The Stars’ Tennis Balls

V. Coda

Albert and Portia had sat quietly in the kitchen for a quarter of an hour each smelling the residue of Gordon’s fear, neither speaking of it. He had left the house for his board meeting at half past eight.

‘Doesn’t do to look overkeen,’ he had said, cheerfully stuffing papers into his briefcase.

Mother and son were each proud of the other’s hypocrisy. Albert had not imagined Portia capable of a phrase like ‘Go get ‘em, Tiger!’ and she had not thought that the day would ever dawn when Albert would punch his father on the arm and say ‘Attaboy, Dad!’

Gordon had swept out with a brisk nod of the head, as if to show that it was an ordinary day. On ordinary days, as Albert and Portia were all too well aware, he would have kissed them each and said, ‘Time to cast some pearls before swine’, ‘Wish me luck’ or even ‘Yeugh! Another shitty day for our hero.’

While the coffee went cold in their cups and Java howled in vain for admission, Portia had told Albert everything she knew about Ned Maddstone.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he had wanted to know. ‘Why didn’t Dad tell me?’

‘I expect we would have told you one day. It didn’t seem … necessary. But Dad doesn’t know that Ned has come back. And there’s no reason why he should either. I only realised myself the other day. None of us knows what happened to Ned after he disappeared. I don’t suppose we ever shall. But your father worried about him terribly for years. Perhaps he still does. We don’t speak about it.’

‘Do you…, do you still love Ned?’

‘I love your father very much. And I love you.

‘And grandpa.'

‘And grandpa, of course.

‘And Java?’

‘Naturally Java.’

They had both laughed. Portia had squeezed Albert’s hand in appreciation of his lightening her load and he had returned the pressure.

Sitting now in his bedroom with the laptop open and Java on his knees looking in vain for a mouse to swat, he awaited an email. His mother had never answered his question and he supposed that she did still love Simon, Ned … whatever.

The computer chimed, Albert jumped in his seat and Java leapt crossly from his lap. He saw the letter there in his Inbox.

Simon Cotter Re: Ned

There was no attachment. He didn’t even care if Cotter knew a way of sending viruses by plain email. He moved his finger along the track-pad and double-clicked with his thumb. on 10/10/00 09:20 am, Albert Fendeman at aef©anon_anon_anon.co.tm wrote:

› Dear Mr Cotter

› My mother has explained things to me, but she

› has no idea I am writing to you.

› I am extremely sorry for any pain my father has

› caused you in the past.

› I understand why you are doing what you are

› doing and promise to leave you alone from now

› on.

› Thank you for the valuable experience I derived

› from working with you. I hope everything goes

› well for you and your company.

› Please do not stop the good work you are doing

› in the field of ethical trading.

› Yours

› Albert Fendeman

Albert

Thank you for your email. Start up your computer. Ignore the fact that the screen is blank. Press Alt-Control-Shift N, wait a few seconds and then press Shift-Delete. When prompted, key in the password “Babe” (observe the upper case B). You should find all your files intact.

Enjoy your time at Oxford. If ever you find yourself looking for employment afterwards, you know where to come. A brilliant career awaits you. Live up to your mother’s expectations.

Yours

Simon

PS: A splendid email address. My directory tells me that tm is Turkmenistan. A fine touch.

Simon Cotter simoncotter@cotdotcom.com

Any opinions expressed in the email are those of the individual and not necessarily the company. This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient or entity to whom they are addressed. It may contain material protected by attorney-client privilege. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error please forward this email to housekeeping@cotdotcom.com

This footnote also confirms that although this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses, the recipient is responsible for ensuring that the email and contents have been swept and accepted by their own virus protection systems

Simon closed his laptop and placed it carefully on the seat beside him.

‘Wait for me, John,’ he said, as he opened the door. ‘I shan’t be long.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Stepping from the car, Simon looked up at the tall building across the street in front of him. He stepped through the battery of cameras, neither looking into their lenses, nor avoiding them.

Half an hour earlier Gordon Fendeman had looked up at the same building in much the same way. He had made the mistake of trying to hold his briefcase up in front of his face as he ran the press gauntlet which only served to make him look simultaneously guilty and absurd.

He had left the house with a sensation in his stomach that he had not experienced for twenty years, since the days of lurking in terror of the police calling with news of Ned Maddstone and a warrant for Gordon’s arrest.

His wife and son hadn’t fooled him with their false joshing and cheery arm-punching at breakfast time. He had seen the dread in their eyes, clear as clear. They disbelieved him. They disbelieved him twice. First, they thought him guilty of a heinous betrayal of ethics and second they had no faith that he possessed the capacity to see this thing through. He had read that distrust in Portia s face. ‘Don’t make it worse, Gordon. Please, don’t make it worse.

The contempt they had for him. It was as though he had the letters F-A-I–L-U-R-E stamped across his forehead. ‘Look at me, I’m a schmuck!’ he wanted to shout at the other passengers in the elevator. ‘I’m a piece of shit. Laugh at me, why don’t you? Help yourself. Everybody else does.’

When he was upset, Gordon still thought to himself in American. It helped him feel more of a person. Maybe… maybe if his parents had not died so early he would have been a success. What kind of upbringing did he have in that Hampstead nut-house, anyway? Damn it, he was still living there. That same dark, dreadful house. He should have moved Porsh and Albie to the States on his passport years ago. For the price of the Plough Lane house he could have bought a place in upstate New York. Ithaca maybe. Albie would’ve grown up American. Portia could’ve gotten a job at the University and Gordon could have achieved there. Americans didn’t have that snobby look in their eyes. That English public school politeness that was like a knife in the guts. The murmuring ‘Gosh, awfully sorry’ and that oh-so self-deprecating smile. Self-deprecating, my ass. They knew who was boss, they knew who was in and who was out.

His family loved him, sure. But what kind of love was it that looked at you like you were a wounded deer? Too scared to say what they’re thinking because they think you’re too scared to hear it. That’s not love, that’s abuse. Abuse, nothing less.

He loved them too, he knew that. He wanted to provide for them, protect them, be loved and adored by them, but he never got the chance. No one had ever asked his advice on the simplest question. Even plumbers and electricians, when they came to the house. They always asked Portia to show them the ring main or the stop-cock, or whatever damned thing. These days they asked Albie. It was like some instinct they had. He could be standing there, in the middle of the room, master of the house, head of the family, but would they ask him if he wanted MDF or plywood? Jesus, the stink of failure he must give off.

His own son was earning more aged seventeen than he had most years of his life. That fucking asshole Simon Cotter. His humiliation of Gordon would never end.

On the forty-third floor the board was waiting to meet him with all the usual hearty jokes and false civilities. Purvis Alloway came forward with a handshake and – sure sign of betrayal to come – the simultaneous hand on the shoulder.

‘Probably best, Mr Chairman,’ – how they loved the formality of titles – ‘if I chair this meeting, since it’s mostly about…you know…’

‘Sure, sure …‘ Gordon waved the politeness aside. ‘I was going to suggest the same thing myself.’

‘Shall we be getting on?’

Gordon, breathing heavily felt sweat breaking out over his face as he sat at the opposite end from Alloway. He opened his briefcase and scooped out piles and piles of documents onto the table in front of him. An embarrassed silence fell and he knew that he had overdone the paperwork. Only crazed litigants and public health scare fanatics carry so much documentation about with them, he realised. He could feel pins of sweat beginning to push out from every pore on his face and he was breathing heavily as though he had taken the stairs.

He sat down, flushed while Alloway coughed and proceeded with business.

‘Gentlemen, I call this extraordinary meeting to order. Under article nine we may dispense with minutes and proceed to the single item on the agenda papers before us. I have promised the press a statement by twelve noon, which I think gives us time to cover all our, ah, bases. Before we listen to Mr Fendeman would anybody care to make any opening comments?’

Everyone was gentle and tactful and kind. No one wished to cast the least doubt on Gordon’s integrity. Several board members had wry and vinegary remarks to make on the subject of the British press and its irresponsibility.

Suzie, Gordon’s secretary, sat on Alloway’s left and took notes in shorthand.

‘I don’t believe, Mr Acting Chairman,’ said one board member, ‘that the London Evening Press even possesses an Africa correspondent.’

‘That’s right!’ Gordon put in eagerly. ‘I have a friend who works for the BBC World Service in Nairobi, and he deposes that at no time has a single British print journalist …’ He broke off, realising that it was not his turn to speak. ‘Well, I guess we’ll come to that later.’

Others wished to remind the board that it was Gordon Fendeman’s vision, Gordon Fendeman’s sense of justice, Gordon Fendeman’s idealism and sheer guts that had created this business in the first place. He had built it up from nothing, to a respectable shipper in speciality coffees and thence into a major quoted stock market player. A famous brand. The question of his share dealings in – ironically – the London Evening Press, was not a question for this board. If Gordon needed time to deal with his detractors, perhaps he could step down temporarily? The board member wished to emphasise the word ‘temporarily’, place it on the record and urge strongly for its inclusion in the press statement. When Gordon had cleared his name – and the board member for one never doubted that he would – then the way would be clear for him to be welcomed back to the chairman’s office. How was that for a plan?

The ‘hear hears’ and pattings of the blotters came so fast and so unanimously that Gordon realised at once that this compromise had been prearranged behind his back.

‘Before we come to a vote on that…’ said Purvis Alloway. Gordon swallowed and drew in a breath ready to begin his great speech, ‘I have a special request to put to the board. It is a little unorthodox perhaps, but since this is an extraordinary meeting called under extraordinary circumstances, I take it there will be no objection.’

Everyone looked at Purvis and this time Gordon knew that the surprise was not being sprung on him alone.

‘I received this morning a letter from a lady staying at Hazlitt’s Hotel,’ Alloway continued. ‘Her name is Princess M’binda and she claims to have information vital to the good name of this company. She is waiting in my office now. I think we should hear her.’

Gordon’s mouth was very dry and he took a sip of water, knowing that every face was turned in his direction. Setting down the glass he looked up, feigned surprise at the sight of so many eyes upon him.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘why not? Show her in by all means.

Alloway pressed the chairman’s buzzer under the table and the door to the boardroom opened.

Everyone around the table rose awkwardly to their feet, Gordon last and most clumsily of all.

‘Good morning, Your … ah … good morning, Princess,’ Alloway was a little unsure of protocol and like the others had been thrown off guard by the extreme beauty of the girl who had come in and was now backed shyly against the wall. She was six foot tall and wrapped in vivid green, red and yellow cotton. The board members became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the photographs on the wall which displayed similar girls in similar dress, girls with berry-filled baskets on their heads smiling toothily at the camera.

Alloway went to the side of the room to pull forward a chair which he placed to the right of his own and a little further back from the table. ‘Please, madam, if you would be so good as to sit down.’

She stayed where she was, arms outstretched and palms flattened against the wall, her large eyes fixed on the window. Alloway understood at once.

‘Is it the height, my dear? Would you like us to draw the curtains?’

The girl nodded and one board member attended to the blinds, while another switched on the lights. Immediately, the tension went out of her body and she dropped onto the chair with great elegance. Her eyes met Gordon’s at the end of the table opposite and held them steadily.

Gordon’s breath had been growing very shallow since the moment her name had been mentioned and his mouth was dry and clacky, but he knew that to take another drink of water would be to lose a psychological battle. He met the girl’s gaze and she slowly dropped her eyes to her lap.

‘Now then,’ Alloway was looking at a letter on the table in front of him. ‘You say that you have information vital to the interests of this company. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell us who you are and what information it is that you have for us?’

‘I am the Princess M’binda of the Ankoza,’ she began. ‘We are a people of the hills. My father B’goli was their king…’

As she talked, and Suzie’s pencil raced along her pad, Gordon was transported in his mind back to East Africa. He had been forced to go there because a shipment of futures on which he had invested the last of his – of Hillary’s – money had been delayed, as he thought, in port. In fact, the beans were in store somewhere, close to rotting. It had been his fault. Some piece of paperwork, eight months before, had not been sent from London. Typical of his luck.

It had been sorted out at last, at great extra cost, and he had met a man in a bar who had told him about the Ankoza. ‘They grew the plantation themselves from scratch, it’s just coming into maturity now. Some Robusta but Arabica mostly. Top quality peaberries too. Good high air, but they don’t know shit about selling coffee. They take it to market would you believe? Waste of damn good growing country. I’m trying to get my people to take an interest.’

Well, Gordon had found them first and charmed B’goli, their chief, into agreeing to accept him as their exclusive buyer for the produce of their soft lilac-coloured mountains. He had hurried back to civilisation to sell his original consignment, at a thundering loss, and used the cash to set up his own brokerage and to hire lawyers to hammer B’goli’s agreement into an ironclad contract. He duly obtained B’goli’s signature and word got about that there was a new player in town. A fortnight after he had registered his brokerage a man from the government came to see Gordon.

‘Dear me. It cannot be that you are going into business with the Ankoza? But everybody knows how corrupt they are. They will cheat you and rob you. My people, on the other hand, the Kobali people, thoroughly reliable. How much easier to deal with them. The government is entirely Kobali. How much more quickly your coffee will go through port, how much more efficiently it will be handled if you deal only with Kobali! Trading with the Ankoza, it is doubtful that a single bean would reach the warehouses. No, no, my friend. Much better deal with us. What’s this? The contract is not with the Ankoza … it is with the land. My dear fellow, this makes it so simple! The Ankoza do not own this land. No, no, no. I assure you they do not. I tell you what we shall do. We shall compensate you for all this extra work – a hundred thousand pounds English sterling – and we shall help you to remove those scoundrel Ankoza from the land they are illegally occupying.’

Not his fault. Not his fault. It was the man in the bar. Someone would have got there if Gordon hadn’t, it was inevitable. The Ankoza were always going to be kicked out. Not his fault. But M’binda…

The moment he had seen her, he had wanted her. He had asked that she be kept behind. She had wept inconsolably as her father and his family had been loaded onto lorries like potatoes and driven down the hill.

It was not rape though. If she said that it was rape, she was lying. She had been… if not compliant, certainly not non-compliant. She had been nothing. A lifeless doll.

Her word against his, that was the point. His word against hers. For the time being it was important to look surprised, outraged at everything she said, as if each fresh accusation came as a shock. He was somehow upset by the presence of Suzie in the room. She had never once looked up, but her pencil had never stopped moving and her lips moved imperceptibly as she scribbled. The whole story was down there in Pitman hieroglyphs and later today she would type it up into minutes. Gordon wanted to wrench the pad from her and rip it to pieces.

Nobody was looking at him now as M’binda finished her tale. That wasn’t true. She was looking at him. No disgust in her eyes, no flash of vengeful hatred. She just looked with a cool and steady gaze that screwed his lungs into a ball.

‘When I was allowed to leave I found my family living in iron sheds in a dusty village below the mountains. When the rains came the water from the mountains filled the village and the dust became mud. My mother and two of my brothers died from malaria. My father and my sisters, they died from cholera. That is my story. My father the king, he trusted Mr Fendeman very much and now he is dead and my people are starving, diseased and their hearts are broken from loss of home.’

Alloway leaned forward and patted her on the hand. ‘Thank you, Your Highness. Thank you very much indeed.’

Gordon coughed involuntarily and tried to turn the cough into a laugh.

‘Preposterous,’ he spluttered, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. ‘I mean, gentlemen, please!’ He looked them all in the eyes, each one in turn. ‘I think … I insist that it is time I had my say. Firstly, I have to tell you that I have never seen this woman before in my life.’ He used the word ‘woman’ because he was uncomfortably aware how young she looked. He knew that everyone around the table would have made their calculations and determined that five years ago, at the time Gordon was in Africa, she can have been no older than thirteen or fourteen. ‘Secondly, what she says about the contract with King B’goli is a clever concoction of half truths. Yes, the deal was with the land, not with the people. But that is standard. You all know that. She paints a charming picture of naпve simplicity and honest dignity, but poverty?

Excuse me. This lady has flown from Africa and is staying – where did you say, Purvis? – the Waldorf. The Waldorf Fucking Hotel, you should excuse my French. We should all be so poor, Princess. Most importantly of all. Where is the proof? Am I to be condemned on the say so of a plausible actress, playing on your guilty heart strings. Christ almighty, I’m a married man. I have a family. Where is the proof? Without proof none of this is anything more than slander.’

‘Perhaps I can help you there, gentlemen.’

Every head turned towards the doorway, the source of the interruption. Simon Cotter strode in, smiling and stood behind M’binda, a hand resting on the back of her chair.

Gordon blinked the sweat out of his eyes and tried to speak, but no words came.

Purvis Alloway had sprung to his feet ‘I don’t know who let you in – Mr Cotter is it not? – but this is a private board meeting and I must ask you to remove yourself. If you have any submissions to make, I suggest you make them formally, in writing, to the chairman.’

‘I’m not in the habit, Mr Alloway,’ said Simon smoothly, ‘of writing to myself, formally or otherwise.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘As of ten o’clock this morning I became the majority shareholder in this company. I think that gives me every right to be here.’

A murmur of conversation broke out and one board member’s hand inched towards his mobile phone. Alloway slapped the table.

‘Gentlemen, please!’ He turned back to Cotter.

‘Is this really true?’

Simon passed a piece of paper. ‘A record of the transaction from my broker. You may check with your own people, if you prefer.’

‘No, no. This seems in order … really, Mr Cotter, we had no idea of your intentions towards our company. You come at a difficult moment.’

‘I could not help but overhear Mr Fendeman defending himself. He has a carrying voice, if I may say so.

Gordon’s face was grey and he was finding it difficult to control his breathing. He could feel the sweat around his collar and the cold drops ran from his armpits down the side of his body to his waist.

‘I said I can help you,’ continued Simon, ‘and I can. Let me deal straightaway with the subject of proof. I have here – ‘ he laid three pieces of paper carefully on the table, sworn depositions, duly, as you will see from the seals, notarised. The first confirms Mr Fendeman’s receipt of a hundred thousand pounds from the government. It is signed by the man who offered the bribe. The second contains the signature of another government official who testifies that Mr Fendeman insisted as part of the deal that the thirteen-year-old Princess M’binda be kept behind during the eviction of the Ankoza people. The third affidavit is signed by two drivers and a soldier, each of whom saw Mr Fendeman personally carry the Princess into a hut. The soldier, I’m afraid, who was young at the time, actually looked through a hole in the wall of the hut and witnessed the entire rape. At a moment’s notice any or all of these people can be flown to the United Kingdom if Mr Fendeman wishes to contest their evidence.’

Despite the hammering in his chest and the buzzing in his ears, Gordon managed to speak. The sound was hoarse and barely above the level of a whisper but everybody in the room heard it and Suzie’s pencil faithfully recorded the word.

‘Why?’

Simon smiled. ‘Why? Simple justice, Mr Fendeman. Simple justice.’

The sweat was running into his eyes but, with a jolt that wrenched at his lungs the realisation came upon him. He had only met him once, twenty years ago, but the image had never left him. It was an image that summed up everything Gordon hated about England and everything he hated about himself.

‘It’s you!’ he croaked.

He had only one thought now. The window. The blinds were down, but if he ran fast enough and led with his shoulder he could do it. He could break free and do one last thing that Albie might admire.

He charged like a mad bull. He heard cries of ‘Stop him!’ from the table and out of the corner of his eye he saw Suzie’s startled face look up from her pad at last.

He hit the window hard and, contemptible, useless prick that he was, failure from first to last, he bounced back like a squash-ball. As he crashed to the ground he felt his throat tighten in an iron stranglehold and a lightning-bolt of pain flashed and thumped down his left side. This was how he had watched his father die twenty years ago. The same roar of pain and clutching at the throat. Suzie, God bless her, was the first by his side, loosening his tie and raising his head. The others clustered behind her and at the back he saw the face looking down at him.

‘Ned fucking Maddstone,’ he said as he died. ‘Fuck you for ever.

Simon was out of the room before the last breath had left Gordon’s body. Time was fleeting by and he was on a tight schedule. Hairdressers to see and miles to go before he slept.

‘Two!’ he whispered, tactfully closing the door behind him.

Oliver Delft had been sent to find a hacker in Knightsbridge. Not to arrest him, but to recruit him.

‘Cosima picked up his trail and we’ve been watching him from a distance ever since. A good poacher who’ll make an even better gamekeeper,’ Cotter had told him. ‘Very young, but quite brilliant.’

Oliver was having trouble finding the right address. There was 46, an ice-cream parlour and there was 47, a College of English. Of 46B there was no sign whatsoever. He stood at the door of the College and pondered the problem. It was undignified to be back in the world of legwork. He had taken the Cotter shilling gladly, but he should have known that there would be a price. In his world, Oliver had been supreme commander. The pay was atrocious and the bureaucratic constrictions suffocating. Was he now nothing more than a bird in a gilded cage?

As he stood examining the doorbells a hand fell on his shoulder from behind. Oliver dropped the shoulder and tried to turn, but the hand knew what it was doing and had anticipated his move. It gripped the shoulder harder.

‘You come along with us, sir. Micky, car door. I shall read the gentleman his rights.’

If this was the private sector Oliver wanted nothing to do with it. The two bent-nosed plug-uglies either side of him were not officers of the law, for all their uniforms, plastic cuff-links and portentous language. Oliver had known a few in his time and he would have been prepared to bet that all this pair knew about police stations was the colour of tiles inside the cells. He sensed the strength and the violence in them, however, and was not prepared to argue just yet. If they were working for this hacker, then CDC had been seriously compromised. That kraut woman, his predecessor, was clearly incompetent, everyone at Cotter’s had told him so. She had stumbled on something she did not understand. However. Delft trusted his wits and at the end of it all smelled the possibility of gain. When Delft follows you into a revolving door, he likes to say, he always comes out first…

They drove north in silence. The driver interested Oliver. He saw the eyes watching him from the mirror. Sixty-ish, more dignified than the yahoos in the back. He could be a copper easily. Something familiar about him? Probably not.

The car swept into a farmhouse driveway and again a little stab of déjа vu visited the pit of his stomach. A childhood holiday? Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

Oliver was led into a bare kitchen and told to sit down.

‘Don’t move.’

‘It isn’t easy to sit down without moving.’

Ah, big mistake. An enormous fist crunched into the back of his neck. Oliver sat down. Sudden blows to the back of the neck, as to the nose, can cause the tear ducts to spring. Oliver blinked rapidly and widened his eyes to let them flow without reddening. He really was not going to be seen crying. That would be too ridiculous. He looked up at the ceiling, dilating his nostrils and sniffing, like a man who looks into the sun to make himself sneeze, while they removed his shoes and his tie. Did they imagine that he, Oliver Delft was the type to hang himself. Just when things were getting so interesting? The two barbarians left and he heard them lock the door behind them.

The tears subsided and he looked around. An Aga and a fridge. Was it a holiday? A dirty weekend years ago? He was sure now that he had been here before. It was an old-fashioned fridge, a squat Prestcold. Yet he could see lighter paint against the wall that suggested it had been put in to replace a taller, slimmer one. All very odd.

There was an LEP on the table. Today’s early edition.