Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [14]
– to keep a little thing like that up his sleeve, waiting for his chance to use it. No harm had been done by that slight cutting of the corner. The client had been perfectly happy with the purchase, he had heard, and the seller was happy too. Everybody was happy, apart from Todd, who parroted on about professional standards and integrity. Blah, blah, blah, thought Bruce. If everybody behaved in such a retentive way, he reflected, then would anything in this world ever get done? It would not. The world needed people of spirit – people of decisiveness; people who were prepared to see beyond the narrow rules, as long as they kept to the general spirit of things. That’s me, Bruce said to himself.
Bruce remembered very clearly each detail of that fatal afternoon. Todd had stormed out, closely followed by Sasha, who had run after him up the narrow cobbled lane outside the restaurant. From his table near the window, Bruce had seen the two of them standing on the corner of Thistle Street, yelling at one another, although he could hear nothing of what was said. Presumably she was explaining to her husband that things were not as he imagined, and indeed after a few minutes Todd 26
An Exchange of Cruel Insults
appeared to calm down. They began to talk more calmly, and Sasha then leant forward and planted a kiss on her husband’s cheek.
The sight of this brought relief to Bruce, who concluded that the matter had been sorted out and that Sasha would return to the rest of her lunch and he would in due course return to his job. However, this did not happen, as Sasha merely walked off in the opposite direction, leaving Bruce to pay for his ruined lunch. This outraged him. She had invited him, after all, having recently inherited four hundred thousand pounds, and she very specifically said that the lunch was on her. Now Bruce had to pay for both of them, as well as the wine, which he had offered to pay for anyway, but which was largely untouched. Still, at least he would get his job back, until the time arrived for him to resign on his own terms.
But that was not to be. He returned to the office half an hour or so later to find a note from Todd awaiting him on his desk. He could speak to the cashier about his final cheque, the note said (he would be paid up to the end of that month), and would he please ensure that all personal effects were removed from his desk by four o’clock that afternoon? He should also return the mobile telephone which the firm had bought him and duly account for any personal calls that he had made on it during the period since the last bill.
Bruce stood there, quite still, the note in his hand. Several minutes passed before he let the piece of paper fall from his hand and he walked out of his office and made his way to the end of the corridor and pushed open Todd’s door.
“You should always knock,” said Todd. “What if I had a client in here with me? What then?”
“I’m going to take you to a tribunal,” said Bruce.
“Go ahead,” said Todd. “I’d already spoken to the lawyers about getting rid of you and they assured me that the making of a fraudulent survey report constitutes perfectly good grounds for dismissal. So by all means take me to a tribunal.”
Bruce opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. It was difficult to know what to say. Then the words came to Sally’s Thoughts
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him. “You have a ridiculous name, you know, Mr Todd. Raeburn!
That’s the name of a gas cooker, you know. That’s what you are, Mr Todd – you’re just a gas cooker.”
Raeburn Todd appeared undisturbed by the insult. “A gas cooker, am I?” he said quietly. “Well, I’ve just cooked your goose for you, young man, would you not say?”
9. Sally’s Thoughts
After he had lost his job – or resigned, as he put it – Bruce went home to Crieff for several days to lick his wounds. His parents had been concerned over his resignation, and they had quizzed him as to what lay behind it.
“It’s