The Money Makers (23 page)

‘Yes. I don’t mind. Sorry. I must be in your way a lot. Perhaps I should roll my bed away in the mornings.’

‘Do you want to come upstairs?’

Val was looking directly at him, the colour high on her cheeks.

‘There’s no space is there? I thought-’

‘George, if you want, you can sleep with me. I’d like to sleep with you.’

George was speechless, but it wasn’t speech that was called for. He became aware of his body and its desire for Val. Her warmth and strength made sense to him, welcome after the long months of loneliness, the long aching nights spent on the seat of his car, the floor of his van, a mattress on his secretary’s floor. He looked at her, meeting her gaze and smiling.

‘Yes, Val,’ he said, putting his hand to her cheek. I’d like that, I really would.’

They walked upstairs and did what people do when their bellies are full and their work is done. Next morning, George rolled up his bed in the living room and put it away for ever.

4

The results of the trading game were announced in a monotone, an unemotional roll call of destiny. Petersen, Onsley, Schiffer, Takako had all done well. Schiffer was impassive, Petersen and Takako were pleased, Karen Onsley split by a grin so broad it threatened structural damage.

‘Sophie Clemenceau.’

Sitting beside Matthew, Sophie looked as beautiful and calm as ever, the madonna of the trading floor, the brown-haired beauty Matthew was still learning to appreciate. He looked sideways at her, taking in her untroubled face, her perfect skin, the sweet curl of her ears. He was Adam in the Garden of Eden, taking his last look at perfection.

‘Sophie Clemenceau.’ Her result was read out. It was appalling. Not one of the very lowest, but bad enough that it marked her out as a loser, bad enough to cost her her job.

‘ Non!’
she cried.

She started from her seat. The trading slips were in boxes, filed by trader. Sophie seized her stack of slips and, under the eyes of the class, searched among them till she found what she wanted. It was the blank trading slip she’d signed and given to Matthew. It was blank no more. The ticket was filled out with the details of the trade that had blown her away, broken her bank, stolen her job. It was only a piece of paper, but it felt like a dagger through her heart, a dagger set there by the man she’d loved.

She stared wildly at Matthew. Colour left her face, her mouth and eyes wide open in an impossible question. Her look implored him, begged the world to be other than it was, but the evidence was unmistakable. Without collecting her things, with one last agonising look at her betrayer, she ran from the room.

Matthew should have been elated. His own result would be read out in a moment. It would be stupendous. Better than Petersen’s, better than Schiffer’s, better than Onsley’s, better than Takako’s. It was his passport to the Madison trading floor, another milestone on the road to his father’s fortune. But, far from being elated, Matthew was scarcely able to breathe. By a trick of lovers’ magic, the dagger he had thrust into Sophie’s heart now pierced his own. She wouldn’t forgive him. She couldn’t. He couldn’t even ask her to. He had won what he most wanted, and lost what he held most dear. It was too late to wonder if the bargain was a good one.

He was never to see or hear from Sophie again.

5

Zack found Sarah at a table already strewn with champagne glasses. This was the John Peel Ball, an annual get-together for the sons and daughters of the British aristocracy. This year, the ball was at Syon House, a stately home juddering beneath the Heathrow flight paths, but set in gardens a developer would kill for. Like the other women, Sarah was dressed in pearls and a ball gown, hers a billowing concoction in red taffeta.

‘Sarah! You look fantastic.’

‘Zack! Hi! Thanks. Lovely to see you. Everybody, this is Zack Gradley, an old friend of mine from college. Zack, this is Charlotte . ..’

Sarah sat him next to Charlotte, who said she was dead impressed by him being an investment banker. ‘I’m just a nursery-school teacher, I’m afraid,’ she admitted, though her accent told Zack as surely as her diamonds, that she didn’t depend on her salary to scrape by. Zack struggled to make conversation and stay polite.

Sarah watched him. In the old days, Zack would have made a scene. He’d have upset Charlotte and, when he had her in tears, he’d have stormed off and had a row with Sarah when they were alone. But that was then. This time he was on his best behaviour. He struggled on until Sarah rescued him.

‘Charlotte, do you know Dominic? Apparently you were in the same pony club as his sister.’ Charlotte went off to squeak about horses with Dominic. ‘How are you getting on, Zack?’

‘OK, I think. Charlotte seemed nice.’

‘Yes, isn’t she?’ Sarah paused. She was wondering whether to trust him with her fiancé, then impulsively hauled him to another part of the table, adding, ‘You haven’t met Robert yet, have you? Robert, this is Zack Gradley.’

Robert Leighton was just exactly as Zack had imagined him. Solidly built, a bit short, a bit red in the face, decent enough looking. Zack felt he already knew everything there was to be known about him. Eton. Farming college. A big house and an estate somewhere in the West Country. The intellectual curiosity of a horse. The commercial nous of a leg of mutton. Zack used to tell Sarah she would marry someone like this. The two men shook hands.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Leighton affably. ‘I’ve heard all about you, as they say.’

‘Not all good things, I expect. I was pretty disagreeable at times.’

‘All water under the bridge now, eh? Couldn’t have been that bad if you’re still friends.’

Zack shrugged and Sarah smiled. It had been that bad. Much of the time, it had been worse than bad. Even now, they weren’t sure they were friends. The evening was an experiment, a dangerous one, with the possibility of a sudden bang. Leighton noticed nothing amiss and continued.

‘Sarah tells me you’re one of these high-powered banking whizz kids. Don’t understand a thing about it myself. Terribly impressive, though.’

‘Not at all. It’s as dull as everyone thinks. But I should congratulate you. It’s a lucky man who marries Sarah.’ Zack’s lips smiled, but his hand curled round a tube in his pocket. The way he planned it, luck wouldn’t come into it.

‘Yes, she’s terrific, isn’t she? Don’t know what she sees in me. Ha, ha.’

Sarah drifted away. She let her ex-lover and her future husband talk, but stayed close enough to keep an eye on them. Robert Leighton was pleasant and dull. He would chase hounds, throw house parties, attend balls, manage his estates, and grow ever redder in the face until he dropped dead. Zack knew that Sarah wanted that lifestyle. She had been born to it and loved it.

But was it enough? Zack didn’t think so.
As
Leighton’s wife, Sarah would divide her time between throwing parties and breeding children. She was worth more than that. She was clever. She had a decent career. And she had once belonged to Zack.

Dinner was a crab mousse wrapped in slivers of Scottish smoked salmon, followed by Welsh lamb chops with all the trimmings, and a choice of puddings-either summer fruits in a red wine jelly, or a treacle sponge with
crème anglaise.
The caterers had underestimated the appetite of English public schoolboys for heavy puddings, and only the summer fruits were left by the time the waitresses reached Zack’s table. Robert Leighton was deeply disappointed and sent one of the waitresses off in search of a spare treacle sponge, then started praising the lumpy Bird’s Eye custard they’d had at Eton. Sarah admonished him, but she’d have done better to get used to it, thought Zack. If Robert Leighton were cut open, they’d probably find treacle sponge. Zack was jealous. Jealous but prepared.

As
the port came round, Zack knocked Robert’s glass, caught it and restored it to its owner. Robert Leighton drank it happily. Twenty milligrams of powdered melatonin doesn’t taste of much, not even to palates more sensitive than Leighton’s.

The evening wore on. Balls are not as they used to be. No waltzes. No dance cards. No debutantes waiting modestly for a chap to appear from the throng, bow from the neck, and beg the honour of a dance. The string quartets have given way to rock music. A couple of live bands in one hall competed noisily with a DJ playing Oasis, Verve and Madonna in another. The dancers were enthusiastic but incompetent. Elsewhere, bouncy castles, tarot readings, fire-eaters, hypnotists and comedians destroyed any lingering resemblance to the gracious balls of old. The flower of England’s aristocracy swarmed around like kiddies in a cake shop.

Zack danced for a while with Sarah, Robert Leighton and a few of the others. He was a hopeless dancer and he hated it, but no one else was any better. Leighton complained of feeling queasy and went out to get some air. Zack, Sarah and two of the other girls went along to watch the hypnotist. One of the girls was tempted to go up as a volunteer, but Sarah, who had seen him perform elsewhere, restrained her. They left just as the hypnotist was getting his volunteers to imagine themselves in bed with a blow-up doll of Prince Charles.

As they walked away, Zack caught Sarah’s arm. The soft touch of her skin jolted him. Once she had been his and his alone. He wasn’t sure he loved her, but his body craved her. He kept his voice steady and pleasant.

‘Any chance of a stroll in the garden? Just to clear our heads before the next act.’

The next act was Wulf the Regurgitator.

‘Yes, alright,’ said Sarah, looking at him sideways, trying to read him, deciding to risk it. ‘We haven’t had a proper talk for ages.’

‘I’m not sure we’ve ever had one. Not unless you count our rows or our sex. My fault, probably.’

‘That’s very sweet of you. I hope you’re not going to go and turn over a new leaf.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’re all set up now.’

‘Yes. Rob’s nice, isn’t he? I’m pleased you two met.’

‘Yes. Yes, he is nice, really. Congratulations.’

Sarah looked hard at Zack. Her gaze asked what her voice couldn’t. Zack answered her.

‘Well, OK. I think you’re much brighter than him. I think you have a real opportunity to do well at Coburg’s. I don’t know what happens to that part of you when you marry him. But I don’t mean to criticise. I completely failed to make you happy, and if Robert can do it then so much the better for him.’

Sarah didn’t reply immediately. She turned and walked away from the brightly lit rooms into an avenue of towering plane trees. Zack walked beside her, shoes crunching in the gravel. They walked for a moment in silence.

‘No, you did make me happy,’ said Sarah after a pause. ‘It’s just that you drove me mad as well. I couldn’t live with that. Robert is – I don’t know - milkier than you. He’s no superbrain, but he likes what I like and he admires me and loves me. Ours is hardly a love without compromise, but what relationship is?’

She looked at him as though genuinely wanting an answer.

‘Don’t look to me for advice,’ laughed Zack. ‘You were the only woman who’s ever mattered to me and look what happened there. My track record’s a lot worse than yours.’

‘And you’re not famous for your ability to compromise.’

‘No.’

She was needling him, to see if he would react. He mustn’t. He turned and went on walking. In the distance behind them, pop music wailed and boomed. Coloured lights spilled from the crowded rooms, painting the mild night-time air.

‘Thanks, Zack. I was so worried you’d make a scene tonight, and now I feel mean for worrying. I never thought you could be so sweet.’

Just then, from the darkness in front of them, a woman came running. She wore a dress of midnight blue trimmed with velvet and black lace. She was crying and running. One of her shoes was missing and her dress was tom at the sleeve. She sobbed and ran, her one remaining shoe causing her to lurch as she sobbed.

She passed them. Sarah started to walk forwards faster. Zack followed. Beneath a tree, there was a glimmer of white. Sarah started to run. The white patch resolved itself into the shape of a man’s starched shirt. The man was Robert Leighton.

He was fast asleep, breathing with a thunderous snore.

His flies were undone and his trousers partly lowered. On the ground beside him there was a woman’s shoe. In his right hand, tightly clenched, there was a small scrap of fabric, black lace trimmed with velvet. He stank of alcohol.

Sarah’s face emptied. She made no move towards her snoring fiancé. There was nothing to say. Zack let her watch for a moment, then pulled her away.

‘I’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘I’ll speak to the medical staff on the way out and get someone to check on him.’ He put his arm round her and she went with him, unresisting. Through the black cloth of his dinner jacket, he could feel her bare shoulders rising and falling in heavy sobs. His hand wanted to move inwards, to feel the skin on her neck, to touch her properly once again.

But it was too soon.

They took a taxi home. Zack took her door key and let them both into her flat. She insisted on undressing by herself, but when she had finished, he put her to bed with a mug of cocoa. He hung her dress up and found a hot-water bottle from somewhere. Sarah weakly smiled her thanks, but Zack brushed them aside. Neither of them said anything about what had happened.