Terms & Conditions (6 page)

CONDITION 2

HYPERMNESIA*

* Vivid recall of the past.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

Only after you achieve ultimate knowledge do you gain the final wisdom – that ignorance was bliss.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF OSCAR

The condition of halitosis is one of stinking denial.

Oscar's face is like a board game in which his eyes, ears, mouth and nose compete to win the prize of ‘nastiest feature'. If I were judging, I'd say his eyes take the prize. They're less like eyes, more like hollows left by a departing soul.

In case you're still unsure: I hate him.

I remembered it all so clearly now.

He has repugnant halitosis and was forever saying about other people, ‘Man, that guy has rank breath!'

In fact it's just bad-breath rebound. Oscar hasn't sussed out that it's his own breath wafting back at him.

The only positive about Oscar is that he's the one thing left that my wife and I completely agree on. (Yes, turns out I'm not a huge fan of my wife either, but I'll come to that.)

I remembered that my wife and I often played the Who-Hates-Oscar-The-Most game.

I'd say: ‘If Oscar was an animal, he'd be a rattlesnake.'

She'd trump this with: ‘Oscar is Stalin and Hitler's lovechild.'

I'd double-trump that with: ‘Most people are reincarnated as animals. Oscar will be reincarnated as AIDS.'

You get the idea. I won't write what Oscar actually is. It is simply too offensive.*

* (Oscar is a cunt.)

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF MY FAMILY

No need to get personal.

Then the crux of the matter came to me. The source of my rage –
the Will
.

My dad's Will stated that Oscar would take over the business, then I would become partner, and finally my youngest brother, Malcolm, would too. The contract was specific and fair; we all had to work hard to earn our partnerships. It was nepotism with a legal shine.

Unfortunately, Dad put one tiny sentence in the Will which stipulated that my election to partner would be determined ‘
at such a time as Oscar sees fit
'.

A decade after Dad's death, Oscar hasn't yet
seen fit
. My life ruined by one sentence.* It will be my epitaph.
Here lies Frank. He died at such a time as Oscar saw fit
. My dad snapped me into a legal trap. I remembered vividly the day I learned of Dad's Will: a grey lawyer reading a manila Will in a beige office. The windows had steel bars that bent outwards and the walls were piled high with red books. The significance of the moment saturated everything with symbolism as I sat in my legal jail. And Oscar, calm as can be, stretched his fat legs out like a man sunbathing.

* I warned you about that small print.

My youngest brother, Malcolm, had his own response. He stood, said, ‘Fuck this,' walked out, got on a plane and never returned. Shrewd move.

The reading of the Will was a crossroads in my life but I'm still standing in the centre of it, still undecided, still too chicken-shit to move. I'm not saying I was my father's favourite or that he loved me the most. He was egalitarian in his love.* But just to stick to tradition and
give everything to the eldest brother was intolerable. Surely my father, even through paternal eyes, blurry with pride, must have noticed that Oscar was a power-mad twat.

* His love was equitable and fair. His love would have stood up in a court of law. Legal love.

Dad distributed the remaining parts of his estate with King Solomon precision. All funds, such as the money from his house, were ploughed back into the business, so logically all three brothers would ultimately profit from the investment.

His other valuable possessions were then split evenly: his expensive briefcase was gifted to Malcolm, his fountain pen gifted to Oscar, and his antique wind-up watch went to me.*

* I had admired it once, when I was a kid, and he promised it to me. But later on I found myself dismissing it. When I was an arrogant teenager I compared it to my own
super amazing digital
watch which did not require winding up. Dad didn't like this, and I suspected he may have reconsidered his offer, but he told me at the time, ‘The great thing about my watch, Frank, is that you get out of it exactly what you put into it. There's something rather nice and fair about it. It's a beautiful contract. Every morning I take a few seconds to wind up twenty-four hours' worth of time and every day my watch returns the favour by marking out twenty-four precise hours.'

I smirked at him.

I wish I hadn't, and every morning I wind it up, I regret that smirk.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: No-News Flash!

Frank – hi,

News Flash: Nothing Happened Today

On an island somewhere in Thailand nothing happened today. No politicians lied, no salesmen sold nothing, no missionary preached no word of no god, no policeman arrested no criminal, no one decided that they needed to have plastic surgery because their boobs seemed saggy, no one beat up no one else because no football teams lost no games, no banker embezzled no money, no one divorced no one else, no CIA conspiracies were hatched (not allegedly nor otherwise), no celebrity was photographed doing nothing to no one, no Starbucks opened on no street, absolutely nothing of any significance happened today. Not a blessed thing.

Love and peace,

Malc

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF OBJECTIVES MEETINGS

There's nothing objective about them.

Not only had Oscar
seen fit
not to make me a partner, he'd also
seen fit
to keep me in the lowest league of our firm. I'm still, so long after Dad's death, the terms and conditions guy. And Oscar never missed an opportunity to put me down. We had the most painful objectives meetings in which Oscar had the cheek to tell me that I didn't have the gravitas required for the promotion. He loved every minute that I loathed.

‘You're a little light, Frank,' Oscar said. ‘You need a bit more power. Buy some suits that cost too much, get rid of that stupid Japanese car, buy something imposing, enormous, get a new haircut, start wearing odd-shaped glasses. That's how you achieve gravitas. Any questions?'

‘Just one,' I said. ‘When did you graduate from being a bit of a knob to a full-blown cock?'

‘Funny, buddy. Very funny. This meeting is adjourned. No need to get personal.'

But at this one particular objectives meeting I had come fully armed. For months, Oscar and I had been arguing about putting Shaw&Sons on the stock exchange. Or ‘going IPO'* as Oscar so hideously insisted on calling it. I warned Oscar that this went against everything we stood for as a family business and that our dad would turn in his grave. For weeks we'd argued. I even looked through Dad's Will and there, like a sparkling jewel, was a clause which stated:
Shaw&Sons is a family firm, and for as long as my name remains on the business, the partners will not publicly list the business, under any circumstances
.

* Initial Public Offering: the moment when the public buys shares in a listed company and makes people like Oscar (and all the other partners) filthy rich.

I smiled when I read this. I knew I was about to triumph over Oscar; Dad's cautious nature had given me the weapon I needed to
ruin Oscar's little plan.
Under any circumstances
– my father tied things up tight.

I'll admit that, even in my thirties, there's nothing quite like getting one over my older brother. So I waited until he'd insulted me, and told me I needed more gravitas, and then when Oscar brought up the idea of the IPO again, I casually unfolded the copy of the Will and said, ‘You can't do it, Oscar. Dad included a strict clause against it. Let it go. It's all – right there – in black and white.'

I assumed Oscar's rotten mouth would flop open and he'd accept defeat. He didn't; he smiled as if a worthy warrior had appeared in place of his weakling little brother and said, ‘Very good, Frank. This is why you'll always be a better lawyer than me. And why you may even make partner one day. But for now you're not a partner and that means you don't have final say in the IPO decision.'

‘There is no IPO decision,' I squeaked.

‘We'll see,' said Oscar, and walked off smiling.

I should have been glowing in the afterburn of my victory but instead I was twitchy and uncertain as to exactly what had just happened.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF DOORS

They don't just appear out of thin air.

After that particularly awful meeting with Oscar, I stood fuming at the photocopier, when I noticed a man walk past, down the corridor, into an office that hadn't been there before. We sometimes shift internal walls in our open-plan office but I'd never seen a brand-new door just appear with a new office behind it. The door gave nothing about itself away. No company name, no number. Its only distinguishing feature was that it was ever so slightly cleaner and whiter than the other doors. I tried to get in but it was locked. I knocked but no one answered, even though I had just seen this guy go in. Against the boredom of office life that new door became an obsession. After days of watching the shiny door, it opened and I saw the new man appear. I ran after him, striding down the corridor, and was just about to catch him when I froze: there was this new man talking to Oscar as if they were old friends. I realised what was happening, what this was: that this secret door was probably a bunch of lawyers and accountants all scheming to find some loophole around Dad's Will and get Shaw&Sons listed on the stock exchange. Oscar the snake.

After the new man left, I went to Oscar and said, ‘Who's the guy in the new office?'

‘What new office?' asked Oscar.

‘The one down the corridor.'

‘I didn't really notice.'

‘It's right fucking there,' I turned and pointed. Stabbing my finger in the direction of the mystery door.

‘All right, calm down, Frank.'

‘Is this about the IPO again, because you know you can't break Dad's Will?'

‘No, it's nothing to do with the IPO.'

‘Is it something illegal?'

‘Of course not. I'm a lawyer, for God's sake. Jesus Christ. I'm on the Ethics Committee. It's all completely and perfectly legal.' Oscar smiled as if that was the end of the matter but quickly added, ‘It's just best you don't know anything about it.'

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: The King and Oscar

Frank – hi!

I don't actually have anything to write but I guess that's why email was invented.

On a tiny island in Thailand. The eager-to-please man who rents out the huts is called Fon.

When it started to rain this morning Fon ran up to my hut through the downpour and forked lightning, soaked to the skin, and said to me with great shame, ‘Um, I'm so sorry for this weather, sometime it rain on Ko Chang.'

He spoke as if he was responsible for the entire weather system.

Poor Fon.

Love and lightning,

Malc

PS The bestselling book in Thailand right now is
The King and My Dog
. It's by the king of Thailand. They love this guy here.

PPS The king of Thailand looks just like Dad.

PPPS The king's dog is a salivating bulldog mutt – he looks just like Oscar.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF ORGAN DEALING

Oscar once traded in organs.

By which I mean, when we were kids, I used to collect toy figurines with detachable organs – the heart, lungs, liver, brains – in bright reds and blues. The original toy was called the Invisible Man, due to the fact you could see right through him. That odd toy sparked the start of my obsession with the human body, the seed of my desire to become a doctor. I loved the tidy arrangements of organs, each with their own task, working together to produce something whole and meaningful.

Most people don't notice their bodies until something goes wrong, then suddenly they develop a dramatic interest in their sclerosis-scarred liver or coal-blackened lungs. But I've always been fascinated by all the stuff that pumps and slurps.

One day after school I noticed someone had stolen all the jellybean kidneys, wormy intestines and walnut brains. All gone. The figurines stood hollowed out.

When I confronted Oscar, he said, ‘If you want them back you'll need to pay me.'

Even though Oscar was only about ten, he was already a corporate lawyer in the making, an embryonic legal bastard. He pulled out a sheet of A4 with the prices of each organ and a place to sign at the bottom to state that I agreed with the pricing.

He handed it to me with an orange crayon, ‘Sign here, here and here, please.'

I snatched the paper and tore it. He grabbed my head and punched me in the face.

I begged, ‘Please, Oscar, I just want them back.'

I looked around his room. Where might he have hidden them? It was obvious. Like a good pre-pubescent lawyer, he had asked for a safe for his birthday and there it sat under his desk, grey and impenetrable.

He followed my eyes and said, ‘Good, now you know where they are. So go get all your money and maybe we can make a deal.'

I cried.

‘Or are you just going to run to Mummy?' sneered Oscar.

I decided this was a decent suggestion and off I went. Unfortunately I met Dad first. He was not the right parent for this particular job. My father agreed it was a predicament but he said that instead of forcing Oscar to return the organs he would broker the deal. I assumed this meant Dad telling Oscar to give them back to me. It didn't. It meant Dad telling me in a gentle voice that possession was nine-tenths of the law. ‘Son, this was a precept from old English Common Law and so has to be respected.'