A Polaroid of Peggy Read online

  When I shuffled back in, hoping if not for forgiveness then for pity – I really didn’t give a damn about the sentiment as long as I got the money – I saw that Frank Connor was also there. Geoff – it always began with Geoff when the stakes were high – wasted no time.

  “Here’s what we’re prepared to do. Number one, you accept all that stuff from the other day – you being chairman, Louise becoming ECD and all the rest. And – and you put up a decent show – around the office – with ‘Campaign’ – with clients – of pretending you like it. Number two, and we can’t go further than this right now, we can’t raise any more money than this even if we wanted to, Vince and I are prepared to buy half your share in BWD – which still leaves you fifteen per cent.”

  Okay, I thought, half of four point six and a bit was two point three and half a bit. One and a quarter to Alison left a million plus for me – minus a bit of tax – cash in hand. Plus, I still had fifteen per cent of BWD.

  But then I realised Geoff hadn’t finished. With a look at Vince he resumed, “We’ll give you a million and a half for half your share.”

  “Eh? But Frank said—”

  “Yes, we know what Frank said. But – in no small part due to your own personal contribution, Andrew – Mick Hudnutt looks like he’s taking his business elsewhere. That’ll reduce the valuation – you could tell your old lady that – sorry, ex-old lady – it might help, but, even if it doesn’t, that’s as far as we’re going.”

  So, no forgiveness, no pity, no sentiment at all. Just business. Sorry Tessio, it’s not personal, it’s business.

  At least, that allowed me to get up off my knees.

  “I could go to court. Have the agreement broken.”

  “You could try.”

  “Sell my share to someone else.”

  “If you can get the agreement broken.”

  “And if you can find a buyer for a minority share,” Vince threw in.

  “I could borrow against it.”

  “And pay the interest.” Vince, again.

  “I’ll take two.”

  “One point five. That’s it.”

  “One point eight.”

  Geoff just shook his head. I finished the meeting with a deep breath and the short announcement that I would get back to them, and then I left Geoff’s office with as much dignity as I could manage.

  Treacherous bastards.

  *

  I could have just phoned Harriet Braintree, but I needed to get out of the office. So, once more, I was sitting in the refined atmosphere of the Hardy Wiggins meeting room, the air heavy with the perfume of today’s seriously expensive flowers. No idea what they were, horticulture was never my strong point.

  We’d discussed all the options and none looked particularly enticing. Protracted court battles, escalating costs with no guarantee of a positive result – “no such thing as an open and shut case, you know, Andrew, and yours isn’t open or shut” – and even if we won, I had to find a buyer, and the buyer would be bound to want my entire share so I’d have to find a decent income from somewhere to pay the eye-watering maintenance costs Alison’s lot were asking for. Let’s face it, I would hardly be able to go on working at BWD, after the bitterness of a legal battle, whatever the result.

  Or I could go to a bank and try for a loan but what did I have for collateral except shares in BWD that might not be saleable? And, even if I got the loan, there would, as Vince had helpfully pointed out, be the interest to pay. Probably lots of interest given the difficulty of realising the value of the shares. All of which led Harriet to say that in her opinion, their offer, though not generous, might, given the strength of their bargaining position, have been even smaller.

  “Fuck them.” I said.

  “Hmm,” she said, “I’m afraid to say that at this point, it rather looks the other way around.”

  I thought that was about as predictable as Frank Connor’s give and take joke.

  Only hers wasn’t a joke.

  *

  I couldn’t tolerate the thought of going back to the office and seeing their faces – doubtless, suitably grave on the outside but laughing like drains behind the masks – so I decided I would call in later with my capitulation and I drove home. When I got there, I found a letter from the bank lying on the floor. ‘Dear Mr Williams,’ it said, ‘We notice that your current account is overdr—’. That was as far as I got. I screwed it up and chucked it in the bin. I decided a sandwich and a cup of tea might make me feel better, but the milk in the fridge was off and the bread in the bin was mouldy. So I got into the Porsche and drove to M and S in Bayswater.

  Before I went in, I sat in the car in the insanely expensive car park – I noticed things like that now, parking charges, and the price of a pint of milk and a loaf of bread, none of which, previously, I would have given a second thought to. I stayed in my seat looking out through the windscreen at all the Mercs and the Lexi and the customised people carriers – this was one shopping mall where Mondeo man was rarely seen – because I needed a few minutes to take it all in. Or to make sure that I hadn’t been taken in. On the journey back from my meeting with Harriet Braintree, I had gone over all the figures in my head, and I simply could not bring myself to accept the fact that I was now brassic – as good as, anyway. I decided I needed to sit there calmly – I put on Classic FM and got a nicely soothing string quartet – and go through all the figures again on a piece of paper.

  I found a biro hidden by some old sweetpapers in the gearstick ‘console’, and I looked in the glove compartment and all the other cubby holes for something to write on. Nothing. So I went through my jacket pockets. Outside waist pockets, nothing. Inside pockets, nothing. I tapped my outside breakfast pocket, not that I ever put anything in it, not since I stopped the foppish silk handkerchief thing which I’d briefly favoured, and – wait – yep, you’ve guessed it, there was the Polaroid of Peggy. I thought back. Yes, must have worn this suit when I’d been to see Keith Lyons.

  For a moment I sat there considering my dilemma. Could I bring myself to tattoo Peggy’s back with crude financial calculations? Would this represent some kind of symbolic desecration? Would it somehow curse Keith Lyons’ renewed search? I may be the unbeliever’s unbeliever, but it’s damned hard to shake off all superstitious pottiness. I hesitated. But Peggy lost. No time like the present I decided. I had to face the truth, however unpalatable it was. And Peggy would be fine. She would stay smiling as sweetly as she has done for twenty years, diplomatically looking the other way.

  In the debit column, I put one and a quarter to Alison plus four hundred thou to pay off the house and, on top of that, lawyers fees, Mooney’s fees, even Donald McEwan’s fees, and a bit for contingency. Let’s call it one and three quarters to be on the safe side. Then in the credit column, I put the one point five I was getting from Bradley and Dutton – no first name terms here – minus, say £150,000 tax so call it one point three five. Plus – and, being so much reduced, it felt more like a minus – I put a hundred and forty thousand which was about all I had left of my other (not BWD) shares since I had taken that moronic accountant’s advice and sold the rest to buy my flat – why, oh why, hadn’t I rented?! (If I could ever afford to pay his fees, I’d fire the twat.)

  Bottom line? The real, no punches pulled, look if you dare, bottom line was that I was about a quarter of a million in the red, and I would now have to get a mortgage on almost the entire value of the flat to be able to pay Alison. Alright, maybe my contingency allowance was a little generous, and, yes, I still had my fifteen per cent of the agency and I still had my pension. But there was no prospect of cashing in on any more of BWD and I couldn’t get at my pension until goodness knows when. And anyway, how was I ever going to be able to afford to retire?

  Stephen Wilkinson, are you watching now?

  *

  My mental arithmetic having been proved faultles
s – how I wished all those Maths Teachers who’d despaired of me had been right – I locked the car and went, reeling, into Whiteley’s. I think this was when I was tipped over the edge. The prospect of penury can do that to you – financial worries are the number one cause of suicide I’ve been told. As you’ll have realised – unless you think this is a very drawn-out suicide note you’re reading – it didn’t have that effect on me. But I do think my already shaky grip on reality was prised a lot looser. Looking back, you would have to say that no sane man would have carried on as I was about to do. The defence rests.

  I was making my way towards Marks and Spencer, when I noticed there was a long queue going somewhere, and when I asked one of the queuers what she was queuing for, she informed me that it ended at Books Etc – a now defunct chain of booksellers – and that there was a celebrity book signing there. And who would the celebrity be? Monica Lewinsky. I joined the queue.

  You see what I mean. Why on earth would I have wanted a copy of ‘Monica’s Story’ by Andrew Morton, signed or otherwise? Let alone spend the next two hours queuing up for it. Which I did. Temporary insanity at the very least. Monica, by the way, turned out to be a charming young person, and after we had exchanged pleasantries, she signed, I paid and I received my receipt. (Hand written, because the Books Etc computerised till, perhaps unable to cope with the demand of ‘Monica’s Story’, had packed up.)

  Another possible sign of madness is getting rid of your shrink at the very time when you obviously need him most. After I had dumped my shopping on to the passenger seat – my plastic bag from Marks, and my signed copy of ‘Monica’s Story’ – I made two calls. One to Geoff, as brief as I could make it, and, even as I spoke, silently cursing the black night in Mayfair when I’d teamed up with him and his little, fat Aussie mate. And a second to Donald McEwan, asking to see him as soon as I could. I didn’t tell him on the phone but I had made up my mind this was to be our last session – and so it was to prove, for several years anyway. Accommodating as always, Donald said he could fit me in, first thing tomorrow morning.

  *

  For once, for about the only time in living memory, I was on time. Possibly because I was now obsessing over money – or the lack of it – and I had very belatedly realised that time was money, and that it might be Donald’s time but it was very definitely my money. (And please don’t mention the twenty quid I had pointlessly lashed out for ‘Monica’s Story’. Don’t expect consistency in the unhinged. Besides, it was a book. Which meant I could – and most definitely would – say it was ‘for research’ and claim back the cost from BWD. That, I think, is what you would call ‘method in my madness’.) Donald, being Donald, made no comment – perhaps in case that would have implied fault on my part for my previous unpunctuality, and that would have meant going against his never-judge policy or perhaps because it was just his unfailing good manners.

  I sat down on the throwover of my usual threadbare armchair, still with my coat on. Not a coat in fact. A Schott black leather jacket, the kind of thing I might not have worn when out in New York in ’79. Particularly if knocking around with Christo. It had a furry lining of some sort which I was very grateful for, as December had that day decided it was winter, the central heating – if there was any – was struggling, and the heatless gas fire was living down to its reputation. Donald, being a hardy Scot, of course, made do with an old cardigan.

  I began by bringing him up to date on all things divorce wise, and BWD wise, which meant money wise. And then I explained, with profuse apologies and with genuine regret, that as far as cloth cutting went, I would have to, very reluctantly, trim him from the finished item. He nodded, and said he quite understood. All this had taken no more than five minutes.

  “Of course, I’ll pay you for the full time today,” I said.

  “Och, no need for that.”

  “No, no, I absolutely insist.”

  “Well, we still have forty minutes. Is there anything you’d like to say?”

  Of course, I couldn’t think of a thing. I really hadn’t felt the need for serious soul baring since I had embarked on my search for Peggy. Having decided on that, I had a purpose and a plan – of sorts – and they were just the kind of distractions you need to avoid self-examination. And today all I’d been focused on was saying a sad goodbye. On the other hand, he was right, there were forty minutes left – only thirty-six now – and I was paying for every one. So I racked my scrambled brains and alighted on something I’d read in ‘Monica’s Story’ the night before. (I wasn’t sleeping brilliantly and I had ploughed through it until about four.)

  “You know about this compartmentalisation business?” I enquired. “You know this thing where Bill Clinton is supposed to be able to shut off all this impeachment stuff completely so he can concentrate on not nuking Iran.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about it.”

  “Do you buy it?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Do you think I could be like that?”

  “Are we talking about your suppressed memories of Peggy again?”

  “What else?”

  “I tend to think people remember what they want to remember,” he said.

  “And forget what they need to forget?”

  “Yes, but I said ‘want’ and you said ‘need’.”

  “Easily confused,” I said.

  And he smiled and agreed they were.

  “Haven’t we talked about that before?” I said.

  “We’ve talked about most things before,” he said, and smiled again.

  And for once, maybe another first, I didn’t even try to find a riposte, and have the last word.

  And that’s how we left it. Memories suppressed. Compartmentalisation. The nature of guilt. Want or need. These and many other questions we had mused over and reached no conclusions about. This is what you get when you go to a shrink. Or it was what I got. That and the pleasure of spending time and arguing the toss with a really nice and very wise man. And, although as I have said, I was not at this time, acting entirely, or even remotely, rationally, neither was I sinking into the depths of depression, writing suicide notes, plunging into the bottle, or sticking rolled up fivers into my nose. And I did know people, a few of them, who had done all of those things. So, all in all, I would have to say, it was money well spent, even accounting for all the hours, and it was many hours, that I had wasted being late.

  “Be careful,” he said kindly, as we shook hands at the bottom of the steps that led up to the road.

  But did I listen?

  Chapter 22

  London, 1999

  I drove back towards the office, but I felt rather melancholy knowing I wouldn’t be seeing Donald again. I had a half-baked idea that doing something vaguely pastoral might improve my mood. Not being able to think of anything else, I drove to Westbourne Park and told Anneke I was going to take Spot for a walk. For a minute I thought she was going to tell me that she would have to call Alison and check to see if it was alright, but she just shrugged and went to get his lead. As Spot and I walked away, she said she probably wouldn’t be there when I got back, but the cleaning lady would let Spot back in. Then she signed off by saying she would see me at the school for India’s show. Fuck, I thought, when is that? But I didn’t want to ask Anneke, in case it got back to Alison.

  When I got back to New Pemberley and had handed Spot over, I noticed, as the cleaning lady shut the front door, that something had changed. It took me a while before I realised what it was. Or wasn’t. It wasn’t New Pemberley anymore. Fresh black glossy paint – applied by Doug? – had obliterated all evidence of my little joke.

  My first thought, as I climbed back into the Porsche, apart from remembering to open the windows to get rid of the lingering dog odour, was that I really must make a point of discussing with Donald what the psychological significance was, both for Alison and me, and, of course, for the chi
ldren, of the de-New Pemberlisation of the old family home. But then I remembered about the cloth cutting. Missing him badly, I decided not to go to the office just yet, but went instead to Soho, and spent the afternoon at Groucho’s. It was, I realised, the first time I had been there since I had got so pissed on the night we won the seven million pound cereal account and fell over and tore my trousers. Groucho’s had a lot to answer for. I spent half the afternoon in there, not seeing a single soul I knew, and getting ever more fed up, until, as the darkness fell at the ridiculously early time it does in December – “Fucking Scots farmers,” I said to the bloke behind the bar who, being something foreign, was mystified by this remark – I decided there was nothing for it but to go back and hide in the office. At least I could get on with seeing the remainder of ‘Seinfeld’. (I had, prior to getting to grips with ‘Monica’s Story’, being treating my insomnia with huge knock-out doses of Elaine/Peggy. I’d seen the rest of the episodes in series seven after ‘The Soup Nazi’, all of series eight, and I was now half-way through the ninth and final year.) On the way out of Groucho’s, the guy behind reception, who I sort of knew, shouted something to me.

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.