A Quiver Full of Arrows (4 page)

Should I mention him? No. Mustn’t sound
pushy, or as though I needed the money.

The food arrived, or that is to say her
smoked salmon did, and I sat silently watching her eat my bank account while I
nibbled a roll. I looked up only to discover a wine waiter hovering by my side.

“Would you care for some wine?” said I, recklessly.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. I smiled a
little too soon: “Well, perhaps a little something white and dry.”

The wine waiter handed over a second
leather-bound 1 book, this time with golden grapes embossed on the cover. I
searched down the pages for half bottles, explaining to my guest that I never
drank at lunch. I chose the cheapest. The wine waiter reappeared a moment later
with a large silver salver full of ice in which the half bottle looked drowned,
and, like me, completely out of its depth. A junior waiter cleared away the empty
plate while another wheeled a large trolley to the side of our table and served
the lamb cutlets and the chef’s salad. At the same time a third waiter made up
an exquisite side salad for my guest which ended up bigger than my complete
order. I didn’t feel I could ask her to swap.

To be fair, the chef’s salad was superb-
although I confess it was hard to appreciate such food fully while trying to
work out a plot that would be convincing if I found the bill came to over
thirty-seven pounds.

“How silly of me to ask for white wine with
lamb,” she said, having nearly finished the half bottle. I ordered a half
bottle of the house red without calling for the wine list.

She finished the white wine and then
launched into the theatre, music and other authors. All those who were still
alive she seemed to know and those who were dead she hadn’t read. I might have
enjoyed the performance if it hadn’t been for the fear of wondering if I would
be able to afford it when the curtain came down. When the waiter cleared away
the empty dishes he asked my guest if she would care for anything else.

“No, thank you,” she said – I nearly applauded.
“Unless you have one of your famous apple surprises.”

“I fear the last one may have gone, madam,
but I’ll go and see.”

Don’t hurry, I wanted to say, but instead I
just smiled as the rope tightened around my neck. A few moments later the
waiter strode back in triumph weaving between the tables holding the apple
surprise, in the palm of his hand, high above his head. I prayed to Newton that
the apple would obey his law. It didn’t.

“The last one, madam.”

Lunchers “Oh, what luck,” she declared.

“Oh, what luck,” I repeated, unable to face
the menu and discover the price. I was now attempting some mental arithmetic as
I realised it was going to be a close run thing.

“Anything else, madam?” the ingratiating
waiter inquired.

I took a deep breath.

“Just coffee,” she said.

“And for you, Sir?”

“No, no, not for me.” He left us. I couldn’t
think of an explanation for why I didn’t drink coffee.

She then produced from the large Gucci bag
by her side a copy of my novel, which I signed with a flourish, hoping the head
waiter would see me and feel I was the sort of man who should be allowed to
sign the bill as well, but he resolutely remained at the far end of the room
while I wrote the words “An unforgettable meeting” and appended my signature.

While the dear lady was drinking her coffee
I picked at another roll and called for the bill, not because I was in any
particular hurry, but like a guilty defendant at the Old Bailey I preferred to
wait no longer for the judge’s sentence. A man in a smart green uniform, whom I
had never seen before appeared carrying a silver tray with a folded piece of
paper on it looking not unlike my bank statement. I pushed back the edge of the
check slowly and read the figure: thirtysix pounds and forty pence. I casually
put my hand into my inside pocket and withdrew my life’s possessions and then
placed the crisp new notes on the silver tray. They were whisked away.

The man in the green uniform returned a few
moments later with my sixty pence change, which I pocketed as it was the only
way I was going to get a bus home.

The waiter gave me a look that would have
undoubtedly won him a character part in any film produced by the lady’s
distinguished husband.

My guest rose and walked across the
restaurant, waving at, and occasionally kissing people that I had previously only
seen in glossy magazines. When she reached the door she stopped to retrieve her
coat, a mink.

I helped her on with the fur, again failing
to leave a tip. As we stood on the Curzon Street pavement, a dark blue
Rolls-Royce drew up beside us and a liveried chauffeur leaped out and opened
the rear door. She climbed in.

“Goodbye, darling,” she said, as the
electric window slid down. “Thank you for such a lovely lunch.”

“Goodbye,” I said, and summoning up my
courage added: “I do hope when you are next in town I shall have the
opportunity of meeting your distinguished husband.”

“Oh, darling, didn’t you know?” she said as
she looked out from the Rolls-Royce.

“Know what?”

“We were divorced ages ago.”

“Divorced?” said 1.

“Oh yes,” she said gaily, “I haven’t spoken
to him for years.

I just stood there looking helpless.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself on my account,”
she said. “He’s no loss. In any case I have recently married again” -another
film producer, I prayed- “In fact, I quite expected to bump into my husband
today – you see, he owns the restaurant.”

Without another word the electric window
purred up and the Rolls-Royce glided effortlessly out of sight leaving me to
walk to the nearest bus stop.

As I stood surrounded by Literary Guild
guests, staring at the white queen with the cottage loaf bun, I could still see
her drifting away in that blue Rolls-Royce. I tried to concentrate on her
words.

“I knew you wouldn’t forget me, darling,”
she was saying. “After all, I did take you to lunch, didn’t I?”

T
he blue and silver 707 jet, displaying a
large “P”on its tail plane, taxied to a halt at the north end of Lagos
International Airport. A fleet of six black Mercedes drove up to the side of
the aircraft and waited in a line resembling a land-bound crocodile. Six
sweating, uniformed drivers leaped out and stood to attention. When the driver
of the front car opened his rear door, Colonel Usman of the Federal Guard stepped
out, and walked quickly to the bottom of the passenger steps which had been
hurriedly pushed into place by four of the airport staff.

The front section cabin door swung back and
the colonel stared up into the gap, to see, framed against the dark interior of
the cabin, a slim, attractive hostess dressed in a blue suit with silver
piping. On her jacket lapel was a large “P”. She turned and nodded in the
direction of the cabin.

A few seconds later, an immaculately dressed
tall man with thick black hair and deep brown eyes replaced her in the doorway.
The man had an air of effortless style about him which self-made millionaires
would have paid a considerable part of their fortune to possess. The colonel
saluted as Senhor Eduardo Francisco de Silveira, head of the Prentino empire
gave a curt nod.

De Silveira emerged from the coolness of his
airconditioned 707 into the burning Nigerian sun without showing the slightest
sign of discomfort. The colonel guided the tall, elegant Brazilian, who was
accompanied only by his private secretary, to the front Mercedes while the rest
of the Prentino stafffiled down the back stairway ofthe aircraft and 13 filled
the other five cars. The driver, a corporal who had been detailed to be
available night and day for the honoured guest, opened the rear door of the
front car and saluted. Eduardo de Silveira showed no sign of acknowledgment.
The corporal smiled nervously, revealing the largest set of white teeth the
Brazilian had ever seen.

“Welcome to Lagos,” the corporal volunteered.
“Hope you make very big deal while you are in Nigeria.”

Eduardo did not comment as he settled back
into his seat and stared out of the tinted window to watch some passengers of a
British Airways 707 that had landed just before him form a long queue on the
hot tarmac as they waited patiently to clear customs. The driver put the car
into first gear and the black crocodile proceeded on itsjourney. Colonel Usman
who was now in the front seat beside the corporal, soon discovered that the
Brazilian guest did not care for small talk, and the secretary who was seated
by his employer’s side never once opened his mouth. The colonel, used to doing
things by example, remained silent, leaving de Silveira to consider his plan of
campaign.

Eduardo Francisco de Silveira had been born
in the small village of Rebeti, a hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, heir
to one of the two most powerful family fortunes in Brazil. He had been educated
privately in Switzerland before attending the University of California in Los
Angeles. He went on to complete his education at the Harvard Business School. After
Harvard he returned from America to work in Brazil where he started neither at
the top or the bottom of the firm but in the middle, managing his family’s
mining interests in Minas Gerais. He quickly worked his way to the top, even
faster than his father had planned, but then the boy turned out to be not so
much a chip as a chunk off the old block. At twenty-nine he married Maria,
eldest daughter of his father’s closest friend, and when twelve years later his
father died Eduardo succeeded to the Prentino throne. There were seven sons in
all: the second son, Alfredo, was now in charge of banking; Joao ran shipping;
Carlos organized construction; Manuel arranged food and supplies; Jaime managed
the family newspapers, and little Antonio, the last- and certainly the least –
ran the family farms. All the brothers reported to Eduardo before making any
mayor decision, for he was still chairman of the largest private company in
Brazil, despite the boastful claims of his old family enemy, Manuel Rodrigues.

When General Castelo Branco’s military
regime overthrew the civilian government in 1964 the generals agreed that they
could not kill off all the de Silveiras or the Rodrigues so they had better
learn to live with the two rival families. The de Silveiras for their part had
always had enough sense never to involve themselves in politics other than by
making payments to every government official, military or civilian, according
to his rank. This ensured that the Prentino empire grew alongside whatever
faction came to power. One of the reasons Eduardo de Silveira had allocated
three days in his crowded schedule for a visit to Lagos was that the Nigerian
system of government seemed to resemble so closely that of Brazil, and at least
on this project he had cut the ground from under Manuel Rodrigues’ feet which
would more than make up for losing the Rio airport tender to him. Eduardo
smiled at the thought of Rodrigue8 not realising that he was in Nigeria to
close a deal that could make him twice the size of his rival.

As the black Mercedes moved slowly through
the teeming noisy streets paying no attention to traffic lights, red or green,
Eduardo thought back to his first meeting with General Mohammed, the Nigerian
Head of State, on the occasion of the President’s official visit to Brazil.
Speaking at the dinner given in General Mohammed’s honour, President Ernesto
Geisel declared a hope that the two countries would move towards closer
co-operation in politics and commerce.

Eduardo agreed with his unelected leader and
was happy to leave the politics to the President if he allowed him to get on
with the commerce. General Mohammed made his reply, on behalf of the guests, in
an English accent that normally 35

A Quiver Full o/A”ows would only be
associated with Oxford.

The general talked at length of the project
that was most dear to his heart, the building of a new Nigerian capital in
Abuja, a city which he considered might even rival Brasilia.

After the speeches were over, the general
took de Silveira on one side and spoke in greater detail of the Abuja city
project asking him if he might consider a private tender.

Eduardo smiled and only wished that his
enemy, Rodrigues, could hear the intimate conversation he was having with the
Nigerian Head of State.

Eduardo studied carefully the outline
proposal sent to him a week later, after the general had returned to Nigeria,
and agreed to his first request by despatching a research team of seven men to
fly to Lagos and complete a feasibility study on Abuja.

One month later, the team’s detailed report
was in de Silveira’s hands.

Eduardo came to the conclusion that the
potential profitability of the project was worthy of a full proposal to the
Nigerian government. He contacted General Mohammed personally to find that he
was in full agreement and authorised the go-ahead. This time twenty-three men
were despatched to Lagos and three months and one hundred and seventy pages
later, Eduardo signed and sealed the proposal designated as, “A New Capital for
Nigeria”. He made only one alteration to the final document. The cover of the
proposal was in blue and silver with the Prentino logo in the centre: Eduardo
had that changed to green and white, the national colours of Nigeria, with the
national emblem of an eagle astride two horses: he realised it was the little
things that impressed generals and often tipped the scales. He sent ten copies
of the feasibility study to Nigeria’s Head of State with an invoice for one
million dollars.