Part 5 (1/2)

”Time control?” I repeated. ”In what sense?”

”Time Control UK. They're a company that sort things out for people. Manage things. Facilitators, as it were. A couple of my clients have used them in the past and sent back glowing reports. They're the leaders in their field. In fact, they are are their field. Give them a call.” their field. Give them a call.”

His voice had the same tone to it as when he'd told me to drink champagne: kind but stern. Paternalistic. He gave me Time Control's number and wished me good luck.

Time Control UK were based up in Knightsbridge, near where Harrods is. What they did, essentially, was to look after people. Manage things for them, as Daubenay said. Their clients were for the most part busy executives: finance chiefs, CEOs, people like that. The odd film star too, apparently. Time Control ran their diaries for them, planned and logged their meetings and appointments, took and pa.s.sed on messages, wrote press releases, managed PR. They also ran the more intimate side of their clients' lives: ordering meals and groceries, getting dry-cleaners to come and take their clothes away and bring them back again, calling in plumbers, phoning them up at eight twenty-five to get them showered and croissanted and shunted into the taxi Time Control had booked to take them to the nine-fifteen they'd set up. They'd organize parties, send birthday cards to aunts and nephews, buy tickets for the second day of the Fourth Test if they'd built a window in that afternoon in the knowledge that this particular client was partial to cricket. Their databases must have been incredible: the architecture of them, their fields.

I called Time Control in the late afternoon, almost immediately after I'd got off the phone to Daubenay. A man answered. He sounded relaxed but efficient. I couldn't quite picture their office, but I saw those blue and red Tupperware-type in- and out-trays in it somewhere, like the ones they have in nursery-school cla.s.srooms. I imagined it as open-plan, with gla.s.s or Pyrex inner walls. The background sound was fluffy rather than clipped, which suggested carpets and not floorboards. The man's voice a.s.sured me; I didn't feel the need to run through my explanation. I just said: ”I've been referred to you by my lawyer, Marc Daubenay of Olanger and Daubenay.”

”Oh yes,” the man said, very friendly. Olanger and Daubenay were a well-known firm.

”I need someone to facilitate a large project I have in mind,” I said.

”Wonderful,” the friendly man said. He seemed to understand exactly what I wanted without even asking. ”I'll put you through to Nazrul Vyas, one of our main partners, and you can tell him all about it. Okay?”

”Wonderful,” I said back. It was that word ”facilitate” that did it. Worked the magic. Marc Daubenay's word. As I waited to be put through to Vyas I felt grateful to Daubenay for the first time-not for getting me all that money, but for slotting that word, ”facilitate”, onto my tongue.

Vyas sounded young. About my age: late twenties, early thirties. He had a fairly high voice. High and soft, with three layers to it: a Manchester base, an upper layer of southern semi-posh and then, on top of these, like icing on a cake, an Asian lilt. As he spoke his name then my name and then asked how he could help me, he sounded confident, efficient. I couldn't quite picture his office, but I saw his desktop clearly: it was white and very tidy.

”h.e.l.lo,” I said.

”h.e.l.lo,” said Nazrul Vyas.

A pause followed, then I went for it: ”I have a large project in mind,” I said, ”and wanted to enlist your help.” ”Enlist” was good. I felt pleased with myself.

”Okay,” said Naz. ”What type of project?”

”I want to buy a building, a particular type of building, and decorate and furnish it in a particular way. I have precise requirements, right down to the smallest detail. I want to hire people to live in it, and perform tasks that I will designate. They need to perform these exactly as I say, and when I ask them to. I shall most probably require the building opposite as well, and most probably need it to be modified. Certain actions must take place at that location too, exactly as and when I shall require them to take place. I need the project to be set up, staffed and coordinated, and I'd like to start as soon as possible.”

”Excellent,” Naz said, straight off. He didn't miss a single beat. I felt a surge inside my chest, a tingling. ”Let's meet,” Naz continued. ”When's convenient for you?”

”In an hour?” I said.

”One hour from now is fine,” Naz answered. ”Shall I come to you or would you like to come here?”

I thought about this for a moment. I had my diagrams at home, still stuck to the wall of the bedroom, but I didn't want to show these to him, or give him the back story with the party and the bathroom and the crack-let alone the carrots and the fridge doors. It was all working so well this way. I wanted it to carry on like this, neutral and clear. The image came to me of bubbly, transparent water, large clean surfaces and lots of light.

”In a restaurant,” I said. ”A modern restaurant with large windows and a lot of light. Can you arrange this?”

Within five minutes he'd phoned back to tell me that he'd booked a table for us in a place called the Blueprint Cafe.

”It's the restaurant of the Design Museum,” Naz explained. ”At Butler's Wharf, beside Tower Bridge. Shall I send you a car?”

”No,” I said. ”See you in an hour. What do you look like?”

”I'm Asian,” said Naz. ”I'll be wearing a blue s.h.i.+rt.”

I took a hurried bath, put on some clean, smart clothes and was just walking out of the flat when my phone rang. I'd already turned the answering machine on. It kicked in and I waited in the doorway to see who it would be.

It was Greg. ”Yo dude,” his voice said. ”Pity you left early Sat.u.r.day. The party got, like, todally awesome. todally awesome.” He said this last word in a mock Californian accent, a Valley Girl voice. ”You boned Catherine yet? Maybe you're boning her right now. You're pumping her and she's saying Oh yes! Give me schools and hospitals! Give me wooden houses! Oh yes! Give me schools and hospitals! Give me wooden houses!”

He went on like this for a while. I stood there listening to his voice coming through the answering machine's tinny speaker, simulating an o.r.g.a.s.m. Before the accident I would have found this really funny. Now I didn't. It's not that I found it offensive or cra.s.s; I didn't find it anything at all. I stood there watching the answering machine while Greg's voice came from it. Eventually he hung up and I left.

It was just as well that Naz had told me what he would be wearing: there was another young Asian guy in the Blueprint Cafe. I'd have known which one was Naz, though, after all. He looked just like I'd imagined him to look but slightly different, which I'd thought he would in any case. He was sitting at a table by the window, keying something into a palmtop organizer. He had an interesting face. For the most part it was frank and open-but his eyes were dark: dark, sunk and intense. He rose to greet me, we shook hands and then we sat down.

”No problems getting here?” he asked.

”No, none at all,” I said. The Blueprint Cafe's walls were hung with photographs of eminent British designers. This was good, very good. A waiter appeared and Naz asked for a large bottle of mineral water.

”Shall we eat?” he asked me.

I wasn't particularly hungry. ”What do you think?” I asked him back.

”Something light,” he replied.

We ordered kedgeree and two small bowls of fish soup. No wine. The waiter walked away towards the kitchen, which was visible behind a large round window. It was designed that way-not totally open, so diners could see every last thing the chefs were doing, but open enough to give them glimpses of the kitchen: blue flames jumping out of frying pans, fingers raining herbs down over dishes, things like that.

”Before we begin realizing your project,” Naz said, ”we need to get a sense of scale. What size of building do you have in mind?”

”A big one,” I said. ”Six or seven floors. Have you ever been to Paris?”

”I was there two weeks ago,” said Naz.

”Well, the way buildings are there,” I told him. ”Large tenement buildings, with lots of flats stacked on top of one another. That's the type of building I need. My flat must be on the top floor but one.”

”And the building opposite? If I remember rightly, you indicated that you'd probably need that building too.”

”That's right,” I said. ”It should be almost the same height. Perhaps one floor lower. When I say 'opposite' I mean facing at the back. Across a courtyard. I need that building for two things only: red tiles on its roofs and black cats walking over this.”

”Roofs plural?” he asked.

”They go up and down,” I told him. ”Rise and fall. In a particular way. We might have to modify them. We'll certainly need to modify lots of things throughout the building and the courtyard.”

”Yes, so you told me,” Naz said. ”But tell me about the people you propose to fill the building with. The primary building, I mean. Will they be actually living there?”

”Well, yes,” I answered. ”They can actually live there too. They'll have to get used to being in two modes, though: on on and and off. off.”

”How do you mean?” asked Naz.

”Well, on on when they're performing the tasks I'll ask them to perform. The rest of the time they can do what they want. Like soldiers: they're on parade at one moment, then afterwards they go and smoke their cigarettes in the guardroom, and have baths and maybe change into civilian clothes. But then a few hours later they have to be back on parade again.” when they're performing the tasks I'll ask them to perform. The rest of the time they can do what they want. Like soldiers: they're on parade at one moment, then afterwards they go and smoke their cigarettes in the guardroom, and have baths and maybe change into civilian clothes. But then a few hours later they have to be back on parade again.”

The waiter came. Naz's palmtop organizer was lying in front of him. It was a Psion-one of the companies Matthew Younger and I had bought stocks in. It was lying face up on the table, but Naz wasn't using it. Instead, he was logging my requirements in his mind, translating them into manoeuvres to be executed. I could tell: something was whirring back behind his eyes. For some reason I thought of scarab beetles, then of the word ”scion”. The thing behind Naz's eyes whirred for a while, then he asked: ”What tasks would you like them to perform?”

”There'll be an old woman downstairs, immediately below me,” I said. ”Her main duty will be to cook liver. Constantly. Her kitchen must face outwards to the courtyard, the back courtyard onto which my own kitchen and bathroom will face too. The smell of liver must waft upwards. She'll also be required to deposit a bin bag outside her door as I descend the staircase, and to exchange certain words with me which I'll work out and a.s.sign to her.”

”Understood,” said Naz. ”Who next?”