Insecure

by Ainslie Paton

  Shit, he’d actually have to think about that, couldn’t simply operate on autopilot like he’d planned. It was 9pm before he looked up. Five messages from Dillon. The server was still crashing. He hadn’t done Buster’s washing or shopping. He rang her room and got no answer. She might be in the bathroom. He rang the desk, they said she was with the nurse, that she had a small cold and they’d pass on his message.

  The tissues, the Vicks. He’d belt out at lunchtime tomorrow and get them. He fell into bed at 1am and slept like a corpse. An asteroid could’ve crashed into the earth and he’d have felt nothing.

  The server stayed up for half the morning then crashed again. There was no lunchtime. Late afternoon Dillon called. Jay had appointed a director in his business to work with them. The guy’s name was Anderson Abbott. And he had more hurdles lined up to jump.

  “Don’t even think about getting disappointed about that,” Dillon said.

  Abbott wanted a technical paper on implications for the software platform. Mace didn’t have two remaining brain cells to rub together.

  “When?”

  “I stalled him till Monday morning.”

  “That was a stall. “

  “It’s a weekend, what do you want?”

  A long soak in a warm bath with a beautiful woman. That’s what he wanted. And to sleep with her tucked against him. Didn’t seem like too much to ask. But it was a week and no call, no email, no text from her. “I’m on it.”

  “Anderson makes Jay look like a piss-weak schoolgirl. I think he’s the man’s pit bull. This has to be right, Mace.”

  He rang off, making plans for Dillon to join him Saturday night with food and fresh eyes.

  An hour later, St Ags called. Buster had taken a turn, they said, quaint words; he had no idea what they meant, but his life had suddenly veered from the complicated to the impossible.

  14: Plan B

  Jacinta stood at the head of the boardroom table and waited, eyes locked on Malcolm. She had a majority, they didn’t need his yes vote, but it was a good politics to get it.

  “This does not make up for blowing the takeover deal,” he said.

  “It comes close, Malcolm,” said Henry, and she could’ve crawled down the length of the table to kiss him. She stifled her smile, but it was impossible not to imagine the shock she’d cause, and poor, proper Henry, with his mop of white hair and the crispest shirts money could buy, would’ve died of the humiliation. Still, launching into some raunchy music video action on the tabletop would be less shocking that what she was about to propose.

  It’d taken most of the week to make the decision. Once Malcolm capitulated and Plan B was officially the new Plan A she’d make her move, present the facts, outline the options and suggest everyone take a weekend to think about it. A weekend during which she’d lobby each board member so hard they’d be wishing all she’d done was hands and knees it down the table, showing too much cleavage and a lot of arse.

  Malcolm gave a curt nod. On the inside she punched the air.

  “One more item, Mr Chairman,” she said to Henry.

  “Go ahead.” Henry nodded.

  “Is it necessary? It’s been a long meeting and I don’t want to keep the board from their weekend,” said Malcolm.

  “I believe it is,” she said.

  “Timetable whatever it is for next month, Jacinta.”

  It took a second to realise Malcolm wanted out of the room, so would be offside before she even opened her mouth, but this wouldn’t hold a month, it might not hold the weekend. “It won’t wait.”

  “If it was so urgent why didn’t you notify the board of a new issue?”

  “I should’ve done that.” Better to give Malcolm a point scored. “To be honest I’ve been wrestling with it.”

  “Wrestling?” said Henry.

  “It’s a moral dilemma for me and I believe it will be for you as well.”

  Malcolm closed his leather binder. “We can do moral dilemmas next month or never.” He stood up.

  Henry’s hand shot out. He was playing his role well. She might not have added the issue to the agenda, but she wasn’t stupid enough to shanghai the chairman. “Malcolm, wait. Unless you have pressing personal business, I’d like to hear this.”

  Malcolm sat. The idea that he might let anything personal interfere with business was such an anathema to him, he had no alternative but to capitulate. “Of course, Henry, as you wish.”

  Fourteen pairs of eyes turned back to her. At least half the board were appointees Malcolm had manipulated into the role. He was assured of their support. Fortunately Henry was no one’s puppet. She passed a single sheet of paper around. On it was a diagram of Wentworth core businesses, subsidiaries, majority shareholdings and minority interests. It was a familiar graphic. What was different was the overlay that showed the links to the marathon bomber, right the way down to his empty savings account.

  “What is this?” Malcolm snapped. He was last to take a page as the pile passed the other way around the table, and first to react. “A joke?”

  “Roger Kincaid was a troubled man. And in no way am I suggesting his crime is anything but abhorrent. I am—”

  Malcolm stood up. “Wasting our time.”

  “I believe you’re suggesting there is a link, however tenuous, between our businesses and this man’s actions,” said Henry.

  “That’s right.”

  “It might as well be science fiction, Henry,” said Malcolm.

  “It’s real.”

  Malcolm tore the page in half. “Only in this room.”

  “It would not take a good journalist long to discover this,” said Constance Graves, the one female member of the board, no friend of Jacinta’s but no toady of Malcolm’s either. She’d been the CEO of a rival bank for years. The media called her The Undertaker, a play on her name and her utter lack of either warmth or humour.

  “Any substance to that?” Henry asked.

  Jacinta nodded. “There is nothing to stop anyone making this discovery. We’re lucky it’s not hit the media already.”

  Malcolm put his palm down on the table, not a slap, but not far off. “So what if some hack discovers it.”

  “That would be uncomfortable for us,” said Henry.

  “More than uncomfortable,” Constance countered. “It’d be a huge hit to our brand, another reason to make the bank bashing lobby groups feral and bring the regulators down on us, if not the government.”

  Malcolm looked across the table. He singled each of the board members out for individual attention. “I do not agree. No shareholder is going to care. This is beyond the purview of the regulators. We won’t lose a single customer.” He abruptly cut off eye contact and slumped in his chair. He could be theatrical if he felt it warranted. “It’s a storm of Jacinta’s own making.” He looked at his hands on the table, a sure signal he was about to make it personal. “Frankly I’m surprised and disappointed in her.”

  Henry coughed. Papers were shuffled. Briefcases snapped open. She could take it on the chin and hope the connection never came to life, never needed to be dealt with, or that Malcolm was right and if it did surface, it made for an uncomfortable few days before everything went back to normal.

  But if she did that, if she did nothing at all, it was the same as saying the bank had no moral obligation to the people who made up its customer base.

  “I would like to discuss this, Henry,” she said.

  Henry played his part. He got up from the table, went to the sideboard and poured himself a coffee. “I suggest a five minute break and then we reconvene to hear what Jacinta has to say.”

  “I agree.” Constance stood and strode out of the room, taking a bathroom break, no doubt. It was a good idea to do the same, to take herself out of Malcolm’s orbit.

  “Jacinta.”

  Too late. She turned to him and he said in his normal booming voice, “What are you doing? This is ridiculous.”

  “We have to acknowledge some kind of moral obligati
on in this.” She fought the desire to pitch her voice low. If Malcolm wanted a domestic argument played out in front of the board he could have it.

  “You’re going to stand in front of my board and suggest because this madman was a customer we’re somehow responsible.”

  “I’m not saying we’re responsible. We didn’t make the bomb. I am saying we should discuss the issue and decide where we stand on it.”

  He turned away. “There is nothing to discuss.”

  “They died outside my apartment, Dad. I tried to go out and help.”

  He stopped still. He grunted. Not because he was struck by the argument but because she’d called him Dad. She took a breath. That’d been a dumb thing to do. It called his bluff on making it personal, and it reinforced the fact they had nothing truly personal at stake. She hadn’t called him Dad since he sent her off to boarding school. He’d been Malcolm from the time she was fourteen.

  He kept his back to her. “While I think of it, I want us out of that sponsorship and anything like it where people could get hurt.”

  She stepped around him to look in his eyes. “So you do understand what I’m saying about our moral oblig—”

  “I think sponsorships of these people power events are a waste of money. This is a good reason to get out.”

  “If everyone is ready,” called Henry.

  Jacinta took her seat. She watched the other board members bring coffee back to the table, turn off their phones and settle in. No one had tried to approach her to discuss the issue; no one had tried to engage Malcolm either. That was a sure sign she didn’t have support.

  Henry had warned her, told her to be careful she wasn’t acting out of shock, out of outrage. He’d reminded her they were not in the humanitarian business. Their sole objective and their obligation to shareholders was profit. There was no room for sentimentality. She’d swayed him with the argument that it was better to be on the front foot, to acknowledge the unfortunate connection and to be prepared to answer charges of neglect of care, than be surprised by a headline and an anti-bank campaign as a result. It was a rational argument and Henry was persuaded.

  But it was more than that. Jacinta had stalked the executive floor corridors late at night, unable to shake the idea that there were other potential Roger Kincaids out there. People pushed to the brink by circumstances outside their control. Most of them wouldn’t become psychopathic killers overnight, and Wentworth wasn’t to blame for the way individual people choose to act, but still. Was their business not big enough, profitable enough to consider, through policies and procedures, how people might be affected and work with that understanding in mind? Would it not make this part of the world she had control over better if a customer’s financial security was more assured than threatened by the bank’s actions?

  “Jacinta,” said Henry. “When you’re ready.”

  She stood, looked down the table. She’d already lost Malcolm. Henry would vote with his conscience, she had to win the rest.

  She started by reminding them of the bank’s slogan: Bank for Life. And their customer promise; a charter of expectations customers could be guaranteed of, none of which suggested being made jobless, and homeless. She went on to propose there were ways of working to put services in place to prevent financial catastrophe affecting their customers.

  Malcolm interrupted three times. The first to laugh, “Change the bloody slogan then, if that’s the problem.” The second to say no bank was responsible for people’s idiocy with money and the third to force Henry’s hand.

  “I’d remind you the only tangible tie between us and this criminal is that he chose an event we sponsor to unleash his evil,” he said.

  “Why do you think he didn’t bomb a train station?” Constance said.

  “I have no cause to think anything about him, other than the fact he’s now a bad debt.”

  “For which we have ample insurance,” Jacinta sighed.

  Henry gave her a weary smile. “I believe we’ve done what you wanted, discussed the issue. What are you proposing?”

  She outlined her formal proposal, which began with developing a broader program to identify at risk customers and provide a soft landing for them. She suggested getting out on front foot of the issue by briefing journalists on the connection with Kincaid and the subsequent change of policy and procedure, and ended with a proposal to double the sponsorship money provided to the marathon organisers to rebuild community faith in the event.

  When she sat there was silence.

  Constance broke it. “I like it. It’s smart business.”

  “Mr Chairman, I’d ask that Jacinta leaves the room so we can discuss this and make our final decision,” said Malcolm. He didn’t look at Henry, he looked at her like she was dirt he wanted to scrape from the bottom of his thousand dollar shoes.

  Henry frowned. Jacinta wasn’t a board member, but as an executive director she attended all the meetings. Not once had she been asked to leave, though it was a legitimate request. She looked to Henry. He had little choice but to comply or to fight Malcolm over it. He’d comply because her issue with Malcolm was a sideshow, not the real issue. This was it. She wasn’t going to get her weekend to lobby.

  “As you like, Malcolm. Jacinta, thank you,” said Henry.

  Dismissed she gathered her papers, her phone and tablet PC. “Thank you for your time.”

  “This is personal for you, isn’t it?” said Constance.

  Jacinta hugged her gear to her chest. “I think it’s personal for Kincaid’s wife and kids, for the families of the people he killed and hurt. I think Wentworth is in a position to do what we can not to be a trigger point for people to suffer from financial ruin. If that’s personal then, yes, it’s personal.”

  “How does that impact you if we vote to continue business as usual?” she asked.

  “We don’t need to—”

  “I think we do, Henry,” Constance said.

  Jacinta had barely slept all week and eaten only because Mel put meals in front of her. She’d known this would be a tough time before this issue even surfaced. She’d told Mace that, watched him take it onboard and worry it like a torn piece of clothing and been relieved when he showed he was willing to live with the rip if he wanted to see her again.

  But this was beyond tough. This was the reason any thoughts of Mace came second and second was a long way back in the queue. This was the type of challenge she relished and it was deeply personal. She’d tipped her savings into how personal, but none of them needed to know about the victims’ fund; it might work against her by convincing them she was trying to extend her private motivation to corporate ends.

  She wasn’t sure if that was because she’d seen the dust and destruction, felt the tremor, heard the savage zip of the body bags and watched them try to scrub blood from the pavement outside her door or not. But she knew this was a hard line. One she’d have trouble crossing if they voted against the changes she proposed.

  “I will obviously respect the board’s wishes.” She’d accept them and keep pushing behind the scenes for change. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t defeat either.

  On the way out the door she chanced a look in Malcolm’s direction. He was glaring right back and what she saw on his face put a flare of panic in her chest. She’d lost as surely as she breathed, as surely as she longed to lie in Mace’s arms to recapture the intimacy of their weekend, and as surely as she knew he’d be sacrificed to her ambition.

  And then Malcolm spoke. “Henry.” He kept his eyes on her; he smiled, a hungry cannibal. He said, “I’d like Tom to start coming to these meetings,” and she knew she was about to be sacrificed too.

  15: Deadline

  Mace lost it when the priest appeared. Dillon had to get between them and the shouting woke Buster. Her eyes flickered, opened, then widened. She didn’t know where she was.

  “I’m here, Buster, look at me, I’m here.” He took her hand, dry and cool while the rest of her was fevered, and she focused; her raspy br
eathing steadying. Dillon was backing the priest with his offer of last rites out. It was pneumonia, not a death sentence.

  “You’re in the hospital, you’ll be fine, but if you try to talk, I’ll have Dillon sit on you.”

  Dillon laughed. He went around the bed to her other side and took her hand. “Hey, sexy. You gave us a fright.” Buster’s eyes shifted, she smiled.

  Mace adjusted her pillows then smoothed her hair back. She was propped up to help her breathing. She was also in a hospital gown, which she’d hate.

  “No talking. Save your breath. I’ve brought you a clean nightie from home. The nurses will help you with it later.”

  She was so pale it was as though he could see every vein running beneath the surface of her face; every thread of her life winding over her features. The sunspots she detested were stripped of their pigment, and her wrinkles had fallen away into the pillow. She looked almost young, but so fragile she made it hard for him to breathe. He’d thought Jacinta was fragile, so slender, tiny compared to him, he’d had no idea what fragile was until he’d watched Buster loaded into the back of an ambulance. He looked across at Dillon. Not once since he’d arrived had he mentioned their deadline for Anderson Abbott.

  Mace had every intention of meeting it. He could work from anywhere. He could stay with Buster, or if they booted him out, set up in the canteen or the local Maccas, if it came to it. He’d start as soon as she went back to sleep.

  Dillon was telling Buster a story about the car he wanted to buy. He was blathering on; he was nervous too, filling the silence made big by Buster’s crackling breaths. She meant a lot to him as well. Her house had been his safe haven against careless parents and an older brother who beat up on him till Mace got big enough to suggest he stop, and mad enough to show him what was behind his suggestion.

  They both sat in Buster’s kitchen, eating home baked cupcakes, bruised and bloody that day, but triumphant too. All she’d said was, “I hope the other fellow looks worse.”