Flesh: A Novel

4

TONIGHT IT’S RAINING. He stands under the pert little awning where there’s a patch of dry pavement. It tends to be quieter on rainy nights. There’s something melancholy about them, the way people hurry along the narrow street, hidden under umbrellas. The traffic squeezes past, showing the falling rain in its headlights.

Later the rain stops.

After about one o’clock there are fewer arrivals.

It’s mostly people leaving.

At three he stops letting people in altogether. Not that there are many of them at that hour, especially on a weekday like today. There are sometimes a few. Like these three, still in yesterday’s suits, although two of them have lost their ties, approaching loudly along the pavement, seeing the sign and deciding they want to go down.

“We’re closed,” he says.

One of the young men tries to offer him money—he has what looks like a twenty in his hand and is pushing it at him.

István shakes his head.

The young man with the money persists.

“Can’t do it,” István says, with his hands in his pockets.

“What can’t you do?” the young man says, laughing.

“We’re closed,” István says again.

“What can’t you do? He can’t do it,” the young man says to the others. “He can’t do it.”

They’re all laughing now.

They walk away.

He watches them go and lights a cigarette.

The last patrons leave at around three thirty. He helps to throw them out. It smells of sweat down there and feels like a sauna after the damp freshness of the street. The lights are on, which makes the place look small. The main stage and the “private” ones at the sides look small and shabby. As he makes his way to Freddy’s office, he passes a few of the girls, leaving in tracksuits and raincoats, with earbuds in their ears and don’t-even-think-about-talking-to-me expressions on their faces.

He doesn’t talk to them.

He finds Freddy in the office. “You weren’t around earlier,” István says.

Freddy looks tired. “No,” he says.

István has no idea where Freddy’s from. Not England. He might be an Arab or something. Are there Arabs called Freddy? Something about it doesn’t make sense.

Freddy pays him.

“Thanks,” István says.

“No problem,” Freddy says, in his unplaceable voice.

Pushing the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket, István goes up the stairs.

It’s nearly four. The streets are as empty now as they’ll ever be. Which isn’t entirely empty, of course. There are still a few people around.

He arrives at Cambridge Circus and starts to walk toward Tottenham Court Road and the night bus home. The illuminated top of Centre Point is visible above the nearer buildings and through the branches of the trees. He knows this walk well. He does it every night that he’s working. There are some tatty pubs, and then the huge bookshop with its faulty sign—some of the letters not lit—and after that the dead-end street with the alley at the end.

As he’s walking past he notices that something seems to be happening there, in the alley. He stops in the light of the bookshop’s display window and stands there for a few seconds trying to work out what it is that he’s seeing.

“Help,” a voice says.

The voice sounds strangely normal, like someone just neutrally saying the word.

Maybe it’s for that reason that he does nothing for a second or two.

Then he starts to move toward it, past the weakly lit display windows of the bookshop.

“Hey!” he shouts.

Which seems to be enough. Two figures separate themselves from the darkness. He sees them as short-lived silhouettes against the end of the alley, where there’s the light of some other street.

The alley is actually more of a tunnel.

There’s something on the floor there.

It’s a person.

“You all right?” he asks.

He stoops and says it again. “You all right?”

He takes out his phone and makes the screen light up and shines it.

The man dislikes the light on his face.

He’s quite old. He looks dazed. There’s some blood.

“You all right?”

The man, after a few moments, just shakes his head.

István says, “I’m going to call an ambulance. Okay?”

He takes a few steps away with his phone to his ear.

The ambulance arrives ten minutes later. There’s the approaching sound of the siren, and then, suddenly, the blue lights at the end of the street.

István smokes a cigarette while the paramedics attach the man to a stretcher.

“Is he going to be okay?” he asks one of them, when the man is in the ambulance.

“Think so,” the paramedic says. “You coming?”

It hadn’t occurred to István that he would do that. The paramedics, though, are unaware that he doesn’t know this man. There wasn’t time to explain.

“Up to you,” the paramedic says, when he just stands there.

“Where you going?” István asks. “Which hospital?”

When he hears it’s the Royal London he says he’ll come with them, since it’s on his way.

He sits next to the man’s head as the ambulance surges and sways through the streets.

Although he seems dazed the man is conscious.

Their eyes meet for a moment.

“What’s your name?” the man asks him.

“István,” he says.

“Isht-van?” the man repeats.

“Yes.”

“You’re not English,” the man says.

“No,” he says.

“Where are you from?” the man asks.

“Hungary,” he says.

“I’m also from Hungary,” one of the paramedics says, after a few moments, in their own language.

To hear it takes István by surprise. There’s something almost disconcerting about it. “Oh yeah?” he says.

The paramedic nods.

Neither of them says anything else until the ambulance arrives at the hospital, where the paramedics take the stretcher out.

Then the man says he wants István’s mobile number.

“It’s okay,” István says.

“Please,” the man says.

The Hungarian paramedic writes it down on a scrap of paper and puts it into the man’s hand. Then they take him inside, and István walks away. It’s five o’clock in the morning, and already fully light on Whitechapel Road.

A few days later the man phones him. At first he has no idea who it is. There’s just this voice saying, “Is that István?”

He says it is.

“I’m the poor bastard you saved from being murdered the other night,” the man says.

“Oh yeah,” István says. He’s not sure what else to say. “How you doing?” he asks.

“They tell me I’ll live.”

“Okay.”

“No, I’m fine,” the man says. “I wanted to thank you.”

“No problem,” István says.

He’s on the street. There’s a lot of noise, lots of people walking in all directions, and it’s hard to hear what the man’s saying. “Sorry,” he says. “Can you say that again?”

“We’d like to invite you to dinner,” the man says.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay,” István says, starting to wish that he hadn’t picked up when he saw the unknown number on his phone.

The man is quite insistent though, and in the end István accepts the invitation.

When the man suggests Friday, István tells him that he works on Fridays.

“I work on Saturday as well,” he tells him.

He has stopped walking. He’s on the pedestrianized part of the High Road, in front of Shoe Zone.

“Sunday?” he says, when the man asks him which day would suit him. “Or Monday?”

They settle on Monday, at seven.

“Do you have a wife?” the man asks. “Or a girlfriend?”

“No,” István says.

“Well, just bring yourself, then,” the man says.

On Monday evening he takes the Tube in. It’s twenty stops from Gants Hill. He’s on the train for nearly an hour.

On the pavement in front of Holland Park Station he looks at his pocket A–Z. He has some trouble orienting himself, and then he takes some wrong turns, but eventually he finds the place. It’s an enormous apartment block, made of red brick. It takes up the whole street. It is the street, effectively. Above each entrance, stenciled on glass, are the numbers of the apartments to which it provides access. He finds the right one and presses the doorbell, which is a small brass button.

“Come in!” a voice says before he’s even had a chance to explain who he is, and he makes his way through the silent entrance hall to the elevator at the far end.

The elevator ascends, slowly and quietly. It has wood paneling and dark blue carpet, the same carpet that was in the entrance hall. It also has a polished wooden outer door that you have to push open yourself when you arrive at your floor. It takes him a moment to work that out, and then he’s on a landing, where there are the doors of several apartments, one of them open.

The man, standing in the open doorway, is somewhere in his mid-sixties probably.

Thickset and not tall, he’s smiling, and exuding a strong smell of expensive perfume. “István,” he says.

“Hi,” István says.

“Mervyn,” the man says, introducing himself.

István nods.

“Come in,” the man says. He still has some yellow bruising on his face.

In the entrance hall he asks István if he can take his jacket. Once that’s done he leads him farther into the apartment, into a living room where he invites him to sit down.

István sits on one of two opposing sofas in the middle of the room.

There’s a TV on, showing what seems to be golf.

The man asks him if he wants a drink.

“Sure, thanks,” István says.

“I’m having a G and T,” the man says. “Is that all right?”

“Sure, thanks,” István says again.

“Fine,” the man says, and addresses himself to some sort of drinks tray.

There’s the sound of ice ringing into glasses, and a ripple of applause from the TV as some golfer succeeds in doing something.

“Do you follow golf?” the man asks, with his back to István.

“No,” István says.

“No,” the man repeats. There’s something about him, István thinks, something that doesn’t quite fit with these surroundings—with the pictures on the walls and shelves full of books and polished surfaces with framed photos and other objects on them.

The man turns with the drinks in his hands. “Fair enough,” he says, handing one of them to István.

Having done that, he picks up a remote control and kills the TV’s sound. Then he sits down on the sofa opposite. “So,” he says. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” István echoes.

They taste their drinks. They’re mixed very strong.

Even so, the man asks if István’s is strong enough.

István just nods.

“I don’t see the point of a gin and tonic that hardly tastes of gin,” the man says.

“Sure.”

István’s eyes wander to the TV, which is still showing silent pictures.

“The Memorial,” the man says, noticing.

“Yeah?”

“The Memorial Tournament. In America. Muirfield.”

“Okay.”

“You know who he is?” the man asks, as the silent TV shows a close-up.

“Tiger Woods,” István says.

“Yes.”

They’re both looking at the screen now.

“Phenomenal player,” the man says.

“Yeah,” István says.

They watch the golf for a few minutes, the man telling István something about who the players are and what the situation is while István takes sips of his drink and pretends to be interested.

“What do you do?” the man suddenly and unexpectedly asks.

“Do?”

The man nods, lifting his drink to his mouth.

“Work?”

“Yeah.”

“Sort of… security?” István says, not quite sure how to put it.

“Oh yeah?”

“That sort of thing.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that,” the man says, “actually. The way you waded in so fearlessly the other night. You were an absolute hero.”

“Well.”

“I mean it.”

“Thanks,” István says.

“Thank you.”

There’s a moment of mild awkwardness.

“No problem,” István says.

“So what d’you do exactly?” the man asks, leaning back and stretching his free arm, the one that isn’t holding his drink, along the back of the sofa. “What sort of work?”

“Door work mainly.”

“Okay.”

“You know.”

“Yes, I do,” the man says, as if it is in fact something that he has some particular knowledge about.

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Where d’you work?”

“At the moment at this place in Soho,” István says.

The man smiles. “What’s that like?”

“It’s okay.”

“What sort of place is it?”

“It’s… you know.” István is unsure how to describe it.

“Nudie show?” the man suggests.

“Something like that. You know. Pole dancing. Whatever.”

“Sure.”

“Private dances.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not really into that myself,” István says.

“No?” The man seems interested to hear this, and István slightly regrets saying it in case it gives him the wrong idea.

“It’s just not my thing.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t have a problem with it.”

“No,” the man agrees.

“If people enjoy it…”

“People do.”

“Sure. It’s okay,” István says.

“Which place actually?”

István says the name of the place.

“Oh yes.”

“You know it?”

“Not really.”

“It’s okay,” István says again.

“I know of it,” the man says.

István has another sip of his drink.

The man tells him that he has a private security agency and that, if István is interested, he might be able to find some work for him. “Maybe more interesting work than what you’re doing now.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe.”

István waits for him to say more about it.

He doesn’t.

They sort of drift back into watching the golf again and then, during a hiatus in the action, while the screen is showing a shot of the wind-rippled surface of a lake, the man asks, “Where you from, István? It’s István, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where you from?”

“Hungary.”

“What’s that like?”

István isn’t sure what to say. He isn’t sure what sort of answer the man is looking for. He says what he tends to say when people ask him that question—“It’s okay.”

“You go back much?”

“Sometimes.”

“Visit family?”

“Yeah.”

“You must miss it,” the man says.

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“London?”

“Yeah.”

“Two years,” István says. “About two years.”

“Like it?”

“Yeah.”

From the end of the hallway there’s the sound of someone entering the apartment—the front door opening and shutting and a jingle of keys.

“My wife,” the man explains. With what might be an involuntary nervous gesture, he smooths his silkily corrugated hair with his hand. Or at least his cupped hand follows the line of his skull. His hair, which was obviously once dark but is now mostly silvery gray, doesn’t need smoothing.

His wife appears a minute later, dressed like she’s been at work in an office.

“This is István,” the man says.

István stands to shake her hand.

She’s a tall woman, maybe even slightly taller than her somewhat stocky husband.

They eat at a table in the large kitchen. It’s a takeaway, Indian. There’s red wine. They cover some of the same ground again, with the man’s wife asking the questions now.

Where is István from.

How long has he been in London.

Does he like it here.

The man seems happy to let his wife do most of the talking. He eats slowly and methodically, serving small amounts onto his plate from the foil dishes in the middle of the table and then equally slowly and methodically transferring them to his mouth.

“So where do you live?” his wife asks István.

“Ilford,” István says.

“I don’t know it,” she says, as if she actually might know it, as if it were only a matter of chance that she didn’t live there herself. “What’s it like?”

“It’s all right,” István says.

She waits for more.

“You know,” he says.

She shakes her head.

“It’s quite mixed,” he says.

“Mixed?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you end up living there?” she asks him.

“I knew some people. Some people who already lived there.”

“Hungarians?”

“Yeah.”

She asks him if he has his own place.

He explains that he lives in a house share with quite a few other people.

The man asks if it’s okay if he finishes the aloo gobi. His wife says it’s okay with her, and the man’s eyes turn to István, who says, “Yeah.”

The man spoons the remaining aloo gobi onto his plate.

“It’s really nice,” István says, meaning the food.

“It is, isn’t it?” the man says. “It’s from a place called the Royal Tandoori. Old-school Indian place. Been there forever.”

He pours more wine for them all.

His wife wants István to describe what happened the night he saved her husband.

István tries to do that.

He says he was on his way home from work, as usual, and noticed some activity in the alley.

“The one next to Foyles,” her husband puts in. “You know.”

With her eyes still on István, she nods.

“So yeah,” István says. “I saw something happening there and went to see what it was. That’s it.”

“So you scared them off?” she asks.

“They legged it at the sight of him,” the man says.

“Something like that,” István agrees.

What the man was doing there at four in the morning hasn’t been explained, and István doesn’t ask.

He leaves at about ten o’clock.

The man sees him to the door. As István puts his jacket on he again mentions the possibility of finding him some work through this agency that he apparently has. “Do call me if you’re interested,” he says, patting István on the shoulder.

“Yeah, okay,” István says.

The man stands in the open doorway while István waits for the elevator.

It takes about half a minute to arrive, during which István just stands there with the man looking at him from the door.

“Take care,” the man says when it arrives.

He goes running on Wanstead Flats. Waiting at the traffic lights on Aldersbrook Road, he jogs on the spot, and then does a full circuit of the Flats, open-mouthed and staring straight ahead. He finishes at the bottom of the steps that go up to the pedestrian bridge over the North Circular. Still flushed and sweaty, he stands on the bridge, six lanes of traffic underneath it. It’s dusk and the traffic has its lights on. He walks home through dull streets of terraced houses. This isn’t the kind of life he imagined having when he moved here. It was quite fun at first—or at least it was new and different, and he was able to feel that he was starting again, which was something he wanted. He hadn’t imagined, though, that after two years he would still be living like this. Sharing a small house with half a dozen other people. Listening to the trains passing outside the window all night. Working fifty hours a week and still not having any money left at the end of the month, and with no prospect of anything except more of the same.

A few days later, he phones the man and says that he is interested in what he said, about him maybe finding some work for him. “What would I need to do?” he asks. “Exactly.”

“We should meet and talk about it,” the man says.

They meet at a pub near his apartment and he explains that his agency provides close personal protection to VIPs, celebrities, and high-net-worth individuals. “Bodyguards, in the vernacular,” he says.

“Okay,” István says.

The pub has a terrace in front and they’re sitting at a table under the leafy branches of a tree. Mervyn, like most of the men there, is wearing an open-necked shirt and sunglasses. Those red trousers again, and what seem to be Gucci loafers. The same strong-smelling perfume. It’s midweek, early afternoon. Facing him across the wooden table, István feels dull-headed—he took the Tube in immediately after waking up.

“Interested?”

“Sure,” István says.

“You’ll make a lot more, potentially, than whatever you’re making now.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what you’re making now.”

When István tells him, and even though he exaggerates the amount, Mervyn makes a dismissive movement with his hand. He says there’s the potential to make up to fifty pounds an hour from close protection work, depending on the qualifications and experience of the individual, and also on their personal qualities.

“You told me you were in the army,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s an excellent start.”

They talk a bit about István’s army experience and then Mervyn says, “You got an SIA license? You’ll need one.”

“What is that?” István asks, lighting another cigarette.

“Security Industry Authority license,” Mervyn explains. “It’s a formality really.”

“Okay.”

“Actually, you should have one to do what you’re doing at that strip club.”

“Working on the door?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” István says. “It’s sort of informal.”

“Yeah, that was my assumption. You don’t have a criminal record?”

“Here?”

“Or at home. In Hungary.”

“I actually do,” István says.

“Here?”

“No.”

“At home?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” István says.

“What?”

István tells him.

“The man died?” Mervyn asks.

“Yeah,” István says. “Yeah, he did.” He feels unexpectedly shaken. It’s been years since he’s talked about this, and talking about it now he understands, as if for the first time, the extent to which it has affected his whole life since then.

Seeing that he’s upset, Mervyn pats him on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says.

István nods.

“How old were you?” Mervyn asks him.

“Fifteen,” István says.

“You were a minor?”

“Yeah.”

“It should be all right, then,” Mervyn says. “Nothing else?”

“No,” István says.

It turns out, though, that to get the SIA license he first needs to do a two-week training course in close-protection techniques that costs more than a thousand pounds.

When István says he doesn’t have that Mervyn offers to lend him the money.

“No,” István says.

“Why not?”

“No,” István says again.

And again Mervyn says, “Why not?” He takes off his sunglasses. “It’s the least I can do,” he says. “After what you did for me. You might have saved my life. I’m saying I’ll lend you the money, that’s all. You do some work for me after you’ve got the license and you’ll be in a position to pay it back. Don’t worry about that.”

István doesn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry about that,” Mervyn says again. “I’ll get my money back. And then some.”

The course is in Romford. He takes the Overground and it’s a short walk from there. He has to set an alarm for six thirty and it feels weird to be up so early. To be starting the day at that hour. He isn’t used to it anymore and he struggles to stay focused as he stares at a well-built man in an Under Armour T-shirt standing next to a whiteboard and talking to them about physical intervention and when it is and is not justified.

There are twenty or thirty of them in the room, at these little desks. At some points during the day, it feels unpleasantly like one of those dreams where you’re at school again. Most of the others are sort of like him. About half of them are English and the rest are foreigners, mainly from Eastern Europe. There are three or four women. Otherwise it’s men. He’s one of the older ones.

The course has three modules: “Working in the Private Security Industry,” “Working as a Close Protection Operative,” and “Conflict Management.” Subjects covered include first aid and defibrillator training—standing around in a circle with one of them being “the subject”—as well as potentially more interesting things like evasive-driving techniques (“If you can’t call for help or reasonably get to a safe area, then you must lose your pursuers on the road”) and anti-ambush training (“In potentially hostile environments we need to utilize some specific skills to prevent or survive an ambush, these are sometimes referred to as Protective Intelligence skills, or situational and tactical awareness skills”). Toward the end of the second week there’s also a short introduction to firearms which some of the others seem to think is exciting.

He listens to them talking about it at lunch one day. A few of them have gone for lunch together at a place near the station. “Shooters tomorrow,” one of them says, as István squirts ketchup and then tucks into his Full English. There’s a rumor that a special instructor will be coming in with a selection of handguns for them to look at and for a while they talk about who already has experience with firearms.

“What about you?” someone asks István, who hasn’t said anything yet.

István nods, eating.

“Yeah?”

He explains that he was in the army. They have questions about the weapons he used.

He tells them it was mostly the AK-63…

“You mean forty-seven?” one of the others says.

István shakes his head. “No, sixty-three,” he explains, with his mouth full. “It’s basically the same as the classic AK though. It’s a variant. Made in Hungary.”

“What’s it like?” someone asks.

He shrugs. “It’s a decent weapon.”

Disappointingly for most of them, the firearms session turns out to involve looking at pictures on a screen and talking about how to deal with a situation where someone else pulls a gun. Do what they tell you, seems to be the main advice. Don’t try to be a hero.

At the end of the second week they do the tests. He has trouble sleeping the night before. Luckily the tests are easy. There are multiple-choice questions where two of the four answers are obviously wrong so you always have a fifty-fifty shot even if you don’t know. Most of them pass the first time, and someone organizes a meal at the Romford Nando’s to celebrate.

When he tells him that he passed the test, Mervyn takes him to lunch at the pub near his apartment. They have a sort of fancy fish and chips, with white wine.

“Well done,” Mervyn says.

“Thanks,” István says. He says he hopes he’ll be able to pay him back soon.

“I’m sure you will,” Mervyn says. “Of course, it’s not just about having the license,” he says. “Personal qualities matter as well. For the sort of work we do. The higher-end work.”

“Personal qualities?”

“Yeah,” Mervyn says, having a sip of wine. He lifts the dripping bottle from the thing it’s in and tops them both up.

They’re inside this time, in the dining area of the pub, which involves wood paneling and waiters in long white aprons.

It’s not particularly like any pub that István is familiar with.

“Personal qualities,” Mervyn says. “You know.”

While István struggles with the intricately bony carcass on his plate Mervyn says, “For the higher-end kind of work it’s not just about your ability to deal with dangerous situations. It’s not just about being tough. It’s more than that. You’ve got to have the right… You’ve got to be able to conduct yourself in a certain way. These people are used to a certain kind of behavior. Do you see what I mean?”

“Yeah,” István says. “I think so.”

“Yeah?”

István nods.

“You’ve got to present yourself in a particular way.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s very important.”

“Okay.”

“It’s partly just the look,” Mervyn says. “You have to dress properly. Do you own a suit?” he asks.

“No,” István admits.

Mervyn smiles. “Well, let’s start with that, then.”

After lunch they walk over to Barkers on Kensington High Street.

Mervyn says István needs a suit and a few shirts and a plain dark blue tie.

They move among the racks of suits.

When they have two or three options, Mervyn makes István try them on and waits on the other side of the door in the fitting rooms to see how they look.

“That’s nice,” he says, when István emerges in one of them. “Turn around.”

István does.

“Yeah, you need double vents,” Mervyn says. “Might need to let it out a bit too. Now let’s look at some shirts.”

When he takes out his wallet to pay for the things István shows unease.

Mervyn waves it away. “I’m thinking of it as an investment,” he says. “After all, I get twenty percent, don’t I? I’ll get it all back in a month, if this works out. Have you got any just normal socks?” he asks.

“Normal socks?”

“I mean not those things. Not sports socks. Plain black socks. Or dark blue.”

“Not really,” István says.

“Well, get some.”

“Okay.”

“What about shoes? Proper shoes.”

István shakes his head.

They go to Russell & Bromley and buy a pair of simple black leather shoes.

Then Mervyn suggests a pint.

“You need some polishing,” he says, when they’re installed at a table on the leafy terrace of his posh local.

“Yeah?”

Mervyn nods. “Yeah,” he says, and to that end he proposes that István spends a few days with him.

István presents himself at the Holland Park apartment the next morning. He’s wearing the new suit, as Mervyn told him to, with one of the shirts and the dark blue tie. “Very smart,” Mervyn says, and when he has finished his coffee, they take the lift down.

“You’ve got a driving license?” he asks.

“Yeah,” István says.

Mervyn hands him the keys of the Jaguar.

“Where are we going?” István asks.

“Just start driving,” Mervyn says. “I’ll tell you.”

Mervyn himself sits in the back.

“It’s weird,” István says, “driving on this side.”

“What? Oh yes. Have you done that before?”

“No,” István says.

“Well, please be careful.”

Mervyn directs him as they drive through the streets of London, along Kensington High Street and then via Knightsbridge to Hyde Park Corner, where he instructs him to turn onto Park Lane. These are parts of London that István doesn’t know. The air-conditioning is on in the Jaguar. It’s a hot summer day and on the other side of the windows people are dressed as if they’re on vacation.

“I see the girls go by dressed in their summer clothes,” Mervyn murmurs, while they wait at a traffic light.

“Yeah,” István says, not getting the reference.

They’re in smaller streets now and a few minutes later Mervyn tells him to park when he can, and then, when he has found a place, to put money in the meter.

It seems that Mervyn has a meeting on the street where they are, in one of the tall brick houses.

“Someone who’s interested in my services,” he explains.

István just nods.

He waits outside, first sitting in the parked Jaguar with the windows open, and then standing in the warm shade on the other side of the street, smoking a cigarette.

He’s too hot in the suit, even in the shade.

The tie pinches his throat.

He loosens it and pops the top button.

When Mervyn sees it he says, “Why did you do that?”

“Was really tight on my neck,” István says.

“You mustn’t do that,” Mervyn tells him.

“Sorry,” István says, doing the button up again and moving the tie back into place.

Mervyn isn’t wearing a tie himself. He’s wearing his usual open-necked shirt and red trousers. He says, “Do you feel comfortable dressed like that?”

István shrugs.

“Do you?”

“No, not really,” István admits.

“It shows,” Mervyn says. “I want you to wear that suit every day for a week. I don’t want you to wear anything else for a week.”

“Okay.”

“Sleep in it if you want to. You need to feel comfortable in it,” Mervyn says. “More important, you need to look like you feel comfortable in it.”

“Okay,” István says.

He drives Mervyn to a few more places and then they have lunch at a smart restaurant.

“Don’t eat so fast,” Mervyn says, smiling. “What’s the hurry?”

“Sorry,” István says.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want you to finish eating before I’ve finished eating,” Mervyn says. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Mervyn eats very slowly.

István makes himself eat slowly too.

“I want you to practice eating slowly,” Mervyn says.

“Okay,” István says.

Later Mervyn says, “Try not to move your hands when you talk.”

“All right.”

“I want you to be very still.”

“Okay.”

“Keep your hands by your sides.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have a lighter?” Mervyn asks.

“Yeah.”

“Yes,” Mervyn says.

“Yes,” István says.

Mervyn has a cigarette in his hand. He puts it in his mouth and waits for István to light it. “No, move more slowly,” he says. “Do it again. More slowly. Put it back in your pocket and start again.”

István puts the lighter back in his pocket and then takes it out again, moving more slowly, and lights the cigarette.

“Thank you,” Mervyn says.

“No problem.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t say anything unless I speak to you first. Unless I ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

The next day they eat in a smart restaurant again, a different one. István tries to eat slowly. “That’s better,” Mervyn says. He says, “Often you’ll find yourself in surroundings like this, with the kind of principal who uses the premium service.”

“Yeah,” István says.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“You need to fit in.”

“Okay.”

“Usually you won’t be eating with them, of course.”

“No, I know.”

“You won’t be sitting at the table with them.”

“No, I know.”

“But you’ll be there.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“So you need to fit in. You need to fit in with everything else in their lives. That’s what they want. They’re people with serious money and they want someone who fits in with everything else in their lives.”

“Okay,” István says.

When they arrive back at the apartment Mervyn invites him up for a drink.

While Mervyn busies himself at the drinks tray István looks at things. The pictures on the walls. The objects on the shelves.

Mervyn hands him a gin and tonic in a heavy glass and then flops down on one of the sofas and puts his feet—he has shed the Gucci loafers at some point—on an upholstered footstool.

Pointing the remote, he ignites the TV.

It’s golf again.

“The Open,” Mervyn explains.

“Yeah?”

“What Americans call the British Open.”

“Okay.”

István sits on an easy chair of rose-colored velvet from where he has a view of the screen. Mervyn sometimes explains what’s happening—who the players are, what the situation is. It’s surprisingly interesting once you know something about it. There’s a surprising tension to it, though the moments of tension, most often someone attempting to make an important putt, are followed by polite applause and interspersed with tranquil shots of trees and small lakes in a way that’s quite pleasant.

When Mervyn’s wife arrives home from work he makes a drink for her too, and second ones for himself and István.

“You look very smart,” she says to István.

He stood up when she came in and is now sort of hovering while Mervyn is engaged at the drinks tray.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Got a new job?” she asks, sitting down herself and squeezing one of her stockinged feet.

“In a manner of speaking,” Mervyn says, although the question wasn’t addressed to him.

“Oh yes?”

“We’re going to try and get István some more lucrative work,” Mervyn says, handing out the G&Ts. “Hopefully.”

“I’ll drink to that,” his wife says.

“Are you going to stay for supper?” Mervyn asks István.

“Is that okay?”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

“Okay,” István says. “Thanks.”

While Mervyn watches the golf, István offers to help his wife in the kitchen.

“Mervyn’s been grooming you, has he?” she says.

“What’s that?” István asks.

She laughs. “I heard about your shopping trip,” she says.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“That must have been very embarrassing for you.”

“Yeah, a bit,” István admits, laughing uneasily himself.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table in his suit, slicing an onion for her.

She must be about fifty-five. She’s quite attractive, he thinks.

“You do look smart though,” she says.

“Okay.”

“Which is important.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“If you want to get ahead.”

He passes her the board with the onion on it and she says, “I’m impressed. Did you used to help your mother in the kitchen or something?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” he says.

“How sweet.”

As the onion starts to hiss in the pan she asks him to make her another gin and tonic and he goes through to the living room, where Mervyn is still embedded in the sofa with his feet up and the golf on the TV.

He looks tired.

István says that his wife wants another G&T.

“Sure,” Mervyn says. “Everything’s there. And make another for yourself if you want.”

“Do you want another?” István asks.

“I don’t think I will, thanks,” Mervyn says.

István leaves at nine o’clock and arrives home at half past ten.

Mervyn starts to put him up for work with his agency and soon he’s making quite a lot more money. Within a few months he has repaid Mervyn what he owes him. Not long after that he’s able to leave the house share where he’s lived for two years and move into a new apartment. It’s in Stratford, in a modern high-rise building. When he moves in, the building has only just opened. It has those mailboxes that look like safe deposit boxes in the entrance hall, and an elevator that doesn’t seem to move as it takes him up to the twelfth floor.

The apartment itself is small and austerely furnished. There’s a bedroom with tough gray carpet, and some chrome-plated free weights lying around. There’s a windowless bathroom with an excellent shower. There’s a balcony with a single uncomfortable-looking aluminium chair. The balcony faces west and sometimes half-recognizable landmarks of central London are visible in the haze.

He has his morning coffee out there. Brightness from the bland sky brings out pale shadows on the balcony and the wind shakes the improvised rattan partition that screens it from the neighbors’. He has never actually seen the neighbors. He just hears their voices sometimes.