Think Yourself Lucky (24 page)

"He's keeping you informed about me, is he? I suppose he must have used to tell you everything." Before David could answer this, not that he felt invited to, Stephanie said "Since I'm between jobs except for yours I'll do all I can."

Andrea sent her a cough sharp enough for the tone of an incoming message. "Unfortunately that isn't my decision."

"Whose is it, then?"

"I assure you it's very much mine." Andrea gave this some moments to gather authority and said "I was saying I'm afraid I haven't been able to decide in your favour."

As Stephanie parted her lips without shaping a word David demanded "Why not?"

"Oh, are you actually there, David? I did wonder when you've been so quiet about it. Anyway, I was speaking to Stephanie." Andrea indicated with a cough that she'd finished talking to him and said "Part of my scheme was mutual advertising, and sadly you're in no position to offer that any longer."

"You'd be advertising Steph," David protested. "You'd be helping her."

"I have to show head office something I believe in so they will. I'm very much afraid we can't afford to be a charity these days."

As David thought she was by no means sufficiently afraid, Stephanie said "When are you planning your promotion? Perhaps I'll be with another restaurant by then."

"That won't matter, I'm afraid. I've already made alternative arrangements. Rex, no doubt David will tell you who he is if you've any need to know, Rex has put me in touch with one of the businesses he handles advertising for. I really should have gone to him in the first place."

David saw Stephanie restrain herself on his behalf as she said "It's been an education working with you, Andrea."

"I wouldn't have said that was work," Andrea retorted, and then Stephanie ended the call.

"Rex is my replacement. They deserve each other." As Stephanie took quite a long drink David said "As you say, what a bitch, and a cunt as well."

"I don't use that word, David, and I didn't think you did." Stephanie abandoned her disapproval to say "At least she's given me more time to find a job."

"You oughtn't to need much. Everyone with restaurants should know how good you are."

"We'd better see how good that is," Stephanie said and headed for the cooker.

"I'll be back in a minute to help." David hurried to the bathroom, where he watched his face grow furious in the mirror. "You haven't fixed it for Steph yet," he muttered fiercely. "Do whatever you have to do."

He wasn't late for work, David reminded himself. Bill and Helen were earlier, that was all. They weren't in a competition, or even if his colleagues thought they were, he didn't need to join in. Stephanie's job was the problem, not his. Bill's grin as he came to let David in was meant as a welcome rather than hinting at triumph. David didn't need to impress Andrea with his commitment to the company, at least not by turning up earlier still. Besides, she was nowhere to be seen.

He didn't know why that made him feel guilty. How could her absence help Stephanie? Surely he needn't be afraid to learn why she wasn't there—and then he realised that she had to be, otherwise Bill and Helen wouldn't have been able to get in. As Bill twisted the latch David saw the door to the staff quarters swing open beyond him. It was indeed Andrea who appeared, but she didn't shut the door at once. Having followed her, Emily did.

David felt as if the chill of the day had seized him by the guts. The noises of the street—the crowd's murmur blurred beyond words, the wheezing wail of an accordion, a shout too distant to be comprehensible—seemed to recede from him, isolating him at the core of himself. He was close to fleeing, not least because he didn't understand why the sight of Emily should disturb him so much. He'd only managed to shiver from head to foot by the time Bill opened the door. "What's up, old chap?"

Nodding at Emily felt like butting an insubstantial opponent, though David had never butted anyone in his life. "Just wasn't expecting to see..."

"Not much to see at the present. Oh, the girl herself, you mean."

As David ventured into the shop Andrea asked him "What weren't you expecting?"

"I thought Emily had left us."

"She still has her notice to work off." Andrea wasn't alone in gazing at him. "Don't worry, she hasn't taken your job."

"I didn't think she had," David said, which failed to explain why Emily's presence troubled him. "I wasn't trying to get rid of you, Emily.

"I wouldn't ever have thought you were."

"While we're on the subject," Helen said, "maybe you wouldn't mind telling David we weren't trying to get rid of him."

"I should think we weren't. Who said we were?"

"I'm rather afraid David said you did."

"That isn't what I said at all." David hardly knew what his panic was making him say. "Anyway," he declared, "I was mistaken."

"Just so long as you know you were," Helen said.

Emily looked puzzled, and David could only pray with no audience in mind that she wouldn't seek an explanation. In the corridor behind the scenes the hanger jangled against the back of the locker, and the thin shrill sound might have been giving voice to his nerves. Surely now that he knew why he'd found Emily's presence threatening he ought to be able to stop feeling anxious, or was there another reason to be apprehensive? Suppose the Newless blog had told more of the truth than he wanted to recognise about his workmates, whatever they said to his face? It hadn't been too inaccurate about Cubbins and Payne, after all. Just the same, he didn't think this was the source of his foreboding, which distracted him so much that he almost forgot to retrieve the envelope from one capacious pocket. When he returned to the shop he couldn't tell whether the others had been discussing him. He took the photographs out of the envelope and flourished them at Andrea. "See, I remembered," he said and immediately felt there was something else that it was crucial to recall.

She watched him fasten the first of the photographs to the wall behind the counter. "I didn't realise you'd been to Switzerland."

"You know I was at Steph's last night. I didn't want to let you down again, so I borrowed these."

"I've no idea where you were, David, and no interest. Are you in any of the photographs!"

"We haven't been away together yet. She isn't in them either."

"The idea is to show where we've been. That means letting people see us there, not hiding. You can help in another way instead."

She stared at the Swiss image until he returned it to the envelope, and then he had to ask "What way?"

"Rex will be here to advise about the promotion, but you can represent us on the street. I'm sure we can expect you to do better out there than last time."

Was she really obliging him to work with her boyfriend? The silence of his colleagues felt close to palpable, the unspoken growing solid. He couldn't separate it from a sense of being spied upon, but whenever he glanced towards the street he was unable to locate a watcher. He was trying to concentrate on working at his terminal, though even this put him in mind of the Newless blog, when Bill said "Here's the man himself."

Rex was backing uphill outside the window, holding up his hands to ward off a threat. David's head began to throb as if the sight had set off an alarm inside his skull, and then he was confused to see Rex beckon the menace. He let out a breath when he saw that Rex was guiding a van. The Indian driver looked impatient with the guidance. As the van inched up the pedestrianised slope, words on its side came into view. It belonged to ALI AND ALEXI'S GLOBAL GRUB, apparently the WORLD'S BEST SITDOWN MEDITERRANEAN EUROPEAN ASIAN BUFFET RESTAURANT. David might have laughed on Stephanie's behalf, though not with much amusement, but managed to restrain himself even when Bill read out the slogan on the van. "More tastes than we've got a name for. Sounds a bit kinky to me.

Andrea stared at him before informing him "Rex created that and he's had no complaints."

There was silence while Bill struggled to rescind his grin. As the driver set about unloading the van and Rex bustled bulkily around him, still stockier for a quilted overcoat, David turned back to his computer. He was aware that Rex was helping the driver erect a pair of trestle tables outside the window—miming the action, at any rate. Hot plates came next, and as the driver loaded them with foods Rex trotted into the shop. "Who'll be outside with me?"

"I'm told I am."

"David, isn't it?" Rex said, glancing at the badge as if to make sure. "Better pin that on your coat so people know who you're meant to be."

The jangle of the hanger seemed to resound inside David's skull. He zipped up his jacket and poked the pin through the hole in the tag of the zipper, where the badge dealt his chest a peremptory tap with every step he took. It felt like an attempt to remind him what he still needed to remember. As he tramped back to the counter Rex said "Here's some slogans for you to say out there. Taste the world and a world of tastes."

"They don't really sell our business, do they?"

"If you've any better ideas I'm sure Andy will listen."

David waited for her to object to the name, but her only response was a curt cough. "How about..." he said, which simply revived how he'd felt when Darius Hall had badgered him for a title. As soon as a phrase fell together in his brain he said "Taste our holidays."

"I think that's better," Emily said and folded her hands over her rounded midriff.

"It'd bring me in," Bill said, and Helen added a nod.

"Say what you're comfortable with," Andrea said.

"Pipe up if you prefer his, Andy," Rex said. "You know I'm not bothered by competition. It's my meat and my bread and butter."

David couldn't help wondering what Newless would think of all this—the petty hostilities, the unadmitted alliances, the grotesque pinched triviality of the entire confrontation. Presumably Andrea meant to terminate it as well as exhibit her authority by saying "I think it's time for you to go to work, David."

Rex held the door open just long enough to make David hurry to it. The driver set out stacks of paper plates inscribed with the name of the eatery and embraced Rex before driving uphill. Passers-by were glancing at the tables, and David swung his upturned hand towards the food. "Taste our holidays."

"You want to speak up a bit more," Rex advised him not nearly quietly enough.

"Taste our holidays." Raising his voice gained David a nod of approval that he tried not to find condescending. At least he'd enticed several customers, who loaded plates with a dinner's worth of food. "We can send you where those come from," he said.

"They do good nosh at Ali's," a diner assured him.

"No, I mean the countries," David said, but she and her fellow gluttons were on their way downhill. "Taste our holidays," he called and saw Rex shake his head along with an equally imperative finger. "What's wrong now?"

"Take it to your public. Just let them have a taste that'll leave them hungry for the rest you've got for them."

David had a sense that someone was watching with more than ordinary interest—that Rex's behaviour was attracting a kind of attention Rex wouldn't like. "Here," Rex said too much in the manner of a summons, and spent time artfully arranging items on the quarters of a paper plate—seekh kebabs, dim sum, chorizo in wine, Greek village sausages that only the name tag in front of the hot plate distinguished from frankfurters. "You need to make a veggie selection," he said.

David put together a plateful of onion bhajis and halloumi cheese, along with patatas bravas and Chinese spring onion pancakes. He was making to offer it to the public when Rex said "You've got two hands, haven't you? Give the people the whole package."

"And what will you be doing?"

"I'm just here to optimise the campaign. Its your identity that counts."

"Which one is that?" David said and was uneasy that he had.

"You're the man with the badge," Rex said and scrutinised David's face. "Say if you want me to take over. Better ask Andy first, though."

"I had the impression she'll do as you tell her."

"Yes, but we're talking about you, Davey. You had your chance, and it sounds like you never found your inner man."

At least taking the second plate let David turn away from the pale smug pudgy face under its calculatedly unkempt shock of red hair, and from his impulse to punch it softer still. He found he was searching the crowd in the street, and was unnerved to feel he might be inviting someone, but could see nobody who lived up to his nervousness. As he held up the flimsy plates, the edges of which had begun to flutter in the wind, he felt like a figure wielding a pair of scales—a caricature of justice. "Taste our holidays," he called and saw someone veer towards him.

He might have welcomed the approach if he hadn't recognised the sharp face taut with purpose, the greying hair that trailed various lengths over the tweed collar. "Still shouting in the street?" Len Kinnear said.

"I seem to whenever you're about." David's panic was back, and gave him little chance to think. "Taste our holidays," he said somewhere between calling out and quoting.

"Hope you didn't spend much time thinking that up."

"Not too much, but why are you saying that?"

"You're wasting yourself. Do a day job if you've got to pay the rent but keep your words out of it. They're for telling the truth with."

"I wonder how you think David could do his job without them," Rex said.

"You're the chef, are you?" Kinnear hardly seemed to want to know.

"I'm a partner in Merseyside Publicity Solutions." Not much less haughtily Rex added "But I'd be proud to be the chef."

"I'm guessing he's a client of yours." Before Rex could do more than protrude his lips Kinnear said "All I'm saying is you should hear David when he gets mad. You'd think he was a different man."

"Just not a better one," David said.

"Don't deny yourself, mate. David Botham," Kinnear said as if David needed to be reminded who he was. "I'll be looking for your name. You've got too much inside you not to let it out."

David felt the plates he was holding quiver in the wind. Now he could have imagined he was a silent comedian poised to hurl the plates in Kinnear's face—anything to shut him up, except that hardly would. "You don't know me at all," he protested.