Tom was the first to leave. He said he would miss me, promised to keep in touch at least once a week, and we talked about him returning to London for a few days if the work lasted for more than a fortnight, and of me travelling down to Portsmouth if the hotel allowed. Leaving Darren in charge, I went to Waterloo Station to see him onto his train, and waved to him through the window while walking along the platform to keep him in sight for as long as possible as the train pulled out.
***
On the evening before Andrew was due to set off on his trip he took me to a fashionable new restaurant in a converted building which had previously been a fire station. In the enormous room where the fire engines had once been garaged, dozens of miniature spotlights now shone from chrome fittings suspended below the dark ceiling, the white table cloths and cutlery gleaming brilliantly under their light. Waiters in maroon waistcoats and white aprons scurried back and forth between the tables and the long marble topped bar, behind which could be glimpsed the bright fluorescent lights of the kitchen.
We were shown to a table beside a wall of half-mirrored glass installed where the old fire station doors must have been. All of this fashionable restaurant's waiters were good-looking young men, two of whom took turns at attending to us, pulling our chairs out, unfolding and handing us our napkins, and opening out the menu folders before us with an open palmed gesture of encouragement as though, otherwise, we might have sat staring blankly into space.
In my previous life at Lindler & Haliburton the ostentation might have impressed me, but that evening I could not relax. The sparseness of the room with its scrubbed brick walls and bright pinpoint spotlights, and the ritual created around the simple acts of sitting down and ordering dinner, were too contrived. A traditional Sunday afternoon meal with Tom, Darren, and Andrew around our 'family' table at Goodmans Hotel would have been far more enjoyable.
Andrew's manner did not help: his voice was low and tense, as though he was afraid his words would echo from the high ceiling of the cavernous room and reach the ears of strangers. We talked at first about business, going over the arrangements he had made with the managers of the garden centre and nursery, with the bank and his solicitors, all of whom had been informed in writing of the role I was to play during his absence. He proposed to keep in regular contact with a weekly 'phone call, but said he would be happy to leave all necessary decisions to me. He wanted to concentrate on making the most of his holiday. As well as New Zealand he spoke of possible visits on his way back to Australia, Singapore, Thailand, and perhaps Egypt and parts of Europe.