patient with my constant questions and demands. I had
repaid her by digging into her pain, gouging away at the wounds
until I’d forced her away from me. Stokes the lonely journalist who
can’t switch off the desire to interrogate people, to indulge the
driving curiosity that wrecks trust and renders everything down to
the cold, hard facts that lie at the centre of all weakness. Pity
poor Paul.
Aisha strode
up to my desk, the page proofs in her hand. She wasn’t
smiling.
‘ This stuff
is approved. You’re going to buy me a drink at the Blue Fig tonight
at eight o’clock.’
I looked up
at her. Her face was serious, but her eyes were flickering between
mine uncertainly.
I nodded,
fighting to keep the astonishment from my face. ‘I am.’
She left
without another word but when the phone rang a few seconds later, I
answered it giddily, ‘Stokes Precision Engineering and Victorian
Toy Repair Service.’
‘ Paul?’
‘ Oh, hi,
Robin. What gives?’
His plummy
drawl sounded relieved. ‘Sorry, thought I’d got a wrong number
there for a second.’ His braying laughter jangled down the line.
‘Look, just called to make sure you got those proofs signed off
okay.’
‘ Signed off,
Robin. The whole thing’s ready to print.’
‘ Good work.
We’ve broken target by 10k and forward bookings are looking great.
We’ve hit bonus.’
Ah, Robin,
Robin. ‘We’ve hit bonus’ was code for Robin Goodyear has hit bonus.
Paul Stokes would remain scrabbling around in near-poverty in a
foreign country while the CEO, Michael Klein, joined Robin for
drinks in his converted Kentish barn or maybe down the road at the
BMW-lover’s pub, the Morgan Arms. They’d stand there at the bar in
their Aran sweaters, telling each other just how well the whole
Jordan thing was going and how clever they’d been to think it all
up, then drink their beers and go back to Robin’s for an impeccably
cooked Sunday roast prepared by Claire who would have drunk too
much because she’d been entertaining Mousey Hilary, Klein’s plain
little wife. Claire, a secretary at TMG before Robin ‘rescued’ her,
knew full well Klein spent most of his time in the office pushing
as much of himself as he could into the various openings offered by
Lynda, his bumptious and yet decidedly pneumatic personal
assistant.
I imagined
Robin naked and crucified upside down and managed a smile. ‘Good.
I’m glad you’re pleased, Robin.’
‘ Keep it up,
Stokesy. Hear Anne’s coming out to visit you. Do you good to get
your end away. Oh, wait a minute – haven’t you been servicing that
Dajani bird?’
Anne and
Robin had always got on, often chatted. They moved in the same
circles.
‘ Just been
waiting for Anne, Robin.’
How I hated
myself for not slamming the phone down on the bastard.
‘ Good show.
Well, must get on. Toodle pip.’
Toodle pip my
arse. I wrapped up and went
home, too appalled at Robin to be mad with him. How on earth people
like him survive, let alone climb to the top of their little dung
heaps, constantly amazes me. I was angry when I got to the house
and stomped up the steps to Lars’ place.
Lars answered
the door in a sarong, gesturing me towards the fridge as he fiddled
with the mouse and closed whatever strange online session he’d been
absorbed in before he turned to me.
‘ What’s
new?’
‘ I’m meeting
Aisha for drinks tonight.’
‘ Okay. So
it’s back on.’
‘ What’s back
on? It’s not as if we’re anything more than friends.’
‘ Like friends
sulk when they don’t see each other for a couple of days? Huh? You
sulk if I’m not in when you get home, English? Hmm? I think not.
Surely you’re friends. Look, just go to her. You’re crazy, but go
anyway. Stop being a puppy sick. You say puppy sick?’
I laughed
despite myself. ‘Sick puppy, you silly sod.’
Lars sat
back, contentment on his handsome Scandinavian features as he
raised his can in a toast. ‘Yes, like this. Go with her, Paul.
repaid her by digging into her pain, gouging away at the wounds
until I’d forced her away from me. Stokes the lonely journalist who
can’t switch off the desire to interrogate people, to indulge the
driving curiosity that wrecks trust and renders everything down to
the cold, hard facts that lie at the centre of all weakness. Pity
poor Paul.
Aisha strode
up to my desk, the page proofs in her hand. She wasn’t
smiling.
‘ This stuff
is approved. You’re going to buy me a drink at the Blue Fig tonight
at eight o’clock.’
I looked up
at her. Her face was serious, but her eyes were flickering between
mine uncertainly.
I nodded,
fighting to keep the astonishment from my face. ‘I am.’
She left
without another word but when the phone rang a few seconds later, I
answered it giddily, ‘Stokes Precision Engineering and Victorian
Toy Repair Service.’
‘ Paul?’
‘ Oh, hi,
Robin. What gives?’
His plummy
drawl sounded relieved. ‘Sorry, thought I’d got a wrong number
there for a second.’ His braying laughter jangled down the line.
‘Look, just called to make sure you got those proofs signed off
okay.’
‘ Signed off,
Robin. The whole thing’s ready to print.’
‘ Good work.
We’ve broken target by 10k and forward bookings are looking great.
We’ve hit bonus.’
Ah, Robin,
Robin. ‘We’ve hit bonus’ was code for Robin Goodyear has hit bonus.
Paul Stokes would remain scrabbling around in near-poverty in a
foreign country while the CEO, Michael Klein, joined Robin for
drinks in his converted Kentish barn or maybe down the road at the
BMW-lover’s pub, the Morgan Arms. They’d stand there at the bar in
their Aran sweaters, telling each other just how well the whole
Jordan thing was going and how clever they’d been to think it all
up, then drink their beers and go back to Robin’s for an impeccably
cooked Sunday roast prepared by Claire who would have drunk too
much because she’d been entertaining Mousey Hilary, Klein’s plain
little wife. Claire, a secretary at TMG before Robin ‘rescued’ her,
knew full well Klein spent most of his time in the office pushing
as much of himself as he could into the various openings offered by
Lynda, his bumptious and yet decidedly pneumatic personal
assistant.
I imagined
Robin naked and crucified upside down and managed a smile. ‘Good.
I’m glad you’re pleased, Robin.’
‘ Keep it up,
Stokesy. Hear Anne’s coming out to visit you. Do you good to get
your end away. Oh, wait a minute – haven’t you been servicing that
Dajani bird?’
Anne and
Robin had always got on, often chatted. They moved in the same
circles.
‘ Just been
waiting for Anne, Robin.’
How I hated
myself for not slamming the phone down on the bastard.
‘ Good show.
Well, must get on. Toodle pip.’
Toodle pip my
arse. I wrapped up and went
home, too appalled at Robin to be mad with him. How on earth people
like him survive, let alone climb to the top of their little dung
heaps, constantly amazes me. I was angry when I got to the house
and stomped up the steps to Lars’ place.
Lars answered
the door in a sarong, gesturing me towards the fridge as he fiddled
with the mouse and closed whatever strange online session he’d been
absorbed in before he turned to me.
‘ What’s
new?’
‘ I’m meeting
Aisha for drinks tonight.’
‘ Okay. So
it’s back on.’
‘ What’s back
on? It’s not as if we’re anything more than friends.’
‘ Like friends
sulk when they don’t see each other for a couple of days? Huh? You
sulk if I’m not in when you get home, English? Hmm? I think not.
Surely you’re friends. Look, just go to her. You’re crazy, but go
anyway. Stop being a puppy sick. You say puppy sick?’
I laughed
despite myself. ‘Sick puppy, you silly sod.’
Lars sat
back, contentment on his handsome Scandinavian features as he
raised his can in a toast. ‘Yes, like this. Go with her, Paul.
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