On Monday the tickets from Andrew to the exhibition at Olympia arrived. I rang to thank him and promised to mention them to Peter, but warned that he was particularly busy because of the new client. Persistent as always Andrew said that if Peter could find time to go he would ensure there was enough to interest him to make the visit worthwhile.
Andrew's dedication to his businesses increasingly aroused my admiration. He seemed to work every day, often late into the evening, taking off only Sunday afternoons. As he had claimed, everyone he employed was gay. Whenever 'straights' were mentioned in conversation he would slip in a derogatory remark about them, saying that you never really knew where you were with heterosexuals, or that the most primitive animals had a very strong urge to breed. These jibes may have been a sort of tit for tat for all the horrible things that 'straights' say about gays, but if it had been possible for him to live with no contact with 'straights' whatsoever he would probably have done so.
Arriving at work on the following Thursday morning after spending the night with Tom, I was on my way into the lift when Peter strode jauntily towards me. 'You look like you've been up late.'
'Met some friends last night,' I said defensively.
'Thanks for all your work with the new client. I'm seeing them next week... be nice if we could have something to show, offer them some sort of demonstration or presentation. Any chance?'
'We could develop some screens to show how our system will look when they connect up, ask them to try a few options to see what screen layouts for sending data will suit them. Be another month or two before we can show them real data being processed by the system.'
'Some demonstration screens would be fine. Any idea how long?'
'Give me a few days... There was something else, probably not worth mentioning, you've got more important things on your mind. Some complimentary tickets have turned up for the Hotel and Catering Exhibition at Olympia. Expect you probably get dozens of that sort of thing.'
'Not as many as you get to computer exhibitions, they seem to be on every other week. Hotel and Catering at Olympia, you said?'
'Yes.'
'Wouldn't take long to get there, could do with a bit of relief from the office grind. Give my secretary a ring. If I've a couple of hours free, why not? How did you come by the tickets?'
The lift arrived at our floor and we stepped out. 'Ferns and Foliage, the company that looks after our plants sent them.'