Stuart Harrison - Aphrodite’s Smile

‘Because I love you.’

She studied me intently. ‘Do you? Really?’

‘Really.’

She kissed me back. ‘God. I love you too. I really do.’

At the weekend, I decided. At the weekend I’d ask her to marry me.

I spoke to Irene on the phone twice over the next forty-eight hours. My father’s condition continued to improve and the doctors were ever more confident that he would make a full recovery providing he made the necessary changes to his lifestyle. Every time I called, Irene asked me when I was going out there. I told her as soon as I could. I decided that since he was out of danger I should wait until he’d regained his strength, besides, there were things that needed my attention at work. She didn’t completely buy it, but she didn’t push the issue. She kept telling me that she would take care of him when he was allowed home. She’d make sure he kept to the doctor’s regime. I thought it was a little strange the way she kept assuring me, almost as if I doubted her, but I put it down to tiredness.

In fact it wasn’t a good time for me to be leaving London. I had started my company when I was still in my mid-twenties, having come out of university with a BA and not much idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to spend it in the present rather than in the past like my dad. After a few years of intermittent travelling, and having tried banking and marketing, I decided that I didn’t really mind what I did so long as I didn’t have to work for anybody else. I raised some money and bought a run-down flat in North London which I fixed up and sold on for a profit. Since the work had been easy enough and the rewards surprisingly good, I did it again, so next I could afford to do up two places at once. Then I bought a big old house in Chingford that had been let as bedsits and tiny flats with shared bathrooms. With a daunting amount of debt, I set about converting the place into three apartments, each occupying a single floor. I sold two for what it had cost me to buy and renovate the entire building. The third one was pure profit, and London prices were about to take off.

By the time I was thirty I was worth several million on paper, but a year later I was not only broke but badly in debt. I’d invested heavily in an office tower but the main contractor had cut corners on a previous project and one of his recent buildings had been declared unfit. A whole morass of corrupt dealings with suppliers and officials had been exposed by one of the national newspapers, and when the contractor filed for bankruptcy nobody would come within a mile of the half-completed building I part-owned.

In the five years since then I had clawed my company back to profitability. I was more cautious about where I invested and for the most part I followed a strategy of developing a broader range of smaller properties. In another year or two I could begin to relax a little.

My company offices were within walking distance of my house. The day after Irene first called with the news about my father I arrived at work early. Tony Allen was the only one there. I had a small team who all had a stake in the business, and Tony had been with me the longest. He was ambitious and hard-working and was usually at his desk around seven. I’d given up telling him he didn’t need to burn himself out a long time ago.

That morning he didn’t know that I was there. His office door was open and, as I went to the coffee machine, I could hear him talking on the phone. He mentioned the name of a warehouse property that we had been trying to buy in Fulham. We already had plans to turn the building into the kind of trendy offices favoured by advertising agencies and the like who didn’t mind paying high rents. It was a big project and I had taken a lot of convincing, but Tony had been chipping away for a long time. He thought I was too conservative and, though I reminded him that I’d almost gone under once, he told me that was in the past and I shouldn’t let it hold the company back. In the end I’d relented enough to agree to the deal, but a couple of weeks ago Tony had told me the seller had suddenly upped his price by a third and he didn’t think we were going to be able to reach agreement. The last I’d heard the deal was dead in the water. I wondered if something had happened to resurrect it. The way Tony was talking it sounded that way.

Back in my own office I forgot about the Fulham project. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. Part of me wanted to fly out to Ithaca but another part looked for excuses not to. I was thinking about Alicia too and my decision to ask her to marry me. I loved her, but I wondered if this was the right time to be making that kind of decision. Half an hour later Tony passed my office and when he saw me he looked surprised, even startled. He started to come in, but my phone rang and as I reached for it he pointed to his watch and mouthed that he’d see me later.

It was some time in the afternoon when we crossed paths again. As we chatted I recalled the phone conversation I’d overheard that morning and I was about to ask him if things had changed when he said that he’d heard again from the company that owned the warehouse.

‘Might as well forget that one for now. They’re not going to sell,’ he said.

I said that it was a pity and he joked that I was probably secretly relieved. I smiled but didn’t say anything. After he left I remembered his expression when he’d seen me that morning and I thought about the call. I went to my office and sat down. After a while I called a friend of mine and asked him to do me a favour.

That night at home Alicia came and sat beside me on the couch. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Liar.’ She play punched me. ‘Is it your dad? Did you speak to Irene today?’

‘Yes. She said he’s improving. I can speak to him tomorrow probably.’

‘That’s good. Do you think you’ll go out there?’

‘I don’t think I can. Not right now.’

‘OK.’ She yawned. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed. Are you coming?’

‘You work too hard,’ I told her.

‘Tell Mitchell that.’ She pulled a sour face.

I knew she hated Mitchell. He was the worst kind of boss. The kind who is so insecure about himself that he resents anybody who might be a threat. Alicia could do his job in her sleep and he knew it and so he made her life a misery. It was a shame because she was talented and she gave herself heart and soul to her career, but now she hated it.

When I went to bed an hour later the lights were off in our room. I cleaned my teeth and tried to put Tony out of my mind. Alicia had left her birth control pills on the vanity top. I thought about the doubts I’d had earlier and it occurred to me that if we got married she could stop taking her pills and she could tell Mitchell to shove his job.

When I got into bed, Alicia wasn’t asleep. She turned and snuggled up to me and I realised that she was naked, which always meant one thing.

‘I thought you were tired,’ I said.

She kissed me and her hand slithered over my belly and took hold of me. ‘Not that tired.’

In the morning I was at work early. I went to Tony’s office and closed the door. He saw something was up, and his grin lost some of its lustre.

‘You remember that Fulham deal?’ I said. ‘David Jones talked to the company yesterday. Apparently they’re developing the site themselves. They’ve got a new partner.’

Tony didn’t say anything. We both knew who the new partner was. I waited for him to deny it, but he didn’t. I had thought of Tony as a friend. But not any more.

‘You’re fired,’ I told him calmly. ‘Get out of here and don’t ever set foot in this building again.’

He stared at me, surprised I think by my coldness. But then he stood up and began to gather a few things together. ‘It’s business, Robert. Nothing personal. You don’t want the high risk projects. I’m only trying to do something for myself. Maybe I could’ve done it differently, I’ll admit that.’