‘It’s a big challenge, David,’ he said grittily, ‘but it’s one that I’d welcome, and one that I feel confident I can cope with.’
‘Good man.’ The Managing Director turned, came towards him and shook his hand. ‘I’m relying on your discretion. All got to be hush-hush at the moment. Certain amount of bumf has to be passed around before we can make any official announcements. So keep it under your hat, eh? Don’t tell anyone, even at home. .’
David Birdham realised what he had said and coloured. For the first time in Graham’s memory, the man looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. Insensitive. I mean. . Well, all I hope is that your taking over the job will be some — of course inadequate — compensation to you after your wife’s death.’
Graham made his smile of response properly reflective, the smile of a man who has just been reminded of his greatest sadness rather than one of his greatest triumphs.
George Brewer’s previous farewell celebrations had been local, carving up little sectors of different departments, but the one which started at six o’clock in the eighth-floor conference room on his final Friday of employment included everyone.
Its guest of honour seemed subdued, if not downright depressed. Whereas the previous crowds had lifted him to a feverish jollity, on this occasion the reality of his departure seemed to crush his spirit. He no longer had merry quips of golf and gardening to answer the enquiries about how he would spend his retirement; he replied, ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know how I’m going to fill the time.’ He no longer even pretended to crow at the prospect of increased leisure and his index-linked pension, but listened wistfully as his colleagues inadvertently excluded him by their talk of future plans. He looked like a man on the edge of a dark precipice, afraid and ignorant of how far he had to fall.
His assistant, by contrast, was in ebulliently cheerful mood. He chatted lightly with his older colleagues and his new friends from Operational Research. He had whispered, complicit conversations with members of senior management. He flirted harmlessly with secretaries under the benign eye of Miss Pridmore. And every now and then, when someone mentioned his late wife, he looked appropriately grave.
He saw Stella from time to time. She tried to pierce his bonhomie with meaningful looks, but achieved no deeper conversational engagement than the other girls. At one point she actually took his arm and hissed, ‘When are we going to see each other again, Graham?’
‘Soon, soon,’ he replied airily, and whisked away to share a joke with Terry Sworder.
Eventually, after a great deal of drinking, a glass was tapped for silence and David Birdham gave a brief, professional encomium on George Brewer. He started with an ancient, mildly risque anecdote of George and a long-vanished secretary at a conference in Manchester, which achieved the required raucous laugh, then moved on to list the Head of Department’s qualities of good humour, patience and common sense, and to say how much they would be missed. He made a brief reference to ‘the cloud cast by recent events’ and assured ‘George’s successor, whoever he might be’ that he’d have a tough job in maintaining the high standards of his predecessor. David Birdham did not mention his personal view that George was ‘losing his marbles’ and had been ‘a brake on progress for years’. In conclusion, he asked everyone to raise their glasses to George Brewer, as Miss Pridmore wheeled in the gift to which they had all so generously contributed — a new golf trolley.
After the applause had died down, George made a broken-backed little speech of thanks. Perhaps he was drunk, perhaps it was emotion, but he kept losing his thread. He mistimed his jokes, stuttered his gratitude, and kept reaching the same impasse when he mentioned what he would do in the future. Eventually he was left just looking at the golf trolley, which, like the previous gift of Newton’s Balls for his desk, now seemed only to advertise the emptiness of his life.
As the speech spiralled down to silence, David Birdham took the executive decision of shouting ‘Jolly good show, George’, and leading a round of applause.
After that the assembly dispersed rather quickly. Groups of the younger ones adjourned to pubs, the board members went down to their drivers, and members of the Personnel Department queued for final handshakes and farewell quips. One little group of hard-core drinkers, which Graham noticed included Stella, stayed resolutely and rowdily together, while the uniformed waitresses circled, collecting plates and glasses and putting away the remaining wine bottles.
‘I think I’d better go,’ said George abruptly in the middle of a long-winded effusion from the internal postman, and moved unsteadily but quickly over to the anteroom where the coats had been dumped.
Goodbye, George, thought Graham. Last I’ll ever see of you, you boring old fool.
Then he saw the gleaming golf trolley, abandoned and forlorn. Oh, God, last thing he wanted when he took over the reins on Monday was George stumbling in to collect his present.
With a cheery cry of ‘Forgetful to the last’ tossed towards the group of drinkers, Graham pushed the trolley after its owner.
He stopped in the doorway. George was fumbling on the floor. The volume of coats had pulled down a hat stand and he couldn’t identify his ‘British Warm’.
‘I’ve got something of yours, George,’ Graham pronounced jovially.
The fuddled, sad eyes looked up at him. Then George rose and put a hand in his pocket. ‘I’ve got something of yours, too, Graham.’
He withdrew the hand. On his palm lay Graham’s gold cigarette lighter.
‘Thank you. I noticed I’d lost it somewhere. Never thought I’d see it again. Did I leave it in your office?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Where did you find it then?’
‘That’s the strange thing,’ said George Brewer slowly. ‘It came in the post this morning. Addressed to me. From some car-hire firm. Apparently they’d found it in one of their cars.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Graham went down by the stairs. He waited in the shadows of the Reception area until the lift arrived. The doors opened and George stumbled out, suddenly shorter and more bent, pulling his golf trolley incongruously behind him.
Only one door was left open at that time of night and George had difficulty negotiating the trolley through it. Going down the steps to the pavement was also awkward. Graham did not emerge from the building until his quarry was moving along smoothly.
He had to find out how much George knew, or how much he had pieced together. In his fuddled state, the old man had not elaborated, simply handed the lighter over, apparently more struck by the unusual circumstances of its return than suspicions as to how it might have got into a hire-car. But he wouldn’t stay drunk for ever, and there had to come a moment when he started to ask questions. Graham knew he must speak before that moment arrived, must pre-empt suspicion by some spurious explanation. He didn’t know what it was yet, but he felt confident he’d think of something.
In the meantime he would follow his former boss and choose his moment to speak.
George Brewer moved automatically. His footsteps had trodden the same route every day for over thirty years and no amount of bitter reflection would allow them to deviate. He forgot about his farcical appendage, the golf trolley, until he came to the steps down to Oxford Circus Underground Station.
The almost expired season ticket was flashed at a collector deep in his newspaper and then George had to balance his trophy, his reward for all those years of service, on the unfolding escalator. That task, and the darkness of his thoughts, made him oblivious of his colleague at the ticket machine.
Graham was annoyed. He shouldn’t have dawdled playing the private detective. He should have confronted George before, explained about the lighter, settled the business. Now he had to go through the rigmarole of going down on to the platform and accosting the old man there.