Shadow Banking

by C. M. Albright

  ‘Maybe we could get a bit of ‘group therapy’ going this weekend?’ said Miles.

  ‘I never took you for a swinger,’ said Al. ‘Fergal? Yes, of course. He’d try anything, but you?’

  ‘Swinging?’ said Fergal with a mischievous look. ‘You two have already done that with Imogen, haven’t you?’

  Only Fergal could say the unsayable in such an easy way, a massive shit-eater grin stretching his face. There was a tense moment. Al looked at Miles. How would he takes this? And then Al realised that it didn’t matter how he took it. He was the injured party if ever there was one. They looked into each other’s eyes and laughed.

  ‘Yeah, you bastard,’ said Al.

  ‘What can I say? It didn’t get us anywhere did it?’ Miles clicked his beer bottle against Al’s.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Fergal. ‘Your orgy idea – which I’m all for of course – is never going to work. Denise would never go for it in a million years.’

  ‘Doesn’t want to share you, eh, Fergus?’ said Al.

  ‘Not really her cup of tea. I wouldn’t say that she’s straight-laced but ... Actually, fuck it, I would say that.’

  ‘She dresses you as well doesn’t she?’

  As Fergal looked at Miles, there was a flash of pain in his expression before it melted away in the sunshine of the honesty and openness between the three of them.

  ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘Because you’re wearing boating shoes, trousers that fit and a Ralph Lauren shirt.’

  ‘Well, I might have worn something similar back in the day.’

  ‘No Fergal, you’d have turned up looking like you’d just escaped from a Jermaine Stewart video.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Denham.’

  ‘Do you remember Fergal’s suit when we started at Trenchart Colville?’ asked Al, turning to Miles.

  ‘That was a bloody good suit that,’ objected Fergal.

  ‘No it wasn’t,’ said Al.

  ‘Define good,’ said Miles.

  The beer bottles clinked once more.

  ‘So I’m not going to get to shag either of your girlfriends then?’ said Fergal in a hurt tone.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it, Fergs, soz,’ said Al. ‘Maybe some other time.’

  Miles’s house was a former stone ruin about five miles outside Hvar Town. It had been renovated by a local building company under the close supervision of a world-renowned Italian architect. As Miles gave them a guided tour of the house, Fergal and Al both pestered Miles into telling them how much the whole project had cost.

  ‘Just over a million all in.’

  ‘US?’ asked Al.

  ‘Yeah, US.’

  ‘And why Hvar?’ asked Fergal.

  ‘My mother grew up here.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that your mother was Croatian,’ said Al.

  ‘Half,’ said Miles. ‘She brought me here when I was about fourteen. My dad was away. On business. I liked it and I guess I liked it even more because she liked it.’

  They were standing in the windows of the master bedroom looking down over the gardens at the end of which were sand dunes that led to the beach.

  ‘It’s an amazing place,’ said Fergal.

  ‘Has your mother been yet?’ asked Al.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘You’ll have to invite her over,’ said Al but Miles didn’t respond and Al knew better than to dig deeper. Miles clearly wanted to keep his family history secret and past experience had shown that it would prove fruitless to pry.

  ‘What does Lyudmila make of it?’ asked Fergal.

  ‘She likes it, I think. I don’t really know. I’m just a short-lived distraction. Until someone more suitable comes along. And to be honest, the feeling’s mutual.’

  Miles’s brutal appraisal of his relationship – he might have been talking about a business idea relating to some stock – succeeded in making the mood more serious.

  When the girls returned from their walk, Fergal joined them by the pool, leaving Al and Miles alone in the house.

  ‘I know this is a social event first and foremost,’ said Miles. ‘But I hope we can grab some time over the weekend to talk.’

  ‘Sure Miles.’

  ‘I’m really pleased with how things have gone between us over the past few months.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Al. ‘I’m pleased you’re pleased.’

  Miles looked at Al: ‘There’s a lot more we can do.’

  Miles had assumed a conspiratorial air. He clearly didn’t want Al to feel that the reason he had invited him to Hvar was to talk business. Although Al knew that in part it was. As Miles had started to do more with Al, Al had felt their relationship change. When it started, they were friends who did some business. To Al, the business was becoming more important but he hoped they wouldn’t become just people who did business who used to be friends. But whatever the future, Miles had an angle he wanted to explore in the here and now. Al was being played. But he was only too happy to go along with it for the time being. This business with Galbraith enhanced his profile at Hartmann Milner and provided the big trades and accompanying P and L against his name that were crucial to his early tenure at the firm.

  ‘I’m continuing to buy tech stocks PA,’ said Al. ‘Are you still involved?’

  Miles was heavily invested in the Nasdaq, not just at Galbraith’s but personally too. Al’s comment heightened a sense that he had been having for some time that the internet market was getting frothy. More buyers were getting dragged in by the huge upside momentum without fully knowing what they were getting involved in. Unless things simmered down imminently, the theory of the greater fool was going to play out: there’s always someone more stupid than you, someone who you can sell to, someone who knows less about what is really going on than you. When there are no more fools left, everything collapses. As Miles had realised long ago, trading in markets was all about information arbitrage. As far as tech stocks were concerned, Miles could feel that the greed was overtaking the fear and he made a mental note to reduce his risk gradually.

  ‘I’m not really as involved as I was, just a few small individual stock positions. Nothing major. How’s things at Hartmann’s?’

  ‘It’s pretty intense,’ said Al. ‘You’re under the microscope pretty much all the time. It’s only P and L that can protect anyone. I guess it’s the same the world over.’

  ‘All the more reason to do more business with me,’ said Miles. ‘I’d like Galbraith Partners to be a much bigger client of Hartmann Milner’s.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Al.

  Miles loved Al’s openness. When he said he was going to do something, he did it. There was no agenda. That trusting honesty might get him into trouble further down the line but it was endearing. Miles decided that this was as good a moment as ever to push things along a little further.

  ‘Maybe you can introduce me to some of your clients? I’d like to discuss markets with a wider group of investors.’

  ‘I don’t see any reason why not,’ said Al. ‘I’m sure they’d be very interested to meet you and understand more how you see things.’

  ‘Great, OK, well let’s forget about work for the rest of the weekend. We must turn our attention to our Irish friend and his apparent reinvention.’ He nodded at Fergal out on the terrace.

  ‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ said Al, smiling.

  ‘I guess he just felt that it was the time to grow up and sort out his appearance.’

  ‘It just doesn’t look like the old Fergal.’

  ‘Yeah, but we know it is, deep down.’

  ‘But I feel nostalgic for his old appearance. It suited him looking as though he’d been dressed by Stevie Wonder.’

  Miles chuckled: ‘Another beer?’

  That evening, Miles and his guests sat at the table on the terrace dining on a supper of the finest locally caught seafood prepared by a chef from Hvar Town. If Fergal might have hoped that the bulk of the piss-taking that he would receive on account of h
is newly groomed appearance was behind him, he was mistaken. When Lyudmila, Krystina and Denise had turned in for the night and he, Miles and Al were left at the table, Al looked across at Fergal taking a sip of his brandy and feigning a pissed-off voice, said: ‘For God’s sake, Fergal, get it right, will you? The Monte Cristo cigars go with the brandy, not a pint of Guinness.’

  ‘Ah, shut up.’

  ‘And why are you wearing that shirt with those slacks? I can’t believe you’d wear the blue top with the tan chinos. That’s a mixed message, don’t you know anything about fashion?’

  Miles came to Fergal’s defence: ‘You’re just doing whatever needs to be done to maintain the status quo, aren’t you Fergs?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘So no more after hours dabbling with the locals in Hong Kong, then?’ asked Al.

  ‘No way, I’m a one woman man now. But bollocks to all that, let’s talk about Krystina and what she likes to get up to in the sack. That’s what I want to hear.’

  Nasdaq: 1823

  NZD/USD: 0.4985

  USD/BRL: 1.187

  The following morning, Miles was up early for a swim in the sea, something that he had grown increasingly fond of when staying on Hvar. By the time he returned to the house, Al was floating on a lilo in the pool while Krystina swam lengths. Miles couldn’t look at Krystina without thinking about her sexual athleticism. Al had done well – carnal pursuits aside – Krystina was attractive, sophisticated. Not that Lyudmila wasn’t. She was genuine Russian aristocracy but theirs was not a relationship that was forged in the heat of passion. It felt more like a tactical alliance. Miles found it easy to switch off in her company. Time spent with Lyudmila was undemanding but Miles knew there was no future for them. He liked passionate women who weren’t afraid to lose control.

  ‘Hey guys,’ said Miles as he appeared poolside just as Krystina was climbing out dressed in a tiny white bikini. There was an expression his father had once used when he was fourteen or so and they had seen an attractive woman dressed similarly to Krystina in a magazine or on the tube. ‘You could bounce a quarter off her ass.’ His dad was trying to be amusing, trying to bond with his son. It had been embarrassing at the time but he was reminded of it as he watched Krystina.

  Miles saw Fergal watching Krystina. Fergal couldn’t take his eyes off her but he had to crane his neck to see her properly because he insisted on lying on his front.

  ‘You’re burning, Fergal,’ said Denise, lying on the sun longer next to him. His back was already the colour of medium rare steak.

  ‘She’s right, Fergs, it’s not looking pretty.’

  Checking that Denise was busy reading her novel, Fergal looked imploringly at Miles, shaking his head and gesturing at his midriff. Miles knew immediately what his problem was and could only chuckle to himself. If any of the men would have allowed themselves to become so carried away by thoughts of Krystina in her bikini – to the point that it caused physical arousal – it had to be Fergal. Miles had no intention of helping Fergal out of his predicament – maybe rub some cream on his back for him seeing as Denise didn’t appear to be willing – but it was much more fun to watch him suffer and allow Fergal’s theatre of the absurd to enter its second act. With this in mind, he took his place in the best seat in the house opposite Fergal while Al and Krystina started to play bat and ball nearby, a physical activity that served only to present yet further torture for Fergal, his eyes drawn inexorably to Krystina’s jiggling extremities. Denise clearly didn’t feel comfortable in the environment and was up and down off the sun lounger, fetching a paperback, reading a little, flicking through a magazine and all the while existing within the bubble of the shadow thrown by her oversized straw hat, leaving Fergal free to indulge the natural sexual instincts of a fourteen year old boy. But now the sun was taking its toll and on one of Denise’s many trips back into the house, Fergal hatched his escape plot. He craned his neck to make sure that she was out of sight and turned over and stood up. So eager was he to ensure that Denise wouldn’t see his arousal that he had forgotten to check that the coast was clear from the other direction. It wasn’t. Al and Krystina had completed their game of bat and ball and were making their way back to their sun loungers. Fergal stood up and turned around, quickly pulling his towel around him. The sudden appearance of Krystina at such close proximity, however, made him flustered and he allowed the towel to drop to the floor, its trajectory interrupted by the peg upon which it snagged, leaving it dangling and drawing attention to Fergal’s erection more efficiently than if he had introduced it personally accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets. Miles and Al were momentarily reduced to fourteen year olds themselves and sniggered while Krystina smiled and allowed herself a pantomime curl of the eyebrow.

  ‘OK, all right, thank you very much Beavis and Butthead,’ said Fergal, reacting to his friends’ ill-disguised amusement while he pulled the towel around his waist once again.

  ‘Got something on your mind?’ said Al, slipping on his sunglasses and taking a sip from a glass of iced water.

  ‘What’s he done now?’ asked Denise, emerging from the house squirting sun cream from a tube onto her hand.

  ‘Oh nothing really,’ said Al. ‘We were just reminiscing about a sailing trip we all went on a few years ago and how Fergal is always good at raising the main sail.’

  Miles smiled at Al’s typically British love of a double-entendre but such subtleties were beyond the reach of Krystina’s only basic – but improving – grasp of English. She turned to Denise and with her typical say-it-like-you-see-it Greek honesty, said, ‘Fergal has a great cock.’

  It was a pivotal moment in the social mechanics of the weekend. Denise masked her embarrassment in forced laughter, joining with the others as they chuckled at Krystina’s comment which had placed her centre stage in Fergal’s improv troupe. It also allowed the three old friends to bask in the glow of nostalgia for their shared history. But Denise was clearly put out by Fergal’s behaviour. He had been embarrassing and it was clear to Miles that she was not a woman who would put up with being embarrassed by her partner. For the remainder of the weekend, Miles observed the individual relationships of his guests as they were cooked under the Croatian sun. It was clear to see that the bond between Fergal and Denise was fragile and could crumble at any time. She was someone that Fergal clearly felt great affection for but that affection was barely reciprocated. Denise appeared to be attracted to a vision of Fergal that clearly didn’t exist. It was difficult to see what it was that attracted her to him. Maybe she could see something in him that was invisible to his male friends, some wavelength that could only be picked up by female receptors. Fergal, on the other hand, hungered for Denise’s love and acceptance. He had never been with a woman like her before. She was smart, intelligent and beautiful. She represented a possible future in which his eccentricities and bursting passion for fun might be smoothed and rounded off for polite company, a future in which Fergal’s default setting of social anarchy might be democratised.

  What Al and Krystina had was altogether different. Theirs was a relationship based on mutual attraction and from what Miles could tell, base lust. As much as Miles tried to repress the emotion, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of envy when Al announced that he and Krystina were going to turn in for the night and he watched them as they walked off towards the bedroom with their arms around one another and Krystina allowed her hand to drop casually onto the back of Al’s jeans. That she had a liberated artistic temperament was appealing but what made him find her fascinating was her childlike openness and honesty. When Miles had first bought the house in Hvar, the only thing that had slightly bothered him about its location was that there was another house just a few yards away across the dunes. It was all but obscured behind a thick hedge of bougainvillaea and pergola, but it was there none the less and it was the one and probably the only down side about the place – and all the more irksome because of that. When talking to Krystina over cocktails before dinner on
the Saturday night, she had looked across at the house and said, ‘It’s a shame about your neighbours, otherwise you’d have the whole cove to yourself.’ She said it without an air of judgement. It was true; it was a shame about his neighbours. The man who owned the house next door was something to do with shipping, Italian, a perfectly decent guy but that was immaterial. Krystina was right, it was a shame about his neighbours. Miles found her candour attractive. He found her attractive.

  As he had sex with Lyudmila later that Saturday night, Miles couldn’t help but think about Krystina continually. Lyudmila was beautiful but essentially conservative in her tastes as a lover and this became all the more accentuated in his mind when contrasted with what he imagined Krystina might be doing. As he and Lyudmila lay together breathless in each other’s arms listening to the crickets chirruping in the sand dunes all around, he thought he could just make out Krystina cry out in a moment of sexual abandon and he couldn’t stop himself from wishing that he might be the cause of it. How could this have happened again? Why was it that his and Al’s taste in partners was so closely matched? And then a thought occurred to him that despite the balmy night made him shiver. Perhaps it wasn’t that he was attracted to Al’s girlfriends – Imogen and Krystina at least – because they were beautiful and intelligent so much as the fact that they were with Al. Maybe Miles just wanted what Al had.

  After the weekend in Hvar, Miles started pushing to meet more of Al’s clients at Hartmann Milner, especially the big ultra-net worth private individuals like Count Boris Wenzel and Carlos Sanchez Ferreira, a secretive Brazilian billionaire based in Zurich. Both of them were delighted to meet Miles as Galbraith was gaining a reputation as a stellar fund and they were only too happy to provide Miles with crucial industry contacts and information that he would under usual circumstances not be party to, especially in emerging markets. Miles had made it implicit in his dealings with both the Count and Ferreira that Al didn’t need to know about their meetings. Miles felt no sense of disloyalty during this process; he wasn’t actively hurting Al, merely taking advantage of the introductions that he had provided albeit occasionally steering potential business away from Hartmann Milner. Ferreira was very keen to become an investor in Galbraith Partners and Miles was only too happy to broker this. Miles was playing his best friend but in his eternal vortex of self-justification, he told himself that no one was getting hurt. He was putting a lot of business Al’s way as well. If anything, he was Al’s sponsor. And besides, it was all just a game.