Dave Hart Omnibus II

by David Charters

  All of which made it strange that Jack Parker, the head trader on the European desk, was sitting at his workstation crying on the first morning back after the Christmas and New Year break. Parker was an old hand on the trading floor, nearly fifty-years-old, greying, balding, with a beer barrel figure and the flushed, ruddy complexion of a heavy drinker. ‘Fat Jack’ was well known for his alcohol capacity, and his team’s Friday lunches were notorious. In the open plan environment of the trading floor, his team exchanged embarrassed glances as they arrived and sat down to start the day’s work.

  ‘Hey, Jack – what’s wrong?’ It was an awkward, stilted question, from a reluctant Adam Wood, his number two.

  Jack just sobbed, and put his head in his hands, burying his face from the enquiring glances.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Jacko – come on, let’s grab a coffee somewhere.’

  Adam took Jack by the arm and led him off towards the coffee machine at the quieter end of the trading floor. The team watched them go, wondering if Jack had suffered some kind of breakdown, but not daring to voice their concerns out loud.

  Adam led an unnaturally acquiescent Jack into a conference room at the end of the floor. He put his coffee on the table and shut the door.

  ‘Look mate – sit down and let’s talk about it. What the fuck’s wrong? Is it something at home? Is it something we can help with? You’re the boss, Jack, and we’ll follow you anywhere, but for fuck’s sake pull yourself together and talk to me.’

  Jack took a deep breath and almost visibly pulled himself together, looking up to stare mournfully at Adam, revealing his bloodshot eyes, tear-stained cheeks and the dark shadows of many sleepless nights.

  ‘To be honest, mate, I don’t know where to begin.’

  Adam sighed.

  ‘Start at the beginning, boss, okay?’

  It was Jack’s turn to sigh.

  ‘June’s left me.’

  Adam stared at him, speechless.

  ‘She’s... what? Why? Why would she do that to you, mate?’

  June Parker had been married to Jack for nearly thirty years. They were childhood sweethearts and had grown up together in Shoreditch. She had been a beauty once, but after giving her husband four children – all now grown up – her looks had faded and with them her liveliness and good humour. Adam had often suspected that she was the reason Jack spent so much time out drinking with the boys. His generation of trader would never touch drugs, but alcohol was different. Alcohol was where they went to bond, to support one another, and to hide. A thirty-year marriage was not something to be ended casually, quickly, or without pain. Adam looked hesitantly at his boss.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No, not really mate.’ Jack’s voice was heavy with emotion. He almost seemed to be shaking, trembling as he spoke. ‘To be honest I find the whole thing fucking embarrassing.’

  ‘Hey, Jack – come on, you don’t need to be embarrassed. We’re mates, for fuck’s sake. We stand by each other and help sort things out. That’s what mates do. If she’s left you, then she’s daft. You’re the two-million-pound man, remember? How many traders got a bonus like that?’ He paused. ‘Do you want to tell me why she left you?’

  Jack appeared almost puzzled by the question. It was as if he was distracted, far away and dragged down by weightier matters.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t mind telling you about it.’

  His eyes focussed again on the here and now, as he tried to pull his thoughts together.

  ‘You remember what happened on Christmas Eve?’

  It was Adam’s turn to sigh.

  ‘Do I remember? Christ, I remember – I was wasted, utterly, totally wasted. I had the mother of all hangovers on Christmas morning.’

  ‘Yeah, well I had worse than that. I’d told June the market was closing at midday for the Christmas holiday and I’d be home early. She’d invited the kids over and all the grandchildren were coming too. She was cooking a special dinner. I even said I’d get presents for all the grandchildren – and I did, I went to Hamleys and blew a serious wedge on all kinds of stuff the previous Tuesday.’

  ‘I remember. So what went wrong?’

  ‘What went wrong? You don’t understand – nothing went wrong. It just didn’t go quite how I’d planned it. I left on time and took the presents with me, but on the way out, Mick van Smit and the boys from the South African desk asked me to have a quick one on the way home. One thing led to another, and I ended up catching the two minutes past midnight train, the last one home.’ Jack sounded mournful and had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he was re-living the events of the fateful night. ‘I was as pissed as a rat. I fell asleep on the train. Lucky for me I woke up at Audley End, saw where I was and jumped off quick. Left the bloody presents behind, though. They must have ended up at King’s Lynn.’

  Adam let out a long, slow breath.

  ‘Wow, that’s bad… really bad. What did June say?’

  ‘Not much really. I was feeling like shit when I got home, and I threw up in the hall, all over the carpet. That woke her up. She came downstairs, ready to lay into me.’

  ‘Christ, this is bad…what did you say to her?’

  ‘Well, it’s funny, really. I thought of all the things I ought to say – “Darling, I’m really sorry, it’s not my fault, it was the boys. Darling, I’ll make it up to you, it’ll never happen again. Darling, this is the last time, from now on I’m on the wagon.” You know the sort of stuff.’

  ‘Sure… sure.’

  ‘But instead I looked at her and I thought about how she nagged me from morning till night, always bloody complaining, just a fat sullen cow, not the girl I married all those years ago, and… well… the words just came out.’

  ‘What words?’

  ‘I looked at her real hard and I said, ‘Why don’t you fucking shut up?’ Then I went upstairs, into the bedroom, closed the bedroom door and locked it, and slept like a log. Woke up about ten the next day and she was gone. Left me a note, but that’s about it.’

  ‘Christ, mate. Christmas must have been terrible.’

  ‘What?’ Jack was looking at Adam, totally baffled by his response. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, mate… what with it being Christmas, and June walking out like that – it must have been terrible.’

  Jack stared at him and shook his head slowly, as if marvelling at his stupidity.

  ‘No, mate. No, it was not terrible. It was fucking ace! It was so fucking brilliant, I nearly killed myself! I spent Christmas Day sleeping it off, then I booked a first class ticket to Bangkok, a suite at the Mandarin, and spent the next ten days shagging my bollocks off! It was great! I’m a free man!’

  Adam stared at him, baffled, fearing for his sanity.

  ‘Adam, you don’t get it, do you? I was married to that bitch for thirty years. I’ll be fifty this year. Look at me – I’m a fat old bastard. I look and I feel years older than I should. My brother’s four years older than me, and he looks ten years younger. And you know why? Because he never got fucking married, that’s why! Sure, June was great once upon a time, and I love the kids, but look at June now. She’s a nagging, bitching, moaning cow. She doesn’t really love me any more, and I don’t love her. But I’ve got a $2m bonus that she doesn’t know about, and now I’m free! I’m fucking free, mate, I’M FREE!’

  Adam sat back and tried to weigh up his boss’s mental state. Had he flipped?

  He asked in a measured, even tone, ‘So why were you crying just now, boss? What’s with the tears?’

  Jack’s face fell and he looked suddenly much older, haggard and downcast.

  ‘I’m crying, mate, for all the wasted years. I’m crying for all the girls I could have laid, for all the fun I could have had. I’m crying for all the time I’ve lost.’

  ‘You selfish bastard. Is that why you were crying? You felt sorry for yourself? What about the rest of us with our fucking misses? What about the rest of us poor sods?’

  Jack smiled alm
ost smugly.

  ‘That’s up to you, mate. I’ve done my bit. I’ve shown the way. And anyway,’ he sighed again. ‘There’s another reason for me to be crying.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Adam’s voice was sullen and resentful.

  ‘I’ve got the fucking clap. Big red, weeping sores. It’s horrible, really painful. But that’s what happens when you’re having fun.’

  May Day 2010

  ‘WE WILL, WE WILL, ROCK YOU!’

  The shouting was getting louder as the crowds drew nearer. Sir Oliver strained to look down into the streets below from his tenth floor office. He could see the thin blue lines of riot police stretching across the road, sheltering behind shields and barricades, and supported by armoured water cannon. He was sweating, nervous despite the obviously tight security around the building. A buzzer sounded on his desk.

  ‘Excuse me, Sir Oliver, but Mr Hooker’s here to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, June. Send him in.’

  Sir Oliver turned to face Dan Hooker, the head of equity sales and trading, an East End boy in the old-fashioned sense of the term.

  ‘Good morning, Dan. Coffee?’

  ‘No. No thanks, Sir Oliver. I just wanted to let you know that the lads are ready, if it comes to it.’

  Sir Oliver looked him in the eye.

  ‘Thank you, Dan. I never had any doubt that I could count on your chaps.’

  ‘Are you ready, sir?’

  Sir Oliver gestured towards a pair of gleaming Purdy shotguns propped against the sofa.

  ‘I’m ready, Dan. They won’t do to me what they did to poor Ben Waring.’

  They both nodded and reflected on the fate of Sir Benjamin Waring, head of the family bank of the same name, who had been killed at the previous year’s May Day demonstration. The bank’s head office had first been stoned, then fire-bombed and eventually stormed by demonstrators. Sir Benjamin had been chased onto the roof and cornered, and had finally flung himself over the parapet rather than face whatever fate the mob had in mind for him.

  ‘All my lads are here, sir. Even one or two with hangovers. What sort of turnout have we had from the other departments?’

  Sir Oliver allowed himself a cynical smile.

  ‘Much as you’d expect. Most of Corporate Finance have stayed away. The clever ones are out of the country on “business”. The stupid ones are no-shows, ringing in sick or whatever. A hard core of long-serving M&A types showed up, dressed in suits and ties. All Brits, of course.’

  ‘How about Fixed Income? There are a lot of foreigners there.’

  ‘There are, and some have contrived not to be here, but on the whole they’ve put on a good show. Treasury and Banking are almost all here, and so are Equity Capital Markets. I’d say that overall we’re at around eighty percent of normal strength.’

  Hooker nodded. ‘All right, sir. I’d better get back to the lads. Good luck.’

  The two men shook hands and Hooker left to return to the equity trading floor.

  Sir Oliver leant over to a bank of newly installed video monitors that showed the outside of the building and – more worryingly – key points inside. He had authorised over two million pounds’ worth of additional security expenditure for this year’s May Day demonstration. This year, ‘Rock Against Capitalism’ were specifically targeting Barton’s, following the bank’s successful raising of a billion dollar healthcare fund to invest in advances in medical technology and pharmaceutical research. The television news had carried reports of demonstrators filling rucksacks with bricks and stones on which the word ‘Barton’s’ was painted. An initially low-key campaign against the bank had steadily snowballed. Sir Oliver routinely had his mail screened against cranks and terrorists, and travelled in an armoured limousine with two bodyguards. But today was different. Today Barton’s were the top target in what had come to be described among anarchist groups as ‘The Event’.

  ‘WE WILL, WE WILL, ROCK YOU!!!’

  The shouting was louder now, a threatening mass of angry, hate-filled voices. Sir Oliver took up his post at the window once again. He could see the policemen down below stiffen, raise their shields, preparing for what would happen next. And then, around the corner came the crowd. There were thousands of them, filling the street from one side to the other. Many were wearing crash helmets, masks, scarves tied round their faces to hide their identity. Some were carrying placards. They were being marshalled by men with megaphones, who were also orchestrating the chanting. The crowd stopped some twenty yards from the police ranks. The chanting changed.

  ‘What do we want?’

  ‘BARTON’S!!’

  ‘What do we want?’

  ‘BARTON’S!!’

  It was a mind-numbing, dehumanising chant. As Sir Oliver watched, one of the demonstrators stepped forward with a megaphone and walked towards the police lines. He was surrounded by a bevy of cameramen and photographers. Sir Oliver strained to hear as he started to read out a prepared statement.

  ‘We, the people of this country, demand to be heard. We demand that the faceless institutions, the money masters, the wheelers and dealers listen to us! We demand that they stop their war on the environment, on the innocent, on the unprotected. We make these demands in the name of the planet, in the name of the people!’

  An opening appeared in the police ranks and an officer in riot gear stepped forward and went to talk to the demonstrator. Around him cameras flashed as the press tried to record what was being said. After a few moments the policeman returned to his own side and the chanting resumed. A buzzer sounded again on Sir Oliver’s desk. He walked across and picked up the telephone. It was Nick Hood, head of security at Barton’s, himself an ex-policeman.

  ‘Sir, I’ve got Chief Superintendent Richardson with me. He says the demonstrators want to send a delegation to hand in a petition. If we accept, they say they’ll walk past peacefully. He thinks they’ll still throw stones, but it’s better than a pitched battle.’

  Sir Oliver paused to think. Could it be a ruse? Undoubtedly. But it was important for the bank to be seen to co-operate fully with the police.

  ‘Very well. Let them send a small delegation with the petition. They can simply hand it in at reception. I have no intention of meeting with these people myself.’

  After he had hung up he went to the monitors to observe the scene at reception. The police ranks had parted to allow a small group of demonstrators to approach the main doors to Barton’s, where a dozen burly thug-like doormen were waiting – hired for the day by Nick Hood. One of the demonstrators was carrying a large cardboard box, presumably containing the petition, while the others carried placards. As they mounted the steps at the front of the building, one of the placard carriers spoke into a megaphone.

  ‘We come in peace! This is a peaceful demonstration. We are exercising our lawful right to demonstrate! WE COME IN PEACE!!’

  What’s he saying that for, wondered Sir Oliver. But even as the words were spoken, the meaning of the signal became clear. The demonstrator carrying the cardboard box tipped it up, scattering piles of paper on the steps, and took from underneath a small hand-held machine-gun. There was a ‘Drrrrrrr’ sound as he fired at the security guards, several of whom fell to the ground, while the others scattered. The demonstrator with the gun turned and fired randomly into the police ranks, causing them too to break and scatter. And at the same moment a great roar went up from the crowd – ‘WE COME IN PEACE!!’ – and they charged forward, hurling a shower of bricks, stones and petrol bombs into the broken police ranks.

  Within seconds the scene below had become a confused mass of fighting individuals, the cohesion of the police lost in the face of the machine-gunner. He stood at the top of the steps, grinning and firing randomly, until suddenly he spun around and collapsed. Police marksman, thought Sir Oliver – and a good shot too. But it was too late for Barton’s. The surging crowd reached the doors and charged through. The inside monitor showed them vaulting over the security barriers and rushing past the te
rrified receptionists. Hood and his doormen were overwhelmed. They stood solidly like prop forwards and faced into the crowd, occasionally flooring the invaders with well-aimed punches, but the crowd simply surged past them.

  From speakers throughout the building alarm sirens went off and a disembodied voice started saying, ‘Attention all staff, attention all staff – demonstrators have entered the building.’ Sir Oliver went to the speakerphone by his desk and pressed a button.

  ‘Seal the lifts. Lock all doors and fire exits. Remain at your desks and await police intervention. Do not antagonise the demonstrators, I repeat, no heroics.’

  It was too late for that. In the Treasury and Banking Division eight floors below, the mob charged up the stairs and used fire axes to break down the doors into the dealing room. Dealers were dragged from their desks, screens were smashed and fires started. The dealers fought back where they could, but the demonstrators were too many and too well-prepared, and produced previously concealed weapons – iron bars, pick-axe handles and knives which made the dealers’ telephone handsets look inadequate by comparison. It was the same story as the demonstrators fought their way to the upper floors. Only in Corporate Finance did they meet their first serious opposition. The department was largely deserted, but as the mob threw open the doors to the UK Mergers and Acquisitions team, they were met with a hail of missiles – bins, chairs, laptops, mobile phones flew through the air, causing several of the demonstrators to fall injured to the ground, while others sought shelter. In his office on the tenth floor Sir Oliver watched the monitor with pride as a small group of middle-aged men in pin-striped suits held back the mob. He knew it could only be temporary, and, sure enough, there was a shower of flying missiles in the other direction and suddenly flames were billowing up towards the ceiling. One elderly, pin-striped figure ran across the room, his clothes blazing, his mouth open, presumably screaming in agony. There goes poor old Peters, thought Sir Oliver, half-guiltily, remembering the previous year’s bonus round, when he had personally spoken out against paying the ‘old dinosaur’ a half-way decent number. He watched as long-haired hippies and shaven-headed thugs in combat clothing swept through the M&A department, beating and kicking the corporate financiers until they could no longer resist. The mob swept on.