Chapter 6: Off with the Old

I was five minutes late arriving at Jenny’s hotel to collect her for her lunch appointment at the Ritz. I had intended to be early in case she wanted to walk to the hotel. We had been cooped up on the train for hours the day before and she was accustomed to daily exercise while she was at the Retreat. I had based my estimate of journey time in the taxi from my flat on the route and time of day, but this was London where the unexplained delay is normal.

Dashing up the steps, I turned to my left and headed for the reception desk where two male hotel employees were looking over my shoulder, transfixed by something happening behind me. As I turned to see what was holding them in thrall, I was aware that all the other men in the crowded lobby were looking in the same direction. The few women in present were glancing the same way but their expressions were harder to read than the open admiration of the men.

There was Jenny, standing about five paces from me with a slightly smug smile on her face. It was like being in the scene of an old romantic movie where the hero and heroine meet for the first time; everything stops, the rest of the world goes out of focus and a spotlight picks out the couple, while the movie’s theme song swells in the background.

It took me a moment or two to recognise my old buddy from the Retreat. She was wearing a skirt with a very high waist, tight enough to emphasise her flat tummy and slight but womanly hips; below that it was a froth of dazzling colours swirling around her legs to within an inch of the tiled floor. On top she was wearing a scarlet blouse, tight where it joined the skirt but frothing out above, over her breasts and extending to embrace her upper arms.

Her shoulders were completely bare and looked startlingly white above the strong colour of her blouse. Her face was almost as white except for the slash of matching scarlet at her mouth; her eyes were ringed in black and looked enormous. Startling as this transformation was, it was her hair that stopped my breathing for a long moment.

Jenny usually dresses to remain unnoticed. Her clothes are good but in muted colours and I always have the feeling that she has dropped two dress sizes and has not yet replaced her wardrobe. She wears her hair in what my mother called a bun. Mum considered it a very unflattering style and she would only wrap a hank of hair in her fist and tie it tightly at the nape of her neck when she was cleaning – and only then if she was alone in the house with Audrey and me. She would quickly release the knot before she answered the door even if it was only the postman calling.

Until today, I had never seen Jenny in anything but a bun; so regimented was her hair that I could not recall the colour. Now her honey-blonde mane flowed over her right shoulder to the waistline of her skirt. Without being aware of it, I had approached close enough for her to put her hands on my forearms and air-kiss me on both cheeks.

“Extensions,” she whispered, as her perfume overwhelmed my overburdened senses.

It took me a moment to appreciate that she was now taller than me, having gained at least five inches overnight.

Movement behind her alerted me to the presence of an admiring audience. They were ranged in front of a hairdressing salon that occupied the hotel lobby opposite reception; in the windows and doorway stood several ladies in smocks interrupted in their treatments; ranged outside the door were four girls in mauve tabards and in front of them was an older woman similarly attired.

In her hands she carried a garment and now she stepped forward to drape it over Jenny’s shoulders, while she gathered her long tresses to keep them clear. Her magnificent shoulders were covered in a cape that barely reached her waist. While the neck of the cape was being secured, Jenny looked me up and down.

What she saw was a middle-aged, rather weary businessman in the sort of discreet, well-fitting suit that Saville Row tailors have been producing for decades. The spectators in the lobby were still staring at my companion and it needed very little imagination to guess what they were thinking. The kindest of them would be certain that I had a very healthy bank balance. Jenny turned towards the door, gliding through it to the waiting taxi; I suppose the change was imposed by the very high heels she was wearing.

As we travelled to our rendezvous at the Ritz, I thought that Jenny might well be a match for Piers. For the first time, I realised that her relationship with Elaine might not be as one-sided as I had supposed. The woman sharing my taxi was not in any way like the girl who had shared with me the kitchen at the Retreat; one at least of the persona was fake, but which one? I had been growing fond of my fellow cook but now I stepped back, so to speak, and would be an observer as she met Piers.

I have a well-deserved reputation for quick thinking; faced with a new and surprising fact, I adjust before others are fully aware. I almost always have a response ready before they can pose the question. From the moment I stepped into the hotel lobby until I introduced Piers to Jenny, about twenty minutes had elapsed during which I had made no progress in assimilating the altered conditions. I had utterly underestimated Jenny and all I could think was that I was likely to be the loser.

When I contacted Piers to arrange this luncheon date, I assumed that he would hardly bother to turn on his full charm offensive on little Jenny with her dowdy clothes and her muted good looks. I had offered him a rather dull if talented girl and discovered too late that she is a beautiful woman. Not only had I made a bad mistake, but I could think of no way to recover from it.

We were a fashionable fifteen minutes late arriving at the hotel bar where he was waiting resplendent in a plum-coloured suit of unusual cut, in crushed velvet – that, at least, is how he described it to me.

“Let me take your bolero, Jenny,” Piers gushed. “I may call you Jenny, mayn’t I? I just know we’re going to be such good friends.”

He then spent about ten minutes make flattering comments about her dress. I had been so gobsmacked that my only response to her appearance had been a couple of grunts. I listened in amazement. It was just as well that I had resolved to be a detached observer since the role was imposed upon me from the moment the protagonists were introduced. If I had disappeared in a puff of smoke, neither of them would have noticed.

When I mentioned to Elaine that Piers was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I had no idea that she and Jenny would respond as they have done. They spent a substantial part of yesterday choosing outfits for Jenny to wear on this trip, but it is now clear that they spent even more time rehearsing her on her role at the meeting. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part to believe that the self-effacing Jenny in her ill-fitting clothes is the real person and that she is simply putting on an act for Piers.

They dawdled over drinks and looked deeply into each other’s eyes as they sat on opposite sides of the table when they were eventually seated. I had time for a starter before I had to leave for an appointment with my solicitor. From the time we entered the Ritz, Jenny looked at me once and that glance held all the contempt she felt for me. As I sat in a taxi being whisked away from the lovefest, I reflected that my patronising attitude deserved no better.

I had misread the situation right from the start. Jenny never was the shy, unworldly creature I supposed her to be, nor was there any excuse for my error. It was clear that she could hold her own against the strong personality of Elaine; she was driven by friendship and kindness to do the things I believed were forced on her. I blushed when I remembered how I thought I was drawing her out of her shell in the hours we shared in the kitchen when the truth was that she chose to give me a brief glimpse behind her mask.

It was only now that I understood how easily I had been manipulated. Elaine had chosen the hotel in London for her friend, not at random or from the internet, but because she knew that it housed a hairdressing salon. They had let me go on thinking that we would fly to London until Elaine had a sudden panic on Monday morning that Jenny had nothing suitable to wear.

It is still not clear to me when or if Kate played a part, but she announced at breakfast that day the necessity of travelling to the cash and carry in Clydebank, arising from the decision to keep the Retreat open until the end of the year. I may even have been the one who suggested that we all travel that far together before Jenny and Elaine went into Glasgow to shop for clothes.

Sitting comfortably having afternoon tea in Prince’s Square, I was easily persuaded that it would be just as quick to travel to London by train as to get ourselves to Glasgow Airport and fly to the capital. I do remember being surprised that Elaine recalled from memory that there was a train just after half-past six due to arrive in Euston before midnight.

I spent the train journey reassuring Jenny that she had nothing to worry about; she must have struggled to contain her amusement at my folly. I might have sunk further into self-pity if the taxi had not, at that very moment, deposited me before my solicitor’s office. As I climbed the stairs, I consoled myself with the thought that I probably would not see Jenny again. I rather sourly accepted that she and Piers were soul mates.

Richard Devine has been my solicitor since I moved to London. His firm was then and may still be, part of a loose arrangement between law firms in Scotland and England with clients operating on both sides of the border. Richard was recommended by my dad’s solicitor in Helensburgh.

It was going to be a long day, and he had Charlotte and Hassan, his two assistants, involved from the outset. We discussed the offer to purchase my business and spent the afternoon planning our strategy to win such changes as I required. By four-thirty we had a clear picture of the compromises I was prepared to accept.

It was then nine-thirty in the morning in San Francisco, so we opened a line to the buyer’s attorney before he had drunk his first cup of coffee. Three hours later, we broke the connection so we could dine while they lunched. By nine o’clock, our time, we were back to business and an hour after that we exchanged emails detailing the agreement.

The details, while vital to me, are of no importance in this memoir. Suffice it to say that I got most of what I wanted and rather more than I expected. I had hoped to see my kids, but I was so tired when we finally broke the link to the United States that I went back to my flat and straight to bed.

Wednesday morning, I woke late and soaked in the tub for almost an hour. I had not looked at my messages the evening before, so I took a few minutes to check my in-box. Kate had sent a good luck message on the Tuesday, and I briefly thanked her and admitted that I had heard nothing of the outcome of the big meeting. I could say nothing more since there was no message from either Jenny or Piers.

There were several messages suggesting a dispute between Alison and her Mum. My daughter had sent seven messages in total, first asking but finally demanding that I get in touch since a calamity was imminent. My ex-wife had sent one message pointing out that it was some time since we had been in touch and asking how I was doing.

I sent a text to Rachel inviting myself round, unless she objected. Over the years we had developed an informal code: she would read my message as indicating that I had something important to say but that it carried no threat. She replied almost at once inviting me to join them for dinner at six o’clock. Don and Ali were expected to do homework from four until six; discussion at the dinner table decided what they were allowed to do for the rest of the evening.

Ali, being in an exam year, would almost certainly return to her room after dinner to continue studying, while Donald might be allowed to go out or bring friends over. Dinner was the family meal of the day, and it was something of an accolade for me to be allowed to join them. I would have the chance to break the news to them about the sale of the business and I could raise the subject of the kids visiting the Retreat during October half-term holiday.

I anticipated no adverse reaction from my family, but I sat and thought out a suitable speech before I headed off to the office to break the news to my workforce. The temperature amongst the man-made canyons of London was several degrees higher than in Coulport so I decided to walk the mile from flat to office.

I will be forty-nine years old in a couple of months and the company has been the centre of my existence since I was nineteen. It cost me my marriage, but my future will be secure. My name will not appear on the list of Britain’s richest citizens but the interest from my modest fortune will make me better off than most of my fellows, even if I do nothing else for the rest of my life.

Most businessmen talking about their success compare themselves to steel, a strong and resilient metal, or to a road-roller that crushes everything in its path. My success has been based on an older model: I am like water, trickling into the cracks. While the larger companies drilled towards a gap in the software market, I insinuated myself; once at the site, they used an explosive charge to blast the problem, while I froze the water and let the expansion caused when ice forms ease the way to a solution.

Of course, analogies cannot be pushed too far, but my methods not only gave me quicker results but often resulted in less disruption of neighbouring software. It was when I was describing my dilemmas to Anya that I realised that I must turn my back on software development after the business is sold.

The corporation buying me out acknowledge my success, but they will expect me to adopt their steely approach to problems in the future. I could, I suppose, insist on doing things my way but they would soon begin to despise me for my weakness. I actively back away from confrontation, slipping into the spaces left after the juggernaut passes. I learned my lesson when Rachel divorced me.

At first, I was angry and rather bewildered, devising and discarding ways to make her and her new man pay for the way they had treated me. It was some time before I appreciated that I was in danger of losing all contact with my children and that the only member of the cast of characters I could change was me. After I saw that great truth, it was relatively simple to accept that Bill is a good man and that I had to support his role as substitute father if I was to retain a toe-hold in the lives of Alison and Donald.

The children have recently made moves to increase my involvement in their future lives and the sale of the business certainly clears the way for me to be available to them. The danger I anticipate is that I will have so much time that I will try to swamp them instead of letting them come to me. Perhaps this thought was at the back of my mind when I accepted the post of manager of the Retreat and told Anya I was considering investing. If I do not have the moral strength to stop myself interfering in the lives of my kids, then the geographical isolation of Coulport would certainly reduce the impact.

As I climbed the stairs to the offices where my staff waited to learn their fate, I let the notion of disengagement extend to my employees. Part of the deal was that each of them was guaranteed a job for six months after the sale. The speed of development in the software business made this more generous than I could have promised if I had not sold out. Now I had to leave my workforce to take control of their own lives.

They, like my children, had to be free from my interference. I am particularly concerned for six or seven of the programmers who are likely to struggle to cope with American business methods, but I know that they must have space to try to make the adjustment. The Retreat is far enough away to discourage people from dropping in but accessible to anyone with a serious problem.

I had phoned earlier to arrange things, so I was not surprised to find a rather carnival atmosphere in the offices. I had emailed the barest outline of the terms of the sale earlier and I think it was this rather than the wine and beer that was responsible for the light-hearted mood. Almost all of them thanked me and asked my intentions for the future.

Many of them were sincere in telling me that the industry would be poorer in my absence, but I expect that many of them secretly felt that I was out of date and that it was time for me to move aside. There were several who made no effort to hide their expectation of fame and riches under the new management. Whatever their hopes or fears, they had all decided to make a night of it, so I left a hundred pounds in the kitty and ducked out shortly after four.

It took me fifteen minutes to decide what to wear for my dinner date. I had no problem choosing an outfit for my lunch with Piers nor for my staff meeting but Alison has become quite vocal recently in her comments on my attire. Her demands almost seem contradictory: I must be trendy without looking as if I am trying to pass myself off as a twenty-year-old. My insipient potbelly is, according to my daughter, the greatest obstacle to achieving sartorial elegance.

Tailored slacks should be acceptable, and I chose a chunky jumper to hide my overhang, at least from the front. I will try to have a word alone with Bill during the evening to find out how he is coping with the fashion mafia, as represented by my daughter. I considered messaging Kate for advice, but I was reluctant to have any contact with the Retreat. Jenny had not been in touch, and I did not want to hear good news about her meeting with Piers at second hand.

On the Tube to Rachel’s home, I let myself remember the final hours before the fateful lunch. After they had landed from the seaplane and sent Elaine and her companion to sleep off their binge, Kate and Jon went into the kitchen to put it back in order and to prepare dinner.

Anya had already told them that I was the new manager, and they were very willing to stay on until the end of the year. The own a house in Kilcreggan that is rented out while they work at the Retreat, and they were happy enough to extend the agreement with their tenants. After we had eaten, the siblings sang and played as they had done on my first evening at the Retreat.

The intermittent rain of Saturday became a steady downpour on Sunday. We huddled, gloomily, round the breakfast table, resigned to a day of inactivity. As soon as Kate and her brother rose to clear away the dishes, I took the chance to raise with Elaine the question of how much she was prepared to pay to remain at the Retreat after the end of the month. She began by using charm but quickly adopted surly intransigence as her defence of an untenable position.

I made no secret of my impatience with her. Our exchanges soon descended to the point where we hardly bothered to be polite.

“Enough’s enough,” Jenny finally declared, glaring at both of us. “We’ll pay the figure you have named but not until the First of October.”

She rose, helped Elaine to her feet and the pair of them dashed back through the rain to their cabin, where they remained until dinner time. Jon took tinned soup up to them at lunchtime. I spent the morning in the office trying to make sense of the accounts. It was clear that the Retreat had been losing money for some time and I wondered at Anya allowing the situation to continue.

I still was not at all clear on the relationships between the people I had met since my arrival at Lochan Glas. Anya was administrating Olaf’s will, but she had rather more than hinted that she was doing so on behalf of someone else. Kate and Jon were the obvious beneficiaries but he is twenty-three years old so I cannot understand why he has not already inherited if, indeed, he is destined to do so. I needed to know a great deal more before I went any further.

Kate used the stale bread that was all that was available to make toasted cheese for lunch and I joined the youngsters in the kitchen to eat it. She thanked me for preparing the lists of things we needed but failed to hide the fact that she had already drawn up an even more comprehensive menu.

“You’ve transformed this place in a week,” she told me, as we sat drinking tea.

“It really suits me to be manager,” I replied. “I’m going to need somewhere to stay after I sell my business.”

“I’m not talking about that, you dope,” she laughed. “Anya’s looking like a model after years of masquerading as a neglected haystack and Jenny’s all starry-eyed at her chance of fame.”

“Phil’s been bugging Sis for weeks,” Jon added. “One week after you arrive, he’s on his way.”

“All these things were going to happen anyway, I’m pretty sure. All I’ve done is to stir things up so people acted a bit sooner.”

Jon thought I had done more but he was adamant that I was a force for good even if it was only by focusing attention on problems that had dragged on for too long. He talked about the possibility of my investing in the retreat, making several proposals that were very similar to my own thoughts on the subject.