choice, James. I’ll have the Veneziana. I like to feel I’m giving 25p to Venice. It’s a great little town. And those dough balls sound nice to start. You going for the dough balls, James?’
‘No, thank you.’ How thankful he was that he hadn’t made any comment about them.
‘We’ve had some great lunches, haven’t we? Le Gavroche. Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons with Claire and the lovely Deborah.’
Claire! Must remember that. Claire. An éclair with the e on the end instead of the beginning. Easy-peasy.
‘And now the Pizza Express.’
‘Hard times?’
‘Got it in one. What’s your view of the state of the packaging industry, James?’
‘Difficult, Dwight. We pack what people buy. We can’t pack more or less than that. We’re a kind of barometer of the economy.’
‘I like that.’ The BWC rolled the phrase round his mouth as if it was a glass of premier cru Chateau Margaux. God, James could do with a glass of wine. Any wine. ‘A barometer of the economy. I’ll remember that.’
Of course you will. You remember everything, you bastard.
Dwight Schenkman the Third leant so far forward that James could smell his toothpaste and his aftershave.
‘To business,’ he said.
James’s heart began to pump very fast. Thank goodness he’d remembered to take all his pills.
‘There are two elements to this, James. A global element and a UK element.’
The pumping of James’s heart began to slow just a little. It didn’t sound like the sack.
‘In the short term, James, I am requiring every element of our global operation to make a fifteen per cent cut across the board. Across the board, James, from personnel to toilet paper via water coolers and stationery. I need your specific proposal as to how this target may be met in Bridgend and Kilmarnock, and I need it within six months.’
James knew how difficult this would be, but all he could feel was relief, immense, shattering relief. He had been given a job to do. He had not been sacked.
Dwight’s dough balls arrived. Since he was far too well bred to talk with his mouth full, and since he was an exhaustive chewer, his outlining of James’s greatest challenge came with long interruptions.
‘There is a real possibility, James, that we might have to consider transferring some, if not most, of our total British production capacity to …’
James tried not to watch the curiously sterile rhythmic movement of Dwight’s jaw as he chewed.
‘… Taiwan. Well, there are other possibilities, but Taiwan is favourite as of this moment in time.’
As opposed to this moment in space, thought James irreverently.
‘In six months I will have received estimates of the saving that we can achieve by moving production to Taiwan. I want you to set up a committee to give me another report producing equal …’
James took a sip of his water and tried to pretend it was gin.
‘… savings in the UK. Otherwise, Taiwan it is. In which case we could …’
He chewed on his next morsel of dough ball as if he couldn’t bear the pleasure to end.
‘… close the London office and you could all join us here in Birming-ham.’
Dwight Schenkman pronounced England’s second city as if it was a type of meat.
James’s heart sank. Even the arrival of his pizza capricciosa couldn’t lift it.
She was more than three-quarters of an hour late now. He was in turmoil. He stared wildly at the door, willing her to hurry in. But he knew in his heart that she wouldn’t.
He had ruled out the possibility that she had had second thoughts. Apart from the fact that there was no reason why she should – they had talked about it and talked about it and she had committed herself and told him how much she loved him and told him of James’s lack of real passion in recent years – there was also his knowledge of her character. She was a woman of courage, of spirit, of compassion, of style. If she had had second thoughts, she would have phoned to tell him.
He began to think about the possibility of an accident. He could barely allow himself to believe that she would have had a bad accident. His happiness, his utterly unexpected happiness, was not to be taken away so cruelly. But a minor accident, that would be what it was.
If it was a very minor accident, though, she would have been able to phone.
So why didn’t he phone her? Not in the restaurant, though. It was too quiet. Too many people were eating in whispers, in that strange, overawed English way.
He strolled out into the garden, slowly, trying to look casual.
He had chosen this remote spot so well that there was no network coverage.
He returned to his table, smiled at the lunchers and sat down, trying to look as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Round and round went his mind.
He told himself that he had lived without her reasonably happily for fifty-one years. Surely he could manage another thirty or so?
He knew that this was nonsense.
He caught the eye of the plump, plain woman. She had a stern, stiff look on her face, and traces of tiramisu on both her chins. He had a sudden fear that he knew her, and that, therefore, she knew him. He smiled at her, trying to make the smile look casual and relaxed. She gave a defensive half-smile in response, as if she wasn’t sure whether she knew him.
What did it matter, anyway? Deborah hadn’t come. Nothing had happened.
A waitress lumbered over towards him, English, local, with inelegant legs and not a shred of style.
‘Would you like to order, sir?’ she asked. ‘Only the chef’s got the hospital at two forty-five, with his boils.’
‘Well, he could hardly go there without them, could he?’
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘I’ll have the chicken liver pâté and then the loin of God.’
‘Good?’
‘Fine, Dwight. It was fine.’
‘You’re an unusual eater. I was watching you.’
Too right. Like a hawk. Disconcerting. Very.
‘I make sure that I don’t run out of the things I particularly like, which in this case were the egg, the anchovy, the capers,’ explained James. ‘There must be a bit of those left at the end. Not too much, though. That would be childish.’
‘I
