Misgivings that I might be thought to have accepted a cast off faded completely when those around me gasped in envy. One day Peter saw me getting out of it in the car park and said: 'You look as though you're doing better than some of the accountants. I'd watch my back if I were you.'
***
On the first Friday evening that the trophy was in my possession, without saying anything to Andrew or Tom I drove down to the garden centre. Instead of going as usual straight to the Beckford Arms I went up to Tom's flat, interrupting him eating. I waited while he finished his meal and showered, resisting the urge to join him, sitting instead by the window and smiling over the prospect of showing him the Mercedes.
On our way downstairs to the street I said off-handedly: 'I came over in the car this evening for a change. We may as well drive to the pub.' He shrugged his indifference. We walked past half a dozen standard, ordinary vehicles parked at the roadside, the usual jumble of popular makes of car in assorted colours, until we reached my magnificent Mercedes. I sauntered around to the driver's door, opened it, got in and flung open the passenger door, looking up at Tom's bemused face with a casual smile.
'How d'you get this?'
'It's my new company car.'
He climbed in. 'What are you - chief exec or something now?'
'I told you, I got another promotion.' He inspected the dashboard and fingered the lever that controls the indicator lights. The firm's leasing agreement for cars had a clause that restricted driving them to staff, but he was an experienced and careful driver and I asked if he would like to take the wheel.
We completed a circuit of the neighbouring streets. Passers-by must, we felt sure, be turning their heads to look at us, but of course we kept our eyes straight ahead. At a junction where an elderly couple were waiting to cross we stopped and magnanimously waved them forward. We were the most terrible show-offs.
We wove our way around the streets for a quarter of an hour or so then headed for the Beckford Arms. Street parking was always difficult there, but Tom spotted a tight parking space a couple of hundred yards from the pub, and edging the car back and forth half a dozen times brought it tidily into the kerb. Not until after he had put the hand brake on did he think of the risk. 'We probably shouldn't leave it here. Might get nicked.'