The Money Makers (45 page)

George walked to the curtain at the end of the showroom and pulled a cord. The curtains drew back and there, shimmering beneath halogen spotlights, stood a suite of superb designer furniture, glowing in a dozen lustrous colours. Panelling enlivened every empty surface, and every detail was picked out with a dab of vivid colour. Venetian reds were burnished with details of palest terracotta. Dutch blues were picked out in highlights of primrose yellow. Compared with the cheap and cheerful furniture they had just examined, this was a whole new dimension of quality.

‘Welcome to Gissings Select,’ said George.

The appearance of sophistication was, in fact, some­ what justified. George and Sally Dummett had spent two long days going through a huge stack of interior design magazines. They looked at every feature and every advert. They were looking for something to copy as ruthlessly as the Aspertons had copied their own range. Every possible target they assessed according to a strict set of criteria, but all their criteria boiled down to three things. Could they build it fast? Could they build it cheap? Would it sell?

Eventually, they found what they were looking for. A famous New York designer had brought out a range of furniture in a palette of gorgeous but subtle colours. The basic furniture shells were remarkably close to the existing Gissings ranges. A few extra details were needed, of course: some fancy handles, a few bits of panelling. But it hadn’t taken much. Most of the work had been put into getting the colours just right, but Sally Dummett was in her element, and she’d done a great job.

And that was it. The Gissings Select range was born. As George had promised, they slapped twenty percent on to the price, then thought better of it and added twenty-five.

Next, George turned to the showroom. He had it repainted, recarpeted and relit. Marketing literature was developed and printed. And finally, when everything was ready, the expanded sales team was permitted to call their clients to break the news of Gissings Select.

The overt purpose of the calls was to promote the new range of furniture. But as soon as the conversation loosened up, another theme became evident. Have you heard what the Aspertons are up to? Selling shoddy goods to make way for a stockmarket flotation. Tut, tut, tut. Oh, no. Don’t worry about Gissings. Our sales are on the increase, if anything. No, it’s the buyers we’re worried about. Poor souls, buying cheap rubbish from the Aspertons in good faith, then looking bad when it falls apart. No way for them to behave, is it?

Soon the rumours about the Aspertons overtook anything that had been said by Gissings. Andrew Walters was told in confidence by a client that the Aspertons had already set their flotation date. Somebody else swore they’d seen a team of merchant bankers leaving the company. Yet another person said he’d heard that the Aspertons were facing an unprecedented level of returns on their Brilliants range. And the Gissings people just listened and agreed and passed the stories on to their next caller.

Mr Evans was only the latest in a long line of clients who had walked with George around the showroom and watched disapprovingly as he revealed every flaw in the Asperton products. And at the end of every tour, the velvet curtain was drawn back to reveal the Gissings Select range, glowing and beautiful. George pointed out the highlights, but it was a soft sell. The furniture made the sale.

Like many before him, Mr Evans didn’t leave before giving George a good-sized order for the Bright and Beautiful range and an even larger order for the Gissings Select. Gissings made a seven percent profit margin or thereabouts on the Bright and Beautiful. On the Gissings Select, the margin was closer to fifteen.

George walked Mr Evans back to his car for the long journey back to Wales. Mr Evans was still clucking with disapproval of the Aspertons, as George nodded in agreement. It was another triumph for Gissings and another step back from the brink of disaster. But George wasn’t happy. He was miserable.

To his surprise, he didn’t miss Kiki. He thought of her often, but with fondness rather than love. He hoped she was happy and hoped to hear from her again.

No. There were two reasons for his misery. The first and biggest was Val. She was still surly with him and he found himself missing his time with her more than he had ever missed anything or anyone. In George’s playboy years, he had pursued pleasure in the places that pleasure was meant to be found. He had moved from ski slope to yacht marina, using his father’s money as his passport, doggedly conforming to the standards of his class. Then, when he had been living with Val, all that had dropped away. They had worked hard and enjoyed it. They had relaxed together and really relaxed. They had made love-unflashy, unpretentious, unathletic love - and it had satisfied them both. She wasn’t beautiful, but neither was George and anyway, he liked the way she looked.

Val was George’s soulmate, and in his infatuation with the otherworldly Kiki, George had been too slow to see it. He had tried talking to Val, but got nowhere and soon stopped trying. She carried out her secretarial duties punctiliously, but refused to speak to him except on matters of business, and no longer acted as the company’s brain and memory, as she had done before. The second reason for George’s misery was simple. Most people at Gissings thought he had saved the com­pany a second time and were ecstatic. But George wasn’t conned. The firm had a breathing space, no more. It was still head over heels in debt, and it still had a big rich competitor who wanted it dead. The Aspertons had failed with their first attempt. If they tried again, they would probably succeed. And what that would mean was almost too awful to spell out.

No Val. No Kiki. No Gissings. No money. No job. Nothing.

6

Zack closed Mazowiecki’s door behind him. This was an American bank and her door was never closed, but Zack closed it.

‘Amy-Lou. Can I have a word?’

‘Sure. What’s up?’

Zack sighed and ran his hands right back through his untidy black hair. He frowned with what was meant to be concern, but looked like a scowl.

‘Amy, I hate having to say this, but maybe you can advise me what to do. I think Hal Gillingham is drunk.’

‘Drunk? On alcohol? Oh Zack, I hope not.’

Zack didn’t know it, and it wasn’t widely known inside the bank, but Amy-Lou Mazowiecki and Hal Gillingham had had an affair with each other long years ago, before his divorce, before his addiction had overwhelmed him. They still had tenderness for each other, indeed Amy-Lou loved him still. But time had changed that love into something more like the love of a mother. She felt protective and fond.

‘Christ, I hope I’m wrong. I haven’t seen him drink or anything like that. But you know, he hasn’t really been on form for ages, and this isn’t the first time I’ve wondered.’

Amy-Lou nodded. Her office window faced south-east and light poured in behind her, hiding her face. She was pleased for the disguise, as tears trembled in her eyes. She shook her head.

‘I’ve wondered too, Zack. I’m afraid many of us have. He hasn’t been himself lately. And it’s been widely noticed how much you’ve been doing for him.’ She sighed deeply, and the light flooding in behind her couldn’t disguise the sorrow in her breath. ‘I’d better go and see him. But he’ll have to take a blood test. The bank will insist.’

She went off to find Gillingham and fate took its course. Gillingham went down into the basement with Mazowiecki. He rolled up his sleeve for the nurse and watched impassively as the prick of the needle raised a blood-red pearl on his arm. The nurse swabbed away the blood and gave him a blob of cotton wool to press down on the injury. Gillingham did as he was told, then, when the nurse was finished, left again with Mazowiecki.

The blood test would deliver its result within hours. The bank carried out routine blood tests on all new employees, and had the facilities to conduct tests wherever drug abuse was suspected. Cocaine was the commonest problem, especially in New York, but - the bank’s medical service was geared up to test for alcohol too. Gillingham retired to his office with Mazowiecki to await the news. Zack stayed away. He had a sense of delicacy and, besides, he liked Hal and admired him. Gillingham was a great man and Zack was one of the few people in a position to really understand his greatness.

Inside his office, Gillingham abandoned any attempt at control. He blubbed like a newborn, while Mazowiecki cancelled her meetings, ignored her phone, and cuddled her disintegrating middle-aged baby.

‘Oh, God, Amy-Lou. I can feel it inside me. I don’t need a frigging blood test, I know I’m pissed. You know I really thought I’d beaten it. I used to hear these poor bastards at Alcoholics Anonymous talking about crawling out of the pit and you knew with some of them that they’d fall back in. Not once, but again and again. And I used to think, God, do you guys not understand what it means to fall back? Have you really forgotten the horror of that place? I knew I needed AA. I knew the craving was inside me for ever, but I really thought I’d never fall back. And the worst, the very worst of this thing is this: I swear to you, I absolutely swear that I don’t remember taking a drink. Before, I used to lose my memory often enough, but at least I’d remember that there was a piece missing. I could feel the blank. I feel nothing like that now. I don’t even know where I bought the drink. I’m a wreck, Amy. No wife. No job. No life. At least I’m fucking rich. I’ll drink myself to death on twenty-year-old malts and be the sweetest smelling sinner at the Boozers Bar in hell.’

‘Oh, Hal,’ said Amy-Lou. There wasn’t much else to say. She could smell alcohol on his breath and he was clearly tipsy to say the least. It didn’t make much difference if he had had two sips or two bottles. The deal with the bank had been no alcohol, at all, ever. It had been a fair deal. She sat with the door closed and her arm around him. He sobbed, was silent and garrulous by turns.

Eventually, Amy-Lou had an appointment she couldn’t defer.

‘I need to go now, Hal. I’ll be an hour. Will you wait for me here, please? Whatever the news is.’

Gillingham nodded. The deep channels in his cheeks at last served the purpose for which it seemed they were intended. Tears ran down the grooves, tickled the comer of his mouth, and splashed disregarded from his chin.

‘Promise? You really have to promise me.’

‘I promise.’

Amy-Lou was scared that Gillingham would go out on a binge when the bad news came. If she could save him from that, she might be able to save him from total ruin. She left for her meeting. Twenty minutes or so afterwards the phone rang. Hal picked it up. It was the nurse.

‘We’ve had the results back, sir. I’m afraid the test was positive. I can give you the statement from our laboratory if you’d like. Or we can order a second test if you feel there’s been a mistake.’

‘No need. Thank you.’

Gillingham hung up. He needed a drink and he needed a piss. He’d promised Amy-Lou to stay put, but bars have drinks and loos. Addiction and his promise wrestled for his soul. He could always be back in time.

But the promise prevailed. The bar meant total destruction for him. Amy-Lou would take him home or, better still, to the clinic where he’d dried out the last time. She’d keep her eye on him and bottles away from him. He’d resent it, but he’d recover. Gillingham got up to go to the loo. He’d come straight back.

In the loo, he peed and rinsed his face. Alcohol surged through his bloodstream and laughed at the water splashing around on the outside. All the soap and water in the world can’t wash away the drink. Next to him, he was aware of somebody crying, like him. A young guy. Ginger-haired, with a receding chin and a bulgy forehead. Gillingham had seen him around, working his knickers off for Zack, but he didn’t know his name. That young, he must be an analyst.

‘You upset too?’ asked Gillingham.

The young analyst nodded, pleased to have his grief acknowledged.

‘My grandmother died this morning. I’ve put off seeing her so many times because of work, and now she’s dead. I feel awful. I feel like the worst guy in the world.’

It was nice to see somebody else’s grief. Grief can be so lonely.

‘We all make more sacrifices than we should. The bank insists on it. Don’t beat yourself up just because you were the one left standing when the music stopped. We all do the same thing.’

The analyst, Smylie, smiled crookedly at Gillingham.

‘God, that’s a decent thing to say. Everyone else has just said, “tough luck, shit happens, and by the way how is that spreadsheet coming along?” and I end up feeling bad for even feeling bad.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe you’re a bit too much of a human being for this place. Coming from me, that’s meant to be a compliment, by the way.’

Smylie looked at Gillingham, who looked pretty rough himself.

‘I shouldn’t really say this, but d’you want to come out for a drink? Just a quick one?’

For a long moment, Gillingham paused, but even as he waited he knew what he was going to say.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Just a quickie.’

7

Matthew came home depressed from another grim visit to his mother and sister. Now that he was London-based, he could hardly escape these visits, but they left him feeling lousy every time.

His mother’s state of dependence had an increasingly permanent feel to it, and once again he’d managed to squabble with Josephine before leaving. This time it had been about living arrangements. Josie asked Matthew to think about living with them in Kilburn so he ‘could help out a bit’. Matthew told her some nonsense about needing to be close to work, but they both knew that for a lie. The truth was that he didn’t want to live alongside his mother’s neediness and his sister’s saintliness; he didn’t want the burdens of daily care; he didn’t want the ugliness or economy or carefulness of his sister’s frugal existence.