On the Floor (25 page)

‘Hang on, Geri, Jesus. OK, OK, this should show it, the bid notice – yadda yadda, et cetera. Here we go – the bankers acting for British Electronics in their bid for Vulkan Valve are – blah blah blah – yes, Unwin and Leider.'

‘No.'

‘Yes. Unwin and Leider. That's what it says.'

‘Stephen.'

‘Stephen's
bank
.'

‘Fuck—'

‘What? Geri, what's the problem? What's going on—'

‘I don't bel—'

If I was even half awake and concentrating I might have heard the clues that Felix dropped like sirens and that should have sounded the alarm in my ear.

Perhaps there is another shark circling
. If I hadn't been shitfaced, broken hearted, broken down, malfunctioning, I might have actually paid attention to what was really going on.

My intelligence tells me that various parties have been nibbling at the stock
. But I was mooning about my ex, distracted by Felix's bedside story about his dying granddad, imagining the malnourished horses leaping out from their frames, and so failed to raise my antenna and do what I
should have been doing: my job.

Background, my dear, is not always essential to the development of the plot
. Vulkan knew that Max-a-Billion was threatening to bid so they hired Unwin & Leider to mount their defence. And clever old Stephen came up with the idea of a white knight and found the perfect candidate in British Electronics – a good old domestic company that the MOD would just love.

The defence business is a national asset and politically very sensitive
. Stephen wanted to talk to Felix because he was clearing the stage for the knight to come galloping to Vulkan's aid. Maybe he told Felix all about British Electronics. And maybe Felix
did
talk price. Maybe he told Stephen exactly what he told me.

My investment strategy is always guided by the simplest principles. Value. Price
. Or maybe Felix refused to comment and Stephen was about to fly home empty-handed until Geri dropped the goods in his lap.

All I have to do is tell Kapoor to tell his client he can have what he goddam well wants if he pays up 30%
.

There are any number of permutations. I could have been everyone's pigeon seeing as I have made a career out of doing exactly what I'm told by all the men in my life. Even when Stephen dumped me in Venice I rolled over in submission instead of throwing things at him or beating him to the finish line. And when Stephen pitched up in Hong Kong looking for an audience with the grand master, Felix could have decided to set me a little test just for the hell of it. It's exactly the kind of mind game that would amuse him: see if Geri reveals all in a desperate bid to win back Stephen's affection. Felix the puppeteer tugging at the strings.

Zanna's voice is tinny in my ear. I kill the sound, let the receiver fall and hunker down on the floor. The truth pools and surges and bursts through my fuzzy thinking with all the force of a blow to the head. Stephen would have guessed my special mission as soon as I name-checked Kapoor. He is smart enough to be suspicious of coincidence and alert to the opacity of simple questions and answers.
Geri got the simple answer to the simple question –
so Stephen needed to find out exactly
what
Felix had told me. And he didn't even have to ask me directly, he just had to fuck me and I spilled the beans with no prompting.

All I have to do is tell Kapoor to tell his client he can have what he goddam well wants if he pays up 30%
. I was sleeping with the enemy and taken for a sucker.

I'm sorry
. Stephen's last words come rolling back at me. But sorry for what? For Venice or the fuckover repeat that had just happened in my hotel bed?

I can see it all in replay, hear my own voice like the soundtrack of a disaster movie, the trail of hints snaking through the Mandarin lobby, the boozy late lunch, the glittering sea, the elevator doors, the familiar touch of his skin, the whole sorry tale of the seduction. And I know without doubt that this is the truth, no two ways about it: Stephen fucked me to find out exactly what I knew. It was not a remembrance of things past, not a nostalgia trip, it was an opportunistic premeditated fuck and I have only myself and my big fat mouth to blame.

‘You're crying.' I spin round to what I had forgotten. Pie Man's blurry shape beside me.

‘You got something to drink?'

‘Some water? A cup of tea?'

‘I mean a proper fucking DRINK.'

‘Oh, right – erm – wait.' He backs away and it's true I'm crying real tears, snivelling on my shirt sleeve. Rex jumps up off the couch and comes over to snuggle on my feet.

‘I don't know how much you want.' Pie Man holds up a bottle of Smirnoff and a glass.

‘A lot.'

He pours and I say more and he pours some more and I take the iceless glass and a huge burning slug. I hold out the glass again. He watches closely while I take another giant slug as if he expects some immediate effect. I snatch the bottle from him and sink down to the floor.

‘Very early for that,' he says with a nervous laugh but I can't blink the tears away fast enough. He disappears and then returns, holding a loo roll. ‘I don't have any tissues.' He hunkers down and pats my shoulder, tentatively, nervously, like I might lash out. Rex yawns, opens his mouth wide as a crocodile, rolls over and sprawls on his back.

‘Look at him.' Pie Man scratches Rex's tummy. I take another swig and lean back against the radiator.

‘If you're in some kind of trouble, maybe I could help?'

‘I just got fucked big time.'

‘You can tell me about it if you want. But you don't have to.'

Rex stretches front and back paws so he looks like a golden carcass. His ears flop either side and his tongue lolls happily. Pie Man carries on scratching and I tell him my story.

‘ARE YOU GOING INTO THE OFFICE?'
Pie Man has been fiddling with the shoelace on his trainer while he listens to my sorry tale of betrayal, shifting restlessly as if his great red bulk cannot be comfortably distributed on the floor.

‘You kidding? So I can get ritually executed by the Grope as he takes revenge for making him look an idiot?'

‘So what will you do?'

‘Carrying on drinking seems like a good option at the moment.'

‘Maybe they won't realise. Maybe they don't know you told Stephen anything, maybe—'

I shake the bottle neck at him. ‘There is no such thing as a coincidence. Kapoor is smart, nothing gets past him.'

He will piece it together and the stinking trail will lead to me. Kapoor would have filled in the gaps, heard the cantering hooves of the white knight. And he will be rueing the day that he ever even gave
air time to the Grope's idea that Geri Molloy should be roped into the proceedings. The stench of rotten egg on his face, in the down draft of Max-a-Billion's white-knuckled fury and the deal that got away. Outmanoeuvred by Stephen Graves, the young buck he tried to hire, Kapoor finds himself staring into the rancid jaws of a rare defeat.

‘Maybe Stephen already knew about the price. Maybe Felix actually told him.'

‘Maybe, schmaybe. Doesn't matter anymore.'

‘What do you think they'll do?'

‘Fire my fucking Irish ass.'

Because I was asleep at the wheel and I failed on all fronts. Because I didn't sound the alarm straight away, because I didn't tell the Grope the
crucial
bit of info that Stephen Graves had been to see Felix Mann just before me. Because I cost them nearly twelve hours of dead time before I even made the call, because I was too busy bragging and drinking in Repulse Bay. And I wonder where the beginning is in all of this, when I first dropped the ball, how far I have slipped and how long this has been coming. Something unarticulated about loss here, something that I cannot process. But maybe this is not such an untimely death: maybe I would've only lasted another five years, an earnings loss of $7,908,024.37 – assuming a conservative 30% annual growth.

‘What will you do?' says Pie Man.

‘Maybe I'll just stay right here on the floor forever.'

‘Well you probably shouldn't go anywhere when you've had so much—' Pie Man nods at the bottle.

‘Maybe I'll just hide out here, be your flatmate, drink shots and watch movies.'

He giggles excitedly, his boobs quivering like animals under the sweatshirt.

So what's the difference? The Grope can fire me in absentia. He can even use the fact that I went awol off the plane as further evidence of my instability. Yes, they could hang me out to dry for this since I've probably violated any number of compliance rules.

I could try telling the Grope that I would NEVER let Steiner's down like that, that I would never do anything to jeopardise a deal, NEVER put my career on the line by letting some information fall out of my mouth no matter what the reason, time, place or person I'm speaking to. I could say that Felix himself must have told Stephen, I could swear on my mother's life and fling myself to the floor right there in his office. I could beg for mercy, blame it on some lapse of concentration or a crippling six-month insomnia, homesickness for my dog; I could offer to check myself into rehab or something, but whatever I say will be hollow and unconvincing.

So I could just tell the Grope what he's already guessed. That my ex-boyfriend fucked me so I would tell him what I knew and then he fucked me again.

And I didn't I see it coming.

‘You want to know the funny thing in all this?' I say to Pie Man. ‘That's
twice
Stephen has dumped me in a hotel room.'

‘Wanker,' he spits and glances, incredibly, to see my reaction. ‘Excuse me, but under the circumstances.' And he is on his knees on the floor and for a moment I think he is going to start crawling but he is hauling himself upright.

‘Go ahead, call the fucker anything you want.'

‘Bastard.' Pie Man stands now towering red over me, mashing an empty crisp bag in his hand.

‘Nearly done.' I take a swig from the bottle and shake it, place it beside me.

‘You should steady on there.'

‘Ha, that's a good one.' The bottle sits on the floor like an omen and his eyes shift from it to me.

‘You could get alcohol poisoning.'

‘Do you have any fucking IDEA how much I can drink?'

‘You don't have to swear so much.'

‘You are so fucking bastard right, Pie Man.'

He stands working his lips like he's chewing on actual words or struggling to keep them in.

‘“Subscribers here by the thousands float,”' I begin. ‘“And jostle one another down / Each paddling in his leaky boat / And here they fish for gold and drown.” In a big bottle of Smirnoff.'

‘What's that?'

‘Jonathan Swift on the South Sea Bubble.' I take a long slug and salute him. ‘Stephen always had a quote for every occasion. It's a prepschool thing.'

And I slam my hand full force against the radiator, my knuckles scream and so do I. Rex barks, slinks away to the couch.

‘Geri, what?' says Pie Man but I am gripping my hand under my arm.

‘Ice,' he says and thumps away, comes back with a frozen bag which he lays over my throbbing knuckles. The bag is freezer slimy and smells of potato.

‘Tesco's Crinkle Cut Chips. I fucking hate crinkle cut.' Rex slinks over and sniffs the bag.

‘Is it sore?' Pie Man breathes like a caveman beside me.

‘Course it's sore.'

‘Do you think it's broken?'

‘Don't know. Don't care.'

He peeks beneath the freezer bag and we look at the healthy swelling rising between the knuckle dips. ‘Can you straighten your hand?'

I wiggle my fingers. ‘So what does that mean?'

‘I don't know.' I laugh and he laughs too, nervously at first but then he sees I am still laughing and he laughs some more.

‘Let's do something.'

‘Bit busy,' I wiggle the bottle at him.

‘Just wait, just wait—' He is scrabbling round on the couch, pulling at papers. ‘You'll like this.' He plonks his big butt down on the edge of the coffee table. ‘It's a problem I've been working on that—'

‘Music!'

‘What?'

‘Let's have some MUSIC.'

Pie Man goes over and roots in a cardboard box and then leaves the room and returns carrying a dusty little ghetto blaster that he puts down on the floor in front of me and plugs into the wall. He pops in a tape, gathers up the stack of papers from the shelf. ‘I was just doing a little bit of work on this when you—'

‘TAKE A LOOK AT MY GIRLFRIEND, SHE'S THE ONLY ONE I'VE GOT.'

Pie Man lunges for the volume button, there's a snap and the music stops. Rex leaps up and makes for the exit but I am rolling on the floor. ‘Fucking SUPERTRAMP!'

Pie Man's fat face stares down at me flat on my back, my arms stretched so far either side.

‘SUPERTRAMP.' I flap my arms on the carpet. I am laughing so hard I might puke and I roll over to my side and hoist myself up against the radiator again. ‘Seriously, though, I mean who the fuck listens to that?'

Pie Man's fingers are scratching furiously at the underside of the cassette. He grabs and rips and tears a loop of the brown tape, drops it to the floor and stamps on the plastic casing with the heel of his big snowshoe, then picks up the mangled pieces and dumps them in the corner bin.

‘Fucking hell, Pie Man, that was a bit strong.'

‘My name is Colin,
remember
?' he bends over me, jowls unpleasantly red.

‘Sorry.'

He sits back down on the coffee table and picks up his papers. ‘Now listen.' I have to bite hard on the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing or throwing up. ‘In 45 BC Julius Caesar wanted to change the inconstant lunar year into constant.'