Todd gestured for Bruce to sit down while he read the survey.
Then, looking up at his employee, he asked him quietly: “You inspected the roof, did you?”
“Yes,” said Bruce. “Nothing wrong there.”
“Are you sure?” asked Todd, fingering the edge of the folder.
“Did you get up into the roof space?”
Bruce hesitated, but only for a moment. There was nothing wrong with that roof and it would have made no difference had he been able to squeeze through the partly-blocked trapdoor. “I went up,” he said. “Everything was fine.”
Todd raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “It wasn’t when I went up last week. I looked at it for another client, you see. He Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
23
lost interest in offering before I wrote a report, and so I thought a fresh survey appropriate. Had you really gone up, you might have seen the fulminating rot and also noticed the very dicey state of one of the chimney stacks. But . . .”
Bruce said nothing. He was looking at his shoes.
8. Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
The silence lasted for several minutes. Todd stared at Bruce across his desk. I trained this young man, he thought; I am partly responsible for this. I had my reservations, of course, but they were about other things, about more general failings, and all the time I was missing the obvious: he’s untruthful.
Bruce found it difficult to meet his employer’s gaze. I tell far fewer lies than most people, he thought. I really do. Everybody
– everybody – has cut the occasional corner. It’s not as if I had made a report in bad faith. That roof looked fine to me, and I did open that trapdoor and look inside. Fulminating rot? Surely I would have smelled it.
Todd drew in his breath. He was still staring at Bruce accusingly, a gaze which was unreturned.
“If surveyors lie,” said Todd, “then whom can we believe?”
Bruce said nothing, but shook his head slightly. Self-reproach?
“You see,” said Todd, “when a client approaches a professional person, he puts his trust in him or her. He doesn’t expect to be misled. Hmm?”
Bruce looked up briefly. “No,” he said. “You’re right, Todd.”
“We rely on our reputation,” went on Todd. “If we lose that
– and you can lose that very quickly, let me tell you – then we have nothing. Years and years of hard work by my brother and, if I may say so, by me, go out of the window just because somebody is found to be misleading a client. I’ve seen it happen.
“And there are much broader considerations,” he went on.
“All of our life is based on acts of trust. We trust other people 24
Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
to do what they say they’re going to do. When we get on an aeroplane we trust the airline to have maintained its aircraft. We trust the pilot, who has our lives in his hands. We trust other people, you see, Bruce. We trust them. And that’s why what you’ve done is so dreadful. It really is. It’s unforgivable. Yes, sorry, but that’s the word. Unforgivable.”
It was at this point that Bruce realised that he was about to lose his job. Up to now, it had been one of the little lectures that Todd occasionally gave his staff; now it was something different.
He looked at his employer, meeting his gaze, hoping to read his intentions.
Todd’s face registered not anger, but disappointment. This confirmed Bruce’s fears. I’m unemployed, he said to himself. As of five minutes from now, I’m an unemployed (and unemploy-able, he suddenly realised) surveyor.
“So when you went into that building at No 87 Eton Terrace, you were doing so on trust. You were . . .”
Bruce sat up straight. “Number 78.”
Todd paused. “Number . . .” He looked at the file in front of him. “Number . . .”
Bruce closed his eyes with relief. Yes, there had been a flat for sale at No 87. He remembered somebody saying something about it over coffee. Todd had confused the two.
Todd had now extracted a diary from a drawer and was checking a note. He closed the book, almost reluctantly, and looked up at Bruce.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This is my mistake. I’m very sorry. I was mixing up two properties. You see . . .”
Bruce shook his head. “You don’t need to apologise, Todd,”
he said. “We all make mistakes. All of us. You really don’t need to apologise to me.” He paused, before continuing. “The important thing is to remember that, and to own up to one’s mistakes when one makes them. That’s the really important thing. To tell the truth. To tell the truth about one’s mistakes.”
Todd rose to his feet. “Well,” he said. “We can put that behind us. There’s work to be done.”
“Of course,” said Bruce. “But I was wondering whether I Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
25
could possibly have the afternoon off. I’m pretty much up to date and . . .”
“Of course,” said Todd. “Of course.”
Bruce smiled at his employer and rose to leave.
“A moment,” said Todd, reaching for the file. “Was there an old or a new tank in the roof space? Some of those places still have the lead tanks.”
Bruce again hesitated, but only for an instant. “It was fine,”
he said. “New tank.”
Todd nodded. “Good,” he said.
Bruce left the room. He was trying to trap me, he thought.
One would have imagined that he had learned his lesson, but he was still trying to trap me. As if I would lie, as if. He felt angry with Todd now. What a hypocrite! Sitting there lecturing me about lies when he comes from a whole world of lies and hypocrisy.
What hypocrites! Masonic lodges! Golf clubs! – even though he’s not a member of the golf club he really wants to be a member of, thought Bruce, with a certain degree of satisfaction.
9. SP
Pat was hardly surprised when Matthew announced that he was going to take a coffee break. She had been sitting in her cramped office at the back of the gallery, retyping the now somewhat grubby list of paintings which Matthew had handed her. Matthew had been reading the newspaper at his desk in the front, glancing at his watch from time and time and sighing. It was obvious to Pat that he was bored. There was nothing for him to do in the gallery and his mind was not on the newspaper.
Shortly before half-past ten, Matthew folded up his newspaper, rose to his feet and announced to Pat that he was going out.
“I go to that place on the other side of the road,” he said.
“The Morning After, it’s called. Not a very good name, if you ask me, but that’s what it’s called. Everyone calls it Big Lou’s. If you need me, you can give me a call.”
“When will you be back?” asked Pat.
Matthew shrugged. “Depends,” he said. “An hour or so. Maybe more. It all depends.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Pat. “Take your time.”
Matthew gave her a sideways glance. “It is my time,” he muttered. “It goes with being your own boss.”
Pat smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I just wanted you to know that I think I’ll be all right.”
“Of course, you will,” said Matthew. “I can tell you’re going to be a great success. I can tell these things.” He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Smart girl.”
Pat said nothing. She was used to condescension from a certain sort of man, and although she did not like it, it was better than what she had experienced on her gap year – her first gap year.
Alone in the gallery, Pat seated herself at Matthew’s desk and looked out onto the street. She watched Matthew cross the road and disappear into The Morning After. She would make herself a cup of coffee in a few minutes, she thought. She rationed herself to three cups a day, and eagerly looked forward to the first cup of the morning.