Visions - In my Minds Eye., ARTHUR HOWE [good beach reads .TXT] 📗

that broke the camels back.

I walked out of a trying, five-year business relationship and eight-year friendship and resolved not to let it bother me, nor hold out any chance of patching things up. Things had gone just too far to even think of a recovery. Gareth, in his careful, manipulative, structured way, made me feel as though I was the one doing the wrong. Gareth was a master at lying with a straight face, which is probably what made him such a good salesman and why I fell for his lies for all those years.

I re-ran the whole distasteful episode in my mind many, many times and regardless of which way you looked at it, Gareth was caught out, pants-by-his-ankles sort of stuff, purposely defrauding not only his business associate, but also his supposed friend.

I walked away from my investment in his company and managed to recover enough emotionally to get on with my own life and to survive and thrive financially.

Gareth had always joked with me saying, “not to worry Harry, you’re a Survivor.”

Which was more than Gareth had apparently managed to do.

After I had laid Criminal charges against him, he’d served less than two years of a three-year sentence in a minimum-security prison, which was quite frankly, more like a hotel than a prison.

A couple of long standing friends felt they were doing me a favour telling me of chance meetings with him over the years, normally in some state of drunkenness, crying on the worlds shoulders and trying to work out why he’d been dealt such a bum hand. “Bitter and Twisted” was the general summary of his emotional state.

I had scrubbed his name right out of my vocabulary and the only time it reared its ugly head was in the by-chance encounter in the small world of Veterinary Pharmaceuticals in which we both operated. I normally walked away from trying to compete with him, contented at not having to risk digging up the past, starting the mud-slinging and possibly involving others in the ugly episode.

The friendliness of his voice was what made the caller un-recognisable.

“Harry! How the hell are you?” was his opening line.

No “Hello,” “Good morning,” or even a “ Hi there,” just a “how the hell are you?”

It froze me on the spot and had me speechless for a few seconds whilst I tried to work out, no, deny the fact that this was actually Gareth, having the audacity to call.

“Who’s this?” I asked into the phone, hoping I’d be wrong.

“Oh, come on now Harry, surely you haven’t forgotten your old friends now, have you?”

“Gareth?” I asked.

“Who else Harry?”

A pause of about twenty seconds felt more like an hour as I decided not to initiate any conversation.

Finally, I broke the silence.

“What is it you want Gareth. I’m really very busy right now.”

“O.K. Harry, I’ll not beat around the bush,” he said brightly, “ I needed to talk to you, to make contact and to tell you that I’ve had something of a change of fortunes lately and, based on our mis-understandings of the past, thought it was time that we made amends.”

“Look Gareth, I’m not really interested…”

He cut me short.

“Just hear me out, please Harry, listen to what I have to say and then, take your time, think about it, and then let me have your answer.” He said.

I didn’t respond.

“Now Harry, as I said, I’ve had a change of fortunes lately and your name was one of the first that came up in my mind. Now, please Harry, just listen! All I’m asking is that you join me and a couple of others for supper and a few drinks so that, if nothing else, I can get this load off my chest, make amends, and then move on from there.”

“I really don’t think that would be appropriate…”

Again, he cut me off mid sentence.

“Friday evening, 7.00 p.m. at my place. Have a drink over supper, listen to what I have to say, you don’t even have to talk to me, just listen, and then you can decide for yourself.”

He then gave me an address and said that he hoped to see me there for “a lesson in survival,” whatever he meant by that.

He hung up and left me holding a beeping handset.

I thought about the phone call many times during the day, wondering about his “change of fortunes” and what drastic situation or events could have changed his life so dramatically to warrant the contact.

When I got home that night, my Wife, Sally thought that I was being a little bit too sceptical and suggested that maybe he’d won the lottery or had some aged Aunt or Uncle leave him a fortune and that maybe he was now in a position to make things up financially.

I doubted whether he’d come by any fortune, and even if he had, I doubted that he’d done it by any legal means based on my past experiences with him.

Sally suggested that I had nothing to lose, and with a definite reservation, finally decided to go along, even if it was just to reinforce my distaste and disgust for the way he’d treated me in the past. Maybe he had hit a lucky streak and decide it was pay-back time; Who knows, I might just walk out of there with a cheque for the thirty thousand pounds he’d stolen from me to feather his lavish lifestyle?

If Gareth had had any windfall, it certainly wasn’t apparent by the fairly familiar address he’d given me and even more so when I drove past a rather seedy looking row of terraced flats that Friday evening. Judging by the cars on the street, all in various states of decay, I’d say that Gareth had probably hit rock bottom before his “change of fortune” came around.

I parked under a street lamp about three hundred yards beyond the entrance to his flat and walked back, surveying the neighbouring properties. A couple of obvious hookers, elbows on the window ledge, made suggestions to me as I passed their ground floor flat.

I mounted the three chipped and unpainted stairs to the front entrance and rang the doorbell indicating the number Gareth had given me. Surprisingly, the intercom worked and I was buzzed in through the front door with Gareth’s voice calling out, “Up the stairs, on the left, you can’t miss it.”

Gareth’s front door was as tatty as the threadbare carpet on the stairway, with signs on the paintwork that the occupant had lost his keys on several occasions and had to resort to kicking the lock in.

The door opened and there stood Gareth. I was shocked, both by the lack of expression on his face and by his physically neglected appearance. Gareth had always been somewhat overweight with a bright, ruddy complexion and well presented deportment. What stood before me was the stooped, shadow of the man I knew. I reckoned that he had lost at least forty pounds and the once ruddy complexion was now pale and almost waxy.

“Join us in the dining room, in there, on the left.” his muted voice appealed as he retreated, without greeting, down the passage to the Kitchen.

I followed him and stepped into a dimly lit room furnished mainly with a cheap Formica dining room table with four seats already occupied.

I nodded to the others present and received various impatient grunts in reply. No one smiled or offered an introduction so I took the liberty of introducing myself.

Again, no response.

I sat down at the last empty seat next to the head of the table where Gareth would obviously be sitting.

“Help yourself to a drink and I’ll join you all in a few minutes.” Said Gareth’s voice from down the hallway.

A side table held an assortment of grubby wine glasses and two carafes of decanted wine, one red and one white.

I helped myself to a glass of red, sniffing the somewhat dull bouquet as I returned to my seat.

“Well, I wonder if we’re all here for the same thing?” I suggested to the table.

Again, there was no response other than the short, fat guy on the far side of the table looking impatiently at his watch. “Christ,” he muttered, “I wish he’d get on with whatever it is he’s got to say instead of wasting our bloody time.”

More mumbles from the rest of the table.

“I really don’t know why I even bothered,” said the red haired man. “I can’t stand to be in his company, and don’t know why I even accepted this damned silly idea.”

“Last time I saw him, I wanted to break his fucking neck,” said the short fat guy. “took every last fucking penny I had, the filthy bastard!”

The table broke out into a cacophony of curses and muttering and general agreement that no-one really wanted to be here and that everyone seemed to have had similar experiences to myself.

The man next to Fatty, dressed like a nightclub bouncer in black leather, black polo neck and a thick gold rope chain stood up, scraping the chair on the uncarpeted floorboards. “I’m getting’ outa here,” he said firmly. “I should be twisting his scrawny neck for him on the way out and not listening to his crap! He’s already wasted another twenty minutes of my life”

The fourth man, who looked like everybody’s idea of just what an accountant should look like, suddenly spoke up. “I’d like to suggest that we all stay, listen to what Gareth has to say and, if after his confession, we’re not entirely happy, we simply leave. Let him get on with his life and we with ours. We’ve all been burned by this man and whatever he says today can’t damage us any further now, can it?”

A few minutes later, the door opened and in walked Gareth, carrying a huge oven-clay pot between two grubby looking dishcloths.

“Gentlemen, please! Let us not be hasty or foolish here, having people wanting to rush off and mess up the whole evening! Let’s all just have something to eat and then I can get down to the business of why you’re all here tonight.” Said Gareth with something resembling a smile on his lips.

Gareth placed the pot in the middle of the table and lifted the lid.

The one thing I always enjoyed about the many evenings I spent socialising with Gareth was his ability to cook up a superb meal. Tonight was going to be no exception as my taste buds and sense of smell concurred when he lifted the lid.

“It’s my famous Guinness and Beef pie.” He said, offering the serving spoon to the leather clad bouncer who hesitated for a second and then dished himself up a mighty helping of thick, puff pastry and steaming meat and gravy.

The rest of the table followed suit. All except Gareth.

“Gentlemen,” he started, “I will eat a little later to give you all the opportunity to fill your mouths and to keep you from interrupting as I speak.”

Gareth sat down at the head of the table on my right, as the dish was passed around and the invited guests helped themselves.

I had enjoyed his Guinness and Beef on several occasions and I got the feeling that most of the others had had similar experiences judging by the