption to his working day. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. I should have felt sorry for him, and guilty for what I’d done, but I couldn’t. As well as being an arrogant bully, the man was a wanton and careless philanderer. He’d had affairs with at least five women in the office in the last few years (several of them simultaneously), not to mention his innumerable liaisons with clients, barmaids and pretty young students so eager to make a good impression at graduate recruitment fairs. Come to think of it, our trip to New York might have been the only time he hadn’t slept with anyone while away on company business. If he was now being punished for a crime he hadn’t committed, perhaps that was just God’s way of evening things out.
He didn’t even grunt a cursory ‘Good morning’ as he brushed past me to turn on his computer. His mood wasn’t improved when he found another message from Olivia waiting for him. Taunting him.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject:
Evening, Mr Joseph A (as in Asshole) Bennett – or I guess it will be morning by the time you read this. Bet you’re already all tucked up with the little woman at your cosy little English home. Well, I waited for you all night. I even got us a bottle of champagne which I had to drink all alone so that tomorrow when I leave this shithole country of yours I’ll look like crap for the paps. But hey, that’s OK isn’t it? So long as we keep your picture out of the papers so the precious little woman doesn’t find out what her precious husband’s been up to.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, asshole – she will find out. If you keep treating me this way, she will find out, even if I have to go on Oprah and tell the whole fucking world.
Shit, English. I still don’t know if I love you or hate you. Why are you doing this to me?
O
‘I suppose you think I’ve asked for this, don’t you?’ Bennett said, turning away from his screen. He looked more unsettled – less Bennett-like than I had ever seen him, almost vulnerable. ‘What with all the bits and bobs I’ve got up to in my time.’ I shook my head vigorously as if this thought had never crossed my mind. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But I swear I never touched this woman. Never even spoke to her. So either she’s a nutcase or there’s something more sinister going on. I don’t think anyone in the studio would take the joke this far.’ His voice tailed off as he added, ‘And it stopped being funny some time ago.’
Shortly before eight o’clock, we were ushered, like a pair of naughty schoolboys, into Bill Davis’s office.
Bill was unusually brusque. ‘Listen chaps,’ he said without even going through the usual niceties of offering us a coffee, ‘I’ve spoken to HR about this …’
‘Oh, fuck!’ said Bennett, then immediately corrected his mistake – just as in the military, swearing in front of a senior officer was frowned upon at Askett Brown. ‘Sorry, Bill. But why did you have to get Human Bloody Remains involved?’
‘Well,’ said Davis, ‘it is their job. You two are human resources, after all. This whole business is clearly affecting your work and that could impact on our results and I’m not having that. So, let’s get it all sorted out and move on.’
‘But if HR get involved, it will go on my file and I’ll be marked for life,’ Bennett whined.
‘This isn’t about punishing you, Joseph,’ Bill replied. ‘I’m trying to help you – both of you. HR will sort you out a bit of training or something and it will all be cleared up in no time.’ He made it sound like a dose of the pox.
Bennett was not to be placated: ‘With respect, Bill, the only thing that needs sorting out round here is this fu— this flaming idiot. He told Madame Finch I’d go round and see her in her hotel room, for crying out loud!’
Davis turned to me. He looked exasperated and his normally T-square straight shoulders had sagged. ‘Is this true?’ he asked, his frustration pushing its way to the surface.
‘Yes—’ Bennett began, but Davis cut him off.
‘Mr West?’ he said in a tone that brooked no further argument from Bennett.
‘I was only trying to help,’ I said, after a long pause during which Bennett tried several times to fill the vacuum and was stopped by a glance or gesture from Bill. ‘She wanted to see Joseph again,’ I added, trying to piece together the same story I’d told Bennett. ‘She was very insistent, so I said I’d speak to him and see if he would pop round to see her.’ This was starting to make some sense to me but I wasn’t getting any buyers in the room.
‘And did you?’ Davis asked.
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Bennett.
‘Mr West!’ Davis demanded, turning his back on Bennett and fixing his gaze on me.
‘No. No, I didn’t,’ I replied, much more quietly than the others. ‘I knew that Joseph wouldn’t want to see her and I didn’t really want to tell him that I’d told her that I’d ask him if he would. I was just trying to buy us all some time. She’s heading back to LA today – she’s probably already up in the air. Perhaps the whole thing will blow over.’
‘And perhaps,’ Bennett cut in, ‘you’ll develop a brain sometime soon, you moron. She’s not going to let this go, is she? You saw that e-mail. The silly cow’s got it into her head that she’s in love with me and you’ve done nothing but encourage her. You know what I think, Bill? I think we should ring Guttenberg and tell him that his Ms Finch is a lunatic and that if he doesn’t get her to stop harassing me, we’ll turn this over to the police. And at the same time, you can tell him that you’ve fired this useless little turd.’
Bill pulled a face that suggested he’d rather spread fish paste on his genitals and mud-wrestle a hippopotamus than have that conversation with Buddy. He thought for a moment, took a sip at an empty cup of coffee, then reached for the silver thermos jug in the middle of the table to pour himself another. His brow was furrowed like Solomon the Wise attempting the Financial Times crossword.
When he spoke it was with surprising certainty. ‘This is what we’ll do,’ he said, his gaze steady and assured. ‘I will ring Mr Guttenberg to apologise to him and Miss Finch on behalf of Askett Brown and the two of you specifically for yesterday’s misunderstanding and any distress that might have been caused. I will also tell him that we have had one or two problems in the Entertainment and Media Division but that these are now being addressed. And I hope he’ll be persuaded by the sincerity of my apology because, gentlemen, times are hard and I don’t want to lose a good client because of some stupid cock-up like this. Is that clear?’
I nodded obediently. Bennett’s intimation of agreement was more difficult to discern.
‘So I will not be firing Joe here,’ Davis continued looking pointedly at Bennett, ‘or anybody else. Not for the time being at least. Now the pair of you get out of my ruddy sight and go and see HR. I’ll tell Dai Wainwright you’re on your way.’
Askett Brown’s entire HR department consisted of a sinister little man named Dai Wainwright, who bore the title of Director of Human Resources with great pomp and importance, his secretary, Irene, and a single four-drawer cabinet into which were stuffed the thin histories of every person who had ever graced the company’s payroll. From time to tim
e, Wainwright would be wheeled out to fire someone – a task he performed with great relish – before being filed away back behind the door of his seventeenth-floor office. He was known throughout the company as ‘Dai the Death’.
While the mere mention of the name ‘Dai Wainwright’ could reduce even the toughest of Askett Brown’s alpha males to jelly, physically he was not a prepossessing man. Standing little more than five foot four in his stockinged feet, he only managed to break the socially acceptable five foot six threshold by wearing lifts in his shoes, which meant he had to walk carefully, like a trainee stilts-walker, especially when going downstairs. But within this small package beat the heart of an aggressive little bastard who had built up what little physique he had into something rather impressive and intimidating. As a teenager he’d had a trial for the Welsh schoolboy rugby team, punching above his weight as a pugnacious scrum-half, a snippet of his personal history he liked to remind people about as regularly as possible. Nowadays, he gave vent to his aggression by ending the careers of arrogant, high-flying City boys whenever the opportunity arose, which was all too rarely for his liking.
Bennett was already outside Wainwright’s office when I arrived, pacing up and down like a disgruntled tiger, his face still contorted with rage. He wouldn’t look at me, let alone talk to me, as we waited. Occasionally, he would sigh or ‘tut’ loudly, to let off a bit of steam, but apart from that we sat in silence.
After several minutes, Wainwright appeared at the door, apologised insincerely for keeping us waiting and invited us into his office. His voice had a characteristic sing-song lilt, but the song was a dirge – Uncle Fester performing karaoke at an Addams Family funeral. ‘Coffee? Tea? Water?’ he asked, making each sound as if it came laced with strychnine. We both declined. I looked across at Bennett as we sat down, but he didn’t catch my eye. He was totally focused on Wainwright.
‘All right, Wainwright,’ said Bennett in a voice that to the Welshman must have shouted of centuries of English oppression, ‘we all know why we’re here, so let’s get on with it. You’ve already kept me waiting fifteen fucking minutes and I don’t intend to waste another second of my valuable time. So say your piece, write your report, and then let me and my fuckwitted friend get back to work. OK?’
