Читать книгу A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas - Страница 11

Landwith Associates occupied a stucco-fronted house in a quiet side-street. There was no marble entrance hall, and no opulent fountain. A discreet brass plate gave the company’s name, and an equally discreet bell placed beside it brought an immaculate girl to open the door.

‘Harriet Peacock,’ Harriet announced herself.

She had christened her embryo company Peacocks, and since the meeting at Morton’s she had resolved that there would be no more Mrs Gold. Nor would she go back to calling herself Harriet Trott. The direct identification of herself with her company, and also with Kath in the years when there had been just the two of them, with Simon’s Kath even, gave her pleasure.

‘Mr Landwith is expecting me.’

Armed with an introduction from Henry Orde, and once past the barrier of an ingeniously defensive secretary, Harriet had found it quite easy to achieve an appointment with Martin Landwith. It had been harder to find the time in her own schedule. The Toy Fair opened the next day. Harriet knew that she should have been on her stand, organising the pinning and draping and positioning.

‘This way, please, Miss Peacock.’

The hall was panelled and empty, except for a Persian rug on the floor and an oval table with a big bowl of fresh flowers. Harriet followed the girl up the shallow curve of the stairs, passing three serious, gloomy still lifes in weighty frames. Harriet suspected that they were worth, individually, about as much as the total amount she was trying to borrow.

The girl opened the double doors facing the top of the stairs. Harriet saw Martin Landwith stand up at once, and come round his desk to greet her. He was a stocky man, not very tall, but dressed in a dark blue suit of such magical cut that he seemed perfectly proportioned. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and a sober tie. Narrow, shiny, hand-made shoes emphasised the smallness of his feet. His dark hair was greying at the temples; it seemed sculpted rather than mundanely cut. The silver threads glittered as he turned his head. He had dark eyes, and his naturally dark skin had the healthy polish of a real sun-tan. Harriet judged that he was in his early or mid-fifties. The fingernails of the hand he held out to her were professionally manicured.

‘Please sit down, won’t you?’

His voice was friendly, his smile followed the invitation only a second or two later. Martin Landwith made no attempt to disguise his scrutiny of her. Harriet accepted it, looking coolly back at him, and then sat down in the chair opposite his desk. She glanced around the room. To her right there were tall windows overlooking the street. They were framed in curtains of some honey-coloured material, with deep, soft scallops above and long rippling tails that were fringed in dull gold. Opposite the windows stood a Chinese Chippendale cabinet, the glass front reflecting the light in lozenges over the plain walls. Over the mantelpiece was a Victorian portrait. The whiskered subject might have been Mr Landwith’s grandfather. His grandson, if he was his grandson, sat beneath the picture at a partner’s desk probably inherited from the old man. Only the telephones, dictating machine, computer terminal had been added at some later date. On the floor there was a rug whose subtly glowing colours and intricate pattern spoke to Harriet of tiny silk threads, and thousands upon thousands of hand-knots. There wasn’t much else in the room. It was a masterpiece of understatement that still shouted money as clearly as if the walls had been pasted with layers of notes. It made the glass and steel temple of Morton’s seem by comparison like a hamburger bar in a new shopping precinct.

Harriet’s mouth curved. She sucked the corners of it inwards to contain her smile. But she saw at the same time that Martin Landwith had noted her inventory, and her amusement, and seemed to approve of it.

‘This is my son, and partner. Robin Landwith.’

Harriet turned. He must have come silently in behind her.

He was taller, and thinner, than his father. He had the same dark colouring, but there was no grey in his hair and it was thicker and more casually cut than his father’s. Clearly they shared the same tailor, but Robin’s lapels were two hairs breadths wider, and there were discreet pleats at the front of his trousers. His hand, when Harriet shook it, was larger and warmer.

He looked her over, just as Landwith senior had done. There was more open appreciation in his smile, but afterwards his glance flickered back to his father, as if for approval. Only that made Harriet notice how young he was. He was younger than herself. Perhaps only twenty-five, twenty-six at the most. Not quite ready, yet, to be given free rein. It struck Harriet, seeing him take his place beside his father, that Robin looked like a particularly fine thoroughbred colt. He had been sired for this particular course, for races in which the stakes were pure risk and the prizes were all the multiplications of money. Clearly the bloodlines were faultless, whatever the running he would finally make.

For now, father and son made a formidable combination.

Martin Landwith was sitting with his chin resting on one hand. With the other hand he made a small, polite gesture of invitation.

‘Won’t you tell us how we can help you?’

Harriet told.

She left nothing out, nor did she add anything, but she avoided the operatic performance that had failed her at Morton’s. If the proposal was good enough, she reasoned, these two would spot it even if she made her pitch in Swahili. She spoke quietly, without emphasis, letting the information do its own selling.

When she took out Conundrum and set it up on the broad desk, they examined it carefully and asked half a dozen questions about the manufacture, but they didn’t try to play the game. Instead, when they had finished with the board itself, they scrutinised the box and the point-of-sale roughs and all the leaflets and promotional material that the design studio had expensively prepared for the Toy Fair. But the time expended even on all of that was brief.

‘The package is probably good enough,’ Martin Landwith judged. Then he moved on with practised speech to her business plan.

They went through the figures line by line, and they accepted none of her forecasts without query. Harriet was glad of the thoroughness of her preparation and relieved that they couldn’t fault her calculations. She wouldn’t care to have stumbled in front of the two Landwiths. But she had to admit, under their questioning, that she had only investigated the performance of roughly similar products.

‘There’s nothing on the market quite like Conundrum,’ she told them. ‘A direct parallel between potential performance and real sales is impossible for that reason. But that is Conundrum’s strength, too, isn’t it?’

She saw that they didn’t glance away at the game but kept their attention fixed on her. She felt a small beat of triumph. She was right, it was herself and her own capabilities that she was trying to sell. If the Landwiths would buy her, she would show them that she could make the world buy Conundrum.

‘I think we should discuss your marketing strategy now,’ Martin Landwith said.

That was more difficult. Without having tested the water at the Fair, Harriet wasn’t quite sure what direction her marketing thrust would follow. But she brought out the research notes that showed the performance of the most nearly similar products out of the big chains, and talked about targeting W.H. Smith, Menzies, Toys ‘R’ Us and the rest.

Father and son listened attentively, but without any encouraging sign. When she finished, she saw Martin glance at his watch. Then he put his fingertips together, looked at her over the crest of them.

Harriet’s heart began to thump unpleasantly.

‘I like your game,’ Martin said. ‘It may well be a seller. But I wouldn’t want to try to predict how strong a seller, or how durable. I don’t see any convincing way of doing so and – I’m sorry – I don’t see that your due diligence succeeds either. The FMCG world is unpredictable …’

Fast moving consumer goods, Harriet translated silently. Oh, please.

‘… and we prefer our risks to be calculated. Can you demonstrate the value of your Conundrum other than theoretically?’

Harriet wondered if she should tell him about her Sundays on the top deck of the 73 bus, and the enthusiasm and friendliness she had met there. But she doubted that Martin Landwith would know where to go to catch a bus, and doubted even more strongly that he would accept the vote of its passengers. And Robin Landwith, with his long legs stretched out to one side of the desk, didn’t look as though he had ever ridden a bus in his life.

‘Only by having the opportunity to sell it. I shall be doing that for the next four days, at the trade fair. Why don’t you come and take a look?’

There was no direct response to her invitation. The two men appeared to think symbiotically without even needing to look at each other. Their silence manoeuvred Harriet into the attack.

‘I know you’ve got to calculate your risks. But wouldn’t a real venture be interesting? I’m not asking for a huge investment, I’m sure you can spread it around. And I know this will work. I know it.’ Harriet’s words seemed to echo mockingly in the plush quiet.

This time it was Robin who spoke. ‘Tell us what our exit strategy will be.’

‘USM float in three or four years.’

They approved of that. It was ambitious enough.

Martin was consulting his watch again. The meeting had reached an inconclusive finish. Harriet stood up briskly, so that she could appear to control the endgame.

‘Thank you for your time. I hope you’ll decide in my favour, Mr Landwith. Peacocks could work well for us both.’

He looked up at her; it was an odd, sidelong glance. The atmosphere in the room changed with it. It had been cool and crystalline, now it became warmer, as if thick velvet curtains had been drawn somewhere. Harriet understood that Martin Landwith had finished his appraisal of her investment potential. Now he was examining her as a woman. His eyes travelled from her mouth to her breasts. Such practised attention might have angered her, but she was interested to discover that it did not. She let him look, even squaring her shoulders and holding her head higher.

If he wants to play the game this way, she thought, I can do it too. I can play any way he likes, for the right stakes. The realisation of how much she would do for the sake of Conundrum didn’t shock her. She felt charged by it, rather, as if Martin Landwith’s deft, overdainty fingers had already worked on her. But it was the recognition of her own freedom, to do what she wanted with herself that had excited her, not anything Martin Landwith would or could do.

Robin had seen the shade of Harriet too, through the opaque business dress. They had stepped, an awkward threesome, on to different ground. Harriet looked from the father to the son, meeting their eyes squarely. Funny, she thought. Do they compete, or run together?

‘Thank you for coming, Miss Peacock,’ Martin said quietly. ‘We’ll consider your proposal.’

It was Robin who touched her elbow, guided her back through the double doors and down the staircase to the panelled hall. There was a scent of clove carnations from the flower display that Harriet hadn’t detected on the way up. She breathed it in luxuriously. She felt light-hearted, now that she was released from the strain of the meeting, and Robin became a part of the lightness. When he smiled at her they were almost co-conspirators. They shook hands, still smiling.

‘Try to come to the fair, Harriet repeated.

‘I’ll do my best for you,’ he said. Harriet wasn’t sure whether he meant the Toy Fair or persuading his father to back Conundrum. She went down the steps into the street, knowing that he was watching her go.

The glow of powerful well-being only lasted as far as the corner. By the time she reached it she was out of the patinated smoothness of the Landwith offices and back in the real world. And in the real world there were no Chinese Chippendale cabinets, no silk rugs, and no empty taxis either. It was nearly lunchtime, and every cab that passed was occupied by men, singly or in pairs, on their way to clubs and restaurants. Everyone else in the real world was on the pavement with Harriet, pushing and jostling.

She paused for long enough to look back at the stucco-fronted terrace. She wondered what the father and son were doing behind the tall, shining windows. She doubted that they were studying the copies of the plan that she had left for them. She didn’t even think they were urbanely agreeing that their visitor had been unfortunately flat-chested. She imagined that they were in some mahogany and silver washroom, ivory-brushing their beautiful haircuts ready for separate lunches with identically rich men in twin trendsetting restaurants.

The fantasy didn’t make her smile.

‘Smug shits,’ Harriet murmured. ‘I hate you.’ But she said it mechanically. She didn’t hate them enough not to long to join them.

There were still no taxis, and Harriet was due to meet Jane in five minutes’ time at the Earls Court exhibition hall main entrance. They were going to work on the stand together. Clearly there wasn’t going to be a taxi for the rest of the day. Harriet hoisted her heavy case under her arm and dived for the tube.

‘Harriet? Where have you been? They wouldn’t let me in without an exhibitor’s pass.’

Harriet was hot and flustered and guilty. Jane, loyal Jane, had freed herself from school for an afternoon in order to help her and she had kept her waiting for three-quarters of an hour. She gasped her apologies, waved her pass at the security man, and they were inside. She took Jane’s arm and steered her forward.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Landwith Associates took longer than I thought, then there were no cabs. I thought I’d never get here.’

They were half-running, half-stumbling down a long aisle. On either side there were stands where giant teddy bears reared up, where ranks of dolls smiled sweet persuasive smiles, and the rattle and whirr of mechanical toys mingled and multiplied. The dim roof-space overhead was noisy with the drilling and hammering and sawing of last preparations.

‘Slow down. Calm down,’ Jane ordered her, but Harriet rushed them faster. At last they reached a bare rectangle of space with packing cases tipped haphazardly in the centre. Harriet consulted a docket, looked at the number fixed to the stand frame, and back at the docket again.

‘This is it,’ she said. ‘This is ours.’ She couldn’t keep the flatness out of her voice. The space was so bare, and dusty, and uninviting.

‘Not even a giant teddy to lend a hand,’ Jane said. Two young women in red and white Queen of Hearts costumes were eyeing them curiously from an apparently complete display across the aisle. ‘Come on, we’d better get started.’

It seemed impossible that they could ever make the stand look like anything. When she unwrapped the parachute silk and draped the creased swathes over the chipboard walls, Harriet thought she saw the Queens of Hearts covertly smiling. If it had not been for Jane, she would have turned tail, even at that last moment, and run away from the exhibition hall, right away from Conundrum itself.

But Jane raised her eyebrows by a fraction and twitched the corners of her mouth, conveying her opinion of the Queens with such perfect economy that Harriet laughed, and instead of running she climbed a stepladder with a staple gun ready in her hand.