The Fall and Rise of Gordon Coppinger - David Nobbs

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two languages. Somebody out there doesn’t like us, Dad.’

      ‘It seems like it. Oh dear. What do you want me to do, Luke?’

      ‘I don’t think you can do anything. But the press know. I thought I ought to warn you.’

      ‘OK, right. Thanks.’

      He couldn’t just ring off. He had to say something, show – that surprise word again, that stranger from the unused pages of the dictionary of his mind – sympathy.

      ‘And Luke?’

      ‘Yes, Dad?’

      ‘I may not understand your pictures. I may not like them. Probably I’m wrong, since they fetch such amazing prices, but … I’m sorry. Really. That’s an awful thing to happen to an artist.’

      ‘Well, thanks, Dad, I … thanks.’

      Thank God we’re on the phone, thought Sir Gordon. If we’d been together we might have hugged.

      ‘Sorry about that, F.U.,’ he told Fred after he had rung off, ‘but it was important. My son’s picture of the Garden of Eden has been vandalized.’

      Fred shifted uneasily in his easy chair. He wasn’t interested in Luke’s troubles, but he clearly felt that he had to ask something.

      ‘Was it blasphemous?’

      ‘I didn’t understand it well enough to be able to say. I suppose it could be some religious nutter. Plenty of them about. But part of the message read, “Like father, like son”. I assumed that was us.’

      ‘Could have been God the Father and Jesus the Son. They’re pretty well known too.’

      Sir Gordon looked at Fred Upson in astonishment.

      ‘Sorry,’ said Fred.

      ‘No. No. I rather … fair point. Rather good, Fred. I …’

      I almost liked you there, for a moment. Couldn’t say that.

      ‘So what was it you were going to say to me when the phone went?’

      ‘Obviously we still need to declare big losses, Fred.’

      A smile played with the edges of Sir Gordon’s mouth as he recalled the day he appointed Fred. ‘So you are asking me to be MD of a loss leader?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So you consider me the ideal man to run a firm that is a loss leader?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I see.’

      The smile died.

      ‘But in the present climate, Fred,’ said Sir Gordon, suddenly very solemn, ‘we may not be able to afford to continue to actually make big losses. The office is costing too much to run. Declare more losses, make fewer. I want a report on potential savings on my desk one month from today. One month from today, F.U. Things could be going to get serious. We’re going to have to up our game.’

      Their eyes met again, and each held his gaze.

      ‘You’ve shocked me,’ said Fred Upson.

      ‘I’ve shocked myself,’ said Sir Gordon. ‘I really have shocked myself.’

       Can we be absolutely certain that they can’t lip-read?

      That anxiety, throbbing in his gut like the engines of a slow-moving ship, sharpened slightly. ‘10.30 GI.’

      He pulled forward three easy chairs for the managers of GI.

      Within minutes Keith Gostelow, Dan Perkins, and Adam Eaglestone were stretching their legs in their chairs. The heartland of Sir Gordon’s empire was not a bastion of equal rights for women.

      If a member of the public was introduced to Keith Gostelow, Dan Perkins, and Adam Eaglestone as the triumvirate who ran a major investment company, that member of the public would not be impressed. But no members of the public did meet them. That was not the nature of Gordon Investments.

      ‘Any problems, gentlemen?’

      Keith Gostelow and Adam Eaglestone exchanged a very swift, uneasy glance, a glance which excluded Dan Perkins. Sir Gordon’s sharp eyes missed none of this, and he didn’t like the glance. It suggested that there were problems – or, at least, that there was a problem.

      ‘Keith?’

      It was an acknowledgement from Sir Gordon that he had seen and understood the glance.

      ‘Um …’ began Keith Gostelow – floppy, anarchic hair; bad complexion. ‘Maybe it’s just me, but … and I’m not saying it’s a serious matter, don’t get me wrong, but … um … I have noticed … I mean, not widely, and not equally over the whole country, and perhaps more in long-term investments, but also in … in the long term … in short-term investments … a bit … but as I say, not widely, but enough to make me take notice … investment is … in some areas … in some fields … um … not great.’

      ‘Poor?’

      ‘Exactly.’ Keith smiled, then the smile dissolved into slight panic. ‘Well, I mean, no, not exactly poor, no.’

      ‘But not great?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘Adam? Your take on this?’

      Adam Eaglestone – balding, short, shiny suit – was more fluent.

      ‘Uptake is sluggish. I would say that this is entirely unsurprising in view of economic sentiment at this moment in time. However, I would offer this cautious addendum. Should the economic situation weaken still further – and I see no reason to be optimistic about this – I do think that a problem might arise, and should be guarded against, if it can be done without weakening confidence, because to weaken confidence might be to precipitate the crisis whose possibility was the cause of confidence weakening in the first place.’

      ‘Thank you, Adam. Dan?’

      ‘We’re in the shit.’

      Sir Gordon paused. The words of Dan Perkins – all muscle, face like granite – seemed to echo round the vast office. The clouds drifting slowly past the great picture window were just slightly coloured as if the sun was attempting to break through, giving them an unattractive muddy complexion which reminded Sir Gordon of the unpleasant waste matter in which, in Dan Perkins’s pithy opinion, they were.

      ‘So,’ said Sir Gordon. He let the word hang there. It hung well, so he repeated it. ‘So … if Dan’s view is right, and if what you two were saying reflects that view – and I am of course absolutely shocked to hear this, but I respect you or I wouldn’t have appointed you …’ The sentence wasn’t going well. Every man finds himself occasionally in the middle of a sentence which isn’t going well. The average man struggles to its muddled end. A great man abandons it. Sir Gordon abandoned it and returned to the word which, since it had served him well twice already, might be expected to be effective again. ‘So …’ he said, and once more he let the word hang there.

      ‘Do you think we should reduce the return by, say, for instance … um …’ began Keith Gostelow.

      Suddenly two men appeared at the window, one of them massive, with a broken nose, the other short, wiry and grim-faced. Sir Gordon’s heart almost stopped. Ice coursed through his veins. He couldn’t breathe. The tall man raised his gun. So this was it. Pie Producer Patriot Gunned Down in Canary Wharf Horror. He’d known that he had enemies, of course, but …

      Then he realized that the gun was a mop. He raised his arm in greeting. The large window cleaner waved back, and then the two were obscured by a torrent of water.

      ‘… or I mean maybe we should … um … I don’t know … well, I mean, I really don’t mean that I don’t know …’

      ‘Quiet,’

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