It Had to Be You

But she didn’t.

The Pizza Express was like … well, it was like every other Pizza Express. Just about Italian enough to be acceptable to the sophisticated, not so Italian that it discomfited the gauche. Warm enough to be pleasant to enter, cool enough to discourage a long stay.

A Polish waiter approached, trying to look Italian, trying to pretend to be really rather excited to see them. His insufficiently practised Eastern European smile foundered on the rock of Dwight Schenkman’s face.

‘Anything to drink, gentlemen?’

God, I could sink a Peroni.

‘Just a small sparkling water, please,’ said Dwight Schenkman.

Maybe a glass of the Montepulciano, thought James. A large one. But the words died in his throat.

‘Still water, please.’

James studied the menu. How, when the main course was mainly pizza, could there be dough balls as a starter? How much dough could a man consume?

‘How’s the lovely Deborah?’

‘Very well. Very well indeed.’

‘You’re a lucky son of a gun.’

‘I know I am. More than I deserve.’

‘And Max?’

‘Great.’

‘And Charlotte? The absent Charlotte?’

‘Still absent.’

The tension grew with every devastating drip of politeness. Now he had to take his turn at asking questions, and there was a problem. The names of Dwight’s wife and family escaped him entirely. He had once begun a correspondence course to improve his memory. ‘That’ll be a futile gesture,’ Deborah had predicted, and she’d been right. Halfway through the course he’d forgotten all about it.

‘Everything all right with your family?’ he enquired.

Pathetic. The lack of detail was blatant. But the BWC didn’t seem to notice. He took a photograph from his wallet.

‘We have our very first grandchild.’ He handed James a photo of an ugly, podgy baby being held in the excessively ample arms of an unrealistically blonde lady with slightly stick-out teeth. In the background was a bungalow of quite spectacular dreariness. ‘Who do you think that is?’

Inspiration, that rare visitor to his life, struck James.

‘Dwight Schenkman the Fifth?’

‘Yessir!’ This was said so loudly that several people in the vicinity turned to look.

‘Lovely,’ said James. ‘They make a lovely couple. And is that their home? It looks … cosy.’

‘James, that is exactly what it is. Dwight’s very New York, but Howard’s a real home bird. That’s his wife, Josie. James, it gives me great pleasure that you, my old friend, my trusted manager of the London office, think that Josie and Howard make a lovely couple. Thank you.’

James looked desperately for sarcasm and found none. But ‘old friend’, ‘trusted manager’. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all.

The waiter scurried across with their water, and asked if they were ready to order.

‘Absolutely,’ said Dwight Schenkman the third without consulting James. ‘James?’

‘I’ll have the capricciosa, please.’

‘Great choice, James. I’ll have the Veneziana. I like to feel I’m giving 25p to Venice. It’s a great little town. And those dough balls sound nice to start. You going for the dough balls, James?’

‘No, thank you.’ How thankful he was that he hadn’t made any comment about them.

‘We’ve had some great lunches, haven’t we? Le Gavroche. Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons with Claire and the lovely Deborah.’

Claire! Must remember that. Claire. An éclair with the e on the end instead of the beginning. Easy-peasy.

‘And now the Pizza Express.’

‘Hard times?’

‘Got it in one. What’s your view of the state of the packaging industry, James?’

‘Difficult, Dwight. We pack what people buy. We can’t pack more or less than that. We’re a kind of barometer of the economy.’

‘I like that.’ The BWC rolled the phrase round his mouth as if it was a glass of premier cru Chateau Margaux. God, James could do with a glass of wine. Any wine. ‘A barometer of the economy. I’ll remember that.’

Of course you will. You remember everything, you bastard.

Dwight Schenkman the Third leant so far forward that James could smell his toothpaste and his aftershave.

‘To business,’ he said.

James’s heart began to pump very fast. Thank goodness he’d remembered to take all his pills.

‘There are two elements to this, James. A global element and a UK element.’

The pumping of James’s heart began to slow just a little. It didn’t sound like the sack.

‘In the short term, James, I am requiring every element of our global operation to make a fifteen per cent cut across the board. Across the board, James, from personnel to toilet paper via water coolers and stationery. I need your specific proposal as to how this target may be met in Bridgend and Kilmarnock, and I need it within six months.’

James knew how difficult this would be, but all he could feel was relief, immense, shattering relief. He had been given a job to do. He had not been sacked.

Dwight’s dough balls arrived. Since he was far too well bred to talk with his mouth full, and since he was an exhaustive chewer, his outlining of James’s greatest challenge came with long interruptions.

‘There is a real possibility, James, that we might have to consider transferring some, if not most, of our total British production capacity to …’

James tried not to watch the curiously sterile rhythmic movement of Dwight’s jaw as he chewed.