‘Not terribly.’
He accepted this with a nod. ‘If you mean I was always ambitious, I confess it.’
‘I think I meant that you would never take no for an answer.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he said. I wasn’t completely sure what he meant by this but before I could delve he spoke again. ‘I knew when I was beaten, even then. When I found myself in a situation where success was not a possible outcome, I accepted it and moved on. You must grant me that.’
This was nonsense. ‘I won’t grant you that,’ I said. ‘Or anything like it. It may be a virtue you achieved in later life. I cannot tell. But when I knew you your eyes were much larger than your stomach and you were a very poor loser, as I should know.’
Damian looked surprised for a moment. Perhaps he had spent so much of his life with people who were paid, in one way or another, to agree with him that he had forgotten not everyone was obliged to. He sipped his brandy and after a pause he nodded. ‘Well, be that as it may, I am beaten now.’ In answer to my unasked question he elaborated. ‘I have inoperable cancer of the pancreas. There is nothing to be done. The doctor has given me about three months to live.’
‘They often get these things wrong.’
‘They occasionally get these things wrong. But not in my case. There may be a variant of a few weeks, but that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ I nodded. It is hard to know how to respond suitably to this kind of declaration because people’s needs can be so different. I doubted that Damian would want wailing and weeping or suggestions of alternative cures based on a macrobiotic diet, but you never know. I waited.
‘I don’t want you to feel I am raging at the injustice of it. My life has, in a way, come to a natural conclusion.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I have, as you point out, been very fortunate. I’ve lived well. I’ve travelled. And there’s nothing left in my work that I still want to do, so that’s something. Do you know what I’ve been up to?’
‘Not really.’
‘I built up a company in computer software. We were among the first to see the potential of the whole thing.’
‘How clever of you.’
‘You’re right. It does sound dull, but I enjoyed it. Anyway, I’ve sold the business and I will not start another.’
‘You don’t know that.’ I can’t think why I said this, because of course he did know exactly that.
‘I’m not complaining. I sold out to a nice, big American company and they gave me enough money to put Malawi back on its feet.’
‘But that’s not what you’re going to do with it.’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
He hesitated. I was fairly sure we were approaching what they call the ‘nub’ of why I was here, but he didn’t seem able to progress things. I thought I might as well have a shot at moving us along. ‘What about your private life?’ I ventured pleasantly.
He thought for a moment. ‘I don’t really have one. Nothing worthy of the name. The odd arrangement for my comfort, but nothing more than that for many years now. I’m not at all social.’
‘You were when I knew you,’ I said. I was still transfixed by the thought of the ‘odd arrangement for my comfort.’ Golly. I resolved to steer clear of any attempt at clarification.
There was no further need to keep things moving. Damian had got started. ‘I did not like the world you took me into, as you know.’ He looked at me challengingly but I had no comment to make so he continued, ‘but, paradoxically, when I left it, I found I didn’t care for the entertainments of my old world either. After a while I gave up “parties” altogether.’
‘Did you marry?’
‘Once. It didn’t last very long.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I only married because I’d got to that age when it starts to feel odd not to have married. I was thirty-six or -seven and curious eyebrows were beginning to be raised. Of course, I was a fool. If I’d waited another five years, my friends would have started to divorce and I wouldn’t have been the only freak in the circus.’
Was she anyone I knew?’
‘Oh, no. I’d escaped from your crowd by then and I had no desire to return to it, I can assure you.’
‘Any more than we had the smallest desire to see you,’ I said. There was something relieving in this. A trace of our mutual dislike had surfaced and it felt more comfortable than the pseudo-friendship we had been playing at all evening. ‘Besides, you don’t know what my crowd is. You don’t know anything about my life. It changed that night as much as yours. And there is more than one way of moving on from a London Season of forty years ago.’
He accepted this without querying it. ‘Quite right. I apologise. But, truly, you would not have known Suzanne. When I met her she was running a fitness centre near Leatherhead.’ Inwardly I agreed that it was unlikely my path had crossed with the ex-Mrs Baxter’s so I was silent. He sighed wearily. ‘She tried her best. I don’t want to speak ill of her. But we had nothing at all to hold us together.’ He paused. ‘You never married in the end, did you?’
‘No. I didn’t. Not in the end.’ The words came out more harshly than I intended but he did not seem to wonder at it. The subject was painful for me and uncomfortable for him. At least, it bloody well should have been. I decided to return to a safer place. ‘What happened to your wife?’
