‘I’ve already decided on your present. As I’m sure you can guess.’

  Farley puffs himself up a little. He is enjoying this. His moment of generosity and largesse, of, even, forgiveness for the prodigal son. The fatted calf is to be slaughtered and cooked.

  ‘I’m excited,’ says Frankie in a flat voice. Farley picks up a paperweight shaped like a pyramid – who used paperweights anymore? – and taps it pointlessly on the desk. It makes a hollow sound, not the solid tap Frankie might have expected.

  ‘So – Frankie. You’ve worked very hard for the firm and you’ve done good honest work for a long time now. We have had our ups and downs and we have been through some rough waters together.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve had ups and downs in rough waters.’

  ‘And sometimes… ’ says Farley.

  ‘And sometimes we’ve dived beneath the roaring waves and seen the monsters roaming with glistening teeth,’ says Frankie, a slight petulance creeping, unbidden, into his tone.

  Farley looks faintly irritated at the interruption. His gracious giving of this gift is not providing him with the buzz, or the response, he had expected.

  ‘I was going to say, and sometimes we had the wind in our sails. Whatever the case, let me get to the nub. Frankie, I want to offer you a partnership in Farley & Ratchett,’ he announces grandly.

  Frankie sits back in the chair, spreads the fingers of both hands and put the tips together, but says nothing.

  ‘On the standard terms. You’ll be on equal shares with Jane. There’ll be bonuses every year and a 20 per cent share in the business. You’ll have to work hard – it’s extra responsibility, but I know that you will work hard, 24/7. You’ve shown your capacity for hard graft over and over again. I know you’ve had a long wait for this, Frankie, probably too long, but I hope now it will all be worth it.’

  Frankie keeps his fingers together and flexes them once more, feeling the joints under the skin slide back and forth. He marvels how his spongy, material brain can magically will such a thing.

  ‘Shame Ratchett couldn’t be here to see this,’ says Frankie.

  ‘Yes, good old Nick.’

  ‘Good old Nick,’ says Frankie.

  ‘Well, then,’ says Farley. He reaches out his hand to shake Frankie’s. ‘Congratulations.’

  Frankie doesn’t move or say anything. For the first time, Farley appears flustered, unable to work out what to say. Finally he settles for:

  ‘I think your old friend Ralph Gwynne would be proud of us today.’

  Frankie grins automatically as Farley’s hand hovers over the table.

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ says Frankie softly, half to himself.

  Would he fuck, decides Frankie a moment later.

  ‘I’ll save you the hand gel,’ says Frankie, keeping his fingers pressed together. He stares at the single patch of blue above Farley’s head. Farley, after a few puzzled moments, lets his hand drop.

  ‘You don’t seem particularly excited,’ says Farley.

  ‘I don’t – do I?

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘To be honest my relative indifference comes as much as a surprise to me as it does you. Truth is, I’ve just realized something that I should have realized a long time ago.’

  Farley’s phone pings. He reaches and checks it, then replaces it on the desk.

  ‘I’m going to have to go in a minute, Frankie.’

  ‘Something urgent?’

  ‘A golf game with one of the local councillors. Very useful contact. Now. Shall we sign the papers?’

  Farley picks at the corner of the buff file on his desk with his fingernail, then opens it.

  ‘Not really.’

  Farley closes the file again and then checks his watch.

  ‘Of course. You’ll want to see a lawyer, of course.’

  ‘It’s not that so much. It’s more that I don’t want to be… ’

  Frankie pauses, recognizing the precipice he stands on and feeling giddy.

  ‘Be a what?’

  ‘Be a partner,’ says Frankie, steadying himself.

  Farley stares at him blankly.

  ‘Truth is, I don’t want to be an estate agent at all.’

  Farley gives a small, nervous laugh and shifts on his chair. For once his legendary amiability seems to be abandoning him.

  ‘So a career in ballet calls? What the fuck are you talking about, Frankie?’

  Farley is tapping his finger on the buff file in a furious tattoo.

  ‘What I said. I’ve had enough.’

  Farley looks seriously fazed and turns his attention to the pointless paperweight, which he now cradles like a precious jewel.

  ‘Is it the terms of the contract? Because I’m sure we can talk about it. It’s not set in stone. You know, Jane will take it badly, but… I don’t know… I can up it to… what? Twenty-five per cent?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  Farley puts the paperweight down and pulls on his knuckles so that Frankie can hear them crack.

  ‘Let me just check.’

  Frankie stands there for a moment to see if there are any contradictory impulses working within him. He finds only a single unyielding stream of pure resolution.

  ‘I am completely serious.’

  ‘But what are you going to do instead?’

  Frankie frowns and considers this. It seems a reasonable question.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘So you’re just going to – walk out of here? Right now. With no job to go to. No future. No security.’

  Farley’s face has turned a light shade of scarlet which is deepening by the moment.

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  Frankie stands up and takes a step towards the office door. To his surprise, he feels entirely calm and focused.

  ‘If you walk out that door you’re not coming back,’ says Farley, standing now, his suit crumpled, knuckles cracking furiously. Frankie fishes in his pocket, finds his office keys and throws them on Farley’s desk. He turns again and closes the door behind him.

  Walking past the staring, puzzled faces of the agents in the main office, he steps out into the street. To his surprise, the space feels very different from the space he stood in, examining his reflection thirty minutes previously.

  Bigger. Wider. Freer.

  Above all, more uncertain.

  * * *

  A few hours later and Nodge, Owen and China are sitting with Frankie in the pub garden of the Duke of Wellington in Brook Green, less than a mile from the office. Frankie has summoned them all to give them the news, the public utterance rendering the reality more finally real. Unable to hold back, he told China what he had done when he phoned her to summon her to the pub. Now, as he picks up the pint of beer that Nodge had bought him, his hand is shaking slightly. The three others all stare at him. He cannot read their expressions.

  ‘Oh God, what have I done?’ says Frankie softly into his beer. ‘Maybe I should go back there right now and beg Farley for the partnership again. Tell him it was a hangover from the virus. That I’m not thinking straight.’

  Nodge is picking at a bag of pork scratchings. He offers one to Owen, who refuses, tapping his lockdown belly.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ says China.

  ‘It was like there was a magnet inside of me,’ says Frankie. ‘Pulling me away from the job. I could have ignored it, but… ’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ says China.

  ‘Frankie,’ says Nodge. ‘Can I tell you something? You’re thinking completely straight. For once.’

  China leans over from where she is sitting on the chair next to Frankie and kisses him on the cheek. She is wearing, for the first time Frankie can remember, a simple black cotton dress instead of running shorts or sweatpants.

  ‘I’m so proud of you, old man,’ she says.

  ‘You are?’ says Frankie. Feeling up until now bewildered and helpless, he takes a long pull on his pint, his second so far, along with two whiskey chasers.

  ‘Never thought I’d say it,’ says China.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Frankie, dazed but suddenly, unexpectedly happy – a happiness he feels begin to grow and spread within him, suffocating the doubt and fear that had been coiling inside him only a few moments before.

  ‘Me too,’ says Owen.

  ‘Oh, you,’ says Frankie, not sure what else to say. ‘You’re just joining in.’

  ‘I still feel proud, though,’ says Owen.

  ‘But – how am I going to survive?’

  He steals a pork scratching from Nodge and crunches down. It is too hard, almost breaks a filling. He spits it out into his hand and drops it on the ground.

  ‘Your round,’ says China, who has just finished her J2O mixed with vodka. She holds her glass up to Frankie. Frankie reaches for his wallet and finds that it contains no cash. He knows that his company credit card, the only one he carries with him, will already have been cancelled.

  ‘I’m a bit broke, to tell you the truth. I suppose I’d better get used to it.’

  ‘Come off it,’ says China. ‘I happen to know that you have saved up at least eighty grand to buy yourself a fancy Merc. So cut it out with the self-pity.’

  ‘Think I might have to make do with one of those new electric scooters now,’ Frankie says. ‘Seriously, though, I’m frightened, I think.’

  ‘Of loneliness? Of financial insecurity?’ says China.

  ‘I’m more afraid of not having a place to go to every morning,’ says Frankie. ‘Even if it was populated by vultures and creeps.’

  ‘You do have a place to go,’ says China. ‘In fact, you’re already there. Wherever you go, there you are. Didn’t you find that out during lockdown?’

  ‘I’m buying then – since poor Frankie’s down to his last 80K,’ says Owen. He takes the orders and heads for the bar. Nodge at the same time rises to head for the men’s room. Left alone with Frankie, China reaches in her shoulder bag.

  ‘I’ve brought something for you,’ she says.

  She brings out a small black velvet bag. From within she produces the antique compass that Colin had once given Roxy, who had in turn given it to China. There is still a crack in the glass from when China damaged it the night Roxy gave it to her.

  ‘It’s in case you ever lose your way,’ says China, handing it to him. He closes his hand over hers before he takes the compass. He fumbles for his reading glasses so he can see it clearly, and puts them on, but the compass figures are still blurred since his eyes are clouded with water. He feels ashamed. He doesn’t know if it’s the compass, or his resignation, or his rising tears.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ says Owen, returning with the drinks. ‘You’re not having second thoughts again, are you?’

  ‘No. It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ says Frankie, rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeve. He puts the compass back in its bag and slides it into his pocket, mouthing a ‘thank you’ to China. ‘Apart from the fact that I’m unemployed, with no prospects and heading for my fifty-first birthday without a pot to piss in.’

  ‘Apart from the 80K,’ says China. ‘And the flat in a highly desirable area that you happen to own. Drama queen. Look – I have to get off,’ she says, standing up and draining her J2O.

  ‘Where to?’ says Nodge, appearing from behind her, his hand still fumbling to close his zip.

  ‘She’s heading back to Brighton for a while,’ says Frankie, standing up and holding out his arms towards China.

  ‘I’ve got some catching up to do,’ says China, hugging Frankie and then Nodge, and bending down to give Owen a kiss on the cheek. ‘Unfinished melded family business.’

  She departs with a wave. Frankie feels the compass in his pocket and thinks momentarily of his friend, poor dead Colin. Then he turns his attention to Owen and Nodge who are sitting next to one another, holding hands. Both look profoundly content. Frankie takes a sip of the beer that Owen has placed in front of him.

  ‘So anyway – enough about me. Tell me: how did China arrange this reconciliation? Between you two? Last I heard you were pretty frosty with one another.’

  Nodge and Owen exchange faintly nervous looks.

  ‘I suppose we’d better tell you. Although I’m not sure you’re going to like it. Or if this is the right moment to tell you the truth,’ says Nodge.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Frankie takes a deeper draught of the beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his suit sleeve.

  ‘China told us to wait until she’d left the pub to tell you. I don’t think she wanted to be dragged into it. Although it was all down to her in the first place.’

  Frankie drains most of his beer and replaces the glass on the table. A persistent wasp buzzes around the rim of the glass.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

  Owen tries to wave the wasp away but it remains persistent.

  ‘The long and short of it is,’ says Owen, belting back a double scotch, ‘China offered to act as a surrogate.’

  Frankie looks confused and stares at the door through which China had departed a few minutes previously, as if she might return and explain this puzzle.

  ‘A surrogate what?’

  ‘A surrogate mother,’ says Nodge.

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It means that China would take sperm from me and/or Nodge… ’

  ‘Or both of us,’ adds Owen.

  ‘And carry our child for us. When she had given birth, we could then adopt.’

  Frankie takes a moment to absorb this. He slowly gets to his feet, his feeling of rising goodwill having suddenly dissipated. He takes his reading glasses off and puts them slowly in his pocket.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

  ‘Frankie… ’ says Nodge. Frankie’s head is whirling and not only because of the alcohol he has imbibed. Owen and Nodge appear as indistinct blurs.

  ‘You must be out of your fucking tree. My nineteen-year-old daughter is going to have my best friend’s baby? It’s sick. I can’t believe that you… ’

  Frankie’s voice dries in his throat. Nodge holds out the flat of his hand in front of him.

  ‘Frankie. Whoa. Obviously we didn’t say yes. Obviously.’

  ‘I said no to China even before I told Nodge about the offer,’ adds Owen. ‘He was just as opposed to the idea as me. It was never going to happen. Ever. I swear.’

  ‘We both swear,’ says Nodge.

  Frankie finds himself placated. He lowers himself back slowly down into the pub garden chair, picks up his drink and pulls on it, despite the fact there is now a dead wasp in the glass which he narrowly avoids swallowing.

  ‘So why… what… why are you two back together again, then?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ says Owen, taking the glass out of Frankie’s hand and fishing out the wasp. ‘I think it has something to do with the gesture that China made – even though we couldn’t accept her offer.’

  ‘That degree of love. The sacrifice involved,’ says Nodge. ‘It was just so extraordinary. You have an amazing daughter, Frankie.’

  ‘For the first time I think I began to understand what love could mean,’ says Owen as Frankie gazes at the lager-soaked body of the insect on the ground, where Owen has flicked it. ‘Love for her godfather in this case. But it set an example. It moved me. Tremendously. Both of us. That she would carry our child as a gift. Simply to save Nodge from heartbreak.’

  ‘After she said that, I thought to myself, “Nodge would probably do the same for me.” I mean if he had a womb. Perhaps he did do the same for me in offering to become a father when he didn’t really want to. And then I thought, suddenly, that being with JJ instead of my… my husband was ridiculous and a betrayal and a madness. The day after I sent China away – having, as I say, utterly and immediately but with much thanks refused her offer – I rang Nodge and asked if he would forgive me and let me come home.’

  ‘I said I would think about it,’ says Nodge, staring softly at Owen.

  ‘What you actually said was, “God yes, Owen, please. I beg you, come home this minute.”’

  ‘Yeh, maybe thinking about it, maybe it was something more like that,’ says Nodge.

  ‘What about you two having a child, though?’ says Frankie.

  ‘We can apply again in a little over a year. This time Nodge will tell the truth. According to Comfort, we’re in with a good chance. She’s going to give us her highest recommendation.’

  Frankie chews this over silently. His phone buzzes. He checks it – it is Farley. Frankie briskly switches the phone off.

  ‘What about this JJ, then, or whatever his name is?’ he says.

  ‘He understood,’ says Owen. ‘He knew deep in his heart he was too old to be having a child. It was wishful thinking. It got him carried away.’

  ‘You’re all still friends, then, are you?’

  ‘Amazingly – yes,’ says Nodge. ‘He might even babysit sometimes. He’s a hell of a terrific human being, even after, you know, what happened at the chess table.’

  ‘Oh yeh,’ says Frankie. ‘Bashing the bishop.’

  ‘Terrible Nanki-Poo, though,’ says Owen, laughing. ‘Thank God the lockdown at least saved West London that embarrassment.’

  Frankie joins in the laughter even though he doesn’t have a clue what Owen is talking about.

  ‘I heard from China that he might have Covid,’ says Frankie. ‘Apparently he was coughing something terrible when she went round to see Owen that day.’

  ‘He doesn’t have Covid,’ says Owen.

  ‘Thank God for that. It’s no picnic, I can tell you.’

  ‘He has an underlying condition, though,’ says Nodge.

  ‘Yes,’ says Owen. ‘Death.’

  Frankie looks from one to the other, perplexed.

  ‘Lung cancer,’ says Nodge. ‘Smoking sixty a day for forty years finally caught up with him. He’s got maybe a year to live. Maybe less.’

  Frankie finds this hard to register. No sense of compassion rises up to greet the news. There has been so much death over the past few months – albeit among strangers he has never met. He just feels numb.

  ‘That’s a shit sandwich. How did he take it?’