Peter Mayle - A Good Year

“That’s crap, and you know it. Both those companies are ripe. This deal is as good as sewn up.”

Amis looked up at him, a fleck of yellow cream on his chin. “You’ve got that right, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m taking it over.” Amis spooned in another mouthful, crunching the caramelized sugar between his teeth.

Max took a deep breath. “We’ll see what the Lawtons have to say about that. They’re…”

“Too late, sunshine. They’re sorted. I got the green light from them this morning.”

Max saw months of work wiped out. Even worse, he saw his bonus disappearing into Amis’s bank account as his unpaid bills piled up and the bank moved in to tighten the noose around his neck. “You can’t do that. It’s bloody daylight robbery. It’s stealing.”

“Where have you been living? It’s business, that’s what it is. Business. Nothing personal, no hard feelings. And I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve had a tip about a little engineering firm, but I won’t have time for that now. You can take it over.”

A memory came back to Max from many years ago, when his uncle Henry was giving him a lecture about life: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Max came to a decision. “I can take it over, can I? I can work it up, and then, when it’s all set, I can get screwed again. Is that what you’re saying?” Max leaned across the table. “Well, you can stuff your little engineering firm, and you can stuff your job. I’m not going to work for a thieving prick like you.”

Amis felt a glow of satisfaction as Max pushed back his chair. Lunch had gone according to plan; in fact, it couldn’t have gone better. He’d received a detailed, up-to-date brief on the deal, and, since Max had resigned, there wouldn’t be any severance to pay. Perfect. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Your decision. Make sure your desk is cleared out by this evening, OK?”

Max stood up, but Amis hadn’t finished with him. “Aren’t you forgetting something, my friend? The company vehicle?” He held out his hand. “I’ll have the car keys, if you don’t mind.”

Max took the keys from his pocket and hesitated for a moment before dropping them carefully into Amis’s half-eaten crème brûlée.

Amis watched him go. He reached for his cell phone and punched in Tracy ’s number.

During the walk back to the office, Max’s emotions were a mixture of apprehension at what he’d just done and elation at having done it. This was a bad moment to be out of a job, it was true. But the thought of life without Amis and his constant needling was something of a consolation; unfortunately, it was not nearly enough to make up for the lost bonus. He was in trouble, and he needed to find something else. He decided to spend his last afternoon at Lawtons making a few calls. Might even try New York.

When he got back, however, he found he could barely squeeze into his cubicle. Tracy and two security guards were waiting for him.

“Jesus,” said Max. “What do you think I’m going to do, nick the carpet?”

“Standard termination procedure,” said Tracy. She turned to the guards. “Stay with him until he’s finished, and then report back to me.” She stopped in front of Max as she was leaving the cubicle and smiled sweetly. “How was lunch?”

Max looked around the space where he had spent most of his waking hours over the past eighteen months. What did he want to take with him? What would he be allowed to take? His diskettes? Certainly not. His official Lawton Brothers desk diary? God forbid. What else was there? Nothing much. He shrugged at the guards. “Help yourselves, boys.”

Out on Threadneedle Street, he saw an empty cab throwing up a miniature bow wave as it came toward him through the rain. He raised an arm to hail it, remembered that he had just joined the ranks of the unemployed, and waved it on. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on the London Underground. This was going to be a novel experience. He splashed toward the Bank station, feeling the moisture soaking through the soles of his shoes.

There was no solace to be found in his apartment. Max kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks. A leaden afternoon light, more like winter than summer, seeped through the windows. The answering machine blinked its red eye.

“You bastard! Where were you last night? I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. All those ghastly men trying to touch me up. Don’t bother ever…”

Max winced and shut off the diatribe before it had finished. Working late the night before, he’d completely forgotten that he’d arranged to meet his caller in the bar of the Chelsea Arts Club. Knowing some of his fellow members, he could imagine that their desire to make a pretty stranger feel welcome might have been expressed too enthusiastically. Oh God. Better send flowers and an abject note.

He stripped off his tie and jacket and slumped on the couch, all energy and optimism gone. The apartment was a mess. His life was a mess. As an alternative to housework or vodka, he turned on the television. A cookery program. A documentary about salamanders. A man with blow-dried hair presenting the news from CNN. Golf, the instant soporific. Max dozed off, and dreamed of drowning Amis in a vat of crème brûlée.

It was evening when the phone woke him. The golfers on the screen didn’t seem to have made any progress since Max had dropped off several hours before. Perhaps it was a long hole. He turned off the TV and picked up the phone.

“There you are, you old bugger. I tried you at the office, but they said you’d left early. Are you all right?”

It was Charlie, his closest friend and ex-brother-in-law.

Max yawned. “I’m fine. No, actually, I’m not fine. It’s been one of those days.”

“It’s going to start getting better. Tonight, you and I are celebrating the promotion of Charles Willis, real estate’s rising star. It happened this afternoon. Bingham & Trout have made me a full partner. Time for young blood, they said. The property business is changing, we must move with the times, a strong hand on the tiller, all that stuff.”

“Charlie, that’s terrific. Congratulations.”

“Well, don’t just sit there. Come and help me out with this bottle of Krug.”

“Where are you?”

“An old client of mine just opened this place off the Portobello Road. Pinot, it’s called-great bar, great wine list, and even as I speak it is crawling with crumpet. All the Notting Hill lovelies, dressed in flimsy garments. I’m fighting them off.”

Max was smiling as he put the phone down and went into the bedroom to change. Ever since they had met at school, Charlie had always been good for morale. And looking out of the window, Max saw that the rain had stopped. His spirits lifted, and he found himself whistling as he went downstairs.

Passing through the lobby on his way out, he stopped to check his mailbox. There was the usual collection of final demands and circulars and one or two of the dinner-party invitations that come the way of every London bachelor; but there was also an intriguing envelope with a French stamp. In the top left-hand corner was a small, stylized image of the statue of Justice, and below was printed the sender’s name: Cabinet Auzet, Notaires, Rue des Remparts, 84903 St.-Pons. Max started to open it, then decided to save it to use as a distraction from the horrors of the tube. He slipped the envelope in his pocket, stuffed the rest of his mail back in the box, and headed for the South Kensington Underground station.

Standing in the crush of humanity as the tube rattled away from South Kensington toward Notting Hill, Max was rediscovering the face of public transport. Almost everyone around him, it seemed, had undergone the modern tribal ritual of piercing. Pierced nostrils, pierced eyebrows, pierced lips, pierced ears, several pallid but prominently displayed pierced navels. Other visible body parts, those that hadn’t been pierced, were tattooed. A handful of older, more conservative passengers, without nose jewelry or ear trinkets, looked like relics from a distant, unadorned age. They buried their faces in books or newspapers, carefully avoiding eye contact with those members of the pierced generation jammed up against them.