Sing Like You Know the Words (14 page)

Ralph smiled again. His glass
seemed to empty itself. You didn’t notice him drinking before it
was time for a refill.

-A fascinating digression
Matthew. Thank you for your insight. However the kind of polity I
have in mind for today is office politics. We are not concerned
with a critique of the overrated system of democracy and its many
failings. We are more concerned with the practical matter of the
struggle for survival and advancement in the workplace. It is not
the lofty rhetoric of the Republic, but the sordid intrigues of
Empire, that concern us now. The scale of events is not so grand of
course, but you may find that the ruthlessness and depravity
involved is comparable with the antique Romans. However before we
commence I think that it would be in order to recharge these
glasses. Your shout, I think.

When Matthew returned from the
bar, still wondering what Ralph was talking about, his friend took
a long pull at his fresh pint before continuing.

- The politics of work, Matthew,
are like the general kind. They affect your life; even should you,
ill-advisedly, choose to ignore them.

-You say that, but I don’t see
you paying any attention to what is going on at work, or who‘s
arguing with who.

-They may argue with whom they
choose. And have you considered that my ignorance of these spats
may be assumed? Perhaps I am more a Claudius, than you know.
Remember the supposed idiot outlived all those ambitious types who
were so desperate to be emperor. But we are talking of yourself not
me. The crux is, what must you know to survive and prosper? Which
is to ask, not so much what you need to know of the profession of
journalism, because any fool can master the few tricks you’ll want
for that trade, but rather the more problematic issue of the life
and how one may best enjoy it in an age of ignorance.

He drank deeply.

-Think about this. People are
not always what they seem, and neither need you be. Take, for
example our esteemed colleague Richard. Richard, you know, comes
from a family of mill owners. For ever so long his grandfather was
mayor of one of those godforsaken Pennine towns that no one ever
visits. In short, his family is rich.

-He seems alright.

-As why should he not? But to
return to my theme, you were about to comment that you thought that
I was the posh one in the office.

-I was?

-Indeed, whereas in fact it was
Richard who enjoyed a privileged youth, including a time at
Cambridge in the long ago, where he no doubt witnessed, and for all
I know participated in that debauched undergraduate behaviour which
we read of in the contemporary fiction of the time. And yet to hear
him speak now, you would think he’d been a blunt Yorkshire tyke all
his life.

-And you Ralph?

I’m afraid that my formal
education terminated abruptly at the age of fifteen. Thereafter you
might say I became something of an autodidact, until a chance
involuntary sojourn in Her Majesty’s armed forces provided the
opportunity to formally better myself. More night school than
gilded academia for me. I might add, if it needs saying, that I am
sharing information with you on a strictly need to know basis.
Chatham House Rule applies.

Matthew had no idea what rule
Ralph meant. Rather than show his ignorance, he asked why it was
important that he should receive this information.

-We were talking earlier, were
we not, about what management like to call your appraisal?

-If that’s what it was. You
mean, when I told you that Mr Elliot said that he feared I would
never be worldly enough to make a proper newspaperman?

-His comment seemed to make you
unhappy.

-I like it at the paper, I feel
comfortable.

-Well then that’s more than
halfway to you being a true newspaperman isn’t it? Tell me, what in
particular do you feel comfortable? Always specifics remember. We
never content ourselves with odious generalities.

-If I’m honest: I like sitting
around with time to think, making up stories – I don’t mean
inventing, I mean turning some facts into a story, I like it that
people leave me alone, and having time to come out like now for a
drink in the day.

-Well and if you’d told old
Elliot that, he would have to agree that you are a natural born
hack in all vital aspects.

-Unworldly, he said.

-Well, boy, how would you
describe me? Would you say I was worldly?

-It’s different for you Ralph,
you’re… larger than life.

-You’re quite hopeless. If you
had spent any time reading Plato, or any of the Greeks, instead of
- whatever you did read – you would appreciate the fallacy of your
position. We are agreed that I am no more worldly than you, and yet
I have been a newspaperman over the course of some two decades, as
the payroll of the Examiner will attest. Ergo, worldliness, with
whatever grubby association Johnson intended to imbue that unlovely
word, is not an essential requisite of the job. You should also
have noted, if you had been paying attention, that in the matter of
my being larger than life, the persona that I present to the world,
being, I like to fancy, that of an erudite sage, disinterested to a
fault, rather aristocratic even, I could go on – in any case it
should be clear to you that, even if this is the part I was born to
play, I was not born playing it.

Matthew’s face failed to display
the expression of sudden enlightenment that Ralph had been
expecting.

-I can hardly put it more simply
for you, Matt. Practice dissimulation. Choose a character, become
that person and things will go very well for you afterwards. Anyone
can collect facts. The skill is to make something of them. How many
times have I told you that?

-But this is life we’re talking
about. You make it sound like acting. Is that really what I should
do for the rest of my life? Pretending all the time, just to fit
in. I remember talking about that once. I said that was how
everyone of my generation would end.

-And every generation before and
since. Nothing unique about it. We say the lines until they become
us. And actors are we all, that rise thus nimbly by our daily
scrawl.

-I know that one, it’s
Shakespeare.

-It was a paraphrase not a
quotation; remind me to explain the difference. For now, think only
that an actor must play many parts, while I am suggesting that you
need master only one, and consider that the part that you play is
your own invention. I should add that you are not doomed to tread
the boards of life as the tiresomely ignorant, blank-faced boy I
see before me. Only one word more: I would only caution you,
seriously; do not willingly play the grocer. Don’t become like that
fool Elliot, The likes of you and I should steer clear of…commerce,
or worse still management.

The words made Ralph grimace as
if his beer had suddenly turned sour.

Matthew knew, or hoped he knew,
that Ralph’s insults were offered in a kindly way. He did not take
offence at being called ignorant and blank-faced, not least because
he felt the description was justified. He considered Ralph’s
advice, while his companion drained his glass and offered it to
Matthew with an unspoken invitation that it be refilled.

-Ralph, it must have taken years
for you to read all the books you know and to turn yourself into
the person you are now; to understand so much about really posh
people and how they live.

-But reading books was what I
always wanted to do, so it wasn’t work to me. And I took a lot of
it from Wodehouse, which is not exactly hard going. In any case, he
added, shaking the empty glass at Matthew to indicate that a refill
was now overdue: the main thing is attitude. People will take you
at your own estimation with just a few props and a little
conviction. Believe me I know whereof I speak.

***

The Obuswu inquiry dragged on
without any obvious progress. For Patricia it was a slow time that
didn’t become easier to bear when David made partner at his
firm.

He was very young: to some he
was still newly qualified. On the other hand, no one could claim
surprise. Although the partners hated to share equity, especially
with one who had not served his time, they had realized that it was
a choice between making him up and losing him to another firm. The
difficult part for David had been to help them see that without
making them feel like they had guns to their heads. To make partner
early was unusual, but to do so without making too many enemies was
rare indeed.

By his own admission, David was
no better than average as a lawyer, but he did have a knack of
making each client feel that he had only their interests at heart.
Even when he failed to return their calls they didn’t hold it
against him. He wouldn’t blame his office for failing to pass on
messages, as others routinely did, but somehow he was able to give
clients the impression that he was accepting personal
responsibility only because he was too much of a gentleman to point
a finger at whoever had really let them down.

According to David, his lack of
interest in the law as a discipline made him better at the job. He
wanted to find practical solutions to his clients’ difficulties,
regardless of technical niceties. In a negotiation, he would start
modestly, appearing to yield to his opponent’s legal analysis of
the situation; perhaps pointing out the one or two areas of doubt
that he might bring up later. It was only after the deal was done
that his opponent would wonder why his own client had made so many
concessions if their case was really that strong. David could sense
when the opposition was likely to be made more tractable by having
its pride massaged.

His personal charm was all the
more potent for seeming to be employed without calculation.
Unfortunately charm was not always enough. There were all kinds of
lawyers. The worst were those who capitalised on their own
notoriety, trusting that their well known intransigence and blind
self absorption would force the other side to despair of agreeing a
reasonably fair outcome and concede. These were the self-made
monsters who demanded and obtained surrender on the basis that
everyone knew it was the only way to avoid excessive damage to the
interests and pockets of both sides. Although some clients were as
bad, when it was more important to them that their lawyer should be
seen to be unreasonably aggressive than that their case should
succeed.

It was clear that psychology was
more important than logic in the supposedly hard boiled world of
commerce. David had a grudging respect for the mad dogs. They were
all about winning. Often they knew every statute and every
procedural twist; and they were completely indifferent to their
clients’ best interests. Their approach reminded him of the
American president who persuaded the Russians that he was crazy
enough to press the button. When he came up against this type he’d
often need to advise his client to see the case as a ransom demand
that had to be paid. It couldn’t be denied that the mad dog
approach got results, but then so did David. The difference was
that his clients came back next time.

The clients were important. Even
more important were David’s dealings with other professionals and
contacts; the men who passed the clients on to him. Business
development, they liked to call it. David brought in business,
which meant that he was fishing at the head of the stream. If he
left, the firm would lose some fish, but worse than that, the
source would dry up. That was why they needed to keep him
happy.

How or why the business contacts
came to be so close to David so quickly was difficult to
comprehend, but the partners were practical men, not minded to deny
the world as it was. In a bigger firm, the issue of status might
have been more important than the monthly income that was being
billed, but Simpson Rose, for all its pretension, was just of a
size for the bottom line to be sovereign. This being so; David’s
claim was unanswerable.

***

It was round about this time
that David developed an enthusiasm for hill walking; which
surprised Matthew for various reasons.

-After all you said about your
father and his hiking boots.

David affected not to remember
any such conversation. Matthew thought of reminding him about the
tale of the mysterious lost cottage, which had not been heard for a
while, but he knew that story would never be a joking matter so far
as David was concerned.

-It’s the one time I can be with
my own thoughts and no interruptions, David said.

-What about that gadget you
have, can’t they reach you with that?

-The mobile telephone you mean?
There’s no signal on the hills and anyway I wouldn’t carry that
thing with me. It’s the size of a brick and it weighs more. Useless
really; just one of those businessmen’s toys that everyone is mad
to have until the craze passes.

-I’m amazed you have the time
for hiking anyway.

-There’s time for everything if
you make it.

Inevitably, it was not long
before Matthew became a co-opted accomplice; a duty he didn’t so
much object to, though he would have been reluctant to admit it. He
understood what David meant when his friend talked of finding a
rhythm of movement that let his thoughts drift where they would.
Most times they didn’t say much after the first twenty minutes:
there was no need. Matthew found that he didn’t look at landscape
so much as unconsciously experience it, except there was something
truly out of the ordinary to see; Yorkshire sunshine for
example.

Sometimes they did pause to
admire the view and then they’d chat. One day, they were walking
quite close to home: testing a short stretch of a long distance
path that David was planning to complete one day when there was
more time. This day, as usual he was pressed, but you would not
know it in the quiet calm of the country.