'He said he'd go last week.'
'Well he had to cancel.'
'Why can't we steal someone else's clients? Why do we have to steal Harry's clients?'
'We haven't stolen anyone's clients yet.'
'Damn right we haven't,' said Bettina bitterly, wondering if she had got herself stuck with a schmuck who couldn't even get one account. She had listened to Harry when she shouldn't have, and ignored him when she should have listened.
'
'Alright, fuck you, I just might.' The bastard. He knew she couldn't. He knew it gave her the shits to be unable to do this thing that she wanted to do more than anything else. But how could Harry Joy's wife phone up a prospective client and take him out to lunch.
'Well do,' he said smugly. 'Do it yourself.'
'I just might.'
But he wasn't even threatened by it. In fact it restored his good humour and a little colour crept into his face.
'What I was thinking,' he said, and began to run his chubby finger around the wet rim of his Scotch glass.
Bettina listened. When Joel spoke like this she thought of an ice-skater. Suddenly the little bugger was so damn elegant it was almost unbearable.
'What I was thinking was it might be
He took her breath away. Bettina, literally, could not speak. And when she looked at Joel she saw that he meant it: he had that strange little prim smile on his face and his eyes were wet but how or why they were wet she didn't know. Some emotion moved him. But she smelt no weakness, only a sly satisfaction, a boneless strength.
'Christ,' she said, 'you little creep.' But her eyes were bright with admiration and the smile seemed to stay on Joel's face even while he sipped his Scotch.
That night, in the branches of the fig tree beside his house, Harry would conduct his Final Test.
It had not been easy to get there. Joel had been attentive and kind. He had driven him to the airport and waited for him to board the plane.
'You go, Joel. No point in waiting here.'
'No, no, I'm fine.'
When the plane had finally begun to board Harry had still waited.
'You go,' he said. 'I'll go on in a second. I'll just wait for most of them to get on.'
But still Joel wouldn't go, and Harry found himself both irritated and moved by his kindness. Joel waited to watch him walk down the boarding finger and waved him all the way on to the plane.
He took his seat and stood up again.
'I'm on the wrong plane,' he told the hostess, and smiled wanly. 'Sorry:' She took the ticket from his hand.
'No,' she said, 'you're on the right plane, sir. Please be seated.'
'I want to get off.'
'But this is your plane.'
'I don't care. I don't want to fly on it. I was only
'And you just got carried away?' the hostess said sourly, stepping back into the galley to let him past.
And now he was up the fig tree just as he had planned to be, ready to observe what Actors did when they had no audience. The final test was hardly worth all the effort.
It was not so uncomfortable. He had been in worse situ-ations. For this particular branch he had a good view of his neighbour who was taking advantage of the late summer light to dig a hole. This was quite consistent with his behaviour in all the years before Harry had died and he found it, in a peculiar way, soothing to watch him scurrying and puffing around his garden like a little mole. The neighbour always enjoyed holes and mounds of dirt. The earth in his garden could never lie in peace, always on the move from one corner to another. Just when it was settled in, he would decide to shift it. It had all the senseless motion of a sadistic punishment and yet the man (known affectionately as 'the Miner' by the entire Joy family) looked happy enough as he surveyed his mound of dirt and his hole in the ground.
Harry settled in against the trunk and lit a cigarette just as the Miner was walking across to his back door. He stopped and stared up at the tree. He stood very still.
'Hey you,' he called at last, 'you, in the tree.'
'It's only me,' Harry hissed.
'Who's you?'
'Mr Joy.'
The Miner replied in a similar style, in a piercing whisper: 'What's up?'
'I've lost my key.'
The Miner's wife came and stood on the back step: 'Who is it?'
'Mr Joy, from next door.'
'What's he doing?'
'He's lost his key.'
'The boy is home.'
'Your son is home,' hissed the Miner.
Harry knew that his son was home: he could see yellow light shining through the chink in the heavy curtains three feet above his head.
'I know,' he hissed back.
Down on the back step of their house the Miner and his wife had an anxious little conference.
'He knows,' the Miner said.
'I'm not deaf.'
The Miner took a tentative step towards the fence. 'Do you want me to ring the bell for you?'
'Stupid, stupid,' the wife exploded and went inside and slammed the door.
'I want to surprise them,' Harry whispered.
'He wants to surprise them,' the Miner told the darkened screen door. Obviously she had not given up all interest. The door creaked outwards, inquiringly. Another whispered conference concluded with a sharp little bang as the screen door shut like a trap and the Miner, as in the manner of one reluctantly following orders, left his territory and came down the side path on the Joys' side of the fence.
It would appear that he wished a more confidential talk.
It was not an easy tree to climb and the Miner did not acquit himself well. The problem was the first branch.
'Stand on the chair,' Harry whispered, deciding it better that the climb be executed quietly if it was going to be done at all.
'What chair?'
'There.'
It was almost dark now but it was still possible to see the bulges and creases in the Miner's bulbous form as it approached, heralded by wheezing.
'Hi.'
'Hi.'
Such American-style casualness in the middle of a tree. Was he going to remark on the weather?
'He's not here,' the Miner said at last.
There were so many people who were not there. Harry couldn't think what he meant.
'The blue BMW.'
Joel drove a blue BMW, but why would anyone climb a tree to tell him that Joel, as was perfectly obvious, was not visiting his house.
'The person you are trying to surprise,' said the Miner, trying to take possession of Harry's branch, 'is not
