We All Fall Down (27 page)

Hugh laughed. ‘Dieter, to take just one example, is not a moron, Murray.'

‘Course he is. All car salesmen are morons. Only morons could do such a job.'

‘Seriously, he isn't an idiot. OK, he left Alpha –'

‘There you are!'

‘And he did always try to second guess what Mannheim wanted –'

‘Say no more! Only a moron is going to try and second guess what head office wants. Why didn't he work out what
he
thought would be the correct thing for Bauer to do in Australia? I'll tell you why not …' He looked at Hugh expectantly.

The younger man laughed. ‘Because he's a moron?'

‘Got it in one.'

Hugh enjoyed listening to Murray. It may have been the careworn voice, almost verging on a drawl, or it may have been the deep, monotonous flatness of his delivery, as if speaking was almost too much of an effort. Whatever it was, it was appealing, almost hypnotic.

‘It's a game, Hughsy, just a game. Our clients could do for themselves most of what we do for them, and we could easily do what they do. But if that happened, we wouldn't have a game. Something to keep all of us business types busy, to keep us occupied, to take our minds off the big questions, the important questions.'

Hugh was baffled. ‘I don't understand. What big questions?'

‘The meaning of life and stuff. Those big questions.'

‘It's forty-two according to
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
. And I think you're talking bullshit.'

They both laughed, and the older man nodded thoughtfully.

Hugh didn't tell Murray about the separation. He didn't tell anyone at work. It was only temporary, so there was little point. He and Kate would be back together before it became general knowledge. The person he would most like to have confided in, the person who would have understood his situation and supported him without question, was Fiona.

The house had grown larger since Kate and Tim had left, just as his day had grown substantially longer. He tried to fill the extra hours with work, but didn't feel he was capable of filling the house. So he closed many of the doors and stayed away from those rooms, although sometimes, when he felt particularly low, he'd go and sit on Tim's bed and look at the giant pandas on the duvet or watch the butterfly mobile hanging from the ceiling, or imagine his son on the floor playing with his cars. Otherwise he restricted his life to just four rooms: the kitchen, sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. He closed everything else off, and retreated into the centre of his home. His study, which he'd used frequently when Kate and Tim were in the house, he rarely went near. If he had to work, he worked in the front room. He wondered if that meant he'd used his study as a sanctuary when they'd been in the house, a place where he could hide and be alone, but he was never able to answer that particular question.

When he arrived home in the evenings now, only Dante was there to greet him. He forced himself to cook, usually something instant, then sat in the front room with a bottle of red, staring, unseeing, at the TV. Dante lay on the floor at his feet. One evening, he spoke to the dog, and between them it was decided that it would be a good idea for him to call Penny. ‘What harm can it do?' The dog had no reply, so Hugh called her the next day.

* * *

He was concentrating so hard on how he looked, he missed the many heads that turned as she walked across the restaurant towards him. He raised himself from his chair slowly, looking very much like an old person weighed down by the immovable burden of very many years, as if he wished to convey to her in the seconds it took for her to reach their table that she'd overwhelmed him with emotions that he was powerless to ward off, and that he was now obliged to behave like this, to suffer like an awkward teenager. She ignored the whole performance. Hugging him quickly, practically, with no more emotion than a friend, she said, ‘Not bad for the antipodes.' Turning, looking round the room, and unaware of the one or two men still staring in her direction, she added, ‘It's quite swish really. We could almost be in London.'

‘I always find the good restaurants here are less formal than their counterparts in London.'

She grinned at his gauche pomposity, and sat down. ‘I'm sure you're right, Mr. Drysdale. Informality's good, anyway. All for it. Means I can behave abominably.'

He seized the seconds of silence that followed these opening remarks, savouring a second opportunity to convey his feelings of undying, possibly tragic, passion. He sat, arms folded, leaning forward, staring at her, almost too blatantly, almost rudely, the corners of his mouth stretched tight.
We were lying in bed together a few weeks ago
, he thought.
We were naked. We made love, Penny. You can't ignore these things. We have to talk about them.
But she wouldn't have bar of the messages being conveyed telepathically across the white tablecloth. ‘Guess who I received an email from this morning?' she asked.

‘I have no idea.' He didn't wish to participate in such blatant diversions.

‘Wendy.'

He frowned, then shrugged.

‘Wendy Hammond!'

Appreciating, finally, that his lunch companion was intent on steering their conversation away from the events that occurred after Fiona's funeral, he decided to surrender to the present, to make an effort to be polite and appear interested, no matter what subject she wished to talk about. ‘What's she doing now?' And so, in between ordering their food and wine, they discussed their colleagues in the UK, what was happening over there, as well as stories from their shared past. Hugh had lost touch with almost everyone he'd worked with in London, but was quickly caught up in all the gossip. Penny knew it all.

When the waiter was pouring the wine, Penny asked him for a bottle of Highland Stream. It turned out he had almost every brand on the market except that one.

‘You don't stock Highland Stream? How can you stand there and admit that? You're not even embarrassed.' She was staring up at him, smiling, pretending to find his confession hard to believe.

The waiter, clutching the menus to his stomach, head pivoting in every direction, and looking very like someone on stage about to audition for a part, said, ‘I'm shamefaced, madam. It's a dreadful state of affairs. Personally, I've never heard of Highland Stream, and I'm mortified by my ignorance. How can I endeavour to put things right for you?' He closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall forward at the end of this little speech – perhaps in the hope of being rewarded with a round of applause.

‘To start with, you could order some in. It's the best spring water on the market.'

‘And you wouldn't have something to do with this company, by any chance, madam?' He smiled slyly.

She laughed. ‘Now whatever made you think that?' After giving the waiter her card, along with instructions on how to order Highland Stream, she told him she'd make do with a glass of tap water. ‘I couldn't possibly drink any of the others.' He went away, grinning broadly, a new lightness in his step.

Penny leant forward across the table, head raised, looking into his eyes. ‘You have no idea, absolutely no idea …'

For the briefest of moments he thought she was about to talk about
them
, about how she was feeling, and to ask if he felt the same way. He wanted to take her hand. He needed to touch her. Talking was too difficult. He was no good at that, no good at this masculine flirtation thing, at putting on what they call a charm offensive. He needed something more basic than words.

‘This water thing is bigger than you could ever imagine. It's amazing, Hugh. To start with, we're talking mark-ups of sixty per cent.'

He attempted to clamber down to reality. ‘You're talking sixty per cent profit on a bottle of water? No way.' He tried to sound interested. ‘And where does it come from?'

‘The water? The Snowy Mountains or somewhere – I think. Not sure to be honest. Who cares. I do know that it comes from miles beneath the surface, is filtered lovingly by Mother Nature, and is full of nutritional this and that – you know the kind of thing. All we have to do is pour it into bottles, distribute it and flog it off to the unsuspecting public. It's difficult to keep up with the demand.'

‘Don't you have to treat it first, filter it or something?'

‘Very basic. It's pure enough already. Anyway, the general public likes all that natural garbage you get in spring water. That's why they buy it in the first place. Convinces them they're getting back to nature instead of imbibing chemicals and other contaminants with the municipal supply.'

‘Do you advertise?'

‘No need to. Stuff sells itself. Never thought I'd say that, but it's true. I know it's sacrilege, but it simply doesn't require the skills of people like you and me. Being relatively small compared to the big boys, to the Mount Franklins of this world, has allowed us to create a bit of a niche market.'

‘And what do you do?'

‘I'm the marketing director.'

‘How on earth did you land a job like that from the UK?'

‘Company was set up by this fellow I met back home – an Aussie who came in and saw us at PCD. He told me later that he visited lots of agencies, and –'

‘What's his name?'

‘McLennan. Josh McLennan. Know him?'

And Hugh did, or thought he did. He'd read something about him once, or heard something, but it escaped him there and then. ‘The name sounds familiar.'

‘Anyway, we kept in touch and a few months ago he offered me shares, a seat on the Board and the position of Marketing Director. Arranged visas, flights, everything, and I didn't even have to fuck him – although it just so happens that I did. So maybe that's what got me over the line.'

‘Penny!' He winced.

‘I know, I know.' She held her hands up to stop him going on, and possibly, also, because she realised she was wandering dangerously close to his preferred topic of conversation. ‘Can't help myself. Anyway, I got in on the ground floor, and I'm enjoying the ride of my life on board this gravy train.' She held up a finger in mock astonishment. ‘But can there be such a thing as a gravy train with water?'

Penny Ross was from a decent, ordinary middle-class family, raised in one of the leafier suburbs on the fringes of London, and been educated by nuns. She had the slightly streetwise, tough veneer that's essential to survival in the southeast of England, but in Penny's case it was only a veneer. She also had a lot of front, which made her perfect for the world of advertising. Being an attractive woman helped her rise quickly in the sexist, male dominated agency world – or at least it didn't hinder her. And although she didn't boast a brilliant or scholastic mind, she was sharp, confident, eloquent and resilient. She made good use of her looks and intelligence, but probably no more so than if she'd been in any other business. It was how she behaved. It came naturally to her, so naturally, she was held in as high esteem by her female colleagues as she was by her male ones. The latter might desire her and fawn over her and treat her like one of the lads, but the former enjoyed her company, never seeming to be jealous or find her behaviour offensive. She didn't sleep her way to the top – and wasn't even at the top – but nor would she have resented anyone saying that she had: she'd have thrown her head back and laughed. That was possibly the essence of the woman: Penny didn't take anything too seriously, certainly not herself. ‘You have to laugh' was one of her favourite expressions. Hugh suspected that beneath the mocking, bantering surface there was a core of seriousness, a person who considered such questions as, why are we on this earth, is there a solution in the Middle East, and what will be the effects of global warming on the long term viability of the human race? But he had never seen it. There'd been a time when he'd wanted to take her aside, sit her down in a quiet spot, order her to stop laughing and talking for a moment, and ask her what she really thought, how she really felt, but he had never done so and now, probably, never would. He would have to remain content, like everyone else so far as he knew, admiring the surface.

‘Enough about me, what are you up to?' And while he answered, she concentrated on eating, trying to make serious inroads on her main course, to catch up with him. He told her about The Alpha Agency, and then got onto Russell's request to pinch the research report off Bauer. He was interested in her opinion, even though the matter had now been resolved. He wanted to hear from someone who knew the business well.

‘I'd have tried to get the report for him, of course I would. ‘It's the kind of thing most people wouldn't think twice about.'

‘But what I don't understand, what I have a problem with is, why should one company get for free something another company has paid for?'

She leant forward across the table, and he couldn't help looking down the front of her dress. He averted his eyes. ‘Go on, take another look if you want.' ‘Sorry.' He blushed. ‘How sweet,' she said, grinning. ‘You're such an innocent. But to go back to that report. It's only a game, Hugh, you know that. Remember Rutherford?' – someone they'd worked with in London. ‘How he used to say, “It's only advertising, no one gets shot.” He was absolutely right. Don't take it so seriously.'

He was aware of feeling out of step with everyone else, and it made him feel uncomfortable. His life resembled a badly dubbed film, with nothing quite in sync.

While their waiter was clearing the table, and Penny was back to talking about bottled water, Hugh had the opportunity to study her unobserved. He appreciated that she wasn't just attractive, she was interesting – as well as outrageous and honest. Fleetingly, he found himself thinking that she was more real than Kate. He couldn't see the flaws in her, the joins. She wasn't pretending to be an artist, in fact there seemed to be no pretence about her at all. She was totally genuine. He told himself this was probably because he didn't know her that well. He also told himself that it was despicable to compare her to his wife.