The Stars’ Tennis Balls (28 page)

‘He thought you might go into the business with him? Look after the cyber side of life.’

Albert nodded. ‘And my mother…’

Simon moved a hand down to his knee and pressed it down to stop a slight involuntary jogging motion that had started up. ‘Your mother,’ he said, lightly. ‘She’s the famous Professor Fendeman, is she not? I have read her books.’

‘I think she’s worried about me not getting a degree.’

‘Naturally. Any mother would be. You’re due to go up to Oxford – how very modest of you not to mention it by name, by the way – in October of next year, I believe. Which college?’

‘St Mark’s.’

‘Any reason for that choice?’

‘My mother always said it was the best.’

‘Hm … St Mark’s, that’s the one with the famous Maddstone Quad, isn’t it?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Very quaint as I remember.’

‘My mother’s always wanted me to go there. Doesn’t like the idea of me missing out on an education.'

‘I think she’s absolutely right,’ said Cotter. ‘I agree with her completely.’

The disappointment in Albert’s face was pitiful to behold. ‘Oh…’

‘But,’ Cotter continued. ‘I don’t like the idea of missing out on
you.
There’s ten months or so until October. Why don’t we come to an arrangement? Join us now and if in that ten months you and your family still feel that Oxford is a good idea, you can go. We’ll still be here when you emerge, all qualified and polished and graduated in your cap and gown. After all, you can carry on working for us in your vacations, and if you’ve done as well here as I think you will, we might even consider paying you a retainer, a kind of scholarship, if you like. As it happens we re looking at endowing a chair in IT at Oxford at the moment, so I think the university will be disposed to look favourably on anything we might suggest. Like all ancient and venerable English institutions Oxford will roll over backwards and do all kinds of undignified somersaults if there’s a smell of money in the air. How does that sound to you?’

‘It sounds … it sounds …‘ Albert searched hopelessly for a word. ‘It sounds brilliant.’

‘I’ll talk to my legal department about drawing up a contract. I like doing things quickly, if you’ve no objection. Let’s suppose a draft is delivered to you by five o’clock this evening. Your parents will want to show it to a lawyer. Perhaps you will have come to a decision by Friday? Come to me when it’s all been thoroughly thought through.’

Albert looked behind Cotter’s shoulder. A projector beamed the phrase ‘Thoroughly thought through’ onto the wall.

‘Ah, you’d spotted it. My motto. You’ll find it everywhere. On our screensavers and our desktop wallpaper.’ Cotter rose from his armchair and Albert instantly leapt to his feet.

‘Mr Cotter, I don’t know what to say.

‘It’s Simon. We’re very informal here. No suits, no surnames.’ Cotter put an arm round Albert’s shoulder and walked him to the door. ‘And by a happy coincidence, you’ll find that we only serve Café Ethica coffees and teas. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. Things are getting rather busy. I’m in the middle of trying to buy a newspaper. You’ve no idea how complicated a process it’s turning out to be.’

‘Really? I do it every day,’ said Albert, surprised at his own daring. ‘You just hand over money to the man in the shop and…
voilа!’

‘Ha!’ Simon punched him playfully on the arm. ‘All this and a sense of humour too!’ How like his mother, he thought to himself. How absurdly like his mother. ‘I wish it were really that simple,’ he added. ‘I almost find myself feeling sorry for the Murdochs of this world. It’s nothing fancy, just the old
LEP,
but none the less, the regulations …

‘LEP?’

‘London Evening Press.
Way before you were born. But it’s about time the
Standard
had a rival, don’t you think? You never know, we might even start you on a column. Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you some time before Friday.’

Crossing Waterloo Bridge on his way to the restaurant where Gordon and Portia would be awaiting him, Albert looked back towards the great glass tower that he had just left. He was not a superstitious or a religious youth, but he could not help wondering what power or deity had blessed him with such outrageous good fortune. Like all seventeen-year-olds his sense of guilt was greater than his sense of pride and as a rule if he expected anything from fate it was more likely to be punishment than reward. Four and a half years ago, during his barmitzvah, he had mentally crossed his fingers and thought scabrous blasphemous thoughts throughout the ceremony. For weeks afterwards he had been in dread of God’s revenge. None had come. God had expressed his wrath by giving him good friends, sound health and kindly parents. To crown it all he was now to become a favourite in the Court of King Cotter.

He strode up the stone stairs of Christopher’s two at a time. Portia and Gordon, nervously sipping mineral water at their table, didn’t see him enter. He stopped a passing waiter and smiled broadly.

‘Could you bring a bottle of champagne to that table over there? The best you’ve got.'

‘Certainly, sir.’ The waiter bowed and hurried away.

‘Darling!’ Portia beckoned him over. ‘How was it? How did it go?’

‘Blimey, where do I start?’

Feeling absurdly adult, Albert sat down at the table and told them of Simon Cotter’s plans.

‘So you see, it’s the best of both worlds,’ he said. ‘Is that brilliant or what?’

A waiter approached their table with an ice-bucket and a bottle of Cristal.

Gordon had been staring down at his cutlery with furrowed brows as if listening for a catch somewhere in Albert’s breathless recitation. He looked up now at the waiter. ‘What’s this? I ordered no champagne.’

‘Er, that was me actually, Dad. I’ll pay you back for it soon, I promise.

Portia squeezed Albert’s hand. ‘Quite right too,’ she said, looking anxiously at Gordon. ‘This definitely calls for a celebration, don’t you think, darling?’

Albert caught the pleading note in his mother s voice and leaned forward to add his own encouragement.

‘Dad, I know it’s all moving very quickly, but it’s just
great
don’t you think? I mean, I can’t lose either way.

Gordon smiled suddenly and put a hand to Albert’s shoulder. ‘Of course, it’s great, Albie. My years in the City have made me cautious, that’s all. I’m sure everything’s fine. I’m proud of you. Truly.’

‘He said …‘ Albert blushed slightly, ‘he said that he thought you were a remarkable man, Dad.’

‘Did he? Is that so? Well, he’s a remarkable man himself.’

‘He’s buying a paper at the moment, did you know that? The
London Evening Press.’

‘Are you sure? There’s been nothing about it in the financial pages.’

‘Absolutely. He said it was a complicated business but it was time the
Standard
had some competition. He’s endowing a chair at Oxford too.’

‘Never mind about all that,’ said Portia. ‘Tell me what sort of man he is. Did he take his sunglasses off at any time? Do you think he’s Jewish? From pictures he looks impossibly dark and handsome. Does he dye his hair, do you think?’

‘For God’s sake, Mum…’ Gordon and Albert caught each other’s eyes and laughed with male solidarity.

‘Well, these things are important,’ Portia said defensively. ‘They tell you a lot about a person.

‘He’s read all your books anyway. He said so. What does
that
tell you about him?’

Father and son laughed again at Portia’s flustered reaction.

‘Let us drink to this paragon of taste and judgement,’ said Gordon, raising his glass.

‘To Simon Cotter,’ they chorused.

Rufus Cade sat in his flat and gazed lovingly at the money piled up in front of him. He had counted it twice and was considering counting it for a third time. Counting out a hundred thousand in used twenty pound notes is quite a task, but when the money is your own and wholly exempt from the ravenous clutches of tax men and ex-wives it is a pleasurable enough way to pass the time.

Rufus chopped a line on the small amount of free space on his coffee table. Finally,
finally,
things had taken a turn for the better. This evening was to be his last as a user. All those twenty pound notes were going to be put to good use. He would transform the business, settle down with a girl whose name didn’t begin with J and move to the country. Clean air, healthy exercise and a good diet would transform him from the flabby, sweating, red-eyed pig he had got to know into someone he could truly love. He realised now, as he looked at the money, that throughout his wretched life he had never even so much as liked himself. He would start by thinking more of others. Wasn’t that ‘the road less travelled’? The true path to self love is to take baby steps towards others.

To be able to go early into the office, with a clear sober head, that would be something in itself. There would be a special buzz to be got from sobriety, an irreducible high that would never lead to a terrible low. His cheerfulness and humour would become a byword. He had the weekend to begin the business of cleaning himself up. He would start any minute by throwing away his shot glasses and his silver straw. He might even drive round to see his parents. He played out the scene. His mother’s pleasure at seeing him, a bunch of flowers under his arm and a teasing joke on his lips, sprang to life within him and he smiled the broadest smile he had smiled for many years. He wasn’t such a bad man. He had a dry humour and quiet companionability that had appealed enough to turn three women into wives and countless others into girlfriends.

The entryphone buzzer sounded on the wall behind him and his heart banged in his chest at such a violent intrusion of the rude world into his thoughts. He rose from the sofa and was surprised to hear his voice trembling as he picked up the receiver.

‘Who is it?’

A voice he did not recognise spoke into the intercom with exaggerated intonation above the passing roar of traffic from the street. ‘I am a friend of John’s. It’s very important that I speak to you.

Rufus turned and looked at the money heaped on his table. ‘It’s not very convenient at the moment,’ he said. ‘I’m… I’m expecting some people.’

‘I won’t take more than five minutes. It’s for your own security.

‘Okay then… second floor.’

Rufus pressed the buzzer and ran to the kitchen for a bin liner. He stuffed the money into the bag and threw it into the corner of the room behind an armchair. By the time a knock came on the door, sweat was running down his face and he was out of breath.

He ran a sleeve across his dripping forehead and opened the flat door. A tall, powerfully built man of indeterminate age stood there, smiling apologetically, his eyes hidden by mirror shades.

‘I do apologise for calling so late.’

‘No, no… come in. I was just…, you know.’

The man came in and stood in the centre of the sitting-room. Rufus stared at him in disbelief.

‘Wait a minute… don’t I know you?’

‘The name’s Cotter. Simon Cotter.’

Rufus was already dizzy with the exertion of hiding his money. The presence of such a man as Simon Cotter on his doormat confused him completely. He could only imagine that there had been some problem with his look-alikes the day of that launch in Islington. But why on earth would Cotter himself come to visit him at home. On a Friday night, to boot. ‘I don’t quite follow. You said you were a friend of John’s.’

‘That’s right,’ said Cotter. ‘I’ve come to warn you.’

‘Warn me?’

‘The Suleiman brothers are rather upset.’

Rufus blinked. ‘I’m sorry. Suleiman brothers? I don’t believe I know anyone of that name.

‘You sold them a consignment of cocaine for a great deal of money. Only a few ounces of it were genuine. The rest was sherbet, I’m afraid. They are not in the least bit happy. Sherbet retails in sweetshops for a pitifully low price, I believe. Pitifully low. They’ll be wanting their money back. They may well want some pieces of your body to go with it. To be perfectly frank with you, they aren’t very nice people.’

Rufus had trouble focusing. Sweat was stinging his eyes. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ he said in a voice that he recognised as absurdly tremulous and far too high in register to carry conviction.

‘Really?’ Cotter’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Then I’m wasting your time as well as my own. I thought you might want to understand what was going on.’

‘Well, of course I want to know what’s going on, but…’

‘You’ve sold a dud and the vendor is coming for revenge. It’s really as simple as that.’

‘But it was
John’s
gear! John set the whole thing up. I only went along as …

‘Ah, but John has been rather clever. I happen to know, you see, that he told them that all along
he
had been acting for
you.
As far as the Suleimans are concerned John is a nobody. A bagman, nothing more.’

‘But that’s a lie!’ Rufus grabbed the lapels of Cotter’s suit. ‘You’ve got to tell them. Tell them I acted in good faith. They’ll listen to you. In good faith.’

‘I?’
With the ease of a man brushing flies from his coat, Cotter took Rufus’s hands by the wrists and pulled them down. ‘Why in the name of God’s green earth should I do the slightest thing to help you?’

‘You know what happened! You can set them straight.’ Cotter looked at his watch. ‘They will be here in no more than five minutes. I left the front door on the latch. It’s a pity that you don’t seem to be in any kind of shape. I believe they favour machetes.’

Rufus almost danced with terror and bewilderment. ‘You can’t be serious. This is England.’

Cotter looked at him in amusement. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is England. And you are English. Wipe your face, stop snivelling and put up a good show, that’s my advice. They may spare your life, you never know. The sight of you snotty, sweaty, dribbling and whimpering will only bring out their fullest rage, you can be sure of that. Believe me. I know something about bullies.’

Rufus edged towards the corner of the room, possessed with the wild idea of grabbing the rubbish sack and making a run for it.