Chapter 4

Memo from area representative Stephen Rook to Aytuzi Finance Company Head Office.

22 February

Brian,

Success at last, albeit highly qualified. Yesterday evening, I managed to speak, very briefly, with Cedric King. Have you ever dipped your hand into a bucketful of eels? If so, you will know what confronted me. I tried to get a grip on things, really I did, but the man cannot be pinned down. I met him as he was leaving his house – quite a pad, by the way. He was dressed as a clergyman and pushed me aside, saying that he had vital matters to deal with. He’s a big lad, about six-two and built like the proverbial brick privy. (Note that I eschew the coarser term.) I didn’t fancy trying conclusions with him – not through any anxiety about the outcome, but because I remembered the last time I was obliged to subdue an awkward debtor. But for your excellent soft-soaping job, that incident could have cost us a bob or two.

I did follow our man, discovering that he is a member of his local amateur dramatic society. It seems they are putting on ‘The Importance’ and he is the clerical one, Canon Chasuble if I remember the play rightly. Please don’t take me to task about this, as I’m not very well up on Oscar. Hardly wild about Wilde, ha, ha.

I waited outside the hall where rehearsals were in progress, but nobody emerged before midnight, owing – I later learned – to the fact that these particular thespians conclude their evenings with long sessions of bottled conviviality. I called it a day, but intend to keep at it, though I think you should proceed with the legal action. Rest assured that I shall report further developments, if any.

Steve

From:
Aytuzi Finance Company
Unit 3, White Horse Yard
Newton Godfrey
25 February

To:
Cedric King
Poplar House
Halfpenny Lane
Little Chinfold

Dear Cedric,

Thank you for your letter of 19 February, which raises a number of interesting points. Regrettably, most of them do not bear upon the real nature of our correspondence. Nevertheless, the legal machinery grinds on without regard to our exchanges, so there is no reason why I should not respond to your comments.

I am grateful for your advice in the smoking matter. Though my cigarette days are surely now numbered, I would not wish to deplete your stock of Cuban cigars, which I am informed are not rolled on the thighs of maidens, by moonlight or otherwise. Sorry if this destroys any illusions you may have had to date.

I have discussed with my wife your suggestion that I might try again with a pipe. Good straight-grain briars don’t grow on trees. Well, now that I’ve said that, I’ll leave it in. They grow under trees, don’t they? Or rather ... well, you know what I mean. Anyway, although the investment you suggest is a considerable one, I intend to give it a go. Our local tobacconist has a nice almost straight-grain job from a firm that is a household name, but the price is hair-raising. I had no idea that a pipe could cost so much. Still, you say that one should not spare the expense and I shall take your advice on that point, though I’ll give your herbal smoking mixture a miss. In passing, I wonder about the range of your tastes. I mean, on the one hand you tout the best that Havana has to offer, while on the other you were not above trying a product so obviously resembling old socks.

Do not distress yourself about the conditions of employment here. They are rather primitive, but one can get used to almost anything. I did once work for a much larger company where the amenities were better. However, the psychological pressures were enormous. One simply had to be the quintessential corporate man. Thinking for oneself was out of the question. Edicts were handed down from the ivory tower and one had to implement them. Frankly, it was hellish. This place has its faults, but on the whole I prefer it to what I experienced earlier.

Where did you get the bit about little Jimmy and Sandra? We do indeed have two children, one of each – did I mention that earlier? – but their names are Adam and Annie. You must be confused, perhaps as a side-effect of your desperate (one hopes) struggle to extricate yourself from your financial plight. Adam is eight, Annie is six and both are doing fairly well, bearing in mind that they are now at school and not having an easy time of it, socially speaking. Until they started mixing with other people’s misbegotten brats, they were developing nicely. It was kind of you to think about them. My wife sends her regards.

As for night school, I am studying economics, with a view to getting a diploma in same. I must confess that I have had trouble with some of the formulas, as they are simple and elegant, but do not seem to correspond with real life. You can have all the J-curves and MV=PT equations you like, but events either run ahead of theory or confound it. I sometimes wonder whether all economists are clever charlatans. Their main stock in trade seems to be finding obscure synonyms for everyday words. Never say ‘gap’ if you can slip in ‘lacuna’ and don’t use ‘superfluous’ where ‘otiose’ will do. You probably know the kind of thing. Also, economists seem to hunt in pairs. I tire of hearing such things as ‘Gruber and Smithson found this’, while Morello and Jansen concluded that’ and Breitkopf and Jones had yet another view’.