‘Sounds like a rare find,’ said Osnard.
Pendel swelled with marital pride.
‘Andy, you are not wrong. And if you want my personal view, Ernie Delgado is a very fortunate man. One moment it’s your high-level shipping conference to be prepared for, and where’s the minutes of the last one? The next it’s your foreign delegation wanting to be briefed, and where on earth have those Japanese interpreters got to?’ Yet again he felt an irrepressible urge to chip at Ernie Delgado’s pedestal: ‘Plus she’s the only one can speak to Ernie when he’s got a hangover or is suffering the serious criticism of his lady wife. Without Louisa, old Ernie would be belly up and his very shiny halo would be acquiring quite a lot of rust-spots.’
‘Japanese,’ said Osnard in a trailed, contemplative sort of voice.
‘Well, they could be Swedish or German or French, I suppose. But it’s more your Japanese than most.’
‘What sort o’ Japanese? Local? Visiting? Commercial? Official?’
‘I can’t say I know, Andy.’ A silly, over-excited giggle. ‘They’re all a bit alike to me, I suppose. Bankers a lot of them, I expect.’
‘But Louisa knows.’
‘Andy, those Japs eat out of her hand. I don’t know what it is about her, but to see her with her Jap delegations, doing her bowing and her smiling and her come-this-way-gentlemen – it’s a privilege, is what it is,’
‘Bring work home, does she? Weekend work? Evenings?’
‘Only when she’s pressed, Andy. Thursdays mostly, so that she can get herself clear for the weekend and the kids while I’m entertaining my customers. There’s no overtime paid and they exploit her something rotten. Though they do pay her the US rates, which makes a difference, I’ll admit.’
‘What does she do with it?’
‘With the work? Work on it. Type it,’
‘The lolly. Jack. Pay.’
‘It all goes into the joint account, Andy, which is what she considers right and proper, being a very high-minded woman and mother,’ Pendel replied primly.
And to his surprise he felt himself blush scarlet, and his eyes filled with hot tears until he somehow persuaded them to go back to where they had come from. But Osnard wasn’t blushing and no tears flooded his boot-button black eyes.
‘Poor girl’s working to pay off Ramón,’ he said relentlessly. ‘And doesn’t even know it,’
But if Pendel was mortified by this cruel statement of hard fact, his expression no longer showed it. He was peering excitedly down the room, his face a mixture of joy and apprehension.
‘Harry! My friend! Harry! I swear to God. I love you!’
An enormous figure in a magenta smoking jacket was lumbering towards them, crashing against tables, draw-ing cries of anger and turning over drinks along his path. He was a young man still and the vestiges of good looks clung to him despite the ravages of pain and dissipation.
Seeing him approach, Pendel had already risen to his feet.
‘Señor Mickie, sir, I love you back, and how are you today?’ he enquired anxiously. ‘Meet Andy Osnard, chum of mine. Andy, this is Mickie Abraxas. Mickie, I think you’re a touch refreshed. Why don’t we both sit down?’
But Mickie needed to show off his jacket and he couldn’t do it sitting down. Knuckles to his hips, finger-tips outward, he executed a grotesque rendering of a fashion-model’s pirouette before grabbing the edge of the table to steady himself. The table rocked and a couple of plates crashed to the floor.
‘You like it, Harry? You proud of it?’ He was speaking North American English very loud.
‘Mickie, it’s truly beautiful,’ said Pendel earnestly. ‘I was just saying to Andy here, I never cut a better pair of shoulders and you show them off a treat, didn’t I, Andy? Now why don’t we sit down and have a natter?’
But Mickie had focused on Osnard.
‘What do you think, Mister?’
Osnard gave an easy smile. ‘Congratulations. P&B at their best. Centre runs right down the middle.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘He’s a customer, Mickie,’ said Pendel, working hard for peace, which with Mickie he always did. ‘Name of Andy. I told you but you wouldn’t listen. Mickie was at Oxford, weren’t you, Mickie? Tell Andy which college you were at. He’s also a very big fan of our English way of life and sometime president of our Anglo-Panamanian Society of Culture, right, Mickie? Andy’s a highly important diplomat, right, Andy? He works at the British Embassy. Arthur Braithwaite made suits for his old dad.’