Hotel Pastis (2 page)

Ernest nodded, and Simon reached among the bottles on the table for the Laphroaig. The glasses had all been packed. He poured the whisky into a teacup and half listened to Ernest.

“… Well, if Mr. Jordan gets upset he’ll just have to go into the garden and eat worms. Mr. Shaw has had to postpone the meeting. We have had a ghastly day. Our home is being dismantled around our ears, and we are not feeling like a captain of industry.”

Ernest looked at Simon and rolled his eyes upwards as he listened to Liz’s reply. He cut her short.

“I know, I know. We’ll deal with the little man from Goodman’s tomorrow, when we’re feeling more like our old self. Do something diplomatic, dear. A tiny white lie. I know you can do it when you want to. I’ve heard you talking to that boyfriend of yours.”

Ernest winced at her reply and held the phone away from his ear.

“And to you, dear. See you in the morning.”

He put down the phone, glanced at the teacup in front of Simon, and frowned. He opened a packing carton, took out a cut-glass tumbler, polished it with the silk handkerchief from his top pocket, and poured a large measure of whisky. “There.” He removed the teacup and put it in the sink. “I know these are trying times, but we mustn’t let standards slip. A little water?”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Ernest shrugged. “Apparently the executive committee meeting has already been put off twice, and they’ll all be in a snit. Especially Mr. Jordan—but then it doesn’t take much to put our Mr. Jordan in a snit, as we know.”

He was right. Jordan, whose talent for handling dull clients was equalled only by his acute sense of self-importance, would feel slighted. Simon made a mental note to massage him in the morning, and took a mouthful of whisky. He felt the shudder go down to his stomach, and remembered that he hadn’t eaten all day.

For once, the evening was free. He could take a book and go to a corner table in the Connaught, but he didn’t feel like eating alone. He could call some friends, but dinner with friends would mean edging around the subject of Caroline and the divorce. Dinner with someone from the agency would be all the usual tired gossip about clients and new business prospects and office politics. He looked down the table, narrowing his eyes against the sun as it reflected needles of light from the bottles. He would miss this room.

“Ern, what are you doing tonight?”

Ernest backed out of a cupboard with a pile of plates.
He put them down and stood with one hand on his cheek, the other cradling his elbow, graceful and slightly theatrical.

“Well, now. I can’t quite decide between a masked ball in Wimbledon or a gala curry at the Star of India.”

“How about dinner here, in the kitchen? We’ve never done it, and the house might be sold by next week.”

“As it happens,” Ernest said, “I might be able to make myself available.” He smiled. “Yes, I’d like that. The last supper. What would you like to eat?”

“I took a bottle of the ’73 Petrus out of the cellar before they moved the rest of the wine. Something to go with that.”

Ernest looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in an hour. Why don’t you call the little man at Goodman’s? Get it over with.”

Simon heard the front door close and the sound of the big Mercedes pulling away as he walked through to his study, which the moving men had taken over as their temporary canteen. The handsome room was empty except for a phone on the floor and Simon’s briefcase in the corner where the desk used to be, and an upturned packing case cluttered with the remains of numerous tea breaks: stained mugs, an old electric kettle, used teabags, an open bottle of milk, a copy of the
Sun
, and a crystal ashtray, one of a pair that Simon had bought from Asprey’s, piled high with cigarette ends. The air was sickly with the smell of spilt milk and smoke and sweat. Simon opened a window and lit a cigar in self-defence, sat on the floor and picked up the phone.

“Goodman Brothers, Levine, Russell and Fine.” The telephonist sounded bored and irritated, as though she had been interrupted while at work doing her nails and reading
Cosmopolitan
.

“Mr. Wilkinson, please. It’s Simon Shaw.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded pleased. “Mr. Wilkinson’s in conference. Who did you say it was?”

“Shaw, Simon Shaw. Of the Shaw Group. That makes four times I’ve told you. I’m returning Mr. Wilkinson’s call. He said it was important. The name is Shaw. Do you want me to spell it?”

Simon heard her sigh, as he was meant to. “I’ll see if Mr. Wilkinson can be disturbed.”

Jesus. An airhead answering the phone, and now he was forced to listen to Ravel’s
Bolero
while Wilkinson made up his mind whether or not he could be disturbed. Not for the first time, Simon wondered if it had been such a good idea to go public.

Ravel was cut off in mid-swoop, and Wilkinson’s faintly patronising voice came on the line. “Mr. Shaw?”

Who else was he expecting? “Good afternoon,” said Simon. “You wanted to speak to me?”

“Indeed I do, Mr. Shaw. We’re in conference at the moment, looking at your fourth quarter.” From the tone of his voice, he might have been a doctor discussing a bad case of piles. Simon could hear the rustle of papers. “These projections of yours—correct me if I’m wrong—represent over forty percent of your annual billings.”

“That’s right.”

“I see. Don’t you think this might be a little optimistic, given the current state of the retail market? You’ll forgive my saying so, but the City is a little nervous about the advertising sector these days. The institutions are not happy. Returns haven’t been up to expectations. It might be advisable to be a little more considered in your estimates, wouldn’t you say?”

Here we go, Simon thought. Lesson number one all over again. “Mr. Wilkinson, the advertising business
makes most of its profits in the fourth quarter. Every year, strangely enough, Christmas comes in December. Companies advertise. Consumers buy. Everybody spends money. We are now at the end of September, and all the budgets have been committed. Air time and press space have been booked.”

“Booked doesn’t necessarily mean paid for, Mr. Shaw. We all know that. Are you confident that your clients are soundly based? No imminent mergers or takeovers? No cash flow problems?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

“Not to your knowledge.” There was a pause while Wilkinson allowed his scepticism to be felt. He was a man who used silence like a bucket of cold water.

Simon tried again. “Mr. Wilkinson, short of nuclear war or an outbreak of bubonic plague, we will achieve the figures shown in our projections. In the event of war or bubonic plague, we will go down the tubes, along with the rest of British industry and possibly even Goodman Brothers.”

“ ‘Down the tubes,’ Mr. Shaw?”

“Out of business, Mr. Wilkinson.”

“I see. There’s nothing more you care to add to that rather unhelpful comment?”

“Each year for the past nine years, Mr. Wilkinson, as you very well know, the agency has shown increased billings and increased profits. This is our best year ever. It has just over ninety days to run, and there is no reason to assume any shortfall from our projected figures. Do you want a press release? If you people had a proper understanding of the advertising business, we wouldn’t have to go through this absurd cross-examination every month.”

Wilkinson’s voice became smug, the smugness that
professional men use as a refuge from argument. “I think the City has a very clear understanding of the advertising business. More prudence and less conjecture would do it the world of good.”

“Bollocks.” Simon slammed the phone down, dropping cigar ash on his trousers. He stood up and stared out of the window at the square, dusty gold as the flat evening sun caught the yellowing leaves on the trees. He tried to remember how the square had looked in spring and summer, and realised that he’d never noticed. He didn’t look out of windows anymore. His life was spent looking at people in rooms—nursing his staff, stroking clients, enduring the Wilkinsons and executive committees and financial journalists. It wasn’t surprising that Caroline had resented them all. At least she’d had the fun of spending the money.

He had succeeded in not thinking too much about his marriage ever since it became obvious that it had been a mistake. The transition from a secretary to a rich man’s wife had changed Caroline; or maybe she’d always been a shrew beneath that decorative exterior. Well, it was all over now bar the alimony, and he was once again, as Ernest remarked in one of his friskier moments, a bachelor gay.

Simon crossed the hall and finished his cigar in the sitting room. He’d once been told that the scent of a good Havana in an empty house could add a few thousand to the price. Subliminal advertising. He left the butt still smoking in the fireplace and went back to the kitchen.

He found the bottle of Petrus and put it gently on the table, and enjoyed the careful ritual of opening it, cutting the lead capsule cleanly and drawing the long cork with a slow, even pull. What a wine. A thousand pounds a case if you were lucky enough to get hold of any. Now
that would be a job worth having, the proprietor of a great vineyard. No presentations to clients, no idiots from the City, no board meetings—just a few acres of gravel and clay to deal with, and nectar at the end of every year. He held the bottle against the light and poured the dense, rich wine into a decanter until he saw the first traces of sediment reach the neck of the bottle. Even at arm’s length, he was aware of the powerful, soft-sweet bouquet.

He had just placed the decanter on the table when he heard the front door, and Ernest’s light tenor singing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” Simon smiled. Divorce obviously agreed with Ernest; he had been noticeably happier since Caroline had left the house.

“Well!” said Ernest as he put a shopping bag down. “The food halls at Harrods are not what they used to be. A zoo. People in running shoes and track suits with saggy bottoms, hardly an English voice to be heard, and those poor boys behind the counters rushed off their feet. Where are the days of grace and leisure? I ask myself. Never mind. I escaped with enough for a simple peasant meal.”

He took off his jacket and put on a long chef’s apron and started to unpack the bag. “A
salade tiède
to begin with, I thought, with slices of foie gras, and then your favourite.” He took out a plump leg of lamb. “With garlic and flageolets. And to finish—” he unwrapped two packages and held them out—“some Brillat-Savarin and a fierce little cheddar.”

“Couldn’t be better,” Simon said. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne. “You’ll break the habit of a lifetime, won’t you?”

Ernest looked up from the garlic cloves he was peeling. “Just a glass to encourage the cook.” He put the
knife down as Simon twisted the cork out and filled two glasses.

“Cheers, Ern. Thanks for taking care of all this.” He waved a hand at the packing cases stacked against the wall.

“Happy days, dear. You won’t be too sorry to go, will you? You never really felt at home here.”

“I suppose not.”

The two men drank.

“If I may say so,” Ernest said, “the state of our trousers is not what it should be for this evening. Not quite up to the wine.”

Simon looked down at the grey smear of cigar ash and started to rub it.

“No, no, no. You’re rubbing it in, not rubbing it off. What would our tailor say? You go up and change while I get on down here. Leave those out and I’ll see to them tomorrow.”

Simon took his glass and went up the broad staircase and into what the decorators always referred to as the master suite. The scent that Caroline wore was still there, very faint, as he passed the line of fitted closets that had held her last few dozen dresses, the overflow from the dressing room. He pushed back the folding doors. Hangers had been dropped on the floor in a spiky pile next to discarded shopping bags from Joseph, Max Mara, Saint Laurent—glossy, crumpled souvenirs from half the boutiques in Knightsbridge. A pair of beige and black Chanel shoes, their soles barely scuffed, lay on their sides in the corner. Why had she left them? Simon picked them up and noticed a nick in the leather of one of the heels; £250 tossed away because of an almost invisible scar.

He put the shoes back and undressed, dropping his clothes on the four-poster bed. It was too big for Caroline’s
new house, and he wondered idly who would be sleeping in it after him. He’d always hated the damn thing. With its pleats and ruffles and billowing curtains, it made him feel like a trespasser in a decorator’s boudoir. But then the whole house made him feel like that.

He walked into the bathroom and met his reflection in the full-length mirror, a naked middle-aged man holding a glass. God, he looked older than forty-two. Tired eyes, deep creases either side of his mouth, a streak of grey in one of his eyebrows, silver tips beginning to show in his straight black hair. Another few years and he’d be pear-shaped if he didn’t do something more than the occasional snatched game of tennis. He sucked in his belly and pushed out his chest. Right. Hold that for the next ten years; eat less; drink less—a lot less; go to a gym. Boring. He exhaled, finished his champagne and ducked into the shower without looking at the mirror again, and spent fifteen minutes letting the water beat down on the back of his neck.

The bedroom phone rang as he finished drying himself. “Chez Nous is open,” Ernest said. “We can eat in half an hour.”

Simon put on old cotton trousers and a frayed silk shirt that Caroline had tried to throw away several times, and walked down to the kitchen barefoot. The tiled floor was cool and smooth, and the feel of it reminded him of holidays long ago in hot places.

Ernest had set the table with candles and a shallow dish of white rose heads. A box of Partagas and a cigar cutter were beside Simon’s place, and the sound of a Mozart piano concerto came from the speakers recessed in the wall at the far end of the room. Simon felt clean and relaxed and hungry. He took the champagne from the fridge.

“Ern?” He held up the bottle.

Ernest noticed Simon’s bare feet while the glasses were being filled. “I can see we’re in a bohemian mood tonight,” he said. “Quite the beachcomber, aren’t we?”