The first person he lets into the secret is Nayal, phoning him from the train home. ‘Hey! Nayal!’ he says. ‘It’s Paul.’
Politely, Nayal tries not to sound too surprised. ‘Paul. Hello.’
‘How’s it going, mate?’
‘Um. Fine.’
Paul says he wants to talk to him about something, and suggests they meet for a coffee, somewhere not too near the office. They meet the next morning in an Italian café on Museum Street.
It is, for both of them, a strange situation. Nayal — smart, fortyish, with a neat moustache — never mixes with other members of the team out of work, and away from the safe, familiar environment of the sales floor he and Paul are strangers. He notices how different Paul is — how solicitous, how serious — and thinks, ‘What does he want from me?’ smiling mildly and stirring his coffee. When he has lit a cigarette (having first asked Nayal whether he minds), Paul comes to the point. He prefaces it with, ‘This is between you and me, mate.’ And Nayal nods. He is, Paul knows, nothing if not discreet. ‘I’m going to be leaving PLP,’ he says. Nayal pulls a surprised face. ‘I’ve been offered a job somewhere else. Somewhere quite a lot better actually.’
‘Well,’ Nayal says. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Yeah. And I’m hoping you’ll come with me. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’ When Nayal hesitates, Paul says, ‘I’m not asking everybody. Just the best people.’ First smiling to acknowledge the flattery, Nayal says, ‘The thing is, Paul, I’m planning to leave PLP too.’
‘Oh.’
‘So …’
Though he knows that it is unfair, and tries, unsuccessfully, not to let it show, Paul finds he feels extremely let down. It had not occurred to him that members of his team might have their own secrets, their own plots. Perhaps seeing his expression darken, Nayal says hurriedly, ‘I’m planning to finish EPM, of course.’ Paul ignores this. ‘So what are you going to do?’ he says.
‘Well, it’s supposed to be a secret. I’ve just bought a hundred thousand minutes of talktime between the UK and Pakistan.’
‘You’ve bought a hundred thousand minutes of talktime?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh. To resell it. Yes. So if you ever want to call Pakistan …’ The levity is misjudged. Paul does not even seem to notice it. He says, ‘So you’re not interested in …?’
Nayal shakes his head sincerely. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry, mate.’ In his frustration, Paul says this with an unintended edge. There is a tense silence while he stubs out his cigarette. The situation is unnervingly similar to a blowout — is in fact a blowout, an unexpected one — and they are both more familiar than they would like to be with the feelings of impotence and humiliation associated with them. Even Nayal — his famous sangfroid notwithstanding — is often twisted into noiseless fury by them, usually expressed in a slight cold smile. ‘So where are you going then?’ he asks, delicately.
‘Oh, another sales place, you know.’
‘Well, I’m sure it’s a wise move.’
‘I think so. Park Lane’s fucked.’
Nayal smiles.
They walk back to the office in silence.
It has not been an encouraging start.
Later, seeing Wolé Ogunyemi stand up and head for the smoking room, Paul waits for a minute or two, and then follows him. When he opens the door, Wolé is at the window, leaning out. There is no one else there. Wolé looks over his shoulder. ‘All right, Paul,’ he says. ‘All right, Wolé.’ Paul sits down wearily on one of the low chairs, and lights up. ‘How’s it going, mate?’ he asks. Wolé turns. ‘How’s it going?’ he says. ‘How is it going? Shit.’ He laughs, and Paul laughs too. ‘I wanted to have a word with you, actually,’ he says. And lowering his voice, ‘Strictly between ourselves.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’m serious. Tell no one.’
‘I won’t. Sure.’
Paul lowers his voice further, almost to a whisper. ‘I’m leaving PLP, mate. I’ve been offered another job. A better one.’
‘Yeah? Lucky you.’
‘And I’m sounding some people out, seeing if they want to join me.’
Suddenly Wolé’s face takes on a more focused, serious look. He too lowers his voice. ‘Where?’ he asks.
‘It’s a place called Delmar Morgan.’ Paul is whispering; the words ‘Delmar Morgan’, in particular, he more or less mouths in silence. ‘It’s a very good place,’ he says. ‘They’ve got excellent contracts. Much better than here. This place …’ With a small gesture he indicates their immediate environs. ‘This place is in serious trouble, mate. That’s obvious.’ Wolé nods thoughtfully, and after pausing for a moment to let the morbid prognosis sink in, Paul murmurs, ‘So, would you be interested — in principle?’
Wolé looks thoughtful. ‘In principle, I suppose, yes.’
And violating the hushed, smoky seriousness of the room, the door whoops opens. It is Murray. ‘All right, Murray,’ Paul says immediately in an overloud voice. Sensing something odd — he may even have heard Wolé’s ‘In principle, I suppose, yes’ — Murray hesitates. Then he says, ‘What’s up?’
‘What do you mean, “what’s up”?’
Perplexed at Paul’s intensity, Murray shrugs and simply says again, ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing’s fucking up. Nothing’s ever fucking up, is it, Wolé?’
Wolé just smiles. Stubbing his cigarette out on the inner surface of the metal bin, he opens the door, and says, ‘I’ll see you gentlemen back up there.’
When he has gone, they sit in silence for a while. Nothing unusual in that; the smoking room is a place of licensed silence. But this silence seems, to Paul, to tremble with tension. Murray himself seems tense and suspicious, as if aware that something hidden is happening. In the Penderel’s Oak at lunchtime, Paul had found himself unable to stop needling him with sarcastic quips and insinuations. For the past two days, in fact, whenever he has spoken to Murray, his words have emerged tinged with sarcasm, sneering. And now, sitting in silence in the smoking room, he wonders what Murray suspects — because he must suspect something. ‘I’ll see you upstairs,’ Paul says, pressing out his cigarette, and not looking Murray in the eye. Murray watches him as he stands up. ‘Have you got a problem or something, Paul?’ he says.
‘A problem?’
‘Yeah.’
Paul assumes a puzzled expression, and shakes his head. ‘What sort of problem?’