Читать книгу In the Event of My Death - Emma Page - Страница 7

CHAPTER 2

As club treasurer, James had helped to organize the charity buffet lunch, as he had helped to organize – always with considerable success – other charitable events over the years for his various clubs.

Friday was always a good day for such an event; the approach of the weekend lent a relaxed, holiday air to the proceedings. Folk were more willing to give up a little time to attend, loosen their purse strings, heed the voice of compassion.

The food was excellent, the coffee first class. James circulated diligently, drumming up donations and promises of donations. By one-forty-five he had achieved a very respectable figure – with more to come; people were still arriving. Among them he caught sight of the tall figure of his brother-in-law, Matthew Dalton. Matthew was chatting expansively to another latecomer, glancing cheerfully about, with his ready smile. Never short on the charm, James said to himself.

A minute or two later, James made his way across the hall to where Matthew stood surveying the array of buffet dishes. Nowadays, it wasn’t only Matthew’s manner that was expansive; years of affluent living had done little to hold his waistline in check. His good looks were also losing the battle. His hairline was receding, he had the slightly flushed face of the man who drinks a little too much. Like James, he was a chartered accountant, but, unlike his brother-in-law, he had set up on his own twenty years ago. His offices were situated in an upmarket block close to the centre of Brentworth.

Matthew watched James cross the floor towards him; James exuded his customary air of power, positive success. ‘A pretty good turn out,’ James commented as he came up. ‘Better than I’d hoped for.’ He directed Matthew’s attention to dishes he considered especially good. ‘I’ll give Nina a ring when I’ve got the final figures,’ he added. ‘She’ll be delighted.’

James drank a sociable cup of coffee as they stood chatting. He passed on to Matthew a rumour he had heard earlier in the day: a firm of asset managers in a neighbouring town was being investigated by the Fraud Squad. Matthew expressed surprise at the rumour; he would have thought the firm soundly based; they were certainly long established.

‘You can’t always go by that these days,’ James said with a knowing movement of his head. More than one good firm had gone down in the recession through spiralling difficulties, and the sorry saga was not yet over, even though better times were on the way. ‘A bit of speculating, soon it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, next thing it’s outright gambling. Over-extended all round, no margin anywhere, teetering along on the edge of the precipice. Only takes the smallest extra shove – some international ruckus, a blip on the currency markets – and over they go, for good.’ He eyed Matthew. ‘How are you finding things these days?’

Matthew helped himself to a particularly appetizing dish. ‘Pretty good, all things considering,’ he responded heartily.

As James set off once more in pursuit of donations, Matthew stood gazing after him. Oh, boy, he said wryly to himself, if you only knew the half of it. There wasn’t much anyone could tell Matthew about the perils of recession and the unorthodox easements always so temptingly close to hand. He gave a little shudder and closed his eyes for a moment.

He had a brief flash of vision: his father’s face, his shrewd eyes contemplating him. What would that principled man of business have to say if he could see him now, could know the dire straits he had got himself into? He shuddered again at the thought. His father would dearly have liked him to go into the family business but Matthew had little interest in printing and publishing, and shrank moreover from the idea of working for the father he had always found intimidating.

All he had received outright on his father’s death had been a modest legacy of precisely the same amount as that left to his sister, Esther.

He began to eat, scarcely tasting the food. If he could just manage to keep going, struggle through into the boom that must surely come, without ruin or disgrace – or, paralysing thought, a gaol sentence. If he could scrape through without Nina ever having to know. That would be the part of any catastrophe he would relish least of all, letting down his beloved Nina, having to break the news to her that the glory days were over, the gravy train had finally smashed into the buffers. Pray God it never came to that, but if, God forbid, it ever did, then thank God for a wife with backbone and loyalty. Whatever happened, Nina would never whine or indulge in self pity. However low the depths to which he sank, there was always the cast iron certainty that she would stand by him to the end.

A business acquaintance came up, calling out a friendly greeting. Matthew at once switched on his cheerful smile, his look of lively interest, his genial, on-top-of-the-world manner.