“Come in, please, and close the door.”

Yola Bennett did so.

“And sit down.”

She did that also.

“I will not beat about the bush,” said Mr Gray, viewing Ms Bennett across the expanse of his expansive desk and noting well the shortness of her skirt. “I feel a change of attitude is called for from yourself.”

“Oh yes?” Yola blew upon those nails that were mostly done.

“Your attitude will not do, young lady. You have been ignoring telephone calls, leaving correspondence unanswered and taking overlong lunch hours. Not to mention your record of attendance.”

“My record of attendance?”

“I told you not to mention that.[46] I feel that I may be forced to let you go.”

“Let me go?” Yola made a sudden face of horror. And outrage, also. And effrontery. It was a complex face. It quite bewildered Mr Richard Gray.

“Let you go,” said he. “If you don’t buck up your ideas, you’re out.”

“Stuff your job,” said Yola Bennett. “And stuff you, too, as it happens. All men are quite the same. And all of you are bastards.”

Mr Gray smiled, thinly. “Things not going too well for you with Mr Hartnel, then?” he said.

“What?” said Yola.

“Please don’t mess around with me. I know what you’ve been up to.”

“You know nothing and whatever you know is none of your business anyway.”

“I know what I know. And I know what you want. I want these things, too.”

“Pervert,” said Ms Yola Bennett.

“I don’t mean those things. I mean the money he has coming to him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mr Gray sighed. “Oh, well,” said he, “then I must be mistaken. It is a pity, because I think you’d make the perfect couple. And I feel absolutely certain that when Mr Hartnel receives the many millions that he will so shortly be receiving, you would be capable of enjoying your share of this wealth. Assuming, of course, that you were actually able to marry Mr Hartnel.”

“Piss off,” said Yola.

“Oh well, then.” Mr Gray leaned back in his overstuffed chair. “Forget it. Join the dole queue if that is your wish. There are plenty of other fish in the sea, as they say. Or in the fridge, as Mr Hartnel would probably say. I will take on another secretary and put my proposition to her.”

“Proposition?” said Yola.

“Proposition,” said Mr Gray. “I have been thinking long and hard about this ever since Mr Hartnel callously spurned my offer to act on his behalf.”

“That would be when you threw yourself out of the window and into the dustbins.” Yola tittered.

“You are dismissed,” said Mr Gray. “Please go and clear your desk.”

“About this proposition?” said Yola.

Mr Gray leaned forward once more. “Together,” said he, “we are going to take that wig-wearing schmuck for every penny he has.”

“Does this involve Arsenal?” asked Ms Yola Bennett.

“No,” said Mr Gray. “Why did you ask me that?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Yola. “So tell me all about this proposition.”

Mr Richard Gray smiled upon Ms Yola Bennett and he swung slowly about in his chair and gazed out through the window. And the eyes of him turned blacker than night. And the skin of him did also. And a voice murmured low in the throat of Mr Gray, in a language that was of no human tongue.

But Yola Bennett did not see or hear this fearful transformation. “Tell me what you have in mind,” she said, raising her skirt a little higher and giving her legs a cross.

Arsenal?

Schmarsenal!

Chelsea?

Schmelsea![47]

Jim Pooley sat in the saloon bar of The Flying Swan.

It was a Friday lunchtime in May.

Jim had a certain face on.

Neville passed a pint of Large across the highly polished bar counter and accepted Jim’s small change.

“Two questions,” Neville said, as he rang up “no sale” on the publican’s piano. “Firstly, why are you here? And secondly, why do you have that certain face on?”

Jim swallowed ale and Jim shrugged his shoulders. “In answer to your first question, Neville,” said he, “why are any of us here? And in answer to your second question, it’s the speed.”

“The speed?” said Neville, addressing himself to the latter of Jim’s answers. “What do you mean by ‘the speed’?”

“The speed of all this.” Jim made an expansive gesture with his pint-free hand. “Bang, bang, bang, Brentford United, four, Arsenal, nil. Bang, bang, bang, Brentford United, three, Chelsea, one.”

Neville managed a chuckle at this. “The Chelsea striker hammered that one right past the circus giant you now have as a goalie,” said he.

“But the speed of it all,” Jim said with a sigh. “It’s all just happened so fast. One minute it’s November and now it’s May.”

“And the FA Cup Final is tomorrow,” Neville said. “And the team is up against Man U. Should I venture a fiver on them, do you think?”

Jim did a bit more sighing. “Is it real to you?” he asked. “For it certainly is not to me.”

“Hm.” Neville took up a dazzling pint pot and took to the polishing of same. “I don’t really know what’s real any more.” And he rolled his good eye towards Pippa and Loz, who stood, topless as ever, chatting away at the other end of the bar.

“But you’re doing all right for yourself,” said Jim, as he followed the direction of Neville’s eye-rolling. “You’re having the time of your life.”

“And you too, surely,” said Neville. “You could never have dreamed that it would come to this.”

“I never volunteered for this job, Neville, and in truth I don’t enjoy it. The responsibility is too much for me. I wish things were just as they used to be.”

“Well, it will all be over tomorrow – one way or the other.”

“Your words offer little comfort to me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Neville, “but what can I say?”

“Nothing,” said Jim Pooley. “Nothing.”

Norman Hartnel now entered the bar. And if Pooley had a face on him, so, too, did Mr Hartnel.

The shopkeeper slouched up to the bar counter and slumped himself on to a stool.

“Norman,” said Jim.

“Jim,” said Norman.

“Drink?” Neville asked.

“Large whisky,” said Norman.

“Large whisky?” Jim asked, as Neville did the business. “Isn’t that a little strong for this time of day?”

“I am a man sorely vexed,” said Norman. “I am a man consumed with sorrow.”

Neville proffered Scotch and the shopkeeper drained it away in one.

“But surely,” said Neville, “your ship comes in tomorrow. Don’t I recall you telling me that tomorrow you will receive the many millions for your patents?”

“Oh yes,” said Jim. “I’d quite forgotten about that.”

“It’s true,” said Norman with gloom in his voice. “But money can’t buy you happiness.”

“To quote Jon Bon Jovi,” said Neville, “‘anyone who says that money can’t buy you happiness is shopping in the wrong store.’”

“Jon Bon who?” said Norman.

“Jovi,” said Neville. “Pippa is a fan of his music. She likes to have it playing when we …” Neville’s voice trailed away and his good eye glazed over.

“Well, I’m not happy,” said Norman. “It never rains but it damn well buckets down.”

“Would you care to share it with me?” Jim asked. “A trouble shared being a trouble halved, as they say. As you say, actually.”

“Another Scotch, please,” said Norman to Neville.

“On me,” said Jim, fishing out further small change.

“The fruit machine at The Stripes Bar still raking it in?” asked Neville.

“Perk of the job,” said Jim, and to Norman he said, “Go on.”