A Twist in the Tale (23 page)

“But was it
explained to those same shareholders how a former employee could afford to buy
a new car only a matter of days after being sacked?” pursued Philip. “A second
car, I might add.” Philip took a sip of his tomato juice.

“It wasn’t a
new car,” said Michael
defens-ively
. “It was a second-hand
Mini and I bought it with part of my redundancy pay when I had to return the
company car. And in any case, you know Carol needs her own car for the job at
the bank.”

“Frankly, I am
amazed Carol has stuck it for so long as she has after all you’ve put her
through.”

“All I’ve put
her through; what are you implying?” asked Michael.

“I am not
implying anything,” Philip retorted. “But the fact is that a certain young
woman who shall remain nameless” – this piece of information seemed to
disappoint most eavesdroppers – “also became redundant at about the same time,
not to mention pregnant.”

The barman had
not been asked for a drink for nearly seven minutes, and by now there were few
members still affecting not to be listening to the altercation between the two
men. Some were even staring in open disbelief.

“But I hardly
knew her,” protested Michael.

“As I said,
that’s not the version I heard.

And what’s more
I’m told the child bears a striking resemblance -”

“That’s going
too far-”

“Only if you
have nothing to hide,” said Philip grimly.

“You know I’ve
nothing to hide.”

“Not even the
blonde hairs Carol found all over the back seat of the new Mini. The girl at
work was a blonde, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, but those
hairs came from a golden retriever.”

“You don’t have
a golden retriever.”

“I know, but
the dog belonged to the last owner.”

“That bitch
didn’t belong to the last owner, and I refuse to believe Carol fell for that
old chestnut.”

“She believed
it because it was the truth.”

“The truth, I
fear, is something you lost contact with a long time ago. You were sacked,
first because you couldn’t keep your hands off anything in a skirt under forty,
and second, because you couldn’t keep your fingers out of the till. I ought to
know. Don’t forget I had to get rid of you for the same reasons.

Michael jumped
up, his cheeks almost the
colour
of Philip’s tomato
juice. He raised his clenched fist and was about to take a swing at Philip when
Colonel Mather, the club president, appeared at his side.

“Good morning,
sir,” said Philip calmly, rising for the Colonel.

“Good morning,
Philip,” the Colonel barked. “Don’t you think this little misunderstanding has
gone quite far enough?”

“Little
misunderstanding?” protested Michael. “Didn’t you hear what he’s been saying
about me?”

“Every word,
unfortunately, like any other member present,” said the Colonel. Turning back
to Philip, he added, “Perhaps you two should shake hands like good fellows and
call it a day.”

“Shake hands
with that philandering, double-crossing shyster? Never,” said Philip.

“I tell you,
Colonel, he’s not fit to be a member of this club, and I can assure you that
you’ve only heard half the story.”

Before the
Colonel could attempt another round of diplomacy Michael sprang on Philip and it
took three men younger than the club president to
prise
them apart. The Colonel immediately ordered both men off the premises, warning
them that their conduct would be reported to the house committee at its next
monthly meeting. And until that meeting had taken place, they were both
suspended.

The club
secretary, Jeremy Howard, escorted the two men off the premises and watched
Philip get into his Rolls-Royce and drive sedately down the drive and out
through the gates. He had to wait on the steps of the club for several minutes
before Michael departed in his Mini. He appeared to be sitting in the front
seat writing something. When he had eventually passed through the club gates,
the secretary turned on his heels and made his way back to the bar. What they did
to each other after they left the grounds was none of his business.

Back in the
clubhouse, the secretary found that the conversation had not returned to the
likely winner of the President’s Putter, the seeding of the Ladies’ Handicap
Cup, or who might be prevailed upon to sponsor the Youth Tournament that year.

“They seemed in
a jolly enough
mood
when I passed them on the
sixteenth hole earlier this morning,” the club captain informed the Colonel.

The Colonel
admitted to being mystified.

He had known both
men since the day they joined the club nearly fifteen years before.

They weren’t
bad lads, he assured the captain; in fact he rather liked them. They had played
a round of golf every Saturday morning for as long as anyone could remember,
and never a cross word had been known to pass between them.

“Pity,” said
the Colonel. “I was hoping to ask Masters to sponsor the Youth Tournament this
year.”

“Good idea, but
I can’t see you pulling that off now.”

“I can’t
imagine what they thought they were up to.”

“Can it simply be that Philip is such a success story and Michael
has fallen on hard times?”
sug
-
gested
the captain.

“No, there’s
more to it than that,” replied the Colonel. “This morning’s little episode
requires a fuller explanation,” he added sagely.

Everyone in the
club was aware that Philip Masters had built up his own business from scratch
after he had left his first job as a kitchen salesman. “Ready-Fit Kitchens” had
started in a shed at the end of Philip’s garden and ended up in a factory on
the other side of town which employed over three hundred people. After
Ready-Fit went public the financial press speculated that Philip’s shares alone
had to be worth a couple of million.

When five years
later the company was taken over by the John Lewis Partnership, it became
public knowledge that Philip had walked away from the deal with a
cheque
for seventeen million pounds and a five- year
service contract that would have pleased a pop star. Some of the windfall had
been spent on a magnificent Georgian house in sixty acres of woodland just
outside
Haslemere
: he could even see the golf course
from his bedroom. Philip had been married for over twenty years and his wife
Sally was chairman of the regional branch of the Save the Children Fund and a
JP. Their son had just won a place at St Anne’s College, Oxford.

Michael was the
boy’s godfather.

Michael Gilmour
could not have been a greater contrast. On leaving school, where Philip had
been his closest friend, he had drifted from job to job. He started out as a
trainee with
Watneys
, but lasted only a few months
before moving on to work as a rep with a publishing company. Like Philip, he
married his childhood sweetheart, Carol West, the daughter of a local doctor.

When their own
daughter was born, Carol complained about the hours Michael spent away from
home so he left publishing and signed on as a distribution manager with a local
soft drinks firm. He lasted for a couple of years until his deputy was promoted
over him as area manager, at which decision Michael left in a huff. After his
first spell on the dole, Michael joined a grain-packing company, but found he
was allergic to corn and, having been supplied with a medical
certific
-ate to prove it, collected his first redundancy
cheque
. He then joined Philip as a Ready-Fit Kitchens rep
but left without explanation within a month of the company being taken over.
Another spell of unemployment followed before he took up the job of sales
manager with a company that made microwave ovens. He seemed to have settled
down at last until, without warning, he was made redundant. It was true that
the company profits had been halved that year, while the company directors were
sorry to see Michael go – or that was how it was expressed in their in-house
magazine.

Carol was
unable to hide her distress when Michael was made redundant for the fourth
time. They could have done with the extra cash now that their daughter had been
offered a place at art school.

Philip was the
girl’s godfather.

“What are you
going to do about it?” asked Carol anxiously, when Michael had told her what
had taken place at the club.

“There’s only
one thing I can do,” he replied. “After all, I have my reputation to consider.
I shall sue the bastard.”

“That’s a
terrible way to talk about your oldest friend. And anyway we can’t afford to go
to law,” said Carol. “Philip’s a millionaire and we’re penniless.”

“Can’t be
helped,” said Michael. “I’ll have to go through with it, even if it means
selling up every- thing.”

“And even if
the rest of your family has to suffer along with you?”

“None of us
will suffer when he ends up paying my costs plus massive damages.”

“But you could
lose,” said Carol. “Then we would end up with nothing- worse than nothing.”

“That’s not
possible,” said Michael. “He made the mistake of saying all those things in
front of witnesses. There must have been over fifty members in the clubhouse
this morning, including the
presi
- dent of the club
and the editor of the local paper, and they couldn’t have failed to hear every
word.”

Carol remained
unconvinced, and she was relieved that during the next few days Michael didn’t
mention Philip’s name once. She hoped that her husband had come to his senses
and the whole affair was best forgotten.

But then the
Haslemere
Chronicle decided to print its version of the
quarrel between Michael and Philip. Under the headline “Fight breaks out at
golf club” came a carefully worded account of what had taken place on the
previous Saturday. The editor of the
Haslemere
Chronicle knew only too well that the conversation itself was unprintable
unless he also wanted to be sued, but he managed to include enough innuendo in
the article to give a full
flavour
of what had
happened that morning. .

“That’s the
final straw,” said Michael, when he finished reading the article for a third
time. Carol-
realised
that nothing she could say or
do was going to stop her husband now.

The following
Monday, Michael contacted a local solicitor, Reginald Lomax, who had been at
school with them both. Armed with the article, Michael briefed Lomax on the
conversation that the Chronicle had felt
inju-dicious
to publish in any great detail. Michael also gave Lomax his own detailed
account of what had happened at the club that morning, and handed him four
pages of handwritten notes to back his claims up.

Lomax studied
the notes carefully.

“When did you
write these?”

“In my car,
immediately after we were suspended.”

“That was
circumspect of you,” said Lomax.

“Most circumspect.”
He stared quizzically at his client over
the top of his half-moon spectacles. Michael made no comment. “Of course you
must be aware that the law is an expensive pastime,” Lomax continued.

“Suing for
slander will not come cheap, and even with evidence as strong as this” -he
tapped the notes in front of him- “you could still lose. Slander depends so
much on what other people remember or, more important, will admit to
remembering.”

“I’m well aware
of that,” said Michael. “But I’m determined to go through with it. There were
over fifty people in the club within earshot that morning.

“So be it,”
said Lomax. “Then I shall require five thousand pounds in advance as a
contingency fee to cover all the immediate costs and the preparations for a
court case.” For the first time Michael looked hesitant.

“Returnable, of
course, but only if you win the case.”

Michael removed
his
cheque
book and wrote out a figure which, he
reflected, would only just be covered by the remainder of his redundancy pay.

The writ for
slander against Philip Masters was issued the next morning by Lomax, Davis and
Lomax.

A week later
the writ was accepted by another firm of solicitors in the same town, actually
in the same building.

Back at the
club, debate on the rights and wrongs of Gilmour v. Masters did not subside as
the weeks passed.

Club members
whispered furtively among themselves whether they might be called to give
evidence at the trial. Several had already received letters from Lomax, Davis
and Lomax requesting statements about what they could recall being said by the
two men that morning. A good many pleaded amnesia or dearness but a few turned
in graphic accounts of the quarrel. Encouraged, Michael pressed on, much to
Carol’s dismay.

One morning
about a month later, after Carol had left for the bank, Michael Gilmour
received a call from Reginald Lomax. The defendant’s solicitors, he was
informed, had requested a “without prejudice” consultation.

“Surely you’re
not surprised by that after all the evidence we’ve collected?” Michael replied.

“It’s only a
consultation,” Lomax reminded him.

“Consultation
or no consultation I won’t settle for less than one hundred thousand pounds.”

“Well, I don’t
even know that they-” began Lomax.

“I do, and I
also know that for the last eleven weeks I haven’t been able to even get an
interview for a job because of that bastard,” Michael said with contempt.
“Nothing less than one hundred thousand pounds, do you hear me?”

“I think you
are being a trifle optimistic, in the circumstances,” said Lomax. “But I’ll
call you and let you know the other side’s response as soon as the meeting has
taken place.”