James squeezed Nina’s hand as they bolted inside the café. ‘Mr Shima, huh?’ he said, eyes twinkling.
Ignoring the telephone they paid their bill just as they were spotted by Amelia, the lively boss of the ski school, sitting at a table by the wall.
‘Over here,’ she called.
‘Can’t stop,’ Nina called back, dragging James out the door. ‘Late already.’
Then giggling and feeling like naughty children in hiding they had walked slowly, arm-in-arm, to the bus station, not wanting to arrive. Along the way they ducked into doorways and behind lampposts, trying to evade clients, locals and guests.
James watched as the driver put the suitcases inside the hold of the Greyhound bus. Other people milled about, waiting to board or seeing someone off.
‘Sorry, folks, we’ll be another ten minutes,’ said the driver.
Nina felt the lump rising in her throat. This was so hard. James’s hand was familiar and reassuring, holding her own. She wondered how she would ever be able to let it go. She knew she would have to very soon. When she did she wanted to be somewhere private, not in this public, sanitised street. She wanted to fling her arms about his neck and draw his face down to hers that one last time.
A voice boomed behind them. It was Wayne, a mountain of a man and another of James’s clients. He was friendly and affable. Nina and James had enjoyed dinner with him a few times. He grinned at them both.
‘You’re off tonight then?’ he asked Nina.
‘Yes,’ she replied in a small voice.
‘Well, just as well I caught you.’ With that he enveloped her in a smothering bear hug. He smelt of woody aftershave and pine needles. Nina hugged him back.
Then Wayne launched into a new business proposition he had for James while Nina felt the panic rise inside her. She looked at James, willing him to do something, but he looked back helplessly. He couldn’t get a word in.
Nina was tired of being polite. She excused herself and disappeared up a side alley. When she had gone far enough down it that she was sure only James could see her, she undid her parka, lifted her jumper and pranced about. At first James’s expression was incredulous, then he had trouble holding back his laughter. Next thing Nina knew, he was in front of her, lifting her off the ground and covering the top of her head with kisses. They embraced, holding onto each other with a desperate intensity.
‘Bus to Vancouver, now leaving,’ boomed the voice of the driver. ‘All aboard.’
Nina felt the tears beginning to well. She couldn’t speak. James led her to the bus. He squeezed her hand and she bounded up the stairs. Quickly. Without looking back.
James stood at the curb, waiting for her to reappear. She sat halfway down the bus, peering at him through the darkened glass windows. She gave a forlorn little wave. James stood mutely, unable to wave back. The last few passengers climbed aboard and James felt the loneliness roll over him.
She couldn’t go.
He bounded up the steps, just as the doors were closing and bought a ticket from the bemused driver and took his seat by a grinning Nina.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m seeing you safely to your destination,’ he answered gallantly.
By the time the Greyhound pulled into the Vancouver bus station two and three-quarter hours later, James had proposed and Nina had accepted.
It wasn’t something James had planned or Nina had expected. Sitting in the darkened bus, Nina’s serious little pixie face illuminated by the occasional passing headlights and the few other passengers well out of earshot, the words came tumbling out of James’s mouth. He was trying to articulate the enormity of his feelings. Nina had become integral to his sense of wellbeing, he told her, and he needed to know that he would wake up next to her tomorrow, the week after and every day for the rest of his life.
It was like a waterfall. Once the words were out they had a momentum of their own. There was no way to take them back. Not that James wanted to. As he heard himself say them, it felt right. This was what he wanted.
Nina was astounded. He spoke with such conviction and fervour that it seemed his love for her was solid and almost tangible, quivering in the air, enveloping her. She felt humbled and honoured.
They spent the night at a Vancouver hotel and the next morning James returned alone to Whistler shocked, elated and with a vague plan for the future that started with packing up his life and heading back to Australia.
The ski world was no place for them to start married life, he reasoned. Nina deserved so much more than that. Suddenly he felt very responsible. The future was about more than just the next winter season. It was about building a life together, one day starting a family. The very thought of it brought out all the traditional ideals of his own upbringing that he had managed to submerge most of the time. Sitting beside Nina on the bus, holding her hand, he had started to tell her about the waterwheel on Wilde Wines estate.
They married in Vancouver within two weeks and landed in Australia a week after that. It was all so breathlessly exciting. Before they left Canada Nina took him home to the quaint town of Eyebrow on the edge of the Saskatchewan prairies to meet her bewildered parents. Jake Lambert was not pleased. He told her it was a mistake, she was too young, and a host of other things Nina chose to ignore.
Her father couldn’t understand why they had to go to a country he knew nothing about on the other side of the world. Nina had tried to explain. The words fell out of her mouth, tumbling over each other in her excitement. She was in love with this man and would follow him to the ends of the earth, she told her unimpressed father. James had a future in his family’s wine business in Australia and she could just as easily start her new career there as in Toronto. It would be an adventure and she hoped her father would be excited for her. She stopped in midstream, suddenly aware of how she must sound. Nina hated to appear foolish or out of control in front of Jake Lambert.
Seeing the crestfallen look on her face, her father had softened slightly. ‘You will always have a home with us, always. Don’t ever forget that.’
Her mother asked if she was in love.
Nina replied, ‘The rest of my life isn’t long enough to spend with him.’
Dorothea Lambert rolled her eyes and said, ‘That’s unfortunate.’
Then she had pressed ten $100 Canadian notes into her hand and told her to keep them somewhere safe.
‘Never let on you have it, no matter how dire things become. It’s your money,’ her mother whispered.
Nina didn’t ask where her mother had got the money, how she had managed to save it. She was too shocked. Jake Lambert had always been careful with his money. As a security guard at the Royal Bank he worked hard to put Nina and her brother Larry through school and university. He disliked spending money and most evenings retreated to his shed with the latest do-it-yourself magazine to build furniture for their home. On weekends he gave his time as a volunteer firefighter and park ranger. Dorothea was kept busy with the house and the children and in her spare time was a devoted member of the Quilters’ Guild.
Nina had always believed her parents’ marriage was unshakeable and her father in control of the family finances. In an instant her mother had blown away both assumptions.
‘Don’t look so horrified, honey. I stayed, didn’t I? And all the time I could have gone. I guess in a funny kind of way that’s how I could stay, through the really tough times, knowing I had that money. It was my insurance. I think there can be nothing worse than feeling trapped. No matter how bad things were I always knew at the back of my mind that I could go and take you kids with me and we would be okay. Of course, I never did. Your father can be a bear with a sore head at the best of times but I kind of got used to him.’ Dorothea spoke with a smile of such complicity that Nina wasn’t sure how to respond. She felt she was getting a glimpse into a private adult world where her parents were different people. It both confused and touched her. She didn’t trust herself to speak. There was a huge and painful lu
mp in her throat.
‘No matter how good things are between you and James now, promise me that this stays just between you and me. It’s our little secret. Your father never knew and there is no reason why James should ever know. But if ever things get so bad you want to come home, you will know you can.’
Then it was time to go. She and James were flying to Australia the next day from Vancouver. She wondered if his parents would be as accepting as hers had been at the news of their sudden marriage. She was so very proud and grateful to her mother for trying valiantly to appear happy for her daughter, even though it meant losing her to a foreign country at the other end of the earth. Dorothea Lambert was used to loss and hardship and she was a stoic woman. She hugged her daughter to her, tears in her eyes and a loving smile lighting up her weatherbeaten face.
Nina remembered it all. The intensity, the mad impetuousness. She stared out the window. She wasn’t seeing the harbour with the Saturday morning boats leaving for the races. She was seeing a fit and wiry, neat grey-haired woman with big soft eyes and a heavily lined face, standing by the gate waving her goodbye. And she was remembering that mad, passionate ardent lover. Where had he gone?
CHAPTER 5
Saturday, 19 January 1991
Felix was already in his office when James arrived just before ten.
‘You look how I feel,’ said Felix.
James tried to smile. It didn’t work. He sat down heavily in the chair opposite Felix. James was still numb. The sharp shock of last night’s revelations had passed, leaving a creeping acceptance. It was like a wave of dread had encompassed his whole being, swallowing him up so that he felt he was looking at the world from the end of a long tunnel.
‘How did this happen?’ he asked.
Felix sighed. What could he say? It shouldn’t have happened. It was never supposed to happen. He was having trouble coming to terms with it himself. Lloyd’s of London, the world insurance giant that insured everything from ships to rock stars’ lips, was facing a staggering five billion dollar debt.
The name Lloyd’s was synonymous with prestige and privilege. Those lucky enough to be invited to become an investor and join the exclusive club-like organisation had the potential to make handsome profits. It was like a 300-year-old gentlemen’s money-making club.
Felix, who came from a long line of sheep farmers and was welcome in most of the elite clubs of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and London, had been invited eight years ago to become an investor in Lloyd’s, known in such hallowed circles as a ‘Lloyd’s name’. He had, in turn, brought in a few of his special wealthier clients and, four years ago, his best mate James.
Felix believed he had been doing James and the other clients a favour. Not only did they gain access to one of the most prestigious old-money organisations in the world, he was guaranteeing them some easy money with no risk. After all, it was Lloyd’s. And for the first two years, as they each received healthy cheques, it had seemed a wise decision. Indeed it had felt like money for nothing.
But now the ground had suddenly been wrenched from under Felix. Lloyd’s, the financial icon, was facing a disaster of biblical proportions, and it was up to the ‘names’ to bail them out. Felix, knowledgeable and canny as he was about money, with years of experience of the unpredictability of world markets, was battling his own sense of shock and outrage. Instead of sending each of the Australian ‘names’ their regular hefty cheques, Lloyd’s had sent out letters demanding money. And lots of it.
He stared across his desk at his friend. James looked crumpled and tired. He was hoping Felix would make sense of it for him. There was no anger in his eyes, no blame or bitterness. He looked – Felix struggled to identify his expression – panic-struck? No, it was an emotion stronger than that. Felix realised with a start that his friend looked frightened. A tic had appeared below his left eye. Felix had seen that before. It only happened when James was under extreme stress.
Felix ran his fingers through his hair, and, feeling the sharp ends of his buzz cut, remembered he had had it all cut off. To give his hands something to do he shuffled the papers on his desk. He felt his own throat tighten. What had he done? Felix coughed, trying to relax his throat muscles. He wanted to erase the panic from his friend’s face but he wasn’t sure he could.
‘No-one could have predicted this. Over the past few years the world has been hit by a string of extraordinary natural disasters the like of which we have never seen before.’
James looked at him uncomprehendingly. Felix continued.
‘The Piper Alpha oil rig explosion in 1988, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in July 1989. There were massive European windstorms that caused millions of dollars of damage in 1987. Crop failures in Florida. Hurricane Hugo. More catastrophes have occurred in recent years than have ever been recorded.’
‘You sound like a news bulletin,’ said James, his voice sharp. He was floundering. He was in over his head and he knew it. ‘What’s Hurricane Hugo?’
Felix looked at the papers in his hand. ‘A storm that hit South Carolina in 1989, causing billions of dollars of damage.’
James looked incredulous. ‘You have got to be joking. A storm? I have to pay for a storm in America?’
Felix read from his papers. ‘It was a category 5 storm, category 4 when it hit America.’
James shook his head. Felix continued.
‘It killed 82 people. The eye of the storm was 30 miles wide. They found dead deer over twenty feet high in trees.’
‘They’re pretty tall deer.’
Felix smiled thinly at James’s humour.
‘The deer were normal size,’ said Felix patiently. His tone made it clear this was not the time for any of his friend’s jokes. ‘They were found twenty feet up the trees.’
‘Sorry, bad joke.’ James sighed. ‘Okay, okay. A very bad storm. And I feel sorry for the deer. But I don’t get what that has to do with me.’
Felix took a deep breath and tried to focus his mind. He needed to simplify this. James obviously had little idea how Lloyd’s worked. Felix wondered how much had sunk in that evening in 1987 when he had taken James to the cocktail party for prospective names. Possibly not much. He remembered his friend’s awe at the luxurious surroundings and the well-known people in the room. But Felix didn’t remember him asking too many questions. Felix felt guilty. He was the finance expert. He should have made sure James understood exactly what he was getting into.
‘Lloyd’s insure against the likelihood of something happening. They figure out the risk and calculate a premium accordingly. The odds against half of the state of South Carolina being blown away would have been horrendous. Just as the likelihood of the Exxon Valdez tanker running aground on a reef and spilling nearly eleven million gallons of oil must have been considered pretty low.
‘But for reasons known only to Him, God unleashed His fury and they happened and the Piper Alpha oil rig fire happened as well as a host of other disasters in a short space of time and that left Lloyd’s with a whopping great bill for billions.’
James shivered. Exxon Valdez. That definitely rang a bell. It conjured up pitiful poster images of animals covered in black slime. He remembered protesting about it afterwards in Sydney’s Botanical Gardens on a warm sunny afternoon.
‘How could I ever forget the Exxon Valdez oil spill? It happened in 1989, when I was in Canada. Everyone there was outraged. Nina spent hours one night explaining to me why they all were so upset. Canada is very environment conscious and at Whistler, well, the world is divided into rednecks and greenies. Thousands of otters and rare sea birds died. Just three weeks after we arrived in Australia, Nina had us marching with thousands of others through the streets of Sydney to demonstrate our outrage at Exxon. They tried to pass it off as a freak accident but the truth was it was just one of a long line of oil spills.’
Felix raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, they were held accountable,’ he said. ‘They were made to clean up their mess. At a cost. Sorry to tell you, buddy
boy, but that cost was borne by Lloyd’s insurers. By you.’
The irony wasn’t lost on James. He gave a rueful smile. God had a wicked sense of humour. ‘How much am I up for, Felix? Give it to me straight.’
Felix shook his head. ‘It’s too soon to say. Lloyd’s are still working out how much they need to pay out for these disasters. Then there’s the asbestosis – that’s going to be a corker. This is all just the tip of the iceberg. When they have worked out their sums, they will charge the relevant syndicate.’
The syndicate. James remembered when he had heard about the syndicates. They were groups of individual investors who were placed together to underwrite specific policies. The idea of being in a syndicate with the likes of former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and British royalty such as Prince Michael of Kent had completely overawed him. He didn’t have to have any money. To join a syndicate with such people he just had to show on paper that he had assets worth $250,000 and he was in.
He had swanned around that Sydney penthouse suite with a glass of champagne in his hand feeling like he was king of the universe. There were so many names he recognised, Baillieu and Myer, assorted CEOs of Australia’s best known companies, faces he recognised from the social pages, the business pages, even the sports pages. Only 616 Australians had been invited to join the exclusive ‘club’ and James was one of them. It was a badge of honour, like having ‘old money’ stamped on his passport.
James remembered his pride and excitement, standing there alongside the moneyed elite. He hadn’t needed any convincing. He was ready to sign on the dotted line. And then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, came the icing on the cake: he would have to fly to London to be vetted by a committee, a mere formality he was assured, and to sign the papers.
To the young man who felt that he had failed his country and never measured up to his family, it was a heady mix. How proud his father would be. James pictured his father slapping him on the back jovially and saying something like ‘Well done, son.’ The image gave him a warm glow.
The Affair Page 6
