‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’
Paul stands there for a moment, and then without knowing why he says, ‘I saw you the other night, Murray.’
‘What night?’ Murray does not seem to understand.
‘Monday.’
‘Monday? What are you talking about?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. You were in the Penderel’s.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘You said you were going home.’
‘So?’
‘You didn’t go home.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Squinting suspiciously, Murray says, ‘So what?’
‘You went to the Penderel’s,’ Paul says. ‘I saw you.’
‘I know. I saw you.’ Murray sees the surprise on Paul’s face — it is suddenly mottled with surprise — and waits for him to speak. He does not. ‘I saw you walk out the door,’ Murray says. ‘I was sitting up the bar, and Michaela said to me, There’s Paul. And I turned round and saw you walk out the door. And by the way,’ he adds, ‘you said you were going home as well.’
‘I was going home,’ Paul says. ‘I got a call from an old friend. We had a drink.’
‘Who was that?’
‘You don’t know him.’ He says this looking Murray straight in the eye, and then, ‘You and Michaela seemed to be getting on pretty well.’
‘Yes we did seem to be getting on pretty well.’ There is something about the way Murray says this — with leathery squinting defiance — that Paul does not like. ‘Do you often go in there on your own, then?’ he asks.
‘No, I don’t,’ Murray says shortly. ‘What’s this about?’
Paul sees that he is only making things worse. It would be absurd for him to start levelling accusations at Murray, when he himself had said he was going home, and was also in the Penderel’s Oak. And absurd, as well, for him to play the jealous lover over Michaela. He is suddenly depressingly aware of the absurdity of that. ‘Forget it,’ he says quietly. ‘I’ll see you up there.’
On the way back to the sales floor, he tries to put the whole thing out of his mind, and to the surprise of his team, throws himself with unprecedented energy into the hopeless cause of European Procurement Management. For what is left of Wednesday afternoon, and the whole of Thursday morning, he yells and storms, scolds, encourages and exhorts, with a maniacal energy they have never seen in him — an energy which seems to have exhausted itself by the time he gets back from the Penderel’s Oak, drunker than usual, with Murray and Andy, in the middle of Thursday afternoon, and on Friday morning he is deeply morose and untalkative. The previous evening, he met with Eddy Jaw.
Since Paul had insisted that the meeting take place as far as possible from Park Lane Publications, Eddy had suggested that he visit the offices of Delmar Morgan itself. These were in Victoria, and Paul took the tube there after work, standing on the train with his neck folded sideways, his face in an armpit, pressed against the door by the human stuffing of the carriage so firmly that when it sprang open at Tottenham Court Road he was forced out onto the platform, and halfway along it, by the flood of people leaving the train. Unable to fight his way back on in time, he waited for the next one, which was so full that to make space he had to shove some other passengers further in, something which initially seemed physically impossible. ‘What are you doing?’ one of them shrieked. Another told him he was a ‘fucking twat’. ‘You can fuck off,’ Paul murmured, his face smeared against the dirty Perspex of the in-sliding door. At Oxford Circus, where he had to change to the Victoria Line, things were worse. And when he finally emerged into the evening at Victoria station, part of a moving mass of people pressed together, a sullen aggregate pouring out of the Underground, hurrying and pushing, it was of course already dark, and raining.
In the downstairs lobby, he was told to take the lift to the fifth floor, where he stepped out into a quiet cream space, where a young woman, half hidden by a huge vase of white orchids, was sitting behind a walnut desk. She was on the phone. On the wall were the words DELMAR MORGAN, and Eddy’s elephant-head logo. She acknowledged Paul with a quick look and a half-smile, and held up a single finger, presumably to indicate that she would be with him in one minute. He stood there, looking around, pretending not to listen to what she was saying. She was very pretty, with black hair. And he thought, soon I will work here, and she will know me. It was quite exciting to think of himself working there. It occurred to him how important surroundings are, how it would be natural to work properly in a place like this. Working in a place like this, he thought, would give you confidence and self-respect. You would value yourself if you worked in a place like this. Paul has heard about offices with bowls of fresh fruit (peaches and stuff, not apples and bananas), and Gaggia espresso machines, and fridges full of Evian, and he wondered if they had those things here.
He said, ‘I’m here to see Mr Feltman.’
‘And what’s your name, please?’
‘Paul Rainey.’
‘If you’d just like to take a seat, Mr Rainey.’
‘Thanks.’
Clearing his throat — his voice had been rather hoarse — Paul sat down. There was a glass coffee table strewn with newspapers — the Financial Times, The Times, the Telegraph — and some low modern leather chairs. He took the FT, and had started to look at the stories on the front page, when the receptionist said, ‘Mr Feltman will be with you in a minute, Mr Rainey.’
‘Thank you,’ said Paul, and cleared his throat again.
It was in fact ten minutes before Eddy appeared, wearing a complicated raincoat with epaulettes and carrying a tan leather briefcase. ‘All right, Gwyn,’ he said to the receptionist with a smile. ‘See you tomorrow, sweetheart. Paul. Sorry to keep you, mate.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘Let’s get out of here. Fancy a drink?’ His smile widened. ‘Course you do.’
They went to a pub nearby. The Cardinal. Late Victorian in style, with funereal mahogany everywhere and elaborately frosted windows, it was full of office workers, and loud with their voices. Everyone was damp from the rain. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anyone from Delmar in here,’ Eddy said. ‘Discretion — you know.’ Paul nodded, looking around, without much hope, for an empty table. There was only one, occupying the short stretch of wall between the doors of the Ladies and the Gents, deep in the pub. He sat there, smoking, his back against the wall, studying the burgundy honeycomb of the ceiling, while Eddy got the drinks. ‘So, how’s it going?’ Eddy said, sitting himself down on the maroon leather seat of a stool. Paul was slurping his pint. ‘How’s what going?’ he asked.
‘You’ve been talking to people? Interesting them in making a move?’
When, after answering in the affirmative, Paul told him that he had so far signed up only one salesman to come with him, Eddy frowned and said, ‘One? What do you mean?’ Paul started to explain about Nayal’s talktime idea. Eddy interrupted him. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, mate.’
‘There’s a couple of others,’ Paul assured him. ‘A couple of others I haven’t spoken to yet.’
‘A couple? Two?’
Paul nodded.
‘For fuck’s sake, mate! You’re supposed to bring a whole team. I was thinking eight or ten people.’
‘I thought you only wanted the best people,’ Paul said, reddening. He coughed.
‘Well, I was hoping you could get together eight or ten decent salespeople.’
Paul murmured, ‘There’s probably not eight or ten decent salespeople in the whole of PLP.’