‘Me? Oh, usual sort of thing. Start with a couple o’ lounge suits, see how they go. After that it’s the full Monty.’
‘The full Monty,’ Pendel repeated in awe, as memories of Uncle Benny nearly drowned him. ‘It must be twenty years since I heard that expression, Mr Osnard. Bless my soul. The full Monty. My goodness me.’
Here again, any other tailor might reasonably have contained his enthusiasm and returned to his naval uniform. And so on any other day might Pendel. An appointment had been made, the price acknowledged, social preliminaries exchanged. But Pendel was enjoying himself. His visit to the bank had left him feeling lonely. He had few English customers and fewer English friends. Louisa, guided by her late father’s ghost, did not encourage them.
‘And P&B are still the only show in town, that right?’ Osnard was asking. ‘Tailors to Panama’s best and brightest fatcats and so forth?’
Pendel smiled at fatcat. ‘We like to think so, sir. We’re not complacent but we’re proud of our achievements. It wasn’t all roses these last ten years, I can assure you. There’s not a lot of taste in Panama to be frank. Or there wasn’t until we came along. We had to educate them before we could sell to them. All that money for a suit? They thought we were mad or worse. Then gradually it took on till there was no stopping it, I’m pleased to say. They began to understand we don’t just throw a suit at them and ask for the money, we provide maintenance, we alter, we’re always there when they come back, we’re friends and supporters, we’re human beings. You’re not a gentleman of the press by any chance are you, sir? We were rather tickled recently by an article that appeared in our local edition of the Miami Herald, I don’t know whether it chanced to catch your eye,’
‘Must have missed it.’
‘Well, let me put it this way, Mr Osnard. I’ll be serious, if you don’t mind. We dress presidents, lawyers, bankers, bishops, members of legislative assemblies, generals and admirals. We dress whoever appreciates a bespoke suit and can pay for it irregardless of colour, creed or reputation. How does that sound?’
‘Promising, actually. Very promising. Five o’clock, then. Happy hour. Osnard.’
‘Five o’clock it is, Mr Osnard. I look forward to it.’
‘Makes two of us.’
‘Another fine new customer then, Marta,’ Pendel told her when she came in with some bills.
But nothing he ever said to Marta was quite natural. Neither was the way she heard him: mauled head cocked away from him, the wise dark eyes on something else, curtains of black hair to hide the worst of her.
And that was that. Vain fool that he afterwards called himself, Pendel was amused and flattered. This Osnard was evidently a card and Pendel loved a card the way Uncle Benny had, and the Brits, whatever Louisa and her late father might say about them, made better cards than most. Perhaps after all these years of turning his back on the old country it wasn’t such a bad place after all. He made nothing of Osnard’s reticence about the nature of his business. A lot of his customers were reticent, others should have been who weren’t. He was amused, he was not prescient. And on putting down the telephone he went back to his Admiral’s uniform until the Happy Friday midday rush began, because that was what Friday lunchtime was called until Osnard came along and ruined the last of Pendel’s innocence.
And today, who should be heading the parade but the one and only Rafi Domingo himself, billed as Panama’s leading playboy, and one of Louisa’s pet hates.
‘Señor Domingo, sir!’ – opening his arms – ‘Superb to see you, and looking shamefully youthful with it, if I may say so!’ – a quick lowering of the voice – ‘and may I remind you, Rafi, that the late Mr Braithwaite’s definition of our perfect gentleman’ – deferentially pinching at the lower sleeve of Rafi’s blazer – ‘is a thumb-knuckle’s width of shirt cuff, never more?’
After which they try on Rafi’s new dinner jacket, which needs trying for no reason except to show it off to the other Friday customers who by this time have started to gather in the shop with their mobile telephones and cigarette smoke and bawdy chatter and heroic stories of deals and sexual conquests. Next in line is Aristides the braguetazo, which means he married for money, and is for this reason regarded by his friends as something of a male martyr. Then comes Ricardo-call-me-Ricki, who in a short but profitable reign in the upper echelons of the Ministry of Public Works awarded himself the right to build every road in Panama from now until eternity. Ricki is accompanied by Teddy, alias the Bear, Panama’s most hated newspaper columnist and undoubtedly its ugliest, bringing his own lonely chill with him, but Pendel is not affected by it.