Haven't They Grown(72)

By 8 a.m., I’m already so tired that I could sleep for another seven hours if I let my eyes close. No chance of that. Not with Lewis Braid maybe about to arrive at any moment.

I’m sitting in the back of a taxi in the vast outdoor car park that belongs to his company, VersaNova. My driver called it a ‘parking lot’. It’s so well landscaped and generously proportioned, it almost seems to be the main point of this whole exercise – as if someone designed an enormous, attractive car park first, for its own sake, and then said, ‘You know what? It’s a shame to waste this – let’s put the head office of a multi-million-dollar tech company next to it.’

Despite the early hour, I’m not the only person here. There are plenty of other cars around. None, yet, looks expensive enough to belong to Lewis Braid.

Now that I’m here at his workplace, in the full light of a day that promises to be warm and sunny, the thoughts I was thinking in my hotel room a few hours ago seem almost deranged. I came pretty close to wondering if Lewis was evil. He and Flora might be mixed up in something strange and unsavoury – I’m certain they are, in fact – but there’s a lot of distance between unsavoury and monstrous. Lewis Braid is hardly a murderous villain.

You can handle him. You can handle the encounter you’re about to have.

Assuming he comes into the office today.

I stare at the tanned, tyre-shaped bulges of skin at the base of my taxi driver’s skull and wish I could feel as calm as he seems. He’s been luxuriating in silence all the way from the Marriott to VersaNova, as if wanting me to notice that it’s a deliberate lifestyle choice. When I asked if he’d be happy to wait for as long as I need him to this morning, he did some slow, relaxed nodding. He has the manner of someone who would only emit words if you pierced a thick plastic seal inside him, turned him upside down and squeezed him hard.

I sit up straight as a car that looks like a contender pulls into the lot: it’s low, flat, waxed to a powerful shine. No roof.

It’s him. Lewis.

I open the taxi’s passenger door. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ I say to my driver as if he’s urged me to hurry. His eyes are half closed. I’m not sure he’s fully awake.

Lewis is quicker at getting out of cars than I am. By the time I’m out, he’s several feet ahead, swinging a large black leather bag around and humming a tune – a gratingly fast-paced, bouncy one, if you’re jet-lagged. Whatever he’s hiding, he doesn’t seem unduly worried about it.

He hasn’t seen me. He’s marching along briskly. Soon he’ll reach the building, go inside, and then I’ll have to deal with doormen, receptionists and probably security checks in order to get to him. He’ll have a choice about whether to see me or not, whereas if I can get his attention now …

I open my mouth to yell his name, then notice that he’s stopped suddenly, on the steps up to the revolving entrance door. He pulls a phone out of his pocket. Slowly, I move closer. He’s facing the building, and has no idea that I’m approaching.

If he turns around and sees me, I’ll say, ‘Hi, Lewis,’ as if I wanted him to notice me. Which I did, until this phone call happened. Now I’m hoping I can get close enough to listen, unobserved. The change in his body language tells me it isn’t a run-of-the-mill conversation that he’s having. He looks braced, somehow – as if the outcome of the call matters to him a lot. Maybe this is what all high-powered business calls look like.

I creep as close to him as I dare, then duck in between two cars and kneel down so that I won’t be visible if he decides he’d like a change of view while making his call. I hear him say, ‘Are you ready for Daily Responses? What?’ he snaps. It sounds as if he’s been told something he wasn’t expecting to hear and doesn’t like it much. ‘Ten minutes late, yes. Where are you?’ he barks at whoever he’s speaking to. ‘And where should you be?’ he asks in the exact same tone after a short pause.

From cheery, haven’t-a-care-in-the-world tune-hummer to ice-cold Condemnatron boss in a few seconds. This is familiar; Lewis’s demeanour used to change with dazzling speed when I knew him. In a minute he might be humming merrily again.

I hope so. That’ll make it easier for me to pop up as soon as this phone call is over with my carefully rehearsed, ‘Hey, Lewis. You said I should come and visit you in Florida, so here I am!’

‘And what are you?’ he asks whoever he’s speaking to.

Is he hoping for a response along the lines of ‘I’m a complete and utter fool whose entire life is a comprehensive failure’? It sounds like it. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s out of a job before the day is over.

‘Good,’ says Lewis, sounding placated. Evidently his interlocutor has said the right thing. ‘I’ll see you later.’

Maybe the correct answer to ‘What are you?’, and the one supplied, was ‘On my way in right now to apologise profusely and beg your forgiveness.’

I wonder what Daily Responses is. Is Lewis on his way there now? It sounds like a strange kind of religious service – like the masses I used to attend at my Catholic school. They involved prayers and responses. VersaNova must have a daily ritual that’s the secular equivalent. This being America, it probably involves yoga, green tea and affirmations.