Chapter 16

[Dave]

OK, so Saturday turned out to be a complete disaster – I try not to think about it, even now – what with Niusha and Debbie falling out so spectacularly, after the latter had turned up at the flat unannounced and leapt to entirely the wrong conclusions about why the two of us happened to be more than half naked in my bedroom, my various attempts through the day to contact the woman, explain things ... not that she was answering her phones or e-mails ... and then my taking the idiots way out and getting blind drunk – very much on my own – and finally damn' near setting fire to the flat with a misplaced cigarette.

Sunday wasn't a lot better – I missed a few calls, I know, simply through being too ill to find my bloody mobile in the wreckage, my post-op scars hurt like hell after the previous days ill judged exertions and ... well, I was ill, OK. It was a fair way through the afternoon before I crawled out of bed, at last, started to get stuff together. Like food and coffee as an immediate priority, simultaneously logging into the network more from force of habit than any actual desire to connect with the world.

And maybe I should have resisted the impulse, I thought, as the kettle boiled neglected and eggs burnt into the pan ... while I looked at the few new e-mails I'd picked up, some incomprehensibly cheerful ones from friends and associates, a couple of professional newsletters and advice notes, the normal guff from various government policy wonks. And a cryptic one from Carla – she'd phone me, basically, probably one of the calls I'd missed – and, of course, one from Debbie. Not the world's most affectionate or effusive communication, just a note to say that she'd arranged a Sunday morning meeting with Gareth in our offices, that if I was at all interested in the future of the company I might like to participate – either in person or by phone if I couldn't make it in.

I sat and stared at the thing for so long that my late breakfast went its unfortunate way. I could understand the anger that she felt – even if I knew it was completely misplaced – but even I could see that rather more of an immediate problem was that it was now quite late on Sunday afternoon and ... well, the meeting had presumably achieved whatever it might have achieved without any sort of input from me. I felt like smashing my head against the wall a few times, contented myself, instead, with cursing bitterly – and aloud – for a while. Then I tried phoning her back, of course, got her voice mail, equally of course, tried phoning Gareth – ditto. Left messages for both of them, then took some time to check with Seff if she'd heard anything – she hadn't but was at least back in London, would be at the big meeting – and then sort of sat there and found myself wishing I had a cat, once again. Only this time so I could kick the bloody thing.

I was still sitting there – obsessing with the state of my phone's batteries, since you ask – when it rang, caller ID showing an unknown, international number. So I answered and found myself talking to Carla for the first time in ages. She sounded cheerful enough and certainly no longer seemed to be at death's door. In the end, we spent over an hour on the phone – I half expected her to give me a hard time for not being entirely up to speed with whatever tricks Debbie was planning to pull at The Meeting but quickly realised that she was a bit out on a limb at her end, too, not yet having taken back full control of her own business. So in the end it was a slightly inconsequential conversation, however nice it was to be in contact with her again, which didn't really help much – except that I now knew that Bronstein Associates (US) would be represented by two 'bright young things' (her words) from their New York office and that her new-ish husband, Hal, was also planning to be there – except that he'd had problems with flights from San Francisco and probably wouldn't get to the venue much before lunchtime. If things lasted that long, I thought.

It was only after I put the phone down that I realised that I hadn't got anything all that specific from Carla as to what her plans actually were. Blame the hangover, but – I still didn't know whether she'd be backing us totally or in part, whether, given the information that Debbie had received about there being financial worries at her end, too, she could actually afford to keep to her previous commitments. That said, she'd bothered to phone – and had been friendly enough while we'd been talking – but it was all worryingly vague. And quite what was the husband's role in all this? I'd never met the guy, only had a single, rather unfortunate conversation with him, and I didn't know whether he had any authority in Carla's organisation or whether he was somehow going to be there as an observer, maybe even only to report back on the performance of the BYTs.

So, I thought ... a few more imponderables to add to the mix – and then I noticed that while I'd been on the phone I'd managed to miss three calls – two from Debbie and one from Gareth. With a deep sigh, I called the voice mail service, picked up the messages they'd left.

[Debbie]

Dave didn't show up for the meeting I'd arranged with Gareth, which wasn't really a surprise, given that he'd failed to answer any of my calls. Actually, in some ways it was a bit of a relief – I didn't feel quite as angry, now, as I had when I first walked in on him and Niusha cavorting on his bed, but I still had a few things I needed to say to him and they would probably not be helpful in terms of resolving our corporate issues. So Gareth and I sat and did the business, corralling figures into vaguely respectable projections, rehearsing our various contractual points, generally agreeing that the only way to approach the argument was to remind PCW and the Americans as forcefully as possible just how much money they had anticipated making out of this venture and, thus, by implication, how much they would stand to lose if they canned the project.

Which might have been something of a counsel of despair: We both had more faith in the contract arguments than the financials, but then we realised that our chances of successfully suing the likes of PCW for breach of contract were non-existent, given the disparity in our resources. Actually it was quite a pleasant morning. Gareth was good company again, even though focused entirely on the work in hand, and we got what seemed like a lot done, my mind wandering hardly at all.

In fact, it was gone about three in the afternoon when we finally locked the place up and said goodbye – me heading home to have another go at the Californian end, him to, as he put it, blow some of the dust off some legal texts, remind himself of some of the minutiae of relevant statutes. It was only as he was walking away that I realised that I'd had my phone buried in my bag the whole time, pulled the thing out to check for messages. There was only one – from Dave – sounding distinctly frazzled but also apologetic, perhaps even sincerely apologetic – about not having made it in to join our discussion, something about his having been indisposed.

I had another flash of anger, imaging just what – or who – his 'indisposition' had involved, but I shrugged it off and gave him a call back. Except that his number was busy, so I went and got onto the tube home, called him again when I resurfaced – still busy. Quite a long call, then, perhaps. So I left him a message.

It was quite a curt message, to be honest – just that we should meet at our offices at 8:30 next morning, have an hour with the team prior to heading over to the hotel conference room that we'd eventually agreed as a venue. Then I bought myself a bottle of decent wine and, home, began to chase up our American friends ... and review yet again tactics for the coming encounter...

[Dave]

Monday morning I felt a lot better, the enforced day of rest having done my physical scars no end of good, while the complete lack of alcohol meant I had a relatively clear head. What I didn't have, I discovered on rising, was a wearable suit – the two that I owned were irretrievably crumpled and/or in need of cleaning – so, needs must, I just pulled on my standard jeans and sweatshirt combination and headed into town for the office pre-meet Debbie had organised.

Being the boss, I made sure of getting in first to ensure that coffee was on the go when the others arrived, and, this being a special day, stopped off at a Bloomsbury deli for a pile of croissants and pastries and other corporate breakfast essentials. I think that there may have been a subconscious irony in that decision – today was the day when our corporate days might well come to an abrupt halt, after all – but on another level it was simply a gesture to the team that I, at least, appreciated them.

Once I was in the office on my own, though, something of my good mood began to evaporate. Even by my standards I felt woefully under-prepared for the meeting to come – the fact that I wasn't even dressed 'properly' simply rubbed that in – and the fact that I was ultimately responsible for everyone involved being involved began to weigh on me. Hell, I thought – I never chose to get into all of this, I just answered the wrong e-mail, got seduced (in more ways than one) by a lovely young woman with a Big Idea. Probably it would have been better if I'd just stayed grubbing around as a freelance, responsible to and for no-one but myself.

Then again, there had been moments of genuine fun in the past few months, the proposed Lake District development could have been literally life changing – for me and others – and, well, generally, maybe it had all been worth a try. Also, of course, I'd met a whole load of new people, made more than a few new friends – not least in Cumbria, but principally in the office. I wondered whether those contacts would survive the potential destruction of the project – frankly, I'd never really have a lot in common with Naz and Seff, however much I liked them as people, and Debbie ... well, what the fuck was going on there?

On cue, of course, the woman herself arrived, carrying a largish cardboard box and, I noticed, dressed rather more casually than I'd have expected – a jade green silk shirt under a suit jacket, but hair loose and make up somewhat relaxed. She didn't see me, at first, standing as I was in the recess we kept the coffee machine in, and I could see the tension on her face, the worry haunting her eyes. I realised that I wasn't the only one who had doubts about the immediate future...

When I stepped out to say, hello, however, I can't say she seemed all that pleased to see me – actually a look of some scorn passed over her face, if only for a moment, followed by a slightly belated nod of recognition. Oh, well, I thought, things to sort out here ... things which should have been easy to sort, too, if only I knew what precisely the problem was. Jealousy? Well, maybe – hardly Debbie-standard behaviour, though, and actually there was nothing for her to be jealous about ... though convincing her of that would require a degree of trust on her part and, if she trusted me, she wouldn't be jealous, so ... Or maybe the problem was with one of my many other inadequacies, or possibly not entirely to do with me at all...

I think we could have spent the rest of the morning looking at each other in a passively hostile, suspicious and guarded sort of way – well, at least until the others arrived – if I hadn't finally remembered my manners. When I did, I finally pushed a mug of coffee in her direction, followed by a conciliatory tray of croissants and stuff. She looked really nonplussed by the latter, almost jumped in surprise when she saw them. Which I thought odd, given that they were fairly innocuous sorts of edibles, and then she started to laugh.

Which I found very odd indeed.

[Debbie]

To be honest, I'd hoped to get into the office first, grab some time to compose myself before the others – well, before Dave – arrived. Needless to say, I was just putting my stuff down – hadn't even powered up the technology, taken my coat off, done anything at all, really, except quickly take in the office I'd grown quite fond off, where so many things had happened ... when Dave himself emerged from the corner.

I'm fairly sure I didn't look at all pleased to see him which was ... sad, because I was, really, in a lot of ways, really pleased – after all the last time I'd seen him upright was before Phil died ... well, aside from his sitting up on the bed with the lovely Niusha, of course ... Nonetheless, a lot of doubts and fears – about the business, about him, about me ... about us ... sort of took over the facial muscles and I must have glared at the poor bloke.

Not that he reacted, much – didn't say anything, make explanations, try an apology or whatever. He just stared right back at me. God knows what was going through his mind – he looked nervous, I thought, as if a lot was riding on this morning ... or on this moment. And then he looked away, suddenly, stepped back towards the coffee machine and handed me a cup. Followed by a selection of cakes and stuff ... remarkably similar to the selection I had in the box I'd just brought in. This seemed amazingly silly, to me, even as I knew that this was just the sort of gesture I should have expected from the guy. And then I found it really hilarious, started to laugh out loud.

When I got myself slightly more together I saw that he was looking at me with a sort of quizzical half smile, so I pushed my box over towards him, watched as comprehension dawned and he, too, started to laugh. I had the overwhelming urge to pull him into a really tight hug, make it all OK between us in the most direct way possible and ... Gareth arrived.

God knows what he thought when he saw the pair of us standing facing each other about a metre apart and laughing uproariously at nothing very obvious but he didn't seem to let it bother him. Instead, he threw his coat over a chair, put a box of his own down on one of the desks and commented, as Dave handed him a coffee that he'd bought along a few bacon rolls ... as the deli had been sold out of croissants.

He looked more than slightly perplexed when we both collapsed into hysterics, again...

[Dave]

By the time Seff and Naz arrived – the latter also carrying a big cardboard box – things had settled down a bit and we were in work mode. Gareth had accepted my explanation – and Debbie's apology – for our earlier behaviour and, while I think it was the first time that he'd doubted the wisdom of coming to work with us, he took the whole thing in good part. Possibly not least because the bacon rolls went down rather better with the assembled team than the rest of the stuff. I think we ended up donating it all to the architects upstairs...

There followed a brief updating session – Debbie and Gareth went through the work they'd done on Sunday morning, Naz &Seff talked through the possibilities they'd uncovered in Germany and I recounted, for what it was worth, my conversation with Carla. I apologised for not getting names and details about the Bright Young Things who would be representing her but Seffi immediately got on the case – Bronstein Associates' New York office was no big affair, apparently – and came up with a list of possible names in short order. Not that it made any great difference, knowing names, but it gave us all, I think, just a slight feeling of being in control. More so when Seff went on to print out their various public CVs – corporate clones, the bunch of them. So at least we knew what we were dealing with on that level.

Other than that, we discussed tactics for a while – go in there and answer their questions, basically, with the slight spin that Debbie and Gareth were keen on us concentrating on the financials rather than legal stuff ... and Debbie suggested that we got over to the venue we'd arranged well before the 10am start, establish ourselves in the room, make it clear that they were meeting with us, not the other way round. Which made sense, so we traipsed off in a straggle, a few hundred metres down the road to the Hertford Classic Hotel.

Which turned out to be everything you'd expect of business class accommodation – efficient, clean and utterly soulless. The conference room – actually a suite, there were a couple of breakout rooms in case anyone felt the need to go into private session – was set out as a boardroom, twenty or so chairs arranged around a long rosewood table. There were bottles of water all around, little bowls of those inedible mints and, yes, they'd even provided pens and paper on the off chance that we were too disorganised to have brought our own