He was working for a respectable and successful real-estate agency in central London. Conrad Jefferson Realty Co. It was your high-end stuff, not your bungalows and semis. A single deal could be worth millions, the commission made measured in the many thousands.
Gareth was good at his job. Had a nose for it, they often told him. He made his name early, moving swiftly up the ranks until it was hinted at very strongly that if he stayed long enough he might even make partner. He had it all — a pretty girlfriend, a dockside flat (OK, so it was a small dockside flat), a Mercedes, he travelled regularly and far, and had a sickeningly healthy bank balance. His future seemed to stretch out before him like an ironed bed sheet — flat and entirely wrinkle free.
How wrong he was.
On that evening in question he hadn’t seen Fitzroy at first. It was rush hour and he was on a typically crowded Euston underground platform, London, waiting for the train.
He hated rush hour, he thought. No, scratch that; he despised it. During rush hour he tended to become snow blind — with so many people around he simply didn’t see them and, he guessed, they didn’t see him either. The tube was as packed as it always was on a Friday evening, with everyone head down and desperate to start the weekend. They were all crammed onto the platform, waiting, cursing that three minutes between trains can feel like an eternity when you’re worn out and dead on your legs.
He was reading a paper. More gloomy news about the recession, the first signs that the Greek economy could go tits up and take down the entire Eurozone, borrowed-up-to-their-eyeballs like everyone else. It was a time of cuts, more cuts and redundancies; it was a time of a coalition government and opposition party sharing something for once; the fact that they both didn’t have a clue about how to solve the mess. Lots of symptomatic things like programmes on TV about making your money stretch and how to recycle your old soap. Lots of house repossessions, growing dole queues, people stealing lead from church rooftops and the brass plaques from war memorials to sell on. It was the worse economic depression since the ‘30s and the mood was generally sombre. Especially so tonight because the trains were being delayed due to signal failure. You could read the frustration in people’s faces. If there’d been a huge cartoon-style bubble over the heads of the crowd it would have read simply ‘fuck this!’ It didn’t help that billboards on the wall opposite goaded him with scantily clad women sunning themselves besides azure seas on exotic beaches.
Someone sneezed wetly and disgustingly into a tissue behind him and ruined the daydream he’d allowed himself to fall into as he studied the woman’s breasts bubbling out of her bikini, wondering and not really caring whether they’d been digitally enhanced or not. He closed his eyes briefly to blot everything out and when he opened them Fitzroy was standing in front of him. His presence took him by surprise.
‘How are you, Gareth?’ he asked.
Gareth. He’d never been particularly fond of the name, unlike others who were undeniably proud of their moniker. Gareth. So called after the man who adopted him. Apparently his father before him had been named Gareth, as had his grandfather before that, and so on. A string of Gareths. Welsh tradition. He guessed he gave him Gareth to make him feel as if he belonged, so he could lay claim to some form of heritage stretching way back when. It never quite worked for him. He always felt like an impostor, a weak link in the Gareth chain.
Gerard Fitzroy, in a strange way, reminded him very much of his adoptive father. When Davies joined the company as a fresh-faced youngster out of university, Fitzroy assumed the mantle of mentor, took him under his protective wing, taught him the ropes, forgiving him his many mistakes and celebrating with him his early triumphs. He said he had the talent to go far. He was the first to see this in him. He vowed that when he grew older he would model himself on Gerard Fitzroy; calm, intelligent, patient, quietly spoken yet with each word thoroughly thought out, meaningful and wise. He cared about people. He had a humanity the world was fast losing. He genuinely liked Gerard Fitzroy.
But he did not want to see him that evening. He could feel his insides shrivelling up as their eyes met. Gareth turned his head aside, pretending to look at the bright yellow LEDs that flickered on the board above the platform, announcing that a train would be along in one minute’s time, but mainly because he did not feel man enough to meet his warm, sincere gaze.
‘I’m fine,’ Gareth said, folding up his paper and trapping it beneath his armpit.
Fitzroy was aged about fifty-nine, bald on top, a band of hair that had once been black but now streaked heavily with grey, cut short above the ears and the back of the head. His lips were thin and pale, but his cheeks were flushed pink. His shirt was always an immaculate white, never any other colour, the knot of his tie perfectly formed and sitting dead centre under his collar. His suit was always charcoal grey and he always wore the same style woollen overcoat and carried the same buff-coloured briefcase that his wife had given him as a present thirty-odd years before.
He was surprised that Fitzroy’s smile was genuine, almost as if he felt sorry for him and was offering support. The irony was hard to bear.
The organisation (weird, isn’t it, he thought, how we refer to the organisation as if it were some form of mindless entity separate from the people who make it up, who make the decisions?), well, the organisation was restructuring, responding to the economic downturn, the slump in the property market. In short — and it hurt Gareth to think of this even after all this time — they had shafted Gerard Fitzroy and he’d done the dirty for them. He may have risen up the dubious and sticky hierarchical ladder to stand above Fitzroy, in effect to become his superior, but he realised he displayed none of his superior qualities when backroom meetings focussed on shedding staff. In particular, staff of a certain age.
Discrimination, naturally, but rife in such places and difficult to prove. So when Fitzroy’s name was raised did I object, thought Gareth? Did I defend? Did I, in fact, raise any concerns whatsoever? Not a single one. Moreover, he added the weight of his eager support. After all, Fitzroy had considerable experience and he’d be sure to find something else soon enough. He said it, but he didn’t believe that delusion for a second. His age, the rising unemployment, the shrinking property market, many things were stacked against him.
‘I don’t blame you,’ Fitzroy said, turning away from him, staring into the black tunnel, a blast of warm air ruffling his short hair. He bent down, set his briefcase on the platform.
‘Look, Gerard…’ he began.
He began but he did not know how to finish. He did not know where he should take the rest of the sentence. Fitzroy held up a hand to bid him stop. Gareth needed no such encouragement.
When they suggested Fitzroy should go he knew he should have had the strength to say no. They, on the other hand, were quite plainly looking for him to have the strength to say yes. They were testing him. They knew how he admired him. The path to his ultimate promotional prize blocked only by this thing with Fitzroy. All he had to do was do the dirty. Simple. So he said yes and agreed that he must be first amongst those to feel the axe.
He broke the news to Fitzroy himself. How he hated that heavy, sick sensation; Fitzroy sat in front of him, bemused expression, waiting for him to begin, then realising something was wrong. The news was going to be bad. And being the man he was, he said, ‘Take your time, Gareth.’ Giving advice and guidance to the last.
The twin glinting eyes of the train’s headlights appeared out of the void to the sound of its rumbling engine, like a red and white dragon hurtling from its cave. People stepped forward as a body.