The Decision by Penny Vincenzi

simpering creature, so much the sort of girl Eliza disapproved of that she found it hard even to be polite to her. She was acutely and self-consciously feminine, a blue-eyed blonde, but her hair was over-styled and, at a time when most girls were wearing simple, ever-shorter shift dresses, or Mary Quant’s pinafores over black sweaters or even the latest craze of jeans tucked into knee-high boots, she favoured girly blouses and flared skirts, or neat little suits, and always had matching bags and shoes and gloves. She had left Roedean with two O-levels and gone to finishing school in Paris where she had learnt to cook and sew and do flowers and was always saying things like ‘I don’t think men like girls to be too clever’.
    Eliza was sure it wouldn’t last; it was the novelty, she kept telling herself.
    ‘Matt! This one’s for you. Nice little building out Paddington way, near the station. Five hundred square feet, three floors, see what you can do with it. Landlord’s in a hurry, burnt his fingers a bit with his financing, OK?’
    ‘Fine,’ said Matt. He still hadn’t got over the excitement of having his own clients, of sorting out a deal. He enjoyed all of it, talking to the landlord, getting out the files, checking potential tenants, fixing appointments, showing them round; it was all dizzy stuff. The day both sides were due to sign, he would wake up feeling as if it was his birthday. He once asked Paul Dickens if he felt the same; Paul was very amused.
    ‘Course not, you silly bugger. It’s a job, innit? I’d be just as happy working in the motor trade to be honest with you. Bigger commission too.’
    Matt was shocked. How anyone could compare the dizzy matchmaking of landlord and tenant with selling a car was beyond him. Money just wasn’t the point. The point was involvement, was feeling part of this mighty fusion of money and bricks and mortar and commercial expertise at a time when the entire city was being reborn.
    He phoned the landlord: a sharp young man, no older than Matt himself, called Colin White. They met at the building, which had been a warehouse and had had only the most minimal work done – new windows, whitewash on the walls, reconcreted floors – and White professed great nonchalance over the deal.
    ‘I want the right tenant, and I don’t want no hassle, people moving out again in a year. I want it settled, so I don’t have to think about it any more, OK?’
    Matt said OK but he thought the rent was too high.
    ‘It’s a good space but it’s the location, I just don’t see it as offices, more manufacturing, storage, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Well I don’t,’ said White coolly. ‘I spent a lot of money on this place, Shaw, I want a proper return, I was told you was a good salesman, I think I might be disappointed. I’ll give you a couple of weeks, then I might have to take it somewhere else.’
    ‘You won’t have to do that,’ said Matt firmly. ‘I’ll find you someone for it well inside a fortnight.’
    ‘Good,’ said White, ‘and don’t bother me till you’re sure. I’m a busy man, I don’t want a lot of poxy phone calls about this, that and the other.’
    Matt went back to the office and trawled through his files. It wasn’t going to be easy. The building was in a noisy dirty street, very near the route of the new Westway, the M40 extension leading into Central London. It might make a light factory but it certainly didn’t seem suitable for the offices Colin White was so determined on.
    Two days later he was three quarters of the way through his list of prospects, feeling increasingly panicky; nobody wanted it. Then Janice, the telephonist, put a call through.
    ‘Potential client, Matt. Sounds really sweet.’
    Janice would have described the Kray twins as sweet had they telephoned Barlow and Stein; Matt picked up the phone warily. A female voice said she had heard he might be able to help her.
    ‘My name’s Maddy Brown. I’m looking for some premises