A Quiver Full of Arrows Read online

  As he picked up his briefcase it knocked the armrest in front of him and the lid sprang open. Everyone in the carriage stared at its contents. For there, on top of his Prudential documents, was a neatly folded copy of the Evening Standard and an unopened packet of ten Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

  ONE-NIGHT STAND

  The two men had first met at the age of five when they were placed side by side at school, for no more compelling reason than that their names, Thompson and Townsend, came one after the other on the class register. They soon became best friends, a tie which at that age is more binding than any marriage. Having passed their eleven-plus examination they proceeded to the local grammar school with no Timpsons, Tooleys or Tomlinsons to divide them and, after completing seven years in that academic institution, reached an age when one has to go either to work or to university. They opted for the latter on the grounds that work should be put off until the last possible moment. Happily, they both possessed enough brains and native wit to earn themselves places at Durham University to read English.

  Undergraduate life turned out to be as sociable as primary school. They both enjoyed English, tennis, cricket, good food and girls. Luckily, in the last of these predilections they differed only on points of detail. Michael, who was six feet two, willowy with dark curly hair, preferred tall, bosomy blondes with blue eyes and long legs. Adrian, a stocky man of five feet ten, with straight, sandy hair, always fell for small, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed girls. So whenever Adrian came across a girl that Michael took an interest in or vice versa, whether she was an undergraduate or a barmaid, the one would happily exaggerate his friend’s virtues. Thus they spent three idyllic years in unison at Durham, gaining considerably more than a Bachelor of Arts degree. As neither of them had impressed the examiners enough to waste a further two years expounding their theories for a Ph.D., they could no longer avoid the real world.

  Twin Dick Whittingtons, they set off for London, where Michael joined the BBC as a trainee while Adrian was signed up by Benton and Bowles, the international advertising agency, as an accounts assistant. They acquired a small flat in the Earl’s Court Road which they painted orange and brown, and proceeded to live the life of two young blades, for that is undoubtedly how they saw themselves.

  Both men spent a further five years in this blissful bachelor state until each fell for a girl who fulfilled his particular requirements. They were married within weeks of each other—Michael to a tall, blue-eyed blonde whom he met while playing tennis at the Hurlingham Club; Adrian to a slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired executive in charge of the Kellogg’s Cornflakes account. Each officiated as the other’s best man and each proceeded to sire three children at yearly intervals, and in that again they differed, but as before only on points of detail, Michael having two sons and a daughter, Adrian two daughters and a son. Each became godfather to the other’s first-born son.

  Marriage hardly separated them in anything as they continued to follow much of their old routine, playing cricket together at weekends in the summer and football in the winter, not to mention regular luncheons during the week.

  After the celebration of his tenth wedding anniversary, Michael, now a senior producer with Thames Television, admitted rather coyly to Adrian that he had had his first affair: he had been unable to resist a tall, well-built blonde from the typing pool who was offering more than shorthand at seventy words a minute. Only a few weeks later, Adrian, now a senior account manager with Pearl and Dean, also went under, selecting a journalist from Fleet Street who was seeking some inside information on one of the companies he represented. She became a tax-deductible item. After that, the two men quickly fell back into their old routine. Any help they could give each other was provided unstintingly, creating no conflict of interests because of their different tastes. Their married lives were not suffering—or so they convinced each other—and at thirty-five, having come through the swinging sixties unscathed, they began to make the most of the seventies.

  Early in that decade, Thames Television decided to send Michael off to America to edit an ABC film about living in New York, for consumption by British viewers. Adrian, who had always wanted to see the eastern seaboard, did not find it hard to arrange a trip at the same time, claiming it was necessary for him to carry out some more than usually spurious research for an Anglo-American tobacco company. The two men enjoyed a lively week together in New York, the highlight of which was a party held by ABC on the final evening to view the edited edition of Michael’s film on New York, “An Englishman’s View of the Big Apple.”

  When Michael and Adrian arrived at the ABC studios they found the party already well under way, and both entered the room together, looking forward to a few drinks and an early night before their journey back to England the next day.

  They both spotted her at exactly the same moment.

  She was of medium height and build, with soft green eyes and auburn hair—a striking combination of both men’s fantasies. Without another thought each knew exactly where he desired to end up that particular night and, two minds with but a single idea, they advanced purposefully upon her.

  “Hello, my name is Michael Thompson.”

  “Hello,” she replied. “I’m Debbie Kendall.”

  “And I’m Adrian Townsend.”

  She offered her hand and both tried to grab it. When the party had come to an end, they had, between them, discovered that Debbie Kendall was an ABC floor producer on the evening news spot. She was divorced and had two children who lived with her in New York. But neither of them was any nearer to impressing her, if only because each worked so hard to outdo the other; they both showed off abominably and even squabbled over fetching their new companion her food and drink. In the other’s absence each found himself running down his closest friend in a subtle but damning way.

  “Adrian’s a nice chap if it wasn’t for his drinking,” said Michael.

  “Super fellow Michael, such a lovely wife and you should see his three adorable children,” added Adrian.

  They both escorted Debbie home and reluctantly left her on the doorstep of her 68th Street apartment. She kissed the two of them perfunctorily on the cheek, thanked them and said goodnight. They walked back to their hotel in silence.

  When they reached their room on the seventeenth floor of the Plaza, it was Michael who spoke first.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I made a bloody fool of myself.”

  “I was every bit as bad,” said Adrian. “We shouldn’t fight over a woman. We never have done in the past.”

  “Agreed,” said Michael. “So why not an honorable compromise?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “As we both return to London tomorrow morning, let’s agree whichever one of us comes back first…”

  “Perfect,” said Adrian, and they shook hands to seal the bargain, as if they were both back at school playing a cricket match and had to decide on who should bat first. The deal made, they climbed into their respective beds and slept soundly.

  * * *

  Once back in London both men did everything in their power to find an excuse for returning to New York. Neither contacted Debbie Kendall by phone or letter, as it would have broken their gentleman’s agreement, but when the weeks grew to be months both become despondent and it seemed that neither was going to be given the opportunity to return. Then Adrian was invited to Los Angeles to address a Media Conference. He remained unbearably smug about the whole trip, confident he would be able to drop into New York on the way back to London. It was Michael who discovered that British Airways were offering cheap tickets for wives who accompanied their husbands on a business trip: Adrian was therefore unable to return via New York. Michael breathed a sigh of relief which turned to triumph when he was selected to go to Washington and cover the President’s Address to Congress. He suggested to the head of Outside Broadcasts that it would be wise to drop into New York on the way home and strengthen the contacts he had previously made with ABC. The head of Outside Bro