by Jojo Moyes
I'm not sure either of us was convinced.
Three
Mike
Tina Kennedy was wearing a violet brassiere, edged with lace and four, possibly five, mauve rosebuds at the top of each cup. It was not an observation I would normally have made in my working day. Tina Kennedy's lingerie was not something I wanted to think about - and especially not now. But as she paused by my boss's shoulder to hand him the file of documents he had requested, she bent low and looked straight at me in a manner I could only describe afterwards as challenging.
That violet brassiere was sending me a message. That, and the moisturised, lightly tanned flesh it contained, was a souvenir of my promotion night two and a half weeks previously.
I do not scare easy, but it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
In an involuntary gesture, I felt in my pocket for my phone. Vanessa, my girlfriend, had texted me three times in the past half-hour, even though I had told her that this meeting was of vital importance and not to be interrupted. I had read the first message, and tried to ignore the insistent vibration of those that followed:
'Don't forget to get Men's Vogue re suit on page 46. You would look great in the dark one XXX'
'Swtie pls call me we need 2 talk about seat plans'
'Imp U call b4 2pm as I hv to give Gav answer about shoes. AM WAITING XXX'
I sighed, feeling the peculiar mix of nagging anxiety and stasis that two hours spent in a stuffy boardroom surrounded by other men in suits can bring.
'The bottom line, as with all such ventures, is unit capacity. We think we have put together a development plan that will give us the growth potential of the longer-term luxury-stay market, with the benefits of a more fluid short-term market, both designed to maximise revenue streams not just throughout the summer months but the whole year.'
The phone buzzed against my thigh, and I wondered absently if it was audible over the sound of Dennis Beaker's voice. I had to hand it to Nessa. She wouldn't give in. She'd seemed barely to hear me this morning when I explained that leaving work mid-afternoon or, for that matter, calling her would be difficult. But, then, she didn't seem to hear much these days, except 'wedding'. Or, perhaps, 'baby'.
Below, the grey, lead-tarnished length of Liverpool Street stretched away towards the City. I could just see, if I tilted my head, the figures on the pavement: men and women dressed in blue, black or grey, marching smartly along below the sooty masonry to get plastic-boxed lunches that they would gobble at their desks. Some people thought of it as a rat-race, but I had never felt like that: I had always felt comforted by the uniformity, the shared sense of purpose. Even if that purpose was money. On quiet days, Dennis would point out of the window and demand, 'What do you think he earns, eh, or her?' And we would value them, depending on such variables as cut of jacket, type of shoes and how straight they stood as they walked. Twice, he had sent the office junior running downstairs to see if he had guessed right, and both times, to my surprise, he had.
Dennis Beaker says that nothing and nobody on God's earth is without a monetary value. After four years' working with him, I'm inclined to agree.
On the slickly polished table in front of me sat the bound proposal, its glossy pages testament to the weeks Dennis, the other partners and I had spent clawing this deal back from the brink. Nessa had complained last night, as I checked it yet again for errors, that I was devoting far more energy to that one document than to what she considered our more pressing concerns. I protested, but mildly. I knew where I was with those pages. I was far more comfortable with revenue streams and income projections than with her amorphous, ever-shifting desires for this flower arrangement or that colour-coordinated outfit. I couldn't tell her I preferred to leave the wedding to her - on the few occasions I'd got properly involved, as she had requested, I'd reduced her to hysterics with things I'd apparently got wrong. I couldn't help it - it was as if we were speaking different languages.
'So, what I'd like to do now is get my colleague to make a short presentation. Just to give you a flavour of what we consider a very exciting opportunity.'
Tina had crossed to the other side of the boardroom. She stood next to the coffee-table, her stance deceptively relaxed. I could still glimpse that violet strap. I closed my eyes, trying to force away a sudden memory of her breasts, pushed up against me in the men's toilets at Bar Brazilia, the fluid ease with which she had removed her blouse.
'Mike?'
She was staring at me again. I glanced up, then away, not wanting to encourage her.
'Mike? You still with us?' There was the faintest edge to Dennis's voice. I rose from my seat, shuffling my notes. 'Yes,' I said. And, more firmly, 'Yes.' I raised a smile for the row of Vallance Equity's flint-eyed venture capitalists around the table, trying to convey some of Dennis's own confidence and bonhomie. 'Just - ah - mulling over a couple of points you made.' I took a deep breath and gestured across the room. 'Tina? Lights?'
I took hold of the remote-control device for my presentation, and as my phone vibrated again, wished I had thought to remove it. I fumbled in my pocket to try to turn it off. Unfortunately, glancing up through the dimmed light at Tina, I realised she thought this had been for her benefit. She responded with a slow smile, her eyes dropping to my groin.
'Right,' I said, letting out a breath and refusing resolutely to look at her. 'I'd like to show you lucky gentlemen a few images of what we modestly consider to be the investment opportunity of the decade.' There was a low rumble of amusement. They liked me. There they sat, primed by Dennis's raw enthusiasm, ready for my sonorous list of facts and figures. Receptive, attentive, waiting to be reassured. My father often said I was ideally suited to a business environment. He meant business in the grey-suited sense, rather than the hyper-sexy mega-deal sense. Because, although I had somehow ended up at the latter end, I had to admit that I was not a natural risk-taker. I was Mr Due Diligence, one of life's careful, considered deliberators, who researched everything not just to the nth degree but several degrees beyond.
As a child, before I spent my carefully saved pocket money, I would spend hours in a shop, weighing up the benefits of Action Man against his compatriots, fearful of the crushing disappointment that came when you made the wrong choice. Offered a choice of puddings, I would pit the potential infrequency of lemon meringue pie against the solid comfort of chocolate sponge, and double-check that raspberry jelly wasn't among the options.
None of this meant I was unambitious. I knew exactly where I wanted to be, and had long since learnt that taking the quiet path was the key to my success. While colleagues' more incendiary careers crashed and burnt, I had become financially secure, due to my dogged monitoring of interest rates and investments. Now, six years into my tenure at Beaker Holdings, my promotion to junior partner apparently nothing to do with my engagement to the boss's daughter, I was valued as someone who would accurately assess the benefits of any choice - geographical, social or economic - before making it. Two big deals and I would be senior partner. Another seven years until Dennis retired, and I would be ready to step into his shoes. I had it all planned.
Which was why my behaviour that night had been so out of character.
'I think you're having your teenage rebellion late,' my sister Monica had observed, two days previously. I had taken her to lunch, in the smartest restaurant I knew, as a birthday treat. She worked on a national newspaper but earned less per month than I spent in expenses.
'I don't even like the girl,' I said.
'Since when did sex have anything to do with liking someone?' She sniffed. 'I think I'll have two puddings. I can't choose between the chocolate and the creme brulee.' She had ignored my look. 'It's a reaction against the wedding. You're trying unconsciously to impregnate someone else.'
'Don't be ridiculous.' I almost winced. 'God! The thought of--'
'All right. But it's obvious you're bucking against something. Bucking.' She grinned. My sister's like that. 'You should tell Vanessa you'
re not ready.'
'But she's right. I'll never be ready. I'm not that kind of bloke.'
'So you'd rather she made the decisions?'
'In our personal life, yes. It works well for us like that.'
'So well that you felt the need to shag someone else?'
'Keep your voice down, okay?'
'You know what? I'll just have the chocolate. But if you have the creme brulee I'll try it.'
'What if she says something to Dennis?'
'Then you're in big trouble - but you must have known that when you copped off with his secretary. Come on, Mike, you're thirty-four years old, hardly an innocent.'
I dropped my head into my hands. 'I don't know what the hell I was doing.'
Monica had been suddenly buoyant. 'God, it's nice to hear you say that. You don't know how cheering it is for me to know that you can cock up your life just like the rest of us. Can I tell Mum and Dad?'
Now, filled with a sudden picture of my sister's triumph, I forgot where I was and had to glance at my notes. I breathed out slowly, and looked up again at the expectant faces around me. It seemed to have become uncomfortably warm in the boardroom. I let my gaze settle on their team - no one was even remotely flushed. Dennis always said that venture capitalists had ice in their blood. Perhaps he was right.
'As Dennis has explained,' I continued, 'the emphasis in this project is on the quality end of the market. The consumers we'll be targeting in this development are hungry for experiences. They are people who have spent the last decade acquiring material goods, which haven't made them happy. They are possession-rich, time-poor, and are searching for other ways to spend their money. And the real growth area, according to our research, is in their sense of well-being.
'To that end, this development will not just offer accommodation of a quality that will ensure it a slot at the top end of the market, but a variety of leisure opportunities suited to the surroundings.' I clicked the remote control, bringing up the images that the artist had only delivered that morning, leaving Dennis turbo-charging what barely remained of his blood pressure. 'It will have a state-of-the-art spa, with six different pools, a full-time therapeutic staff and a range of the newest holistic treatments. If you turn to page thirteen you will see the space itself in more detail, as well as a menu of the kind of thing it will offer. And for those who prefer to get their sense of well-being from something a little more active - and, let's face it, that's usually the men . . .' here I paused for the amused nods of recognition . . . 'we have the piece de resistance of the whole complex - an integrated centre devoted entirely to watersports. This will include jet-skis, waveboards, speedboats and waterskiing. There will be game-fishing. There will also be PADI-trained instructors to take clients on tailor-made diving trips further out to sea. We believe a combination of top-class equipment with a highly skilled team will give clients a never-to-be-forgotten trip and offer them the chance to learn new skills.'
'All while staying in a resort that will be a byword for service and luxury,' Dennis put in. 'Mike, bring up the architect's pictures. As you can see, there are three levels of accommodation, to suit both the affluent singles and families, with a special penthouse for VIPs. You'll notice we have avoided the budget option. We've already had interest from--'
'I heard you lost the site for this.' The voice had come from the back.
The room fell quiet. Oh, Christ, I thought.
'Tina, bring up the lights.' It was Dennis's voice, and I wondered if he was about to answer, but he was looking at me.
I made my expression bland. I'm good at that. 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, Neville. Did you have a question?'
'I heard this was planned for South Africa and that you lost your site. There's nothing on this document about where it's going to be now. You can hardly expect us to consider investing in a holiday resort that has yet to find a site.'
The flicker in Dennis's jaw betrayed his own surprise. How the hell had they found out about South Africa?
My voice cut through the air even before I knew what I was saying: 'I'm not quite sure where your information has come from, but South Africa was only ever an option for us. Having examined our potential location there in some detail, we decided that it couldn't provide our clients with the kind of holiday we had in mind. We're looking at a very specialised market and we--'
'Why?'
'Why what?'
'Why was South Africa unsuitable? My understanding is that it's one of the fastest-growing holiday destinations in the world.'
My Turnbull and Asser shirt was sticking to the small of my back. I hesitated, wondering if Neville had any knowledge of the failure of our previous financing deal.
'Politics,' interjected Dennis.
'Politics?'
'It would have been an hour-and-a-half transfer from the airport to the resort. And whatever route we took would have brought us through some of the . . . shall we say less . . . affluent areas? Our research tells us that when they have paid a premium for a luxury holiday, clients don't want to be confronted by abject poverty. It makes them . . .' Please don't smile sympathetically at their secretary, I pleaded silently. Too late. Dennis's empathetic beam was as treacly as it was misjudged. '. . . uncomfortable. And that is the last emotion we want clients to feel at this resort. Joyous, yes. Excited, yes. Satisfied, of course. Guilty, or uncomfortable, at the plight of their . . . coloured cousins, no.'
I closed my eyes. I felt, rather than saw, the black secretary do the same.
'No, Neville, politics and luxury holidays just do not mix.' Dennis shook his head, sagely, as if delivering some oracle. 'And that is the kind of detailed research on which we at Beaker Holdings pride ourselves before we embark on a major project.'
'So you have an alternative site in mind?'
'Not just in mind but signed and sealed,' I said. 'It's a bit of a departure, but it avoids all the potential minefields of South Africa, and other parts of the third world. It's full of English-speakers, it has a superb climate and it is, I can truly say, one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. And in this line of work, Neville, you know as well as I do that there are some very beautiful destinations indeed.'
RJW Land had stolen the site from under our noses. Someone there must have tipped off Vallance. My mind raced: if RJW was attempting a similar development, would their people also have approached Vallance for funding? Were they attempting to sabotage our deal?
'I can't go into more detail,' I said smoothly. 'But I can tell you - in confidence - that there were other things we discovered about the South African site that suggested much lower future revenues. And, as you know, we're all about maximising profit here.'
In truth, I knew almost nothing about the new site. Out of desperation we had used a land agent, some old mate of Dennis's, and the deal had been closed only two days previously. I hated the sensation of flying blind.
'Tim,' I smiled, 'you know I'm a boring sod when it comes to research, that there's nothing I like better for my bedtime reading than a pile of analysis. Believe me, if I'd thought the South African site was going to work better in the long run, I wouldn't have been so glad to let it go. But I like to go a layer deeper -'
'Your bedtime reading is all very interesting, Mike, but it would be useful if--'
'- and it's really all about the margins. That's the bottom line.'
'No one cares about the margins more than us, but--'
Dennis held up a pudgy hand. 'Tim. No. Not a word - because there's something else I'd like to show you before we go any further. In fact, gentlemen, if you'd like to follow me through to the next room, we have a bit of fun lined up before we tell you exactly where it is.'
Venture capitalists, I mused, as we followed them, didn't look as though fun was a high priority on their agenda. Some were positively disgruntled at having been uprooted from their comfort zone of boardroom table and leather-backed chair, muttering uneasily to each other. Then again, having come in half an hour late, I wasn't s
ure what Dennis had in mind. Please don't let him have asked Tina to dress up in a bikini, I prayed. I was still haunted by memories of the Hawaiian Hula Proposal.
But what Dennis had planned was quite different. Boardroom Two had been emptied of its table, chairs and pull-down screen. There was no two-way video link, or a tea trolley in the corner. What sat, huge, squat and foreboding, in the centre of the floor was a large piece of machinery, surrounded by inflatable blue tubing, its centrepiece a florid yellow surfboard.
We were all stunned into immobility by the sheer unlikeliness of the thing.
'Gentlemen. Remove your shoes, and prepare to hang ten!' Dennis held out an arm towards the machine. 'It's a simulator,' he announced, when nobody said anything. 'You can all have a go.'
The room was silent, bar the low hum of the surf simulator. It sat, an alien creature in this sea of grey, its flashing buttons gamely advertising that, should they want it, their surf experience could be accompanied by a Beach Boys tune.
I registered their expressions, and decided that the best way to rescue the situation was to divert them. 'Perhaps the ladies and gentlemen would like a bite to eat first? A drink, perhaps? Tina, would you mind?'
'Whatever you say, Mike,' she said, catching my eye lazily. I could have sworn there was a sway to her walk as she left the room, but Dennis didn't notice.
'I just want to give you gentlemen an idea of how irresistible our proposal is. I had a little go earlier,' he said, kicking off his shoes. 'It really is quite good fun. If no one else is brave enough, I'll show you how it works. You stand on here and . . .' He had removed his jacket and the barely restrained bulk of his stomach hung over the waistband of his trousers. I was grateful, not for the first time, that Vanessa had inherited her mother's genes. 'I'll start off with some little waves. See? It's easy.'
To the strains of 'I Get Around', my boss, who in the past three years had overseen seventy million pounds' worth of property investment, and has on his desk photographs of himself shaking hands with Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, stood on the surfboard. His arms were raised in a parody of athleticism to reveal two dark patches of sweat. His buffoonish exterior was renowned for masking a razor-sharp business brain - although sometimes I had to wonder.