CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: AN ATTACK
Harry walked back towards Greenwich station thinking about his chance encoounter. He had felt sorry for someone, and also found them appealing. Or perhaps Eleanor had appealed to him, and he had felt sorry for her. But a woman with an ailing father might also have too much on her plate to deal with a man making eyes at her. She might have a husband, a lover. She might have no spare time at all, and merely been grateful. He might be pursuing a wild goose. He realised in his thinking that he was trying to slot someone in to take Doreen’s place, and he despised himself a little. He thought of Anne and Delia, eating like princesses in France, and felt hungry. It would be such an easy thing for him to crawl back on his belly into the bosom of domesticity. But he was a proud man, and he had no intention of crawling. Well, not immediately, anyway.
The Spread Eagle caught his eye. He was strolling past, his mind on other things, when a scent of cooking captured his nose. He stopped to look at the menu, and suddenly felt hungry. Feta salad was not something to keep a man going for long. The reataurant was half filled, and a polite young woman with the long bones and aquiline nose of a Somali or perhaps an Ethiopian smiled at him and led him to a table in a corner. He was alone, but he did not feel lonely, and it was an encouragement. He treated himself. Half a bottle of house white with a king scallop risotto, and then half a bottle of red with kidneys in puff pastry. He ate, and felt himself float away into a happy state where the world looked very much better, and treated himself to a chocolate parfait with a raspberry sauce for a dessert, with a brandy as company for his coffee, and Canary Wharf no longer seemed such a totally desolate prospect, for Harry was a man who marched on his stomach, and loved good food almost as much as he sought to feed on love. He thought he might well drink himself silly in front of his television, and cauterise memory completely.
The trouble with home remedies is that they often come with built-in after effects. Harry drank armagnac back at Canary Wharf, in a large glass, and managed to undress, but woke playing host to a blacksmith inside his head. It was early morning, and he was alone. He dozed off again, and woke again to realise that a new week was starting, and that he needed to be busy. Levon had gone back to New York, to soothe hurt feelings, and Dreamstone was moving inexorably towards execution. Seven more days, and Underwood would be on a scaffold.
He showered and shaved, and drank strong black coffee, and felt himself start to gain power, like an old-fashioned steam railway engine gathering strength for a journey. He was hungry, and made himself some toast, eating it with butter and marmalade, and thought about the week ahead. He needed to be ready to field the press. People might seek interviews, and the day called for a suit and a tie. He dressed, glancing in his bathroom mirror, and saw a man with a rather dark look about him reflected. He smiled slightly. He was ready both for shoo-ins and shoot-outs. There are times in life when a man can enjoy being a real bastard, and they invariably occur on Monday mornings.
Teresa, Dreamstone’s receptionist, normally smiled at Harry when he walked into the firm’s offices. But she barely looked at him as he pushed open the door, and he saw that her face was closed and hard. She nodded briefly, and was very busy with papers on her desk. It was a bad sign.
Christine seemed equally subdued, jerking her thumb towards Levon’s suite next to Harry’s. It was plain that Levon was already back at his desk, and judging from the two women’s body language, in a filthy temper. Harry pushed at the door gently, in case Levon threw something. He had sometimes done such things, and he possessed a good aim.
Levon was staring morosely at his screen.
Harry looked apologetic. ‘I should have kept her away from that creature.’
Levon grimaced. ‘Don’t blame yourself for a goddam thing.’ He punched at his keyboard, putting his computer to sleep. Harry wondered whether he had been staring at big boobs again.
‘She’s gone back on her own.’ Levon scowled, as though answering an unspoken question. ‘We had to stay at City for a while, to refuel. She got worse and worse, she was shaping up for a fit. I found a medic, who gave her some stuff to send her to sleep. She won’t wake now until she’s back in her own bed. She’ll still be mad, but I won’t have to deal with it.’
‘Poor Louise.’
Levon sniffed. ‘That’s what she’s paid for.’ He hesitated. ‘I couldn’t handle her. She can go back to Hymie.’
‘Bye-bye New Jersey?’
Another morose shrug. ‘I’ll stay around London for a while. Maybe something nice will come my way.’
His words touched a tender nerve in Harry. ‘I hope you have better luck than me.’
Suddenly Levon grinned. He was a mercurial man, given to lightning mood changes. It was one of his charms. ‘Bad for you too?’
Harry told him quickly about Doreen’s lipstick message and the note on his bed. He did not mention the money she had taken. It comes on all of us to make fools of ourselves at some time or another, but foolishness is not a thing we willingly advertise.
‘Maybe we should go out together and get drunk?’
‘Take Christine and Teresa back to my place?’
They were both silent for a moment, contemplating the thought. But they both know it was a non-starter. Good secretaries and good receptionists do not grow on trees.
‘We’ll go eat lunch together, go to some strip joint.’
‘Big boobs?’
Levon got to his feet, to fold Harry in a great bear hug. ‘You know me, my boy, much too well.’
Suddenly there there was an outburst of noise outside the Dreamstone entrance. A group of men in peajackets and overalls and heavy boots stood holding banners and a red flag. They were shouting slogans. Harry heard the words ‘corporate executioner’, and cursed the girl at the Dreamstone press conference. One of the men, with the air of a bad-tempered bulldog, held a loud hailer. He was yelling something about revolutionary justice, and men being thrown to the dogs.
Harry realises that a television camera team had begun busy filming them, and saw the red-haired girl from the press conference taking pictures as well. He watched her with interest. She was really quite a good looking girl, in a powerful sort of way, broad-shouldered and stocky, in a big loose black beret, like a tam o’shanter, and a black shirt with a red silk scarf knotted loosely at her neck. She was stacked like an earth mother, with big hips and boobs. He realised that Levon was staring at her as well.
Levon scowls. ‘Underwood must have sent them.’ He made as though to walk to the door, and then thought better of it. ‘Can we get rid of them?’
Harry looked doubtful. The small square in front of the Dreamstone offices was public land, and the men had plainly positioned themselves to avoid any charges of obstruction. It might be nice to sweep them all away into the murky grey-green waters of the dock at their back. But he could just imagine the media salivating. ‘We’d be better off offering them tea and biscuits.’
They both returned to their offices, and it was a stand-off. Aggressive men outside, relative peace within. The television team asked for someone to come out for an interview, and Harry and Levon both politely declined. They were both in suits, and no match for a big girl with a black shirt and a red silk scarf.. Then Levon left to go off and talk to some bankers. He spent much of his life talking to bankers. Harry assumed that he might try and salvage something from New Jersey. The men outside kept up a steady chant for the best part of an hour, and then an elderly Renault Espace drove up. The men in peajackets set up a folding table, with a tea urn on it, and the camera crew filmed them with mugs in their hands. The scene was all very goodtempered, and Harry knew that they were all wasting their time.
After a while the redhaired girl stomped into Dreamstone’s reception. She spoke to Teresa, and Teresa snapped on her intercom to tell Harry that she was asking to talk to him. He thought of refusing, and then changed his mind. He still had a hangover, and he knew he could do no work with the distraction outside. He might as well be sociable. Wide Horizons was in the bag, and the red-headed girl could do nothing about it. He opened his office door and held out his hand politely. The girl ignored it and looked aggressive.
‘I write for New Proletariat. I’ve been up to Birmingham. I want to know why you’re closing down the plants.’ Diana spoke with rather more force than she felt. Doug and his handful of pickets were not much to write about, and she suspected they would all just drift away at the end of the day, now that they had been filmed for the telly and enjoyed their moment of glory. She wanted the square in front of Dreamstone packed with angry men, ready to set fire to the building, confronting a cordon of armed police perhaps; she had worked for a while on an israeli kibbutz and seen violence in Hebron. She wanted Eisenstein and the 1905 Revolution to come back to life, with a dramatic scene on a flight of steps, and herself playing a key role. But revolutions were not brewed in cosy cups of tea.
Harry smiled politely. ‘I’m on my own – my partner won’t be back for a while, and we haven’t taken Wide Horizons over yet. Can I offer you a cup of tea? Or coffee? I think we brew up better than those men outside.’
Diana scowled. ‘I want a statement.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Harry was charming. He could not stop himself staring at her black shirt. She was certainly built to impress. ‘You’ll have to wait for that. We like to do things as a partnership.’
Diana strode to a chair in the reception area, and sat herself blackly. Harry followed her. ‘We’ve got some very nice biscuits.’
The girl made as though to rise, and for a moment he thought she might slap his face. He retreated. It is not wise to push people too far.
His mobile rang. It was Levon, suddenly very excited. ‘Harry, I’m on my way back. I got a call from that girl I gave my card at your place. She’s delivering Wide Horizon’s formal reply for Underwood.’
Now Harry scowled. Interesting women suddenly seemed intent on hurling themselves at Levon from all directions. ‘I’ve got the redhead in here, wanting a statement. When will the other one be here?’
‘Before lunch.’ He could almost hear Levon licking his lips.
‘You want your strip show on the premises?’
Levon chuckled as he clicked off. It was a very dirty sound.
Julia travelled to London by car. It was a big shiny car, with a grey-suited chauffeur at the wheel, and she sat in the back with a folder of papers, feeling like a queen. The chauffeur had smiled at her deferentially in front of the Wide Horizons headquarters building, and asked her whether she wanted to sit in front, or in the back. She had lifted her nose. She had no time for chauffeurs.
She meditated as the car purred towards London. It was something she learned at Wexham Park Hospital. She could look into herself, opening one door after another, until she reached her inner sanctuary, where nobody could follow. The sanctuary housed her priestess, her true inner self, an alternate Julia that lived sometimes wholly in parallel with her, but sometimes wholly independently. Sometimes she could talk to this second Julia, and seek advice, as though from an oracle. But her priestess only opened her door when matters were pressing.
Perhaps they were pressing now. Julia despised Underwood as a fraud and a bully. She knew that he was married, and could see how he treated Wide Horizons’ employees. He was a man who liked to crush bodies underfoot. She knew that he was buttering her up because he wanted to use her as a weapon, and had seen through his quasi-religious patter right from the start. He just wanted to grind her, to have his way with her physically, and sharpen her into a destructive blade. She imagined, if he wanted to live by her sword, that her sword might also prove his undoing. She imagined such a thing would be just.
Her priestess concurs, speaking to her in a secret inner voice of death and destruction. She imagined the foreigner, Levon Haris, would invite her into some private space and also try to have his way with her, to defile her, and she had equipped herself with a sharp knife for her duty. The chauffeur could wait, and then drive her back to Wide Horizons, and Underwood would also be waiting, and she could then shed his blood on his own altar, and then perhaps she would be cleansed.
Levon arrived back at Dreamstone in a frantic bustle of energy. The pickets were still grouped outside Dreamstone’s building, but they appeared to have grown bored, and had long since ceased chanting. Diana Simonson was still waiting on her chair in the Dreamstone reception, and had pointedly ignored a tray with a cup and saucer, a small teapot, milk, sugar, and a plate of shortbread biscuits placed temptingly on a little table close to her elbow. She was a revolutionary warrior, and she was not to be suborned with biscuits, however tempting. She watched a big silver Mercedes pull up in front of the Dreamstone door, and a man hurry out, and she knew her moment has come.
A second big car arrived, and a girl got out, holding a folder of papers. The pickets began to chant again rather half-heartedly.
Teresa took the papers with a welcoming smile that she had studiously refused the red-haired girl.
Julia was demure and polite. ‘Perhaps I can have a word with Mr. Haris.’
Levon came out of his office, wreathed in smiles. He glanced at Diana, and then ushered Julia past Sophie, his secretary, into his inner sanctum. Sophie noted wryly that he was in his shirtsleeves and that he closed the door. She wondered whether Levon intended sitting with the girl on his sofa. The sofa was large enough to double as a bed.
Men can sometimes be very predictable. Levon steered Julia to the sofa, seating himself to her left, and took the folder of papers, to glance through it quickly. But it was plain that his mind was focussed on quite different matters. He edged towards Julia, and she smiled at him with her special smile, the smile she kept for hypnotising men. It had never yet failed her. She also held her handbag tightly.
‘You are very attractive.’ Levon put an experimental hand on her knee. It was more in the way of a pat that failed to withdraw. Julia shifted her position so that he could see the outline of her bosom under her silk shirt. She was not a very bosomy girl, but she knew how to send signals, and she moved her leg, so that her knee was almost against his. Levon moved closer, placing his hand on her shoulder, to slip his arm around her. He could not believe his luck. This was a peach of a girl, offering herself to him on a plate. He leaned nearer, his face close to hers.
Julia slipped her bag open. Her knife came out easily, fitting comfortably into her hand, and she felt a blazing wind of fire rise within her. Now was her moment of justice, and this man’s moment of reckoning. She was not a plaything. She struck hard, aiming for Levon’s heart.
Levon stared at her in disbelief. Her knife struck his mobile telephone, tucked into his shirt pocket, and skated away down across his shirt in a trail of torn bloodstained cotton. He lurched backwards in disbelief, and Julia struck at him again, but his forearm blocked her path. Now he was screaming in pain mixed with terror.
Sophie wrenched open his door and screamed as well, jumping on Julia from behind, but Julia seemed possessed of a demonic energy. Dreamstone staff rushed in, and Levon’s office was a flailing mass of bodies.
Diana heard Levon’s scream, and crossed Dreamstone’s reception area quickly. Violence stalks all kibbutzniks, and women as well as men are trained in both armed and unarmed combat, and also first aid. She found herself behind Harry, staring down at Levon. He was covered in blood, and his shirt seems to be shredded. Sophie appeared to be badly cut as well. Teresa and one of Dreamstone’s accounts team were sitting on the girl from Wide Horizons.
Diana had seen people injured by shrapnel, and knew just what to do. She had already ripped off her black shirt and begun tearing it into strips. She pushed her way forward to Levon’s side. ‘Someone find me a first aid kit.’ She spoke with the authority of experience, kneeling at Levon’s side to start binding his wounds, moving quickly and deftly.
Levon groaned as she moves him to put a bandage round his arm and shoulder, opening his eyes. He blinked up at her, and her bosoms, bursting to break free from her bra. ‘Am I in heaven?’
Diana smiled quickly. ‘Not quite yet.’ Somebody pushed a first aid kit at her, and she added more bandages. But Levon’s stare had disconcerted her, and she laid one pack across his eyes.
He moved his head to dislodge it, and this time she smiled more fully. ‘You’ll be alright.’
An ambulance siren sounded, closing on Dreamstone’s offices. Teresa had already tied Julia’s wrists behind her with a strip from her own silk shirt, and two girls were attending to Sophie. Levon looked up at Diana and spoke hoarsely. ‘Will you come with me to hospital?’
Diana looked down at him, and touched the side of his face. ‘I will, if you’re good.’
Levon closed his eyes. Harry thought he had fainted. But Levon judged that he had met an angel.