A Quiver Full of Arrows (11 page)

“Had many other members worked out what had
really happened that night?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Eric.

“And certainly Harry Newman hadn‘t.

The talk afterwards was that Harry had never
played a better game in his life and what a worthy champion he was, all the
more for the difficulties he laboured under.”

“Did Edward have anything to say?”

“Toughest match he’d been in since Monte
Carlo and only hoped he would be given the chance to avenge the defeat next
year.

“But he wasn’t,” I said, looking up again at
the board. “He never won the club championship.”

“That’s right. After Roosevelt had insisted
we help you guys out in England, the club didn’t hold the competition again
until 1946, and by then Edward had been to war and had lost all interest in the
game.”

“And Harry?”

‘Oh, Harry. Harry never looked back after
that; must have made a dozen deals in the club that night. Within ayear hewas
on top again and even found himselfanothercutelittle blonde. “

“What does Edward say about the result now,
thirty years later?”

“Do you know that remains a mystery to this
day. I have never heard him mention the game once in all that time.”

Eric’s cigar had come to the end of its
working life and he stubbed the remains out in an ashless ashtray. It obviously
acted as a signal to remind him that it was time to go home. He rose a little
unsteadily and I walked down with him to the front door.

“Goodbye my boy,” he said, “do give Edward
my best wishes when you have lunch with him tomorrow. And remember not to play
him at backgammon. He’d still kill you.”

The next day I arrived in the front hall a
few minutes before our appointed time, not sure if Edward Shrimpton would fall
into the category of early or late Americans. As the clock struck one, he
walked through the door: there has to be an exception to every rule.

We agreed to go straight up to lunch since
he had to be back in Wall Street for a two-thirty appointment. We stepped into
the packed lift, and I pressed the No. 3 button. The doors closed like a tired
concertina and the slowest lift in America made its way towards the second noon
As we entered the dining room, I was amused to see Harry Newman was already
there, attacking another steak, while the little blonde lady was nibbling a
salad. He waved expansively at Edward Shrimpton, who returned the gesture with
a friendly nod. We sat down at a table in the centre of the room and studied
the menu. Steak and kidney pie was the dish of the day, which was probably the
case in half the mens’ clubs in the world. Edward wrote down our orders in a neat
and legible hand on the little white slip provided by the waiter.

Edward asked me about the author I was
chasing and made some penetrating comments about her earlier work, to which I
responded as best I could while trying to think of a plot to make him discuss
the pre-war backgammon championship, which I considered would make a far better
story than anything she had ever written. But he never talked about himself
once during the meal, so I despaired. Finally, staring up at the plaque on the
wall, I said clumsily:

“I see you were runner-up in the club backgammon
championship just before the war. You must have been a fine player.”

“No, not really,” he replied. “Not many
people bothered about the game in those days. There is a different attitude
today with all the youngsters taking it so seriously.”

“What about the champion?” I said, pushing
my luck.

“Harry Newman?- He was an outstanding
player, and particularly good under pressure. He’s the gentleman who greeted us
when we came in. That’s him sitting over there in the corner with his wife.”

I looked obediently towards Mr.

Newman’s table but my host added nothing
more so I gave up. We ordered coffee and that would have been the end of
Edward’s story if Harry Newman and his wife had not headed straight for us
after they had finished their lunch. Edward was on his feet long before I was,
despite my twenty-year advantage. Harry Newman looked even bigger standing up,
and his little blonde wife looked more like the dessert than his spouse.

“Ed,” he boomed, “how are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, Harry,” Edward
replied. “May I introduce my guest?”

“Nice to know you,” he said. “Rusty, I’ve
always wanted you to meet Ed Shrimpton because I’ve talked to you about him so
often in the past.”

“Have you, Harry?” she squeaked.

“Of course. You remember, honey. Ed is up
there on the Tic PcrScet Gentleman backgammon honours board,” he said, pointing
a stubby finger towards the plaque. “With only one name in front of him and
that’s mine. And Ed was the world champion at the time. Isn’t that right, Ed?”

“That’s right, Harry.”

“So I suppose I really should have been the
world champion that year, wouldn’t you say?”

“I couldn’t quarrel with that conclusion,”
replied Edward.

“On the big day, Rusty, when it really mattered,
and the pressure was on, I beat him fair and square.”

I stood in silent disbeliefas Edward
Shrimpton still volunteered no disagreement.

“We must play again for old times’ sake,
Ed,” the fat man continued. “It would be fun to see if you could beat me now.
Mind you, I’m a bit rusty nowadays, Rusty.” He laughed loudly at his own joke
but his spouse’s face remained blank. I wondered how long it would be before
there was a fifth Mrs.

Newman.

“It’s been great to see you again, Ed. Take
care of yourself.”

“Thank you Harry,” said Edward.

We both sat down again as Newman and his
wife left the dining room. Our coffee was now cold so we ordered a fresh pot.
The room was almost empty and when I had poured two cups for us Edward leaned
over to me conspiratorially and whispered:

“Now there’s a hell of a story for a
publisher like you,” he said. “I mean the real truth about Harry Newman.”

My ears pricked up as I anticipated his
version of the story of what had actually happened on the night of that pre-war
backgammon championship over thirty years before.

“Really?” I said, innocently.

“Oh, yes,” said Edward. “It was not as
simple as you might think. Just before the war Harry was let down very badly by
his business partner who not only stole his money, but for good measure his
wife as well. The very week that he was at his lowest he won the club
backgammon championship, put all his troubles behind him and, against the odds,
made a brilliant come-back. You know, he’s worth a fortune today.

Now, wouldn’t you agree that that would make
one hell of a story?”

T
he two men had first met at the age of five
when they were placed side by side at school, for no more compelling reason
than that their names, Thompson and Townsend, came one after each other on the
class register. They soon became best friends, a tie which at that age is more
binding than any marriage. After passing their eleven-plus examination they
proceeded to the local grammar school with no Timpsons, Tooleys or Tomlinsons
to divide them and, having completed seven years in that academic institution,
reached an age when one either has to go to work or to university. They opted
for the latter on the grounds that work should be put off until the last
possible moment.

Happily, they both possessed enough brains
and native wit to earn themselves places at Durham University to read English.

Undergraduate life turned out to be as
sociable as primary school. They both enjoyed English, tennis, cricket, good
food and girls. Luckily, in the last of these predilections they differed only
on points of detail.

Michael, who was six-foottwo, willowy with
dark curly hair, preferred tall, bosomy blondes with blue eyes and long legs.
Adrian, a stocky man of five-foot-ten, with straight, sandy hair always fell
for small, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed girls. So whenever Adrian came across a
girl that Michael took an interest in or vice versa, whether she was an undergraduate
or barmaid, the one would happily exaggerate their friend’s virtues. Thus they
spent three idyllic years in unison at Durham, gaining considerably more than a
Bachelor of Arts degree. As neither of them had impressed the examiners enough
to waste a further two years expounding their theories for a Ph.D. they could
no longer avoid the real world.

Twin Dick Whittingtons, they set off for
London, where Michael joined the BBC as a trainee while Adrian was signed up by
Benton&Bowles, the international advertising agency, as an accounts
assistant. They acquired a small flat in the Earl’s Court Road which they painted
orange and brown, and proceeded to live the life of two young blades, for that
is undoubtedly how they saw themselves.

Both men spent a further five years in this
blissful bachelor state until they each fell for a girl who fulfilled their
particular requirements. They were married within weeks of each other; Michael
to a tall, blue-eyed blonde whom he met while playing tennis at the Hurlingham
Club: Adrian to a slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired executive in charge of the
Kellogg’s Cornflakes account. Both officiated as the other’s best man and each
proceeded to sire three children at yearly intervals, and in that again they
differed, but as before only on points of detail, Michael having two sons and a
daughter, Adrian two daughters and a son. Each became godfather to the other’s
first-born son.

Marriage hardly separated them in anything
as they continued to follow much of their old routine, playing cricket together
at weekends in the summer and football in the winter, not to mention regular
luncheons during the week.

After the celebration of his tenth wedding
anniversary, Michael, now a senior producer with Thames Television, admitted
rather coyly to Adrian that he had had his first affair: he had been unable to
resist a tall, well-built blonde from the typing pool who was offering more
than shorthand at seventy words a minute.

Only a few weeks later, Adrian, now a senior
account manager with Pearl and Dean, also went under, selecting a journalist
from Fleet Street who was seeking some inside information on one of the
companies he represented. She became a tax-deductible item. After that, the two
men quickly fell back into their old routine. Any help they could give each
other was provided unstintingly, creating no conflict of interests because of
their different tastes. Their married lives were not suffering – or so they
convinced each other- and at thirty-five, having come through the swinging
sixties unscathed, they began to make the most of the seventies.

Early in that decade, Thames Television
decided to send Michael off to America to edit an ABC film about living in New
York, for consumption by British viewers. Adrian, who had always wanted to see
the eastern seaboard, did not find it hard to arrange a trip at the same time
as he claimed it was necessary for him to carry out some more than usually
spurious research for an Anglo-American tobacco company. The two men enjoyed a
lively week together in New York, the highlight of which was a party held by
ABC on the final evening to view the edited edition of Michael’s film on New
York, “An Englishman’s View of the Big Apple”.

When Michael and Adrian arrived at the ABC
studios they found the party was already well under way, and both entered the
room together, looking forward to a few drinks and an early night before their
journey back to England the next day.

They spotted her at exactly the same moment.

She was of medium height and build, with
soft green eyes and auburn hair - a striking combination of both men’s
fantasies. Without another thought each knew exactly where he desired to end up
that particular night and, two minds with but a single idea, they advanced
purposefully upon her.

“Hello, my name is Michael Thompson.”

“Hello,” she replied. “I’m Debbie Kendall.”

“And I’m Adrian Townsend.”

She offered her hand and both tried to grab
it. When the party had come to an end, they had, between them, discovered that
Debbie Kendall was an ABC floor producer on the evening news spot. She was
divorced and had two children who lived with her in New York. But neither of them
was any nearer to impressing her, if only because each worked so hard to outdo
the other; they both showed off 87

abominably and even squabbled over fetching
their new companion her food and drink. In the other’s absence they found
themselves running down their closest friend in a subtle but damning way.

“Adrian’s a nice chap if it wasn’t for his
drinking,” said Michael.

“Super fellow Michael, such a lovely wife
and you should see his three adorable children,” added Adrian.

They both escorted Debbie home and
reluctantly left her on the doorstep of her th Street apartment. She kissed the
two of them perfunctorily on the cheek, thanked them and said goodnight. They
walked back to their hotel in silence.

When they reached their room on the
nineteenth floor of the Plaza, it was Michael who spoke first.