An Ocean Apart (38 page)

“No earlier, huh?”

“No, I really think that if we left it until then, it would give me the best chance to make sure that it went through without a hitch.”

“And you're pretty confident that there won't be one?”

“John, I've been up here for a year now, and I've seen how this place works. The Inchelvies pride themselves in having built Glendurnich on labour relations, almost to the point of extreme. Even though they hold only thirty-one per cent of the shareholding, if, to a man, the workers back our proposals, then the Inchelvies will go along with them. I can honestly vouch for that. And once you've had a chance to look at this document, you will see that the terms laid down will be more than attractive to the family itself.”

“Right. And have you heard anything at all from Corstorphine?”

“Not a cheep. As far as I can gather, he's gone to ground somewhere in the States. Wallowing in his sorrow, no doubt. I don't think we'll have much bother on that account.”

“Okay, well, you know what's going on. I'll put Friday the seventeenth of July in my diary, then. Now I want you to do just one thing for me, Duncan.”

“Yes?”

“I really need to get in touch with you over the next month on a much more regular basis, so I want all lines of communication to be opened up between Kirkpatrick's and Glendurnich. That means telephone, fax and E-mail. I cannot be expected to keep tabs on what's going on through these hit-and-miss telephone calls.”

“Fair enough.”

“Well, as you know, it's impossible at the minute while your old battleaxe has control over the switchboard.”

Duncan slowly nodded his head. “Ah.”

“You'll have to get rid of her. It's important. As you said, you need time to set the wheels in motion, and we can't afford to have it being leaked out before the designated date. What's her name, anyway?”

“Margaret.”

“Right. How difficult
would
it be to give her the push?”

“Well, I wouldn't like to give a firm answer on that one. She's well over retirement age, but she does wield a great deal of clout both here in the office and with old Inchelvie himself.”

“Can't be helped, Duncan. Just keep Inchelvie at bay for a month by keeping him in touch on a more than regular basis from his house. Visit him if needs be, but just keep him so well informed on how the business is going that he finds no reason even to telephone the place. All right? And as far as Margaret is concerned, give her a substantial amount more than the redundancy due to her, and if you have to, let everyone know that she's been given a handsome ex gratia payment. Don't lose sleep over it. Just do it. Okay?”

“All right, John.”

“Good! Well, I'll look forward to receiving the papers, and say well done to the boys.”

Duncan put down the receiver and swung his chair round to look out of the window. He sat for a moment, rubbing at the side of his cheek as he worked out his memorandum to Margaret. Then, with a thin smile curling up the edges of his mouth, he turned back to his desk and, unclipping a pen from his inside pocket, he pulled forward a pad of paper and began to compose the receptionist's retirement order.

Chapter
  
TWENTY-FOUR

Catching his breath as he rushed into the kitchen, Benji threw his tennis racket down on the table and turned triumphantly to David as he entered through the French doors.

“Beat you!”

“Okay, but you had a head start.”

“But you're faster than me.”

“Not much. I think it'd be fairer if you gave me a start.”

“Oh yeah, right!” He walked over to the refrigerator, and pulling open the door, took out two cans of Coke.

“Here, catch!”

He threw the can erratically towards David, who lunged forward to catch it, but the condensation on its surface made it slip from his grasp, and it struck hard against the corner of the table and fell to the ground punctured, fizzing Coke in every direction. Jasmine, who had been in the process of taking a hot casserole dish out of the oven, turned to witness the sticky liquid spraying out across her polished floor.

“Oh, for Chrissakes, Benji, what the hell do you think you're playin' at?” She banged the casserole dish down on the sideboard, and shaking off the oven gloves, took a cloth from the kitchen sink and walked across to the table. “Just go and put your racket away where it belongs. Go on—do it now!”

Benji, taken aback by Jasmine's uncharacteristic reaction, glanced warily at David, who flicked his head to the side to indicate that he should do what he was told. David bent down and picked up the can, and covering the puncture with his finger, walked over to the sink and poured away the remainder of its contents.

“Sorry about that. It was more my fault than his.”

“Well, you should have caught it, shouldn't you!” Jasmine sniped at him as she knelt down to wipe up the mess.

David pulled a face at Jasmine's mood, as surprised as Benji at her outburst. He walked over and squatted down beside her. “Look, let me do that.”

She pulled her arm away from his outstretched hand. “No, I am perfectly capable of doin' it myself.”

David straightened up and stood watching her as she wiped furiously at the mess.

“Jasmine?”

“What is it now?”

“Is something wrong?”

She stopped wiping for a second, then continued, rubbing harder on the floor. “Nothin's the matter with
me.
”

She stopped again, and letting out a loud sniff wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. David went back down on his haunches and put his hand on her shoulder. “Look, there is something wrong. What's happened?”

She turned to look at him, tears in her eyes. “It's nothin' really. I just overheard something on Saturday during the tennis party, and … well, I could use some advice from you.” Her eyes focused beyond David's left shoulder. “But not right now.” She returned to her task.

David followed her line of vision to see that Benji had come back into the kitchen and was walking towards them. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly, “I didn't mean to do it.”

Jasmine laughed as she wiped at one of the legs of the table. “I know you didn't, and I didn't mean to yell at you. Just me being real bad-tempered. As David said, just as much his fault as yours.”

The boy ran forward, and throwing himself on her back, kissed the top of her wiry hair over and over again. Jasmine spread-eagled her hands to stop herself from being flattened on the ground by the extra weight. “All right, Benji! You can get off now! I accept your apology.”

“Great!” Benji said, slipping off the side of Jasmine's back. “Can we do it now, David?”

“In a minute. Just go and do a bit of practising. I want a quick word with Jasmine.”

“Okay.” He turned and raced upstairs.

Jasmine pushed herself to her feet and studied the floor just to make sure that she hadn't missed any of the Coke. “So what have you two got cooked up now?”

“Oh, it's his song. The school told him today that he has to have it ready for tomorrow morning. D-day has arrived! He has a slot on the public address system at a quarter to nine.”

Jasmine smiled and walked over to the sink and began rinsing out the cloth.

“So … what do you want my advice about?”

Jasmine shook her head. “Nothin' that can't wait.” She draped the cloth over the tap and turned to face him. “We'll get a chance to speak sometime when Benji isn't around. I don't want to risk havin' him hear what I gotta say.” She picked up the casserole dish from the sideboard and placed it back in the oven, twiddling at a couple of the dials on the control panel. “Anyway, I think you've got a more important job on your hands than listening to me.”

With a shrug, David turned and made his way through to the hall and up the stairs to Benji's bedroom. As he walked in, Benji looked up from where he sat playing the ukulele on his bed, the piece of paper bearing the words of the song spread out on his knees.

“This is soppy!” He threw aside the ukulele and scrumpled up the word-sheet, and letting it fall to the ground, he slumped back onto his bed.

David walked over to the bed and bent down to retrieve the ball of paper. “It is
not
soppy!” he said, carefully unravelling it and pressing it between his hands to iron out the creases. “Listen, I think this song is great. What don't you like about it?”

“It's all about
love,
” Benji said quietly.

“So? That's what all the good songs have been written about. What would you rather write about? Playing tennis?”

Benji looked at him, a sulky expression on his face. “Don't be silly. Who'd listen to a song about tennis?”

“Exactly. The words are great—and they're a bit different too. I mean, you've got a really good rhythm going in that first line—‘I do love you, but you're breaking my heart, breaking my heart in two'—I think that's really great. It's very catchy.”

“But everyone's going to laugh at me when it comes out on the PA system.”

“Why? You know the tune, you can play it well enough and you sing it just fine. So why would the others laugh at you?”

“'Cos they'll call me a sissy for singing about
love.
”

David pushed himself farther onto Benji's bed and leaned back against the wall, his arms folded. “Okay, how much is it worth?”

“How much is what worth?”

“Well, let's say I'm your record producer and I say, ‘Right, Benji Superstar, I'll give you ten dollars if they laugh at you, and twenty if they don't, would we have a deal?”

Benji looked hard at him, his brow creased with thought. “That's not much of a deal. You lose out both ways.”

“Well, maybe I just know that they won't laugh at you. Okay, so I'll have to pay you out twenty dollars, but then I'm pretty sure I have a hit single on my hands, otherwise I wouldn't have made you the offer.”

Benji was silent for a moment. “Do you really think it's that good?”

David nodded. “Yeah, I actually do.”

“Gee!” Benji's eyes focused on open air as he contemplated his impending fame.

“So, do we have a deal?”

“You bet!” He leaped up from the bed, and picking up the ukulele, proceeded to play the first few chords of the song. “What do we do now?”

David pushed himself off the bed. “Well, we need to find a tape recorder.”

Benji thought for a moment, then, placing the ukulele back on the bed, he leaped towards the cupboard at the far end of the room. He threw open the doors and rooted around inside, ejecting long-unused toys from its depth, eventually reappearing with an old plastic Fisher Price recorder. “How about this?”

David walked over and took it from him, and having given it a quick appraisal, chucked it dismissively onto the bed.

Benji's shoulders dropped visibly. “No good, huh?” he said, profound disappointment in his voice.

“'Fraid not. The thing is, if we want to make a hit single, we're going to have to call in the professionals.”

Benji swallowed hard. “What d'you mean?” he said quietly.

“C'mon. I'll show you.”

Twenty minutes later, Benji stood half-hidden behind David in the centre of Gerry's recording studio, his ukulele held firmly behind his back and his mouth open in amazement as they listened to the ear-blasting music being played by the four musicians present. David felt the young boy tug at the back of his shirt, and he turned and bent down so that he could hear him above the noise.

“David, I think those guys are Dublin Up. They're
really
well-known!”

David nodded and gave him a wink, and Benji's mouth fell even farther open.

Inside the control room, Gerry looked up from his console and caught sight of them. He got to his feet and came through the double doors, then flicked a switch on the wall which immediately cut all sound from the instruments.

“What the f——”

Gerry held up his hand to the long-haired fiddler. “Watch it, boys. Kids present.” He approached them and sidled a glance at Benji, who was trying to get in as close as possible to David's back. “So, Benji, I understand you've got a song you want to record.”

Benji did not reply, but gave David an anguished look and shook his head.

Gerry winked surreptitiously at David. “A bit nervous, huh? No worries, everyone's like that.” He turned to the group, who by now had rid themselves of their instruments and were lounging around on easy chairs and lighting up cigarettes. “Patrick, what were you like when you first went into a recording studio?”

“Shi——” Patrick grimaced. “I mean, pretty scared.”

Gerry shrugged and looked back at Benji. “There you are, then. Even the lead singer of Dublin Up was scared. Would you believe that?” Putting his hand on Benji's shoulder, he guided him forward to the microphone in front of the viewing window and pulled forward a high stool. “Right, you get your backside up on there, and I'll adjust the microphone for you.”

Benji did as he was told, but still tried to keep his modest instrument out of sight of the group. One of them, a lanky youth with a fierce Mohican haircut and a silver ring in his eyebrow, noticed this and suddenly let out a whoop of recognition.

“Hey, you've got a ukulele!” He walked over and took it from him. “Great machines! I learned to play on one of these.” He stuck it under his arm and ran off some chords, and a smile slowly spread across Benji's face as he realized that the guy was only playing G, C, and D7.

“I know those chords, too,” he said proudly.

“Well, in that case, you know as much about the ukulele as I do.” He smiled and handed the instrument back to Benji. “So let's hear what you can do then.”