either.’
‘Dad!’
We both looked up. The DVD had ended.
‘Dad!’ Jack cried out again. ‘Can we watch another film? Please.’
‘No,’ Karen said, standing up quickly, ‘we ought to go. You’ve got your homework to finish.’
When the boys had left, I started packing away the toys that I kept in my flat, trying to spot the ones that they no longer played with. They were growing up fast, and were mostly growing up without me. When I had finished, the flat seemed emptier rather than tidier.
The phone rang. To my surprise, it was Max. He wanted to know if I could come to the Alpha Tec offices towards the end of the week to talk about his possible investment in PropFace. He stressed the word ‘possible’.
‘Could you make it sooner, Max? I could come in tomorrow if you want?’
‘I’m in Marbella,’ he said. ‘Lucy was…well, there are a few things to take care of.’
‘Of course…I’m sorry, I understand.’
‘I will be back on Thursday. I’ve got a free slot around noon if you could come to my office then.’
I calculated the date in my head. It was the 24 th : four days before the end of the month and probably too late to get a deal through before the deadline.
‘I’ll take it,’ I said, grasping at straws.
He hesitated, then asked, ‘And John, you haven’t approached George about this, have you?’
‘George?’
‘George Colebrook.’
‘No,’ I spluttered, ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’
There was a long silence before Max spoke again.
‘Okay, John, I’ll see you at noon on Thursday.’
CHAPTER 5
When George Colebrook – or to give him his full name, The Honourable George Colebrook – first turned up at one of Max’s parties at Bristol, I assumed he was just another of the rich public schoolboys that Max tended to invite and then quickly grow bored of. It took over a year for me to realise that there was a deeper bond between them. George’s father was an old friend of the Gores, the true owners of Glen Avon, and consequently George was one of the few students besides me to know that Max’s family, far from being his fellow nobility, were really only the hired help. But if Max was touchy about this, George certainly wasn’t. As Max pointed out, if George had restricted his social circle to people who were as rich and aristocratic as he was, he would have had very few friends.
And there was a lot to like about George besides his lack of snobbery. Small and slightly built with receding dark hair, he was shrewd and witty. He had been bullied at Eton, but at Bristol he blossomed, discovering a talent and passion for acting, and becoming a leading light of the university’s drama society. He was also a superb mimic and whenever he wanted to tease me, he could copy my clipped South African intonation to perfection.
In our last year, when everyone else started scrabbling around for post-graduation jobs, only George and Max seemed to be above the fray, and were often left by themselves as the rest of us filed through an endless succession of careers-inspired events and milk-round interviews. Max’s future as an army officer had been settled before he even arrived at the university, with the contract sealed by the officer cadet’s salary he received each month; whilst George had already secured a place at the Old Vic theatre school in London. For me there was no such escape. Needing a well-paid job if I was to continue the sort of affluent lifestyle I had been leading in Bristol, I had fired off application letters to every financial institution known to the Bristol University Careers Advisory Service, eventually chancing upon a small, sleepy, British Merchant Bank, with a semi-retired Head of Recruitment who preferred talking to undergraduates about rugby rather than banking. A few days after my interview, I received a letter offering me a place on the bank’s graduate training program. In the absence of any other offers, I accepted immediately.
Max was just on
‘Dad!’
We both looked up. The DVD had ended.
‘Dad!’ Jack cried out again. ‘Can we watch another film? Please.’
‘No,’ Karen said, standing up quickly, ‘we ought to go. You’ve got your homework to finish.’
When the boys had left, I started packing away the toys that I kept in my flat, trying to spot the ones that they no longer played with. They were growing up fast, and were mostly growing up without me. When I had finished, the flat seemed emptier rather than tidier.
The phone rang. To my surprise, it was Max. He wanted to know if I could come to the Alpha Tec offices towards the end of the week to talk about his possible investment in PropFace. He stressed the word ‘possible’.
‘Could you make it sooner, Max? I could come in tomorrow if you want?’
‘I’m in Marbella,’ he said. ‘Lucy was…well, there are a few things to take care of.’
‘Of course…I’m sorry, I understand.’
‘I will be back on Thursday. I’ve got a free slot around noon if you could come to my office then.’
I calculated the date in my head. It was the 24 th : four days before the end of the month and probably too late to get a deal through before the deadline.
‘I’ll take it,’ I said, grasping at straws.
He hesitated, then asked, ‘And John, you haven’t approached George about this, have you?’
‘George?’
‘George Colebrook.’
‘No,’ I spluttered, ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’
There was a long silence before Max spoke again.
‘Okay, John, I’ll see you at noon on Thursday.’
CHAPTER 5
When George Colebrook – or to give him his full name, The Honourable George Colebrook – first turned up at one of Max’s parties at Bristol, I assumed he was just another of the rich public schoolboys that Max tended to invite and then quickly grow bored of. It took over a year for me to realise that there was a deeper bond between them. George’s father was an old friend of the Gores, the true owners of Glen Avon, and consequently George was one of the few students besides me to know that Max’s family, far from being his fellow nobility, were really only the hired help. But if Max was touchy about this, George certainly wasn’t. As Max pointed out, if George had restricted his social circle to people who were as rich and aristocratic as he was, he would have had very few friends.
And there was a lot to like about George besides his lack of snobbery. Small and slightly built with receding dark hair, he was shrewd and witty. He had been bullied at Eton, but at Bristol he blossomed, discovering a talent and passion for acting, and becoming a leading light of the university’s drama society. He was also a superb mimic and whenever he wanted to tease me, he could copy my clipped South African intonation to perfection.
In our last year, when everyone else started scrabbling around for post-graduation jobs, only George and Max seemed to be above the fray, and were often left by themselves as the rest of us filed through an endless succession of careers-inspired events and milk-round interviews. Max’s future as an army officer had been settled before he even arrived at the university, with the contract sealed by the officer cadet’s salary he received each month; whilst George had already secured a place at the Old Vic theatre school in London. For me there was no such escape. Needing a well-paid job if I was to continue the sort of affluent lifestyle I had been leading in Bristol, I had fired off application letters to every financial institution known to the Bristol University Careers Advisory Service, eventually chancing upon a small, sleepy, British Merchant Bank, with a semi-retired Head of Recruitment who preferred talking to undergraduates about rugby rather than banking. A few days after my interview, I received a letter offering me a place on the bank’s graduate training program. In the absence of any other offers, I accepted immediately.
Max was just on
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