‘Yes,’ Pellotte said. ‘Probably better like this.’
‘Yet we still did not want to cause misguided and possibly detrimental comment from neighbours, and so, the cab.’
‘A surprise – the visit, I mean,’ Edgehill replied.
‘I always say that Adrian and discretion are true blood brothers. His first thought always – discretion. Almost always. Plus empathy.’
‘Basic,’ Pellotte said.
‘If that fucking taxi driver starts blabbing around he knows what he’ll get,’ Dean Feston said.
‘What?’ Edgehill said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Dean replied.
‘What?’ Edgehill said.
‘Don’t tell me taxi drivers are too stupid to realize how liable they are to garrotting, perched there, imprisoned behind the wheel, looking ahead, a passenger directly behind them,’ Dean said. ‘This passenger could be carrying a nice little length of cord or chain. All right, there might be a sliding panel behind them, but it’s standard, not reinforced, glass, you know.’
‘No, I’ve never asked,’ Edgehill said.
‘Forgive us for arriving unannounced,’ Pellotte said.
‘It’s fine,’ Edgehill said. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
Pellotte gazed about. ‘Just right for someone at the moment on his own,’ he said.
‘You were partnered, weren’t you, Larry, your fourth relationship, but a decision to split twenty-nine weeks ago?’ Dean said. ‘Amy Wright. She’s with a snooker hall manager now Preston way – Graham Clatworthy. A 2.1 honours degree in Leisure and Entertainment from somewhere. These new courses! But they do say the classics are making a comeback.’
‘A useful spot, this,’ Pellotte remarked. ‘The shops, the pub and Tube walkable.’
‘As we, of course, know,’ Dean said, chuckling.
‘Our profile shows you don’t run a car at present,’ Pellotte said. ‘Not since the silver Ford, 1995.’
‘Not needed, as you say,’ Edgehill replied.
‘Give Adrian the word if you do get wheels,’ Dean said. ‘He can help in that respect. Instantly. This is not the kind of thing he’d speak to you directly about. Adrian would hate to sound intrusive and managing. But, yes, we can arrange immunity. We put a word around in the vehicle’s favour. The reg is fed into our Data Resource Pool and reaches everyone fast. Sometimes cars get damaged on Whitsun, or even stolen.’
‘Is that right?’ Edgehill replied.
‘But not if it’s a car people know Adrian is, as it were, interested in personally, although it isn’t his. Sort of proxy.’
Edgehill went into the kitchen and made tea. They sat in the living room. Dean had an easy chair, Edgehill and Pellotte on the settee.
Dean said: ‘When I refer to a “grossly gaudy lech factor” relating to the programme, I imagine you can make a guess at what it is, Larry, even though unexpected.’
‘I have a daughter,’ Pellotte said.
‘Dione,’ Feston said.
‘Lovely name,’ Edgehill said.
‘Why I stressed “personal” in Gideon,’ Dean said. ‘Anxieties of a father about his daughter or daughters must inevitably be categorized personal. What could be more so? I’m bound to think of King Lear.’
‘Well, I have two daughters, but it’s Dione I’m concerned about now,’ Pellotte said. ‘I don’t know whether anyone has mentioned Dione to you, Larry.’
‘I’ve heard of her, naturally,’ Edgehill said.
‘In which respect?’ Dean said.
‘Or to be more precise, I wondered if Rupert Bale had spoken of her,’ Pellotte said.
‘In a personal manner,’ Dean said.
‘On an intimate basis,’ Pellotte said.
‘Rupert?’ Edgehill said. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Leaving aside temporarily that “grossly gaudy lech factor” during the latest programme – the actual, or seeming, lasciviousness right off the Richter scale – I have to explain, we’re into a kind of Romeo and Juliet situation here,’ Dean said, ‘though with age adjustments. Or West Side Story.’
‘Oh?’ Edgehill replied. Take it gently.
‘Love crossing frontiers – not so much family frontiers as local geography,’ Dean said.
‘A worry,’ Pellotte said.
Edgehill said: ‘Do I gather your daughter and Rupert are—?’
‘Oh, you’re considerate, tactful, but I think you’ve probably heard something of this,’ Feston said. ‘Rumour. At least one outside bastard sniffing around the situation – or would have, if he’d continued.’
Edgehill said: ‘I—’
‘This relationship puts Adrian in a predicament, doesn’t it, Larry?’ Dean said.
‘Predicament?’ Edgehill replied.
Dean set his cup down, stood up, and did some limited pacing in the fairly small room, as though so agitated by his thoughts now that he needed to work some of them off in physical movement. Probably he had often paced a cell like this, just a few steps possible each way. ‘I mean, on account of his status – that’s Adrian’s – his status on Whitsun, a status by no means easily achieved, and always under . . . under, I won’t say subversive, disgusting threat, but always liable to challenge and to dirty schemes by a welter of grasping, envious, swinish dear friends and colleagues, who have to be controlled, kept under, or they’ll start planning a takeover, the treacherous, insurgent louts. For instance, to illustrate status, I mentioned Adrian could put an edict out that any vehicle of yours should be properly respected on Whitsun, and respected it would be – paintwork, windscreen, even aerial. “Touch me fucking not.” But this power has not arrived like an entitlement, gift-wrapped, unworked for. Divine right doesn’t run on Whit. Adrian’s position must be guarded and nurtured.’
‘You can take care of all that, I imagine,’ Edgehill said. ‘Par for the course.’
‘Rupert’s a bit of a star, although it’s culture, so he’s well known to some in Whitsun – and also known as coming from Temperate,’ Dean replied. ‘Kilimanjaro Terrace.’
‘They met at a concert in Smith Square up town,’ Pellotte said.
‘Haydn, Mozart,’ Dean said. ‘That kind of area.’
‘Dione’s a sucker for both,’ Pellotte said. ‘She’s a mature woman. I don’t intervene. In fact I don’t mind them. Haydn’s got a lot of body. Mozart fussyish, can be. “Filthy Mozart” didn’t someone call him? I’d obviously exclude Symphony Twenty-Nine from this judgement, though. He really gets into the majestic with that one.’
‘Rupert likes to keep in touch with the arts scene generally,’ Edgehill replied. ‘Part to do with the job. Width of experience. Concerts would be in his normal itinerary. As chairman, he has to speak from an established cultural background. He’s dealing with experts.’
‘Adrian certainly doesn’t criticize him for that, wherever he may live,’ Dean said. ‘I expect the programme gets a lot of complimentary tickets to concerts and so on.’
‘I gather Bale’s divorced,’ Pellotte said.
‘Yes,’ Edgehill said.
‘Adrian’s not making a moral statement,’ Dean said. ‘Merely factual. Divorce need carry no stigma these days. It can come to any of us, can’t it, self included? And I think of royalty. Some reckon there’s a positive ratio between the scale, general bullshit and showmanship of a royal marriage and the speed of its collapse, only the Queen and Philip excluded.’
‘My daughter has just ended a long relationship,’ Pellotte said. ‘She knows her own mind. Very much so.’
‘Yet friendly, tolerant and mild,’ Dean said. ‘Larry, how often do you suppose she’s heard that supposed joke, “Dione! How’s your saucy daughter?” from people she bumps into around the shops and so on? Dione being the mother of Aphrodite, goddess of love, as everyone knows? Our Dione will always smile, though, as if genuinely amused by the crass fuckers. This is a kindly, balanced person – as one might expect of any child of Adrian.’
‘A new friendship based on shared
musical tastes sounds good for both of them, Dione and Bale, then,’ Edgehill said. ‘It would give depth.’ But naturally he sensed very rough perils. Music had a lot going for it, but also limitations when considered alongside the troublesome realities of Whitsun and Temperate.
‘Well, yes it might be good,’ Pellotte said. ‘I want her happy. If Bale’s the one who can do it, Bale it has to be, phoney and gauche though he is. Some of that might wear off eventually.’
‘This is a fatherly thing with Adrian,’ Dean said. ‘Priority.’
‘Certainly,’ Edgehill replied. ‘Understandable.’
‘Understandable, indeed, Larry,’ Dean said. ‘You have no children yourself, according to our researchers, but I can see you sympathize – can see it in your body language – the way you hold your cup.’
‘Certainly,’ Edgehill said. He glanced down to see how he was holding the cup, but could read nothing unusual. He had it by the handle with thumb and first finger. Did that show a wholesome esteem for family relationships? Dean might have special insights.
He sat down again. He seemed calmer. Perhaps he had considerable stress to deal with, and not just the problem of Dione. A rumour said he and another Pellotte employee were taken in for questioning about the murder of a journalist who had possibly shown too much interest in the firm. The sniffer? But for now at least the pacing had been effective.
‘Two people on the rebound from what appear to be unsatisfactory partnerships,’ Dean said. ‘It’s a familiar kind of situation in our day and age. But this doesn’t cheapen things in the least. I mean, not a matter of desperately grabbing whichever pair of trousers comes along first. Partly what I was getting at in remarks about divorce and the absence of taint now. We’re not back to all those marriage break-up difficulties covered in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times.’
‘The shared musical tastes show real affinities,’ Edgehill replied.
‘Yet complex, you see that, do you, Larry?’ Dean said.
‘In what respect?’ Edgehill asked.
‘Several of my people don’t like the idea of a daughter of Adrian Pellotte bound up with someone from Temperate,’ Pellotte said. ‘The information’s around and spreading.’
‘Why I refer to Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story,’ Dean said. ‘Obstacles.’
‘But this is so narrow, Adrian,’ Edgehill said. He wished to sound like an ally, ready with some of that empathy Pellotte prized, and so the first name seemed more right, now.
‘True, but several of our crew are narrow,’ Dean said.
‘Narrow and dangerous. I have to take due notice of their views,’ Pellotte said. ‘I must not provoke mutiny.’
‘That’s an aspect of leadership. Why I said complex. The fact is, Larry, very few of our folk are into the arts on a compulsive basis,’ Dean remarked. He leaned forward, obviously wanting to give Edgehill a longish statement. ‘To them it wouldn’t signify that here you had two emotionally bruised and possibly lonely people luckily brought together by Haydn and Mozart, unquestionably genuine composers. This is outside the range of comprehension for some in the firm. I don’t say they’ve never even fucking heard of Haydn and Mozart. They’re not zombies. We’ve got people in Mensa and one who sailed through all tests for the Foreign Office, then decided no, he didn’t want to be our man in the Democratic Republic of Congo, thanks. He took a ground-level post with us instead, though he’s moved up a few steps now and runs Home Delivery, which probably brings in more than he’d have got as an ambassador.
‘But few of our folk would regard that kind of concert, however well played, as excuse for a romance with someone from Temperate. They can street deal all right, and sell at raves like galloping magic. This is their bent, but it’s a very specific, limited bent. You’re right – narrowness. Talk to some of them about Conrad’s Shadow Line and they think you mean snorting coke at dusk. They’re the same type who’d ask – and ask in quite a stern manner – they’d ask if you, Larry, living on Whitsun, should be using someone from Temperate, such as Bale. And more or less as a fixture. Well, no, they wouldn’t ask, because they wouldn’t have any doubts. They see this as a kind of . . . well, cool disregard for long-established custom and practice, Larry. And stronger – even disloyalty. That flagrant way your name hugs the screen after a show featuring Bale.’
Edgehill said: ‘But, to my knowledge Rupert isn’t in any way concerned with . . . well, gardening products or—’
‘He lives on Temperate. For them, nothing else matters,’ Dean said.
Edgehill said: ‘We wouldn’t employ him if—’
‘They don’t do subtlety. Maybe nothing else would have mattered for me not long ago,’ Pellotte said. ‘I abhor melodrama, but we’re in a war setting, Larry. Temperate’s the enemy. Them and us, and nothing seemed too bad for them in my view then – “them” being the business hierarchy mainly, yes, but the whole estate, too, for accommodating them, conniving with them. Frankly, I, myself, didn’t like you using Bale so persistently. It seemed . . . it seemed unnecessary.’
‘Gratuitous. Like giving Adrian the finger. Tactless,’ Dean said. ‘Arrogant. Adrian can’t abide arrogance.’
Pellotte’s tone switched, grew less assured. Did Edgehill hear a tremor? ‘But now – now, there’s Dione, my daughter.’
‘Adrian’s had to rethink,’ Dean said. ‘He has the courage to admit it.’
‘Inevitable,’ Pellotte said.
‘He has the bravery to rethink,’ Dean said. ‘What I referred to as complex, you see. Extremely so. The fatherly aspect. Priorities.’
‘Some of these people – the people who object – can grow wild, Larry,’ Pellotte said. ‘They get themselves high and go berserk. They could decide to start a cleansing spree. This is how they see it – cleansing.’
‘That word from the Balkans strife,’ Dean said.
‘But these are only your tribesmen,’ Edgehill said. ‘They’re not going to disrespect you, Adrian, surely.’
‘Normally we can manage them,’ Pellotte said. ‘You’re right and they’re basic street pushers and contract heavies. But occasionally they become unreasonable, maverick. There are some on head pills they don’t always take, and some the head pills don’t get through to because the size of dose they need would kill a rhino.’
‘This is the sort who’d soup themselves up to the quiff and then drive to Temperate and blast people on the street just because they are on the street in Temperate,’ Dean said. ‘Being there in Temperate makes them guilty, like Sodom and Gomorrah. Or like that team who shot up girls on an estate in Nottingham. It’s rudimentary, mad hate. Intemperate. All right, there can be a case for it, if part of a strategy. I think of Bomber Harris in the Second World War, hitting German cities, to break general morale. Ditto here? We don’t sympathize with that kind of operation every time, though. Attacks have to make operational sense.’
‘You mean Rupert’s threatened by these people running mad?’ Edgehill said.
‘Who knows who’s threatened?’ Pellotte said.
‘It’s wider,’ Dean said. ‘For instance, Adrian mentioned about Bale chairing your show – mentioned how we’ve always considered that unfortunate, much as we like the programme itself – Doel’s translation of the Corneille play, Medea, so intelligently discussed, and extremely enlightened commentary on the Martine Quase-Yungle exhibition, to take recent memorable examples. Maybe we have to adjust now, because of Dione. But several of these other people in our firm – they loathe the idea of anyone from Whitsun – anyone – yes, anyone from Whitsun speaking to anyone from Temperate – anyone – anyone from Whitsun – such as you, Larry – anyone speaking to anyone from Temperate through an earpiece microphone, which I suppose you have to with Bale – you as overall producer. They consider it foully close. So one-to-one. I’ve heard people in our firm describe it as such – “foully close”.’
‘Marland, the director, would do most of that,’ Edgehill said. He felt almost insane himself, answering this charge,
as if it needed answering; but it did need answering because the conversation was with Pellotte and Dean. RSVP, and quick.
‘At crisis moments it would be you as you, you in person, speaking from the Control Room,’ Dean said. ‘That’s their perception, anyway. And it’s their perception we’re talking about now.’ Dean had a long, lean, sorrowful, reputedly much clinked, face, and perhaps the problem of Pellotte’s daughter really took that sorrowfulness a lot further, gave it a quota of despair. His eyes were bright blue but could do true sadness, and regret on a nationwide scale. Most likely he’d managed plenty of education, art appreciation and all-round reading while locked up, including psychology and the subtleties of body language.
‘I can look after Adrian,’ Dean said. ‘My role. But then there’s Dione and so on.’
‘Yes, Dione,’ Pellotte said.
‘My God,’ Edgehill said. ‘They’d go for her?’
‘And possibly you, Larry,’ Dean said. ‘We’re talking about crazed, unlogical, anti-logical, implacable elements in our firm. Excellent, winsome lads and girls in ordinary circs, who’d stand by one another and us almost to the end, but they’d see you and Dione alike – both unforgivably mired by Temperate contacts.’
Pellotte gave another small, explanatory wave. ‘It’s simple, Larry. I want Rupert Bale off that estate and living somewhere else. Anywhere. It doesn’t have to be in Whitsun. No. It would be unreasonable to insist on that. Just get him off Temperate. Then the difficulty’s gone. For everyone.’
‘Location, vital,’ Dean said.
‘That’s all right,’ Edgehill said, relieved. ‘He’s aiming to move to Wandsworth or even St John’s Wood. He’s sure Wandsworth or St John’s Wood will suit and help define the real Rupert Bale. He thinks his image is more Wandsworth or St John’s Wood than Temperate Park Acres, especially since his boost with Sandine via The Insignia Of Postponement and so on.’ He felt an obligation to do what he could to protect Rupe Bale – felt a sort of responsibility for him. This kind of slightly absurd dutifulness towards someone could hit him occasionally, as though he were captain of a ship and had to look after the crew. He tried to escape it. He wasn’t captain of a ship, and he didn’t have a crew. But the urge to shelter somebody in trouble would often come back.