On the Floor (32 page)

He jabs impatiently and Bernard returns. He is nodding vigorously at some army guy trapped in a video screen with two and a half rows of medals pinned across his chest. Make no mistake about it, this is serious hardware. We're talking F–16 Fighting Falcons, F–4G Wild Weasels, A–10 Thunderbolts, probably some F–15 Eagles and of course your F–117A Stealth bombers. That's on top of the B52s with twelve cruise missiles and eight short-range missiles apiece.

Zanna takes the remote from Stephen's hand and mutes the volume. Then she steps closer to me, reaches out a hand and reconsiders. Smoothes her fingers along her camel sleeve. It is the perfect coat for a crisis.

‘I want you to know that I – that
we
—' she casts a prompting frown at Stephen, ‘never deceived you.'

‘No,' he nods, glancing at the screen. ‘Absolutely not.'

‘That nothing happened during—'

‘Ever,' he adds.

There is a fireball in my throat, I am holding my breath lest it erupts but a small gurgling sound seems to come from my gullet. I am still shrinking, I am tiny now in this room between two giants. The floor rushes up to my face and I stick out a blind arm, Stephen's and Zanna's hands shoot out to steady me as you might a rocking boat, they hold me stable while the thud and boom of Baghdad's annihilation fills the
air. And then I am propped between them, they hold me upright, like a toddler about to take its first steps. And I feel that this is somehow where I have always been, in a state of containment. But it is high time I took some of my own weight. I have been a willing captive for far too long. I have been holding my breath and there is logic now in the full and complete withdrawal of the occupying forces of the heart.

‘We never lied,' Zanna stares meaningfully at Stephen who looks affronted, as if the idea of deception is so preposterous that it does not need addressing.

‘There was no lying,' he confirms again, formally, like an expert witness.

I give her sleeve a little tug. ‘Repeat after me, Zanna,' I say. She stares at me with a look of magnified alarm. Her face is moon pale, the TV light casts a flickering glow over the shadow-filled room. And I hear the flood roar as the dam bursts open between us and all our years are swept neatly away as we plunge into an uneasy silence, the strangeness expanding to fill the space between us. We have reached the breakpoint in our friendship and the stage is set for a bitter ending, a severance that will be final. Zanna's voice already petering out into the future distance.

‘Repeat after me.' I manage a smile. She releases her grip on my arm, shoots a glance to Stephen and he lets his hand fall away.

And I do not stumble. The picture fades into stark contrast and everything is bleached out in a white light of grief. It is not what I thought at all. And I am the last to arrive.

Stephen picks up the ringing phone and snaps, ‘Yeah, I know,' and then he kills the war show.

‘I need to go to the office,' he announces.

‘And I should too,' says Zanna.

Rex is already standing by the front door, his nose pressed into the seal. Stephen bends to pet him but Rex is having none of it. He snaps his head away with a regal stare and pads unbidden out the door, leads the way and down the stairs.

‘You got your car?' Stephen takes the steps in a light run.

‘No.'

‘We –
you
– could drop Geri home first,' Zanna prompts. She stands passenger side in the open door gathering her long coat about her, her face sallow in the streetlight. Stephen hesitates, jangles his key and I know he's running the logisitics. Home is west, work is east. ‘Or I could drop you at the office.'

‘I'm taking a cab home,' and I turn away, feeling their eyes like leeches on my back. Rex gamely nuzzles my hand like he's cheering me on. There is something here about dignity and I am learning fast. Almost immediately I see the approaching yellow cab light bearing down like an angel to deliver me from this misery. The driver looks at Rex who sits on the pavement looking for all the world like the model dog and he says OK and we bundle into the back. Rex does not whine or try to climb on my lap but settles himself demurely at my feet. It seems he is ready to rise to the occasion, make the transition. He is ready for the hard stuff up ahead. The big dog stuff.

Through the window I see Stephen pull out and drive away with a hand signal salute, the sort of generic gesture that clearly signals there is nothing left unspoken, there are no outstanding issues or lingering doubts and all our history has been perfectly erased. Stephen is liberated from the trench warfare of our relationship and has moved on into the exhilarating embrace of new hostilities with a guaranteed pay-off. I watch the tail lights recede in the drizzle and I know that this is the last I will ever see of him.

AND THEN I REMEMBER THE KEYS.

I scrabble in the soft shell of my bag, rooting for the metal tag and then dump the contents of the bag on the seat to prove what I already know – my keys are not here. They are in the pocket of the coat that lies
still in Pie Man's lair, unless he has burnt it by now to destroy all traces of my presence. One spare set is at Zanna's and the other is in the office, in my desk drawer and I am swearing at the bag, swearing at Stephen because it is in some way all his fault. I am too tired by far for this carry on, bobbing along the Kings Road after an eternity of captivity, this time of night, this time of
war
is not the right moment for anyone to have to wonder what the hell they're doing with their life.

‘Actually we need to go to the City,' I tell the cabbie and he shrugs as if to say this change of plan is a mere detail compared to what is going on in the larger world. The radio keeps up its urgent commentary on the sketchy war news and I am cold, cold to the heart and bone and nothing but the reflection of my own circumstances visible in the pane glass. Rex rests his head on my shoe and yawns. I switch off the overhead light as we head along the Embankment and I see it is true that water shines silver under moonlight and that red cars have low visibility at night. In a few hours' time this dead zone will come alive, tubes rushing to fill the empty vacuum of empty platforms, the city in the grip of the alarm clock of war.

The security guard is watching TV with his feet up on the desk and his back to the counter. He slides the file towards me without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘Hey,' he calls and when I head towards the lift Rex shows up on the security camera. ‘I'm locked out,' I explain, ‘and this is a real emergency.' He waves me on. War changes all the rules.

The deserted trading floor is a Pompeii of chairs at odd personalised angles. Cheap biros on open reports, crushed Coke cans, overflowing ashtrays and, above, the heat and hum of unmanned hardware, like an abandoned spacecraft looking for command. We don't switch off our life-support when we are leaving in the evening, just in case the machines might never start again in the morning.

My desk is a wailing wall of Post-its on the phone board. I yank open the trestle drawer and YES, there are my keys. Rex rummages in
a bin, fishes out an empty yogurt carton and wanders off in search of food. I sit down, write my name on the open notebook over and over and over again until I have filled the whole page and then I shred it, float the pieces on the floor.

I get up and walk over to the bank of overhead TVs, turn up the volume on CNN where Larry Register is live from Jerusalem, toughing it out in a gas mask, waiting for scuds that might be laced with chemicals. The anchorman, who is safely tucked away in Atlanta, asks Larry if he really shouldn't be evacuating the building. But Larry isn't listening, he's busy opening windows and ringing up his colleagues in Tel Aviv to ask if they're seeing any scuds and dangling microphones outside to hear what's happening in the night sky.

There's a clicking behind me and I look over at a green sales line blinking on the phone board. I pick up the receiver onto a familiar long-distance crackle.

‘Geraldine.'

‘Felix.'

‘You were lost and now you are found.'

‘How did you know I would be here at this time of night?'

‘We are at war, my dear, and you are running out of places to hide.'

‘I wasn't
hiding
, Felix. I was being held against my will.'

He sighs, clicks his lips faintly. ‘Your instinct for self-preservation has deserted you. You have been lurching about like a stray kitten, taking unnecessary risks.'

‘I escaped. I got away.'

‘You need protection. You won't survive in this jungle.'

Rex pads over and drops an empty sandwich carton at my feet. I lean down to scratch his head and reassure, but perhaps he has already forgotten the night's adventures.

‘So Felix, did you know that Stephen would betray me?'

‘Your own trusting heart betrayed you, Geraldine. Your pillow talk. You were the victim of your own indiscretion. Did you really believe that Stephen Graves was different to all the others?'

‘You could have warned me when I came to see you.'

‘I did rather sound the most obvious alarm when I told you that he had been to see me. But it seems he has the most appalling effect on your concentration. You were not paying attention. You have not been paying attention for some time, Geraldine. If you had been listening, you might have guessed that Stephen had found a white knight. The clue was there in our conversation.'

‘Did you set me up?'

Felix makes a noise like laughing. ‘My dear, you set yourself up all the time. There is always someone using you.'

A flood of war headlines surges across the screen. Larry turns to talk to a colleague, their heads so close it looks as if the snouts of their gas masks are kissing.

‘I saw Stephen tonight. I called round to his flat.'

‘How very dramatic. Tell me, was it an ugly confrontation?'

‘He has a new woman. She is – was – my best friend.'

‘Poor Geraldine, betrayed at every turn. You must toughen up if you are to survive this world of beasts. What a tawdry end to this theatre. And a very shabby performance by Kapoor, I must say.'

Tick-tick goes the greenback, steady under fire. Felix's breathing hisses in my ear. Larry's masked head is shaking mournfully now, like an S&M hopeful who has changed his mind too late.

‘So tell me, Felix, what did you do in the end?'

‘British Electronics is a much better bet than Texas Pistons. The MOD will not object to a domestic buyer.'

‘And Otto's deathbed request?'

‘Ah, Geraldine. The ethics of investment. Perhaps you should apply yourself to some real work in that area.'

I light up a cigarette, kick off my shoes and warm my feet in Rex's fur.

‘Goethe once said that reading Kant was like stepping into a brightly lit room.' His voice is faint now, as if the receiver is some distance from his mouth. ‘Did I ever tell you that I learnt German specifically to be
able to read Kant without the screen of translation? He proved to be disappointingly ponderous and repetitive. A wearying excess of words. Very Prussian.'

I hear his fingers tap the Reuters buttons, like a secret code.

‘I have a business proposal for you, my dear.'

‘Too late. I'm guessing the Grope has already fired me in absentia.'

‘On the contrary, the landscape has changed. I spoke to your boss a little while ago.'

‘You spoke to him?'

‘I wanted him to understand that Steiner's would lose
all
of my business if you were to leave the firm. And naturally the loss of my order flow would simply add to the long list of problems that have tarnished his reputation in the past few days. Especially if you were to resurface at the competitor of my choice.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Under the circumstances, he was very enthusiastic.'

‘I'll bet.'

‘There is one condition.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Your relocation would be immediate. I told him that you have twenty-four hours to arrive.'

My Reuters shudders and blinks. ‘Why are you doing this, Felix?'

He pauses, a low vibrating hum like a distant tuning fork. ‘Because I want to see what you will do. Because I find that I cannot calculate the odds. And this is a problem that engages me.'

‘So you want to force my hand.'

‘It is time for you to grow up and take charge, Geraldine. To put aside your childish ways, to decide, to make a
choice
. Become your own master.'

‘Why me?'

‘Perhaps you should think of me as a patron. You will never find a greater admirer of your talents. But you need to remain interesting for me to keep you alive. There are plenty of ciphers out there. I want you
out at the coalface, here in Hong Kong. It is time for all of us to see what you are really capable of.'

Felix exhales in my ear. I stare at Larry's masked face. The camera jolts to an arm snaking a mic out of a window into the blackness. There is a muffled shout and then the long crescendo of an air raid siren.

‘What do you really want, Felix?'

‘What was Russell's desire? Do you remember?'

‘“I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.”'

‘I would like a diversion from the monotony of consistent out-performance. And I am not finished with you. In fact we have barely begun.'

The anchorman urges Larry and the guys to be careful, a professional catch in his voice as he reminds us viewers that we are in the live presence of reckless heroism.

‘But what about what
I
want to do?'

‘I am not at all convinced that you are the best judge of that, Geraldine. And in any case, I am not interested in your grubby narrative. I am only interested in the development of the plot.'