The Stars’ Tennis Balls

player. A famous brand. The question of his share dealings in – ironically – the London Evening Press, was not a question for this board. If Gordon needed time to deal with his detractors, perhaps he could step down temporarily? The board member wished to emphasise the word ‘temporarily’, place it on the record and urge strongly for its inclusion in the press statement. When Gordon had cleared his name – and the board member for one never doubted that he would – then the way would be clear for him to be welcomed back to the chairman’s office. How was that for a plan?

The ‘hear hears’ and pattings of the blotters came so fast and so unanimously that Gordon realised at once that this compromise had been prearranged behind his back.

‘Before we come to a vote on that…’ said Purvis Alloway. Gordon swallowed and drew in a breath ready to begin his great speech, ‘I have a special request to put to the board. It is a little unorthodox perhaps, but since this is an extraordinary meeting called under extraordinary circumstances, I take it there will be no objection.’

Everyone looked at Purvis and this time Gordon knew that the surprise was not being sprung on him alone.

‘I received this morning a letter from a lady staying at Hazlitt’s Hotel,’ Alloway continued. ‘Her name is Princess M’binda and she claims to have information vital to the good name of this company. She is waiting in my office now. I think we should hear her.’

Gordon’s mouth was very dry and he took a sip of water, knowing that every face was turned in his direction. Setting down the glass he looked up, feigned surprise at the sight of so many eyes upon him.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘why not? Show her in by all means.

Alloway pressed the chairman’s buzzer under the table and the door to the boardroom opened.

Everyone around the table rose awkwardly to their feet, Gordon last and most clumsily of all.

‘Good morning, Your … ah … good morning, Princess,’ Alloway was a little unsure of protocol and like the others had been thrown off guard by the extreme beauty of the girl who had come in and was now backed shyly against the wall. She was six foot tall and wrapped in vivid green, red and yellow cotton. The board members became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the photographs on the wall which displayed similar girls in similar dress, girls with berry-filled baskets on their heads smiling toothily at the camera.

Alloway went to the side of the room to pull forward a chair which he placed to the right of his own and a little further back from the table. ‘Please, madam, if you would be so good as to sit down.’

She stayed where she was, arms outstretched and palms flattened against the wall, her large eyes fixed on the window. Alloway understood at once.

‘Is it the height, my dear? Would you like us to draw the curtains?’

The girl nodded and one board member attended to the blinds, while another switched on the lights. Immediately, the tension went out of her body and she dropped onto the chair with great elegance. Her eyes met Gordon’s at the end of the table opposite and held them steadily.

Gordon’s breath had been growing very shallow since the moment her name had been mentioned and his mouth was dry and clacky, but he knew that to take another drink of water would be to lose a psychological battle. He met the girl’s gaze and she slowly dropped her eyes to her lap.

‘Now then,’ Alloway was looking at a letter on the table in front of him. ‘You say that you have information vital to the interests of this company. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell us who you are and what information it is that you have for us?’

‘I am the Princess M’binda of the Ankoza,’ she began. ‘We are a people of the hills. My father B’goli was their king…’

As she talked, and Suzie’s pencil raced along her pad, Gordon was transported in his mind back to East Africa. He had been forced to go there because a shipment of futures on which he had invested the last of his – of Hillary’s – money had been delayed, as he thought, in port. In fact, the beans were in store somewhere, close to rotting. It had been his fault. Some piece of paperwork, eight months before, had not been sent from London. Typical of his luck.

It had been sorted out at last, at great extra cost, and he had met a man in a bar who had told him about the Ankoza. ‘They grew the plantation themselves from scratch, it’s just coming into maturity now. Some Robusta but Arabica mostly. Top quality peaberries too. Good high air, but they don’t know shit about selling coffee. They take it to market would you believe? Waste of damn good growing country. I’m trying to get my people to take an interest.’

Well, Gordon had found them first and charmed B’goli, their chief, into agreeing to accept him as their exclusive buyer for the produce of their soft lilac-coloured mountains. He had hurried back to civilisation to sell his original consignment, at a thundering loss, and used the cash to set up his own brokerage and to hire lawyers to hammer B’goli’s agreement into an ironclad contract. He duly obtained B’goli’s signature and word got about that there was a new player in town. A fortnight after he had registered his brokerage a man from the government came to see Gordon.

‘Dear me. It cannot be that you are going into business with the Ankoza? But everybody knows how corrupt they are. They will cheat you and rob you. My people, on the other hand, the Kobali people, thoroughly reliable. How much easier to deal with them. The government is entirely Kobali. How much more quickly your coffee will go through port, how much more efficiently it will be handled if you deal only with Kobali! Trading with the Ankoza, it is doubtful that a single bean would reach the warehouses. No, no, my friend. Much better deal with us. What’s this? The contract is not with the Ankoza … it is with the land. My dear fellow, this makes it so simple! The Ankoza do not own this land. No, no, no. I assure you they do not. I tell you what we shall do. We shall compensate you for all this extra work – a hundred thousand pounds English sterling – and we shall help you to remove those scoundrel Ankoza from the land they are illegally occupying.’

Not his fault. Not his fault. It was the man in the bar. Someone would have got there if Gordon hadn’t, it was inevitable. The Ankoza were always going to be kicked out. Not his fault. But M’binda…

The moment he had seen her, he had wanted her. He had asked that she be kept behind. She had wept inconsolably as her father and his family had been loaded onto lorries like potatoes and driven down the hill.

It was not rape though. If she said that it was rape, she was lying. She had been… if not compliant, certainly not non-compliant. She had been nothing. A lifeless doll.

Her word against his, that was the point. His word against hers. For the time being it was important to look surprised, outraged at everything she said, as if each fresh accusation came as a shock. He was somehow upset by the presence of Suzie in the room. She had never once looked up, but her pencil had never stopped moving and her lips moved imperceptibly as she scribbled. The whole story was down there in Pitman hieroglyphs and later today she would type it up into minutes. Gordon wanted to wrench the pad from her and rip it to pieces.

Nobody was looking at him now as M’binda finished her tale. That wasn’t true. She was looking at him. No disgust in her eyes, no flash of vengeful hatred. She just looked with a cool and steady gaze that screwed his lungs into a ball.

‘When I was allowed to leave I found my family living in iron sheds in a dusty village below the mountains. When the rains came the water from the mountains filled the village and the dust became mud. My mother and two of my brothers died from malaria. My father and my sisters, they died from cholera. That is my story. My father the king, he trusted Mr Fendeman very much and now he is dead and my people are starving, diseased and their hearts are broken from loss of home.’

Alloway leaned forward and patted her on the hand. ‘Thank you, Your Highness. Thank you very much indeed.’

Gordon coughed involuntarily and tried to turn the cough into a laugh.

‘Preposterous,’ he spluttered, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. ‘I mean, gentlemen, please!’ He looked them all in the eyes, each one in turn. ‘I think … I insist that it is time I had my say. Firstly, I have to tell you that I have never seen this woman before in my life.’ He used the word ‘woman’ because he was uncomfortably aware how young she looked. He knew that everyone around the table would have made their calculations and determined that five years ago, at the time Gordon was in Africa, she can have been no older than thirteen or fourteen. ‘Secondly, what she says about the contract with King B’goli is a clever concoction of half truths. Yes, the deal was with the land, not with the people. But that is standard. You all know that. She paints a charming picture of naпve simplicity and honest dignity, but poverty?

Excuse me. This lady has flown from Africa and is staying – where did you say, Purvis? – the Waldorf. The Waldorf Fucking Hotel, you should excuse my French. We should all be so poor, Princess. Most importantly of all. Where is the proof? Am I to be condemned on the say so of a plausible actress, playing on your guilty heart strings. Christ almighty, I’m a married man. I have a family. Where is the proof? Without proof none of this is anything more than slander.’

‘Perhaps I can help you there, gentlemen.’

Every head turned towards the doorway, the source of the interruption. Simon Cotter strode in, smiling and stood behind M’binda, a hand resting on the back of her chair.

Gordon blinked the sweat out of his eyes and tried to speak, but no words came.

Purvis Alloway had sprung to his feet ‘I don’t know who let you in – Mr Cotter is it not? – but this is a private board meeting and I must ask you to remove yourself. If you have any submissions to make, I suggest you make them formally, in writing, to the chairman.’

‘I’m not in the habit, Mr Alloway,’ said Simon smoothly, ‘of writing to myself, formally or otherwise.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘As of ten o’clock this morning I became the majority shareholder in this company. I think that gives me every right to be here.’

A murmur of conversation broke out and one board member’s hand inched towards his mobile phone. Alloway slapped the table.

‘Gentlemen, please!’ He turned back to Cotter.

‘Is this really true?’

Simon passed a piece of paper. ‘A record of the transaction from my broker. You may check with your own people, if you prefer.’

‘No, no. This seems in order … really, Mr Cotter, we had no idea of your intentions towards our company. You come at a difficult moment.’

‘I could not help but overhear Mr Fendeman defending himself. He has a carrying voice, if I may say so.

Gordon’s face was grey and he was finding it difficult to control his breathing. He could feel the sweat around his collar and the cold drops ran from his armpits down the side of his body to his waist.

‘I said I can help you,’ continued Simon, ‘and I can. Let me deal straightaway with the subject of proof. I have here – ‘ he laid three pieces of paper carefully on the table, sworn depositions, duly, as you will see from the seals, notarised. The first confirms Mr Fendeman’s receipt of a hundred thousand pounds from the government. It is signed by the man who offered the bribe. The second contains the signature of another government official who testifies that Mr Fendeman insisted as part of the deal that the thirteen-year-old Princess M’binda be kept behind during the eviction of the Ankoza people. The third affidavit is signed by two drivers and a soldier, each of whom saw Mr Fendeman personally carry the Princess into a hut. The soldier, I’m afraid, who was young at the time, actually looked through a hole in the wall of the hut and witnessed the entire rape. At a moment’s notice any or all of these people can be flown to the United Kingdom if Mr Fendeman wishes to contest their evidence.’