To my complete surprise he said, 'Ah, you got on all right with the gay gardeners then?' He looked at me with a friendly quizzical smile. I was terrified. My mouth felt dry, as though it was lined with fur, and my heart was thumping.
'Sorry?'
'If you don't know you're the only one who doesn't. They don't exactly make a secret of it.'
That he could be putting on a pretence of tolerance so as to trap me seemed implausible. Realising that there would never be a better opportunity to tell him the truth I took a large breath and said, 'Yes, I had noticed. I'm gay myself actually.'
Quietly and unemotionally, as though I had told him whether I preferred tea or coffee, he said, 'Caroline said she thought you might be. You know she's in personnel, doesn't miss much. Can be too quick sometimes... you know. Speaking for myself, perfectly happy to accept we all have our different ways... but some of the senior men in a long established City firm like this... you have to be careful what you say to them whatever the topic. Speak to my secretary about that exhibition.'
Welcome though his apparent tolerance was, he had not made personal relationships with anyone else at Lindler & Haliburton easier. The unplanned 'coming out' to him was enough of a risk to my hard-won career progress for the time being, and other pressures demanded priority. A long series of queries, notes and memos to do with the new client needed my attention. For a month after Peter had won the business the pace of work remained hectic. A document drawn up to specify exactly how the link between our system and theirs was to operate contained thirty pages of detail about data formats, technical protocols, timetables for completing activities, safeguards against unauthorised access and other security measures. Some of these were readily agreed between the two companies, but others were revised again and again until an acceptable compromise between our differing working practices was found.
Meanwhile the demands of other day-to-day work continued as before. Some tasks could be delegated to my staff, but with limited authority to pay for extra hours not very many. My immediate boss, the head of the information technology unit, refused additional overtime for my team, probably resentful because Peter had not consulted him before asking me to take on the extra work. To complain to Peter and ask him to overrule the decision against overtime would risk worsening the antagonism, and to cope with the workload I put in far more than my contractual hours. Peter commented several times in the weeks that followed that I looked tired, but neither he nor Andrew ever moaned about having too much to do, and nor would I.