‘I guess the bonus will be your bonus?’ Saul said.
Mark tipped his head and chinked glasses with Saul. ‘I need to keep my wife in Jimmy Shoes.’
Saul wasn’t sure whether to correct Mark. He let it go. ‘You get what you pay for!’ he said lightly instead.
‘Actually, Alice is brilliant at blagging,’ Mark confessed. ‘I always offer to buy stuff but she always declines and says she can call in favours at work. I think she gets more of a thrill from getting a bargain or freebie than from the item itself. Have you seen those monstrous rocks in her ears?’
‘The diamonds?’ Saul said. ‘You can’t really fail to notice them.’
‘Three carats?’ Mark suggested. Saul shrugged. He had never bought a diamond. ‘QVC,’ Mark said triumphantly.
‘Is that the sparkle factor or the colour clarity?’ Saul asked, trying to sound like someone who’d bought diamonds.
Mark roared with laughter. ‘QVC – the shopping channel! Alice is forever buying stuff from QVC. Those earrings were £29.95 – and she got a hideous suedette presentation box for being one of the first hundred callers.’
‘Are the Jimmy Choos fake too?’ Saul said subtly.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Mark groaned, ‘they’re bona-fide Jimmy Shoes shoes.’
‘I suppose it evens out,’ Saul said lightly. ‘Think how much you’d pay at Tiffany for gems that size.’
‘Hey, I’m not complaining,’ said Mark, ‘Christ no. I have the most beautiful wife – I was about to say “I could ever dream of” but in fact she is the beautiful wife I always dreamt of.’
‘You’ve known each other ages,’ Saul recalled.
‘Since school days,’ Mark said, ‘friends for years. Confidants. And then one day, Alice says to me, “If you ask me, I’ll say yes.” I hadn’t a clue what she was on about. I mean, I hadn’t even kissed the girl, let alone taken her to bed. I just stared at her gormlessly. She proposed. It wasn’t a leap year. I hadn’t bought diamonds from Tiffany or QVC. I was washing up and, calm as you like, she turns to me and asks me to marry her.’
‘And you still can’t believe your luck?’ Saul laughed.
‘That’s just it,’ said Mark, ‘it’s not about luck. To me, the more you love someone, the more you deserve them – and I’d loved her for a long, long time. Albeit from afar. I hadn’t resented the fuckwits she dated though I hated them when they hurt her. I hadn’t found anyone special and was happy to see women in a non-committal way. And then Alice decided she’d like to marry me.’
‘So, you have this gorgeous woman, successful in her career, who buys her own diamonds, no matter how fake they are, and simply stings you for a pair of Jimmy Choos every now and then,’ Saul quantified. ‘Can life get much better?’
‘Well, I’m looking forward to the bonus,’ Mark laughed, ‘which will hopefully coincide with the next Jimmy Shoes sale!’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, are we here about Quentin?’ he murmured covertly, with a wink and a surreptitious tap of his nose.
‘We are,’ Saul nodded, privately bemused that such an expensive restaurant hadn’t bothered to fillet his monkfish. ‘Now, because we’re pitching at a slightly older market – not so much aspirational, as can afford it anyway – I was thinking of a City section. You know, investments, portfolios, gift horse and traps; lively overviews on finance and our times, a note of light relief from the Financial Times.’
Mark nodded. ‘Interesting,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘I’ll need to make tracks in half an hour, Saul. But I’m back from Tokyo at the weekend.’
‘You bastard,’ Richard Stonehill panted, hands on his knees, his squash racket between his feet, ‘you bastard. You’re just a jammy bastard.’
‘And you’re a bad loser,’ Saul laughed, wiping sweat from his brow onto his T-shirt. ‘My game, my match – your round.’
‘Let’s make it the best out of seven then,’ Richard said, slashing a ball against the court.
‘Fuck off,’ Saul laughed, returning the shot perfectly. ‘What would your wife say when I call her to say you’ve thrown yourself into Highgate Ponds with concrete in your pockets because you lost five–two?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Richard said, ‘you’re younger than me. Anyway, I have a cold coming. But next week I’m going to roast you, mate, roast you. Annihilation.’
‘I look forward to it,’ Saul said, slicing the ball and intentionally missing Richard by a hair’s breadth.
‘You won’t even make it to Highgate Ponds,’ Richard said, returning Saul’s ball impressively, ‘you’ll do the hara-kiri thing right here on court.’
‘And on that note,’ Saul said, ‘let’s go for a drink.’
For a moment or two, both men just gazed at the pints of pale, chilled lager with unreserved affection before raising the glasses to their lips and taking a long, well-earned drink. They said ‘cheers’ to each other, chinked glasses and then downed what was left. ‘My round,’ said Richard, going to the bar at the Swallow and ordering sausages and mash for them both. ‘How’s Thea?’ he asked, on returning.
‘I had a set of my keys cut for her just today,’ Saul grinned. ‘And Sally?’
‘It’s our wedding anniversary this weekend,’ Richard said, ‘five years.’
‘Cheers!’ said Saul, with admiration.
‘Who’d have thought a crazy fling would lead to marriage,’ Richard marvelled wistfully.
‘Are you whisking her off to Paris?’ Saul enquired.
Richard laughed but shook his head.
‘Venice?’ Saul tried. ‘Barcelona? Babington House? No? Well. I assume you’ve been to Tiffany’s.’
‘No,’ Richard groaned, ‘not yet.’
‘Mark Sinclair was telling me Alice buys her own jewels,’ Saul said.
‘Really?’ Richard responded, ‘but on his credit card probably. She has some fuck-off diamonds, that girl.’
‘No, she buys them herself,’ Saul revealed. ‘They’re fake,’ he said, ‘fake! How cool is that?’ He really was more impressed than he would have been had they been genuine. ‘She buys them for small change from the shopping channel.’
Richard laughed. ‘Seriously? Bloody hell. She certainly wears them well. Perhaps I’ll ask her to order double – I’m sure I could pop them into a Tiffany box.’
‘Talking of Alice,’ Saul said, dropping his voice, ‘I’m working on a project with her – top secret. But I have an idea for a property section. I’m not talking estate agents’ advertorials. I’m not talking Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen makeovers. I was thinking of a section that is part DIY, part property improvements, part investment savvy. You know, kitchen extensions or loft conversions or knocking through – a how to, how much, how long.’
‘Sounds good,’ Richard nodded.
‘You’re an architect,’ Saul shrugged, ‘can I pick your brains?’
‘Cool,’ Richard nodded, ‘sure. What’s it called?’
‘Top secret,’ said Saul.
‘That’s a bit naff,’ said Richard.
‘The