Maybe the Horse Will Talk

by Elliot Perlman

  It was then he was struck to see, walking alone towards him from the other end of the hallway as though appearing in yet another dream, Mr Malcolm Torrent of Torrent Industries.

  The elevator arrived and Torrent and Maserov got inside. They were the only ones in it. Maserov realised that Malcolm Torrent didn’t recognise him from the meeting that had ended no more than ten minutes earlier. The elevator doors were closing. As both men stood facing the door Maserov wondered if he should say something. This was an opportunity, what kind of opportunity he didn’t know, except that it was fleeting. It would last no longer than the time it took Torrent to get to the ground floor, unless it ended even sooner than that should Torrent get out before the ground floor. This was Maserov’s chance. It could, he thought, end any second should someone else enter the elevator. Someone probably would. So he should say something. Another man would grab this opportunity. Another man would know what to do with it. Did he have anything to lose? There wasn’t time to calculate this. What should he say? Maybe nothing. He could lose his job. But he was going to lose it anyway. He could lose it sooner. They were alone. It was now or never, and now was here already. And it wasn’t coming back.

  ‘Mr Torrent.’

  ‘Yes?’ Malcolm Torrent said distractedly.

  ‘It’s me . . . Stephen Maserov . . . The Second Year?’

  ‘Do I know you?’ Torrent asked.

  ‘I was the second-year lawyer in Mr Hamilton’s office with you . . . Just now?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ There was a silence. Maserov could see that Malcolm Torrent was heading for the ground floor.

  ‘Mr Torrent?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’re pretty time-poor.’

  ‘You got that right.’

  ‘And, if I might say, I’ll bet you didn’t leave Mr Hamilton’s office fully satisfied.’

  ‘I didn’t leave even slightly satisfied.’

  ‘Sir, I think I can summarise what went on in that office. You had an appointment with Mr Hamilton to tell him in person, I mean face-to-face, that your company faces a delicate legal problem that concerns you. You told him that you’re appalled by these sexual harassment cases, that one has become four, that you’re worried there might be more and that you have concerns as to what it might do the share price of an organisation you’ve single-handedly built to be a giant of the construction industry. And you left with him telling you, essentially, that there’s nothing to worry about, that he’ll take care of it, which is probably what he said when you told him about the first of the allegations.’ By this time the two of them had reached the ground floor. The doors had opened and Maserov’s heart was pounding. There was no coming back from this. But Malcolm Torrent was smiling.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘It’s Maserov, Mr Torrent. Stephen Maserov.’

  ‘Go on, Maserov.’ By now the two of them were in the foyer of the building. People were walking past and around them.

  ‘Sir, this is going to sound both pathetic and ridiculous because it is both of those things but I can’t talk to you anymore. I mean, I’m not permitted to talk to you . . . Not permitted by the firm.’

  ‘I pay the firm. I’m the head of its biggest client. I can talk to anyone I want.’

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘Walk with me.’

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sir, I could lose my job just for talking to you without a partner or a senior associate present. If they knew what I’d just said to you I could be —’

  ‘Ah, that’s my driver,’ Malcolm Torrent interrupted. ‘Get in with me. I want to hear the rest of what you were saying.’

  Torrent’s driver double parked in front of the building, came out to open the door for Malcolm Torrent and both Malcolm Torrent and Stephen Maserov got in.

  ‘Go on,’ Torrent exhorted.

  ‘Uh . . . where is he taking us, sir?’

  ‘Back to my office. Continue with your analysis. I’m interested in where you’re going with this.’

  Maserov found himself in the back of Malcolm Torrent’s limousine as Torrent poured himself and Maserov each a Scotch with ice from the minibar. He couldn’t believe where he was or with whom. Or what he was doing. But he couldn’t stop now.

  ‘I know it’s early but I always need a drink after seeing Hamilton. You’ll join me. Continue with your point,’ Malcolm Torrent said.

  ‘Well, sir, as I see it, Mr Hamilton didn’t give you any satisfaction. The problem is going to continue and he’s counting on you to be so busy that you’ll let it drag on. Sure, if he continually pays only lip service to your concerns you could ultimately take all your business to another firm but Hamilton’s got so much of it that he’s counting on corporate inertia to keep things just as they are.’

  ‘He keeps the clock ticking and charging me for every damn thing,’ Malcolm Torrent lamented.

  ‘Well, you see, that’s because the status quo is in his interest. You keep engaging him to put out all these spot fires. Even these sexual harassment cases are, so far, spot fires, albeit they could burn out of control at a moment’s notice. None of them, by themselves, warrant moving your business to another firm.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s true. We do have all our files with Hamilton and it would take one hell of a logistical effort to take all our work away from Freely Savage and give it to a new firm. The time we’d lose waiting for a new firm of lawyers to get up to speed with all our work would end up costing us an enormous amount of money. And that’s even assuming no one at the new firm dropped the ball.’

  ‘Hamilton knows this, and knows you know it so there’s no incentive for him to fix things in any great hurry and every incentive to maintain the status quo.’

  ‘You make a good point, young man. And he’s so damn smug!’

  ‘Mr Torrent, I want to put something to you. I’m only a second-year lawyer, with all the inexperience that entails, but if you give me twelve months to get on top of this, to do nothing but work on these sexual harassment cases, I will find a solution for you. Mr Hamilton talked about the possibility of settling with the plaintiffs on the steps of the court. Maybe, but that could take years, with all the attendant risk of a public relations disaster in the media before the case gets anywhere near court. Mr Hamilton, in my opinion, isn’t sufficiently sensitive to the potential for damage through social media. And who’s to say these cases settle on the steps of the court, anyway? What if evidence is given in an open court that prejudices your share price before any possibility of a verdict? Even an ultimate judicial finding favourable to Torrent Industries might not be able to stop the damage if the horse has already bolted. Sir, if you give me the chance to work on nothing but this, by the end of twelve months you won’t have these problems anymore.’

  ‘Son, you’re taking an awful risk. Why’re you doing this, Mister . . .? What’s your name again?’

  ‘Maserov, Stephen Maserov. The firm is going to get rid of me in a few months when I become a Third Year.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, as far as I can tell it’s because, despite both the market and recent movements in the dollar, the economy, the real economy is in hopelessly bad shape. The firm is shedding lawyers and I don’t have a champion or a backer at the firm. In fact, few people there at a senior level even know who I am.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Maserov before inhaling, holding the breath and gently letting it go. ‘Why should you trust me? Well, um . . .’

  It was a miracle to be in a conversation with Malcolm Torrent let alone to be with him in his car. But what was the point of it? Would it have any effect on Maserov’s life? Would it be a positive effect? Here lay Stephen Maserov’s chance, in the next sentence, possibly the most important sentence he’d uttered thus far in his life.

  ‘Sir, first, no one else has seriously offered to help you with this. Your concern about this is not being matched by the firm. Second, you admir
e people who take calculated risks. And third, the cost to your business of a year of my billings will not be felt. It would be so statistically insignificant that it wouldn’t show up on a document important enough for people even three tiers below you to see. But the benefit of my ridding you of these cases, the avoidance of damage to your company’s reputation and to its share price, would be plain for you personally to see in twelve months from now. And what have you got to lose?’

  Eleanor Maserov, Stephen’s wife, stood in the kitchen with her mouth open forming a perfect ‘o’ as he told her what had happened that day. Their five-year-old son sat at the kitchen table and called for their attention. His two-year-old brother was asleep in another room.

  ‘Who will read my bed-night story tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a second, Beanie,’ Eleanor Maserov said. ‘Daddy’s telling Mummy how he committed career suicide at work today.’

  The Maserovs’ eldest son, Benjamin, had been referred to as ‘Beanie’ from the day the sonologist had told his parents they were going to have a boy. Maserov had said he would take the technician’s word for it but the ultrasound image looked more like a bean to him than anything else, and the name had stuck.

  Maserov explained to Eleanor that after the short car journey to the headquarters of Torrent Industries he was invited up to Torrent’s office, where he convinced Malcolm Torrent to send an email to Hamilton concerning the morning’s conference. The email instructed Hamilton to direct Maserov to work on the sexual harassment matters to the exclusion of all his other duties – without exception – for twelve months and that at the end of the twelve months Torrent would personally review the situation. Maserov knew that the email was more than vaguely threatening because, despite the distraction of a palpitating heart and the effects of a double Scotch before lunch, he’d drafted every word of it very carefully himself. Maserov had asked Malcolm Torrent if he wouldn’t mind sending it in the evening after he, Maserov, had left for the day. Torrent acceded and had Maserov blind copied so he knew all of this was really happening. When he’d seen the email in his inbox he knew this was no dream. It was too late to turn back.

  ‘Hamilton’s going to be apoplectic!’ Eleanor exclaimed as she bathed Beanie.

  ‘Probably,’ said Maserov, from the kitchen, helping himself to his third beer from the fridge before joining them in the bathroom.

  ‘Probably? Certainly! Are you out of your mind?’ she asked her husband.

  ‘Eleanor, didn’t you hear me? I had months left. Hamilton told me directly this morning.’

  ‘And now you’re going to be out of work immediately. Great thinking!’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Maserov countered philosophically.

  ‘What in your right mind possessed you to do this?’ his wife asked incredulously.

  ‘What should I have done?’

  ‘I don’t know but . . . not this. How are you going to fix this? You can’t do it. Do you know how to do what you’ve promised to do? And anyway, you shouldn’t be stitching up some poor woman who’s had to deal with God knows what kind of vile executive you’d be defending. It’s not even moral.’

  ‘You can’t say that,’ Maserov countered. ‘You don’t know the facts of the case.’

  ‘You don’t know the facts of the case either!’

  ‘Not yet but I will soon.’

  ‘And in the meantime you’ve already promised to get the guy off.’

  ‘I don’t need to get them off. They’re not criminal cases . . . I don’t think they are. That’s a good point. I should check that.’

  ‘There’s more than one?’

  ‘There are four . . . four cases that I know of.’

  ‘Four! There’s an epidemic of sexual harassment at this place.’

  ‘Yes, four’s a lot better than one when you think about it, more work. Makes me more needed, potentially, if I can do something about it,’ said Maserov, sipping his beer.

  ‘Stephen, listen to yourself. You’ve promised to do something potentially unethical and, even if it’s not, something you don’t know how to do.’

  ‘I’ve promised to do it four times. You’re deliberately seeing only the bad in this.’

  Eleanor began, ‘You want life to go on for these executives as though nothing ever happened. It takes guts for a woman to bring an action like this, especially against her boss. Sexual harassment needs to be taken seriously. It’s not a chip to be bargained with for your career advancement.’

  ‘Career advancement! I’m talking a roof over my family’s heads! Okay, it’s no longer over my head but —’

  Eleanor repeated, undeterred, ‘These women shouldn’t be bought off, conned or coerced into dropping their claims for the sake of your career advancement. That’s just wrong!’

  ‘Well, would you would mind if these women were bought off, conned or coerced into dropping their claims for the sake of your mortgage?’

  There was a slight delay, uncharacteristic of the rhythm of her previous argument. Then as if refreshed by a fresh wave of resentment, Eleanor continued the conversation. ‘I never thought I’d marry a man who’d defend sexual harassment.’

  ‘I never thought you’d leave him,’ Maserov replied.

  By this stage of the conversation Beanie was in his pyjamas and tucked snugly into bed with a menagerie of soft toys and three books for one of his parents to choose from as his ‘bed-night’ story.

  ‘Who will read me a story?’ Beanie asked.

  ‘Daddy will, sweetheart,’ Eleanor told him, ‘Mummy needs to revisit her life choices.’

  Maserov sat down on Beanie’s bed. He picked up each of the books and examined them in turn. ‘Sweetheart, we’ve read all of these,’ he said to his eldest son. ‘I’m not going to read you a story tonight. I’m going to tell you one. Don’t you want to hear something new?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Beanie’s on the right track, Stephen,’ Eleanor called from the hall. ‘We’re going to have get used to re-using everything.’

  ‘What if I made one up for you? What if I made up a story for you?’ Stephen said, ignoring Eleanor, loosening his tie and now sipping on a glass of wine that he’d brought in from the kitchen with the bottle it came from. This had been a momentous and alcohol-rich day. Tonight he was not going back to work when his children had been put to bed. Tonight there was no reason to go back to work. A turning point had been reached in his legal career today. Either Malcolm Torrent’s protection would buy him a year of safety to find a new job and save his marriage or no quantity of billable hours on any time sheet was going to save him from Hamilton now. So he drank with a drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-may-die attitude because tomorrow Hamilton might have him killed.

  ‘No, Daddy, don’t make up a story. Read me one I like.’

  ‘But what if I made it really good? Wouldn’t you like to hear something new, if it was a really good one?’

  ‘But I like the ones I know.’

  ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure? Beanie, listen to this. Just try me. See how we go. Once upon a time, in the thirteenth century in a far-off land now called Turkey, there lived a jester whose job it was to entertain the king. This jester was an excellent jester, known not just in this kingdom but in every kingdom as far as the crow flies, which is very far indeed. He would tell the king jokes, put on funny voices, transform himself into characters, tell the most fascinating stories and perform all sorts of magic tricks that would boggle the mind. He’d been doing this for many, many years. He’d gone to court jester school years earlier to learn how to be the best court jester he could be.’

  Beanie’s eyes were fluttering heavily as his mother came to the room and stood by the door listening to the story. ‘His wife had put him through court jester school on a teacher’s salary,’ she interjected.

  ‘One day the king summoned him and in the presence of all the guards, the knights, the entire nobility, the maids of honour
, the concubines, the lobbyists, the flunkies from HR, the team-players, the change-makers, the thought-leaders, the social-media influencers and several dozen futurists, he told the jester that he had something important to tell him. A hush fell over the entire assembly as the king announced that, while he had been very amused by the jester for a long, long time, he no longer found the jester amusing. Accordingly, the king, in his majestic wisdom, decreed that he would have to let the jester go.

  ‘Now, what you have to know, Beanie, is that because royal jesters were so close to the kings they amused and knew so many of their intimate secrets, their downsizing invariably led not merely to the loss of their jobs but to the loss of their heads.

  ‘The jester panicked. Desperately seeking to save his life, he told the king that he had a trick that would astonish him, a trick that no other jester or magician had ever been able to do. The jester said he could do it but it would take a whole year to perfect. “What is this trick?” the king asked, intrigued.

  ‘“Under the right circumstances, I can make your horse talk.”

  ‘Everyone including the king himself gasped. “You can make my horse talk?” the king asked.

  ‘“Yes, sire, that’s the trick. It’s an astonishing sight. But I need your very best horse, not just any horse but your best, and I’ll need him for a whole year if I’m going to get it right. It’s not easy, you know. Horses are very shy animals. They’re naturally resistant to talking.”

  ‘“My best horse . . . for a whole year?” asked the king.