The Mark and the Void (25 page)

It was the bank that came to my rescue. They called one day, on my parents’ phone (I’d kept my mobile switched off) – someone from management whose name I didn’t recognize, wanting to know where I was. I was shocked: how long had I been here? Yet when I checked the calendar, everything was in order. I’m on compassionate leave, I told the caller; I still have five days left.

‘Yes,’ he said, in a tone that suggested he knew this already, and then, rather cursorily, ‘I’m sorry.’ The line was silent for what seemed a long time. I wondered if I’d been cut off, or put on hold. Then he said, ‘Claude, we would like to offer you a 50 per cent raise in your salary.’

‘Oh yes?’ I said, confused.

‘I can also offer you a guaranteed bonus,’ he said. He named the amount; it was significant.

‘Oh,’ I said. It took me a moment to realize he was waiting for a reply. ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, mostly so I could get off the line.

‘I’ll courier you over the paperwork right now,’ he said.

It wasn’t until I was on the return flight that I realized what had happened: that BOT believed or feared that I was using my compassionate leave to speak to banks in Paris with a mind to finding a new and better-paid position. I was surprised, but I
didn’t suppose it mattered. The plane began its descent; I saw the black river snaking through the city. Liffey or Lethe? That didn’t matter either. I found I was relieved to get back to Dublin, where even if I wore black every day for a year no one would ask why, where I was free – free to be a
persona ficta
, free to lose myself in the labyrinth of the present. Or maybe I was imprisoned in the present, in the persona; either way I got paid, and the difference seemed of little consequence.

The zombie was right. The next morning the government announces a further bailout for Royal Irish.

The Minister delivers the news from the steps of the Dáil. ‘After a careful study,’ he says, ‘it is clear to us that Royal Irish Bank is of systemic importance. As its failure would have severe consequences for Ireland and Europe, the government commits to meet all of the bank’s present and future capital requirements until liquidity is restored …’

‘What the fuck?’ Ish says. ‘He’s digging out those dirtbags
again
?’

‘Systemic importance, baby,’ Gary McCrum says. ‘Too big to fail.’

‘But the whole point of our report was that it
wasn’t
important,’ Ish says. ‘It’s like he went through it and did the exact opposite of everything we recommended.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first client to do that,’ Gary says.

‘Perhaps he had information that was not made available to us,’ Jurgen says.

‘Or he’s being counterintuitive,’ Kevin suggests.

‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ Jocelyn Lockhart says. ‘Poor bastard, look at him.’

Still gabbling meaningless statistics into the morning sunshine, the Minister’s bleached face is lathered with sweat; the heavy three-piece suit bulges unconvincingly, as if it’s filled with straw.

‘What’s he even doing there?’ Ish says. ‘Why hasn’t he handed over to someone else?’

‘Strategic,’ Gary McCrum says.

‘Nobody without a terminal illness would’ve been able to get
this bailout through,’ Jocelyn Lockhart agrees. ‘But people feel sorry for him.’

A journalist asks the Minister about possible IMF intervention if Ireland’s fortunes continue to decline. The Minister appears irritated. ‘I’ve already made it clear that there will be no third parties …’ But as he speaks, the camera pans to his left and reveals, in the scrum of apparatchiks behind him, the little Portuguese man again.

‘
They’re already here …
’ Jocelyn Lockhart sings.

‘Bullshit,’ Ish says.

‘All over government buildings,’ Jocelyn says. ‘And I heard they’ve booked a whole floor of the Merrion Hotel.’

‘There’s no way IMF’d let him chuck more money at Royal Irish,’ Ish objects. ‘It’s economic suicide.’

The media reaction to the Minister’s announcement is apoplectic, terminal illness notwithstanding. The radio waves are clogged with hard-luck stories deriving from the last wave of cuts: grandmothers and children and chronically ill whose pensions were slashed or whose special-needs assistants were withdrawn or whose care was cancelled overnight by governmental austerity, even as yet more billions flow in decidedly unaustere fashion to the notoriously corrupt bank.

Market reaction is divided: bondholders are glad to hear they will be getting their money, but there is an increasing sense of mystery as to where this money will be coming from. The country’s budget is running at almost a third of GDP, and any appearance of Ireland in the bond market is accompanied by the financial equivalent of an involuntary shudder.

The market is very, very happy, at the same time, about BOT’s takeover of Agron. The incredibly complicated deal, involving literally hundreds of subsidiaries, has been turned around by the Dublin office in record time (the rumour is that three temps were hired just to sign Porter’s name on the contracts). At a stroke, BOT has acquired six thousand new employees, ranged all over
the world, and from the share price it appears the spectacular gamble has paid off.

‘Of course it’s paid off,’ Ish says. ‘The market loves spectacular gambles, it’s all bloody men. It’s the deals that make sense they get pissy about.’

‘What are we going to call ourselves now?’ Kevin says. ‘We can’t really be AgroBOT, can we? Sounds like some kind of android hooligan.’

‘That’s right up the market’s sodding street as well,’ Ish says.

She, however, appears to be the only person in the world with any misgivings. As the days pass, the financial world’s love for Frankensteinian newcomer AgroBOT only grows, and with it our market capitalization. Message boards fizz with conjecture about Porter Blankly’s next innovation, investors battle each other for expensive slivers of the bank’s stock – and for holders of that stock, such as the BOT staff, the boom times, as the Irish premier said back in the days of the Celtic Tiger, are getting even more boomer. In fact, the atmosphere in our tiny bubble increasingly comes to resemble that of the Tiger; that is to say, a certain amount of irrational exuberance becomes noticeable.

‘Evening all.’

‘There’s Kev – whoa, check out Kevin’s watch, everybody!’

‘What – oh, you mean this?’ Diamonds glitter from a panoply of unnecessary dials.

‘Isn’t that the one James Bond wears?’

‘Look out, Russkies! Kevin’s got the James Bond watch!’

‘Aren’t you on a temporary contract?’ Ish says. ‘How could you possibly afford that?’

‘I work for BOT, don’t I? I leveraged my position, that’s all.’

Every evening there is a client presentation or a birthday or a new fat deal to celebrate – and even if there isn’t, I find myself drinking anyway, in Life Bar or somewhere more exclusive. In the past, these outings bored me; now, I am glad to eliminate the
danger of a few hours on my own, to avail myself instead of the city’s many avenues of forgetting.

Tonight we are in the penthouse bar of a boutique hotel, one of the few that managed to survive the crash; a debate is in train over whether a boom or a bust is a better time to be rich, with Brent ‘Crude’ Kelleher arguing that during a boom there are more luxury goods available, a ‘better atmosphere generally’, and, although there is a smaller gap between your wealth and that of others, people slightly less rich than you understand exactly how nice your stuff is. Dave Davison, on the other hand, maintains that luxury is debased by being widely available. ‘That was why the boom was such a nightmare. You couldn’t take a business-class flight without being stuck next to some dishwasher salesman telling you about his 7 Series.’

Jurgen takes us aside to pass on a rumour of another acquisition.

‘Another one?’

Jurgen nods. ‘Porter is looking at asset management firms, also at one of the large clearing businesses.’

‘Didn’t he just buy a bank?’ Ish says. ‘Like, don’t we still have a few payments to make on that?’

‘On the face of it, yes.’ Jurgen lifts off his glasses and polishes them with a handkerchief. ‘It comes back to the strategy of counterintuitiveness. As we are all aware, this has been a great success. However, BOT’s competitors have started to act counterintuitively as well, meaning that we need to be even more counterintuitive, perhaps even to the point of being counter-counterintuitive.’

‘Isn’t that the same as being intuitive?’

‘That is the question we need to answer. Porter has a team of quants working on it as we speak. For now, he believes that relentless and indiscriminate expansion remains the best policy for the bank. Soon we will be established across the system to such a degree that our future will be secured, no matter what.’

‘Unless something counterintuitive happens,’ Ish says, but Jurgen has spotted an ex-colleague and bustled away. She turns back to me, laying her hand on my forearm solicitously. ‘How are you doing tonight, Claude? Are you holding up okay?’

‘I think so,’ I say, surprised. ‘I have only had two drinks.’

‘No, I mean, you know, after your waitress.’

‘Oh, that.’ I feel my heart plummet, like a lift with a snapped cable. ‘I have hardly thought about it.’

‘That’s good,’ she says, but she keeps staring at me sympathetically and patting my arm, as if I were a child with a grazed knee. ‘So what’s Paul got planned for the Story of Claude now?’

‘I have dropped all that,’ I say tersely. ‘It was a silly idea.’

‘Oh, right,’ she says. She makes an oar of her finger, scoops it along the inner rim of her cocktail glass, which is frosted with cream. ‘No, because I just thought, I mean in a book, when the guy’s in love with someone out of his league or whatever and it doesn’t work out, what often happens is he realizes he’s had feelings for someone else all along.’

‘Someone else?’

‘Yeah, except, you know, he only realizes now.’

I give this some thought. ‘Does that happen in books?’

‘It does in the ones I read,’ she says, a little defensively.

‘To me the scenario does not sound plausible. How does he only realize now? Love is not like an illness, gestating in your body before you begin to feel sick. In my experience, if you are in love, you know it straight away.’

‘Yeah, that’s true, I suppose,’ Ish says.

‘Attraction is a conscious thing. If you’re attracted to somebody, you are aware of it.’

‘Right, fair point,’ she says.

‘If you have not thought about this person in that way before, it’s because you are not attracted –’

‘Might just pop up to the bar,’ Ish says, jumping to her feet. ‘You want anything?’

Actually, I might fit in another drink – but she has already gone!

I wait for her to come back, but after a few minutes there is still no sign; however, I notice Kevin signalling me furiously from the balcony and go outside to find Howie, Grisha and two of their initiates from the mysterious ninth floor, Tom Cremins and Brian O’Brien. With the exception of Grisha, all of them are smoking Montecristos – Montecristos are like Skittles in BOT these days. Brian O’Brien has something in his hand, and his body is wound back as if poised to hurl it over the balcony.

‘We’re throwing phones!’ Kevin squeaks at me excitedly.

‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’ the others chorus. With a grunt Brian O’Brien whips his arm forward. The little silver oblong flies out of his hand; we watch it twist in and out of the darkness, like a leaf falling from a tree. Then it is gone, into the depths of the river.

‘A new winner!’ Tom Cremins cheers.

‘Let’s do watches,’ Brian O’Brien says. Kevin suddenly looks alarmed. Fortunately for him, at that very moment a dark shape materializes in the doorway: the Bulgarian, features impassive as runes on a stone.

‘About bloody time,’ Howie says. The two of them disappear inside.

With the game suspended, there is a silence. Clouds of cigar smoke swirl around the balcony like the atmosphere of some toxic planet, masking and unmasking the faces of my former colleagues.

‘So how’s it going?’ I ask. ‘The fund?’

‘We can’t talk to you about that,’ Tom Cremins snaps.

‘Of course, of course.’ Although it has almost the same name, Agron Torabundo Credit Management is a separate entity to the bank, and the border between the two is strictly patrolled. A keypad and an iris-scanner have been mounted at the fund’s door; the lift’s operation has been adjusted so that BOT employees can
no longer go directly from the sixth to the ninth floor, but must instead go to the ground floor first, or take the stairs. ‘But to speak generally – you are happy? You have found investors?’

Tom Cremins and Brian O’Brien exchange a captured-spy look. Heat beats down from the outdoor lamps. Grisha chomps Bombay mix obliviously in the corner; the crunching from his mouth is the only sound.

‘Fund’s doing great, Crazy Frog.’ Howie’s back, visibly rejuvenated by his meeting with the Bulgarian. He stoops to relight his cigar; smoke seethes from the corners of his mouth, curls back over his head. ‘Thirty million in investment already, client meetings coming out our assholes, all dying to give us two million minimum stake and a commitment to fuck off and leave us alone to make money for them.’

‘Hmm, but it is a hard time to launch a new fund, no?’ I suggest. ‘With the market so volatile, so much risk …’

Howie tokes on his cigar. Behind him Tom and Brian stand tensed, as if waiting for the word to fall on me and beat me senseless. ‘Real risk has nothing to do with volatility,’ Howie says. ‘Real risk is stupid investing decisions. Model we’re using, every time someone does something stupid, we make a profit. So we’re doing pretty well.’

‘What is your model, Howie?’ Kevin asks, wide-eyed. ‘Is it counterintuitive?’

‘Come up with two million euro and we’ll tell you,’ Tom Cremins says, but Howie checks him with a half-lifted hand. He gazes at Kevin a moment; a thousand tiny fires seem to burn in his fragmented irises. Kevin gulps, and hops nervously up and down, like a flea at a job interview.

‘I suppose you could say that,’ Howie says, going to the little table and pouring a whiskey for me, then another for himself. ‘Your traditional hedge funds exist to make money in poorly performing markets, so as far as that goes, we’re a hedge fund. But we’d be taking more of a radical line. The way we see it,
investment, in the conventional sense of the word, is finished. Look at the last ten years. We’ve had a technology crash, a housing crash, not to mention a financial crash that nearly sent the world back to the Stone Age. Oil, gold collapsing, Europe coming apart, even the Swiss franc can’t be trusted. Where does the smart man invest if investment doesn’t work any more? What’s the one reliable area of growth in the twenty-first century?’

‘Technology?’ Kevin says.

‘Inequality,’ I say.

‘Bingo.’ Howie wags his cigar at me. ‘You know what the Gini coefficient is, Junior?’

‘It’s, ah, what they use to measure the gap,’ Kevin stammers. ‘Between rich and poor.’

‘Right. And it’s going through the roof. From our undead friends over there’ – he tilts his glass at the zombie encampment across the river, where dim lights with coloured halos shine from inside the tents – ‘you’ll know that a tiny number of very rich people, including fat-cat bankers like us, are sucking up a bigger and bigger percentage of the wealth. And that gap will continue to widen, because with all our extra capital we go and buy up all the assets, so that for instance when Chang working down there in Spar needs somewhere to live, he has to rent his house from me, meaning that I’m getting most of his wages too.’ He pauses, puffs on his cigar; the coal glows brazier-bright, everything around it seeming to grow commensurately darker. ‘Now, provided you’re me and not Chang, that’s good news. But if you
are
Chang, then not only is your slice of the pie shrinking, but there are also more and more Changs trying to get a bite of it. Every year there’s another hundred million people on the planet, and that is making things very fucking volatile. Look at all this trouble in Oran. We’re told it’s Islamic fundamentalists. But the real reason is there’s been a baby boom, followed by a famine. These people haven’t been able to feed their children in six months. No wonder they’re getting cranky. And this is just the start. As
populations rise, as resources dwindle, as infrastructure’s destroyed by hostile climates, we’re going to see some really needy folks out there. And that need – not oil, not weapons, not food, even, but
need
– that right there is the last reliable asset.’