conversations with hardyman
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They were eating at Hardyman’s club, Brooks’s on St. James’s Street. Hardyman generally didn’t take his clients there, as often they were too interested in the other diners. Pitt showed no such curiosity. Hardyman admired his restraint but suspected that, in fact, Pitt just had no idea that he was lunching in amongst a variety of politicians, Lords, men who were three hundred and seventy-fifth in line to the throne, and film directors.
As it was, Pitt was not particularly relaxed in the surroundings. The first time he had gone there, he had assumed Hardyman was trying to intimidate, or, at the very least, show off in order to justify his fees. Pitt had ordered the same food as Hardyman, so that he could follow his lead, and not make any faux pas involving the wrong cutlery. As ever, his insecurity had been completely masked by the painfully austere exterior.
As time passed, Pitt came to realise that there was no disingenuousness in Hardyman. He went to the club because he felt at home there; it was who he was. Yet, judging by the conversation he heard around the other tables, Hardyman did not fit the mould.
‘Did you do it?’ asked Hardyman. Carpaccio of beef on his fork, his eyebrow raised.
They hadn’t been discussing the vineyard, but Pitt knew immediately he was referring to the green harvest.
‘Yes,’ he said bluntly. ‘Last week.’
Hardyman took the carpaccio into his mouth, letting the flavour settle on his tongue before starting to chew. He ate slowly, savoured every mouthful. Pitt thought sometimes that Hardyman, like no man he had ever met, squeezed every single drop of enjoyment from life that he could. He sometimes wished he could do the same.
He was eating goat’s cheese and figs, a dribble of honey. Brittle toast. Nearly finished, Hardyman seemed barely to have started.
‘What did Jenkins think?’ he asked.
Pitt didn’t answer. Jenkins had thought the same as Hardyman; that it would not be worth it.
‘What about Daisy?’ said Hardyman. ‘Did you discuss it with her?’
Pitt’s face broke at last, and Hardyman joined him.
‘Made you smile at least,’ he said. ‘I take it you didn’t bring Daisy into the decision making process?’
Pitt said nothing, and finished off his cheese, raking the last morsel around the plate to clear up the honey. He caught Hardyman’s eye, detecting for the first time a certain sadness in his look. Not the dreadful, all-encompassing melancholy that engulfed him when he looked at Yuan Ju, but a look of regret.
‘What?’ said Pitt.
Hardyman looked up, surprised. ‘Sorry?’ he said in reply.
‘You seem... you look like there’s something. Like you think I should talk to Daisy... Although, it’s not that,’ said Pitt. ‘There’s something else, because you don’t care if I talk to Daisy. Why should you?’
Hardyman smiled ruefully, waved a dismissive fork.
‘Sometimes... perhaps we should talk to our partners, that’s all,’ he said. ‘It might help.’
‘You think your wife would be grateful if you discussed all the women you slept with?’
Hardyman looked slightly abashed, then, with another wave of the fork, dismissed the conversation, and in an instant his face resumed its avuncular norm.
‘What did Jenkins say?’ he asked. ‘And don’t lie, because I have his phone number.’
‘You phone Jenkins?’ said Pitt.
‘Not yet, but I can.’
‘Jenkins thinks it doesn’t make sense,’ said Pitt. ‘He can see the thrill of chasing the perfect bottle of wine, but only from a standpoint of financial security...’
Hardyman barked out a laugh that attracted a glance or two from the next table.
‘... which he knows we don’t yet have. He thinks we should consolidate first, then look for perfection in later years.’
Hardyman almost giggled, as he took another small sip of Chablis. Attempting to drink only one glass, as he was meeting new clients later in the afternoon. Two or three glasses tended to go to his face, always turning it red regardless of the colour of wine he’d been drinking.
‘Makes me think you’d already called him,’ said Pitt.
‘Makes me think,’ said Hardyman, ‘that the man’s not a pussy. Quite happy to stand up to his boss and talk sense.’
‘I don’t pay him to do anything else,’ said Pitt. ‘Doesn’t mean I have to listen to him.’
‘And what if you produce the perfect bottle, then lose the vineyard?’
Pitt didn’t answer. He straightened the knife and fork on his plate. Hardyman nodded. He already knew the answer to that. Pitt wasn’t at all concerned with the finances of the vineyard. He lived to produce wine. If he could get away without selling any of it, he would quite happily do it. And if, some day, he lost his vineyard, he would go away and work out how to get another one; and, if he couldn’t get another one, then maybe he would just think that his life’s work was done, and he could die.
Perhaps that was what Hardyman admired most about Pitt; his certainty of future. He would make wine until he died; there would be nothing else. If it was for another forty years, or another four, or if this summer was his last, it didn’t seem to matter.
‘You have to hope that whoever has your account at the bank this time next year likes wine,’ he said. Even as he spoke, Hardyman knew that Pitt would not hope for that at all. Pitt would not care.