demonstrate the green credentials of Guest Toothbrushes, by returning home with the
Lindsay sat down to widespread applause, and at this point the wine bottles were opened and the meeting dissolved into informality. I heard Alan take Trevor aside and say, ‘Don’t let everyone hang about – remember we’ve got that newspaper man waiting outside,’ so after just a few minutes we drained our glasses, left the office en masse and made our way down the echoing concrete staircase that led to the forecourt. Trevor, David, Tony and I were lugging our overnight bags with us.
Without really meaning to, I found myself at the back of the group, walking alongside Lindsay Ashworth. Sometimes things just happen that way, I’ve noticed, when there’s an unspoken chemistry between two people. It’s like invisible choreography: you don’t plan to fall into step with the other person, but somehow, everyone else around you moves aside and you realize that you have found each other, without even meaning to. That’s how it had been with Caroline, the first time we spoke to each other over the Formica-topped tables in that gloomy staff canteen all those years ago, and that’s how it was that morning, with me and Lindsay. When she saw that I was walking beside her she turned and smiled at me. Her smile was full of warmth and encouragement, but also with something more troubling behind it: a certain nervousness, perhaps.
‘So – are you ready for this?’ she asked me.
‘Ready for what?’ I asked.
‘Ready to take the IP 009 to places it’s never been before.’
I nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.’
‘Good.’
Something in the way she said this prompted me to remark:
‘Funny atmosphere in there this morning. Everybody seemed a little bit on edge.’
‘Oh, you noticed that, did you?’
‘Is everything OK?’
We had already been talking in undertones, but now Lindsay brought her face even closer to mine.
‘Keep it to yourself, but Alan had a meeting with the bank today. It didn’t go well.’ She stopped walking so that the others could get further ahead (we were on the staircase between the first and second floors), and added: ‘They’re refusing to offer him any more credit. And he’s furious about it, because he only switched the account to these guys a few weeks ago.’
‘Which guys?’ I asked – and when Lindsay told me the name of the bank, I recognized it at once. It was the same one that Poppy’s obnoxious friend Richard used to work for. ‘But … the firm is all right, yes? I mean, everything’s solid, and secure?’
‘I don’t think there are any long-term problems,’ said Lindsay. ‘I think it’s more of a short-term cashflow thing.’ She added: ‘That’s why Alan’s mad at me, as well.’
‘At you? Why would he be mad at you?’
‘I sprung this idea of the prize for petrol consumption on him this morning. He said we couldn’t afford it.’
‘It’s only five hundred quid, though.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I thought. Anyway, we can’t even stretch to that, at the moment, apparently. So he’s making a big deal of putting up the money himself.’
‘His own money?’
‘Yep.’
We started to walk on again.
‘All this,’ I said, ‘puts a bit of pressure on you, I suppose.’
‘You could say that. I think he’s started to feel that this whole stunt is a bad idea. So if it goes wrong …’
‘… You’ll get the blame?’
She nodded, and I said: ‘Don’t worry. It won’t go wrong. It’s a brilliant idea, anyway.’
Lindsay gave me a brief smile of gratitude. We had reached the ground floor, and she held the heavy door open for me as we left the draughty staircase behind, and stepped out into the grey, feeble sunlight. Everyone else was already halfway across the car park, on their way to the row of waiting black Priuses. Once we were outside, Lindsay stopped to light a cigarette.
‘You know, this is the first month,’ she said, ‘that we’ve not been able to pay our mortgage. Martin hasn’t worked so far this year.’
Trevor had told me that Lindsay’s husband worked in the building trade. That was all I knew about him, and I didn’t enquire further.
‘Tough times, Max,’ she said. ‘Nasty times. Somebody’s screwed up, haven’t they? Somebody near the top. But no one’s going to admit it.’ She glanced across at the little crowd gathered around the four black cars. ‘Come on, anyway. The paparazzi are waiting to meet you. You don’t want to miss out on your fifteen minutes of fame.’
It turned out to be rather less than that. The photographer took a picture of the four of us standing in front of one of the cars, and the journalist asked us some vague questions about what sort of toothbrushes were most useful to people who lived in remote parts of the country: he didn’t seem to have quite grasped the point of the exercise. Their work was done in just a couple of minutes, but instead of leaving they hung around to watch our departures, all the time maintaining a slightly amused and disdainful air which I think the rest of us found off- putting, to say the least.
It was all very confused and hectic. Alan Guest presented us with the video cameras on which we were to record our diaries. (Lindsay had one as well, and was wandering around from car to car, already shooting footage at random.) The instruction manuals, he told us, were in our glove compartments – along with the instruction manuals
