even smile. No sense of humour? That could be a problem, working for Porter’s Potteries Pies.
‘Porter’s – they’re the Wedgwood of the pie.’
‘Ah.’
‘Cut your teeth on them, and the world could be your oyster.’
‘Thank you, sir. Do you … um …’ A roguish look spread over Martin Fortescue’s face. ‘Do you ever put oysters in your pies? I know people used to.’
‘Arnold Bennett, probably. No, we never have. Maybe you could explore the possibility.’
‘Thank you, sir. I certainly will.’
Sir Gordon sent Martin on his way and immediately telephoned his father. Martin’s father, not his own. No point in telephoning his own father. Not compos mentis. No longer wise. Very sad. Terrible, actually.
‘Julian?’ He was relishing this moment. He only wished he could see Julian Fortescue’s self-satisfied face when he told him he was sending his precious son to a pie factory in the Potteries. ‘I’ve seen your son, Julian, and I’m offering him a job. In my pie factory. In Stoke.’
‘Stoke?’
‘On-Trent.’
‘I know where Stoke is, Gordon. Oh, Gordon, pies, that’s marvellous, that’ll take the smile off his face. And Stoke. All the way to Stoke. We were wondering how the hell we could ever persuade him to leave home. I can’t thank you enough for this, Gordon.’
It was going to be one of those days.
‘I really have shocked myself’
His second meeting was with Fred Upson, MD of SFN Holdings.
Fred was one of those people who irritated you by their passivity, and then irritated you even more by their passive acceptance of your right to irritate them. He was one of life’s natural victims, and Sir Gordon, like most other people, couldn’t resist a little bit of ritual humiliation.
He had to be careful, however, very careful. Fred knew where the body was buried, the body in this case being SFN Holdings. He would be committing professional suicide if he alienated Fred. Fred might perhaps suspect that he was being humiliated at these Monday meetings, but he must never be allowed to know it for certain. The relationship was on a knife-edge, but then the edges of knives were Sir Gordon’s favourite territory.
He also had to pay Fred extremely well.
He moved the hard chair to an obscure corner of the room, and brought forward one of the soft chairs.
His meetings with Fred were always scheduled for nine-thirty, just early enough to make it impractical for him to get to Euston from Dudley that morning, and so forcing him to spend a night in the London that he loathed so much.
Fred was on time, of course, exactly on time, on the dot, as always. How irritating was that?
Sir Gordon indicated the soft chair.
‘Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘Had coffee at the hotel, thank you. Vile. Put me off the stuff for weeks.’
‘Something stronger, then?’
‘Oh no. No, no. No thanks. Bit early for me.’
Fred had a drink problem. Offering him something stronger was just perfect – right on the edge of the knife.
‘So, hotel not good?’
‘Disgusting.’
‘I thought we’d got you a new one, F.U.’
The edge of that knife again. Fred could hardly complain, they were his initials, but he must have resented it. He didn’t show it at all, though, which of course made Sir Gordon want to say it all the more.
‘You did, Sir Gordon. I’ve now tried the Ibis, the Travelodge, the Travel Inn, the Kwality Inn, the Premier Inn, the Outside Inn, the Innside Out, the Orvis …
‘I think that’s a shirt.’
‘Oh, sorry. Anyway, it’s one that begins with an O, and ends in tears. They’re all awful.’
‘Well, if you refuse to go beyond Euston Road, what can you expect?’
‘Speaking about the hotel, I gave Helen a list of my expenses. They have rather piled up. If they could be … er … processed …’ Fred Upson didn’t quite have the courage to use the verb ‘paid’. ‘… I’d be very grateful. Not that I … but … you know.’
‘Absolutely. Helen will be processing them even now, if I know Helen.’ Sir Gordon was almost tempted, just to see Fred Upson’s face, to add, ‘And I do know Helen. In the biblical sense.’ But he resisted it. Mustn’t give employees ammunition.
‘Right. The most important matter is dealt with.’ Sir Gordon smiled at Fred Upson, to show that this was, and at the same time wasn’t, a joke. Fred Upson’s expenses were a legend in the Stick of Celery. ‘Everyone in my employ is the best at something,’ Sir Gordon had once said. ‘And in Fred Upson’s case it’s expenses.’
‘So! To business! How are things at good old SFN?’
‘You know how they are, Sir Gordon. They never change.’
‘True.’
‘I read that article about our results being disappointing. Strange that SFN should be mentioned at all, but rather reassuring.’
‘I wondered if they meant you were going to declare a profit.’
‘Oh my God, no.’
‘Actually, Fred …’
The phone rang. It was part of the ritual.
‘Sorry about this.’
That was part of the ritual too. Sir Gordon wasn’t at all sorry. In fact, he had instructed Helen to send through as many phone calls as possible during Fred Upson’s visits. It was his little joke, for his own amusement only. Power can be boring, and absolute power can be absolutely boring. Fred might suspect that she was doing this, but he couldn’t know it.
Helen didn’t always do Sir Gordon’s bidding. In fact, she was becoming less and less compliant. He couldn’t sack her, unfortunately, or she would rearrange the vowels and issue a complaint. One unwise Tuesday he’d had sex with her for seven minutes and he’d regretted it for eleven years. But she did what he asked with regard to Fred Upson. She too found pleasure in annoying him. Mother Teresa herself would have found the temptation hard to resist.
‘Coppinger,’ he announced briskly into the phone.
‘Me
