An Ocean Apart (20 page)

The last of the men around the table had sat down again, and the sudden break in activity penetrated his senses enough to make him realize that Charles Deakin was talking to him. He screwed up his eyes to clear his head.

“Sorry?”

Deakin repeated his question. “Are you married, David?”

“Yes.”

“Great,” the managing director continued immediately, “because we think that it would be opportune for your wife to accompany you on these PR trips. We Americans prize family tradit——”

“
NO
!” David yelled out.

Everyone sat back, startled at the sudden outburst. David clamped his hand over his mouth.

“I beg your pardon?” Deakin asked.

“No,” David said, his voice choking. He had never said it before. No one had ever asked him that question. Everybody knew. “I'm sorry, I meant to say no—I'm not married.”

There was a slight shifting of body weight in chairs, as the directors shot uncomprehending glances at one other.

“You're—not—married,” Charles Deakin said slowly.

David looked along the table at him, feeling a tear suddenly trickle down his cheek and onto his hand. He shook his head once in the direction of them all, then, pushing out his chair, he jumped to his feet and, slamming his case shut, ran towards the door.

“You'll have to excuse me. I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me.”

He threw the door open and walked hurriedly along to the reception area. The girl smiled as he approached, then her face went expressionless as she saw the look on David's face. He strode past her without speaking, pushed open the glass doors, and left the offices of Deakin Distribution.

There was a stunned silence for thirty seconds following David's departure from the boardroom, broken only when Charles Deakin rose slowly from his chair. He cleared his throat.

“Well, gentlemen. I'm not quite sure what happened there.” He turned and walked over to the window, the faces of his young executives following him as he went. He stuck his hands into the back of the waistband of his trousers and looked out at Manhattan. After a minute he returned to his place, gathered up his papers, and thumped their ends once on the desk.

“I think the best course of action would be for me to speak immediately with Duncan Caple at Glendurnich, and thereafter I'll circulate a memo to you all which will include the outcome of this meeting.” He reached the door and turned round. “Thank you all for being in attendance.” He pushed open the door and left the boardroom, leaving a crescendo of discussion behind him.

*   *   *

Tears welled up in David's eyes as he thumped at the elevator button with the palm of his hand. The panel showed lights on the fourth and twenty-third floors, but neither car seemed to be moving. He stood close to the door, his head bowed, willing one of them to reach the fifteenth floor before someone came out of the offices of Deakin Distribution to question him about his behaviour. A bell pinged once and the door farthest from him opened. He glanced in. It was empty, thank God. He dived into its haven of solitude, pressed the ground-floor button, and slumped back against the steel panelling. As the doors closed on him, he knew he was alone and, dropping his brief-case to the ground, he covered his face with his hands and broke into convulsive sobs, at the same time sliding down the panelling until he squatted on the floor.

Never before had he been so exposed to the reality of losing Rachel. Never before had he been so unable to control his emotions. But it seemed that, over the past twenty-four hours, fate had hit on a systematic plan to break down his defences, battering at his endurance, his emotions, his self-confidence, before delivering the final coup de grâce in the boardroom. It had worked. He felt no semblance of self-respect, no measure of ability, and now felt no inclination to suppress the one thing that he wanted to fill his thoughts with day and night—the memory of Rachel. He pulled his knees close to his chin and stared out in front of him, letting her name run through his mind over and over, like a jumping needle on a scratched record.

The doors clunked open on the third floor, and a black girl with a laden mail-cart held them back with one hand as she manoeuvred her vehicle in with the other. She looked down at David, leaned across to push the ground-floor button on the panel, and as the doors closed and the lift set off again, she squeezed herself back behind her trolley. She took a pack of chewing-gum out of her pocket, pulled a stick out with her teeth, undid its wrapper and pushed it into her mouth. She looked down at David again. “Hard day, huh?”

David continued to stare directly in front of him, his eyes vacant yet his mind focused on his thoughts. The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Never mind, friend,” she said, looking up at the floor indicator just as the ground-floor light lit up. “By the looks of you, I don't think things could get much worse.”

The doors opened and, with a hefty push, she rolled out her cart. David remained where he was, making no effort to move, not caring what happened to him and not really wishing to go anywhere else. He watched as the doors began to close on his solitude once more, but before they shut completely, a hand shot in and pushed them back. The girl leaned into the lift, her hand outstretched. “Come on, it'll do you no good goin' up and down the building all day. Just make you sick. Anyways, I might end up pushin' my cart in here again, and that'll only get me feelin' as depressed as you.”

David looked up at her beaming face and slowly stretched up and took her hand. Effortlessly, she pulled him to his feet. “Let's go, friend,” she said, guiding him out of the lift. “You'll feel better with some fresh air.”

She walked him over to the doors of the building and took him outside onto the sidewalk. “You okay?” she asked, a concerned look on her face.

David looked at her and nodded, forcing a smile onto his face. He held up his hand in thanks and started to walk south down Madison, for no good reason other than that was the direction in which he was facing. The girl watched him for a moment, then, shaking her head, went back into the building.

He walked slowly, concentrating his sludged mind on moving one foot in front of the other, his legs feeling as if they were filled with a mixture of cement and jelly, the combined effect making him weave like a drunkard from side to side. He started to cross over Forty-fifth Street without noticing the signal and a cab screeched to a halt inches from his right hip. The driver slammed his hand on the horn and yelled something at him out of the window. He ran the remainder of the way to the sidewalk, finding that even that small amount of exertion had left him feeling exhausted, and leaned his back against the spindly trunk of a street-side tree, its thin branches waving in the blustering breeze that whirled through the shadowed streets. Despite the warmth in the air, he felt freezing cold, and with one hand pulled together his suit jacket and fastened the buttons. He tilted back his head to see at what point the skyscrapers ceased to cast their shadows onto the streets below, then continued his gaze on upwards until he was looking directly above into the unshielded warmth of the deep blue sky. Little things, he thought to himself, little things please little bloody minds.

He pushed himself off the tree and continued to walk aimlessly down Madison Avenue, on collision course with the side-stepping masses that approached him. Fifteen minutes later he had reached the block between Thirty-first and Thirty-second Street and stopped outside the open door of a pub, its glass window bearing the name
FLANAGAN'S
in gold crescent-shaped lettering. He looked in at the long bar, stretching thirty feet back into the depths of the building, every inch of it occupied by early lunch-time drinkers, and after a moment he entered and began to sidle his way through the crowd to the far end. A young barman in a white shirt and green bow-tie caught his eye and came down towards him, running a cloth over the bar as he walked. “What can I get you, sor?” he asked in a strong Irish brogue.

David looked around to see what others were drinking. The young suit next to him was drinking Budweiser from the neck. “Budweiser.”

“Would that be bottle or tap?”

“Tap—and I'll have a Scotch malt as well.”

The bartender held the beer glass under the gurgling tap. “Any particular brand?”

“I don't suppose you have Glendurnich?” he asked, almost sarcastically.

The barman looked over his shoulder at the mirrored display shelf half-way up the bar, then, leaving the beer-tap running, hurried his way up to check his stock, expertly judging his return just as the beer had begun to trickle over the top of the glass. He flicked off the tap. “'Fraid not. Only Glenlivet and Glenmorangie.”

David grunted derisively at himself. Stupid question. There it was, the proof of the pudding. That's why he was bloody well meant to be here, to get Glendurnich onto the shelves alongside its competitors.

“Would you be wantin' one then, sor?”

David let out a long sigh. “One of each.”

As the bartender headed off to pour him the whisky, the young suit next to David vacated his bar-stool. Taking a huge mouthful of beer, he pulled the stool towards him with his foot and sat down, ready to numb his pain with alcohol.

Two hours later he lurched out of the pub and stood unsteadily in the middle of the sidewalk, his befuddled brain trying to decipher the barman's garbled instructions on how to get to Penn Station. More by good fortune than by better judgement, he had ended up only three blocks east of his destination, but nevertheless it took him thirty minutes of concentrated staggering before he found the station in his inebriated state.

The place was bustling with people even though it was only two-fifteen in the afternoon, and David, keeping close to the wall in fear of bumping into someone and losing his balance completely, skirted round the terminal until he saw the ticket office. He walked up to a vacant window and slumped forward, resting his arms on the shelf, his head only inches away from the glass partition. “One way to Patchogue.”

The clerk pressed a button on his machine and shot out a ticket into the steel recess in front of David. “Eight-fifty.”

Steadying himself against the window, David pulled his wallet out of his pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill and slid it into the recess. “Could you please tell me when the next train is?” he asked, trying not to slur his speech.

The ticket salesman looked at his timetable. “Two twenty-seven to Babylon, track seventeen. Change at Jamaica for Patchogue.”

“Thank you,” David said, this time hearing himself sound as if he had a severe speech impediment.

By the time he reached track 17, the train was already waiting. He clambered into the first car and sat down opposite a minute wizened albino man who wore a pair of blue-tinted spectacles and whose white hair poked through the plastic mesh of his red-and-blue baseball cap. He seemed to be working simultaneously on two crosswords, obviously photocopied from newspapers onto one piece of paper. David blinked at this near-surrealistic encounter, thinking that his imagination had become distorted with drink. But the little man was definitely there, checking the clues on each of his crosswords in turn and scribbling down the answers without once stopping to ponder the questions.

The train took off with a jolt and slid away from the platform, picking up speed as it entered into a pitch-black tunnel. David shut his eyes and tried to concentrate on synchronizing the natural swaying of his body with the movement of the train, but it made him feel sick, so he laid his head back against the seat and focused on an AIDS-Helpline poster that was stuck on one of the partition windows. With that, the train shot out of the tunnel and into Queens, the sun suddenly bursting so brightly through the window of the car that he had to put up his hand to shield his eyes. He tried shutting them again, but once again was overcome with nausea. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and placed his hands over his face, finding it a bearable compromise—being able to cut out the glare, yet maintain his equilibrium by squinting through the gaps in his fingers at the chalk-faced dwarf opposite him. He remained in that position until the train conductor's voice crackled over the intercom.

“Jamaica. Change for Patchogue.”

As the train drew into the station, about half the passengers rose from their seats. David grabbed his brief-case and followed, but once out on the platform he realized that he had no idea in which direction he was meant to go. He therefore tagged on to the larger of the groups as they made their way up and over the railway bridge.

It was the right decision, the Patchogue train pulling in just as he came down the staircase. Doors opened and a few passengers disembarked before the Penn crowd began to push their way in. David found a seat to himself in the corner, and for a moment wondered why others had chosen to squeeze themselves together so far from where he was sitting. His question was answered almost as soon as the train pulled out of the station by the sound of a flushing toilet from the door opposite him, followed by the sour, overpowering smell of urine. He put his hand across his mouth and nose to stop himself from gagging and turned to see the whole partition of the lavatory swing back and forth on its loose brackets as someone inside wrestled with the door handle. It eventually flew open and a gaunt middle-aged man appeared, dressed in a pair of coveralls and clutching a plastic bag in one hand and a can of beer in the other. He crossed over and sat down opposite David.

“Fuckin' lock's busted,” he said, gesticulating with the side of his head towards the lavatory and taking an almost dainty sip of beer from his can.

David silently nodded and looked around, hoping that if he didn't make eye contact with his travelling companion he would be spared further revelations about his visit to the lavatory.

In comparison to this train, David realized that he hadn't quite appreciated just how clean the previous one had been. The imitation leather seats had at one time been two-toned, but now their fading colours were indistinguishable under years of grease-stains, and the windows were so smeared with engrained dirt that it was difficult to see out. He looked down at the floor and noticed a suspect trickle of liquid, originating at the rest-room door, which wound its way down the central passageway, its meandering course governed by the constant side-to-side swing of the train.