The Stars’ Tennis Balls

would have heard their weeping screams for mercy and their plight would already be known all over the prison. Power depends on strength and the appearance of impregnability. Many prisoners had cause to hate the Drapers and now that all support and protection had been withdrawn from them, their lives would be horribly different.

Jim raised his head. The posters had been taken from the wall and all he could see were smears of blood and buttons of blu-tak. His brother lay on the floor beside him.

‘Micky?’ he whispered, the effort shooting arrows of pain all around his body. ‘On the phone. Who the fuck was it?’

But Micky was unconscious.

Jim’s head dropped back to the floor and he tried to focus his thoughts. They would be out in a year, but it would be twelve months of fear and pain. From this moment on they were in hell. Jim consoled himself with one thought. The Drapers held one advantage over ordinary people, an edge that had helped them and given them strength throughout their troubled and violent lives. They had each other.

‘I think they should be separated as soon as possible,’ said Simon Cotter.

‘Different cells, you mean?’

‘Perhaps different wings. Would that be a possibility?’

‘Consider it done, sir.’

Cotter put a hand over the phone and apologetically shrugged his shoulders at the boy who had just come into his office. ‘With you in a moment, he said. ‘Just got to get this sorted out.’

Taking this to mean that he should leave, Albert turned towards the door.

‘No, no. Stay. Sit down, sit down.’

‘Sir?’

‘Not you, Cardiff.’

‘Is there a problem talking, sir?’

‘No, no, not at all. How are our friends this morning?’

‘Well, sir, Micky was out for eighteen hours, but he’s conscious now. They’ll both be taking food by straw for a month.’

‘Oh that is good news. Well done.’

‘Er…’

‘Say on, Mr Cardiff.’

‘I think you might have accidentally overpaid me, sir.’

‘How very honest of you. Not an overpayment, Mr Cardiff. Appreciation of a job well done. Your email was most marvellously and entertainingly composed. Quite beyond the call of duty. You should consider a literary career, you know.’

‘Well, thank you very much indeed, sir. Very kind indeed.’

‘Goodbye then.’ Cotter put down the phone and smiled across the desk. It had amused him to notice that the boy had been studying the carpet with great concentration, as if to imply that by not looking at the telephone he had not been listening. Quite illogical, but human and most charmingly polite. ‘So sorry about that. What a pleasure to meet you. I’m Simon Cotter.’

Albert stood up to shake hands across the desk.

‘No, no. I’ll come round. We’re not very desky here. They are tables to put computers and phones on, not for talking across.

They shook hands and Simon led Albert to the corner of the office.

‘Now then,’ Simon sat down in an armchair and pointed Albert to the sofa opposite him. ‘I said in my letter how much I admired the work you have done for your father’s company. Quite brilliant. I nearly said “for an amateur but we are all amateurs at this game and your work was brilliant I think by any standards.’

‘Amateur is the French for “lover”, after all,’ said Albert, shyly. ‘And it was very much a labour of love.’

‘Good for you! What I didn’t say in my letter was that I think Café Ethica is one of the great achievements of the last few years. Your father must be a remarkable man.

Albert’s face lit up. ‘He is, he really is! He used to work in commodities, trading tea and coffee futures in the City, but he went out there to Africa once and saw how the people lived and it completely changed his outlook. He now says, it’s not about coffee futures, it’s about human futures.’

‘Human futures, yes … very good. Human futures.

How does he feel, I wonder, about the possibility of you joining us here?’

‘Well, since the website has been rather a success, I think he imagined that after university I would, you know…’ Albert trailed off and looked towards Cotter, who nodded sympathetically.

‘He thought you might go into the business with him? Look after the cyber side of life.’

Albert nodded. ‘And my mother…’

Simon moved a hand down to his knee and pressed it down to stop a slight involuntary jogging motion that had started up. ‘Your mother,’ he said, lightly. ‘She’s the famous Professor Fendeman, is she not? I have read her books.’

‘I think she’s worried about me not getting a degree.’

‘Naturally. Any mother would be. You’re due to go up to Oxford – how very modest of you not to mention it by name, by the way – in October of next year, I believe. Which college?’

‘St Mark’s.’

‘Any reason for that choice?’

‘My mother always said it was the best.’

‘Hm … St Mark’s, that’s the one with the famous Maddstone Quad, isn’t it?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Very quaint as I remember.’

‘My mother’s always wanted me to go there. Doesn’t like the idea of me missing out on an education.'

‘I think she’s absolutely right,’ said Cotter. ‘I agree with her completely.’

The disappointment in Albert’s face was pitiful to behold. ‘Oh…’

‘But,’ Cotter continued. ‘I don’t like the idea of missing out on you. There’s ten months or so until October. Why don’t we come to an arrangement? Join us now and if in that ten months you and your family still feel that Oxford is a good idea, you can go. We’ll still be here when you emerge, all qualified and polished and graduated in your cap and gown. After all, you can carry on working for us in your vacations, and if you’ve done as well here as I think you will, we might even consider paying you a retainer, a kind of scholarship, if you like. As it happens we re looking at endowing a chair in IT at Oxford at the moment, so I think the university will be disposed to look favourably on anything we might suggest. Like all ancient and venerable English institutions Oxford will roll over backwards and do all kinds of undignified somersaults if there’s a smell of money in the air. How does that sound to you?’

‘It sounds … it sounds …‘ Albert searched hopelessly for a word. ‘It sounds brilliant.’

‘I’ll talk to my legal department about drawing up a contract. I like doing things quickly, if you’ve no objection. Let’s suppose a draft is delivered to you by five o’clock this evening. Your parents will want to show it to a lawyer. Perhaps you will have come to a decision by Friday? Come to me when it’s all been thoroughly thought through.’

Albert looked behind Cotter’s shoulder. A projector beamed the phrase ‘Thoroughly thought through’ onto the wall.

‘Ah, you’d spotted it. My motto. You’ll find it everywhere. On our screensavers and our desktop wallpaper.’ Cotter rose from his armchair and Albert instantly leapt to his feet.

‘Mr Cotter, I don’t know what to say.

‘It’s Simon. We’re very informal here. No suits, no surnames.’ Cotter put an arm round Albert’s shoulder and walked him to the door. ‘And by a happy coincidence, you’ll find that we only serve Café Ethica coffees and teas. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. Things are getting rather busy. I’m in the middle of trying to buy a newspaper. You’ve no idea how complicated a process it’s turning out to be.’

‘Really? I do it every day,’ said Albert, surprised at his own daring. ‘You just hand over money to the man in the shop and… voilа!’

‘Ha!’ Simon punched him playfully on the arm. ‘All this and a sense of humour too!’ How like his mother, he thought to himself. How absurdly like his mother. ‘I wish it were really that simple,’ he added. ‘I almost find myself feeling sorry for the Murdochs of this world. It’s nothing fancy, just the old LEP, but none the less, the regulations …

‘LEP?’

‘London Evening Press. Way before you were born. But it’s about time the Standard had a rival, don’t you think? You never know, we might even start you on a column. Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you some time before Friday.’

Crossing Waterloo Bridge on his way to the restaurant where Gordon and Portia would be awaiting him, Albert looked back towards the great glass tower that he had just left. He was not a superstitious or a religious youth, but he could not help wondering what power or deity had blessed him with such outrageous good fortune. Like all seventeen-year-olds his sense of guilt was greater than his sense of pride and as a rule if he expected anything from fate it was more likely to be punishment than reward. Four and a half years ago, during his barmitzvah, he had mentally crossed his fingers and thought scabrous blasphemous thoughts throughout the ceremony. For weeks afterwards he had been in dread of God’s revenge. None had come. God had expressed his wrath by giving him good friends, sound health and kindly parents. To crown it all he was now to become a favourite in the Court of King Cotter.

He strode up the stone stairs of Christopher’s two at a time. Portia and Gordon, nervously sipping mineral water at their table, didn’t see him enter. He stopped a passing waiter and smiled broadly.

‘Could you bring a bottle of champagne to that table over there? The best you’ve got.'

‘Certainly, sir.’ The waiter bowed and hurried away.

‘Darling!’ Portia beckoned him over. ‘How was it? How did it go?’