Upgrading (30 page)

“He wasn’t very helpful—he gave me a really hard time.”

“Lawyers always treat you like that until they know you. I’ve known Gerald for ten years so now he treats me properly. He was the one who suggested this in the first place.”

“Really? He sounded appalled to me.”

“Only because he doesn’t know you.” I look at her for a moment, wondering why she always has an answer to everything.

Then I say “I’m going to get some tea.”

“Don’t go out. I’ve got some tea here. It helps make the whites of your eyes whiter. Look.” She pulls down her bottom lid and stares at me like a bug-eyed loony.

“Yes, but it tastes like a hamster crapped in the box,” I explain.

“Have you thought any more about Anna Maria?” says Marion over a glass of champagne that evening before we go out.

“Oh, God, Marion. I’m not sure. I’m sorry, I’ll just have to think about it.”

“Fifteen thousand pounds. I can make it cash if you want,” she says, fishing some imaginary speck out of her champagne glass. I think about it for a moment. Christ, it gets more tempting every time she says it.

“Marion, I just can’t. I’m sorry. Can’t someone else do it?” She takes a sip of champagne and stares thoughtfully across the room for a moment.

“Oh, I’m sure I can find someone. I just wanted to give you first refusal.”

“Well, thank you.” For what, I’m not quite sure.

“Don’t mention it,” she says.

She takes another sip of champagne and I have to ask her, “Don’t you feel funny about me marrying another woman?”

She looks surprised and then says brightly, “So are you going to marry her?”

“Well, I don’t know yet, but don’t you feel odd about your … lover … marrying another woman?”

“But it’s not a proper marriage. It’s just a piece of paper, just a technical arrangement to get over this little difficulty.” She allows her words to sink in and then, pouring me more champagne, adds, “It doesn’t mean anything. As soon as the paperwork is done you can start the divorce proceedings. I’d do it myself if I could, but being a woman and an American citizen I kind of fall down on two counts.”

The gratuitous sarcasm actually undermines her appeal slightly by making it obvious that she thinks she is talking to an idiot. Obviously realizing this, she adds, “I’m sure Mark could find me someone else and I’d pay them—not as much, of course—but I wanted to help you out financially.”

“I suppose so,” I say, taking a sip of champagne thoughtfully.

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” she says, leaning over and pushing my hair away from my forehead. “I would still very much like for you do this marriage thing. It is, as I said, a great opportunity but I’ve got something else which might help you earn a bit of money. I know that boys from Reading who sell space don’t often get the chance to make something of themselves but after our conversation over dinner with Charles and Victoria the other evening, Charles told me today that he’s got a friend who’s start-ing some businesses and he could really use some help.”

As we’re driven to one of Marion’s friends’ houses for dinner I begin to think, why not? I’ve been thinking about this business thing quite seriously. With some capital from Marion and perhaps some of her friends plus Charles’s contacts, this might be a runner. After all, most of Marion’s friends seem to make money more easily than running it off a photocopier so there might be some trick I can learn from Charles’s colleague.

If I do the marriage thing, take my fifteen thousand and get some sort of project going with Charles or one of his mates, then I’ll be doing OK.

It would make it easier for me and Marion to split up. I shoot her a guilty glance. Sorry, Marion, but I can’t do this much longer. With a tidy sum in the bank and my own little business venture I won’t be doing badly—even Jane can’t object to that.

Charles sounds slightly nonplussed when I call him the next day and remind him of his conversation with Marion about a business colleague looking for help.

“Oh, er, yes, of course. He’s a young guy I know who is working in property, at the moment. It’s a growing market. I think he’s looking for someone to help raise finance,” he says in his mid-Atlantic, aristocratic drawl. “Your experience is in sales, isn’t it?”

Flattered that he remembers my job, well my
former
employment, I confirm this, click into sales mode and give him a quick spiel about my talents and experience.

“Very good, very good indeed. I think you might be just what … er … my … er business associate is looking for.”

s
o the following Monday I am up early—well, ten-thirty, pacing around the living room with a mug of tea in my hand, dividing my attention between
I Love Lucy
on the telly and the front door. I am ready for business: smart suit, new tie, shaved and groomed with free samples from some of Marion’s magazines.

Charles’s colleague is Ralph and he is going to introduce me to the property business. I’ve been reading up on the sector in the newspapers and the business magazines in the last day or so and I’ve reached the conclusion that the market being what it is, provided you’ve got the capital, you can’t really fail. And Charles and Marion’s friends sure have the capital.

Marion, who has gone out to have something plucked or massaged or reshaped, stroked my cheek and wished me luck before she went.

I’ve decided against a briefcase because I’ll look like a sales rep and also because I don’t want Ralph to think that I think that making money in business is about writing your name and today’s date neatly across the top of a piece of paper.

Ralph finally arrives. An hour late. I get to the door before Anna Maria does. At first I think there is no one there but then, when I look round, I see him slouched against the side of the house. He is younger than I expected, his face a gruesome patchwork of bum fluff and eczema. His mousy hair looks like it has never been combed and he is wearing a pair of knackered old aviator sunglasses. He is also sporting a very old, navy blue Crombie overcoat, an Oxford cotton shirt and red corduroy jeans without a belt.

“Hi …” he says. I realize he’s forgotten my name.

“Andrew,” I say, holding out a hand.

“Yeah, hi, Ralph.” There is an awkward pause.

“Shall we go?” I say.

“Go? Er, yeah, let’s go. Er, can I just use your … er …”

“Sure, upstairs on the left.”

He stumbles into the house and upstairs. I wait an embarrassingly long time. When he finally re-emerges I wonder whether to ask if everything is OK.

“Right,” he says, rubbing his hands together.

“OK,” I say enthusiastically. “Shall we go?”

“What? Oh, yes. OK.”

He leads the way out of the house and sets off down the mews and out into the street, then he turns round and walks back the other way. We stand there for a moment. I’m just about to ask what his car, assuming that is what he has lost, looks like.

Finally he spots a very old, dark blue Jag, which is actually pretty conspicuous amongst the immaculate Mercs and BMWs that litter the streets around Marion’s. As I sit down in the cracked maroon leather seat I can smell stale cigarettes, body odour and pot. The car, something of a vintage, is a mess. Every surface is covered with papers, business cards, pages of some fragmented A-Z, cigarette packets and old Tango cans. I realize that by the time I get out, somehow, somewhere, my suit will be permanently marked.

Ralph, meanwhile, is trying to start the car, easing out the choke, tickling the accelerator and whispering, “Come on, baby,
come on.”
Finally the old crate, aroused by his efforts, groans and roars into life.

“Yeah,”
gasps Ralph and we move off. We turn out into the main road and a car we narrowly miss flashes its lights behind us. Ralph seems not to notice.

After we have been driving for some minutes I try to make conversation by asking, “Where are we going, then?”

Ralph suddenly seems to notice my presence. “Oh, right, yeah. Where do you want to go?”

“Well, you know best. Erm, I thought we were going to look at some property or something.”

“Er, OK. Let’s do that.” He drives a bit more then says, “Where do you think?”

This is beginning to piss me off. “I thought Charles had spo-ken to you about this?”

“Charles?”

“Oh, Christ! Yes, Charles Montague thought you might know of some properties that Marion and, er, I might want to invest in?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course, sorry, man. Got the picture.” He nods violently and carries on saying “yeah” until we come to some traffic lights at which point he asks, “I wonder which is the best way to get there?”

He lights a cigarette and begins grooving out to some imaginary music, thumping on the steering wheel. The car behind us beeps and I realize that the lights have changed.

“Er, Ralph.”

“Heh?”

The car beeps again. “Lights,” I say, nodding up at them.

“Christ! God! Sorry!”

We lurch off and drive on a little further until he says, “Yeah, Notting Hill. That’s the place to invest. I know some beautiful little places round there.” At last we seem to be getting somewhere.

“Great,” I say enthusiastically. “Let’s go.”

We drive on in silence, me reminding him from time to time to go when the lights change to green and once or twice to stop when they are red. Ralph is still grooving out to the track going round in his brain or staring into space. At one point his mobile rings and he grabs it from the section behind the gear lever.

“Haello? Er, he’s not here. No, I’m just looking after his phone. No, I don’t know where he is.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just switches off the phone and throws it onto the back seat. I keep looking straight ahead.

Finally we arrive in a deserted street in W11—council blocks on one side, white stucco terraced houses on the other.The houses have the tell-tale signs of socioeconomic decline—Xpelairs at most windows and a line of doorbells at every front door. Washing hangs despondently from lines on both sides of the street. In the distance a radio plays reggae and a baby is screaming.

“Where exactly were you thinking of?” I’m hoping against hope that he has something in mind.

“Erm.” At that moment we pass a For Sale sign and he brakes violently and says, “Well, that’s something you could be thinking about.”

“You know it, do you?” I say, knowing full well he doesn’t but getting pretty pissed off by now.

“Er … Oh, yeah. Er, look, let’s stop and have a coffee, shall we?” I agree. The smell of the car and Ralph’s last-minute braking is beginning to make me feel sick. We double park and go into a tiny café with sticky-back plastic on the tables and a yellowed picture of some Italian seaside town on the wall next to a sign written in felt tip offering, “Gigs £3.”

We order cappuccinos, which I pay for. We take them to an empty table near the window and Ralph pours sugar from the shaker into his coffee for a few minutes.

He lights a cigarette and says, “Yeah, Charles! Jesus!”

I take this to be an opening for some sort of conversation. By now, I have completely given up on finding any property or doing any business at all with this daft little turd but I decide that I might at least find out something interesting and even useful about Charles and Victoria.

“How do you know him?”

“Who?”

“Charles,” I say. “You fuckwit,” I think.

“Oh, we just move in the same circles. We’ve done some busi-ness together.”

“Property?”

“All kinds of shit.”

“He seems quite an interesting guy.”

“Yeah. Wild,” says Ralph, blowing smoke out and shaking his head gently.

“Why’s he wild?” I ask, deciding, sod it, let’s just go for the third degree after all. If necessary I’ll just put him up against the wall and hit him a bit or hold his face over the chip pan.

“Oh, he just is. Wild man. Christ!”

“How does he make his money?”

Ralph stares at me for a moment. At last I seem to have engaged him.

“He’s got a number of, er, business interests.”

I nod, knowingly. Ralph sniffs, rubs his nose and mutters something about paying a visit before we go. He gets up and then from behind me I hear him being told that there isn’t really a toilet but he can use the staff one out in the yard. I finish my coffee. He hasn’t touched his.

When he returns, about ten minutes later, I am standing up ready to go. He sits down again. So I do too. Then he looks at me, gets up again and says, “Ready?” God, this is exhausting.

We step outside and I wonder whether I should just say thanks, nice meeting you, and find a Tube station. Ralph stops to light another cigarette and then starts off, shaking his head and saying, “Yeah, wild.”

“What is?” I say irritably.

“What?” he says blankly.

“You said something was wild.”

He looks at me for a moment and then laughs and says, “Yeah, I’ll say.”

I follow, looking around for something to get me out of here: a Tube station, a phone or even a For Sale sign. I decide to make one more effort with Ralph, he must know something useful or Charles would not bother with him.

“You think this is the best place to buy, then?” I say, gazing up at the houses around us for some inspiration. No reply. When I turn to look at him, Ralph is gone. I stop and look around for a moment.

Suddenly I hear his voice, an urgent whisper this time, “Fucking move it, will you.”

“What?” Ralph is standing in a doorway, pressed against a door, a look of stark terror on his face. At that second I am aware of someone standing very close to me, I turn round and see a young guy whose tight, ugly smiling face is almost touching mine. It is the kid standing next to him who speaks.

“Hello, Ralphie. Who’s your mate, then?”

“What?” is all I manage to say before the first guy slaps me hard across the face and then thumps me in the stomach. I fall down onto the pavement and am just about to retch when I feel a boot on the side of my head, crushing my ear. It pushes me gently but powerfully onto the ground and holds me there. The pavement bites into my forehead. I suddenly find myself focusing on the really thick tread on the sole of a shoe, the stitching and the smell of plastic. I feel sick, more out of shock than the punch in the guts I’ve just suffered.

I can’t see properly, can’t breathe properly and with one ear squashed onto the pavement and one folded underneath a DM, I can’t even hear properly. I’m still staring at the sole that is less than an inch away from my left eye. The other boot, I suddenly realize to my horror, is probably poised to swing into my face. But it doesn’t and a second later I am aware of the pressure on my head being released and both boots moving away quickly.

I lie on the ground for what seems like hours, trying to catch my breath and work out if I dare get up. Somewhere behind me I can hear thumping and grunting. It’s a bit like a fight at school only slower and heavier. And it all happens in silence: no shouting, no swearing, no cheering. Just an atmosphere of quiet concentration. I lie still. Paralysed. Looking down at the shops above my head, the pavement next to my right eye and the vast expanse of innocent blue sky next to my left.

I hear a voice say “OK, OK” and the noise stops. My throat goes into spasm—for a second I think that they are about to start on me. Oh, Jesus! Why did I ever get involved in this? What the hell am I doing with these people? Christ, I’m sorry, I’ve learnt my lesson. There is no free lunch. Please don’t let it happen and I’ll forget my plan with the rich women. I don’t want to be mixed up with people like this. If I’d ever known, if I’d ever had
any
idea that this is what it meant, I wouldn’t have dreamt of it. Oh, please! I’m sorry, I’ll go back to media sales, or accountancy or anything. I want to be safe and suburban and not beaten to mush!

But nothing happens—they’re walking away. Walking. Not running. Just ambling down the street for a lunchtime pint. A job well done. Fucking
nerve.
I lie perfectly still until I am sure they have gone for good. All I can hear is Ralph coughing behind me. Then I hear a rumbling and shuffling. Help? First Aid? A stretcher? That was quick. No, it is a little old lady with her trolley. She pauses for a moment and looks down at me with mild interest. She turns her face square onto mine, she looks down my twisted, curled up body, frowns for a moment and then shuffles off.

I decide to get up. My stomach aches and my face stings. My arms and legs are trembling but otherwise I’m not hurt. When I look at Ralph I immediately feel sick and have to get down on my hands and knees to stop myself from fainting. It isn’t just the blood but the thought that what had happened to him could have happened to me.

Still shaking, I walk slowly over to the doorway he is lying in.

“Are you all right?”

His face is a mess: blood, snot and spit are marbled over his nose, mouth and shirt. His left cheek and eyebrow have a deep cut in them and his lip is already beginning to swell. I begin to find myself feeling sorry for Ralph. He looks like he is in shock, poor kid. I notice for the first time how stick thin he is. I try to help him up but he is too weak and shaky.

The letter box above us rattles and I realize that someone is looking out at us.

“Help,” I say weakly but it rattles shut and I hear someone behind the door running upstairs. “Could you call an ambulance, please?” I add pathetically.

“No,” says Ralph. He starts to get up, wincing in pain. I help him and this time, eventually he is standing, bowed like an old man. His coat is ripped and his shirt, which has footprints on it, is hanging open. He attempts to tuck it in. “Bastards,” he murmurs. It seems so inadequate, as if they had taken his parking place. I remember his silence as they worked him over.