Espresso Tales (17 page)

45. Dinner with Father

If Bertie's problem was with his mother, Irene–and that would seem to be the case–then Matthew's problem was with his father, Gordon. Irene and Gordon would not have seen eye to eye on anything very much, but, in their own ways, they had each succeeded in bringing unhappiness into the lives of their offspring. So, while Bertie was trapped by a mother who was relentlessly ambitious for him, Matthew was aware that his father nursed no ambitions for him whatsoever. Gordon had decided that his son was a failure, and had come to accept this. The gallery in which he had set him up was not intended to be anything but a sinecure, a place to sit during the day while the rest of the world went to work. And if this was an expensive arrangement–for Gordon–then it was an expense which he could easily afford to bear.

Matthew had accepted his father's offer simply because it was the only one on hand. He understood that he was not a good businessman, but one had to do something, and running the gallery had proved rather more interesting than he had anticipated. This interest had made up for the discomfort that he felt over his father's writing him off. It is not easy to accept another's low opinion of oneself, and there were times when Matthew longed to show his father that he was made of sterner and more successful stuff. The problem, though, was that if he tried to do this, he thought it highly likely that he would fail.

Now Matthew was preparing for an evening with his father. Gordon had called in at the gallery unannounced and invited his son to dinner to meet his new friend, Janis, who owned a flower shop. As he stood before the mirror and tied his tie, Matthew thought of what he might say to this woman, whose motives were, in his view, perfectly clear. It would be good to indicate to her that he understood exactly what was going on, and that no gold-digger could fool him. But how to do this? One could not say anything direct, especially since the dinner was taking place at the New Club–where one could hardly speak directly about anything–and it would be necessary then to give a mere indication–to allow her to read between the lines. But would a woman like that–a “challenged blonde” as Matthew imagined her–be able to read between these lines? Some such people had difficulty enough in reading the lines themselves, let alone what lay between them. “She'll move her lips when she reads the menu,” Matthew thought, and smiled at himself in the mirror. Like this, he thought, and he mouthed the word
money.

Matthew stared into the mirror at the tie he had chosen. It had linked red squares on a blue background. It was wrong. He reached for another one, a blue one with a slight jagged pattern in the background. These jagged lines looked vaguely like lightning, Matthew thought. That would be appropriate. If Janis looked at his tie she would receive a subliminal message: back off. Yes, he thought; that would be just the right note to strike. He would be distant and cool, which would send to her exactly the message he wanted to convey:
I know what you're about; it doesn't really matter to me, of course, but I know
.

Satisfied with his appearance, he moved away from the mirror and fetched his coat from the hall. Matthew lived in India Street, in a flat bought for him by his father, and the walk up to Princes Street and the New Club would take no more than fifteen minutes. As he left the front door and made his way up the hill, he realised that it was not going to be easy to be distant and cool. Indeed, he already felt hot and edgy. It was not going to be simple: this woman is taking my father away from me, he thought. It's as simple as that. She's taking him away from me–and he's mine.

He stopped at a corner and composed himself, telling himself that it did not mean that much to him. How often did he see his father? Less than once a month, and yet here he was persuading himself that he felt possessive. I shall be mature about this, he told himself. I shall see the whole thing in perspective. Janis is a passing phase–an entertainment. She was no more than that. And as a passing phase she could be tolerated.

He arrived at the New Club, making his way up the sombre, cavernous staircase that led into the lobby. Everything was very quiet and measured–a world away from the bustle outside, and the chewing-gum-encrusted mess that had been made of Princes Street. As Matthew stood at the window of the drawing room, looking out across the dark of the gardens to the illuminated rock of the Castle, he thought for a moment of how his father would be feeling about this meeting. He would be feeling anxious, no doubt, because it was always awkward for a parent to introduce a lover to a child. It was all wrong. Parents did not have lovers as far as their children were concerned.

Matthew turned round. His father was approaching him from the doorway, walking round the imposing leather sofas that stood between his son and himself. They shook hands.

“Janis will be through in a moment,” said Gordon. He dabbed at his nose. “Powdering…you know.”

It was intended to be a moment of shared understanding between men, but it did not set Matthew at his ease. He did not smile.

Gordon looked at his son, and frowned. “This is important to me, Matthew,” he said, his voice lowered. “I'm…I'm very fond of Janis, you know. Very fond.”

Matthew closed his eyes, and swallowed.

“You're going to be all right about this?” his father continued.

“Of course,” said Matthew, quietly. “Why should I not be all right about this?”

Gordon tried to hold his son's gaze, but Matthew looked away, down to the floor.

“You're all tensed up,” said Gordon. “Look at yourself. All tensed up. She's not going to bite you, you know.”

“I never said…”

Gordon raised a hand. “Here she is.”

46. The Language of Flowers

Matthew felt the satisfaction that comes with knowing that one has been right about somebody, at least in anticipating appearance. He had imagined Janis to be blonde, and she was certainly that. He had thought of her as petite, and again he was right. It was true that he had not envisaged her mock endangered-species shoes, but that was simply because when picturing her he had not got as far as the feet. Had he done so, then he would perhaps have thought of faux snakeskin, or so he told himself as he watched her arranging herself demurely on the chair opposite him. He tried not to make his stare too obvious–he was, after all, striving for an effect of coolness and distance–but he took in the details nonetheless.

Gordon glanced at his son, but only briefly. He was smiling at Janis in a way which Matthew thought revealed just how smitten he was. This was not his guarded, cautious father; this was a man in thrall to another.

Janis commented on the view of the Castle. “That castle has so many moods,” she said. “But it's always there, isn't it?”

Matthew looked at her, resisting the sudden temptation to laugh. What an absurd thing to say. Of course the Castle was always there. What did she expect?

“Yes,” he said. “It would be odd to wake up one morning and discover that the Castle wasn't there any more. I wonder how long it would take before people noticed.”

Gordon turned slightly and looked at his son, as if he had heard something slightly disagreeable. Then he turned back to face Janis. “Yes, it's a marvellous view, isn't it? Edinburgh at its best.”

No, thought Matthew. Edinburgh is far more than that. The Castle was the cliché; nothing more.

“I don't really like the Castle,” he said airily. “I wouldn't mind if they replaced it.”

Gordon made a sound which might have been a laugh. “Replaced it with what?”

“Oh, one of these large stores,” said Matthew. “The sort that you get in Princes Street. A chain store of some sort. People could park on the Esplanade and then go shopping inside.”

Janis was watching Matthew as he spoke. “I'm not sure…”

“You'd approve of that, Dad,” Matthew interrupted. “You could invest in it.”

Gordon drummed his fingers on the low table in front of him. “Matthew runs a gallery,” he said to Janis. “You should drop in and see it sometime.”

Janis looked at Matthew and smiled, as if waiting for the invitation.

“Of course,” said Matthew. “Sometime.”

“Thank you,” said Janis. “I like art.”

“Oh?” said Matthew. “Any particular painters? Jack Vettriano?”

Gordon turned to his son. “Why do you say that?” he asked. “Why do you mention Vettriano?”

Matthew eye's did not meet his father's gaze. He continued to look at Janis. “Vettriano's very popular. Lots of people like his work.”

“But you don't?” asked his father. “I take it you don't?”

Matthew looked up at the ceiling, but said nothing.

Gordon addressed Janis. “You see, there's an awful lot of snobbery in the art world. Look at the people who win that prize, what's it called–the Turner. Pretentious rubbish. Empty rooms. Piles of rocks. That sort of thing. And then along comes a man who can actually paint and, oh dear me, they don't like that. That's what's happened to Vettriano. I certainly like him.”

Janis nodded politely. “I'm sure he's very good,” she said.

“Anyway,” said Gordon, “it's time for dinner.” He shot a glance at Matthew, who had risen to his feet with alacrity.

They made their way into the dining room and took their seats under a picture of a highly-plumaged Victorian worthy.

“Such beautiful portraits,” said Janis brightly, as she unfolded her table napkin.

“In their own grim way, perhaps,” said Matthew. “They don't look terribly light-hearted, do they?”

“Maybe they weren't,” said Gordon. “The Victorians were serious people.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Matthew. “But I wouldn't care to sit underneath one of these scowling old horrors for too long.”

Gordon ignored this remark. “Busy today?” he asked Janis.

“Yes,” she said. “We ran out of roses by midday. A good sign.”

“Oh?” said Matthew. “Of what?”

Janis took a sip of water. “Oh, that romance is in the air.”

Matthew saw his father react to this. He saw him look down and finger the edge of his plate, as if slightly embarrassed, but pleased, by what Janis had said. And she had looked at him as she spoke, Matthew noted. How corny! How…well, there was a certain distastefulness to the whole performance–late-flowering love, so inappropriate for these two middle-aged people, although she was far younger than he was, hardly middle-aged. What was she? Late thirties? Who did she think she was? A coquettish twenty-year-old on a first date? And did his father not see how ridiculous it was for a man of his age to be interested in…the carnal? It wasn't even sex. It was
carnality.

“Of course there's the whole language of flowers, isn't there?” asked Gordon. “Each flower has a meaning, you know, Matthew. Janis knows them all.”

Excuse me, Matthew said to himself. I feel nauseated. The language of flowers! Is this really my father speaking? The pillar of the Watsonian Rugby Club? The Rotarian? He listened as Janis began to say something about the symbolism of variegated tulips. He had the opportunity to study her more closely while she talked, and he began to stare at her eyes and then at her chin and neck. For a few moments he was unsure, and then he became convinced that it was true. Janis had undergone plastic surgery.

Matthew looked at the skin about the edge of the eyes. It was tighter than it should be, he thought, and the smooth, rather stretched appearance of the skin carried on down to the side of the nose itself. It was as if it had been pulled back somewhere, tightened, and then polished in some way. He saw, too, the make-up that she had applied there; heavier on one side than on the other, but insufficient to fool the close observer, which he now was. She suddenly stopped talking about lilies. She had noticed his stare. Well, what can she expect? thought Matthew. If one gives in to vanity, then one can only expect others to notice. Mutton dressed up as lamb.

Janis looked at him. “Did your father tell you I had an accident?” she asked.

47. Information

Some evenings are just not a success, and Matthew's dinner with his father and his father's new friend, Janis, undoubtedly fell into that category. The conversation limped on until the arrival of the cheese, when it faltered altogether and the three of them sat energetically eating their Stilton, not wishing to put off any longer the moment when they could leave the table and go through to the morning room for coffee. The drinking of coffee, as it happened, did not take long.

“I have an early start tomorrow,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “It's been most enjoyable.”

“Yes,” said Janis. “I enjoyed that.”

They looked at Matthew, who nodded. “Me too,” he said. “Very enjoyable.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Matthew rose to his feet. “I'm going to get my coat,” he said. “I'll see you in the lobby.”

He made his way to the cloakroom, noticing as he left the morning room that his father and Janis had immediately huddled in conversation; discussing me, he thought. Well, it had been a disaster, the whole thing, but what could his father expect? Did he expect him to welcome this woman, with her transparent motives? Is that what he expected? He went into the cloakroom and took his coat off the hook. A sleeve had become turned in upon itself and he busied himself for a few moments disentangling it. As he did so, he heard a voice from the basin area round the corner.

“Dramatic results, you know. Quite dramatic.”

A tap was turned on and something was said that he did not quite catch. Then the first voice spoke again.

“They're desperately short of cash, so they're having to go back to the market for a couple of million. But they'll have to do this before the results of this research are confirmed. So they'll still seem pretty shaky when they go for the cash.”

The other man spoke. “AIM? They're still on the AIM market, aren't they?”

“Yes.”

“So the new shares will be pretty low until…”

“Until the research results get the stamp of approval and then…well, it's a major breakthrough. The shares will go through the roof. Of course, we're advising them on the whole business and so keep this under your hat, of course. I only mentioned it because you know Tommy, of course, and you'll be pleased for him.”

“Of course. He's still chairman?”

“Yes. But they're moving from that place of theirs out of town. They've taken one of those new buildings down near the West Approach Road.”

“Oh.” A tap was turned off. “You know, I must have a word with Charles about this soap…”

Matthew took his coat and left the cloakroom, silently. His father was waiting for him in the middle of the lobby, Janis at his side. She looked at him encouragingly and he tried to return her smile. But it was difficult.

As they walked down the stairs together, Matthew turned to his father and stopped him. “I've just heard a very interesting conversation.”

Gordon smiled. “In the gents? Suitable for mixed company?”

“Yes,” said Matthew. “A commercial conversation.”

As Matthew had suspected, this attracted his father's attention. “Oh? What was it?”

Matthew described what he had heard. For the first time that evening, he thought, my father is really listening to me.

“Very interesting indeed!” said Gordon after Matthew had finished. “I can very easily find out who they're talking about. It's very simple to find out which Scottish companies have their shares traded on the AIM market. Very simple. In fact…you said the chairman was referred to as Tommy?”

“Yes.”

“I think I know exactly who they are then.” Gordon smiled at Matthew and patted him on the shoulder playfully. “I'll get in touch with you about this, Matt.”

Matthew winced. He did not like being called Matt, and his father was the only one who did it. “Why?” asked Matthew.

Gordon smiled at him. “Information can be put to good use, Matt. The market's all about information, and that sounds like a very useful bit of information. If it's the company that I'm thinking about, then they're a biotech company. The results must be a clinical trial or something of that sort. That can mean a great deal if it enables them to sell something on to one of the big pharmaceutical companies, for instance. Major profits all round.”

“But why couldn't they–the people who were talking–buy the shares and make the profits themselves?”

Gordon shook a finger in admonition. “Tut, tut!” he said. “Insider dealing. Those chaps were obviously lawyers. They can't use their private knowledge to make a quick buck on the market. Very bad! The powers that be take a dim view of that sort of thing.”

“But can we…?”

Gordon made a dismissive gesture, and indicated that they should continue to make their way downstairs. “Oh, we're all right. We just happen to have heard a little snippet, that's all. We can buy their shares. Nobody would associate us with insider information. Why should they? We're perfectly safe.”

Matthew was not sure about this. “But wouldn't we also be taking unfair advantage of the people we buy the shares from? After all, we know something they don't.”

Gordon looked at his son, who saw in his father's gaze something akin to pity, and resented it. “Life is hardly fair, Matt,” he said. “If I had scruples about this sort of thing, do you think for a moment that I would have got anywhere in business? Do you really think that?”

Matthew did not reply. They had almost reached the front door now, and he could hear the low hum of the traffic outside. He glanced sideways at Janis, and for a moment their eyes met. Then she looked away. Matthew reached out and took his father's hand, and shook it.

“Thanks for dinner.”

Gordon nodded. “Thank you for coming. And I'll let you know about those shares. I may have a little flutter on them. Can't do any harm.”

Matthew opened the door and they stepped outside onto Princes Street, disturbing a thin-faced man who was standing near the doorway. He looked at them in surprise, as he had evidently not expected anybody to emerge from the unmarked door. The man looked tired; as if worn out by life. He had a cold sore, or something that looked like a cold sore, above his lip.

Matthew felt ashamed. How did he look in the eyes of this man? And what would this man have thought had he known the nature of their conversation of a few moments ago? Matthew wanted to say: “Not me, not me.”