And he could almost recognise his own words when Robert Benham murmured to him, in his flat Midland voice, ‘Never had a bigger surprise in my life, Graham. I was convinced you were going to get the job. Hope management know what they’re playing at.’
What was more, he could recognise how insincere the words were. Of course Robert Benham hadn’t been surprised. The appointment had merely confirmed his own opinion of himself.
Just as it would have confirmed Graham’s self-image. . had he got it.
Had he got it. He was still having difficulty in assimilating the idea of failure. He had lived so long with the conviction of taking over from George that it would take some time to dismantle the superstructure of consequences that had been built on to that fantasy.
But at the same time he knew how total the failure was. Forty-one was young for someone to become Head of Department; it was much older for someone to fail to become Head of Department. The stigma would stay. For the first time, Graham realised how his concentration on the one particular job had disqualified him from others. The shrewd thing would have been to have spent the last ten years moving around, going to other departments, even other companies.
As Robert Benham had.
What had Robert Benham got that he hadn’t? Nothing, Graham decided, just the same qualities in greater concentration.
And youth. And no wife and children and massive mortgage to slow him down.
Background?
Not as good as Graham’s. State education, primary and comprehensive. Out of school at sixteen and into a job. Then, in his early twenties an external degree, and subsequently business school. No public-school gloss.
The rules had certainly change. Once again, Graham felt contempt for his father’s memory. ‘Public school and university, they’re the keys to the system — got to have those if you’re going to get anywhere, Graham.’
Untrue. A deception. All the miserable years of penny-pinching in Mitcham had been unnecessary. Like his car maintenance, like his savings policy, Eric Marshall’s plan of education had been simply incompetent.
‘Fact is, I’ll be making some changes when I take over,’ Robert Benham confided, after George had nipped out to the Gents for the second time in an hour’s drinking. Really, the old man seemed to be falling apart.
‘For a start, Graham, I’m going to see that everyone works a lot harder. Hell of a lot of slackness has crept into the Department while George has been in charge.’
He hastened to qualify this. ‘Not you, of course, Graham. Always had great respect for your application and sheer bloody graft.’
Patronising, almost like a school report. Makes the most of his limited abilities. Again, Graham knew he had said the same to candidates he had beaten in previous contests.
‘But what I want to do is get a new attitude going, really shake people up a bit. Stop them thinking they’re on to a cushy number and can just wind down to retirement. Get some concept of productivity into the Department.’
‘Yes. Sure,’ Graham agreed enthusiastically. Just as enthusiastically as he had endorsed George’s plans in the past.
Robert reached into his pocket for a box of small cigars and proffered them. Graham refused. Robert took one and replaced the box. Instinctively Graham found the gold lighter in his hand, cocked and ready. God, so quickly he was slipping into a subservient role to his new boss. He hated himself for it.
‘Won’t necessarily be popular, what I’m suggesting, Graham, so I’m going to need a lot of support. And advice. Lots of areas of the company I know nothing about, so I’m going to be relying on your experience, consulting you a lot.’ A pause. ‘If I may, Graham.’
So ingenuous. So magnanimous. So humble.
Just as he would have been, if he had got the job.
‘Of course,’ said Graham. ‘Anything I can do to help, Robert.’
The drinking session went on for a long time and it was half past eleven when Graham lurched off the Tube at Hammersmith.
He was, he realised, very drunk. Fiercely he clutched his umbrella’s ridged handle. His briefcase had been left in the office. Graham had been intending to take some work home that evening, but it was too late for that. Anyway, what was the point of doing extra work now he wasn’t going to become Head of Department?
What was the point of anything?
The injustice of Robert Benham’s appointment rose like vomit in his throat as he went through the barrier, with a reflex flick of his season to the ticket-collector.
There were few people about. It was chilly. Rain fell outside the station. He crossed automatically to the subway that led to Hammersmith Bridge and Boileau Avenue.
Rain had trickled down the steps, forming wide puddles, which he sidestepped with the rigid concentration of the very drunk.
The old man was slumped against the tiled wall at the foot of the steps leading up to the pavement.
Graham Marshall hardly noticed the shapeless figure. There were often down-and-outs in the subway. His own thoughts were too turbulent for him to be aware of anything else.
As Graham drew alongside, the old man straightened up.
‘Spare us a quid, guv.’
Graham caught a sour whiff of stained clothes on unwashed flesh as he continued on his way up the steps. He felt the rain as he emerged, but did not put up his umbrella. The handle remained clenched rigidly in his hand.
He was some way along Hammersmith Bridge Road before he realised the old man was following him. There was a peculiar slap-slap of feet in ill-fitting shoes on the wet pavement.
Graham lengthened his stride. Headlights of the occasional car crossing the bridge laid ribbons of white on the shining black road. Traffic hummed and swished on the flyover above, eliminating the slapping sound of the feet.
‘Hey! Guv!’
He strode on, unaware of the rain or his legs automatically tracing their daily route home. In spite of its fierce tension, his body felt weak and out of control.
He was past the pub and on to the bridge before he realised that the old man was still following.
‘Guv!’
The closeness of the voice was a shock and he gave an involuntary half-turn before striding on. He had an impression of a fuzzed outline of rags.
Next there was an arm on his sleeve. Graham swung round in fury. The lights of Hammersmith were behind the old man. He was still just an outline and a smell. Nothing.
Graham felt huge, unfocused by the alcohol, a cartoonlike bulk looming over the stooped figure.
‘Guv, can you spare us a quid? Please. I made a mess of my life. But I only have to look at you to see you’re a success.’
Had he chosen any other word, the old man would have lived.
But suddenly he was everyone who had ever deceived Graham Marshall. He was Eric Marshall, he was George Brewer, he was Robert Benham. He was provocation beyond human endurance. And he had to be obliterated, removed from the face of the earth.
All the fury of Graham’s disappointment, of his forty-one wasted years, went into the blow, as the ridged umbrella handle smashed down on the faceless head.
With no sound but a little glug like a cork coming out of a bottle, the old man crumpled to the ground.
Graham looked round. There was no one on the bridge and, for the moment, there were no cars.
He looked at the umbrella handle, fearing the viscous gleam of blood. But the overhead lights caught only on the ridges of polished wood. It was unmarked.
Instinctively, Graham bent down and, without feeling the body’s weight, picked it up and tipped it over the parapet of the bridge.
He was walking again before the small splash sounded.
He was inside the house before the realisation of what had happened hit him.