And Thereby Hangs a Tale (27 page)

'The fifth please, sir,' one of them said nervously.

He pressed the button, then asked, 'Which department
do you work in?'

'We're cleaners,' said one of the girls.

'Well, I've wanted to have a word with you for
some time,' said the chairman.

The girls looked anxiously at each other.

'Yours must be a thankless task at times,
but I can tell you, these are the cleanest offices in the City. You should be
very proud of yourselves.'

The lift came to a halt at the fifth floor.

'Thank you, Chairman,' the girls both said
as they stepped out. They could only wonder if their colleagues would believe
them when they told them what had just happened.

When the lift reached the top floor, the chairman
strolled into his secretary's office.

'Good morning, Sally,' he said, and sat down
in the seat next to her desk. She leapt up. He waved her back down with a
smile.

'How did the medical go?' she asked nervously.

'Far better than I'd expected,' said the
chairman. 'It seems the cancer is in remission, and I could be around for
another ten years.'

'That is good news,' said Sally. 'So there's
no longer any reason for you to resign?'

'That's what the doctor said, but perhaps
the time has come for me to accept the fact that I'm not immortal. So there are
going to be a few changes around here.'

'What exactly did you have in mind?' the
secretary asked anxiously.

'To start with, I'm going to accept the
board's generous retirement package and stay on as non-executive director, but
not before I've taken a proper holiday.'

'But will that be enough for you, Chairman?'
asked his secretary, not certain she was hearing him correctly.

'More than enough, Sally. Perhaps the time has
come for me to do some voluntary work.

I could start by helping my local football club.
They need some new changing rooms.

You know, when I was a youngster, that club was
the only thing that kept me off the streets, and who knows, maybe they even need
a new chairman?'

His secretary couldn't think what to say.

'And there's something else I must do before
I go, Sally.'

She picked up her notepad as the chairman removed
a chequebook from an inside pocket.

'How many years have you been working for me?'

'It will be twenty-seven at the end of this month,
Chairman.'

He wrote out a cheque for twenty-seven thousand
pounds and passed it across to her.

'Perhaps you should take a holiday as well.

Heaven knows, I can't have been the easiest of
bosses.'

Sally fainted.

'Well, I'm off for lunch,' said Rod,
checking his watch.

'Where have you got in mind?' asked Sam.

'The Savoy Grill?'

'All in good time,' said Rod. 'But for now I'll
have to be satisfied with the Garter Arms because the time has come for me to
get to know my future colleagues in Commodities.'

'Aren't you getting a bit above yourself,
lad?'

'No, Sam, just keep your eyes open. It won't
be long before I'm their boss, because this is just the first step on my way to
becoming chairman.'

'Not in my lifetime,' said Sam as he
unwrapped his sandwiches.

'Don't be so sure about that, Sam,' said
Rod, taking off his long blue porter's coat and replacing it with a smart
sports jacket. He strolled across the foyer, pushed his way through the swing
doors and out on to the pavement. He glanced across the road at the Garter
Arms, looking forward to taking his first step on the corporate ladder.

Rod checked to his right as a double-decker bus
came to a halt and disgorged several passengers. He spotted a gap in the
traffic and stepped out into the road just as a motorcycle courier overtook the
bus. The biker threw on his brakes the moment he saw Rod, swerved and tried to
avoid him, but he was a fraction of a second too late. The bike hit
Rod side-on, dragging him along the road until it finally came to a halt on top
of him.

Rod opened his eyes and stared at a package marked
URGENT, which had landed in the road by his side: The Chairman's Medical Report.
He looked up to see a man dressed in a smartly tailored dark suit, white silk
shirt and thin black tie looking down at him.

'If only you'd asked me how long the young man
had to live, and not what his life expectancy was,' were the last words Rod
heard before departing from this world.

R
ICHARD EDMISTON climbed off the bus feeling
tired and hungry. It had been a long day, and he was looking forward to a meal and
a bath, although he wasn't sure if he could afford both.

He was coming to the end of his holiday, which
was a good thing because he was also coming to the end of his money. In fact,
he had less than a hundred euros left in his wallet, along with a return train
ticket to London.

But he wasn't complaining. He'd spent an idyllic
month in Tuscany, even though Melanie had dropped out at the last minute without
offering any explanation. He would have cancelled the whole trip but he'd already
bought his ticket and put a deposit down at several small pensioni dotted around
the Italian countryside. In any case, he'd been looking forward to exploring northern
Italy for the past year, ever since he'd read an article in Time magazine by Robert
Hughes which said that half the world's treasures were to be found in one country.
He was finally persuaded to go after he and Melanie had attended a lecture
given by John Julius Norwich at the Courtauld, at which the celebrated
historian ended with the words, 'If you were given two lives, you'd spend one
of them in Italy.'

Richard may well be ending his holiday
penniless, tired and hungry, but he'd quickly discovered just how accurate
Hughes and Norwich were after he'd visited Florence, San Gimignano, Cortona,
Arezzo, Siena and Lucca, each of which contained masterpieces that in any other
country would have been worthy of several pages in the national tourist guides,
whereas in Italy were often no more than a footnote.

Richard needed to leave for England the
following day because he would start his first job on Monday, as an English
teacher at a large comprehensive in the East End of London. His old headmaster
at Marlborough had offered him the chance to return and teach English to the
lower fifth, but what could he hope to learn by going back to his old school
and simply repeating his experiences as a child, even if he did exchange his
blazer for a graduates gown?

He adjusted his rucksack and began to trudge
slowly up the winding path that led to the ancient village of Monterchi,
perched on top of the hill. He'd saved Monterchi until last because it
possessed the Madonna del Parto, a fresco of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the
infant Jesus by Piero della Francesca. It was considered by scholars
to be one of the artist's finest works, which was why many pilgrims and lovers
of the Renaissance period came from all parts of the world to admire it.

Richard's rucksack felt heavier with each step
he took, while the view of the valley below became more spectacular, dominated
by the River Arno winding its way through vineyards, olive groves and
green-sculpted hills.

But even this paled into insignificance when
he reached the top of the hill and saw Monterchi in all its glory for the first
time.

The fourteenth-century village had been stranded
in a backwater of history and clearly did not approve of anything modern.

There were no traffic lights, no signposts,
no double yellow lines and not a McDonald's in sight. As Richard strolled into
the market square, the town hall clock struck nine times.

Despite the hour, the evening was warm enough
to allow the natives and an occasional interloper to dine al fresco.

Richard spotted a restaurant shaded by
ancient olive trees and walked across to study the menu. He reluctantly
accepted that it might have suited his palate, but sadly not his purse, unless
he was willing to sleep in a field that night before walking the ninety kilometres
back to Florence.

He noticed a smaller establishment tucked away
on the far side of the square, where the tables didn't have spotless white
cloths and the waiters weren't wearing smart linen jackets. He took a seat in
the corner and thought about Melanie, who should have been sitting opposite
him. He'd planned to spend a month with her so they could finally decide if
they should move in together once they'd both settled in London, she as a
barrister, he as a teacher. Melanie clearly hadn't felt she needed another
month to make up her mind.

For the past couple of weeks, whenever Richard
had studied a menu, he'd always checked the prices rather than the dishes
before he came to a decision. He selected the one dish he could afford before
rummaging around in his rucksack and pulling out the book of short stories that
had been recommended to him by his tutor. He'd advised Richard to ignore the
sacred cows of Indian literature and instead enjoy the genius of R.

K. Narayan. Richard soon became so engrossed
by the problems of a tax collector living in a small village on the other side
of the world that he didn't notice when a waitress appeared with a pitcher of
water in one hand, and a basket of freshly baked bread and a small bowl of
olives in the other. She placed them on the table and asked if he was ready to
order.

'Spaghetti all' Amatriciana,' he said,
looking up, 'e un vetro di vino rosso.' He wondered how many kilos he'd put on
since crossing the Channel; not that it mattered, because once he began the new
job he would return to his old routine of running five miles a day, which he'd
managed even when he was taking his exams.

He'd only read a few more pages of Malgudi Days
when the waitress reappeared and placed a large bowl of spaghetti and a glass of
red wine in front of him.

'Grazie,' he said, looking up briefly from
his book.

He became so involved in the story that he continued
to read as he forked up his food until he suddenly realized his plate was empty.
He put the book down and mopped up the remains of the thick
tomato sauce with his last piece of bread, before devouring what remained of the
olives. The waitress returned and removed his empty plate before handing him the
menu.

'Would you like anything else?' she asked in
English.

'I can't afford anything else,' he admitted without
guile, not even opening the menu for fear it might tempt him. 'Il conto, per
favore,' he added, giving her a warm smile.

He was preparing to leave when the waitress reappeared
carrying a large portion of tiramisu and an espresso. 'But I didn't order-' he
began, but she put a finger to her lips and hurried away before he could thank
her.

Melanie had once told him it was his boyish charm
which made women want to mother him -- a charm which clearly no longer worked on
Melanie.

The tiramisu was delicious, and Richard even
put his book down so he could fully appreciate the delicate flavours. As he
sipped his coffee, he began to think about where he would spend the night. His
thoughts were interrupted when the waitress returned with the bill. As he
checked it, he realized she hadn't charged him for the glass of house red.
Should he draw her attention to the omission? Her smile suggested he shouldn't.

He handed her a ten-euro note and asked if she
could recommend somewhere he might spend the night.

'There are only two hotels in the village,'
she told him. 'And La Contessina -- ' she hesitated - 'might be...'

'Out of my price range?' suggested Richard.

'But the other one is not expensive, if a
little basic.'

'Sounds like my kind of place,' said
Richard.

'Is it far?'

'Nothing is far in Monterchi,' she said. 'Walk
to the end of the via dei Medici, turn right and you'll find the Albergo Piero
on your left.'

Richard stood up, leaned over and kissed her
on the cheek. She blushed and hurried away, bringing to his mind Harry Chapin's
sad lyrics in the ballad, 'A Better Place to Be'. He threw his rucksack over
his shoulder and began to walk down via dei Medici. At the end he turned right
and, as the waitress had promised, the hotel was on his left.

He stood outside, uncertain if he could
still afford a room now he was down to his last eighty-six euros. Through the
glass door he could see a receptionist, head down, checking the register. She
looked up, handed a waiting couple a large key, and a porter picked up their
bags and led them to the lift.

When he saw her for the first time, he didn't
dare take his eyes off her, for fear the mirage might disappear. She had
flawless olive skin, long dark hair that curled up as it touched her slim,
graceful shoulders and large brown eyes that lit up when she smiled. Her dark tailored
suit and white blouse had an elegance that Italian men take for
granted and English women spend a fortune trying to emulate. She must have been
around thirty, perhaps thirty-five, but she was graced with the kind of ageless
beauty that made Richard wish he hadn't only just graduated.