A Week in December

by Sebastian Faulks

  And while she still hadn’t told him, it was more exciting. She herself was the only one that she’d confided in. One part of her mind had stumbled on it, named it, and the other part had confirmed it with memories, with the details of all their meetings. One part said, I’ve just this moment understood; and the other part said, Yes, and I’ve known all along.

  They’d been stopped twice by a red light while the train in front cleared the station, and at Mansion House Jenni knew she had time to jump out of the cab and run over to the Ladies. Her feet in the latest regulation safety issue shoes seemed to fly across the grimy platform. She also took her mug to the tea point behind the brown door, filled it up and slotted it into the cup-holder on the dashboard. She checked the rear-view mirror, closed the doors and moved off.

  Stored in her mobile phone was a message she’d had at 8.30 that morning. ‘Need more background on safety. Can u come tea not chambers but my flat today? Work only. G.’

  So after her shift, she’d go to the address in SW3 that a further text had given her. Meanwhile, she pictured what his flat might be like. She knew he was short of money, but thought anywhere in Chelsea must be smart. His lounge would have antiques in it, perhaps, or a grandfather clock. There’d be a dining room with a long shiny table and a dozen of those old-fashioned chairs. And then maybe two or three bedrooms, one of which would overlook the river and would be his with all his clothes in a mahogany wardrobe. Would he ask her to move in with him? That would probably be best, Jenni thought. It wouldn’t really work having him in Cowper Road. She’d have to boot out Tony for a start. Perhaps Gabriel would let her have one of his spare rooms for her clothes, but she’d want to spend each night, all night with him. She could easily move her shifts around to suit his working hours, so she’d be there when he came home. She’d cook real food not just twice a week, as she did for Tony, but every night. And with her salary and with his work picking up in the New Year, they’d have tons of money – enough to go on foreign holidays where he’d show her all the interesting things. It was not so much a future, it was more like a second chance of living.

  At twelve o’clock, the PetJet bound for Zurich was at the end of the City Airport runway, with John Veals one of sixteen passengers on board. Before turning off his phone/e-mailer, he had one last look at the ARB figures. They were still strong, he was pleased to see. The price had come off a little when the market opened in response to the denial of the takeover rumour by the CEO of First New York, but Magnus Darke’s article, a gratifyingly word-perfect regurgitation of what Veals had suggested Ryman feed him, had given the rumour new impetus when the paper came out that morning.

  As the plane crossed the Channel and the steward came down the aisle with champagne, Veals reviewed the situation. Every piece of the Rheumatism jigsaw was in place. The fancy part of the trade, the bit that Veals really liked, was the commodity leg. He wasn’t sure how Duffy had done it, but he was confident it would be off-radar, as they didn’t want to be seen to be making a huge profit while many Africans neared starvation. Some other bank would step into ARB’s place sooner or later because there was money to be made there; and if not, that was scarcely High Level’s problem.

  Veals sipped an orange juice as he looked down at the forests of Verdun. When he had told Caroline Wilby that his fund had a ‘small short position’ on ARB for some months, it was not exactly true. He had an enormous short position of recent origin; but in principle he had long thought the bank’s prospects poor. The fact was, however, that he did intend at this late stage to short-sell the stock of ARB directly; he had a nice little curlicue in mind to finish off the Rheumatism position.

  It was almost three o’clock when the fat German car Kieran Duffy had waiting for him at the airport dropped Veals at High Level in Pfäffikon. He found a confident calm in his offices. Duffy was having a late tomato sandwich and a glass of blood-orange juice; he was chatting to Victoria, who was sitting on the edge of his desk eating a slice of walnut cake. She went smartly back to her office when John Veals arrived. It was an effect he often had, he knew: his lack of small talk made people nervous.

  ‘Everything all right, John?’

  ‘Yes. Pretty much, Kieran. There was a story in the paper this morning. A hack called Magnus Darke. Saying ARB was in talks with First New York.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it,’ said Duffy.

  ‘This Darke may be pissed off that his column appeared after the chief exec denied the whole thing in New York,’ said Veals.

  ‘Yes, but the price is still holding up.’ Duffy typed the abbreviation for ARB on his keyboard and a graph showed only a slight decline in the share price.

  ‘Well, Darke’s done his job for us, and we may want to give him a little reward for being so helpful.’

  Veals’s voice had the low, suppressed tremor it carried when a coup was ready to be executed.

  Duffy, who knew Veals’s tightness with information and fear of being overheard, merely looked at him interrogatively.

  ‘Maybe next week,’ Veals said under his breath, drawing a chair up next to Duffy. ‘Or the week after. Maybe something will come out through him.’

  The two men looked at the ARB screen together, like pilots in a cockpit.

  ‘Do you know the people on ARB’s stock loan team?’ said Veals.

  ‘Not personally. But I can get to them.’

  ‘OK. Call them. Borrow $500 million of ARB stock from them.’

  ‘Their own stock?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I doubt I can get that much. Even if they play ball. I’d have to go elsewhere as well.’

  ‘Fine. But get as much as you can from ARB itself.’

  ‘OK. Then what?’

  ‘Be prepared to dump it at four o’clock London time. That’s five here, right?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Know where you dump it?’ said Veals. ‘Call ARB’s own equities trading desk.’

  ‘Will they do it? D’you think they’ll make us a price?’

  ‘Do bears shit in the fucking woods, Kieran? They’re bankers. They can’t help themselves.’

  ‘And I dump all of it?’

  ‘Yes. All of it. I think $500 million sold at teatime on a Friday is enough to give ARB shareholders an interesting weekend.’

  ‘What if the price has collapsed by then?’

  ‘Sell anyway. If the price is already falling we still need to sell. It’s only got one way to go now.’

  ‘OK. And this other thing? Through the journalist?’

  ‘His main column’s on Friday. But they’ve had so many cutbacks at the paper that he has to do a “Notebook” on Wednesdays now as well.’

  ‘So we expect it the first Wednesday of the new year?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything. But the price will be heading due south by then anyway.’

  Kieran Duffy got up and walked round the office. It was snowing again outside on the grey streets of Pfäffikon.

  Duffy sighed. ‘You are one evil bastard, John. Their own stock loan team. Their own equities desk.’

  ‘Our fund could double in value. I think it’s only right that the last leg of the trade should have a small flourish.’

  ‘But their own—’

  ‘It’s called irony, Kieran. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

  At five o’clock, Jenni rang the bell of 5 Flood Street Mansions. The door buzzed open and she went into an echoing hall with a caged lift.

  ‘Up here, Jenni. You can walk. It’s only one flight.’

  He was at an open door in shirtsleeves with his tie off.

  Seeing him for real, Jenni felt embarrassed by how far ahead of the facts she’d let her imagination run. She could barely look him in the eye as she bumped her cheek painfully against his in greeting.

  ‘Come in. I’m sorry, it’s all a bit of a mess. I didn’t have time to tidy up. Drop your coat on this chair if you like. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘Thanks. I’d love some.’

  �
��Come on, then. You can help me make it.’

  The kitchen was what they called a ‘galley’, Jenni thought: a narrow slit with no room for sitting or relaxing.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, squeezing past. ‘Sorry it’s a bit cramped. I don’t do much cooking.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  Gabriel’s ‘flat’ was really two rooms, plus galley and bath. The sitting room had dark green walls and bookshelves. There was a desk with a laptop and piles more books and magazines on the floor. There was a set of golf clubs in the corner.

  ‘Do you play golf?’

  ‘Only very occasionally. I hate it.’

  ‘So why do you—’

  ‘A friend of mine gave me his old clubs when he got some new ones. What are you smiling at, Jenni?’

  ‘It’s all so ... It’s just not how I imagined.’

  ‘And what did you expect?’

  ‘I don’t know really. I thought, you know, being in Chelsea it’d be like really smart.’

  ‘People think all barristers earn a lot. They don’t. A few commercial silks make a fortune, but most of us earn about what a teacher makes and the young ones much less.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that—’

  ‘No, no. I know what you mean. It is a bit of a tip, really. Catalina was always ticking me off about it. She once sent round a cleaner. At least I keep the bathroom clean. And the bedroom’s nice. But in here. Well, you know. Life’s short. I’ve only got another two years on the lease anyway, so there’s not much point.’

  ‘What’ll you do then?’

  ‘I don’t know. There were seven and half years left when I bought it. It was quite cheap, but I suppose it was a bad investment. I just liked the street. I couldn’t see further than seven years ahead anyway. Who can?’

  Jenni felt a little confidence returning. She had forgotten how easy he made it for her.

  ‘You’re still laughing inside, aren’t you?’ Gabriel said. ‘It’s a hard thing to explain. I just don’t notice what it looks like. I don’t see it. I notice if it’s too warm or too cold and I adjust that. Otherwise it’s just a question of how it works. If the television has a light reflecting on it or not. If there’s somewhere I can put my feet up when I’m watching.’

  ‘Just how it works, then.’

  ‘Exactly. Not how it looks.’

  Jenni put down her teacup. ‘Why did you want to meet here?’

  ‘I thought, you know, after I’d been to your flat you should come to mine.’

  ‘I see.’ Jenni didn’t in fact see the logic of his reply, but was glad that it at least seemed friendly. ‘And why teatime?’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t got much on at work, so I could leave early. And this evening I won’t be free because I’m going to see my brother in hospital.’

  ‘Has he had an operation?’

  ‘No, he’s in a psychiatric hospital. He has schizophrenia.’

  ‘Is that split—’

  ‘No, it isn’t. That’s a common misunderstanding, because of the silly name. They’re trying to rechristen it, I believe. DPI. Delusional Psychotic Illness, or something like that. What it means is that he’s seriously deluded. He hears voices which give him instructions. And these voices are real and loud, louder than mine is in your ear now. So when you meet him he sometimes can’t hear you. He lip-reads me. And even if he can accurately lip-read what I’m saying it often doesn’t seem important to him by comparison with what the voices are telling him. I’m saying things like “How’s it going?” or “Would you like some tea?” and the voices are giving loud instructions about life and death.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Jenni.

  ‘Yes, Jenni.’

  ‘How long has he been like this? What’s his name?’

  ‘Adam. He started being a bit odd in his teens. He read the Bible a lot in his room. Then he began to talk about being tailed by MI5 because they thought he was a drug dealer or something. And we all had a laugh about it. We thought he was just having these fantasies for fun. And he didn’t seem particularly upset by them. But then when he was about twenty he seemed just to drift away from us. His system of beliefs became very fierce and very structured. He would draw diagrams for me that showed the emanation of power from some remote force in the cosmos. It was like a mixture of religion and advanced physics.’

  ‘Couldn’t you explain to him that it wasn’t true?’ said Jenni.

  ‘No, that was the trouble. His belief in his world was more secure than my belief in ours. I mean, I feel pretty sure that you are sitting here and that your name is Jenni and my name is Gabriel and that this is London, that’s a window and so on. But I do have room for doubt. It could be that this is some dream and we’ll both wake up. Or that our idea of physical reality is somehow misleading. I mean, after all, we don’t really understand the nature of physical existence, do we? Maybe Stephen Hawking does, but I certainly don’t. How does time bend? What really is antimatter? What happens at the edge of the expanding universe? So if it turned out that my grasp of all this was not only incomplete, which it certainly is, but also almost delusional – in the sense that a dog or a mouse has only a minute understanding of what the world is ... Well, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised. I know more than a mouse, but not much more. I may be working minute by minute under the same gigantic limitations of understanding as a woodlouse. I score five where the louse scores one and the cat three. But a full understanding may require a million. So I do have room for doubt.’

  ‘And what about Adam?’

  ‘That’s the difference. Adam has no doubt. His cosmos is fully understood. He receives instruction from voices whose reality is stronger than mine is to you. I forget the name of his supreme power. Axia or something. But he or she is self-grounded, beyond reason or doubt.’

  ‘Does it make him unhappy?’

  ‘I can’t always tell. I don’t think the way that he appears to be is always a guide to what’s going on in his head. But I do believe that he is really dreadfully unhappy. Not in quite the same way as you or I can feel unhappiness. In a darker, weirder way. To do with the very roots of conscious existence.’

  Gabriel stood up and turned away from Jenni. She saw him surreptitiously push his sleeve across his face as he looked out of the window.

  He turned back. ‘Anyway, that’s where I’m off to this evening. It’s not that I do him any good, but I suppose it makes me feel better.’

  ‘Can he ever be cured?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not now. But the drugs take away some of the worst of it. The trouble is they seem to take away something of him as well. Part of him, the person he was, seems to have died.’

  Jenni nodded. ‘I suppose we all live in our different worlds, don’t we?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Gabriel smiled. ‘Shall we have a drink? A glass of wine?’

  ‘I’d better not. I’m driving tomorrow.’

  ‘But didn’t you ... When we went out to dinner?’

  ‘Half a glass.’ Jenni laughed. ‘You drank the rest. Anyway, I took a chance. It was the first date I’d had for a long time. I mean—’

  ‘I know what you mean. Even though it was work, it was a bit like a date in that ...’

  ‘Yup.’

  Gabriel went to the kitchen, leaving Jenni to catch her breath. Her feeling of embarrassment had ebbed. It didn’t matter that she’d got so far ahead of herself, planning how they’d live together and everything. She hadn’t blurted anything out. What she wanted to do now, though, was to get an idea of how far behind he was in his feelings.

  He came back with a glass of wine for himself and some orange juice for Jenni. He sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘So, Jenni. The case. January 18th. Anything you want to ask me?’

  ‘Yes. How come you know so much?’

  ‘About the case?’

  ‘No. Everything. Is it just because you’ve read so much?’

  ‘I hardly know anything.’

  ‘Don’t be modest. I want to know. Tell me
. I drive a train.’

  ‘Well ... I suppose I was lucky enough to be educated at a time when teachers still thought children could handle knowledge. They trusted us. Then there came a time when they decided that because not every kid in the class could understand or remember those things, they wouldn’t teach them any more because it wasn’t fair on the less good ones. So they withheld knowledge. Then I suppose the next lot of teachers didn’t have the knowledge to withhold. Was it like that at your school?’

  ‘My school was pretty shit. You didn’t really think about learning, you just thought about getting through it.’

  ‘Where I went there was still this assumption that each generation would know everything its predecessors knew – and more. So school was to bring you up to the level of your parents’ knowledge and then university maybe would take you on past them. But when you come to think of it – when you come to think of how much people already know – that’s very ambitious. Also very modern.’

  Jenni wanted Gabriel to tell her more about himself, but if he wanted to talk about learning in general, she would have to go with it and wait for an opening. ‘What do you mean by modern?’ she said.

  ‘Well, I think that in pre-modern societies the aim of people was simply to preserve what had been learned, not to lose it. It would have taken far too much training and money and infrastructure in, say, Iran in AD 1300 to bring all children up to speed and then push them on further. If they could feel they’d had no net loss of knowledge from one generation to the next, that they hadn’t actually gone backwards, they thought that was a good result.’

  ‘But wouldn’t kids find out new things anyway?’

  ‘In agrarian Iran? I doubt it. And they would have been strongly discouraged from doing so by their elders. In Muslim societies, they learned the Koran by rote and that was it. There was no printing, and few people could read. Just to keep hold of knowledge at a steady level was a success.’

  ‘And what happened here?’

  ‘We had more money, and not such an overpowering religion. Avenues were open. But it was only the twentieth century in Europe that had universal education and the belief in progress – a net gain of knowledge among all. And that’s now been abandoned as a goal.’