CHAPTER NINE: SYLVIA
Harry has a good night out. Expensive, but good: he took Doreen to eat at the Maroush in Seymour Place, and then on to bop Latino at the Bar Rumba in Shaftesbury Avenue. He noticed that men seem to make detours in both places to pass close to her, and the knowledge both made him proud, and charged his adrenalin, particularly as she stuck very close to him, and refused to acknowledge any other interest. She was making him feel good, and life was building into a progression of successes. Perhaps she was some kind of good luck charm.
Staying out late meant that they do not get back to his flat until the early hours. But lateness seems to have no effect on Doreen at all, for she entwined him as soon as they passed the door, as though she had only just woken, and he had only just risen, and they crumpled his sheets again. Then they slept and he rose again undaunted on Tuesday, and felt that he had shed twenty years.
Afterwards, when they were lying together, reflecting on shared pleasure, Doreen looked up at him approvingly. ‘You’re doing alright, aren’t you?’
Harry swelled with pride, and thought of popping some more pink grannies into an envelope as she made him toast and coffee. But he then changed his mind, and tucked the envelope in amongst some papers by his computer. A couple a day, day in, day out, could grow into the best part of a hundred thousand in a full year, not counting fashion bills, and meal bills, and bills for trips to exotic places, and any number of other bills, and he did not think he could afford it. Passion can make a man do foolish things, and it would be no use regretting them afterwards. However he did make a mental note to have Christine order up a few dozen yellow roses for the flat. The roses would match well with his decor, and make a touching gift, as well as going on a Dreamstone bill. He would also learn whether Doreen had an eye for arranging flowers. Perhaps she could do something useful for Dreamstone. Putting her on the books might solve any number of problems.
He glanced at his watch, and realised that he was running late. He munched his toast and drank his coffee at speed, kissed Doreen quickly, ducking out of her embrace before she could sap at his resolve, and shot off to work. Sylvia had never, ever, made him breakfast.
Christine was already in place at her screen as he hurried into his office, and he waved the wave of a winner. She eyed him appraisingly. She could tell, from the shadows under his eyes, that he had been keeping late hours and working his fingers to the bone, and the knowledge strengthened her devotion. She knew Harry for a dedicated man, and wondered at times why he worked so hard when he already had everything so good. She sighed. She feels she needed a break herself, and had begun reading winter holiday brochures. South Africa seemed tempting. Perhaps the firm would treat her to a tan. Then she pushed holidays, and tans, out of her mind. Her husband had voiced some unkind thoughts about orange peel thighs and cellulite haunches not long since, and the memory rankled. She returned quickly to loading legal documents.
Harry riffled rapidly through his mail, and dumped the lot. Every bank and credit card company in the world seemed to want to lend Dreamstone millions, not to say billions. Sometimes he wondered whether the company ought not to go on a foray through the financial world with a view to chopping out all this harrassment. He sighed, and his sigh matched Christine’s. Some people only seemed to be in business to be painful. Perhaps Levon would liven him up.
Levon was intent on his computer screen, and Harry circled silently behind his desk. He knew the screen will either be offering casino-type winnings, or improbably large bodily contours. He never understood how big boobs could be such an allurement: Levon had enough money to buy flashers by the hundred.
He paused, before coughing discreetly. The couple on the screen looked to be acting out some sort of exercise in agility, but did not seem to be enjoying themselves much.
Levon cut the link and swivelled his chair, inspecting Harry appraisingly. ‘You look as though you had a busy night.’
Harry shrugged with the nonchalance of a winner. ‘I won’t be able to keep it up forever, but I’m making the most of it while I can.’
‘You must introduce me.’
He grinned. ‘No chance. Not until she’s on the books.’
The two men smiled at each other in shared complicity. Then Haris looked businesslike. ‘Okay. What’s the next step on Wide Horizons?
Harry held out a sheet of paper. ‘I’m going to call Underwood, to put him on notice. Then we’ll tell the Stock Exchange and Reuters. I’ll get Christine to bike the formal offer round to them during the course of the morning.’
‘What about the Shark?’
‘We’ll shoo him away.’
‘You think he’ll go quietly?’
Harry shrugged again. ‘We’ll give him a turn on his stake.’
‘He won’t counter-offer?’
‘I don’t think he’s got the speed.’
Haris nodded thoughtfully, and then got to his feet. ‘You’re doing well.’ He held out his hand: it was a gesture of confidence. ‘I’ll go and sign us up with the bank.’
Harry was usually a most confident man. But sometimes in his life, though not very often, he had moments of uncertainty. He sat at his desk, waiting for his call to connect, and felt his stomach tremble. There are moments of engagement that never become mundane, and unveiling a bid, big or small, always possesses a fresh power to thrill. He heard Underwood’s voice, and felt a rush of adrenalin. He was a matador, raising his sword.
‘Jack?’ He spoke briskly. ‘This is Harry Chapman. We’re coming in.’
The telephone made a noise that sounded like several muffled swearwords, and Harry smiled to himself. It was plain that he was taking the man by surprise. He continued at speed. ‘We’ve tied up Union Funds.’ He punched at his keyboard, flashing up Wide Horizons’ share price. ‘My screen shows you at fifty-five, down from sixty-five at the beginning of last week. We’ll bid seventy in a mixture of cash and paper, with some warrants as a sweetener. We’ll add a fully underwritten cash alternative at sixty-eight. You’ll get our formal offer before lunch.’
The telephone was silent for a moment. Then Underwood’s voice came through, and Wide Horizons’ chairman sounded icy. ‘You’ve got it all planned.’
Harry nodded. Underwood might not be able to see him, but he would certainly hear the satisfaction in his voice. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’
Another pause. ‘We’ll fight it.’
Harry shook his head to himself. Underwood did not have a chance. Wide Horizon’s share price had been weakening progressively for months as private holders and institutions dumped stock, and nobody believed in the man any more. Dreamstone was now running for home, and the rest of the bid would just be a formality. ‘You haven’t a hope.’
‘We’re just going through a bad patch.’
‘You’re down from a tenner a year ago.’ Harry’s voice was inexorable. He judged himself to be hammering in a home truth. An impartial observer might have judged him to be enjoying himself. ‘We think we’re making a fair offer.’
‘You’re going to break us up.’
‘We’re now a major shareholder, and we think Wide Horizons ought to be managed differently.’
‘I see.’ Jack Underwood drummed his fingers on his desk. He knew that his days were numbered, and wished that he had taken his chance in the good times to bump up his severance. But the good times had blown away, the rest of Wide Horizon’s board had watched the group’s share price slide and grown progressively tetchier and tetchier, and now he could feel the ground crumbling under his feet. He took a deep breath. He knew that the other directors would all take Dreamstone’s cash and head straight for the exit, but he was damned if he was going to allow Chapman to rub his nose in the dirt. He would go down fighting, if he had to go down. Maybe he would find some dirt to fling. Maybe he could take stronger defence measures. He took a deep breath. ‘We’ll reply formally when your offer arrived.’
His phone clicks, and he clenched his right hand into a fist and slammed it down hard onto his desk. Chapman and Haris were a pair of shits. He began combing through possibilities in his mind. He knew some people out on the right wing of the Tory party who were reputed to have links to the British National Party. Perhaps they might help. Perhaps Marshall might help.
He turned the thought over in his mind. Marshall might mount a counter offer, and find him a place. Might, but he was not very sanguine. He picked up his telephone to dial Marshall’s private line. A tic began to jerk at the corner of his mouth as he waited for the call to connect.
‘I’m taking the offer, Jack.’ The voice that answered did not bother to identify itself. It was flat and cold, pushing him away.
Underwood realised that Marshall must have recognised his number on caller ID. He cleared his throat. ‘Then there’s not a lot I can say.’
‘Not much.’ Marshall sounded bored.
‘They’re stealing the group.’
‘You’ve been sliding downhill.’
‘We’ve got a lot of potential.’ Underwood knew that a note of pleading was creeping into his voice, but he could not help himself. He was clutching at straws. They were all that were left to him.
‘Haris and Chapman are sharp. They’re picking you off just at the right moment.’
Underwood made one last desperate play. He knew that Marshall was a prejudiced man. ‘You don’t want a bloody Yid to get us, do you?’
His telephone clucked disapprovingly. ‘That’s no way to talk, Jack, not in this day and age: gas chambers have gone out of business. I may hope that he comes a cropper one day, but meanwhile I’m taking his cash.’
The telephone clicked, and Underwood realised sourly that Marshall has hung up on him. So much for the guardians of christian purity and white superiority. What really counted, when the chips began to fall, was the size of the pay-off.
Sylvia Bevan was furious. She hunched up in front of her screen, checking the small print in a complex contract, and knew that anger was making her press her lips tightly together, accentuating some unseemly lines that had begun bunching of late at the corners of her mouth. She also suspected that wrinkles might be gathering on her forehead. It was all too much: she was not a woman to take ridicule lightly, in fact she was not a woman to take ridicule at all, and now she risked becoming a laughing-stock along Chancery Lane, and losing out painfully. News that her new silk dress had been sighted on a teenage girl squired by a man she considered one of her best and most reliable clients had reached her virtually as she sat down at her desk in a leading City solicitor’s office, and several catty emails popped unpleasantly out of her inbox during the course of the morning. She suspected that more might be winging their way around women who knew her. She was normally quite even-tempered, even though her mother was half Italian, and fully capable of weathering the storms of life. But now she found herself growing progressively more and more angry as time moved on, particularly as Harry obstinately refused to field her calls.
Her first thought was to storm round to his office. But she had a feeling that storming might rebound on her, particularly if Christine barred her way, and Sylvia was not a woman to relish being humiliated in public. She scowled as Jane, her assistant, placed a cup of coffee at her elbow. Jane was plain and skinny and reliable. She knew nothing of the problems of being a star in the Law Society firmament. Senior partners in some of the City’s leading firms had almost come to blows in their rivalry to sit next to Sylvia at important Society dinners, and she had used her liquid dark eyes to devastating effect on several Government ministers. Nigel Dempster had described her as a ‘sultry Latin beauty’ in the Daily Mail – Sylvia prided herself on having inherited her mother’s glossy dark looks, as well as her father’s slim build and long legs. But now she was being trumped by a little tart, from probably nowhere.
She sipped at her coffee and reached a decision. She would stay offline whilst she finished the job she was doing, ignore her phone, unless a caller be rich and male, and let Jane field anything else that came through. Jane was an ideal assistant: totally trustworthy, totally devoted, and never a wrong word. Then she would take a taxi to Canary Wharf as soon as she was done, recover her all her clothes, including her silk dress – even though she knew that she might never be able to wear it again, not in London, anyway - and draw a line under Mr. Chapman. It was a hard decision to make, because Harry has been a major contributor to her purse. But there are times when a girl must bite the bullet and make up her mind to be hard on herself. Perhaps somebody else might take Harry’s place, for she had recently met an interesting, and very wealthy American, now roaming around somewhere in the Middle East. But Harry was dead meat. She began typing a correction, hitting her keyboard with perhaps a touch more force than was necessary, and took a deep breath. She felt like a volcano about to erupt, and knew that she must control herself.
Doreen showered after seeing Harry off, and toyed with the idea of taking herself up West. She picked an outfit of her own to travel: a nice pale green silk shirt and a pair of slightly flared dark green jeans, rather on the tight side, to go with green sandals. Not smart-smart perhaps, but an ensemble that was quite eyecatching in its own modest way. Then she changed her mind. She had nibbled at a slice of toast to keep Harry company, but now her stomach was starting to rebel. She would make herself some more black bread and soft cheese, with another little salad as garnish, and go exploring after she had eaten. Food must come first.
She was busy in the flat kitchen when she heard the door of the flat open. She did not bother to stop or turn round to look: she visualised a cleaning lady as some moaning mum on the dole, or a tatty old bit of scruff, and felt in no mood for either.
Sylvia stopped dead at the sound of somebody moving in Harry’s kitchen. Sometimes he came home to work. Perhaps he had gone into the kitchen to fix himself some coffee, and she would have a chance to stage a showdown. She liked the idea of having a row. The Italian blood in her revelled at the prospect of a really good slanging match, and she welcomed a chance both to take vengeance for all the humiliation she had suffered, and wreak revenge. She would smash china and throw knives and make one hell of a mess. It would be like a circus. She crossed his big livingroom silently, steps shielded by his thick carpeting, and stopped again.
A blonde girl was assembling a salad on the work surface next to his cooker, chopping at lettuce with a sharp kitchen knife. Sylvia knew instantly that this must be Harry’s new harlot. She drew herself up to her full height, and stared at the girl with icy dignity. But she did not speak.
Doreen sensed that someone was watching her, and looked up. A dark-haired woman in a smart chalk striped business suit was standing in the doorway staring at her, and she knew immediately who it must be. She inspected the newcomer coolly. She was holding the sharpest knife in Harry’s kitchen, and the woman in the dark suit did not look like a fighter.
‘Harry’s at work’ She returned to her salad, chopping hard at a couple of lettuce leaves, just to show the woman she meant business. ‘I’ll tell him you called.’
‘Did you wear my dress yesterday?’ Sylvia’s tone filled with measured fury.
Doreen sniffed, and tossed her hair back out of her eyes. ‘Harry gave it to me, because it was such a good fit.’ She wiped the kitchen knife on her apron.
‘It was my dress.’ Sylvia looked fit to explode.
Doreen shrugged. ‘Was your dress.’
‘What do you mean, was?’ Sylvia took an angry step forward, saw Doreen raise her knife just a little, and stepped quickly back again.
Doreen decided to be blunt. She wanted to get on with making her lunch, and this intruder was wasting her time. She spoke briskly. ‘I’ve taken your place. So that means you’re out. We’re the same size, so I’ll keep the gear.’
She took a step forward, stroking the kitchen knife blade with her left forefinger. ‘I’ll tell Harry you came round. If you want to wrangle, you can wrangle with him.’ She took a second step forward, tapping the kitchen knife on the palm of her hand, keeping the point of the blade well to the fore.
Sylvia turned and fled.
Doreen waited until she heard the outer door slam, and then sat down. She suddenly felt faint, but also strangely elated. It was the first time in her life that she has picked a fight, and won so completely. She would celebrate by taking her money on a shopping trip, and treating herself to something nice, and give Harry an eyeful. She imagined that might tempt out another fifty or two, and she supposed he would also be grateful for her ousting Sylvia so completely. Perhaps he might give her a credit card, so that she could treat herself to something nice from time to time, and he could pay the bills. She smiled to herself. She had a feeling that she was learning her part very fast and very well, and that she was going to be a winner.