Paul’s initial response, motivated mostly by pride, was a show — and it was only a show — of scepticism. Unfortunately, it set the tone for the rest of the evening. ‘And why would I want to do that?’ he had asked, lighting a B&H. A moment later the pizzas arrived and he had to put it out. ‘Because,’ said Eddy, when the waiter had withdrawn with his pepper grinder, ‘Park Lane’s contracts are shit, they’re tired, they’re fucked. You know they are.’ Looking with undisguised disgust at the Margherita in front of him, Paul had said, ‘It’s a problem with the whole industry.’
‘That’s loser talk.’ And Eddy, who had ordered a Capricciosa with extra olives and anchovies, started to cut it up. Paul silently refilled his wine glass. It was loser talk. That was undeniable. ‘It’s not even true,’ Eddy had said, with his mouth full. ‘I told you — things are going fucking well at Delmar. We need new people, at every level. Experienced people. For fuck’s sake, Paul,’ he laughed, ‘I’m trying to help you. It wasn’t by chance I was round last Friday. I heard on the grapevine where you were — I was looking for you.’ Modestly, Paul drank some wine and toyed with his unlit cigarette. ‘What do you mean the grapevine?’ he asked.
‘The grapevine. Someone from the old days who’d spoken to someone. I was looking for you. When I heard where you were, I thought, Paul Rainey, there’s a man you want on your side.’ Perhaps feeling that this was flattery overplayed, Eddy had said, quickly, indicating Paul’s untouched pizza, ‘Are you going to eat that or what?’ Paul shook his head. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘So?’ Eddy said.
‘So …?’
‘Will you do it?’
They had only been talking about it for a few minutes, and it seemed premature to press him. Eddy, though, was always a loud, upfront salesman, succeeding through an unquestioning faith in the old tenets — the simple, time-tested precepts enshrined in Glengarry Glen Ross — of which there is no more perfect example than ABC. ‘A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always. Be. Closing. Always be closing.’ Which was what he was doing. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Paul said flirtatiously, fully expecting Eddy to high-pressure him, but Eddy just nodded, and said, ‘Okay,’ and kept eating. It was disappointing — Paul wanted to talk about it more, and, after pouring himself another glass of wine, he said vaguely, ‘So what have you got then? What contracts?’
Eddy’s pizza was almost gone. ‘You mean what contracts would you be working on?’ he said.
‘For instance.’
For a few moments he said nothing, then: ‘I can’t really say, mate. Not until you’re on board. You understand.’ He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, which he then tossed onto the table. Feeling rebuffed, Paul relit his B&H, and was relieved when Eddy, without further prompting, went on to say, ‘They’re fucking good contracts. People have seen what we can do.’ He smiled. ‘Nothing succeeds like success, Paul. We’ve got a whole lot of new contracts starting soon, and we’re staffing up for them. That’s why I’m talking to you. I’m talking to other people as well, obviously. We’ve got adverts in the national press.’ Eddy was looking around, perhaps for the waiter. He seemed in a hurry to leave suddenly. It was as if Paul had disappointed him — that, at least, was Paul’s impression — as if he had seen that Paul would be of no use to him. ‘Got the first interviews this week,’ he said. ‘It’s a fucking bore. What you working on these days?’ Paul told him, but he did not seem to be listening. He just said ‘Oh yeah?’ several times, nodding mechanically. When he had the waiter’s eye, he made a self-conscious scribbling motion in the air. ‘I’ll get this,’ he said, taking out his wallet.
In the tiny toilet, washing his hands in the one-litre sink, Paul inspected his mottled face in the mirror. He was starting to feel like he had fucked something up.
There was a ridiculous amount of money in Eddy’s wallet, and something about the way he rummaged through it defeated, without him having to say anything, Paul’s half-hearted attempt to stop him paying the whole bill. He simply ignored Paul’s mumbled words, put a big salmon fifty on the saucer and stood up, only then saying, ‘Shall we go?’ Outside on the pavement, he started to look for a taxi, and left it to Paul to mention the offer he had made him. ‘I’ll let you know about that then, Eddy,’ he said, as the cab pulled round in the road.
‘Yeah, do,’ Eddy said. ‘But soon, eh?’
‘By the end of the week?’
Eddy smiled, as if amused by something. ‘If that’s what you call soon,’ he said. ‘See you, Paul.’ He was already halfway into the cab when he turned and said, ‘Oh, do you want a lift somewhere?’
Standing at the bar of the Old King Lud, Paul jingles the heavy mass of shrapnel in his suit pocket. He feels dissatisfied with the whole evening. He wishes — he can hardly admit it even to himself — that he had made a more imposing impression on Eddy, more symmetrical with the impression that Eddy had made on him. ‘Fuck it,’ he thinks, his pride wounded by the very fact of wishing this. ‘He can stick his job up his arse.’ Then, immediately, ‘I’ll call him tomorrow, to show I’m serious about it.’ And thinking this, he is instantly uncomfortable — obscurely aware of his querulous conscience. He wonders how he would feel if Murray did to him what he is proposing to do to Murray. He imagines it — coming into work one morning, perhaps a Monday, to find that Murray and the team are simply not there. It soon becomes obvious, when there is no word from them, and they do not answer their phones, that they have left en masse. How would he feel? Something like that would have to have been planned — mass ‘defections’ (as they are known) do not just happen spontaneously. Probably for weeks they had all known about it — it would explain the knowing looks he had seen some of them exchanging on the sales floor; the embarrassed silence that had fallen that time he walked into the smoking room … And Murray, his friend — who had undoubtedly organised the whole thing — who else would? — had known about it for weeks, known about it every day as they sat together in the Penderel’s Oak, known how totally it would fuck him up, how utterly humiliating it would be … Paul finds himself becoming more and more angry just imagining this scenario, and in the face of the great pulse of righteous indignation and wounded rage welling up inside him, he has to remind himself that it is not actually true. It does, however, suggest Murray’s probable response.
Whatever his faults, Murray is supposedly his friend. If Paul does this to him, it would suggest — would it not? — that he, Paul, has a sadly hollowed-out sense of the meaning of the word. What, in fact, would its meaning be? He orders a pint of Foster’s. Should he really pass up this opportunity, though? Make such a sacrifice for Murray’s sake? What sacrifices has Murray ever made for him? He is still pondering this when he returns, with his new pint, to the table. The only significant thing he can think of is an occasion, years earlier — they were at Northwood at the time — when he stepped in front of a car, and Murray, instead of going on to the Sports Bar with the others, had accompanied him to A&E, and waited with him there until his head had been X-rayed, and then put him in a taxi home. He may even have paid for the taxi — Paul does not remember — but whether he did or not, his actions that night were surely only what was to be expected. They did not constitute extraordinary kindness, Christlike love, extreme Samaritanism, only a minimum standard of friendship — decency, even — standards by which Murray, it has to be said, quite often fell short. Nevertheless Paul had been touched by what Murray did that night. (Though he has never told him this, has perhaps never even thanked him.) It had, after all, been Murray and not Eddy or the Pig — any of them could have done it — who had travelled with him in the sickly greenish light of the ambulance. Paul does not remember why it was Murray. He only remembers lying on the black, abrasive tarmac, aware of his head having been knocked against it with terrible force, fear leeching through the haze of alcohol, and Murray’s voice telling him not to move, and saying that he was going to be okay.