‘I don’t mind,’ said Mr. Johnson. ‘Was it a phone threat you had?’
‘The police are tracing it,’ said Sir Robert. ‘The usual rubbish. A bomb will go off in an hour unless we arrange to hand over a million. I feel rather insulted. You’d think they’d value us a little bit higher.’
‘So you hand over the million?’ said Mr. Johnson. We had reached Sir Robert’s car.
My Chairman laughed. ‘Christ, you know better than that. A lot better. Don’t worry. Name your price, and we’ll meet it.’
Mr. Johnson stopped walking. He said, ‘I have named my price. I may cancel the contract, but I have no need to alter it.’
‘What did you think I was saying?’ the Chairman said quickly. ‘All we both want to do is finish the bloody picture. It’s the best you’ve ever done. You know it. I know it. I’m trying to help you finish it, so quit trying to slam me down, will you?’
Inside the car, Val Dresden was taking a phone call. He opened the door. ‘Sir Robert! The threat’s been repeated. They think there
is
a bomb in the building.’
I stood outside, and watched the Chairman dive in and grab the car phone. Mr. Johnson watched him as well, the painting resting gently reversed on the road. The ambulances and fire engines arrived. Behind the cordon, I could see the rest of the staff, and sightseers, and residents. Occasionally one of the executives would come over to speak to Sir Robert, and be introduced to Johnson Johnson who was holding court by the boot of the Rolls.
Flattery was doing him good. Presently, he was so far softened up that he would step forward and shake hands with anybody. Then I saw Sir Robert stiffen and, looking round, realised who was coming.
It was too late to prevent an encounter. Sir Robert assumed a welcoming smile. ‘Ah, Morgan. Dreadful bore, isn’t it? Johnson, may I introduce our newest Director? Mr. Morgan and his team have just joined Kingsley Conglomerates.’
He didn’t say more. He didn’t actually say, ‘This is the Bummer of the Year; give me a week and I’ll fix him.’ But you could tell he hoped Johnson got the message.
He probably did, from the way he shook hands. In his own design room, according to rumour, Mr. Morgan favoured T-shirts with bracelets and denims. For a visit to HQ he had found a peculiar suit with a hole in one elbow. His pigtail was the same. Mr. Morgan said, ‘Heard of you. Can I? Or do you make a small charge?’
‘Feel free,’ said Mr. Johnson, and turned the canvas for Mr. Morgan to look.
‘Wow!’ said Mr. Morgan. His jet-black eyes didn’t blink. ‘Wow, that’s tubular.’
‘Thank you,’ said Johnson. ‘It’s a personal best. What do
you
make?’
‘I’m into microchips,’ said Mr. Morgan. He hadn’t removed his eyes from the paint. ‘I’ve got low arousal. It’s better than women.’
‘If you say so,’ said Mr. Johnson. ‘I hope they’ve given you nice golden handcuffs.’
‘Brother,’ said Mr. Morgan, ‘In the matter of shackles, I am not in your league. Why have you stuck yourself with this stuff?’
Mr. Johnson looked at him calmly. ‘You joined a conglomerate.’
‘I promised my teacher,’ said our newest Director. ‘Soon as I got out of Remand School. So what’s your problem with blue pigments? Permanence.’
I stared at them both. Johnson Johnson said, ‘Yes, permanence. Why?’
‘I’ve done some work on that. Ring me some time. Not now: I’m going on holiday.’
‘You’re into chemistry, too?’ said Mr. Johnson.
‘You name it. Pays the bar bills. Better get back. Blue’s a bugger,’ said Mr. Morgan, and threw himself lithely into the crowd which was still milling about, rubbing its arms and staring towards Kingsley Conglomerates.
Which, ten minutes later, blew up.
The flash came first: then a bang that deadened my ears. The glass flying out of the windows looked like a broken kaleidoscope. It began to fall in the empty street, together with lumps of concrete and tangles of metal and other rubbish. We were too far away to feel much of the blast, or the heat that followed as the fire took its hold. Sir Robert scrambled out of the car, followed by his silent PA, shivering in his voile shirt. The driver was gripping the wheel fit to break it. Those executives I could see were all pale, and the girls in the crowd were mostly screaming except those like Trish, who were patently thrilled.
Sir Robert said, ‘
Christ
! Police, security, dogs, and they can’t defuse a bomb on a plate with a ticket on it. Have they brought down the whole fucking building?’ Unlike the other faces, his had turned scarlet.
You could see nothing now but black smoke with a glare of red flame in it. But I had caught that single instructive glimpse: the flash of glass buckling and jumping along the third floor. I said, ‘It’s the Boardroom floor only, I think.’
For us, it wasn’t bad news. Blast-proof safes protected all the company papers. Apart from expensive leather and curtains and carpets, the third floor held little of capital value. Even the portrait was safe. I looked again at Johnson Johnson who was holding it.
Staring upwards, he looked properly stunned. But his first reaction, when the bang came, had been different. It had been one of raw and unmistakable anger. Then, observing me, he’d said, ‘Shit,’ in a mild voice.
It wasn’t my place to speak, and I didn’t. The management announced Crisis Procedure. I waited, notebook in hand, but Sir Robert gave all his orders to Dresden. Then he came quietly over and asked me to take care of a particular problem.
I can’t pretend I was pleased. You don’t get blown up every day, and I was going to miss the excitement. On the other hand, the personal success would be mine, and not Dresden’s. I agreed, and left him, and crossed to the car to phone my mother.
I got my mother’s recorded voice on the answerphone. I had to wait all through the familiar rasp, and the place where she unstuck her fag to cough better. Mr. Morgan, peering into the car, said, ‘What’s up? No one at home?’
Because of the pigtail, his hair had stayed neater than anyone else’s, and he was neat in build also. He had a bony face and a nose like an osprey’s. From three inches away he looked what he was, in his thirties. I wondered if he guessed that the Chairman, having seen off the bomb, would immediately wade into his low-authority clothing.
‘I left a message,’ I said. ‘On the answerphone. My mother will get it.’
‘Go home, angel,’ he said. ‘Nothing here for nice kids with mothers.’
I didn’t need to explain why I couldn’t. Sir Robert approached. ‘Wendy, Mr. Johnson is waiting. We really can’t let him cart that wet canvas home single-handed. Help him as much as you can. And get warm. Have something to eat. There’s no hurry: Dresden will manage quite splendidly.’ His voice bounced off a newly stopped taxi into which Mr. Johnson was easing his picture.
‘What?’ said Mr. Morgan, as anyone might. But Sir Robert merely put a warm hand on my shoulder and propelled me into the taxi with Johnson. I went, for I knew what he wanted. The other third of his portrait, finished pronto.
Sir Robert usually gets his own way. In due course Mr. Johnson thanked me for helping, and dutifully asked if he might take me to lunch. Even knowing all I now know, dutiful is still the word I would attach to Johnson Johnson. He was being perfectly dutiful to someone.
Hence (as I was to find out long after) our lunch table was already booked. Booked for himself and for me, a full twenty-four hours before it all happened.
We dropped the picture off at Mr. Johnson’s apartment, which had a marble entrance with bay trees and two porters who seemed to know all about handling wet paintings. Then we went to his club, which had two Jags, a Porsche and a pale blue vintage Sunbeam inconspicuously parked in the forecourt.
I have learned all I need to know about etiquette: I expected there would be a Ladies’ End to the dining room, and there was. I was quite nicely dressed, and accustomed to conferences, where you have to walk about with older men. I noticed the people we passed were quite a lot younger than Mr. Johnson, and I thought that perhaps he had picked one of his sportier clubs. Walking through, I heard members greet him, but no one offered to join him. They possibly thought I was a personal friend. Or they may not have wanted to join him. Cosy was not what I would have called Johnson Johnson. He had a social distance zone the size of a car park.
And his club was nothing to write home about. When we got to the table, the menu wasn’t even in French. I chose pâté, sole and the cheese board. The great man plumped for soup, mince and pudding, ordered a stingy two glasses of claret, and ate while I thanked him for his hospitality. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘I hate to hear of nice girls getting the sack. Would you like to dispose of the whole subject now, or are you keen to get me pissed first?’
I thought of my mother, and the world’s largest library of aids to self-improvement. Among my mother’s cassettes were quick-help assessments of Extroversion, Introversion and Neuroticism, with in-job analysis measures designed to tap critical on-the-job behaviours.
The authors hadn’t met Mr. Johnson.
I had absorbed four professional ways of saying ‘I’m angry’ and my client had used them all up in one morning.
I said, ‘You want to finish that painting. I know Sir Robert. I thought I might suggest an accommodation.’
‘I tell you what,’ said Mr. Johnson. ‘Suppose you suggest it over the pudding, and we actually eat our first two courses in peace. Why didn’t you go to university?’
He made me nervous, being so unpredictable. I could, of course, have told him the answer. Because my mother didn’t believe in universities, that was why. Because my father had died street-stupid the way he was born, always with a new idea for a new business that would start paying the rent. Business people didn’t succeed by going to university, my mother said. I agreed with her. I said, ‘I’m keen on business. For a girl, a good secretarial training is often the best way into management.’
‘What fascinates you about management?’ said Mr. Johnson. ‘Getting to the top? Starting up on your own? Or earning the means to do something quite different?’
He moved in the same circles as Sir Robert. He knew Daniel Oppenheim. He knew chief executives and investment brokers and bankers. I said, ‘I like doing things well, and seeing things happen. I may not reach top management, but I can enjoy giving loyalty and good service along the way.’
He handed me salt, and took back the butter. He behaved exactly like a man entertaining a lady guest of his choice. He said, ‘Well, that’s the stock answer. What’s the real answer?’
‘That is the real answer,’ I said.
‘Is it?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to propose you for a new job, you know. Or discuss your capabilities with Sir Robert. I expect, in any case, you know enough about Kingsley’s to make it worthwhile digging in. Or aren’t you interested in what they are up to?’
I said, ‘Of course I am. To help the Chair, you have to know what his policies are. But you can’t expect me to talk about that.’
‘I don’t. I’m not even getting you drunk. What car do you drive?’ said Johnson Johnson.
It’s a second-hand Volkswagen. I’m not ashamed of it. When I told him, he finished wiping his lips and put down his napkin. He said, ‘Well, that settles that. You aren’t into insider trading.’
I was furious. My suit might not come from Hardy Amies or wherever his women shopped, but it was a nice one. And not every EA can afford any car. I nearly retorted that if I wanted to go into insider trading I could do it tomorrow. It was pretty well true.
I didn’t have the nerve to get up and go, but he must have read my expression. He said, ‘Have I paid you a back-handed compliment? I’m sorry. I’d forgotten how the feminine mind works. May I move on to what I actually wanted to say to you?’
Now I looked him in the face, I saw what he was really like. He was without personality. His nose had been broken and reset with a discretion that gave it no distinction at all. His mouth was too spare to convey anything. His eyes, behind glass, possessed no radiating lines of good humour. Even his hair, surprisingly black, conveyed no puckish clue to his actual mood, as Sir Robert’s did. Sir Robert’s face was full of bantering lines, and his lips were beautiful. I said, ‘Please say what you want. I’m your guest. I don’t need to answer you.’
‘As you remind me,’ he said. ‘But here we are. Let’s see if there isn’t something useful to be got out of it. You’re not exploiting your job, no: of course you’re not. You’re ambitious. I’m sure you enjoy doing things well. So do I. But every now and then, I ask myself whether the thing I’m doing well is worth doing. And sometimes the answer is no, I’d be better doing something quite different. For example, I expect that you’ve picked up some languages?’
I wondered what made him ask that, as well. I said, ‘Of course: doesn’t everyone? We couldn’t go into Europe without.’
‘But you don’t want to chuck business and go in for interpretation, or travel? Where did you go on holiday, for example?’
I shot a glance at him, but his face displayed no special cunning. He didn’t expect me to say Kashmir or Bali. I described my two weeks with the Treasures of France. He asked quite intelligent questions, and I was careful with the way I pronounced things.
We were into the pudding and cheese before I realised how I’d been diverted. I broke off. I said, ‘You promised a serious talk.’
I expected a put-down. I drew on my training to prepare for it. The Implications of Being a Woman had been no help at all, despite Sir Robert’s obvious expectations. My host laid down his spoon with a certain mulishness rather than anger. He said, ‘It’s all right; it was a rather large pudding. So let’s talk about Sir Bob’s bloody portrait. You
thought you might suggest an accommodation.
So, fast-forward: such as?’
It was time for my pitch. The tables around us were empty, although at the other end of the room a few flushed youngish men were emitting bursts of occasional laughter. From time to time, one of them waved at our table. Mr. Johnson paid no attention.
I said, ‘The portrait deserves to be finished. Also, we’d like it exhibited this year as a business asset. We know you can’t come to us. But Sir Robert would come to you to be painted in whatever time you could spare from your client. At his own expense, and wherever you say. With a little goodwill, surely that would be possible?’ A man from the rowdy table had risen. He was young, blond and built like a Saxon gasometer.