The Closed Circle (17 page)

16

Rolf's assistant had booked them both single rooms at the Brøndums Hotel, on Anchersvej. Downstairs, it was a quiet, old-fashioned, elegant place: upstairs, where the bathrooms and showers were shared, it turned out to be rather more spartan. They both remembered it as a place where their families had come for an
al fresco
evening meal in the summer of 1976, and had sat at a large table in the leafy garden, and felt slightly intimidated by the formality of the service and the elaborate detail of the menu which had had Colin Trotter flicking frantically through his English–Danish dictionary beneath the cover of the white tablecloth.

“What
naïfs
we all must have been, in those days,” Rolf said, chuckling, as they left the hotel later that evening and struck out towards the harbour in search of dinner.

“Well,
my
family were, that's for sure,” said Paul. “My God, that was the only holiday we took in the whole bloody decade that didn't involve sitting in a caravan in North Wales in the pouring rain. It was an incredible adventure for us.”

“And yet you, personally, took it in your stride. I remember thinking that you were completely . . . unflappable. I don't think I'd ever seen such self-possession in a young boy.”

“Benjamin and I are both self-possessed,” Paul mused, “in our different ways. In his case, it's turned out to be his downfall. In mine, it's been my strength. At least, I used to think so. Now I'm beginning to wonder. What about . . . allowing yourself to be possessed by somebody else? I'm beginning to think there's something to be said for that.”

Rolf looked at him keenly, but did not ask him to explain.

“And your sister,” he began, instead. “She was not with us that summer. She was very ill, I remember. None of you talked about it much: it was rather peculiar. She had received some injury—there had been a violent incident. Something about terrorism comes back to me. Am I right?”

Paul told him the story of Lois and how she had witnessed her boyfriend Malcolm's death. As he did so, they walked along Østre Strandvej, the quiet, verdant back roads having given way to an uglier, more commercial part of town, where the street was flanked by massive grey warehouses and the air smelled overpoweringly of fish. Rolf listened to the narrative gravely and did not speak for some time; he had no words of consolation to offer.

“And now she is well?” he said finally. “She leads a normal life?”

“More or less,” said Paul. “She works in a university library, these days. Married to a nice lawyer. One daughter, Sophie. I think there are occasional . . . relapses, but I don't hear about them much. We've never been close, Lois and I. I haven't seen her all year.”

They arrived at the harbour. It was after nine o'clock by now but the sky was still a luminescent eggshell blue. Rolf and Paul walked in silence. The tourist season had not started yet and all was quiet: the wooden huts selling beer and fish and chips to the early holidaymakers were already closed, the car parks were empty and the only noise was the subtle, irregular tinkle of rigging from the dozens of yachts and fishing boats moored by the quayside.

The receptionist at their hotel had recommended that they try eating at the Pakhuset restaurant, which did indeed appear to be the busiest and most welcoming spot in Skagen that night. A blonde waitress in her early twenties led them up a staircase, past captains' wheels, rudders, chronometers and nautical decorations of every description, towards a scattering of tables arranged on the wooden gallery, overlooking the downstairs bar which was thronged with two dozen or more young men and women, apparently celebrating a birthday party. Paul and Rolf sat opposite each other at a tiny table, their knees almost touching, and frowned with pointless intensity over the Danish menus.

“Let's ask that cute waitress for advice when she gets back,” Rolf suggested. “It will give us a good excuse to get talking to her.”

Paul nodded, although he had failed to notice, on this occasion, whether the waitress was cute or not. His head was still full of Malvina— from whom he now received another text message, just as he was gearing himself up to start talking to Rolf about his reasons for wanting to meet again.

Hope not interrupting vital discussions. Just wanted to say am still thinking of u. Always always always. Call later 2nite if u can? xxx

Paul put the phone away in his pocket after reading this and hoped that his smile had not betrayed too much.

“
Friske asparges
means fresh asparagus, presumably,” said Rolf, looking down at the menu over the top of his glasses. “With
rødtunge,
which can only be some kind of red fish—I suppose a snapper?” He gave the menu another brief glance and then laid it down. “What proportion of text messages, I wonder, are on a sexual or romantic theme? Ninety or ninety-five per cent, would you think? I wonder if there's been any research done into the subject yet.”

Paul laughed uneasily. “I hope you don't think—”

“I imagine that Mr. Tony Blair himself is texting you on a matter of state. Either that or your wife still harbours enough romantic feelings to send you virtual
billets doux
during your business trips abroad. How long have you been married now?”

“Five years. Yourself?”

“Twelve.”

Rolf added nothing to this bald information, and began spreading butter thickly on to a chunk of rye bread.

Paul hovered for a moment on the edge of the precipice—no more than that; it was really an easy leap to make—and then blurted out:

“I'm in love with somebody else.”

Rolf bit into his bread, leaving a perfect semi-circle of teeth marks in the butter. “Ah, yes. Well, that happens. That certainly happens.”

“You don't sound very surprised,” said Paul, rather offended to find this momentous confession being received with such insouciance.

“Who is she?” Rolf asked.

“Her name's Malvina. She's my media adviser.”

“Is that the same as a research assistant?”

“I suppose so, more or less.”

“Hm.” Rolf grunted. “No marks for originality, Paul. How old is she?”

“Twenty.”

He raised his eyebrows, tutted, and chewed on some more bread. “Dear me.”

“I know how that sounds,” said Paul. “But it's the real thing. It really is . . . the real thing.”

“Oh, I can see that,” Rolf assured him.

“You can? How?”

“It's in your eyes. They look desperate. The look of a man experiencing temporary euphoria, when underneath he doesn't have the faintest idea what he's going to do.” Paul was regarding him disbelievingly, so he added: “I know what I'm talking about, Paul. I've seen that look before.”

“Really? Where might that have been?”

“In the mirror. Twice.”

The waitress came to take their order, and Rolf got to work on the serious business of ordering food and the even more serious business of flirting with her. Within a few minutes he had established that she was a student at the university in Aalborg, reading biological sciences, that she had spent three months last summer in the United States, that she had two brothers and no boyfriend, that she kept in shape by doing yoga three times a week and she thought that Radiohead were overrated. She also persuaded them to try a house speciality called
Hvidvin med brombœrlikøk,
which she explained was a white wine supplemented with redcurrant liqueur. She brought them two tall glasses and after drinking his down within a few seconds, Rolf demanded that she bring them two more.

When they were both thoroughly drunk and thoroughly well fed, Rolf said to Paul: “A case can be made for saying that a male is simply a defective female. What do you make of that?”

“I'm not familiar with that theory,” said Paul, frowning.

“Well, you can look at it from a biological point of view,” said Rolf. “The presence of the Y-chromosome itself is a sign of deficiency. But you don't even have to be so specific about it. It's just common sense. Look at that waitress, for instance.”

“Lise.”

“Lise. Is her name Lise? Did she tell us that?”

“She did. A number of times.”

“Well. Look at her, anyway—trotting up and down that staircase, being so effortlessly charming to everybody. What is she, twenty-one, twenty-two? Look at the way our eyes follow her. What do we know about her? Only that she's young, and she has a body that we both crave. Apart from that, nothing. She could be a serial murderer, for all that we know. And yet either one of us, after a couple more drinks, would put our family lives at risk if she asked us to come back to her room. Wouldn't we? It's a pathological disorder of the male sex. We have no loyalty—no nesting instinct— none of the healthy, natural things women are born with. We're defective. A man is just a defective woman. It's as simple as that.”

“I think you're talking rubbish,” said Paul, “with the greatest respect. For one thing, why would she ask one of us back to her room? We're old men, as far as she's concerned.”

“You say that, Paul. But you have won the heart—apparently—of a beautiful twenty-year-old woman. So it can happen.”

“That's different. What's happening between me and Malvina has been building up for a long time. Last night it just came to a kind of crisis.”

Rolf laughed quietly. “The crisis has not yet begun, Paul. It hasn't even begun.”

“I know, it'll probably get into the papers. Nearly has already, in fact. But I can handle—”

“That's not what I mean,” said Rolf. “That's nothing. Nothing at all.” They had moved on to brandy by now: he swirled the ochre liquid around in its bell-like glass, his face souring into depression as he did so. “Anyway,” he said, snapping out of it with a willed effort, “talking of
crises,
isn't it about time we got down to business? Or am I expected to sit here all night waiting for you to tell me what it is you want from me?”

“What makes you think I want anything from you?”

“You didn't contact me this week in order to reminisce, Paul. Credit me with a little knowledge of human nature. Almost the last thing I said to you when we saw each other all those years ago—I don't remember the exact words, perhaps you do—was to thank you for saving my life and to assure you that I would always be in your debt. It's not the kind of thing you forget easily, is it? And now suddenly, out of the blue, you call me, after more than twenty years.
This week,
Paul. Now why would a British Member of Parliament, with a constituency in the West Midlands, contact a member of the board of management of BMW
this week,
of all weeks? Hm? It's a real puzzle, isn't it?”

Paul looked away, unable to meet his eye. But Rolf insisted: “I don't mind, you know. I wouldn't have come here if I hadn't wanted to help you. But I'm not sure there's much I can do.”

“If I . . .” Paul began, with some difficulty; then floundered and tried again. “If you and I can just . . . discuss some options. It's just that—the thing is, I may have got myself into a bit of a spot with the party, and I've been a bit inactive on the Longbridge front over the last few weeks, a bit preoccupied. If I could just show them, somehow, that I was . . . on the ball.”

“And this ‘spot' you're in—it has something to do with your media adviser?”

“Possibly.”

“Well then. It's always best to be direct, Paul. We save so much time that way. Just tell me what it is you want. No embarrassment. Straight to the point.”

“All right then.” Paul laid down his brandy glass, and clasped his hands together, almost in an attitude of prayer. Waves of throaty laughter reached them from the party downstairs. He waited for the noise to subside. “You shouldn't be selling Rover. BMW shouldn't be selling Rover. You should commit yourself to the Longbridge plant, and make a go of it.”

Rolf seemed genuinely taken aback, for the first time that evening. “But what you are proposing, Paul—or suggesting, rather—flies in the face of your own government's policy. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. But since the Alchemy bid failed, we are in talks with another buyer: the Phoenix Consortium. The talks are going well. And your Mr. Byers supports the Phoenix bid. In fact I was talking to him about it only this afternoon.”

“That's true. But my information is that the Phoenix bid is not realistic.”

“And where does this information come from? The newspapers, I suppose.”

“Mainly,” Paul was forced to admit.

“Well, as we know, you shouldn't believe everything that you read in the newspapers.”

“You mean, you're considering it?”

“What's the alternative? That we make thousands of workers redundant, and create a public relations disaster for ourselves?”

“There's a much simpler solution. Keep Longbridge going.”

Rolf gave a short, dismissive laugh. “And lose millions of pounds every week?”

“The losses aren't nearly as high as you've been making out. A lot of those figures are down to your own accounting methods.”

Whether because this was true, or whether because he was impressed by the sudden passion and sincerity with which Paul seemed to be arguing his point, Rolf fell silent for a while. He appeared to be considering the matter seriously.

“Well, let me get this clear,” he said at last. “You want me to persuade the board to change their minds about this—to perform a complete U-turn, in effect—so that you can go home and tell the news to your Mr. Blair and present yourself as a hero. The man who saved Longbridge.”

“Put like that—”

“Be honest with me, Paul. However much that goes against your training. Is that what you want me to do?”

Paul could see no point in dissembling. “Yes, I suppose it is.”