Cobra in the Bath

by Miles Morland

  I caught the Lexington Avenue subway up from Wall Street and arrived fifteen minutes early. I sat at a table and ordered a vodka Martini on the rocks. Guislaine arrived. Food arrived, wine arrived; food went, wine went, and for three hours the two of us sat there talking nonsense but happier than we had ever been. All we lacked was a chorus of violins in the background.

  Next day I had to return to England, but the following weekend I was back in New York, this time not for business but to see Guislaine. The weekend went quickly, and a week after that, on 16 September 1971, Guislaine packed up and came to live with me in London. Six months later, on 10 March 1972, we did get married.

  It was almost bigamy as her divorce from Bobby took a long time to come through. We were told it would happen in January so we felt confident sending out wedding invitations for March, but by February she was still legally married to Bobby. Guislaine and I then made a quick trip to New York as I had to go there on business. One night we went to a movie and then for a hamburger at P. J. Clarke’s on Third and 55th. As we went to our table, Guislaine hissed, ‘It’s Bobby. Over there. At the bar.’ And so it was. Her husband was sitting by himself at the bar drinking Scotch on the rocks.

  ‘Shall we say hello?’ I asked.

  ‘No. I don’t want to talk to him.’

  ‘Maybe he could help get the divorce expedited.’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  A few minutes later Bobby rose unsteadily to his feet and began to negotiate his way through the crowded bar to the men’s room. As he passed our table he looked down.

  ‘Why, Guislaine. I’ll be damned. How are you?’

  ‘Hello, Bobby,’ said Guislaine.

  ‘Mind if I sit down?’ he said, lowering himself into a chair. ‘Well, I hear you’re marrying some English guy, Miles Quintin Morland the third, for his money.’

  ‘That’s me,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, hi. How’re you doing?’ Bobby shook my hand warmly.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘I’m a fraud. I’m not the third, and I don’t have any money.’

  Bobby rocked with laughter as if this were the funniest thing he had ever heard.

  ‘Oh, that’s great, man,’ he gasped ‘No money and not the third. You gotta like it. What’re you drinking?’

  Bobby and I got on splendidly, but after half an hour Guislaine, who had been looking increasingly uneasy, suggested he leave.

  ‘Sure, sure,’ said Bobby. ‘I was on my way to the john anyway. Good luck, guys. No money . . . I love it.’

  And that was the first and last time I met my predecessor as Guislaine’s husband. A week later, at the end of February, her divorce came through.

  Two years later Tasha was born. I had gone to the hospital to be by Guislaine’s side but was unprepared for fatherhood. I picked Tasha up gingerly. I looked at this amazing, tiny-but-perfect creature in wonder. My daughter. After a minute or so, terrified that Tasha might break if I held her wrong, I handed her back to her mother.

  England in the early 1970s was as depressing as a country could be. The febrile excitement of Swinging London and the 1960s – when if you lived in London you felt anyone could do anything – had given way to a time when you felt no one could do anything. The financial world in which I worked had all but ground to a halt by 1973. During the three-day week we sat in an office lit by candles. Guislaine and I decided we would move back to America and try our luck there.

  Wall Street was an exciting place compared with the City of London. The hottest firms in New York were the new, fast-growing ‘research boutiques’, which specialised in supplying research to the huge investing institutions. In return the investing institutions channelled their buy and sell orders through the boutiques rather than the more traditional investment banks, which had little to offer in the way of insight and advice. The buy and sell orders generated commission, and at that time Wall Street commission rates were fixed, allowing everyone to make a healthy living. However, in early 1975 fixed commission rates were to be abolished, and rates were likely to plunge once they became negotiable. In that environment, I decided, the firms that prospered would be the specialist research boutiques which had something additional to offer.

  I bought myself a ticket to New York and cold-called three of the top research boutiques: Wainwright; Spencer, Trask; and Mitchell, Hutchins. I also had an interview set up by a friend at Goldman, Sachs, then one of the coming firms but lower in the pecking order than Wall Street aristocrats like Morgan Stanley and Kuhn, Loeb. The first interview was at Goldman; this was not a success. ‘No, I’m afraid we have nothing for you. You don’t have enough qualifications for Goldman. And can I give you a piece of advice?’ ‘Yes, please.’ ‘Get your shoes shined before you go to an interview.’

  I took this advice and presented myself with gleaming shoes at Wainwright and Spencer, Trask. They were intrigued but unwilling to offer me a job in the US, where I had no useful connections. If I wanted to join their London offices they might have an opening.

  Mitchell, Hutchins was my last chance. This was the hottest of all the boutiques and the number-one investment research firm in the US. I arrived at 9 a.m. for an interview with Bill Lorenz, their top equity salesman. Bill was quite unlike anyone I had met on Wall Street before: informal, quick, funny, brilliant and a lateral thinker. The interview was like a furious ping-pong game as we bounced ideas off each other. When our hour was up Bill asked me to wait in his office for a moment while he went off to talk with someone else. Ten minutes later he was back.

  ‘Hey, Miles, when are you going back?’

  ‘I’ve got a six o’clock plane today.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. I’ll get my secretary to change it to tomorrow morning. We’ve got you set up with a day of interviews here.’

  I was taken to lunch in the Downtown Athletic Club by Jed and Marty, two senior Mitchell, Hutchins people. Jed had flown a helicopter gunship during his Vietnam War service.

  ‘Miles,’ said Jed, ‘why do you want to come here, where you know no one, when you’ve already got a great franchise in London, where you know everyone? I don’t get it.’

  It was a good question. I tried to explain how dismal 1973 London was.

  ‘Jed,’ said Marty, ‘give him a break. Don’t be such a hard-ass. England sucks. OK?’

  By five o’clock I had had nine interviews and was giddy with exhaustion and jet lag. I was shown into the office of John Engels, the head of sales. Surely I was going to get a job offer.

  ‘Look, Miles, sorry. Can’t talk now. Too much going on. Meet you at seven. Carlyle bar. OK?’

  At seven, exhausted but exhilarated, I was at the bar in the Carlyle. Mitchell, Hutchins was markedly different in style to the formality of Kuhn, Loeb. It had the energy of a sports team but the ethos of an ivory tower.

  John tapped me on the arm. ‘Hi, Miles, let’s find a table. This is Dick Falk.’

  Dick, it turned out, was John’s backup.

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Oh, it’s been a long day and I’ve got a bit of jet lag. Just an orange juice.’

  ‘An orange juice? Don’t be a pussy. Have a proper drink.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Wild Turkey on the rocks.’

  ‘That’s m’ boy.’

  John and Dick both ordered beers. They sat there sipping while I gulped down my Wild Turkey. John ordered me another one. The chat was just general Wall Street stuff about the changes taking place, the likely effects of negotiated rates and the consolidation of the industry that would follow that. I was desperate to hear whether I had a job or not but didn’t feel it was up to me to bring the subject up so I had another Wild Turkey.

  John looked at his watch. ‘Hey, let’s grab some dinner.’

  Dinner was in an Italian restaurant three blocks away from the Carlyle. I bumped into a fire hydrant on the way there and hoped that neither John nor Dick noticed. Walking and talking were both becoming difficult.

  As soon as the antipasti were served – along with
another bourbon, which had been ordered for me – John and Dick turned tough.

  ‘Look, Miles, you’re an interesting guy but we’d be crazy to hire you to work over here,’ said Dick.

  ‘He’s right,’ John chimed in. ‘We’ve got the top talent on Wall Street beating on our door. We can have anyone we like, all the top producers. These are guys with a proven record. And you? Yeah, as Dick says, you’re smart and I like you, but, hey, can you imagine what it would be like if we sent a Limey like you down to call on clients in Texas. Wooo-eee, with an accent like yours they’d think you were a faggot.’

  Normally I would have tried to defend myself against such a verbal battering but I just smiled. I was past talking.

  ‘Do you know how tough it is at Mitchell, Hutchins?’ John asked.

  I smiled again and tried to cut up my veal piccata.

  John looked at Dick and shook his head. ‘Dick, this is one cool guy.’

  If John had realised I was too drunk to articulate anything other than grunts by this time he might have been less impressed.

  ‘Feller,’ said John, reaching his hand out to shake mine, ‘we’d like to offer you a job. Welcome to Mitchell, Hutchins.’

  I later learned that John and Dick’s be-nice-and-then-beat-them-up routine was one they had practised well. Five hours later I was on my way to JFK Airport, head thumping and stomach churning from the night’s drinking. I had to stop the cab on the Van Wyck Expressway and get out to throw up by the side of the road. When I reached the airport I called John from a payphone and accepted the job.

  Mitchell, Hutchins was all I expected. That is more than can be said for my analysis of the industry. Negotiated commission rates brought a revolution to Wall Street in 1975, just as the Big Bang did years later to London. Commission rates plummeted far further than anyone had forecast. Mitchell, Hutchins’ future, and my analysis, had been predicated on the assumption that people would be prepared to pay extra for added value such as Mitchell, Hutchins’ outstanding research. They weren’t.

  All three of the brilliant research boutiques that interviewed me failed and were forced into mergers, while the big boring firms survived and ultimately prospered. In 1977 Mitchell, Hutchins merged with the giant firm of Paine, Webber. It was like Cartier merging with Woolworths. I found myself reporting not to John Engels, whom I had come to like and respect, but to bland Midwesterners in stretch polyester suits. The best and the brightest of Mitchell, Hutchins made for the door. I followed them and went to Morgan Stanley, then just starting to flex its muscles as a global powerhouse, for five hard but exhilarating years.

  By then, Guislaine and I had moved out of New York to Bedford, a leafy Westchester village an hour’s commute from New York. It was here that Georgia was born. Guislaine had started labour at about noon and arrived in hospital an hour or so later. By four o’clock she was making little progress, the contractions coming at wider intervals. At half past five her obstetrician, a charming man called Dr Cohen, slipped back into her room.

  ‘How are we doing?’ he asked.

  ‘OK,’ said Guislaine, who had stopped her breathing exercises as these were just for when the contractions came. ‘But I don’t think much is happening.’

  Dr Cohen examined her. ‘Yes, you’re doing well,’ he said, ‘but this baby looks as if it’s going to take its time.’

  ‘Should I be induced now I’ve started?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Dr Cohen. ‘No hurry. By the way, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ said Guislaine and I in unison. When a doctor says he has something to tell you it is seldom good news.

  ‘I have tickets for the opera.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Tonight. At the Met in New York. Madame Butterfly. I’m going to have to run because it’s curtain-up at 7.30. But I’ll pop in when I’m back. Should be around midnight. You’ll be in good hands and I don’t think baby’s going to arrive before I get back.’

  At midnight Dr Cohen slid around the door wearing a white tuxedo. The opera, we learned, had been a triumph. Guislaine was tired, bored and wondering what was going on as the contractions had more or less petered out. I wondered whether Dr Cohen had slipped her something to slow the process down so he could get to the opera without worrying.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, hanging his jacket on the back of my chair and examining Guislaine. ‘We’ll give you something to help baby on its way. We’ll have baby out before you know it.’

  He administered something to induce labour, and at 4 a.m. little Georgia popped out, bright and bawling. Guislaine had been in labour for sixteen hours and was exhausted. The long delay after labour started had a nice consequence for me: it meant that Georgia was born on 18 December with the result that we shared a birthday.

  Living in America was easy. New York was fun; we liked the contrast between nights at Studio 54, the greatest club the world has ever seen, and at GG Barnum’s, its transsexual neighbour, and our comfortable existence in Westchester; we had nice American friends; the girls were in a nice local school in Bedford; everything was nice. But there was an edge that was lacking. We also thought it would be good to give the girls the chance to be English if they wanted to.

  When we left London, Edward Heath’s disastrous years were about to give way to another equally disastrous spell of Harold Wilson. Now Margaret Thatcher was in power. England in 1982 was finding an energy that had deserted it during the Heath/Wilson years. For the first time in my lifetime England was looking forward not back. In 1982 I got a call from John Engels, who was now head of equities at First Boston, another global powerhouse, which had become the dominant firm on Wall Street in mergers and acquisitions.

  ‘Hey, Miles. Ever thought about going back to England?’

  Guislaine and I had originally come to New York for two years; we had now been there for nine. John was offering me the opportunity to run First Boston’s office in London. First Boston had formed CSFB, a joint venture with Credit Suisse, the giant Swiss bank, to deal in the Eurobond markets and carry out corporate finance. This was a huge operation; by many measures CSFB was the leading firm in the Euromarket. The business of dealing in stocks and shares, the equity business, was not part of the joint venture but conducted by First Boston on its own. This was the business that John was asking me to go and run.

  I took the job, and by April 1982 Guislaine, Tasha, Georgia and I were back in England. I was working hard at First Boston, under pressure from John to expand the office and double our business. I came home late most evenings and slumped silently in front of the television hoping that the white noise would give me the chance to empty my brain of work and to gather energy before dinner. I might have been tired but I was happy with the way things were going; we were starting to make good progress at First Boston and I was pleased with our new life, our new house, my new job and the opportunity to catch up with old friends. Things were good. And then one weekend Guislaine told me she wanted a divorce.

  I felt as if I had been hit by a train. I thought we had a good marriage; it was now thirteen years old. Our friends thought we were the perfect couple. What was going on? I literally did not understand it. I understand it better today. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing and in my job that I had little energy and attention left over for Guislaine. I took her for granted. While I was bursting with adrenalin and energy she felt she had been parked on the sidelines.

  At the time though I could not believe that this would lead to a real break-up. We went to talk to Dr John Cobb, a highly reputed therapist. I had been looking forward to the meeting as a drowning man might spot a life raft. Dr Cobb would explain to Guislaine that with a little work – and I was ready to do whatever work it took – we could set the marriage back on a stable foundation. The closer the meeting got the more excited I became. Everything was about to be cleared up. Guislaine would come to her senses.

  The meeting was on a cold Thursday afternoon at four o’clock. I had been delayed at
the office by a call from New York and arrived fifteen minutes late. It looked as if Guislaine and Dr Cobb had already been talking for some time. Now was my chance to explain that I loved Guislaine; I’d do whatever it took to restore the marriage; and all I needed was for her to have an open mind. I explained this to Dr Cobb, knowing he would explain it to her.

  ‘Miles,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘thank you for coming, although it’s a pity you couldn’t be here on time. Guislaine and I have been talking. I’ve seen many people with far worse problems than the ones you two have work them out and put their marriages back together.’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ I said, restraining myself from punching the air. Guislaine was about to be told how easy it would be for us to repair things.

  ‘But,’ Cobb continued, ‘in these cases both parties have wanted to make it work. Without that commitment it won’t. It’s apparent that Guislaine does not want the marriage to continue. One person alone can’t repair a marriage. Under the circumstances you may have to prepare yourself for how you end your marriage with grace rather than how you repair it.’

  Initially I did not understand what Cobb was saying. I assumed that the words were directed at Guislaine, and he was telling her that here was this nice guy who loved her and of course we would be able to work things out. But that was not what he was saying. I had never till that time understood the cliché about feeling the earth open up to swallow you, but now I did. Cobb and Guislaine went on talking; I was numb and heard nothing.

  Afterwards I stumbled out, silent, into the street with Guislaine. We drove home to Richmond without a word being said. The next morning we told Tasha and Georgia over breakfast. I remember the tears running down my face as I said I was going to be moving out and Guislaine telling me in French not to cry in front of the children.

  Divorce has no heroes. Ours was a disaster. Guislaine hired a series of lawyers, one a man with the apt name of Tooth but who was rumoured to prefer his nickname of Jaws, whose strategy was to make the process as unpleasant as possible for the husband. His efficiency in stirring up acrimony where little existed before was unrivalled.