A Quiver Full of Arrows (18 page)

The man behind the little glass pane gave
Henry a tired look. “It’s all one class nowadays, sir, unless you have a
cabin.”

He proffered two tickets. “That will be one
pound exactly.”

Henry handed over a pound note, took his
tickets, and hurried back to the young officer.

The porter was off-loading their suitcases
on to the quayside.

“Can’t you take them on board,” cried Henry,
“and put them in the hold?”

“No, sir, not now. Only the passengers are
allowed on board after the ten-minute signal.”

Victoria carried two of the smaller
suitcases while Henry humped the twelve remaining ones in relays up the
gangplank. He finally sat down on the deck exhausted. Every seat seemed already
to be occupied. Henry couldn’t make up his mind if he was cold from the rain or
hot from his exertions. Victoria’s smile was fixed firmly in place as she took
Henry’s hand.

“Don’t worry about a thing, darling,” she
said. “Just relax and enjoy the crossing; it will be such fun being out on deck
together.”

The ship moved sedately out of the calm of
the bay into the Dover Straits.

Later that night CaptainJenkins told his
wife that the twenty-five mile journey had been among the most unpleasant
crossings he had ever experienced. He added that he had nearly turned back when
his second officer, a veteran of two wars, was violently sick. Henry and
Victoria spent most of the trip hanging over the rails getting rid of
everything they had consumed at their reception. Two people had never been more
happy to see land in their life than Henry and Victoria were at the first sight
of the Normandy coastline. They staggered off the ship, taking the suitcases
one at a time.

“Perhaps France will be different,”

Henry said lamely, and after a perfunctory
search for Pierre he went straight to the booking office and obtained two
third-class seats on the Fleche d’Or. They were at least able to sit next to
each other this time, but in a carriage already occupied by six other
passengers as well as a dog and a hen. The six of them left Henry in no doubt
that they enjoyed the modern habit of smoking in public and the ancient custom
of taking garlic in their food. He would have been sick again at any other time
but there was nothing left in his stomach. Henry considered walking up and down
the train searching for Raymond but feared it could only result in him losing
his seat next to Victoria. He gave up trying to hold any conversation with her
above the noise of the dog, the hen and the Gallic babble, and satisfied
himself by looking out of the window, watching the French countryside and, for
the first time in his life, noting the name of every station through which they
passed.

Once they arrived at the Gare du Nord Henry
made no attempt to look for Maurice and simply headed straight for the nearest
taxi rank. By the time he had transferred all fourteen cases he was well down
the queue. He and Victoria stood there for just over an hour, moving the cases
forward inch by inch until it was their turn.

“Monsieur?”

“Do you speak English?”

“On pea, un pcu.”

“Hotel George V.”

“Out, mais je ne peux pas mettre toutes les
valises dans le coffre.”

So Henry and Victoria sat huddled in the
back of the taxi, bruised, tired, soaked and starving, surrounded by leather
suitcases, only to be bumped up and down over the cobbled stones all the way to
the George V.

The hotel doorman rushed to help them as
Henry offered the taxi driver a pound note.

“No take English money, monsieur.”

Henry couldn’t believe his ears. The doorman
happily paid the taxi driver in francs and quickly pocketed the pound note.
Henry was too tired even to comment. He helped Victoria up the marble steps and
went over to the reception desk.

“The Grand Pasha of Cairo and his wife. The
bridal suite, please.”

“Out, monsieur.”

Henry smiled at Victoria.

“You ‘ave your booking confirmation with
you?”

“No,” said Henry, “I have never needed to
confirm my booking with you in the past. Before the war I...”

“I am sorry, sir, but the ‘otel is fully
booked at the moment. A conference.”

“Even the bridal suite,” asked Victoria.

“Yes, Madam, the chairman and his lady, you
understand.” He nearly winked.

Henry certainly did not understand.

There had always been a room for him at the
George V whenever he had wanted one in the past. Desperate, he unfolded the
second of his five-pound notes and slipped it across the counter.

“Ah,” said the booking clerk, “I see we
still have one room unoccupied, but I fear it is not very large.”

Henry waved a listless hand.

The booking clerk banged the bell on the
counter in front of him with the palm of his hand, and a porter appeared
immediately and escorted them to the promised room. The booking clerk had been
telling the truth. Henry could only have described what they found themselves
standing in as a box room.

The reason that the curtains were
perpetually drawn was that the view over the chimneys of Paris, was singularly
unprepossessing, but that was not to be the final blow, as Henry realised,
staring in disbelief at the sight of the two narrow single beds.

Victoria started unpacking without a word
while Henry sat despondently on the end of one of them. After Victoria had sat
soaking in a bath that was the perfect size for a six-year-old, she lay down
exhausted on the other bed.

Neither spoke for nearly an hour.

“Come on, darling,” said Henry finally.
“Let’s go and have dinner.”

Victoria rose loyally but reluctantly and
dressed for dinner while Henry sat in the bath, knees on nose, trying to wash
himself before changing into evening dress. This time he phoned the front desk
and ordered a taxi as well as booking a table at Maxim’s.

The taxi driver did accept his pound note on
this occasion, but as Henry and his bride entered the great restaurant he
recognised no one and no one recognised him. A waiter led them to a small table
hemmed in between two other couples just below the band. As he walked into the
dining room the musicians struck up “Alexander’s Rag Time Band”.

They both ordered from the extensive menu
and the langouste turned out to be excellent, every bit as good as Henry had promised
of Maxim’s, but by then neither of them had the stomach to eat a full meal and
the greater part of both their dishes was left on the plate.

Henry found it hard to convince the new head
waiter that the lobster had been superb and that they had purposely come to
Maxim’s not to eat it. Over coffee, he took Victoria’s hand and tried to
apologise.

“Let us end this farce,” he said, “by
completing my plan and going to the Madeleine and presenting you with the
promised flowers. Paulette will not be in the square to greet you but there
will surely be someone who can sell us roses.”

Henry called for the bill and unfolded the
third five-pound note (Maxim’s are always happy to accept other people’s
currency and certainly didn’t bother him with any change) and they left,
walking hand in hand towards the Madeleine. For once Henry turned out to be
right, for Paulette was nowhere to be seen. An old lady with a shawl over her
head and a wart on the side of her nose stood in her place on the corner of the
square, surrounded by the most beautiful flow- ers.

Henry selected a dozen of the longest
stemmed red roses and then placed them in the arms of his bride. The old lady
smiled at Victoria.

Victoria returned her smile.

“Six francs, monsieur,” said the old lady to
Henry.

Henry fumbled in his pocket, only to
discover he had spent all his money. He looked despairingly at the old lady who
raised her hands, smiled at him, and said: “Don’t worry, Henry, have them on
me. For old time’s sake.”

S
ir Hamish Graham had many of the qualities
and most of the failings that result from being born to a middle-class Scottish
family. He was well educated, hardworking and honest, while at the same time
being narrow-minded, uncompromising and proud. Never on any occasion had he
allowed hard liquor to pass his lips and he mistrusted all men who had not been
born north of Hadrian’s Wall, and many of those who had.

After spending his formative years at Fettes
School, to which he had won a minor scholarship, and at Edinburgh University,
where he obtained a second-class honours degree in engineering, he was chosen
from a field of twelve to be a trainee with the international construction
company, TarMac (named after its founder, J. L. McAdam, who discovered that tar
when mixed with stones was the best constituent for making roads). The new
trainee, through diligent work and uncompromising tactics, became the firm’s
youngest and most disliked project manager. By the age of thirty Graham had
been appointed deputy managing director of TarMac and was already beginning to
realise that he could not hope to progress much farther while he was in someone
else’s employ.

He therefore started to consider forming his
own company. When two years later the chairman of TarMac, Sir Alfred Hickman,
offered Graham the opportunity to replace the retiring managing director, he
resigned immediately. After all, if Sir Alfred felt he had the ability to run
TarMac he must also be competent enough to start his own company.

The next day, young Hamish Graham made an
appointment to see the local manager of the Bank of Scotland who was
responsible for the TarMac account, and with whom he had dealt for the past ten
years. Graham explained to the manager his plans for the future, submitting a
full written proposal, and requesting that his overdraft facility might be
extended from fifty pounds to ten thousand.

Three weeks later Graham learned that his
application had been viewed favourably. He remained in his lodgings in
Edinburgh, while renting an office in the north of the city (or, to be more
accurate, a room at ten shillings a week). He purchased a typewriter, hired a
secretary and ordered some unembossed headed letter-paper. After a further
month of diligent interviewing, he employed two engineers, both graduates of
Aberdeen University, and five out-of-work labourers from Glasgow.

During those first few weeks on his own
Graham tendered for several small road contracts in the central lowlands of
Scotland, the first seven of which he failed to secure. Preparing a tender is
always tricky and often expensive, so by the end of his first six months in
business Graham was beginning to wonder if his sudden departure from TarMac had
not been foolhardy. For the first time in his life he experienced self-doubt,
but that was soon removed by the Ayrshire County Council, who accepted his
tender to construct a minor road which was to join a projected school with the
main highway. The road was only five hundred yards in length but the assignment
took Graham’s little team seven months to complete and when all the bills had
been paid and all expenses taken into account Graham Construction made a net
loss of £143.

Still, in the profit column was a small
reputation which had been invisibly earned, and caused the Ayrshire Council to
invite him to build the school at the end of their new road. This contract made
Graham Construction a profit of £420 and added still further to his reputation.

From that moment Graham Construction went
from strength to strength, and as early as his third year in business he was
able to declare a small pre-tax profit, and this grew steadily over the next
five years. When Graham Construction was Boated on the London Stock Exchange
the demand for the shares was oversubscribed ten times and the newly quoted
company was soon considered a blue-chip institution, a considerable achievement
for Graham to have pulled off in his own lifetime.

But then the City likes men who grow slowly
and can be relied on not to involve themselves in unnecessary risks.

In the sixties Graham Construction built
motorways, hospitals, factories, and even a power station, but the achievement
the chairman took most pride in was E;dinburgh’s newly completed art gallery,
which was the only contract that showed a deficit in the annual general report.
The invisible earnings column however recorded the award of knight bachelor for
the chairman.

Sir Hamish decided that the time had come
for Graham Construction to expand into new fields, and looked, as generations
of Scots had before him, towards the natural market of the Bitish Empire. He
built in Australia and Canada with his own finances, and in India and Africa
with a subsidy from the British government. In 1963 he was named “Businessman
of the Year” by The Times and three years later “Chairman of the Year” by The
Economist. Sir Hamish never once altered his methods to keep pace with the
changing times, and if anything grew more stubborn in the belief that his ideas
of doing business were correct whatever anyone else thought; and he had a long
credit column to prove he was right.

In the early seventies, when the slump hit
the construction business, Graham Construction suffered the same cut in budgets
and lost contracts as any of its major competitors. Sir Hamish reacted in a
predictable way, by tightening his belt and paring his estimates while at the
same time refusing one jot to compromise his business principles. The company
therefore grew leaner and many of his more enterprising young executives left
Graham Construction for firms 69 which still believed in taking on the
occasional risky contract.