Peter Mayle - A Good Year

Max was the product of a minor public school, and had grown up in the leafy, middle-class comfort of the Surrey hills. Amis was born and raised in the grim outer reaches of south London, neither leafy nor comfortable. In fact, they had grown up less than twenty miles apart, but it might as well have been twenty thousand. Max liked to think that there was not a trace of snobbery in him. Amis liked to think that he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder. They were both wrong. But each had a grudging respect for the other’s ability, and so, with difficulty, they tolerated one another.

Easing the BMW into its appointed slot in the underground garage, Max tried to guess the reason for today’s meeting. Lunch at Lawtons was normally a sandwich at your desk, eyes glued to the screen. Lunch, in a phrase that Amis had picked up in New York, was for wimps. And yet here he was talking about a proper lunch with knives and forks-a wimp’s lunch-in a restaurant. It was curious. Max was still puzzling over it as he stepped out of the elevator and made his way through the rows of partitions to his own cubicle.

Lawtons took up the entire floor of a glass and concrete box. With the exception of the mahogany and leather splendor of the large suite shared by the two brothers, the offices had been designed to reflect the spirit of the company: no frills, no aesthetic refinements. This was a factory for making money, and austerity ruled. The Lawtons had a habit of bringing clients on a tour of what they called the engine room for a glimpse of the staff at work. “There they are, forty of the best business brains in the City. And they’re all thinking about your problems. ”

Not content with his earlier call, Amis had sent Max an e-mail instructing him not to be late for lunch. Max looked up from the screen toward the glassed-in corner office where Amis was normally to be seen striding up and down with a phone stuck to his ear, but this morning the office was empty. The big creep must be at a breakfast pitch somewhere, thought Max; or maybe he was off taking elocution lessons.

Max hung up his jacket and got down to work, running the numbers one final time on TransAx and Richardson Bell, the two companies whose charms he was peddling to one of Lawtons’ larger clients. If the deal went through, it was going to earn him a bonus that was, he had calculated, considerably more than the prime minister made in a year. He checked and double-checked, and the right answers came up each time. Now he was ready to present everything to the brothers. They could move in, and he would be six figures richer. He leaned back in his chair, stretched, and glanced at his watch. It was past twelve o’clock, and he realized he had no idea where he was supposed to be for lunch.

He crossed the floor to where Tracy, a brisk and well-upholstered young woman, was on sentry duty outside the corner office. She had recently been promoted from Amis’s secretary to his personal assistant (a step up, so office rumor had it, that was the direct result of a dirty weekend with Amis in Paris). Sadly, promotion had spoiled her, making her cocky and self-important.

Max perched on the corner of her desk and nodded toward the empty office. “Are we still on for lunch, or is he busy causing havoc in the stock exchange?”

Tracy looked as though she’d like to have given him a ticket for parking in a restricted area. “Mr. Amis will meet you at the Leadenhall Cellars. Twelve-thirty sharp. You’re not to be late.”

Max raised his eyebrows. The Cellars, once a storage depot for the old Leadenhall market, had been turned into a gentrified wine bar where the young Turks of the City gathered to eat virile lunches-slabs of red meat and Stilton-drink overpriced claret, and prepare for the rigors of the afternoon with a notoriously powerful port. Despite the bare brick walls and the sawdust on the floor, it was one of the City’s most expensive restaurants.

“He’s dipping into his savings, isn’t he?” said Max. “Any idea what it’s about?”

Tracy looked down at her desk and rearranged some papers. “Not a clue,” she said. The offhand tone of her voice was unconvincing and, Max found, irritating.

“ Tracy, there’s something I’ve been dying to ask you.”

She looked up.

“How was Paris?”

So it was true. Leaving her to her blushes, Max went back to get his jacket and an umbrella, bracing himself for a dash through the rain to Leadenhall Street. He hesitated in the doorway of the building before plunging into the thicket of oversized golf umbrellas-this summer’s style accessory-that had sprouted everywhere like multicolored mushrooms, blocking the pavement and making progress slow and difficult. He was going to be late.

He arrived in the crowded, vaulted room to find Amis already at the table, cell phone to his ear. During his time among the movers and shakers of Wall Street, Amis had picked up some of their more flamboyant sartorial affectations-the aggressively striped shirt with white collar, the scarlet braces, the tie spattered with bulls and bears-decorative flourishes that clashed with his hard, thin-lipped face and convict’s haircut. Whatever he wore, he would always look like a thug. But he had a genius for deal making, and for that he was much loved by the Lawton brothers.

He finished his call, and made a point of looking at his watch-gold, and even bulkier than Max’s, its face encrusted with a multitude of dials: depth in meters, elapsed time, and, a special feature, the waxing and waning of the Nasdaq. “What happened to you, then? Lost your way?”

Max helped himself to a glass of red wine from the bottle on the table. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Umbrella jam in Leadenhall Street.”

Amis grunted, signaled to one of the waitresses, and became suddenly jovial. “You know what would make me a happy man, my love?” He gave her a wink and a smirk. “A nice juicy sirloin, well cooked, none of that blood all over the place. Get enough of that at the office.” The waitress did her best to smile. “And chips. And then I’ll have the crème brûlée for afters. Got that?” His cell phone chirped, and he muttered into it while Max ordered lamb chops and a salad.

Amis put down his phone and took a gulp of wine. “Right, then,” he said, “give me the rundown on TransAx and Richardson Bell.”

For the next half hour, Max went through the figures and projections, his analysis of the management, and the possibilities of corporate loot and plunder that he had been working on since the start of the year. Amis ate his way through the presentation, making notes on the pad by his plate but offering neither question nor opinion.

Max finished talking, and pushed aside the remains of his congealed chops. “Well? Is this why we’re having lunch?”

“Not exactly.” Amis was probing the recesses of his back teeth with a toothpick, examining his discoveries with an air of mild interest as he took pleasure in keeping Max waiting.

The waitress came to clear away the plates, which appeared to be the cue Amis had been waiting for. “I’ve been having a chat with the brothers,” he said, “and they share my concerns.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your performance, my friend. Your productivity. You’ve been like the walking wounded this year. Pathetic.”

“You know what I’ve been putting together over the past six months-I’ve just told you.” Max had to make an effort to keep his voice down. “And you know bloody well that deals like this don’t happen in a couple of weeks. They take time.”

Amis greeted the arrival of his crème brûlée with another wink at the waitress. “Won’t wash, my friend, won’t wash. You want to know what’s wrong?” He looked at Max and nodded two or three times. “Personal life’s getting in the way. Too many late nights, too much chasing after totty. You’ve lost the killer instinct.” Taking his spoon, he stabbed his dessert through the heart.