The Code

by Nick Thripp

  When I got home, I wrote Mrs Beart a letter. It sounded dreadful, so I tore it up and wrote another, then another. I determined to wait until the next day. I tried one more time that Monday. The wording was still trite and sentimental, and I screwed it up and threw it away in frustration.

  The longer I procrastinated, the more difficult the letter became to write until, finally, after half a bottle of scotch I scrawled something full of maudlin platitudes, stuffed it into an envelope and left it by the flat’s front door so I wouldn’t forget to post it.

  The next morning, beset by waves of nausea, I decided to tear it up.

  It was gone.

  That evening Richard told me he’d posted it along with some of his own.

  ‘God, Richard, I wish you hadn’t.’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘Thought I was doing you a favour. Who’s Mrs Bart anyway?’”

  ‘Woman I used to garden for. She wanted my advice, and now I’ve given her some duff info.’ Richard knew little of my life in Feston and nothing about Mrs Beart, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  He looked at me closely. ‘Everybody makes mistakes. Just pop another one in the post correcting what you’ve told her. I doubt she’ll dig up the delphiniums before your second letter arrives.’

  Phrases in the letter continued to haunt me for the next few days, and I prayed to a deity I no longer believed in to turn the mawkish drivel I’d written into something eloquent and noble.

  The longer I didn’t hear from Mrs Beart, the more convinced I was that I’d offended her or made myself appear ridiculous or, more likely, both.

  Despite my mother’s repeated invitations, I decided to keep away from Feston. I couldn’t summon up the courage to visit Mrs Beart, and I’d no wish to see my parents. However, Mrs Beart continued to infiltrate my thoughts, often at the most inconvenient times.

  My resolve was weakening when, one night, in a routine telephone conversation with my mother, she mentioned, in a scandalised voice, how Mrs Beart had taken up with a boy half her age. My father had seen them walking hand in hand along the Feston sea front. I asked who it was but all she could tell me was he had ginger hair.

  I cursed myself. That could have been me, if only….

  My heart filled with a mixture of self-loathing and jealous anger and I vowed never to see or speak to her again.

  Chapter 8

  Reunion with John Beart, 1976

  The noise of the telephone made me start. I opened my eyes and looked around. I’d been pretending to scrutinise a complex document for half an hour. It had been a good party the previous evening, although I’d drunk too much for a Tuesday and was paying the price.

  ‘All arranged.’ It was Neil’s clipped tones.

  ‘What’s arranged?’ His affected manner of speaking was beginning to irritate me.

  ‘The meeting with John tonight.’

  ‘John?’

  ‘Don’t piss around, mate,’ Neil said. ‘You agreed to meet him today. We talked about it in the wine bar. I’ll be round yours about seven and we’ll go together.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Langhorne’s.’

  I inhaled sharply. ‘Bit pricey, isn’t it?’ At my last meeting with my bank manager, the ugly topic of my overdraft had spoiled what otherwise would have been a reasonable cup of machine-vended coffee. ‘Can’t we go somewhere cheaper?’

  ‘Don’t worry, old son. He said he’d pick up the tab.’

  Neil arrived at my flat that evening in his gold Ford Capri, accompanied by Samantha, swathed in a skin-tight bottle-green dress, cut low to expose her deep cleavage. I squeezed into the small back seat, and we set off for the West End, cutting back and forth between lanes and pushing in front of more cautious drivers. Neil’s most daring manoeuvres were accompanied by a cacophony of car horns and expletives hurled in our direction through open car windows. Samantha, seemingly oblivious to the commotion, chatted away with Neil while I sank down into my seat, trying to ignore the imprecations and threats. We arrived at Langhorne’s exactly on time and as we were getting out of our car, a red Ferrari Dino Coupe pulled up alongside and a head I didn’t recognise poked out of its window.

  ‘Hi Neil! Good timing! Let me get parked, and we can go in together.’

  John’s once chubby cheeks were now firm and peppered with blue-black stubble and his light brown hair had darkened. He approached, his movements sinuous and supple, and I realised he was now a good few inches taller than me.

  He looked at me briefly as we shook hands.

  ‘Long time no see.’ He loosened his grip, then took hold of Samantha’s hand, standing very close to her and fixing her with his eyes, which were the same shade of violet as his mother’s. His handshake with Samantha lasted a moment or two longer than necessary. Neil beamed, apparently pleased his girlfriend was making such a good impression.

  John ushered us into the restaurant and indicated, with a wave of the hand, where each of us should sit. I had the unnerving feeling of being with someone more mature and decidedly more urbane than I was.

  The waiter came over and John ordered a double Southern Comfort on the rocks. I only ever drank the cheapest whisky, but I was intent on not appearing unsophisticated. I recalled my mother drinking gin and Dubonnet one Christmas and being considered very daring by her sisters, so without knowing what it tasted like, I ordered one.

  John’s limpid eyes fixed mine. ‘I thought only Parisian tarts drank that,’ he said with no hint of a smile.

  Feeling myself start to blush, I recovered sufficiently to say, ‘That’s where I picked up the habit,’ in a way I hoped would sound very worldly.

  ‘My favourite city, Paris,’ John said. ‘Especially the George the Fifth. Such Art Deco luxury. I often take a suite there.’

  Was he bullshitting? His expression gave nothing away. I silently cursed him, and my ignorance of Paris, hoping he’d say something more obviously gauche so I could put him in his place.

  The three of us pored over our menus. John left his unopened while he sipped his drink and gazed around at the diners at other tables, nodding at a few he recognised.

  I was sure I could discern the trace of a smug smile playing around the corners of his mouth and guessed he was setting himself up to appear a regular there. I decided to say nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you eating, John?’ Neil enquired, confirming my view that he was an innocent.

  ‘I’ll have my usual,’ John replied in a self-satisfied tone.

  I asked him what he’d been doing since school, and he told me he was in property development.

  ‘Didn’t you fancy university?’ Neil asked.

  ‘University is for mugs,’ John replied. ‘Why waste three years hanging out with half-stoned layabouts when you could be making your fortune?’

  ‘There are stacks of parties at university, man, and loads of birds,’ Neil said. The idiot must have forgotten for a moment he was with Samantha.

  John peered at him.

  ‘There are much better parties and more attractive women when you live in a penthouse and drive a Ferrari, believe me.’

  I glanced at Samantha to see how she would respond. She looked down at her menu and said nothing.

  While Neil and Samantha were debating whether to share the Chateaubriand, John leant across the table and, in a low voice said, ‘I hear you saw my mother recently.’

  I felt the colour rise to my cheeks again, and my neck glowed with heat. What had she said to him?

  ‘Yes, I did drop in on her,’ I mumbled, trying to avoid his eye.

  ‘She’s had a very rough time, you know. Still she’s coming through it all right. That bastard Smallwood won’t be giving her any more grief.’

  ‘Smallwood? Didn’t he help you start out in—?’

  ‘I hated him pushing her around, shouting a
t her, threatening her. Sometimes, he’d get really nasty and hit her.’

  ‘Sounds horrible…’

  ‘He won’t have much of a business left now the tax people are onto his tricks.’ John’s face puckered. ‘Could well face a spell inside.’

  He took a sip of his drink.

  ‘They raided him last week. Apparently,’ he paused to emphasis the word, ‘they received a tip-off a couple of weeks earlier.’

  ‘A tip-off?’ At times like these my mind seemed to take an eternity to get into gear. ‘Who…?’

  He smirked and I felt very stupid.

  ‘Been planning it for a long time.’ He looked down at his fingers, which he stretched out and then flexed. ‘Then when he dumped her it was time to stitch him up.’

  He slammed his palm on the table making everything shake.

  ‘By the time I’ve finished, they’ll throw away the key.’

  He leant even closer to me, his sleeve brushing my bread roll, his slightly sour breath hot on my cheek.

  ‘No one messes with my mother and gets away with it.’

  Though he sounded like a hammy actor in a second-rate film, the intensity of his stare unsettled me.

  ‘Quite so,’ I said, sitting upright to increase the distance between us. ‘She’s a fine woman.’ An image of Mrs Beart, looking wistful, conjured itself up in my mind. Why hadn’t I sought her forgiveness for that dreadful letter? I cursed myself for my cowardice. Or had my incompetence as a lover put her off? Perhaps she thought me ridiculous and was ashamed of what we’d done. Every time I thought of her, my mind went inconclusively and exhaustingly round in the same circles.

  He leant back.

  ‘Yes, she is. I owe absolutely everything to her. She taught me to stand up for myself. Once, when I was little, some bigger boys threw seaweed at me and made me cry. She told me get my own back.’

  ‘And did you?’

  A faraway look came into in his eye.

  ‘One of them broke a tooth. The seaweed I threw had a stone tangled up in it. His father came over to complain and she told him he should teach his son not to start fights, and certainly not to whinge if he lost.’

  The food arrived. My steak was smaller than I expected, and rarer. I didn’t like these fashionable restaurants with their minute portions and their artistic arrangements. A rump steak should fill half the plate and be cooked through, not served still dripping with blood.

  John steered the conversation around to business. He had it in mind to make a bid for a distribution company with depots in several towns and a head office in Wigan. He wanted me to look over the books and give him my assessment. I was in the process of finding excuses when he mentioned what he’d pay. I hesitated. I’d be able to clear my overdraft, buy a decent second-hand car and still have something to spare.

  ‘How quickly would you want my report?’

  ‘End of next week, latest.’

  I thought of the parties I’d miss and the inevitable nights of hard work studying figures, an activity I disliked at the best of times. And worse still, I’d be working for him. The money, though, would solve so many problems.

  ‘Well? Will you do it?’

  Neil and Samantha stopped talking. All eyes were on me.

  ‘All right,’ I said, consoling myself that the deprivation wouldn’t last long.

  ‘Excellent!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Welcome aboard.’

  Aboard what? I thought. I’m only doing a one-off job.

  We agreed to meet at his office, and he gave me an address near St James’s. I was intrigued by the opportunity to see evidence of his business empire, though I still harboured doubts as to whether he was a fantasist, and his wealth an illusion, or perhaps just an elaborate confidence trick.

  I became conscious of Neil and Samantha watching us. Neil cleared his throat and raised his glass. ‘A toast to your new accountant!’

  I fingered the stem of mine for a moment. The others raised their glasses and I had no choice but to join in. John smiled broadly.

  ‘Who would have thought we’d all be here together, after all these years?’ he said.

  Who indeed? I’d never been able to stomach him at school, and the prospect of working for him now filled me with foreboding.

  Over coffee, Neil thanked John for his support for his own fledgling business, and the pair of them became engrossed in discussing the state of the advertising market.

  I glanced at Samantha, who was staring intently at John, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ I said.

  ‘They’re not worth a penny.’

  Neil and John were plunging ever more deeply into the strengths and weaknesses of Neil’s business model, the size of his potential customer base and the level of investment he’d need.

  ‘What do you like to do in your spare time?’ I asked Samantha.

  ‘I like to go dancing.’ She paused. ‘And I do The Times crossword.’

  ‘How long does it take you? Ten, fifteen minutes?’ I’d never managed to solve more than two or three clues, and I thought she’d pick up from my tone that I’d realised she was joking.

  ‘Often over an hour, though I get there in the end. Besides, there’s not much to do in the office. Some days we don’t get any post and the phone doesn’t ring at all.’

  She looked at Neil as though for confirmation. He was too busy explaining his gross margin forecast to notice.

  ‘My dad used to let me help him with the one in The Daily Telegraph. Then I really got into them at university; I did an English degree, so I had plenty of time on my hands.’

  ‘You went to university? Why the hell are you working with Neil? You could be on a graduate trainee scheme somewhere, ICI, Unilever, anywhere.’

  ‘Filling in. Still haven’t decided what I want to do, and Neil’s newspaper is better than clerical work in some stuffy office.’

  The conversation between Neil and John was tailing off. Neil’s face was flushed, I didn’t know whether from wine or from the passion of his sales pitch. John’s was serene. He signalled for the bill. When it arrived, he left it lying on the table. Initially I suspected he wanted us to see how much it was. As it lay there, and the minutes passed, I was seized by anxiety that Neil had got it wrong, and John wasn’t going to pay. Then John, barely glancing at the bill, threw a wad of notes onto the plate. You flash bugger, I thought. If it had been me, I would have checked every item.

  ‘I trust you enjoyed the dinner.’ He sat back in his chair.

  ‘Delicious, thank you so much. Evening to remember. Fantastic restaurant,’ Neil said. I smiled inwardly. He must really want John’s help very badly.

  ‘I adore this place,’ Samantha said. ‘And the company was great.’

  John turned towards me. I paused, searching for the right words. Neil might feel the need to smarm up to him. I didn’t.

  ‘Very pleasant, thanks,’ I drawled. ‘Not sure it will tempt me away from my local Berni though.’

  ‘I look forward to doing it again.’ John’s voice was almost a purr. ‘It’s been delightful meeting up with you two again.’ He nodded at Neil and Samantha, then said to me more briskly, ‘And a great pleasure seeing you again after all these years.’

  The drive home would have been even scarier than the one there had I not been anaesthetised by large quantities of red wine. As it was, I lolled back in my seat, happily oblivious to the world land speed record that Neil was trying to set round Hyde Park Corner.

  *

  Analysing the business was easier than I’d expected. We had an audit client in the same field who was also struggling, and I was familiar with the market and the deficiencies in the business model they both used. It didn’t take long to realise it was on the point of collapse and, if left to its own devices, would soon be dismembered by its rivals.
The price being asked was disproportionately high, and I could find no redeeming features to counterbalance the many obvious negatives. As I didn’t know anyone who could type proficiently, I wrote my report out in longhand, and looked forward to collecting my reward, which I’d been assured would be paid in untraceable cash.

  *

  A few days later I arrived at the address John had given me and was relieved to find that instead of being some luxuriously appointed modern office, it was only a few rooms squeezed uncomfortably into half the top floor of a dilapidated building in a neglected cul-de-sac. The ancient lift looked and sounded as though it could collapse at any stage as it wheezed its way slowly upwards.

  When the door opened, I was met by a woman dressed in a navy suit and with her hair swept up into a neat bun.

  ‘Samantha! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I work for John now. It’s nice to see you again.’ She gave me a highly-scented peck on the cheek, before leading me along a narrow corridor and into a small office with a view of the brick wall opposite.

  ‘John will be with you in a minute. Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘White, no sugar,’ I replied. ‘How’s Neil?’

  ‘Neil? I think he’s all right.’ She bestowed a crooked smile on me, and my eyes fixed for a moment on that chipped front tooth. It contrasted with her sober attire and, if anything, the combination made her appear even more attractive. ‘We’re not together anymore.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’ I wondered how soon it would be decent to ask her out. ‘I must give him a ring.’