Something told me, however, that it wasn’t just my GCSEs that I would need to survive.
Chapter Eight
The autumn term continued at a steady pace, the discovery on the Red Road that day in late September fading into the background as we all focused on our coursework and preparations for the mock GCSE exams, coming the next term. The last I heard of the murder incident was that the police were following up on certain leads, but the case wasn’t linked to anyone or anything in particular. No motive had been established, but it was unlikely to ever occur again. Don’t worry about it, we were all told. I had long since decided not to.
Other than planning on working somewhere in London and doing my degree there, I still had no idea of what I wanted to do for a career, or at university, or even A-Levels for that matter. I knew I should get a handle on that soon, or else my dreams of living at home and attending a sixth form college would remain just that – dreams.
As the autumn turned to winter, the clocks went back and the temperature began to plummet, I found myself spending more and more time inside, either hanging around with Sam and Baz in the dorms they were looking after, or visiting friends in other houses. Not all were as welcoming as others, especially if a large number of the Clique had decided to congregate there for the evening and find obnoxious ways in which to entertain themselves. And while St Christopher’s did offer a number of common rooms and TV rooms, these would offer little privacy for talking. Thankfully, I had other avenues of retreat.
Carson Young was one of the lower sixth with whom I got on fairly well. I don’t remember exactly how we met, since we were both in different houses and different years, and Carson hadn’t attended the junior school. It may have been due to us both being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being caught doing something that we shouldn’t have by a teacher and being given a ludicrous punishment to perform together. It could even have been because we had both been on the Murga List and had bonded over the experience. I doubted that, however. Whenever I had had to endure that grossly sadistic punishment, my focus had always been on keeping my profile low and getting it over and done with as soon as possible.
Carson was something of a loner in his year, not really seeming to fit in anywhere in particular and generally enjoying his own company. This was somewhat reflected in the room he had been assigned for his time in the lower sixth, being partway up one of the disused bell towers in the school. The bell itself had been removed, an array of electronic devices put in its place, accessed via a stairway in the corner of his room, leading up to a locked door. What the devices did I had no idea, and neither did Carson. He told me that on occasion some of the staff or workmen would enter his room to inspect the devices, before locking up again. I had only seen past that locked door once, sneaking up behind one of the workmen. I had been shooed away quickly.
Carson’s room was enormous, two to three times larger than any of the other sixth form rooms in the school. Even the head boy’s room, which I had only ever glimpsed once or twice, wasn’t quite as big as this. It was nice, as there was plenty of space to accommodate those who came to visit.
~ ~ ~
“The Belfry’s got a full house tonight, then?” Sam said, as he came in. I had told him I was heading to Carson’s room earlier. He had stayed behind in Butcher to finish some work, before joining the rest of us.
There were six of us in Carson’s room that evening, scattered about in a number of different places – Baz and Dave on chairs; Rory on the stairs, leading to the locked door; Carson himself on a sofa chair, that had apparently always lived in the room; and Rob and Marvin on his bed. Sam looked about for a time, trying to decide where to settle, before sitting down on Carson’s desk, pushing some of his work aside.
“Sam, I’ve just been telling these guys that you can’t all skive off here after prayers tonight,” Carson warned him.
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“Haven’t you heard? Benny’s really pissed off today. One of the newspapers has reported about the murder.”
“Shit, how did they find out? They’ve been trying to keep that quiet.”
“Well, how do you think? Someone’s parents told them,” Baz said.
“Yes, that’s obvious, Baz, mate,” Sam responded in his best attempt at a cockney accent. “But who would’ve said that?”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Carson said. “It was bound to come out sooner or later. Basically, if you see the headmaster, don’t talk to him and avoid making eye contact.”
“Have you got a copy of the newspaper it was in?” Sam asked.
Carson produced the newspaper. He had a lot of newspapers in his room, mostly broadsheets, as well as the Financial Times. Despite him telling me about the report, I hadn’t asked to see it. I joined Sam as he took the newspaper from Carson, seeing the article. It wasn’t a large piece, only a few paragraphs and taking up a small section of a page. It was something that could easily be missed, as it did not draw a lot of attention. The most important thing for most papers at the moment was the recession, which had started late last year. Some were predicting that it would end sometime around Christmas next year, but others were figuring that it could last until at least 1993. Unemployment, depression, rioting, and substance abuse were still on the rise.
“It says it was a suspected murder, though,” Sam said. “Not an actual murder. The school are still playing the accidental death card. At least that’s what my parents believe. So, what are you all talking about?” he asked, putting the paper to one side.
“What we’re going to do career-wise when we finish university,” I said. “Carson’s thinking of working in the stock market.”
“Really?” Sam asked. “Why?”
“Because they make a shitload of money,” Carson said bluntly.
“How much?”
“Millions, every year in bonuses.”
“Is that like that place we went to last year, with all the escalators and the weird lifts on the outside?” Rob asked.
“Didn’t they ring a bell or something whenever a ship sank?” Rory added.
“Nah,” I said. “Handjob was just making that up.”
“No, it’s true,” Dave said. “But they don’t do it any more. They used to ring it when a ship was late to port and presumed missing. And that was Lloyd’s of London we went to; they do insurance. You’re getting mixed up with the London Stock Exchange.”
“Are you sure?” Rory insisted.
“Yes,” Dave said. “My dad works at Lloyd’s.”
“Doesn’t your dad work there too, Baz?” Rob asked.
“No,” Baz said.
He was lying. I didn’t say anything.
“I bet he does,” Rob continued on. “I bet Dave’s dad is his boss and Baz’s dad is his bitch.”
“Fuck off,” Baz said.
“Anyway, whatever,” Rob said. “That place was really boring. Why did they take us there on a day out, when we could’ve gone somewhere more interesting, like Thorpe Park or the British Museum?”
“The British Museum?” I couldn’t help but start laughing.
“Dinosaur skeletons,” Rob said. “Dinosaurs are cool.”
“True,” I admitted.
“They probably took us to Lloyd’s and the Stock Exchange to get us interested in stuff like that,” Sam said.
“And to let us know how much we could make,” Carson said. “You can make a packet working on the stock market.”
There were clearly pound signs in Carson’s eyes. I wondered just how much he had looked into this, and where he was getting his information from. I couldn’t recall any of the teachers giving us specifics on the salaries the traders commanded.
“I still think that’s bullshit,” Rory said. “Millions. That can’t actually be cash. It must be shares or something, or you don’t get it all at once.”
“It’s not,” Dave said. “Have you heard of the Stockbroker Belt?”
Shakes of heads all round. It sounded
like a ring around London or something. I imagined it to be a little like the M25.
“You mean the London commuter belt,” Baz said.
Carson shook his head. “The Stockbroker Belt is a different thing – it’s more like a circuit of mansions that they live in—”
“Mansions?” Rory began to laugh.
“I’m serious,” Carson said. “They make so much money on the stock market that they can afford to live in houses worth millions. All paid for, too. No mortgage,” he added.
“Does your dad live there?” I asked, looking at Dave. It was somewhat rude to ask, I knew, but I found myself being swept up in the current of the conversation. I was probably disbelieving everything I was hearing and wanted closure on it.
“No,” Dave started. “He lives in Hampstead.”
“Fucking hell! Seriously?” Baz said.
“In a mansion in Hampstead,” Carson grinned.
Dave remained silent, as did Sam. Sam had been to Dave’s on a few occasions, the longest being the break we had following the murder. He had clearly been asked by Dave not to say anything.
“That’s one of the most expensive parts of London,” Carson supplied. “Does he actually live on the Heath?” he asked Dave.
Dave nodded, but still said nothing else. He was perhaps a little embarrassed that his dad lived in such an expensive place. I wondered where his mum lived.
“Where have you been reading this?” I asked Carson, deciding to move the conversation on and not focus on Dave’s apparent incredible wealth.
“In the Telegraph,” Carson said.
“Ah, you mean the Daily Torygraph,” Marvin said.
“What?” Sam asked.
“The Torygraph,” Marvin repeated. “It’s what people call the Daily Telegraph, because they have strong links to the Conservatives and is read by a lot of higher earners.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Marvin said. “Well, I think so, anyway.”
“Who do Labour support?” Baz asked.
“All the poor people,” Carson poked more fun at Baz, who only scowled in response.
“The Sun and the Guardian,” Rory said. “My dad reads both of them religiously.”
“Mainly the Sun for the Page 3 girl,” Marvin grinned. “For a quick shuffle while he’s out there on the tractor.”
“Anyway,” Carson continued on before the bickering started again. “All the stockbrokers live in mansions, attend a lot of champagne parties, and are all retired by thirty-five or forty.”
“What?” the room chorused at once.
“Bullshit, Young,” Rory said.
“It’s hard work,” Carson said. “They start at about five-thirty in the morning and don’t finish till after eight some nights.”
“That’s usual for a farm,” Rory said.
“I forgot to ask you earlier,” I then said, looking at Rory and remembering what we had been talking about before Sam had come in. “Are you going to go back to the farm when you finish here and work there?”
“No way,” Rory answered automatically. “It’s really hard work. Going home for a holiday is usually anything but. It’s practically a twenty-four-seven job. I’d only go back there if I messed everything up.”
“You’ve never told us that before,” I said.
“Well,” Rory said, shuffling a little uncomfortably. “It’s not like I don’t like going back home, but it’s just not something I want to do with life. My brothers and sisters love it, but I’d rather do something else.”
“Just want a bit of an easier life?”
Rory shrugged, as if a little ashamed to admit it. I couldn’t see why, given what we were talking about, champagne parties and all. “But you’re going to inherit the farm from your dad, right?” I asked.
“No,” Rory shook his head. “My older brothers will get it before me. I would only get it if neither of them wanted it. And they really want to work on the farm, instead of ‘for the man’, so I’m happy to let them.”
“When would your sister get it?” Sam asked.
“After me.”
“Really? But she’s older than you.”
Another shrug from Rory. “It’s just the way my mum and dad would do it.”
“So, if you’re not going to work on the farm, what are you going to do?” I asked.
“Politics?”
I heard the question mark drift about the room, visiting each occupant in turn, almost inviting each of us to pick up on Rory’s clear uncertainty. I made no comment, my focus mostly on what Carson had been talking about. I was certain that much of it was exaggerations and even lies, but there would be an element of truth to it as well.
“So, do you know anyone who works at one of these places?” I asked him.
“Well, no,” Carson said, sounding a little sheepish. “But when you’re at university, you can do a sandwich course and spend a year working for one,” he added, raising his voice as Marvin, Rory and Sam started to jeer.
“A sandwich course?” Rory started to laugh.
“Are you sure that’s not something to do with working in catering?” Sam asked, grinning.
“It’s a course that lets you do two years at uni, a year working for someone, and then your final year at uni again,” Carson said with a sigh. “It means your course is four years, instead of three.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Dave nodded. “My dad says that they get students in there from time to time. They’re there from the autumn until the following summer.”
“Paid?” I asked. I didn’t expect they would be. After all, you were a student.
“Yep,” Carson said. “At about two-thirds or so of what they would pay a graduate normally.”
“And how much is that?” I asked, still sceptical.
“About thirty grand,” Carson said.
The room exploded. “Thirty fucking thousand pounds?” we all breathed. “That’s tons!”
“Fucking hell, and I thought fifteen grand was a lot,” Baz said.
“Is that what they pay your dad?” Marvin smirked. Baz didn’t rise to it.
“Thirty grand when you’re on a sandwich course? So, what do they normally get?” I asked, my mind embarking on some mental arithmetic before the words had completely left my mouth. “Fifty?”
“About that,” Carson said.
The explosion didn’t happen this time, and the Belfry fell silent as we all began to add up what that implied in the long term, what we would spend the money on, and how much the salary might actually rise to.
I was bowled over by what Carson had said. If he was being honest and wasn’t on a mission to wind us all up that night, it meant I could pull in more money in my first year of employment than my own mother did right now. Maybe even surpass my father’s after ten years. Thirty thousand pounds while still a student? My six years’ tuition at St Christopher’s had so far cost my parents something in the region of sixty grand. It suddenly sounded like nothing.
“See? You all thought I was making this up,” Carson smiled, taking the opportunity to defend himself now that he had everyone on the back foot.
“You could buy loads of cars with that,” Rob said.
“Or just one very flash one,” Marvin said, picking up one of the copies of GQ that littered Carson’s room and starting to thumb through it, Rob similarly pawing at the pages. It was obvious that he was already spending Carson’s salary in his head, looking at the watches, gadgets, and all else that were reviewed in the magazine’s pages, creating a mental shopping list of must-haves. “I’d go for a Lambo.”
“You couldn’t afford one of those on fifty grand a year,” Baz said.
“You couldn’t,” Marvin said, without lifting his eyes from the page, “not with your mum and dad being poor and living in a shoebox.”
“I’m not poor!” Baz glared.
“Yeah, okay,” I then said, looking back to Carson. “But that doesn’t sound like it’d make y
ou a millionaire all that quickly. You’d need ...” I embarked on another round of maths.
“Around twenty years to make a million,” Sam said.
“And you’ve got to take the tax off and other things like that,” Rory added. “So it would take a lot longer.”
Marvin and Rob looked up from the magazine, both appearing a little deflated. The magazine was open on a double-page spread of a car they both had been gazing at, likely one that carried a six-figure price tag. It would take them both an age to pay for one of those, even if they combined their salaries. It was already sounding like we had found a gaping hole in Carson’s get-rich-quick scheme. Carson only started laughing.
“That’s the basic wage, and you don’t make the money that way, anyway,” he said.
“How do you make it?” Marvin asked.
“Bonuses. Your basic salary is only about fifty or sixty grand—”
“Only,” Rory snorted.
“—but you get hundreds of thousands at least a year in bonuses.”
“Jesus!” I was unable to help myself.
“Really?” Marvin said.
“Really,” Carson said, genuinely serious in both his tone and expression.
Marvin’s eyes flicked instantly back to the magazine as Rob tried to yank it from his grasp, the two boys starting to fight over what had now become their fantasy shopping catalogue.
“Oh, fuck off, Young, you’re so full of shit,” Rory then said angrily. “Not even doctors get that much.”
“I’m not making this up,” Carson said. “That’s what they get. The CEOs of the banks get tens of millions in bonuses every year. Seriously, go ask Mr Davies.”
The Red Road Page 9
