by Fiona Neill
“Did it happen while you were at work?” Hester questioned Bryony.
“Actually, it happened while I was at home,” said Bryony. “It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I work.”
“I was simply asking when they did it,” protested Hester. “Although, of course, it could be interpreted as a kind of protest, a cry for attention. It must be difficult being the youngest members of a family when both parents work such long hours. And a new nanny.”
“They wanted to look like soldiers,” Ali explained in an even tone. “So Alfie tried to shave Hector’s head. It’s because of a song they learned at school.”
Alfie and Hector began singing “Two Little Boys,” and Foy immediately joined in.
“I have a record of this song,” said Foy excitedly, “from when I was a child. Would you like to have it, boys?”
The twins jumped up and down in excitement.
“I don’t think they should be learning songs that glamorize war,” said Hester.
“I think if it was a number-one hit for Rolf Harris in the seventies, then we can assume that its underlying message is pretty benign,” said Nick, who seemed adept at avoiding the undercurrent between Hester and Bryony, no doubt worrying he might get pulled under.
“My only problem with it is the homosexual undertone,” said Foy.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” said Bryony and Hester together.
Rick turned to Ali and began bombarding her with questions that no one else had asked for months. “Where are you from? When are you going to finish your degree? Are you studying Sterne? Have you made friends in London? What do you parents think of your job?”
“I’ve met a really nice group of nannies from Eastern Europe,” she told him. “Sometimes we have dinner at each others’ houses. They don’t go out much, because they’re trying to save as much money as possible. But it’s really interesting meeting people from different countries.”
“Are they all legal?” Rick asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Ali, who had recently learned that Mira and Katya both came illegally to England from Ukraine. “I don’t really like to question them too closely about how they got here.”
“Polish is the second most widely spoken language in the school where I teach,” said Rick.
“The Poles are good workers,” said Foy, whose innate Conservatism didn’t stretch to immigrants, because for the past twenty-five years Freithshire Fisheries had expanded on the back of the labor of its migrant workers.
Ali noticed Jake come into the room. He was dressed in the same suit and tie that he wore for school every day. Ali smiled at him, but he quickly looked away. Nick headed toward him holding a glass of champagne.
“There are some people I want you to meet tonight,” he told Jake, putting an arm around his shoulder. “They might be able to give you work experience. You could end up with a great set of contacts.”
“Dad, I’ve told you I don’t want to work in a bank,” said Jake. “You have to accept I’m not motivated by the same instincts as you. And although I know this is a fabulous networking opportunity dressed up as a family party, I’d rather let everything happen organically.”
“That’s not how the world works, Jake,” said Nick.
The doorbell rang again.
“That will be Elton and David’s people,” said Bryony to everyone. “Take your positions, everyone.”
A current of excitement charged round the room.
10
Parties were like relationships, and this one was in its honeymoon period. Everywhere people were laughing and talking, feigning nonchalance when they recognized a well-known face. Elton John was working the room. Bryony had introduced him to a government minister who was lobbying for HIV medicines to be made cheaper in Africa. They were talking animatedly. Bryony was anxious about his vocal cords. How much should a singer talk before he gave a concert? she worried. Would they reimburse her if he strained his voice? Or would they sue her for damages?
“Relax, Bryony,” said a woman Ali had never seen before. “It’s all going to be fine.” They stood together in the center of the room, and Bryony apologized for canceling lunch earlier in the week.
“I had lunch with my husband instead,” the woman said. “It was the first time I’d seen him for almost a week. He’s been in the States on a yoga course.”
“How is everything, Holly?” Bryony asked, glancing around to check that there was no one cast adrift. Nick was spending too much time with Dick Fuld. She should go and rescue him, but then she might get entangled with his wife.
“I think we’re making progress,” said Holly. “We’re trying to go out together once a week and just enjoy ourselves. We’re not allowed to talk about anything that has come up in the counseling sessions.”
“Like what?” asked Bryony.
“Mainly about our mother–child relationship,” Holly said. “I have to stop trying to organize him, and he has to stop assuming I will do everything. I’m meant to make myself more vulnerable, and he’s meant to try and become more assertive. But we have to do it uncritically.”
“Sounds complicated,” said Bryony.
“Basically we have to reach a point where we agree on more issues than we disagree—then we’ll have reestablished equilibrium. But as long as he doesn’t find another job, it’s going to be difficult. That’s why I’m keeping Mira. I don’t want him to feel like a househusband, and she’s so good at keeping everything organized.”
“And the new job? Caught any white-collar criminals?” Bryony asked. “I’ve always wondered how the Financial Services Authority works.”
“It’s great. I love it.”
“Well, I’d better not be seen consorting with the enemy for too long,” joked Bryony.
“Boom times encourage the risk takers.” Holly laughed.
“Anything interesting?” asked Bryony.
“Nothing I can talk about. But I should warn Nick that there is serious discussion in some circles about banks’ balance sheets. They’re all overleveraged. How’s your new nanny working out?”
“Ali’s brilliant,” said Bryony. “I live in terror that she’ll leave.”
• • •
Waiters and waitresses brought in tray after tray of drinks and canapés on cool slate platters. Ali mingled, threading her way through the room, holding on to Hector and Alfie on either side of her. Occasionally, an adult bent down to speak to one or the other of them or pat them on the head, as you might a friendly Labrador. They answered questions politely. If they began to speak whole sentences in unison, Ali tried to distract them. She knew that Bryony didn’t like people to notice this particular quirk.
She passed Sophia and Ned Wilbraham. How did they fit together? wondered Ali.
“Impressive guest list,” he said from behind a glass of champagne.
“She’s showing off,” Sophia retorted. Then she noticed Ali.
“Have you settled in?” she asked. Ali smiled and mumbled something about how she felt like part of the furniture.
“Well, if you get fed up, then let me know,” Sophia said, beaming. “I’m at home a lot more, so you wouldn’t have so much responsibility for small children and you could get some useful teaching experience with my eldest. She’s very gifted.”
“Thanks,” said Ali, unsure what else to say. She pulled the twins away, and they circled Foy, who was holding court.
“When Mrs. Thatcher came to power you couldn’t take more than five hundred pounds out of the country at a time,” he said. “Now you can move millions at the flick of a switch.” He clicked his fingers like castanets. Tita was standing close to him.
“I can’t understand why basic things like cooking and gardening and sewing have suddenly become so fashionable when we did these things completely un
thinkingly,” she was telling Eleanor Peterson.
“Tita, we paid other people to do them,” said Eleanor.
Ali caught the threads of other conversations, but the twins acted as an invisible cloak so she didn’t have to face the embarrassment of being mistaken for another guest or, even worse, a member of the Skinner family. They headed for a quiet corner of the room, where Nick was now huddled in conversation with Ned Wilbraham, who worked as a broker at a rival investment bank. She made the twins sit down to sip fizzy lemonade from zany spiral plastic straws. Nick turned his back on them.
“There was a piece in Barron’s saying that the average price of new homes in the U.S. has fallen three percent in eight months. What does that tell you?” asked Nick. It sounded like an argument, but Ali had overheard enough of Nick’s conference calls to know that the undercurrent of aggression and hostility was born of an inalienable sense of his own rightness rather than any call to arms.
“That the housing boom is either coming to an end or going through a temporary glitch,” said Ned. “If it’s the end of the world, Nick, you only get to bet on it once, you don’t want to get short too soon.”
Ned stood with his legs a little too far apart, cowboy style, as though using his muscular frame to compensate for Nick’s superior height. He was a pale man, with deep-set eyes and a haircut almost as short as the twins’. Not conventionally good-looking, thought Ali. A man who would burn in the sun and freeze in the cold.
“You need to know where the emergency exit is before the fire starts,” said Nick. “I went to a conference on credit markets a couple of months ago. There were about fifty guys in the room. I calculated their income last year was more than two hundred fifty million pounds.” He paused to sip his Winter Solstice cocktail. “It suddenly occurred to me that there was no connection between their intellect and their unbelievable accumulation of wealth. What if they’re not right? What if they’re wrong?”
“The mathematical modeling shows the risk is negligible,” said Ned. “The Gaussian copula is a beautiful thing.”
“I think the models are underestimating the risk of credit products,” said Nick. “They’re measuring correlation, not risk. And every ratings agency is using the same models.”
“The risk is spread so widely that even if some of those loans default, and I agree some of them are chicken shit dressed up as chicken salad, then the others won’t,” Ned said.
“What happens if there are unmanageable and undetectable amounts of risk spread through the entire financial system?” said Nick. “It’s just a hypothesis.”
“Look, if Alan Greenspan believes we’re in the new paradigm, then we are. We’re living the dream. Just enjoy it.”
“Look back,” said Nick, “the tulip bubble, the dot-com bubble. Historically every credit boom is followed by a credit bust. I look out there and I see overextended consumers, negative savings rates, and a profligate government. Repossessions are up, prices are down, defaults are climbing. Why should this be so different? How can ever-increasing debt be sustainable?”
“Christ, you’re beginning to sound like fucking Hayek.” Ned laughed. “If Fuld knows you’re thinking like this you’ll be kicked out on your arse.”
“I’m having a crisis of faith,” Nick said, smiling. “I no longer believe the markets are self-correcting.”
“Well, keep it to yourself, because while everyone is making money no one wants to listen to bad news,” said Ned. “If the seller doesn’t believe in his product, then the buyer is going to sense his indifference. Just park the doubt and pick up the fee. You can’t be fucking agnostic in this business. You have to keep dancing until the music stops. Shall we get back to the party? We shouldn’t be seen together.”
“Why not?” Ali wanted to ask, as she bent over to wipe lemonade from the twins’ hands. Was it because of the hostility between Bryony and Sophia? Or more likely the fact they worked for rival banks?
“We want to go and talk to the man who looks like a Vulcan,” said Hector, pulling at Ali’s arm. Ali glanced over at the direction in which they were pointing and saw that they meant Nick’s boss, Dick Fuld.
They pulled past Bryony and Felix.
“I’ve had wind of a deal,” Felix whispered to Bryony. “You should see if you can get on the pitch list. You don’t have any retail clients, do you?”
“Why are you so good to me?” Ali heard Bryony ask him. Felix stared at his scruffy leather shoes, and by the time he responded to her question, Ali and the twins were too far away to hear his answer.
“Daddy says his boss’s nickname is the Gorilla,” said Alfie, “but I definitely think he should be called Mr. Spock.”
Alfie shook off her hand and, because he was smaller and more adept at running between the legs of party guests, Ali soon lost sight of him. Hector pulled her along, and she trusted his instincts, but even before she reached the sofa where Dick Fuld was sitting talking to Nick, she knew that this was where Alfie was heading.
“I want to talk about your forward pathway,” she heard Dick Fuld tell Nick. “If you can beat Goldman and make fifty percent of next year’s profit on new products, then you’ll be one of the people in line to head up Europe.” Dick Fuld was lying against the back of the sofa, legs splayed, hands behind his head; the pose of a man who was used to bestowing power.
“Thanks, Dick. We’re already contributing fifty percent of Lehman’s revenues in Europe through CDOs,” she heard Nick say. “And we’re in the middle of putting together the biggest CDO deal in the history of the bank, so we should be back up at the top of the league table next year.”
“Good job, Nick.” Dick Fuld nodded. “Go make the world a richer place.”
Ali could hear his wife talking to Julian Peterson about various pieces of art that they had bought.
“I’m on the board of the Museum of Modern Art,” she drawled comfortably, “so I’ve been in a privileged position when it comes to buying art because I know what’s coming on to the market early enough to be a player. That’s how I secured the Gorky, but I also love de Kooning and Barnett Newman.”
“Would you let us interview you for an arts program we’re making for the BBC?” Julian asked her.
“We don’t want that kind of publicity,” said Kathy Fuld politely.
Ali hovered close to the sofa, using Alfie as bait, hoping to divert Hector from his target when he emerged from the sea of people. But before Hector appeared she saw Hester coming into range.
“Nick,” Hester said sweetly, “I’ve always wanted to meet your boss.”
“Dick,” said Nick slowly, the muscles in his cheek twitching, “this is Bryony’s sister, Hester.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Dick Fuld, standing up to his full height to shake hands with Hester. Ali could see him looking her up and down, absorbing the hokey dress and wondering where on earth they were going to find any common ground. He didn’t need to worry because, like her sister, Hester was an opinionated and confident product of her class and education and had no qualms about engaging him.
“I wanted to ask you, Mr. Fuld, how people like you and Nick can justify earning such extortionate sums of money for what you do when my husband works long hours in a state school for a fraction of the salary?” said Hester in a way that sounded as though she had been rehearsing this moment for a while. “Don’t you think it’s unethical? Surely people’s significance should be measured by what they contribute, not what they earn?” For a moment, Dick Fuld looked truly alarmed. This was, after all, a man who had his own private lift in the Lehman office in New York, so he could avoid speaking to colleagues. Then he leaned toward Hester.
“London is the financial capital of the world, and we’re all sucking from the breast of the same whore,” he snarled. “I bet you and your husband own your own house, and that you’ve taken out equity on its ever-increas
ing value over the past ten years to pay for holidays abroad and such like. We’re all benefiting from this financial stability. And if you don’t like it, go and live in Cuba.”
“I’m sorry, Dick,” muttered Nick. Hester opened her mouth to respond, but she was interrupted by Hector, who crawled through her legs and stood in front of her, looking up at Dick Fuld.
“Are you a Vulcan?” Hector asked. “Can you cry?”
To Nick’s relief, Dick Fuld took Hector onto his lap and began telling him just what it was like living on the Red Planet.
“Did you bring your gorilla with you?” Alfie asked.
“It got left behind in the Twin Towers,” said Dick Fuld, rubbing the top of Hector’s head as though shining a cricket ball. “That’s some haircut you’ve had, little boy.”
“It’s because I’m joining the army,” said Hector, as Alfie came and joined him.
“Time for bed,” said Ali.
“I was kicked out of the Air Force,” Dick told Hector. “For insubordination. So I’d listen to your commanding officer if I was you.” They meekly took Ali’s hands.
“You lifesaver,” whispered Nick. “Now, where’s that fucking suicide bomber of a sister-in-law so I can give her a piece of my mind?”
• • •
The following evening Ali stood in the hallway of Holland Park Crescent and inspected herself one last time in the lavish eighteenth-century gilt mirror that dominated the entrance to the house. According to Izzy, it had once hung in the drawing room in Regent Street, where Samuel Johnson had compiled his dictionary. Ali wanted this to be true, so she never confirmed its origin with Bryony, preferring instead to imagine Johnson at his desk, checking himself in the same mirror, as he tried to find the best definition of a word like discombobulate.
Apart from a huge flower arrangement on the table, there was no trace of last night’s party. No stray glasses, no stains on the floor, no half-drunk bottles or crisps trodden into the carpet on the stairs. It gave the whole event a dreamlike quality. Over breakfast the following morning Nick had leaned over to Bryony and kissed her on the lips to thank her for organizing “a wonderful event.” Foreheads touching, hands entwined, they both agreed that it had been a triumph and that despite Hester’s intervention, Dick and Kathy Fuld had stayed much later than anticipated. Nick’s breath probably didn’t even smell of the night before, thought Ali, who had been gripped by this rare display of intimacy.
