Second Intention (6 page)

I won my next three DE fights, the first two quite easily, and the third by the narrowest of margins, 15-14 against an awkward left hander. It didn’t matter, though. The victory was the only thing I cared about, as it meant that I was in the last four of a domestic open tournament, with a guaranteed bronze medal, for the first time in my career.

Sue was thrilled to bits, understandably, and by the time the semi finals got under way she had settled down a little. The business with Toby had upset her at the time, as, like me, she hates conflict. I also think she was a little scared by his parting comment, which could have been interpreted in two ways. He could have meant that he would win the next time we crossed swords, or it could have been an out and out threat. If it was the latter, it
would be impossible to prove.

My semi-final fight, against one of
Britain’s rising stars, went as well as I could have expected. This young man, twenty years my junior, had recently put in an encouraging showing at the junior world championships, and was out of my league. I thought I did really well to get eight hits on him to be honest, and I think, deep down, that I’d gone into the bout secretly expecting not make the final.

Whatever, it didn
’t matter. I was on cloud nine as I eventually stepped on to the podium thirty minutes later and had a medal hung around my neck by none other than the president of the BFA, who was presenting the prizes that day.

It more than made up for the disappointment of
Cheltenham the previous week. Yes, it was a good day’s work.

Six

We parked the
Audi near to Lady Margaret Hall and the Parks, up on the north side of the city, and strolled down St. Giles towards the city centre. It was getting dark by that time, but it was still very pleasant, and it brought back a lot of happy memories for Sue.

Oxford
’s a lovely city, the proliferation of Cotswold stone in most of the architecture giving it a very airy quality. We walked past her old college, Somerville, and she cheerfully pointed out various little nooks and crannies which had played such an important part in her personal history.

‘
That’s where we used to sit on hot afternoons and eat ice creams from the newsagents round the corner,’ she said, smiling, a wistful look on her face. ‘And that window up there was Emily’s room in the second year. It was tiny, and she got hauled up in front of the Head Porter once for having an unauthorised party in there. You weren’t supposed to have more than five in a room, but she was so drunk she invited loads of us in and got carpeted for it.’

It was lovely to hear these anecdotes, but also a little strange, since it was all from a time in my life when I hadn
’t known that Susan had even existed, yet she’s such a big part of my life now. I also didn’t want to hear about any boyfriends she might have had when she was there. I know her life didn’t begin the day we met, but there were some things I didn’t want to be reminded of.

We carried on down towards the centre, past St. Johns and Balliol, but I could see she was beginning to flag a little and we needed to head back. I suggested dinner at Brown
’s, which was directly on our route back to the car, and we had a delightful meal of spaghetti and garlic bread in amongst the potted palms, hoop back wooden chairs, and whirling ceiling fans, the whole place looking like a set from
Casablanca.

During our meal she explained that she had learned one of the reasons why
Toby had been so upset by his defeat at my hands in the DE. Apart from the damage to his pride, and the loss of ranking points, he had had money riding on it as well.

According to Shirley, who had heard from somebody else who had heard from somebody else, Sean had nabbed
Toby not long after the first round pools and suggested a wager: ten quid on me to win the DE fight. Toby, inevitably buoyed up by the fact that he’d just beaten me for the very first time, jumped at it, but also doubled the bet.

I must admit I was shocked. I
’ve never known anybody bet on the outcome of a fencing bout before, and was amazed that Sean had had that much faith in me. Did he really think I was that much better than Toby that he was prepared to gamble twenty pounds on it?

No wonder
Toby had been so furious. Although twenty pounds was nothing to him, he was, like quite a few wealthy people, notoriously mean, and would have hated having to hand over the cash to Sean.

It was even possible that he suspected us of some kind of collusion, with me throwing our earlier fight just to get him to take Sean
’s bet. It was a totally ridiculous notion, of course, since there was no way I would ever let somebody win like that, but he looked so unhinged when I had last seen him that he might have believed anything.

I was just glad I hadn
’t known about the wager before the DE fight with Toby.

*                  *                  *                  *

‘Hello, Marion. Is he in?’

Douglas
’ secretary looked up from her computer monitor and gave me a smile. We had always got on well, and I knew she would try and get me in through his door if possible. Unlike some secretaries, who see their role as being to keep people
away
from the man in charge, Marion Thomas knew that an atmosphere of openness within the company was an asset rather than a liability.

‘
He’s in, but he’s not free just at the moment,’ she replied, cheerfully. ‘Online conference with Madrid and Hamburg.’

‘
Ah ... Should I come back later?’

‘
It’s up to you.’ She glanced up at the clock on the wall behind me. ‘They were due to wrap it up at nine thirty, so he could be free any moment. I can’t guarantee that he’ll be staying in after that though. Depends how urgently you want to see him.’

Hmmm. I
did
want to see him urgently. There were times when he could be a hard man to pin down, and I had a request to make which he was more likely to agree to the earlier I made it.

‘
I’ll wait, ’ I said, turning to one of the armchairs near the door.

‘
Sure,’ she smiled again. She had been doing this for long enough to know that camping outside his office was often the best way for anybody to get hold of the man. ‘Make yourself at home, within reason.’

I stretched out my legs and began idly flipping through a copy of
Country Living
magazine. After another five minutes or so the door to his office opened and Douglas came through to drop a file onto Marion’s desk.

‘
Oh, hello Richard,’ he said, his tone upbeat. The conference with our subsidiaries in Spain and Germany must have gone well. He was not normally this perky at half past nine on a Monday morning. ‘You waiting for me?’

‘
Yes. Is now a good time?’

‘
Sure. Come on in.’ He turned back to Marion briefly. ‘Can you let Mike know that they’ve said it
will
be on line by May? He seemed to think that they wouldn’t manage it with the old system.’

We left her reaching for the telephone to break the good news to our
production manager, and headed into his inner sanctum.

‘
Good weekend?’ He said, heaving his bulk into the enormous leather chair behind his desk. I think he started every conversation on a Monday morning with the same words.

‘
Yeah. Absolutely great, actually,’ I said, and knew it was pointless trying to conceal my smile.

‘
Oh? Something special happen?’

‘
Yes. I won a bronze at the Oxford Open. First major medal ever.’

‘
Really? Good for you,’ he replied, and I could tell from the smile on his face that he meant it. ‘You must be feeling very pleased with yourself.’

‘
Yes. Cloud nine, to be honest.’

‘
Good, good. Sue there to see it?’

‘
Yep,’ I nodded. ‘Doesn’t really get much better than that, does it?’

‘
No, I suppose not. You’ll be feeling really fired up about fencing then.’

‘
Mmmm. Afraid so, and it was that which I wanted to speak to you about.’

‘
Oh?’ He seemed bemused by it. His expression was that of a parent taking pleasure in the enthusiasm a young child displays. ‘What can I do for you then?’

I thought it was best to come clean and get straight down to it.

‘Well, I know it’s short notice, but I’d like to have some time off. Week after next in fact.’

‘
Fencing?’

‘
Yes, there’s an international tournament in Copenhagen which I’m eligible for, and I can still get an entry if I’m quick. I’m just feeling really good about it after what happened yesterday, and Sue would love to go, so it’s just a question of whether Medicom can spare me on the Thursday, the Friday and the following Monday.’

‘
Mmmm.’ He leaned back, and his chair tilted. He removed the glasses, and began wiping them. ‘Well, I’d love to say yes, and I can’t see that there’d be any problem, but there are one or two things I need to check first.  Madrid are talking about a stock run next week, and I don’t want to agree to anything which is going to cause a problem further down the line. If we need you here on Thursday week, we need you here.’

‘
Yes, of course,’ I agreed. I had to agree. I didn’t really have any choice. I had no way of knowing, of course, what Madrid wanted, and it could have been that Douglas was saying this just to maintain control of the situation. He would be very wary of establishing a precedent by allowing me to just walk in and start calling the shots.

No, he was the sort of man who would keep me waiting before agreeing just to remind everybody that it was all happening on
his
terms. It was pretty much what I had been expecting.

‘
Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.’ He replaced his glasses and smiled. ‘When do you need to know by?’

‘
Well, as soon as possible really. I’ve got to confirm my entry with the organisers, who don’t really want to be kept waiting, and the sooner I book our flights the cheaper they’ll be.’

‘
Yes, of course. Well … like I say, leave it with me and I’ll get back to you.’

‘
Thanks.’

‘
Hey, no problem. That’s what I’m here for.’

I stood and began heading for the door, wishing he
’d just said ‘no’ where I would, at least, have had an answer, even if it wasn’t the one I wanted.

‘
Oh, and Richard?’ he said, as I reached for the door handle.

‘
Mmmm?’ I turned back to him.

‘
You’ll love Copenhagen. Wonderful, wonderful place.’

*                  *                   *                  *

I spent most of the day catching up on things, and trying to get ahead of my normal weekly schedule, just in case I
was
going to get the time off, and just in case the Madrid stock run was going to go ahead. Keith seemed to think everything was going to be fine, but then he always does. One of life’s eternal optimists, he takes the view that things will work out okay if everybody wants it to.

We go back quite a long way, and he
’s been in the business for years. We get on very well, and I am also flattered that he seems to trust my judgement implicitly, which is largely due to an innovation I pulled off shortly after my promotion to purchasing manager three years back.

Whenever the levels of an item in our warehouse fell below a set quantity, we would automatically re-order from our suppliers to get the levels back up to the maximum.  I had noticed that our buyers were always re-ordering stock items at the full amount, which worked out fine if usage was constant, but took no account of seasonal fluctuations in production, since there are some products we make more of in the winter than in the summer. On several occasions we had actually run out by the time the deliveries were made, which is an absolute disaster for the production line, whilst there were other times when the warehouse would try to take delivery of a full level of stock items, while the shelves were only two-thirds empty and we had nowhere to put it all.

The system I came up with was nothing particularly magical, but it did work. We merely looked back at past usage
and
the lead time from our suppliers, and anticipated what we would need by the time the delivery was made. When the trucks finally rolled in they would be carrying almost exactly what we needed to get our shelves filled at the right level - nothing over, nothing under. It was simple, it was efficient, it was a darned sight more interesting for our buyers to get involved in, and it made me something of a hero with our warehouse staff overnight.

I tried to catch up with Douglas again before leaving that evening, just to see if I could get
some
sort of answer from him, but Marion told me he’d been out all afternoon and wouldn’t be in until the morning. No, she added, he hadn’t said anything about my request. I’d have to ask him again tomorrow.

Bugger.

I really wanted to get my entry in and book the flights.

*                    *                   *                     *

I got home to an empty house that evening. I had completely forgotten that Sue was going to be working late and making plans for the forthcoming exhibition with Amy, the long term friend with whom she shared ownership of the gallery. They would be getting a take away and I probably wouldn’t get to see her until gone nine.

I toyed with the idea of going for a run, but my legs were still feeling the effects of my efforts at
Oxford, and I wanted to be on form for my lesson with Phil at the club the next day. Instead, I took the other healthy option and opened a bottle of  Rioja, carrying it, with a wine glass, through to the study.

Yeah, I know, I
’m a serious athlete in training, but the ability to unwind after a busy day is essential in maintaining my wellbeing.

The organisers of the tournament in Copenhagen had a very helpful website which told me all I needed to know, and I was relieved to find the closing date for entries wasn
’t for another few days. So, I could make do without an answer from Douglas on that score at least, but what was it going to cost to book the flights and hotel so close to the event?