David Szalay - London and the South-East

Finally there are the maybes. The women on the team. Claire he sets to one side; she is a somewhat special case. Which leaves Elvezia, and Li, a youngish Chinese woman — it is difficult to estimate her age — with horrible yellow teeth and alarmingly thinning hair. To Paul she doesn’t seem clean somehow, like she hasn’t washed for weeks. In spite of this, she is being assiduously courted by a ruddy nerd from another team, who comes to eat his sandwich at her desk every day. She pitches in Chinese, calling the Far East, and because of this she works unusual hours, getting in at five in the morning and leaving at lunchtime, after the visit of her suitor. She makes sales, but Paul is suspicious of them, of the strange ideogrammic signatures and notes on the agreement forms — those flimsy, non-legally binding bits of fax paper — of deals closed when no one else is there. He does not entirely trust her. She could be telling these people anything, he thinks, listening to the weird gurgling sounds that emanate from her as she pitches, half turned to the wall. It could all be some kind of scam. (A few years earlier, two well-dressed, polite young Russians had joined the sales force, and they had done well, making sales to Russian and Ukrainian companies. They earned thousands of pounds of commission. Then, one morning, they were gone. And when the companies were invoiced for the dozens of ads they had bought, they turned out not to exist.) Paul supposes that he will not involve Li in the move to Delmar; her English seems so poor that he is not even sure he would be able to explain it to her.

Which leaves Elvezia. A stout, mannish Italian lady in early middle age, still known for the massive deal she made, over two years ago now, with Fiat (she sells in Italian), for a series of ads in a number of different publications. It was something of a sensation at the time, the talk of the smoking room, and Elvezia — to her flustered delight — became a company celebrity, an unlikely star salesman, like ‘Beer’ Matt Riley and Pax ‘the Fax’ Murdoch. Yvonne Jenkin, the managing director of PLP International Ltd, who the salespeople do not normally see, put in an appearance on the sales floor to present her with a magnum of champagne; it was the biggest single sale in the company’s history. Despite her denials, Elvezia had enjoyed all this, and was never entirely able to suppress an impish smile when people expressed wonder, as they often did, at her achievement. Her moment of fame did not last. Her successes since the Fiat deal have been numerous enough, though mostly very small — she is really a specialist of the micro-deal, the quarter-page ad, heavily discounted — and she has long since lapsed into the familiar, tetchy, plodding obscurity that was always her lot in the past. The photo of herself and Yvonne Jenkin and the magnum of champagne, still Blu-tacked up on the wall near her desk, is discoloured and starting to curl. Sic transit gloria mundi — it is the only Latin tag Paul knows. In his mind, he moves her halfway to the yeses. He is worried, though, what Eddy will make of her.

The first person he lets into the secret is Nayal, phoning him from the train home. ‘Hey! Nayal!’ he says. ‘It’s Paul.’

Politely, Nayal tries not to sound too surprised. ‘Paul. Hello.’

‘How’s it going, mate?’

‘Um. Fine.’

Paul says he wants to talk to him about something, and suggests they meet for a coffee, somewhere not too near the office. They meet the next morning in an Italian café on Museum Street.

It is, for both of them, a strange situation. Nayal — smart, fortyish, with a neat moustache — never mixes with other members of the team out of work, and away from the safe, familiar environment of the sales floor he and Paul are strangers. He notices how different Paul is — how solicitous, how serious — and thinks, ‘What does he want from me?’ smiling mildly and stirring his coffee. When he has lit a cigarette (having first asked Nayal whether he minds), Paul comes to the point. He prefaces it with, ‘This is between you and me, mate.’ And Nayal nods. He is, Paul knows, nothing if not discreet. ‘I’m going to be leaving PLP,’ he says. Nayal pulls a surprised face. ‘I’ve been offered a job somewhere else. Somewhere quite a lot better actually.’

‘Well,’ Nayal says. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Yeah. And I’m hoping you’ll come with me. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’ When Nayal hesitates, Paul says, ‘I’m not asking everybody. Just the best people.’ First smiling to acknowledge the flattery, Nayal says, ‘The thing is, Paul, I’m planning to leave PLP too.’

‘Oh.’

‘So …’

Though he knows that it is unfair, and tries, unsuccessfully, not to let it show, Paul finds he feels extremely let down. It had not occurred to him that members of his team might have their own secrets, their own plots. Perhaps seeing his expression darken, Nayal says hurriedly, ‘I’m planning to finish EPM , of course.’ Paul ignores this. ‘So what are you going to do?’ he says.

‘Well, it’s supposed to be a secret. I’ve just bought a hundred thousand minutes of talktime between the UK and Pakistan.’

‘You’ve bought a hundred thousand minutes of talktime?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh. To resell it. Yes. So if you ever want to call Pakistan …’ The levity is misjudged. Paul does not even seem to notice it. He says, ‘So you’re not interested in …?’

Nayal shakes his head sincerely. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry, mate.’ In his frustration, Paul says this with an unintended edge. There is a tense silence while he stubs out his cigarette. The situation is unnervingly similar to a blowout — is in fact a blowout, an unexpected one — and they are both more familiar than they would like to be with the feelings of impotence and humiliation associated with them . Even Nayal — his famous sangfroid notwithstanding — is often twisted into noiseless fury by them, usually expressed in a slight cold smile. ‘So where are you going then?’ he asks, delicately.

‘Oh, another sales place, you know.’

‘Well, I’m sure it’s a wise move.’

‘I think so. Park Lane’s fucked.’

Nayal smiles.

They walk back to the office in silence.

It has not been an encouraging start.

Later, seeing Wolé Ogunyemi stand up and head for the smoking room, Paul waits for a minute or two, and then follows him. When he opens the door, Wolé is at the window, leaning out. There is no one else there. Wolé looks over his shoulder. ‘All right, Paul,’ he says. ‘All right, Wolé.’ Paul sits down wearily on one of the low chairs, and lights up. ‘How’s it going, mate?’ he asks. Wolé turns. ‘How’s it going?’ he says. ‘How is it going? Shit.’ He laughs, and Paul laughs too. ‘I wanted to have a word with you, actually,’ he says. And lowering his voice, ‘Strictly between ourselves.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m serious. Tell no one.’

‘I won’t. Sure.’

Paul lowers his voice further, almost to a whisper. ‘I’m leaving PLP, mate. I’ve been offered another job. A better one.’

‘Yeah? Lucky you.’

‘And I’m sounding some people out, seeing if they want to join me.’

Suddenly Wolé’s face takes on a more focused, serious look. He too lowers his voice. ‘Where?’ he asks.

‘It’s a place called Delmar Morgan.’ Paul is whispering; the words ‘Delmar Morgan’, in particular, he more or less mouths in silence. ‘It’s a very good place,’ he says. ‘They’ve got excellent contracts. Much better than here. This place …’ With a small gesture he indicates their immediate environs. ‘This place is in serious trouble, mate. That’s obvious.’ Wolé nods thoughtfully, and after pausing for a moment to let the morbid prognosis sink in, Paul murmurs, ‘So, would you be interested — in principle?’