Max's Proposal. Jane Donnelly
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uncharted minefield. He was always civil with the press, open-handed to charities. Sara had heard it said, ‘He’ll be Sir Max before he’s forty, if he isn’t in jail.’ But she had never heard of him giving any journalist a face-to-face interview before.
She had amused him last night. He did have a cruel sense of humour. He had made her squirm with the hit man joke, scared her silly. He could be making a fool of her with this interview. She could imagine him sitting behind a huge desk, dominant and arrogant, while she perched on the edge of a small chair, stuttering her questions. He could imply as he had last night that she wasn’t much of a journalist if she blew it and ended up getting no story at all.
But she was good at her job, and she had to stop undermining her self-confidence by wondering why he had agreed to talk to her. The only important fact was that he had, and there was no reason why he should scare her. Well not scare her exactly but make her apprehensive, because he was the kind of man who overawed most people, and Sara couldn’t know what mood he would be in when she was shown into his office.
She arrived dead on time. She didn’t want to hang around and she was not keeping him waiting. So it was five minutes to twelve when she walked through the revolving doors into the office block and was taken to the top floor by a young man in a smart suit and what could be an old school tie.
Young men usually tried to chat up Sara. This one eyed her appreciatively but said nothing as they travelled up in the smooth, fast-moving lift. The lift doors opened onto an area of ash-panelled walls and thick grey carpeting. A door was open. Sara’s guide said, ‘Miss Solway, sir,’ and Sara thought, Into the lion’s den, and then, Well he can’t eat me, and went in with her long-legged stride.
Her next thought, as Vella rose from his chair behind the desk, was that he seemed even taller and broader-shouldered today. But he seemed welcoming. She was seated, offered tea or coffee, and started to say, ‘No, thank you,’ when she changed her mind. The headache she had woken with was still lurking. Even an affable Max Vella would be stressful and a tea or coffee might steady her. ‘I would like a coffee,’ she said.
Coffee for two was brought in by an elegant blonde. Max Vella took his black; Sara doubted if he went for sweetness in anything. She had sugar in hers but it was scalding when she took a sip, and that showed the state she was in because any fool could see it was steaming hot. It brought tears to her eyes as she gulped it down instead of spluttering it out, only thankful that she hadn’t dropped the cup.
After a few seconds she managed to say, ‘Thank you for seeing me. My editor was very pleased.’
‘We aim to please,’ said Vella.
She hoped, but from what she knew the one he aimed to please was usually himself. She took her pocket recorder out of her handbag and put it on the desk, switching it on and asking, ‘Do you mind?’
‘You don’t think you’re going to hear anything interesting enough to remember?’
‘Oh, I’m sure I shall.’ She was not sure at all.
‘Or is this likely to be more reliable than your notes?’ He had to be harking back to the time when Sara had given the impression he was turfing somebody out of a cottage when he had been doing no such thing, and the paper had had to print an apology in the next edition.
She snapped, ‘You don’t forget, do you? I was a student then; I’ve learned a lot since.’ And suddenly he was smiling and it was more like it had been last night.
‘So where do we start?’ he said, and she went quickly into her first question.
‘Anything you can tell our readers about your local plans? Such as the cinema?’
A supermarket near the town centre had closed down and options for the site were being considered. There was talk of a group of businessmen with Vella at their head building a cinema. ‘What do you think?’ he asked her. ‘Is there a demand? The last cinema closed down.’
The Chronicle had printed letters from the public and Sara had done a street quiz asking the opinions of passers-by. This was a tourist town with a theatre. Most visitors and most of the locals would welcome the extra entertainment. ‘The old cinema was years ago,’ she said. ‘I’m sure a new one would do well this time.’
‘You’d patronise it?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘What are your favourite films?’
They discussed a few films—what she had seen recently, which she had enjoyed, which had bored her, which had made her think. It was such a relief to find him easy to talk to. She asked, ‘What were you doing here when you walked over the hills and first saw the Moated House?’
He told her. ‘Working with a travelling fair. I was one of the strong-arm gang who put up and dismantled the heavy rides.’
This was lovely stuff, and she recalled something else he had said last night. ‘You were only fourteen when you were doing this?’
‘I looked older. Big for my age and a good liar.’
‘And then?’
‘I started in the scrap-metal business, got a small yard in Yorkshire, went on the markets up and down the country, buying, selling, one thing leading to another.’
It sounded easy but it must have been a killing struggle, and she said with real admiration, ‘From small-time huckster to tycoon was a magnum leap.’
‘A step at a time.’
‘Why did you leave the fair?’
‘Time to move on. And there was a fight.’ His smile made her smile. ‘Bordering on a brawl.’
She tried to imagine him younger, hungrier, a scrapper, and couldn’t. The boy and the man were a world apart. His hands were smooth, the nails manicured, but they were strong enough to be a fighter’s hands, and she wondered when he had stopped using brute force because his brain was a deadlier weapon.
She asked, ‘Did you get that scar in the brawl?’ She was feeling confident enough to ask, as if they were on their way to being friends.
But he said, ‘I got it in the road accident that killed my parents.’
And she cringed at her lack of sensitivity, stammering, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Now tell me about yourself.’ And somehow the conversation reverted back to Sara.
She didn’t mind. She answered everything he asked about her job, her likes and dislikes, although it did seem more as if he were interviewing her than the other way round. It was when he said, ‘Which was your house when you lived in Eddlestone?’ that she became uneasy.
She said abruptly, ‘The Grange, next to the church. That was a long time ago too.’
He nodded. ‘You were Geoffrey Solway’s daughter.’ But she was not discussing her father with him. Max Vella had been here when Geoffrey Solway had died but Vella had always been in a much higher league. There had been no business dealings between them. If they had met it had been casually. That part of Sara’s life was no concern of Max Vella, and she resented him dragging it into this—interrogation.
She was realising now that was the word for how the interview was going. She was being interrogated. She had been beguiled into believing this was a friendly meeting, but he had questioned her far more than she had been permitted to question him. ‘Where are you living now?’ he asked her.
She said, ‘In a very small flat in the square. You’re not the only one to make a quantum leap. Only yours was up and mine was down.’
A phone on the desk rang. Saved by the bell, she thought, and picked up her tape recorder. When she was calmer she would play it back and see what she could dig out.
‘I’ll be with you,’ Vella said into the phone, and to Sara, ‘We’ll continue this later. This evening over dinner. I’m thinking of