“I don’t know that you appreciate the extent to which organic superstores are going to revolutionise society.”
Kate Shaw glanced up at her new client as she scribbled notes on the yellow legal pad in front of her. Grocery shopping maybe, she thought, but society, that was going a bit far. She made encouraging noises as he prattled on about the importance of organic products and how he wanted the deal to sell the shares in his company to be structured. It was desperately important to Clive Greenwood that whoever bought shares in Green Goods Ltd shared his vision not only for the company but for the world at large. Kate thought the man, whom she was beginning to think of as Crazy Clive, was an absolute nutter. He had already rescheduled their meeting to a time more auspicious for business. She was not sure who had decided that it was more auspicious but she was less than impressed by it. He had also spent a considerable amount of time choosing which chair in the conference room had the best feng shui. Whatever, he was the client and he was paying the bills.
So here she was on a Friday morning, when she should have been elsewhere, going around in circles with her client. Unfortunately, she thought his company, which owned and operated a chain of organic supermarkets, was potentially worth a fortune and would be a roaring success on the stock market.
“Mr Greenwood, I’m not entirely sure that we can put any type of restrictive covenant on the trading of your shares once they’re on the stock market. I do think, however, that we can stress the importance of the organic nature of the company and its emphasis on environmental concerns in the prospectus documents and try to market the shares as green shares. I’m aware of a number of merchant banks, particularly Blakes, which specialise in these types of shares and portfolios that are made up solely of companies with responsible environmental products and policies in place. I would think that that kind of marketing would be very effective for Green Goods.”
She was not sure that her friend, Imogen, would be thrilled if Kate delivered Crazy Clive to her bank as a client. But Blakes was fantastic at what it did and would serve Clive’s needs perfectly.
She looked over at the junior solicitor who was scribbling notes of their conversation. Ravi Singh looked up at her enquiringly. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him as Clive went on and on and poor Ravi tried to take notes that would make some sense later.
Kate heard the bells of St Paul’s chime the hour in the distance. The sound gave her a little thrill – it amazed her that after two years of living in London the bells still gave her Antipodean soul a lift. Right, she thought, this has gone on quite long enough. She cut across Crazy Clive’s diatribe against modern supermarkets politely but firmly.
“Mr Greenwood, I think we have enough now to make a start. We’ll begin by conducting the official company searches we need and get going on a preliminary prospectus document. I’ll be in contact with you early next week to arrange another meeting. Please give some thought to which bank you’d like to work with. If necessary, we can arrange for you to meet with several different ones and then you can make a choice. My recommendation would be to go with a boutique bank, such as Blakes, that would really be able to capitalize on the unique selling features of your company. Here’s our Client Agreement. Please read it and make yourself familiar with the terms of the agreement, particularly the fee structure. If you’re happy with it, you can sign it and just fax it back to me and we can get started.”
Kate made a move to stand, followed swiftly by Ravi and more slowly by Crazy Clive, who seemed reluctant to let his audience escape.
“I’m more than happy with it, so I’ll just sign it now and you can get to work straight away.” Kate smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr Greenwood, that’s most thoughtful of you.”
They escorted Mr Greenwood to the lift, taking turns to shake hands with him and waited with him for the lift, mostly to make sure he really did leave. Kate shook her head after the doors had slid closed, “The man is crazy.”
“Are you sure you can’t put a restrictive covenant on shares traded on a stock exchange?” asked Ravi earnestly. “You sounded so confident about it.”
She grinned, “Ravi, they pay us to be confident.”
“But do you know?”
“No, but you, my friend,” she prodded him in the chest, “are going to spend the afternoon in the library finding out for sure. Can you also order a company search for Green Goods Ltd?”
“Great, so I get to spend the afternoon in the library while you swan off to this golf thing.”
“Yep.”
“It’s not fair.” Kate smiled, he sounded like a petulant three year old - hardly surprising since he was a petulant twenty-three year old.
“Oh, you poor baby, one day you too will be allowed to go to the ball. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know, spending your weekend working.”
“Hmm, if you call playing golf and schmoozing clients, whilst eating and drinking in a snooty hotel, working.”
“Put like that it doesn’t sound so bad! Don’t worry, your afternoon won’t be too onerous, all the other junior staff will be in the library doing meaningless research and you can all bunk off early as there’s no one here to check up on you.”
Ravi finally smiled.
“Okay, I’m off now. I’ll have my phone so if anything really drastic happens you can call me.”
“So if I find some case from 1752 that says it is possible to restrict who can buy shares I should call you?”
“Er,” she pretended to think about it, cocking her head to one side, “No. I’ll see you on Monday. Have a good weekend. Spare a thought for me having to survive a boring weekend on the golf course.”
Kate could not have been more wrong in her assessment of the weekend.
“G’Day I’m Tom Benson. Welcome to Highbury Manor Golf and Country Club.”
Kate raised her eyebrows and let out a chuckle. “Is that a genuine G’day or just a bit of pseudo Crocodile Hunter guff to impress the Poms?” she asked, in her own clearly Australian accent.
“Umm. I guess it’s genuine. I do say G’day and mate quite often but probably a lot more often with …” he babbled on, his smile fading, clearly uncomfortable as she continued to regard him carefully from under her raised eyebrows, without making any effort to rescue him.
In fact, she was using his struggle as an opportunity to check him out. Tom Benson was, she thought in an instant, absolutely gorgeous. He was tall with broad shoulders, a square jaw and dark hair. He had a warm smile with deep laughter lines etched in his cheeks and twinkling green eyes. He looked like a cartoon superhero, which was no bad thing in Kate’s book. She decided to help him out. Tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder and flashing him a very friendly smile, she asked, “So where are you from in Australia, Mr Benson?”
“Melbourne.”
“So hardly the wilds of the outback then.”
“No, not too much wild stuff in Brighton.” She laughed again but this time with him rather than at him.
“So where are you from?” She gave him an apologetic smile.
“Would you believe I grew up on a cattle station in outback New South Wales?”
“Oh,” he wrinkled up his nose at the irony of it, “so lots of mating there.” They both laughed at his pathetic pun.
“By the way, I’m Kate Shaw from ALG,” she said, extending her hand to shake his. His hand was calloused from golf and made hers seem ever softer in comparison. Kate felt a little frisson of electricity run up her arm as they shook hands for slightly longer than was necessary. She looked up and regarded him closely. But he just kept smiling down at her with those twinkly eyes. She was practically swooning now.
Recovering her composure, she put her hands on her hips, pushing back the jacket of her formidable black suit to reveal the tight hot pink top beneath. “Sorry I’m so late and missed this morning’s session but some people actually have work to do, unlike the rest of these slack bastards,” she murmured the last part under her breath with an angelic smile to a colleague as he pushed past her into the dining room for lunch. He returned her cheeky grin with a playful pat on the back.
Tom looked down admiringly at her breasts in her tight top. She returned her gaze to him at that moment and raised one eyebrow. He shrugged and gave her a small smile as if to say, “Well, do you blame me?” Quite frankly she couldn’t, as he was awfully good looking and rather charming.
At that moment one of the hotel staff came to show Kate to her room. She said farewell to Tom Benson. She was conscious of him watching her as she walked towards the lift in her high heels so she ensured that she flicked her long blonde hair again and that there was a little extra swing in her hips. She knew she was flirting outrageously. She knew that you shouldn’t flirt at work but this wasn’t exactly work and anyway he was cute.
Hers was a standard luxury room with all the things she loved about hotels – big bath, complimentary bath foam, a big fluffy white bath robe and slippers embroidered with the hotel’s crest. She drew back the curtains to reveal a view out over the putting green of the second hole, before shrugging off her jacket, hanging it over the back of a chair and stepping out of her high heels.
She began to unpack, hanging her clothes in the wardrobe. Her golf clothes, her casual yet still professional clothes (in her opinion, casual Friday was an appalling American invention that only meant she had to have another entire set of clothes suitable for work but in a casual way) and the black evening dress for that night’s gala dinner.
She took a shower, washing her hair and using the hotel’s shower gel to wash away the grit and grime of London and the stresses of her work. It was such a pleasure to be out of the city. It was just a pity that she had to spend it with her colleagues and clients.
The weekend was a corporate golf extravaganza. No measly lunch with clients for Abercrombie, Lang & Gilchrist. ALG, the law firm Kate worked for, had invited their biggest and most important clients to Highbury Manor Golf and Country Club for a weekend of golf, eating, drinking and, as Ravi had put it, schmoozing in luxury surroundings. The idea was that if the clients enjoyed their weekend sufficiently then they would continue to send their legal work in ALG’s direction and not baulk at the ludicrously high fees they charged. Kate thought the fees charged for her own work as a senior associate specialising in mergers and acquisitions were completely loony even though she was good at what she did.
She found her thoughts straying to Tom Benson. He was the golf professional that had been arranged by her firm to turn a nice weekend of golf into an unforgettable experience for a bunch of jaded business people who had seen and done it all. Although Kate was not an avid golf fan, she loved sport - always reading the newspaper starting with the sports pages. So she was aware that he ranked in the Top 10 golfers in the world and that he had won his first major the previous year. It was quite a coup having him for their corporate golf event. No doubt they had paid handsomely for the privilege.
What Kate hadn’t realised was that he was so attractive. There was just something about him that appealed to her. She was surprised at how much of a connection she felt with him on first meeting him. Perhaps it was simply being two Aussies far from home. Perhaps it was just pure lust, she thought with a giggle. She dried her hair quickly and swung it up into a ponytail. She slipped into her golf clothes – navy trousers and a white ALG issue golf shirt. Her navy ALG cap followed her golf shoes and a sweater into her backpack as she left her room. She laughed at herself reading so much into one five minute conversation and figured that was probably all she would have to do with him over the weekend.
As Kate was due to tee off at 2.15pm, she made her way down to the first tee where Gillian Martin stood, clipboard in hand, organising everyone. Gillian, the ALG marketing director, was tall and thin with a swinging black bob and was never seen without her trademark slash of red lipstick. She was as cold and hard as she looked, hence her nickname of the Lipstick Nazi.
Kate couldn’t stand her as she treated everyone she perceived to be below her in the ALG pecking order like dirt, whilst treating the partners as if they were God. Needless to say, in Gillian’s reckoning, Kate was very low in the ALG hierarchy.
“Kate, so glad to see you. Let me introduce you to Tom Benson.”
“We already know each other,” he said, implying far more intimacy than their brief meeting warranted. Kate smiled up at him, grateful that he appeared to realise what a complete and utter cow Gillian was. Not only was he gorgeous but he was perceptive as well.
“Oh, well, Tom is about to tee off, so I’m sure you’ve taken up enough of his time now,” Gillian said, as she linked her arm through Tom’s. Kate smiled but on the inside she was snarling. The woman had practically told her to run along and play, like a good girl. She was such a bitch. Just to spite her, Kate gave Tom Benson an intimate smile and, resting a hand on his forearm, said, “I look forward to continuing our conversation later then.” He returned her smile and said, “Won’t have to wait long, Kate. I’ll be teeing off with your group.” Kate flashed a smile at Gillian and said, “Well, let’s go then” with more enthusiasm than she actually felt.
She swallowed at the thought of playing in the same group as Tom as she followed him to the tee off area. She thought wryly how wrong she had been to assume that she would not see him again over the weekend. Now she was about to embark on five hours of golf with him.
Tom noticed her wry grin. “You always seem to be amused by something.” She laughed, “I doubt you’ll be saying that at the end of 18 holes of golf. It’s more likely you’ll be commenting on my impressive and creative repertoire of swear words. I hate being bad at things.”
“No, but I’m sure that you are very good at being bad.”
She looked up at him in surprise, blushing slightly. Before she could answer, their playing partners, the Chief Financial Officer of her biggest client, John Brody, and his wife, Valerie, turned up. It was probably just as well as she had no idea how to respond to such an outrageous remark.
Kate knew John and Valerie reasonably well in a professional capacity. But right now she was feeling decidedly unprofessional. They were both keen golfers who played competitively. She suddenly wished she was a better golfer and that she had followed up on the ten lessons she had taken in her final year of university to impress her boyfriend at the time who felt golf was a suitable sport for lawyers. She smoothed a wayward strand of hair back and jammed on her ALG cap, squaring her shoulders and deciding to give it her best shot.
She watched John and Tom tee off on the first hole, then walked with trepidation to the ladies tees. She pulled out the one wood from her rented clubs. She didn’t bother with a practice swing, as for such an average golfer it couldn’t possibly make much difference so would just be a waste of time. She looked off in the distance where the ball ought to go and then down at the ball. She took a deep breath, let it out and gave the ball an almighty whack. A relieved giggle bubbled up inside her as she watched her ball sail directly down the middle of the fairway.
“Good shot, Kate.”
“Unfortunately that’s as good as it gets. That’s my best shot and I’ve already used it up!” she quipped.
“Perhaps together we’d be a terrific golfer,” said Valerie who had already admitted to Kate that she was a poor driver of the ball but had a very good short game.
Kate hoped that Highbury Manor was one of those nice resort style courses, like they have in Australia, where a man comes around on a quad bike with a selection of drinks and snacks. She always needed chocolate by the 14th hole. That and the promise of a cold beer at the end was all that made it possible for her to get through to the 18th hole.
She had been faintly disappointed when she discovered that Tom was only playing the first three holes with them before heading off to play holes with each of the other groups out on the course. But then she was relieved that he had not had to witness her awful golfing display – booming drives occasionally on to the fairway but more often than not in the trees, followed by appalling iron shots where Kate’s expletives travelled further than her ball, countless chips out of bunkers, several balls missing in action and a few in the water. Kate spent so much time in the bunkers or walking along the edge of water hazards looking for her submerged ball that she began to think of it more as a beach holiday than a round of golf. This amused her briefly as she was very fond of the beach.
Kate, not surprisingly, was glad to get to the last hole. Less so when she saw Tom standing there waiting to play the hole with them and even less so when she stood on the tee and realised she had to hit over an expanse of water on to a tiny green with a solitary bunker over the back right hand side. She heard Tom say to her, “Kate, remember there is no water, there is no water.” Chanting his advice like a mantra, she whacked yet another big drive which cleared the water easily. She was so excited she was jumping up and down, only to be brought back to earth by the dry comment of John Brody, “Well, there may not be any water but there certainly is a bunker.”
Her shoulders sagged as she realised her ball had landed in yet another bunker. Bloody bunkers, she thought grumpily, and bloody John Brody for pointing it out and bursting her bubble. Not that it was exactly his fault that she was such an incompetent golfer.
When she finally got her ball in the hole some six shots later (including three to get out of the bloody bunker), she was desperate for a drink. She shook hands with her playing partners, apologising for her appalling golf and for her even more appalling swearing just in case it had bothered anyone. John and Valerie had laughed and readily agreed to join her in the bar for a drink.
Tom, however, insisted that as the host of the event, he had to go back out on the course and play a few holes with the remaining groups and share his golfing wisdom. Kate hoped that he wasn’t going to share his ludicrous “there is no water” line with anyone or more to the point how laughably wrong it had gone for Kate. She was miffed that he wasn’t going to join them in the bar as drinking was, after all, something that she was rather good at.
Copyright (c) Sandra Pruim 2008
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