Simon shook his head.
“Well, he introduced me to someone there, I was impressed, thought it would help with the school fees, all that sort of thing—I’ve got four small children, and—Jesus. I don’t know. My wife has no idea,” he added, picking up a handful of nuts, cramming them into his mouth. He was very thin; Simon wondered if he ate enough.
“What, you haven’t told her?”
“No, I can’t. She’s a rather anxious person, and she just couldn’t handle it. I’ve managed to keep them at bay so far, but—anyway, I’d never told a soul about it at all until I met your wife. It was a huge relief somehow.”
Simon was shocked into silence. He sat staring at Neil, wondering what on earth his midnight crises must be like. At least he could talk to Elizabeth: when she was there.
“Your wife, she’s so capable and obviously a huge help financially. It must be bloody marvellous. Amanda’s never worked, and—”
“But surely she’ll have to know soon. I thought you’d had to sell a house in Italy?”
“Well, it’s on the market, just haven’t had any offers. I think I’m going to throw up every time I even contemplate the next letter. That chap Allinson has a lot to answer for. But—well, it might be all right, don’t you think? My Members’ Agent was very reassuring.”
“Mine, too,” said Simon. He ordered another bottle of wine. It seemed about the only thing he could do for Neil Lawrence.
Alan Richards had been working as a clerk at Jackson and Bond, Members’ Agents at Lloyd’s, for five years now; he was very ambitious and he had been told that within another year or so, he could well have his own portfolio of Members to look after. He loved his job, he loved the whole business of insurance; people thought it must be terribly boring and he tried to tell them how it felt to be there at the heart of global insurance, where you could almost smell the money summoned to staunch the ever-increasing flow of claims, drawn in from all over the world, money that no one ever actually saw, not even at Lloyd’s, presenting itself only in the form of letters of credit and bankers’ documents, and then materialising by some almost magical process not only to service the claims but as hard cash in the bank accounts of the people who had brought it—by way of the letters of credit—to Lloyd’s in the first place. Heather, his girlfriend, failed to find it even remotely interesting and certainly not in the least exciting. She worked in a bank in Esher and said she could understand that, it was straightforward; people actually brought money in there, either in the form of cheques or quite often actual cash; the bank looked after it for them and paid them interest on it while they had it; and if they wanted it back, they got it.
“But your business, Alan, it’s a bit like a conjuring trick, isn’t it?”
Alan said not really, but he could see why it might seem like that. He loved going into Lloyd’s; it felt a bit like walking into a history book, with brokers queuing up at the underwriters’ desks to talk to them and sell them propositions, and the waiters, as they were called, in their red coats, ushering people about, and the great Lutine Bell standing on a podium at the centre of the main room. It was still rung on ceremonial occasions. “But it was once rung to alert underwriters of an overdue ship,” he told the underwhelmed Heather, “once for bad news, twice for good. And losses are still recorded in the ceremonial loss book—with a quill pen.” He felt a distinct pride in being associated with such an institution.
Alan never questioned the machinations of Lloyd’s; he knew that things were pretty difficult at the moment, and that the Names—some of the Names—were having a bit of a hard time, but then they had had a pretty easy one for the past couple of decades, and you had to take the rough with the smooth in life.
He was beginning to develop the slightly patronising, even cynical attitude towards the Names that some inside Lloyd’s had; they had come into it for profit, after all, they’d succeeded for a long time and now that things weren’t quite so easy, they shouldn’t complain.
He was very polite to Gillian Thompson when she came into the office, asking to see someone in authority. It was a filthy, unseasonable day, raining hard; Miss Thompson had walked to the offices of Jackson and Bond, which were just off Bishopsgate, from Liverpool Street tube station, and she was very windswept and wet, her neat brown shoes stained from stepping in puddles, and her umbrella, as she explained to Marion, the girl in reception, completely ruined. “Like my hair.”
Marion came into Alan’s office and said that Miss Thompson wanted to see someone about her syndicates, and that she seemed rather upset.
“Make her a cup of coffee, Marion, please,” Alan said, “and I’ll be out.”
He came out a few minutes later, smiled at Miss Thompson who was twisting her handkerchief in her fingers, and asked what he could do to help. “I don’t know,” Miss Thompson said, and burst into tears. Alan was rather alarmed; he suggested to Marion that she show them into the small conference room and bring another cup of coffee.
“I don’t want any more coffee,” Miss Thompson said, blowing her nose. “I want to talk to someone about my syndicates.”
“You can talk to me,” Alan said soothingly—he had learned to soothe middle-aged women when his mother had had the change—“and we can sort something out, I’m sure. Why don’t you begin at the beginning?” And he smiled at her encouragingly.
The beginning had been just a few years earlier—seven, to be precise—when Miss Thompson had been approached by the son of an acquaintance of her parents, “Such a nice young man,” and he had suggested, having learned of the modest fortune bequeathed her by her father, that she became a Name at Lloyd’s. “I can arrange everything for you,” he said, “introduce you to someone there and he’ll take care of everything for you.”
Lonely and unmarried, Gillian Thompson had been grateful for such kindness, and felt the weight of her financial affairs lifting from her shoulders; three months later she was admitted as a Name. “And it was such a lovely day; I was taken up to that beautiful room, in the old building, of course, and these extremely charming gentlemen welcomed me. It was like having a sort of second family suddenly. I felt very secure. And I hadn’t even had to hand over any money, apart from the deposit, of course. Sinclairs, my bank, simply provided a letter of credit and I was in. And for the first few years it was wonderful: I got a cheque every July, and I was able to do up my little house and buy a small car. And then—then…then it all began to go wrong. The first year wasn’t too bad, they only wanted four thousand pounds. I could manage that. Of course, I was worried, but my agent told me it was simply a hiccup. The next year it was eleven thousand, which was a shock, but again I paid up, and now this year, they want forty thousand. Well, I just haven’t got it, Mr.—Mr.—”
“Richards,” said Alan.
“Mr. Richards. I mean, I could sell my house, but then I’d have nowhere to live, and I’ve sold my car, but I only got just over a thousand for it. I could sell my mother’s jewellery, which is very precious to me, but of course it’s all antique and what I’d get is nothing like its true worth. I just don’t know where to turn. And the gentleman I saw on the first day, from this office, he was so charming and helpful and I’m sure he’d know what to do.”
“What was his name?” asked Alan.
“Ferguson. Donald Ferguson.”
“I’m afraid he has left,” said Alan carefully. “Retired.” Rather hurriedly and mysteriously, Alan just happened to know. Ferguson was now living in the south of France in a villa of considerable splendour.
“Oh dear. I was afraid of that. Well, someone else must be doing his job.”
“Indeed. And I shall certainly take your case up with him.”
“But—can’t I see him now? I’ve come up from Hampshire, specially.”
“Didn’t you make an appointment?”
“Well, no. But I had other appointments today, with Sinclairs as a matter of fact, and my lawyers, and when I telephoned your office late one day last week, someone sai
d if I was coming anyway, I might do best to just drop in.”
Alan mentally cursed whoever that person had been—Jackie the telephonist, probably, wanting to get away quickly at the end of the day. He said how sorry he was.
“But I will look very carefully at your syndicates—I’ve got the numbers here—and make sure everything is in order. And then I’ll write to you.”
“But—I need rather more than that,” said Gillian Thompson, the tears rising again. “I’m absolutely desperate. I haven’t got forty thousand pounds and I can’t possibly pay it. I need some kind of advice or reassurance that I won’t have to, otherwise I just don’t know what I can do.”
“Well, the first thing to do is to make sure everything’s in order,” said Alan, “and I will see that your underwriters are fully informed about your case. And then I will write to you. Please try not to worry. Now can I get you a taxi or—”
Gillian Thompson suddenly became less pathetic. She stood up and faced him, the tears drying on her face.
“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?” she said. “I face absolute ruin. I’m a woman completely on my own, with no assets of any kind and no support, with a demand from Lloyd’s for forty thousand pounds—and you suggest getting me a taxi. I could hardly afford my train fare up from the country. Good afternoon. I have found this conversation deeply insulting and totally unsatisfactory.”
And she stalked off, dumping her ruined umbrella in the wastepaper bin in the corner of reception.
Alan found himself rather bothered by the vision of Gillian Thompson: by her rage even more than her weeping. Her outburst had clearly been driven by absolute desperation. Looking up her biggest syndicate alone, Westfield Bradley, from the trend in asbestosis-related claims, it looked as if it might literally wipe her out. What was she doing in such a syndicate at all? She had trusted them completely, and they had failed her equally completely. A few years ago they could have suggested quietly to her that she start the three-year rundown and get out. Even the greediest fishermen know enough to throw the tiddlers back.
When after three days he could still see her pale puckered little face streaked with tears and hear her quiet anxious voice suddenly rising into attack, he went to see his boss, reported Miss Thompson’s visit, her distress and her complete inability to pay. When he started to express his concern for her, and the duty the agency owed her, Norman Clarke interrupted him.
“Alan,” he said, “everybody who comes to Lloyd’s wants the same thing: risk-free investment—little old ladies included. And there is no such thing. Lloyd’s is above all a repository for dreams. Rather greedy dreams. Everyone’s warned, it’s incumbent upon us to do so, they know perfectly well what they’re getting into. Don’t worry about it. Certainly don’t worry about Miss Thompson. She’ll be all right, I’m sure. Remember, she must have shown at least seventy-five thousand to get in, she’s hardly a penniless widow.”
“She’s not a widow, Mr. Clarke. She’s unmarried, she has no family, no one to support her in any way, and—”
“All right, penniless spinster then. They often have neurotic fantasies, spinsters, you know.” He smiled at Alan, a dismissive, impatient smile. “Now I suggest you get on with your work, and leave mine to me. All right?”
Alan’s grandmother had had a saying about putting something in your back tooth and chewing on it for a bit. Hardly aware of it, Alan did exactly that.
Chapter 7
JULY 1989
Lucinda had arranged to have lunch with Blue. She was going to explain that really she couldn’t go on seeing him, that it was wrong, and so unfair to Nigel, who most certainly didn’t deserve it, that it had been lovely and she’d always remember Blue, and the wonderful time they’d had together. And then they could part friends instead of enemies; which was important. Then she would go back to being a good wife, and Nigel would never have to know about it, and any unhappiness she might feel would absolutely serve her right.
So she’d met him for lunch.
And been really firm about it not being any more than that…
“I really, really will tell him tonight. I promise. Blue, don’t do that, please. I can’t concentrate on what I’m saying, it’s important.”
“Sorry. It’s just that you do have such incredibly beautiful breasts. Would that be breeding, do you reckon? Are they posh breasts?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Anyway—”
“You could get on page three, you know. No problem at all.”
“Page three of what?”
“Lucy! I sometimes despair of you. You don’t live in the real world at all, do you? Page three of what?! The Sun, girl, The Sun newspaper.”
“Oh Blue! That’s so awful. It’s really disgusting, the way they do that—”
“Why? Giving innocent pleasure to millions, what’s wrong with that?”
“But it’s not innocent, is it?”
“Isn’t it? Why not?”
“Well—it exploits women, that’s why not.”
There was a silence, then, “You never cease to surprise me,” he said, bending to kiss the objects under discussion. “You’re much cleverer than I thought, first time I met you.”
“I know,” said Lucinda with a sigh. “I mean, people are always saying things like that, that I’m not such a dumb blonde as they thought. I think that’s how Nigel sees me though. He really doesn’t think I’ve got a brain at all.”
“Which is one of the reasons you’re leaving him for someone who appreciates you. All of you. Now, you going to come straight to me tonight, or what? After you’ve told him?”
“Oh Blue, I suppose so. I’m so scared.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“No, of course not. I’m not scared in that way. He won’t do anything to me. I’m scared of what it’ll do to him, that’s all—how upset he’ll be.”
“Well, I expect he will be upset. And it’s a measure of what a lovely person you are that it’s worrying you so much. But he’ll get over it, sweetheart. He really will. Now then, come on, what about tonight, what you going to do? I could come, park round the corner, wait for you. How’d that be?”
She considered this. “Yes. That might be good. I’ll…I’ll tell him, and then just leave. I couldn’t stay anyway, not once he knows, and he won’t want me to. I mean, however upset he is, he’ll want me to leave. Once he’s convinced, that is. Oh poor, poor Nigel. God, I feel so bad.”
Quite often these days, Annabel found herself thinking about Dan and marvelling that she could have ever liked him so much. Or indeed a lot of her old friends. The new world she was in now seemed to suit her much better, inhabited as it was by people who had genuine ambitions—to make money, sure, not merely to enjoy life but to carve out a way for themselves. In this they reminded her of her mother.
And they were all so funny, so irreverent, and so extremely cool. Her favourite among the stylists was a beautiful boy called Florian; he was tall and very thin, with a cap of golden-tipped brown curly hair, huge blue eyes, and an extremely full, girly mouth; he wore rather loose clothes, wide black trousers and floppy white shirts and a lot of rings. He was one of the top three stylists and Annabel assumed he must be gay, and formed a wonderfully chatty, gossipy relationship with him; she was outraged when Carol told her he was a “fantastic stud, girls lined up from here to Fulham where he lives.”
“I don’t believe you,” Annabel said. “How do you know?”
Carol shrugged. “Ask one of the other boys.”
Annabel didn’t want to do that, but she found him one morning in the staff room, his head in his hands.
“Whatever’s the matter?” she asked, genuinely sympathetic.
“Oh God, Bel, I’ve got such a hangover,” he said. “Combination of red wine and other naughty stuff, never mix it, darling, very silly.”
She had rushed out to the pharmacy in Sloane Street for him and bought him some Revive and fed him with that and orange
juice all morning. “You’re sweet,” he said, “so sweet. Let me buy you a drink this evening, say thank you.”
Which he had; after an hour or so, she had felt one of his long legs pressed unmistakably against hers, and shortly after that, his hand eased her face round to his and he kissed her.
“You are utterly lovely,” he said, releasing her, “and I totally adore you.”
Shaken more with surprise than anything, she had smiled feebly at him.
“I bet you thought I was gay,” he said, smiling back.
“Of…of course I didn’t,” she said.
“Of course you did. Everyone does. Well I’m not, sweetie, not in the very least. I don’t even swing both ways. My wrists are as firm as my cock is right this minute. Promise. Where would you like to go next?”
A strong instinct for self-preservation told Annabel to have an important dinner at home with her parents. She wasn’t sure that she should get involved with him, much as she liked the idea. It was certainly too soon in her career at Miki Wallace; wasn’t going to endear her to the rest of the staff, especially people like Tania, if she started going around with one of the senior stylists. And they would certainly all get to hear about it; Florian’s best friend couldn’t call him discreet.
She found herself half wishing, rather sadly on the way home, that he was actually gay. It had been less complicated that way.
This was what made her so angry, Elizabeth thought, still did; and why did he have to do it, under her nose, when he knew it upset her so much? She watched him standing in the centre of the room, listening to some woman, very carefully, smiling then laughing, and then, God, here was another, coming over, interrupting, joining the two of them, reaching up to kiss Simon briefly. And he returned the kiss, said something in her ear, clearly some small shared intimacy, and then introduced the women to each other, took a glass from a passing tray to hand to the newcomer, and then, then worse than all of it, pulled out his wallet, took one of his cards, gave it to the first woman who studied it, smiled up at him, said something, and then tucked it into her bag…
An Absolute Scandal Page 8
