Goodmans Hotel - 5. Chapter 5

Expensive cars ought to come with a warning: possession of this engineering showpiece may make you feel like a millionaire, but imagine how dreadful you will feel if you crash it. At the end of summer on the Friday morning of a stressful week, about four months after the Mercedes had come into my possession, breakfast cereal and orange juice failed to help prepare me for the drive to work. Instead a twinge of queasiness in my innards, not severe enough to call a stomach ache, made me wonder if the previous evening’s take-away meal had been as wholesome as it looked.

Had half a dozen staff not been booked for a demonstration of some newly set up IT system facilities at ten o’clock I would have gone in late, or even for the first time in years taken a day off sick. The rain that morning was relentless, and before leaving the garage I put the top up over the Mercedes. The streets around my flat in Chiswick had a faint odour of decay, probably caused by the sticky mess that washes off lime trees in late summer. After a mile and a half the line of traffic in front of me slowed to a crawl, then halted, red stop lights shining brilliantly in the gloomy grey of the road ahead. We inched forward, stopping and starting in a fug of exhaust fumes.

A brief surge took us forward perhaps forty yards, and in a disastrous muddle of normal reflex actions instead of releasing the accelerator and putting my foot on the brake I did the opposite, shooting the car forwards and hitting the two-door Peugeot in front of me. At low speed the crash did not cause injury, but there was the inevitable crunch of plastic as the lights shattered. Putting the lights that were still working into hazard mode I got out to inspect the damage. The impact had crumpled a patch of metal around the Mercedes’ front bumper and badly dented the rear of the Peugeot.

Mercifully the other driver was calm. I shook my head, ignoring an impatient horn sounding a hundred yards back. ‘I can’t explain it, I don’t know how I came to do it. I’m really sorry. I can’t believe it.’

He looked at me with restrained disgust. ‘The insurance on those things must cost a fortune. Glad it’s not going to be me losing my no claims bonus over this. Probably a company car though. Is it?’

That was none of his business. ‘All my fault, no question. Are you all right?’

The rain discouraged us from talking more than was absolutely necessary. We exchanged details and he drove off, chancing that he would be safe with one rear light working. The Mercedes was not so battered that it could not be driven, but rather than take the scarred vehicle into the office car park where the ugly effects of the impact would be seen and everyone would gossip, I skulked into a side road, parked and walked to the nearest Underground station. I was in danger of being late for the demonstration and had to make getting to work my priority; calling a breakdown service would have to wait.

After escaping the Underground the queasiness left me and my head cleared. I reached work about five minutes before the demonstration was due to start and, not having time to go to my office first, went instead to the toilets to comb my hair and straighten my tie before facing the audience waiting in the training room.

In the front row, smiling encouragingly, was Lizetta Williams. The partners were holding their quarterly meeting that day, and having them out of everyone’s way in the board room made this a good time to bring together all the senior support staff. Two earlier demonstrations of the new software had been straightforward, but this time the moment I touched the keyboard an exclamation mark inside a bright yellow hexagon appeared on the screen. Beside it was the intimidating message in vivid red: Fatal Error! System Protocols Violated or Network Parameters Exceeded!

Some work on maintaining the system was regularly carried out after users had gone home, and the likely cause was that last night someone had interfered with the way the training room system was set up. Highly embarrassed I faced my audience: ‘We seem to be having trouble with the network. I’m not sure how long it will take to put right. Would it be a good idea to have coffee now and, hopefully, resume when things are sorted out?’

Lizetta helped me out by organising coffee while I went off to find the two members of my staff who understood the training room system best. They put aside what they were doing immediately to investigate the problem, but could not agree on its cause. Half an hour later they were still arguing about where the fault lay. Everyone had booked the morning’s session in their diary weeks ago, but there was no option other than to abandon it.

To try to salvage a little credibility I called them all together again and proposed giving a summary of the new system facilities with the aid of marker pens and a large whiteboard. They watched attentively as I reached into a cardboard box of about twenty pens, picked one up, and accidentally flicked the edge of the box as I lifted it out; the contents spilled out onto the floor and rolled everywhere, several pens coming to rest at Lizetta’s feet. She helped me pick them up while the others looked on, their expressions varying from exasperation to suppressed amusement.

When we had gathered in the last of the pens she said gently: ‘If I were you I’d call it a day and go home. Relax over the weekend and make a fresh start on Monday.’

My confidence had gone. Burning with embarrassment I turned to the others. ‘Sorry everyone, I still don’t know how long it will take to sort out the system. I’m not the superstitious type but — is it best to give up now before anything worse happens? I’ll contact you about another demo when we’ve sorted ourselves out. Sorry again, I hope I’ve not wasted too much of your time.’

I returned to my desk physically shaking. My own terminal was unaffected by the failure in the training room, and from habit I logged on to look at my e-mail. Among a dozen routine messages was an urgent one from Peter asking me to produce a paper on the latest system enhancements for the afternoon session of the partners’ quarterly meeting.

His secretary could not give me a reason for this sudden request. Peter himself could not be consulted as he was at the meeting, but she promised to tell him that I needed to talk to him about exactly what he wanted as soon as he came out.

As I put down my ?phone I noticed a message asking me to ring Tom immediately. I tried his home number and his mobile ’phone several times without success, and was annoyed that he had left an urgent message but was not waiting to take the call when I rang back.

Curious as to why the partners were to discuss the latest system enhancements that afternoon I began hunting through earlier papers and memos, looking for positive statements about the benefits, guessing at the sort of thing he might want. Three-quarters of an hour later he came hurtling towards me. ‘You’ve made a start?’

‘Yes.’

He looked quickly at what I had prepared. ‘What I want to do is to argue for using what you’ve developed as a standard for accountancy systems nationally. There’s no technical reason why other accountancy partnerships should not take on the developments is there?’

‘No, but they may have other—’

‘My idea is this. If we can convince the Institute of Accountants it should act as the national authority for setting standards for accountancy systems, better deals could be negotiated with suppliers, inter-working between companies would be easier, and the profession would be saved a lot of reinventing the wheel. In the long term we should have better systems at lower cost, the copyright on software owned by the Institute rather than individual suppliers. You see what I mean?’

His thinking had taken a giant leap from an upgrade to our internal system to the adoption of national systems and standards. ‘Ideally yes, but would the Institute be willing to involve itself? They’ve always kept aloof from information technology. All their Systems Subcommittee does is to produce a newsletter about things that have already been implemented, they don’t take a lead in anything. Competition among accountancy software suppliers is tough. Trying to take over control and get them to co-operate and let the Institute hold copyrights...’

‘I know about all that. Accountancy and computers are so intertwined now the Institute ought to play more of a role, not leave it to the suppliers to make all the running. They are the independent body, they are supposed to look after the interests of the profession, and that is precisely what I am suggesting they start to do. Let me have what you can put together in the next hour. Then, will you be able to come into the partners’ meeting this afternoon? I want to convince them we have to stop the Institute dragging its feet.’

‘Yes, but... I’m not sure what use I’ll be. The partners won’t be interested in anything too technical.’

‘You’re right about that, no techno-babble, keep everything in layman’s terms. My secretary will ring you when the item comes up for discussion. Should be between three and three-thirty to judge from where it is on the agenda, but be on standby from two-thirty. Keep the whole afternoon free if you can. Is that likely to be a problem?’

‘No, no, I’ll be waiting for the call.’

‘Excellent.’ He rushed off again, leaving me bewildered. Even if there were good arguments for what he was suggesting – and I myself was not convinced – an hour was not long enough for me to write a coherent well argued case. What I gave to his secretary was a hotchpotch. The thought of him putting his proposals to the partners without a lot more work, and thoroughly softening them up beforehand, appalled me.

Worried about making a fool of myself in the afternoon for the third time that day I rang Lizetta to ask if she had any idea why he had suddenly become so interested in engaging the Institute on computer system standards.

‘There are rumours flying around that the knives are out for Peter. A lot of it is probably exaggerated, but let’s meet for lunch and I’ll tell you what I know.’

We went to our usual sandwich bar where she ordered her soup and roll. Preoccupied with the misfortunes of the day, although my appetite had recovered after the morning’s nausea I ordered the same. We sat at one of the little chrome tables, eating with our elbows tucked in so as not to jab people nearby. My soup and roll lasted about five minutes, whilst Lizetta, busy telling me what she had heard, made hers last a full half hour.

‘This is rumour, you understand, and I’m putting together bits from different sources, some of it from Caroline, some from elsewhere. You’ve probably heard most of it already.’

‘No, I’ve heard nothing. You may not have thought so this morning, but setting up the new software has kept me extremely busy. Outside the information technology unit I’ve not talked to anyone much for the past few months.’

‘You should always make time for gossip. Let me bring you up to date. After the merger the support staff were reorganised very quickly, but the accountants themselves carried on much as before, keeping the same clients they had been dealing with over the years. The plan in that report of yours, remember, was that they should reallocate their work according to a new classification of business sectors, and a few months ago they all went off to a hotel in the country to battle over who should take over what.’

‘I remember churning out masses of statistics for them. All that’s been worked out now, hasn’t it, the reorganisation is under way?’

‘Yes, but Peter has a problem. There was a scramble for the sectors with the most prestigious clients. Peter’s success in steering through the merger must have gone to his head. Rather than join the fray he set out to take over the firm’s seat on the Institute of Accountants’ General Committee. For as long as anyone can remember that privilege has been shared by the three most senior partners, each taking a year in turn. Why he thought they could be induced to make him the Committee member I can’t imagine. He couldn’t have picked on anything more likely to make him unpopular. You could probably steal the clothes off the old codgers’ backs more easily than deprive them of their stuffy meetings at the Institute. You’d stand a better chance of persuading them to give up their pensions.’

‘Peter must be aware of that, surely.’

‘You would think so, but somehow he has convinced himself that he is so valuable to the firm they ought to give him whatever he wants. Caroline thinks he’s been led on to some extent by people who are out to get him. As well as infuriating the three current partners who take turns on the Committee, all those who were waiting in the queue for the current triumvirate to retire are also upset. Some accused Peter to his face of trying to ruin their chances.’

‘So what is going to happen at this afternoon’s meeting?’

‘While he has been wasting all his energy demanding the impossible, all the main industry sectors have been allocated to other partners. There are two jobs left. One is dealing with an assortment of small clients; the other is to go on loan to the firm we have links with in New York for one to two years. Guess who everyone thinks would benefit from a couple of years’ experience in the States?’

‘Peter... but he gave up a job in the US before joining the firm.’

‘Exactly. He is now desperately trying to find a way out. Maybe he’s accepted that the three senior partners will not give up the Committee, and is hoping he can persuade them to put him forward to the Institute in some sort of computer supremo role.’

‘What will happen to Caroline if they send him to the States?’

‘She will probably go with him. There are plenty of multi-national firms based in New York that would be glad to take on someone with her personnel experience in the UK and Europe. She’s fine, by the way. She asks after you, you know. We’ll have to fix up to have a meal together. You’ll find her good company now.’

No matter how good the paper that Peter intended to present that afternoon, it was unlikely to be well received. In the partners’ eyes the Institute was sacred. To convince them to put such a novel proposal forward would require months of persuasion. To try to push the idea at the quarterly meeting without doing the preparatory work was hopeless.

I had a dozen routine tasks to get through that afternoon, but dread of the summons to the meeting made it difficult to focus my mind on any of them. After half a dozen attempts I gave up trying to contact Tom. Increasing hunger was making me irritable. Why had I not had something more substantial at lunch with Lizetta? I dared not go out again in case Peter sent for me; one or two people who might have been asked to go out to the sandwich bar for me as a favour were engaged on tasks that could not easily be set aside. I would have to starve.

Suddenly I remembered the car. It had been in the side street for hours and might easily have been stolen or vandalised. The breakdown service was engaged twice when I tried to ring, but I got through the third time and hurriedly explained the problem, no doubt sounding like a complete buffoon. They repeated back the details of where to find it and, with understandable annoyance, promised to make collecting it a priority, ‘since all your appointments have prevented you from letting us know about the accident before now, sir.’ Reporting the crash to the office manager would have to wait until Monday; by then her disapproval might be easier to bear.

The call to the quarterly meeting did not come until four o’clock. I was as nervous as I had been at my first ever job interview. In the board room there was one free chair, more or less opposite Peter. The chairman waved me towards it, thanked me for coming to help with what he called Peter’s ‘submission’, and asked him to begin.

Copies of the paper refined from my hurried drafts were passed around the table. Peter could have had little more than an hour to work on it, but had turned my rag-bag of extracts into a three-page well ordered document. He spoke for ten minutes, rehearsing the main arguments in the paper, sounding more and more enthusiastic as he went along, expanding on the benefits that would flow when the Institute became the leading influence on new computer technology throughout the profession.

He said that recent progress with the firm’s own systems put it in a unique position to help the Institute take on the key role of helping the whole profession obtain better value from computer suppliers.

Listening to him I almost began to think that he might win the partners over. The old codgers’ faces expressed nothing, but that was normal. On the table, too far away for me to reach, was a plateful of biscuits. No coffee had been offered me, and it would have been impertinent to ask, but the chocolate bourbons and jam creams looked mouth-watering. After finishing his peroration Peter turned to me and said, ‘Have I given a reasonably accurate summary, Mark? Anything you’d like to add?’

He had put the case so comprehensively there was little for me to say. ‘I think you’ve effectively covered the ground. I might mention one specific thing, the improved level of security now available for high speed transmission of data over telephone networks. This does extend the scope for co-operation with other organisations. I could provide more detailed information on any of the topics mentioned if you,’ I looked at the expressionless faces around me, ‘have any questions.’ I wished a couple of strong new arguments had come to me; what I said was better than speechless embarrassment, but not much.

The chairman, concealing the nastiness of what he was about to do behind a smooth civilised tone, said, ‘Forgive me if I show ignorance of computer science, but this latest software that you’re implementing – am I using the right technical terms?’

‘Yes.’

‘This new software, I am sure it is a wonderful advance, but how big a difference will it make to our firm, or to the other firms which Peter believes might benefit from it? Will there be, for instance, major cost savings, or some great attraction to our clients? Should we look forward to it bringing us substantial new business?’

‘I can’t say that, no. Some things will take less time to do under the new system, so there will be some savings...’

‘But not major savings?’

‘The main advantages are qualitative: some things can be done in a more straightforward way, there are additional facilities, presentation is better. The broad sweep of what Peter is saying does not depend on these particular enhancements, they would be a sort of starting point...’

‘Thank you, Mark, that’s been extremely helpful. I think I can speak for us all when I say that we have come to expect no less from you. Would you all agree with me there?’ He was evidently deriving pleasure from making me look small. He looked around the table, raising his eyebrows to encourage nods and smiles of agreement. ‘I hope we haven’t kept you away for too long from your other pressing duties.’

‘No, not at all.’ I stood up, took a last longing glance at the plate of biscuits, and left Peter on his own, defenceless. Hearing the chairman’s patronising dismissal of me he must have realised that none of the old codgers, or even the younger more progressive partners, was in the least interested in his new initiative. He was sure now to be forced into ‘submission’, to use the word with which the chairman had so contemptuously described his proposals.

At half past five, after the meeting disbanded, he walked into my office. ‘Couldn’t make them see sense, the old fools. I thought we put up a nigh on irrefutable case. Didn’t succeed, but we can’t be accused of not trying. Thanks for your support.’

‘Maybe if we’d had more time. The chairman completely threw me with that question. I’m sorry, I was struggling.’

‘No, no. You put up a good show. Wasn’t your fault their ears are stuffed with cotton wool. Cotton wool in their heads too, most of them. We may have lost today, but the issue won’t go away; what I was saying makes sense, we both know that.’

‘Is it going to make a big difference? In terms of what happens here, I mean.’

‘To me personally it will. Hard as it is to believe, the old codgers have somehow managed to run rings around me. What annoys me is that clients were drifting elsewhere before I joined the firm and shook things up! If they think that they’ve got away with today’s little exercise in crushing my ideas they’re in for a few surprises. What I could do with now is a pint. Expect you could too. You deserve one.’

Severely battered by the events of the day, what I wanted to do was to go home for a simple meal, and go on to meet Tom as usual on a Friday night. Given the extent of the disaster which had befallen Peter, his request was impossible to refuse.

We met at reception at six-thirty and walked out into one of those powerful winds that sends papers and food packaging flying up into the air between tall City buildings. He marched me past three pubs, doubtless wanting to be far enough away from the office to reduce the risk of bumping into anyone we knew.

Eventually we headed for the run-down dingy little pub where I had been taken ages ago to see the female stripper. A handwritten notice told us this form of entertainment continued, but fortunately it had finished at three o’clock. There were perhaps half a dozen people in the bar, drinking and talking quietly in the half-light. He bought the first round and we sat at a small square table against a wall, squinting at each other past yellow wall lights set too low down.

‘Fancy the old codgers getting the better of me like that. A couple of them encouraged me, probably leading me on for their own devious reasons. That merger has done some good, but evidently it wasn’t enough to shake most of them out of their usual do nothing attitude.’

‘They stuck together, when the crucial moment came.’

‘Damn right they did. Nothing to be done about it now. Bloody firm. Whenever you try to achieve something there are always a dozen buggers trying to hold you back. Easiest thing is to let them all go to ruin in their own chosen way. Not only have they thrown out my ideas for the Institute but they’re trying to ship me off to the States. You know I had a spell there some time ago?’

‘Yes, you told me about it. How long would it be for?’

‘At least a year. Have to get used to the idea, I suppose, try to see it as an opportunity. Right now it seems more like a punishment. They’re an ungrateful lot of bastards. I don’t suppose any of them has a clue how much effort and sheer determination were needed to pull off that merger. I gave everything I’d got to achieve that. Honestly thought I’d begun to make a difference. They won’t get the best of me that easily. Time is on my side, they can’t cling to their lackadaisical old ways forever.’

Drinking so early in the evening on an almost empty stomach began to affect my head. Peter’s need to unburden himself was understandable, but he showed no concern for my situation. Friendship with him was always friendship on his terms. In this ritual commiseration over pints of beer it fell to me to buy the next round whether I wanted another drink or not. Up at the bar I asked for a packet of crisps and a packet of peanuts, hoping that food would prevent my head from becoming worse.

‘We’re out of stock.’

‘Do you have any food at all?’

‘None. We’re having trouble with our supplier. I should have some in on Monday or Tuesday.’

‘I’m starving,’ I said, paying for the beers.

Peter overheard this exchange. ‘People like that make me sick,’ he said when I returned to the table. ‘They don’t deserve to be in business. They could easily go to a supermarket and buy half a dozen packets of nuts and crisps, how much initiative does that take?’

We consumed our second pints at a much more comfortable pace, while he speculated about the effect of his new job on Caroline, saying that she ought to have a good chance of finding work in New York. I listened and nodded, encouraging him to do most of the talking. After about an hour he was less agitated, and my hopes of escape rose when he seemed to be running out of things to say.

‘What a way to start the weekend! That’s enough of my troubles. What about you? What’s happening to you these days?’

‘Oh, nothing much.’

‘Still living in Chiswick, on your own?’

‘Yes, I’m still on my own.’

‘Anyone special at the moment?’

What would he think of my relationship with Tom, so utterly different from his socially approved marital status? ‘There is someone, a boyfriend. We’re doing all right.’ If he knew what Tom did for a living he was bound to sneer. Instead I talked about Andrew, how he was building up his business in Ferns and Foliage, about the nursery in Buckinghamshire and how he was hoping to expand onto land adjoining the site.

‘I admire his type. They’re resourceful and energetic. What he does is small scale, they’re living above the shop types of business, but he has the satisfaction of being his own man. Nobody is going to be able to pack him off to the States when he doesn’t want to go.’

All this time I was watching the level of beer in Peter’s glass, matching my speed of drinking to his, hoping that soon we would finish our drinks and I would be able to go home. When his glass was empty, before I could stop him he was on his feet and at the bar ordering refills. On his return he said he was awfully sorry but he would have to go soon and we would have to make these the last beers, as though our being there had been at my instigation, not his.

Finally we left, a stomach too full of beer doing nothing to ease my hunger. The rush hour was over, but my train was full and I had to stand all the way back to Chiswick. My mind churned over all the events of the day, the alcohol jumbling everything up. Peter’s support had helped my progress in the firm so much, his rapid downfall made me wonder about my own future. I had climbed to a level from which it would be difficult to go higher. Should I start looking for a better paid job elsewhere? Had the time come for me to make a complete change to something where I would no longer be vulnerable to humiliation by elderly accountants who considered themselves my superiors?

Having left the flat that morning feeling nauseous, I returned to it with a headache. If Tom and I went as usual to the Beckford Arms I would have to avoid drinking more alcohol. In the hope of mitigating the effects of the beer I made myself two thick slices of toast, liberally spread them with jam and washed this inadequate meal down with instant coffee.

A shower made me feel much better, and refreshed I noticed for the first time that there were two messages on the answering machine. Both were from Tom, the first asking me to call him back, the second saying: ‘Hello Mark, been trying to reach you. Expect you’ve been out wining and dining in expensive restaurants all day as usual. I’ve got bad news: Andrew’s been taken ill, he’s had a blackout. It’s quite serious, they’ve taken him into hospital. I went in to see him but they only let me stay a few minutes. About to get myself something to eat. See you in the Beckford Arms later. Bye.’