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.I liked to think such fine noble thoughts because if I didn’t I began to contemplate walking away from the whole miserable business and going to live a hermit’s life in France.I’d had such thoughts before, in early summer when the full extent of the crisis at HartWell was becoming clear, when I realised that Howard had engineered the takeover behind my back, when I began to appreciate just how completely I had let the real control slip from my grasp.Then I was dogged by a sense of worthlessness and futility: my mid-life crisis.An absurdly frivolous term for the doubt that had taken to descending on me without warning, turning my thinking inside out, making me question things that at my age did not bear questioning.Despairing of the present, clutching at the past, harbouring visions of what might have been.Hungry for escape and solace; ripe for the idea of Sylvie.Fumbling with the radio, I turned on the eight-thirty headlines, knowing that there would be nothing about Sylvie, yet needing to hear it for myself.An exercise in reassurance.Or paranoia.The traffic did not ease and I reached the three-room office suite in Hammersmith five minutes before Julia and I were due to leave for the meeting with the Chartered Bank.I had rented this place as a temporary London base while we negotiated the buyout.It wasn’t so much an office as a space from which I made calls and sent letters.All the meetings – and there were up to three a day – took place at the City offices of the various bankers, lawyers and accountants acting for us or for Cumberland.Very occasionally meetings were held at Hartford itself, four hours’ drive to the south-west.Before Julia could collar me, I phoned Moncrieff to check what I already knew, that we had no legal remedy against Cumberland for reneging on the leasing agreement.I followed this with a swift call to Pollinger at Zircon to alert him to the fact that we would be asking for more money.He warned me that unless I was prepared to give Zircon a bigger slice of the equity then the most I could expect from them would be a quarter of the extra million.Julia put her head round the door.‘I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help overhearing.That bastard!’ I didn’t need to ask who she was referring to.So far as Julia was concerned, Howard had rat status.‘It would have been a board decision, Julia.’‘Yes, but who proposed the idea?’‘No point in worrying about that now.’‘That’s what you always say.’ Instantly she made a disclaiming wave of the hand.‘Sorry.Sorry.What I meant was, I wouldn’t be half as forgiving.You’re too nice, that’s your trouble.’‘It’s nothing to do with being nice,’ I grimaced, smarting at the compliment.‘It’s a question of being realistic.’Julia conceded this with a dubious face, and looked at her watch.‘We’ve got to go.’‘One more call,’ I bargained.My bank manager was a bland insubstantial character named Elliott.With the various personal loans I had been forced to negotiate, I had got to see quite a lot of him over the last two years.He did not sound surprised that I was asking for money again.‘This mortgage would be additional to your existing building society mortgage?’‘That’s right.’‘Five hundred thousand is rather a large sum for a mortgage, Mr Wellesley.That sort of sum would usually come into the range of a business loan, subject to business rates.’‘But you’ll consider it?’‘This would be in addition to the loan on the country property?’‘That’s right.’A pause.‘So on the Chelsea house, the new mortgage would take the loan up to ninety per cent of its value?’‘That would be on a conservative valuation.But – yes.’‘Well – I’ll look into it,’ he said cautiously.‘But, Mr Wellesley, are you quite sure you want to put your home at stake?’‘Yes.’‘You have considered what would happen if your business were to fail?’‘Yes,’ I said testily.‘And your wife – she’s happy with the arrangement?’‘I realise she’ll have to agree to it,’ I said.‘I’m aware of the law.’‘Very well.I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.’Julia appeared in the doorway wearing her we-really-have-to-leave face, but I held up a delaying hand and, when she had frowned her disapproval and disappeared, I called Ginny, only to get the answering machine.I told the tape I should be home by eight.It was only after I’d rung off that it occurred to me that Ginny might have flu after all and be lying ill in bed.She was prone to catch all the nastier bugs and to suffer them badly.Convalescence, with its inactivity, always depressed her, and it was then that I became acutely aware of how isolated she was without children.During the five or so years when we had actively discussed our childlessness and gone through various fertility investigations I had once or twice mentioned adoption, but she had brimmed with dark resentment at the idea, as though it were an admission of defeat or an allotment of blame, and I hadn’t brought up the subject again.Now we never talked about children at all.Julia came in briskly.‘We really have to go.’ She tipped her head to one side and cast me a sharp glance.‘Are you okay?’‘Don’t you start.’‘You look awful again.’‘What do you mean again?’ I grabbed my briefcase and sprang to my feet.‘You’re as bad as my old nanny.I’m fine.’But I can’t have sounded too convincing because as we headed for the door she demanded, ‘When did you last eat?’ Interpreting my silence correctly, s he announced that she would get some sandwiches on the way.Hurrying down the stairs I tried to concentrate on the crucial meeting ahead [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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