‘You’re an evil little witch, aren’t you—’
‘Tel me!’
There was a short pause, and then Sue said, ‘It’s about the piano.’
Bernie Harrison asked Scott Rossiter to meet him in his offices. He had thought of suggesting a drink together, but he wanted the occasion to be more businesslike than convivial, and he wanted Scott’s ful attention. So he thought, on reflection, that to meet in his offices would not only achieve both those things but would also impress upon Scott the size and significance of the Bernie Harrison Agency.
He had known Scott almost al his life. He remembered him as a smal boy at home in one of the plain-brick, metal-windowed council houses on the Chirton Estate in North Shields, when Richie and Margaret were stil sharing with Richie’s parents. Richie’s parents had been living in the house since Richie was five, being categorized as ‘homeless’ after the Second World War, which then meant being a married couple stil forced to live with their parents. And then, a generation later, it had happened to Richie and Margaret, before Richie’s career struck gold, and while he was stil taking low-key dates in obscure venues, and she was a junior secretary in a North Shields legal firm, and Scott was a toddler, cared for in the daytime by his sweet and ineffectual grandmother. After that, of course, it al changed. After that, after Richie’s ‘discovery’ on a talent show for Yorkshire Television, it was very different. The house on the Chirton Estate was abandoned for a little terraced house in Tynemouth and then a semi-detached, much larger house, with a sizeable garden, and when Scott left primary school he left the state system too and gained a place, a fee-paying place, at the King’s School in Tynemouth. Richie and Margaret had almost died of pride when Scott got into the King’s School.
Bernie held out a big hand.
‘Scott, my lad.’
Scott took his hand.
‘Mr Harrison.’
‘Bernie, please—’
Scott shook his head. ‘Couldn’t, Mr Harrison. Sorry.’
Bernie motioned to a leather wing chair.
‘Good to see you. Sit yourself down.’
‘Isn’t that your chair?’
Bernie winked.
‘They are
Scott gave a half-smile, and subsided into the chair. He had a pretty good idea why Bernie had asked to see him, and an even better idea of what he was going to say in reply. He had not told Margaret he had been summoned, but he was going to tel her about the meeting when it was over. He was feeling fond and protective of Margaret at the moment. When, the other night, he’d asked her if she ever felt like he did that there might be someone or something out there that could spring him from the trap of his sense of obstructing himself from moving forward, she’d said,
‘Oh, pet, you know, you always hope and hope it’l be someone else who does the trick, but in the end it comes down to you yourself, and the sad fact is that some of us can and some of us can’t,’ and then she’d taken his hand and said again, ‘Some of us just can’t,’ and he’d had a sudden lightning glimpse of how she’d looked at his age, younger even, when there seemed to be everything to live for, and nothing to dread. He looked now at Bernie Harrison.
‘I shouldn’t be too long, Mr Harrison.’
‘Me neither,’ Bernie said firmly.
He balanced himself against the edge of the desk and held the rim either side of him. ‘It’s your mother, Scott.’
‘Yes,’ Scott said. He looked at Bernie’s shoes. They were expensive, black calf slip-ons, with tassels. The fabric of his suit trousers looked classy too, with a rich, soft sheen to it, and his shirt had French cuffs and links the size of gobstoppers.
‘Did she tel you,’ Bernie said, ‘about my proposal?’
‘Yes,’ Scott said. ‘The other night.’
‘So she also wil have told you that she declined my offer.’
‘Yes.’
Bernie cleared his throat.
‘Can you enlighten me as to why she’d turn me down?’
‘I wouldn’t try,’ Scott said.
‘OK, OK. I’m not asking you to betray any confidences. I’m just seeking a few assurances. Is it – is it me?’
‘You?’
‘Wel ,’ Bernie said, ‘does she think that if she worked with me I’d make a nuisance of myself? Your mother’s a good-looking woman.’
Scott smiled at him.
‘No, Mr Harrison, I don’t think that was the problem.’
Bernie flicked him a look.
‘Sure?’
