Christopher Fowler - Fast Awake

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Fast Awake

Christopher Fowler

He couldn’t believe he had missed the alarm call. Alex Dutton had asked the telephonist to ring him at seven,

and now it was ten to eight, which meant that Max would have a head start. His first meeting was due to start

in ten minutes, before which he had to shave, shower and dress. At least he could dispense with breakfast;

the multi-course supper in the old town had not concluded until two that morning. On business trips he was

used to making do with four hours’ sleep. Clients expected elaborate meals, good wines, thick sauces, and

the service in the crowded fish restaurant had been perversely slow, requiring a consolatory drinking session

in the hotel bar afterwards. He dry-shaved while booting up his laptop, downloaded the day’s emails while

donning his trousers and slipped into the Negresco’s main conference room as soon as the break in the

opening address allowed. Outside, through the opaque curtains, he could see girls roller-skating in sunlight

along the Boulevard Des Anglaises as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

"Where have you been?" whispered Naimn, his assistant, "you missed the Hong Kong delegate."

"Overslept."

"So I can see." She pulled his collar straight at the back. He wondered how she always managed to

appear so immaculate. She looked as though she spent the night in bubble-wrap, a treasured doll preserved

by an obsessive collector. Some people handled corporate life so fluidly that they seemed to have no other

existence. "Max was here fifteen minutes early."

"He always is."

"Maybe he sabotaged your alarm call."

"He wouldn’t do something like that, he’s a straight arrow." Everyone needed a business rival to keep

them on their toes, but no-one needed a rival like Max. Always on time, always one step ahead, always

completely honest with his customers, always—damn it - five and a half years younger. Wherever Alex went,

Max was there first, wide and bright, buttering up the clients and tying up the deals.

"Daniel wants you to go to Frankfurt for the AngloCom presentation."

"You’re joking, I thought he was going to handle that himself. I’ve only just got here." He had arrived

in Nice the previous evening for a three-day event. "Please, not Frankfurt again. I was there Tuesday."

"I’ve got your tickets." She handed him a thick white envelope. "You’re on the four o’clock."

"Why so late?"

"You have to see Raphaella in Ventimiglia first. I’ve got you a ticket for the ten twenty train."

"This is horrible, Naimn, do you realise I’ve done five countries in under a week?"

"It gets worse," Naimn replied. "Nice to Heathrow business class was full. You’re in Economy." And

Max would be in first class, no doubt. How did the son of a bitch do it?

Alex was evil-eyed by his client as he slipped back out of the room. Naimn would check him out of

the hotel, leaving him free to head for the station.

A thousand mobile phones bleeped with the same message as the packed Nice-Ventimiglia train

passed across the Italian border and the networks changed. The meeting with Raphaella took twenty

minutes—long enough to hear her late delivery complaints, long enough for her to tell him that she had signed

a three-year deal with Max Harwood—and he headed back toward the passenger-crazed station. On the

boiling platform he helped to hoist an old lady up the two-foot high step to the double-decked train. Behind

them, lying against a wall, a young African woman was in labour. The police, used to standing around and

singling out gypsies to check on their identification papers, had draped a red woollen blanket over her while

they waited for transport to arrive.

Alex sank back into the seat and watched the stations flash by. The little stations of Roquebrune,

Cap D’Ail and Eze were separated by enticing bays of fierce sapphire sea. He longed to tear off his shirt and

join the bathers he saw floating far below in these still coves, but there was no time for such frivolities; there

was never any time. The department refused to hire more staff because it had been a bad year; it was always

a bad year. His hours and workload had incrementally increased until he only managed to see his daughter

every third weekend. Whenever he saw Jade, he noticed that she was falling more and more under the

influence of her newly religious mother. Donna had taken up Buddhism and was determined to share her

enlightenment with anyone who would listen, but at least this time she was in the thrall of a user-friendly

religion. He wondered how other people managed to keep it all together. What did they have that he didn’t

have? Age on their side, he thought bitterly. A certain freshness. Max talked to every client as if it was his

first day on the job. He had the kind of disturbing honesty you almost never saw anymore.

The Nice-Heathrow flight was full of red-faced English couples in striped shirts and ridiculous straw

hats wrangling with check-in crew about luggage allowances. He sat with the other businessmen in a

shadowed corner of the sunlit lounge, where they could jealously eye each other’s laptops, mobiles and Palm

Pilots. He fought back a surge of jealousy as Max boarded ahead of the herd with a brushed-steel Vaio

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Christopher Fowler - Fast Awake

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