The Collected Short Stories (49 page)

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Authors: Jeffrey Archer

BOOK: The Collected Short Stories
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“Don't worry about a thing, darling,” she said. “Just relax
and enjoy the crossing; it will be such fun being out on deck together.”
The ship moved sedately out of the calm of the harbor into the Dover Straits. Later that night Captain Jenkins told his wife that the twenty-five-mile journey had been among the most unpleasant crossings he had ever experienced. He added that he had nearly turned back when his second officer, a veteran of two wars, was violently seasick. Henry and Victoria spent most of the trip hanging over the rails getting rid of everything they had consumed at their reception. Two people had never been more happy to see land in their life than they were at the first sight of the Normandy coastline. They staggered off the ship, taking the suitcases one at a time.
“Perhaps France will be different,” Henry said lamely, and after a perfunctory search for Pierre, he went straight to the booking office and obtained two third-class seats on the Flèche d'Or. They were at least able to sit next to each other this time, but in a carriage already occupied by six other passengers, as well as a dog and a hen. The six of them left Henry in no doubt that they enjoyed the modern habit of smoking in public and the ancient custom of taking garlic in their food. He would have been sick again at any other time, but there was nothing left in his stomach. He considered walking up and down the train searching for Raymond, but feared it would only result in him losing his seat next to Victoria. He gave up trying to hold any conversation with her above the noise of the dog, the hen, and the Gallic babble, and satisfied himself with looking out of the window, watching the French countryside and, for the first time in his life, noting the name of every station through which they passed.
Once they arrived at the Gare du Nord Henry made no attempt to look for Maurice but simply headed straight for the nearest taxi rank. By the time he had transferred all fourteen suitcases he was well down the line. He and Victoria stood there for just over an hour, moving the cases forward inch by inch until it was their turn.
“
Monsieur?
”
“Do you speak English?”
“
Un peu, un peu.
”
“Hotel George V”
“
Oui, mais je ne peux pas mettre toutes les valises dans le coffre
.”
So Henry and Victoria sat huddled in the back of the taxi, bruised, tired, soaked, and starving, surrounded by leather suitcases, only to be bumped up and down over the cobblestones all the way to the George V.
The hotel doorman rushed to help them as Henry offered the taxi driver a pound note.
“No take English money,
monsieur.
”
Henry couldn't believe his ears. The doorman happily paid the taxi driver in francs and quickly pocketed the pound note. Henry was too tired even to comment. He helped Victoria up the marble steps and went over to the reception desk.
“The grand pasha of Cairo and his wife. The bridal suite, please.”
“
Oui, monsieur.
”
Henry smiled at Victoria.
“You 'ave your booking confirmation with you?”
“No,” said Henry. “I have never needed to confirm my booking with you in the past. Before the war I—”
“I am sorry, sir, but the 'otel is fully booked at the moment. A conference.”
“Even the bridal suite?” asked Victoria.
“Yes, madam. The chairman and his lady, you understand.” He nearly winked.
Henry certainly did not understand. There had always been a room for him at the George V whenever he had wanted one in the past. Desperate, he unfolded the second of his five-pound notes and slipped it across the counter.
“Ah,” said the reservations clerk, “I see we still have one room unoccupied, but I fear it is not very large.”
Henry waved a listless hand.
The clerk banged the bell on the counter in front of him with the palm of his hand, and a porter appeared immediately and escorted them to the promised room. The clerk had
been telling the truth. Henry could only have described what they found themselves standing in as a box room. The reason that the curtains were perpetually drawn was that the view, over the chimneys of Paris, was singularly unprepossessing, but that was not to be the final blow, as Henry realized, staring in disbelief at the two narrow single beds. Victoria started unpacking without a word, while Henry slumped despondently on the end of one of them. After Victoria had sat soaking in a bath that was the perfect size for a six-year-old, she lay down exhausted on the other bed. Neither spoke for nearly an hour.
“Come on, darling,” said Henry finally. “Let's go and have dinner.”
Victoria rose loyally but reluctantly and dressed for dinner while Henry sat in the bath, knees to nose, trying to wash himself before changing into evening dress. This time he phoned the front desk and ordered a taxi as well as reserving a table at Maxim's.
The taxi driver did accept his pound note on this occasion, but as Henry and his bride entered the great restaurant he recognized no one and no one recognized him. A waiter led them to a small table hemmed in between two other couples just below the band. As he walked into the dining room the musicians struck up “Alexander's Ragtime Band.”
They ordered from the extensive menu, and the langouste turned out to be excellent, every bit as good as Henry had promised, but by then neither of them had the stomach to eat a full meal, and the greater part of both their dishes was left on the plate.
Henry found it hard to convince the new headwaiter that the lobster had been superb and that they had not purposely come to Maxim's not to eat it. Over coffee, he took Victoria's hand and tried to apologize.
“Let us end this farce,” he said, “by completing my plan and going to the Madeleine and presenting you with the promised flowers. Paulette will not be in the square to greet us, but there will surely be someone who can sell us roses.”
Henry called for the bill and unfolded the third five-pound
note (Maxim's is always happy to accept other people's currency, and certainly didn't bother him with any change). They left, walking hand in hand toward the Madeleine. For once Henry turned out to be right, for Paulette was nowhere to be seen. An old woman with a shawl over her head and a wart on the side of her nose stood in her place on the corner of the square, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers.
Henry selected a dozen of the longest-stemmed red roses and placed them in the arms of his bride. The old woman smiled at Victoria.
Victoria returned her smile.
“
Dix francs, monsieur,
” said the old woman to Henry. Henry fumbled in his pocket, only to discover that he had spent all his money. He looked despairingly at the old woman, who raised her hands, smiled at him, and said:
“Don't worry, Henry, have them on me. For old times' sake.”
Sir Hamish Graham had many of the qualities and most of the failings that result from being born to a middle-class Scottish family. He was well educated, hardworking, and honest, while at the same time being narrow-minded, uncompromising, and proud. Never on any occasion had he allowed hard liquor to pass his lips, and he mistrusted all men who had not been born north of Hadrian's Wall, and many of those who had.
After spending his formative years at Fettes School, to which he had won a minor scholarship, and at Edinburgh University, where he obtained a second-class honors degree in engineering, he was chosen from a field of twelve to be a trainee with the international construction company TarMac (named after its founder, J. L. McAdam, who discovered that tar when mixed with stones was the best constituent for making roads). The new trainee, through diligent work and uncompromising tactics, became the firm's youngest and most disliked project manager. By the age of thirty Graham had been appointed deputy managing director of TarMac and was already beginning to realize that he could not hope to progress much farther while he was in someone else's employ. He therefore started to consider forming his own company. When, two years later, the chairman of TarMac, Sir Alfred Hickman, offered Graham the opportunity to replace
the retiring managing director, he resigned immediately. After all, if Sir Alfred felt he had the ability to run TarMac, he must be competent enough to start his own company.
The next day young Hamish Graham made an appointment to see the local manager of the Bank of Scotland who was responsible for the TarMac account, and with whom he had dealt for the past ten years. Graham explained to the manager his plans for the future, submitting a full written proposal, and requesting that his overdraft facility might be extended from fifty pounds to ten thousand. Three weeks later he learned that his application had been viewed favorably. He remained in his lodgings in Edinburgh, while renting an office (or, to be more accurate, a room) in the north of the city at ten shillings a week. He purchased a typewriter, hired a secretary, and ordered some unembossed letter-headed stationery. After a further month of diligent interviewing, he employed two engineers, both graduates of Aberdeen University, and five out-of-work laborers from Glasgow.
During those first few weeks on his own Graham tendered for several small road contracts in the central lowlands of Scotland, the first seven of which he failed to secure. Preparing a tender is always tricky and often expensive, so by the end of his first six months in business Graham was beginning to wonder if his sudden departure from TarMac had not been foolhardy. For the first time in his life he experienced self-doubt, but that was soon removed by the Ayrshire County Council, which accepted his tender to construct a minor road that was to join a projected school to the main highway. The road was only five hundred yards in length, but the assignment took Graham's little team seven months to complete, and when all the bills had been paid and all expenses taken into account Graham Construction made a net loss of £143. 10s.6d.
Still, in the profit column was a small reputation that had been invisibly earned, and that caused the Ayrshire Council to invite him to build the school at the end of the new road. This contract made Graham Construction a profit of £420
and added still further to his reputation. From that moment Graham Construction went from strength to strength, and as early as his third year in business, Graham was able to declare a small pre-tax profit, and this grew steadily over the next five years. When Graham Construction was floated on the London Stock Exchange, the demand for the shares was oversubscribed ten times and the newly quoted company was soon considered a blue-chip institution, a considerable achievement for Graham to have pulled off in his own lifetime. But then, the City likes men who grow slowly and can be relied on not to involve themselves in unnecessary risks.
In the sixties Graham Construction built highways, hospitals, factories, and even a power station, but the achievement the chairman took most pride in was Edinburgh's newly completed art gallery, which was the only contract that showed a deficit in the annual general report. The invisible earnings column, however, recorded the award of knight bachelor for the chairman.
Sir Hamish decided that the time had come for Graham Construction to expand into new fields, and looked, as generations of Scots had before him, toward the natural market of the British Empire. He built in Australia and Canada with his own finances, and in India and Africa with a subsidy from the British government. In 1963 he was named “Businessman of the Year” by
The Times
and three years later “Chairman of the Year” by
The Economist.
Sir Hamish never once altered his methods to keep pace with the changing times and, if anything, grew more stubborn in the belief that his ideas of doing business were correct whatever anyone else thought; and he had a long credit column to prove he was right.
In the early seventies, when the slump hit the construction-business, Graham Construction suffered the same cut in budgets and lost contracts as its major competitors. Sir Hamish reacted in a predictable way, by tightening his belt and paring his estimates while at the same time refusing to compromise his business principles one jot. The company therefore grew leaner, and many of his more enterprising
young executives left Graham Construction for firms that still believed in taking on the occasional risky contract.
Only when the slope of the profits graph started taking on the look of a downhill slalom did Sir Hamish become worried. One night, while brooding over the company's profit-and-loss account for the previous three years, and realizing that he was losing contracts even in his native Scotland, Sir Hamish reluctantly came to the conclusion that he must tender for less established work, and perhaps even consider the odd gamble.
His brightest young executive, David Heath, a stocky, middle-aged bachelor, whom he did not entirely trust—after all, the man had been educated south of the border and, worse, some extraordinary place in the United States called the Wharton Business School—wanted Sir Hamish to put a toe into Mexican waters. Mexico, as Heath was not slow to point out, had discovered vast reserves of oil off its eastern coast and had overnight become rich with American dollars. The construction business in Mexico was suddenly proving most lucrative, and contracts were coming up for tender with figures as high as thirty to forty million dollars attached to them. Heath urged Sir Hamish to go after one such contract that had recently been announced in a full-page advertisement in
The Economist.
The Mexican government was issuing tender documents for a proposed ring road around their capital, Mexico City. In an article in the business section of
The Observer,
detailed arguments were put forward as to why established British companies should try to fulfill the ring-road tender. Heath had offered shrewd advice on overseas contracts in the past that Sir Hamish had let slip through his fingers.
The next morning Sir Hamish sat at his desk listening attentively to David Heath, who felt that as Graham Construction had already built the Glasgow and Edinburgh ring roads, any application they made to the Mexican government had to be taken seriously. To Heath's surprise, Sir Hamish agreed with his project manager and allowed a team
of six men to travel to Mexico to obtain the tender documents and research the project.
The research team was led by David Heath, and consisted of three other engineers, a geologist, and an accountant. When the team arrived in Mexico they obtained the tender documents from the minister of works and settled down to study them minutely. Having pinpointed the major problems, they walked around Mexico City with their ears open and their mouths shut and made a list of the problems they were clearly going to encounter: the impossibility of unloading anything at Vera Cruz and then transporting the cargo to Mexico City without half of the original consignment being stolen, the lack of communications between ministries, and worst of all the attitude of the Mexicans to work. But David Heath's most positive contribution to the list was the discovery that each minister had his own outside man, and that man had better be well disposed to Graham Construction if the firm were even to be considered for the shortlist. Heath immediately sought out the minister of works' man, one Victor Perez, and took him to an extravagant lunch at the Fonda el Refugio, where both of them nearly ended up drunk, although Heath remained sober enough to settle all the necessary terms, conditional upon Sir Hamish's approval. Having taken every possible precaution, Heath agreed on a tender figure with Perez that was to include the minister's percentage. Once he had completed the report for his chairman, he flew back to England with his team.
On the evening of David Heath's returns, Sir Hamish retired to bed early to study his project manager's conclusions. He read the report through the night as others might read a spy story, and was left in no doubt that this was the opportunity he had been looking for to overcome the temporary setbacks Graham Construction was now suffering. Although Sir Hamish would be up against Costains, Sunleys, and John Brown, as well as many international companies, he still felt confident that any application he made must have a “fair chance.” On arrival at his office the next morning Sir
Hamish sent for David Heath, who was delighted by the chairman's initial response to his report.
Sir Hamish, started speaking as soon as his burly project manager entered the room, not even inviting him to take a seat.
“You must contact our embassy in Mexico City immediately and inform them of our intentions,” pronounced Sir Hamish. “I may speak to the ambassador myself,” he said, intending that to be the concluding remark of the interview.
“Useless,” said David Heath.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don't wish to appear rude, sir, but it doesn't work like that anymore. Britain is no longer a great power dispensing largesse to all far-flung and grateful recipients.”
“More's the pity,” said Sir Hamish.
The project manager continued as though he had not heard the remark.
“The Mexicans now have vast wealth of their own, and the United States, Japan, France, and Germany keep massive embassies in Mexico City with highly professional trade delegations trying to influence every ministry.”
“But surely history counts for something,” said Sir Hamish. “Wouldn't they rather deal with an established British company than some upstarts from—?”
“Perhaps, sir, but in the end all that really matters is which minister is in charge of what contract and who is his outside representative.”
Sir Hamish looked puzzled. “Your meaning is obscure to me, Mr. Heath.”
“Allow me to explain, sir. Under the present system in Mexico, each ministry has an allocation of money to spend on projects agreed to by the government. Every secretary of state is acutely aware that his tenure of office may be very short, so he picks out a major contract for himself from the many available. It's the one way to ensure a pension for life if the government is changed overnight or the minister simply loses his job.”
“Don't bandy words with me, Mr. Heath. What you are suggesting is that I should bribe a government official. I
have never been involved in that sort of thing in thirty years of business.”
“And I wouldn't want you to start now,” replied Heath. “The Mexican is far too experienced in business etiquette for anything as clumsy as that to be suggested, but while the law requires that you appoint a Mexican agent, it must make sense to try and sign up the minister's man, who in the end is the one person who can ensure that you will be awarded the contract. The system seems to work well, and as long as a minister deals only with reputable international firms and doesn't become greedy, no one complains. Fail to observe either of those two golden rules and the whole house of cards collapses. The minister ends up in Le Cumberri for thirty years and the company concerned has all its assets expropriated and is banned from any future business dealings in Mexico.”
“I really cannot become involved in such shenanigans,” said Sir Hamish. “I still have my shareholders to consider.”
“
You
don't have to become involved,” Heath rejoined. “After we have tendered for the contract, you wait and see if the company has been shortlisted and then, if we have, you wait again to find out if the minister's man approaches us. I know the man, so if he does make contact we have a deal. After all, Graham Construction is a respectable international company.”
“Precisely, and that's why it's against my principles,” said Sir Hamish with hauteur.
“I do hope, Sir Hamish, it's also against your principles to allow the Germans and the Americans to steal the contract from under our noses.”
Sir Hamish glared back at his project manager but remained silent.
“And I feel I must add, sir,” said David Heath, moving restlessly from foot to foot, “that the pickings in Scotland haven't exactly yielded a harvest lately.”
“All right, all right, go ahead,” said Sir Hamish reluctantly. “Put in a tender figure for the Mexico City ring road, but be warned, if I find bribery is involved, on your head be it!” he added, banging his fist on the table.

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