We Own the Sky(12)
paying the rent...”
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I think I doubted you. I’m very sorry. I feel very ashamed about it.”
She swallowed, and suddenly looked very sheepish. “It’s okay, Anna,” I said, putting my arm around her waist. “I understand that sometimes it’s difficult to recognize genius.”
She poked me in the ribs and removed my arm from around her waist. “Don’t get cocky. Wait, what on earth am I saying? You’re the cockiest man I’ve ever met.”
“Harsh. Shall we get drinks?”
Anna looked wistfully toward the bar. “I’m trying, although my plan of attack isn’t working.”
Suddenly, she turned to me and awkwardly kissed me on the cheek. It was
chaste, like the kiss you would give an elderly aunt, but for Anna a rare display of public affection. “I promised myself I won’t cry,” she said, “and I keep my promises, but I wanted to say how proud I am of you. Really, Rob. You’ve worked so hard, and you deserve all your success.”
I was just about to say something when I saw Anna tighten the strap on her laptop bag. She nodded toward the bar. “Let’s go,” she said. “We have an opening.”
*
“Did you tell your dad?” Anna asked, after we had found a table and I had gone over everything that had happened at the meeting.
“Over the moon, son. That’s footballer’s wages, that is,” I said, mimicking my dad’s East London vowels. “No, he was really pleased. You know how sentimental he gets.”
I could tell Dad was trying not to cry when I told him. He was still at the taxi stand, waiting for a call out. “Fuck me, son,” he kept saying. “Fuck me.”
When he had caught his breath, he told me how proud he was. “I still can’t believe it,” he said. “First Cambridge and now this. Taxi driver and a cleaner— no idea where you got it from, son.”
*
Anna took a notebook out of her bag. “I am very pleased of course, but I do have some questions.”
“Uh-oh. You’ve made a list, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have.” Anna flipped a page and I could see a numbered list in her improbably neat handwriting.
“Oh my God, you really did.”
She blushed a little. “It’s a big opportunity for you, Rob. I’m not going to let you waste it.”
“It’s a big opportunity for us.”
Anna fiddled with the salt shaker and took another sip of her drink.
“Seriously, can we go down my list? I’m getting nervous now.”
“We should order some champagne first.”
Anna slowly and demonstrably shook her head.
“What, really? C’mon, let’s celebrate.”
“I’m not being a killjoy, Rob. It’s just that we’ll pay the absolute earth here.”
“Jesus, Anna. I just made one-and-a-half-million pounds.”
“I know and that’s good,” she said, hushing her voice in case anyone was
listening. “It also brings me onto my first question.”
“You’re so sexy in your new glasses,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you. But Rob. Please.” She wiped some dust off the page. “So will they pay you a salary?”
“What?”
“On top of the money, will they pay you a salary?”
I thought back to the meeting. It was all a bit of a blur, but they did say something about a salary. “They will actually. They want me to run the company for them.”
Anna beamed. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
“Wait, you’re happier about that than what they paid for the software?”
“Yes, I am in a way. You’ll think me strange, but yes, the regular income does mean more to me.”
“Wait, what?”
Anna suddenly looked very solemn, her client face. “Really, it does. Look, the windfall is great, but it’s just a pot that will keep getting smaller. Whereas your regular income is a pot that, over time, keeps getting bigger.”
“That makes sense I suppose.”
“One of the many benefits of having an accountant as a girlfriend,” Anna said, smiling and turning the page of her notebook. “Now, can I get through the rest of my list?”
*
There was a strange musty smell in Anna’s parents’ house: it reminded me of Werther’s Butterscotch or the jasmine-scented handkerchiefs old people put in their drawers.
We sat and ate in near silence, just the doom-laden tick of the clock, the scratch of cutlery on bone china. The food was a turgid affair of frozen turkey, mushy overcooked vegetables, and a glass of sherry, which Anna said had been brought out in my honor.
“And how is your father, Robert?” Anna’s father said, putting down his fork.
He was wearing a suit, a gray three-piece that was worn and tattered around the edges.
“He’s fine, thanks. Yeah, still driving his cab. Although his health isn’t so good at the moment. Problems with his diabetes.”
Anna’s father didn’t say anything and looked down at his plate.
For the last three Christmases we had been to my dad’s. For proximity, we told Anna’s parents. Romford was much closer and Dad was all on his own. But this year, out of Anna’s sense of duty more than anything else, we decided to stay with them in their little village on the Suffolk coast.