On the Edge Page 7

  ‘You can’t run away from the truth that easily,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Father!’ Anne protested.

  ‘Don’t worry, Anne. This was bound to happen,’ Calder muttered, trying not to glare at his father. ‘Thanks for the lunch. It was lovely to see you. And you, William.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ said Anne.

  They both withdrew from the dining room. Calder put his head into the playroom to say goodbye to the children, and Anne fetched his coat.

  ‘I’m sorry about Father,’ she said. ‘He went way over the top there.’

  ‘He always does,’ said Calder. ‘But so did I. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I wish he’d just accept who I am, what I do.’

  ‘One day he might,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Calder without conviction.

  Anne walked out of the house with him towards his car. ‘I’m worried about him, Alex.’

  Calder stared at his sister. ‘Why? Is he ill?’

  ‘No. But there’s something wrong. We went up to Orchard House last month and there were things missing.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Valuable things. Mum’s bureau. The Cadell landscapes. The grandfather clock. The candlesticks. And most of Mum’s jewellery.’

  ‘No! Are you sure?’

  ‘When I saw the other stuff had gone, I checked her jewellery box. It’s almost empty.’

  ‘Did you ask him why?’

  ‘I asked him about the clock and the paintings. He said the clock kept on breaking. And that he never liked the Cadells.’

  ‘That’s just not true.’ Francis Cadell was a Scottish colourist who had come into fashion over the last twenty years. The landscapes were scenes of the Tweed valley by the Eildon Hills, the doctor’s favourite place in the world. They had been bought by his grandfather directly from the artist in the nineteen twenties. ‘And Mum’s jewellery?’

  Anne nodded.

  ‘He must be selling them to raise money.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But he’s not hard up, is he? I mean he’s still got the surgery, and he’s managed to survive on that for decades. He lives so frugally, as we know only too well.’

  ‘How strange.’

  ‘Could you ask him about it?’

  ‘Come on, Anne. You saw what happened in there.’

  ‘I know. But he won’t tell me. Despite what you might think, he does respect you.’

  ‘Oh, now that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s true. And I am still worried about him.’

  ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, the old bugger can go to hell,’ Calder said. ‘Sorry, Annie. I know you’re a dutiful daughter and that’s good. But there’s only so much abuse I’m willing to take from him.’

  But as Calder drove home he regretted his words. He was worried about the old bugger too. And the doctor had a point. Calder thought back over the last few weeks: his dabbling in the dysfunctional bond markets, Carr-Jones’s abuse of Jen, Bloomfield Weiss’s rigged investigation, Nicky’s departure. Apart from Nicky, none of it was real. None of it was good.

  But he was damned if he would let his father dictate what he did with his life.

  With a pang, he thought of his mother. If she were alive, everything would still be fine. Of course, his father had always been a strict moralist, but before her death in a car accident this had been tempered with a strong seam of warmth and love that lay just beneath the surface. Anyway, his mother was a pushover, happy to collude with her children in undermining her husband’s diktats, and the doctor could be relied upon to turn a blind eye. Then she had died. Twelve-year-old Anne had fallen apart in night after night of tears, but father and son had taken their loss bravely, no tears, no baring of the soul. The family froze over. The cold ran deep – permafrost.

  Calder couldn’t hide from the fact that, from one perspective, he was the cause of his mother’s death. To be more precise, she had died because he had not done what she had asked him to do: if he had obeyed her, she would still be alive. He had been worrying over this question of cause and effect, responsibility and guilt, for nearly twenty years, and he still hadn’t decided upon a satisfactory answer. She had asked him to get the bus back from the High School, but he had gone back to fetch some homework he’d forgotten and missed it by a minute. He’d called her from a phone box, and she had dropped everything to come and get him. She’d had to be quick to make sure that she would be in time to pick up Anne from her music practice. So she was driving too fast along the narrow lane. A farm worker who had had three pints at lunchtime was driving too fast in his lorry the other way. They met on a blind bend. Calder waited at school until eight o’clock that evening before a friend’s mother picked him up.

  Calder slammed his hand on the steering wheel of the Maserati, and muttered to himself for the thousandth time: If only…

  7

  Calder watched Jen weave her way through the debris of the trading room towards her desk. She was walking erect and proud, her face impassive.

  He decided this was not good news.

  ‘Well?’ he said, as she took her seat.

  ‘Siberia,’ Jen muttered, not looking at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re sending me to Siberia.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Calder glanced across to the derivatives desk, where the traders were trying to look busy, but throwing surreptitious glances towards Jen. Carr-Jones had gone, presumably to hear the result of the investigation himself.

  Calder stood up. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Where?’ she turned to him, her composure still intact. Just.

  ‘Outside.’

  She followed him. They didn’t say a word as they left the building and crossed Broadgate Circle to Exchange Place, a square at the eastern end of Liverpool Street station. They sat on a marble block, next to a large bronze sculpture of a bulbous woman staring at the sky in blissful stupidity. It was cold, but shafts of watery sunshine sneaked in above the station roof and touched their faces. There were few people about, although they could hear the grinding and clanking of construction equipment nearby as yet more of London’s buildings were dug up, hollowed out, remoulded.

  ‘Tell me,’ Calder said.

  ‘Only Linda and Benton were there. Linda did the talking. She said they’d be speaking to Carr-Jones after me. They’ve completed their investigation. Apparently, Carr-Jones’s behaviour was inappropriate, but it wasn’t harassment.’

  ‘So they’re not going to do anything?’

  ‘They’ll give him a “verbal warning”, whatever that means.’

  Calder sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Jen. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘Absolutely, it isn’t fair,’ said Jen.

  ‘So what’s all that about Siberia?’

  Jen turned to him, attempting a smile but not pulling it off. ‘Oh, that’s the best bit. Thanks to Carr-Jones’s “inappropriate” behaviour, it’s clear that we can’t work close to each other any more. So one of us has to move. Guess who?’

  ‘To Siberia?’

  ‘Yes. Well, Moscow. Apparently there’s an opening there. Linda wants to talk to me about filling it.’

  ‘What! No one asked me about that.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Moscow. I shouldn’t have to go!’ Jen said. A tear ran down her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been doing my best not to cry through all this, but I just can’t help myself. The whole thing makes me so angry. Not just angry, it makes me feel like I’m totally worthless.’

  The tears were flowing now. Calder reached out his arm to comfort her, but Jen shook him off.

  ‘Ever since I came to London, everything has gone wrong. I thought I’d love it here, but instead I’m miserable. I used to think I was a smart woman, but now I think I’m just an airhead. I should have a good career here. I’m intelligent, I do well with clients, and no matter what Carr
-Jones says, I was good with derivatives. But, basically, unless I agree to let pond scum like Carr-Jones abuse me whenever they feel like it, I don’t have a future.’

  ‘You do have a future,’ Calder said. ‘A good future.’

  ‘Only if I ignore them, right?’

  Calder didn’t answer.

  ‘Right?’

  Calder nodded. ‘You have to be realistic, Jen. That’s what it’s like being a woman in the City today. Look, other places are worse. Some of the money-brokers, the kind of places where they say, “Come on, love, show us your tits.”’

  ‘So that’s supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘That’s the way it is. There’s nothing you or I can do about it.’

  ‘Isn’t there? It shouldn’t be that way, you know. And we should do something about it.’

  ‘I told you at the beginning of all this, there’s no point in picking a fight with Carr-Jones.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, you did. Course you did. But I have to. Someone has to stand up to pigs like that. And I’m disappointed that you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself.’

  Calder shrugged in feigned indifference. But her words stung him. He had been called many things before, but never a coward.

  They sat for a minute, Jen getting control of her tears, Calder thinking about what she had said. A man and a woman sat down on the marble seat next to them, took out cigarettes with frenzied fingers, and lit up, drawing in mighty lungfuls of tobacco smoke.

  Jen straightened up and sniffed in the cold air. ‘Let’s go back.’

  They returned to the Bloomfield Weiss building in silence. Homer Simpson was sitting on Jen’s chair, grinning inanely, a yellow sticker attached to his forehead. She picked up the doll. A slit had been cut into Homer’s groin, and something white and tubular was shoved in there. She pulled it out. It was a tampon, one end scribbled red with a felt tip.

  Jen glanced across to the derivatives desk. They were all watching her, grinning, sniggering. She flung Homer and the tampon into the bin, and her face crumpled in tears.

  ‘Hey Jen,’ said Calder, once again reaching out to comfort her.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Jen sobbed, flinging his arm off her. She grabbed her bag and ran from the dealing room, pushing past Justin Carr-Jones on the way.

  Calder picked up the yellow sticker that had fluttered to the floor and read it. Someone had scrawled in the red pen: ‘Keep an eye on those hormones!’

  He watched her leave. She was right. He was wrong. She was brave. He was a coward. He heard a whoop as Carr-Jones’s team welcomed their leader’s return.

  And they were scum.

  He picked the tampon out of the bin and made-his way over to Carr-Jones.

  ‘Someone left this on Jen Tan’s chair.’

  Carr-Jones removed the smile from his face. ‘Now that is inappropriate,’ he said. There was a titter from somewhere behind him at these words. ‘Are you sure it’s one of the Derivatives Group?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Carr-Jones kept a straight face. ‘I’ll have a word with my people.’

  ‘You do that. And if one of your people pulls a stunt like that again, I’ll shove this up their arse.’

  Carr-Jones looked as if he was about to make some clever comment, but he saw Calder’s expression and changed his mind. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said in his most businesslike manner.

  Calder stalked off and found Tarek. Tarek took one look at him and headed for his office. Calder followed.

  ‘One of Carr-Jones’s childish morons left this on Jen’s chair, shoved into that stupid Homer Simpson doll.’ He flung the tampon on to Tarek’s desk.

  Tarek looked at the article with distaste, but didn’t touch it. ‘Where’s Jen?’

  ‘She’s gone home.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Carr-Jones.’

  ‘You do that. And did you know they want to move her to Moscow?’

  Tarek nodded.

  ‘Well, nobody asked me. And it’s not happening.’

  ‘Zero, sit,’ Tarek said. Calder hesitated, and did as he was asked. ‘Now slow down. Think about it. Actually, there’s no way that those two can work closely together any more after what Jen has done –’

  ‘What Jen has done? What Carr-Jones has done, more like.’

  ‘OK. What Carr-Jones has done. But one of them has to go. And it has to be Jen. Carr-Jones is senior, and what’s more to the point, he’s the one who’s bringing in the revenue. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  Tarek raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Tarek. We can’t let Carr-Jones get away with this. Jen is an intelligent woman, and she’ll make a good trader, once she gets her self-confidence back. Leave her with me for six months. Then if she hasn’t shaped up we can send her off to Moscow.’

  Tarek rattled his beads. Waited a moment. ‘I don’t like the way Jen has been treated any more than you do,’ he said. ‘But she hasn’t done herself any favours by taking on Carr-Jones. At this stage the best you and I can hope for is to save her job at Bloomfield Weiss. If she goes to another office, she can start over. If she’s as good as you say she is, she’ll do well, and she’ll be back in New York in a couple of years, inshallah. But you can see that she can’t stay here.’

  ‘But Moscow?’

  ‘Russia’s getting its act together. Moscow’s one of the fastest growing offices in the firm.’

  ‘Come on, Tarek! This stinks. You and I have been friends for a long time. I’m asking you, as a friend, not to let them transfer Jen. Because it’s wrong.’

  Tarek assessed Calder. Thinking it over. Calder waited. He would wait all day for Tarek.

  Then Tarek smiled, a rueful smile. ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not promising anything. Carr-Jones has friends in high places.’

  Calder knew that was the best he could hope for. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘And this time Homer had better be gone for good.’

  Tarek managed a wry smile. But as he left his office Calder wondered why his normally unflappable friend looked so worried.

  Jen came in late the next morning, carrying a canvas sports bag.

  ‘Hi, Jen,’ Calder greeted her.

  She ignored him, unzipped the bag and proceeded to fill it with the personal belongings from the drawers in her desk.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t take any of the firm’s records. And you’re welcome to all the crap that’s on my computer.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Jen,’ Calder said.

  ‘I saw a lawyer yesterday. I’m going to claim constructive dismissal and sexual discrimination. I’ve got a good case, apparently. Carr-Jones will pay. And if Bloomfield Weiss stand by him, then they’ll have to pay as well.’

  ‘Jen, Jen! Calm down. If you do this, there’ll be no going back. You’ll find it very hard to get another job in the City, certainly not one as good as this.’

  ‘They’re going to send me to Moscow, Zero.’

  ‘They won’t. I won’t let them. Tarek will stop them.’

  ‘Tarek! I didn’t hear much from him yesterday.’

  ‘I’ve worked on him.’

  ‘I think he’s been worked on already.’

  She had almost finished. The bag was bulging. A single sheet of paper floated to the floor. Calder picked it up: it was a photocopy of a fax to Perumal in the Derivatives Group. Something about IGLOO notes.

  What’s this?’

  ‘I found it in the photocopier the other day,’ Jen said, grabbing it from Calder, scrunching it into a ball and chucking it in the bin.

  ‘Isn’t it important?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Jen said.

  Calder had one last try. ‘Stay. If you can get through the next few months you can still make a good career here. In a couple of years this will all be forgotten.’

  She zipped up the bag. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Zero? I don’t want to work here if
bastards like Carr-Jones are allowed to get away with that kind of thing. I don’t care how much they pay me. I don’t have to do it, and I won’t do it. Now, goodbye. I’ll see you at the Tribunal.’

  8

  The little man was irritating the hell out of Martel. He was keeping to his promise to stay quiet, and the sound of paint brushed on to canvas was virtually inaudible, but it was the way he would stop every minute or so and just stare. He was a dark, scrawny American with uncombed hair and a week’s worth of stubble. And he had these bright little eyes that seemed at the same time to assess Martel as an object and also to see into his soul. Martel was beginning to fear that the artist, who had depicted Cheryl’s innocent beauty so accurately, might identify some essential characteristic of his own personality that would be better left unexposed.

  The idea had seemed like a good one when things were going well. But now things were not going well. Now he was tempted to give the man his money and tell him to go back to Tribeca on the next plane out of Jackson Hole.

  The Italian bond market was still marching upwards. The truly frustrating thing was that all the news was panning out the way Martel had expected. The Italian economy was falling apart. The stock market had plummeted, factories were closing, unemployment was rising sharply. The government’s finances were in a state of collapse. The budget deficit had overshot the level agreed with the other European finance ministers the previous autumn, and the Treasury had hit its borrowing limits. Public-sector workers were being put on shorter working weeks, and some weren’t even being paid. The garbage collectors, the firemen, the auto workers and the nurses were all on strike, with the railroads and the airports due out the following week. There was a consensus in the press that interest rates had to come down, but the European Central Bank wouldn’t listen. They were more worried about inflation in France and Germany, which had risen to five per cent, well above the ECB’s statutory target. In fact, euro-zone short-term interest rates had just been raised for the seventh time in twelve months to eight and a half per cent, but the Italian bond market had taken no notice.

  Massimo Tagliaferi and his ex-finance minister henchman Guido Gallotti were shouting loudly that the only way out of the mess was for Italy to ditch the euro. But with just over three weeks to go to the election, their Democratic National Party was still in third place in the polls. And the European Commission was fighting back, warning of the dire consequences to any member of the EU that tried to withdraw from the single currency. It was illegal, and if any country flouted the law there would be sanctions, cancellation of subsidies, even expulsion from the European Union itself.