by Monica Ali
‘Fine, fine. Take a look at the sketches, that’s all I ask.’
‘How about we get my wife to design the menus?’ said Rolly. ‘How about we get a Chinese Elvis for Monday nights, try and pull in the crowds?’
‘OK, steady,’ said Fairweather, smiling. ‘Interior design happens to be a passion of hers.’
‘I’ve seen plenty of mugs open restaurants with passions,’ said Rolly. ‘This operation’s about money, it’s not about dreams.’ Gabriel nodded and Rolly closed the folder and slid it back over the table. ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘what do people dream about? Money, mostly. Getting rich.’
‘Yes, oh yes,’ said Fairweather, ‘everybody wants to live like a king.’ He didn’t appear the least bit put out by the knock-back, believing – most likely – he would get his way in the end.
‘No they don’t. They want to live like celebrities.’ Rolly, on principle it seemed, disagreed whenever possible, even where the difference of opinion was wafer-thin.
‘We want to live like celebrities,’ said Fairweather, ‘because we’re worth it, as the ads say.’
Rolly’s tropical shirt, Gabe noted, had garnered a certain amount of interest among the ash and charcoal suits. ‘My son,’ said Rolly, oblivious, ‘he’s seventeen. Guess what kind of car he wants. Expects me to buy it for him, of course. Teenagers. You been near one recently? Heard how they talk? I keep saying, Steven, we don’t live in Kingston, Jamaica, this is Kingston KT1.’
‘It’s this footballers’ wives society, isn’t it?’ said Fairweather. ‘It does, I’m afraid to say, encourage greed.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Rolly, raising his fat pink hands. ‘Greed is a fundamental of human nature. It’s hard-wired.’ In his own way, Rolly was quite as keen as Oona on taking people’s lives out of their hands. Between God and genetics there seemed to be little room for manoeuvre, for a life you could call your own.
‘Absolutely,’ chimed Fairweather, ‘and so easy for the advertisers to manipulate.’
‘You politicians love to think you can change things by meddling. Biology is destiny, that’s what you can’t accept.’
‘Keeps my feet on the ground,’ said Fairweather to Gabe.
‘You know there’s a gene for generosity?’ said Rolly. ‘Put that in your social-engineering pipe and smoke it. Yeah, they’ve just found it, some researchers in Israel. Most of us are greedy, a few of us are generous – the ones with a rare variant in the AVPR1 gene. It’s a mutation, an abnormality, like being born with a club foot, eleven fingers, three nipples – nothing you should blame yourself for.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Fairweather. ‘But we’ll never be able to understand all our impulses, don’t you think?’
They batted on, back and forth, forgetting to draw Gabriel in. Gabe, quietly observing, saw afresh what a peculiar couple they made. It was touching, in a way.
‘Sorry to butt in,’ said Gabriel. ‘I think we should go down to Alderney Street, finalize the design brief on-site.’
Rolly began negotiating his way back into his coat. ‘I’ve got to run,’ he said, though given his size and habitual gait he seemed unlikely to attempt it. ‘You can have my input now – keep it cheap. My daughter’s going to university, expects me to buy her a flat. Geraldine’s having a new kitchen, maybe it’s made of gold, wouldn’t surprise me, you should see the cost. I wouldn’t mind – ’ He shook his head and blinked. ‘I wouldn’t mind if she knew how to cook.’
Fairweather and Gabriel traversed Victoria Gardens as, across the river skyline, the day gathered itself brightly in a pink and silver band and then promptly expired. They continued in the gloom along Millbank, past stolid, granite-faced buildings, on the walk from Westminster to Pimlico.
Gabe fired a Marlboro Light.
‘Ah, I didn’t know you …’
‘Since I went up to Blantwistle,’ said Gabe. ‘Going to the old pubs with my sister, the old habits. Giving up again soon.’
‘The evil weed,’ said Fairweather vaguely. ‘Now, Blantwistle. Blantwistle … haven’t I had something across my desk recently? Name rings a bell.’
‘In fact,’ said Gabe, ‘no time like the present.’ He tossed the cigarette in the gutter and the rest of the pack in a bin.
‘Ah, yes! There was something, a closure. Last mill standing – about to close its doors. Don’t suppose it’ll make the news – it used to, that sort of thing.’
‘My dad worked in a mill,’ said Gabriel. ‘Worked in the same place all his life.’
‘Really?’ said Fairweather, his cheeks glowing with contentment as befitted, on this sharp dark evening, the owner of a cashmere overcoat and few self-doubts. ‘How marvellous.’
‘Must be Hortons,’ said Gabe, ‘the one that’s closing.’
‘Like to keep up with this sort of thing in the department. Though there’s nothing we can do, of course.’
Gabe regretted throwing the cigarettes away. That had been rash. He rammed his hands into his pockets. ‘Dad thinks the economy’s going to pieces.’ He laughed. ‘He’s watched that industry go down the pan. He doesn’t understand about new jobs being created. If he doesn’t see the factory, bricks and mortar, he can’t understand.’
‘We’ve a first-rate record on employment,’ said Fairweather in his finest broadcast voice.
‘Dad, the way he talks, it’s like we’re in the middle of a recession.’
‘Bless him, no,’ said Fairweather. ‘The economy is very, very strong, as the chancellor keeps telling us.’
Gabriel glanced over, detecting, perhaps, an ironic note. Fairweather swept at his fringe although it was already blowing back in the wind.
‘He says it’s a house of cards. Dad, I mean.’
‘It’s difficult, isn’t it, from where he’s standing, not to see it that way?’
‘What do you think, though?’ It wasn’t every day you could get official confirmation – from the lips of a member of Her Majesty’s government – that your father was definitely, definitively, wrong.
‘We all stand somewhere,’ mused Fairweather.
Gabriel laughed. ‘Are politicians born, or made?’
Fairweather hooted. ‘We’re biologically determined in the womb.’
‘And you’ve avoided answering my question.’
‘What’s bred in the bone,’ said Fairweather. ‘Don’t we go right here?’ They turned on to a residential street. ‘Spend too damn long talking to journalists,’ he went on, dropping out of broadcast mode. ‘Here’s what I think,’ he said, speaking quickly. ‘There are two stories you can tell about the economy. You’ve only got to pick up a few newspapers, read some of the pundits – they all think they’re being original, naturally, but there’s only a couple of versions, slightly differently told. The first story will be the one your father prefers. The economy lacks substance – we’ve lost our manufacturing base, and the new industries don’t compensate, as witnessed by our rather enormous trading deficit. In this narrative you bring the Germans into it. You say, look at them, with their Vorsprung durch Technik, all their cars and washing machines and their record trade surplus. You say, Japan, my God! Where are our Sonys and Panasonics, our Mitsubishis? Don’t you know how much they’re selling to China? You take a list of countries and tell pretty much the same tale. Pick a Scandinavian country, mention mobile phones. The States? Computers, aircraft, movies. You get the gist.’ Fairweather spoke faster, impatient for the words to keep up with the thoughts. With his guard down, he’d let the easy-going manner slide. He’d lost the choirboy look. ‘Then, what you do, you say the British economy is hollow, it’s a reed blowing in the wind, singing a pretty tune. It’s a wooden man who’s hollow, and when he goes up in flames he’s going to burn up pretty fast because there’s nothing solid there. Bang on a bit about the City, and the housing market creating a lopsided economy, and property speculation fuelling consumer credit. Make it sound as combustible as you can. Imply the whole country’s turned into a derivatives market, a billio
n and one trades a day, none of them real. Say we’re one gigantic casino spinning speculators’ money, while asset-stripping vultures shred company pension schemes and turn the few remaining factories into luxury flats and shopping malls.
‘But there’s another story, a different kind of reality, if you like. Tell it like this. Say the economy is booming because the economy is in good shape. Anyone who says otherwise is a masochist, an idiot, or downright envious. Say that we’re into “sunrise” industries. Use the words “knowledge economy” and “creative economy”. Throw in accountancy, insurance, advertising, banking; mention it’s minds not muscles that are required, and don’t forget to say we’re producing more graduates than ever before. Imply that the new Gods of Commerce are easily insulted and if we fail to appease them daily they will vanish into the sky. Finish by saying that it’s an actual fact that we’re all better off than ever before.’
‘OK,’ said Gabe, ‘you can give two different answers. I accept that. But which one do you believe?’
‘You’re asking the wrong question,’ Fairweather shot back. ‘The answer’s no use if the question’s wrong.’
‘What would the right question be?’
‘Can you ride it?’ said Fairweather. ‘Can you ride it, whatever it is? That’s what you should be asking. It’s what you should be asking yourself.’
‘Make money, you mean? That’s what you intend to do when you get out of politics?’
Fairweather didn’t seem to hear him. They walked a little way in silence through the trim, deserted streets. Every time he walked through Pimlico in the evening, Gabriel had the same thought. Where did everyone go? They were residential streets without residents. Was there a curfew? Had everyone died? Were there any survivors who, when it finally opened, would eat in the restaurant?
‘I think,’ said Fairweather quietly, ‘that private equity will be my thing.’
‘I bet,’ returned Gabe, ‘that when you first joined the Labour Party, you never thought you’d end up … on the other side of the spectrum, I suppose.’
‘That left-right dichotomy,’ said Fairweather dismissively. ‘No, that’s totally broken down. Or you can be leftwing, so-called, and be as rich as you want, rich as you can get, anyway. You know, have the right books on your bookshelves, about poverty and globalization, and still shop at Prada – it’s all about style. Look at these pop stars, the way they do it. It’s not even considered hypocritical any more. No, I don’t think I have a problem there. We’re all entranced by money, that’s the truth of it. Dazzled, if you like.’ The longer he spoke the faster he spoke, and the faster he spoke the more precisely he spoke, the words cleanly and finely diced.
‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘pop stars are small fry. They only think they run the world. And the ones who really do aren’t quite so keen on publicity. I’ll tell you …’ He broke off for a moment to check a text. ‘I’ll tell you what’s so difficult about being in office. You’re right there with them, these turbo-capitalists, these Genghis Khans of the money markets, and you think, I’m supposed to be the one with the power. And what am I earning? Ninety thousand a year.
‘And then, I’ve seen it with colleagues, they start to think, what’s another ten thousand here or there? It’s peanuts. Have you seen what those guys earn? And they get caught, like—’ He named another minister. ‘Fudging the second home allowance, claiming a few extra expenses, putting a family member on the payroll when they’ve never set foot in the House. Well, it’s not much, they think. Nothing to get excited about.’ Fairweather laughed, short and dry, not his usual honk. ‘That’s where their thinking is faulty. It’s exactly because it’s not much they get in trouble for it. These are amounts that people can understand and they’re infuriated because they could do with another ten grand a year. And it may be out of their reach, but only just. Only just.
‘But the Genghis Khans, they’re a different story. People don’t understand what they do. Neither do I, for that matter. Try saying “hedge fund” and watch people fall into a coma. More importantly, the amounts they earn are incomprehensible. When the numbers get so large they become meaningless, like the number of cells in the human body, or the distance between one galaxy and the next.’
‘So people don’t care?’ said Gabe.
‘It’s disconnected. It’s off the planet. May as well be happening on Mars.’
‘But they’re the wealth creators, aren’t they? I mean for the economy, job creation, things like that.’
‘Oh, we’re supremely relaxed about it in government,’ said Fairweather, a laid-back drag returning to his voice, ‘supremely relaxed.’ He came to a halt. ‘Did we miss the turn?’
The two men turned round simultaneously, rotating one to the left and one to the right, and each continued on his trajectory so that they caught each other face to face in the middle of the street and stood there silent and frozen as if automatically locked-on to target, waiting out a few long moments before Fairweather engaged the manual override. ‘No, I think it’s the next one,’ he said, stepping back.
Gabriel could not move. In that instant he was filled with a dread so physical that he was at once paralysed and in fear of collapse. Fairweather was talking still, as if from a far distant place. Gabe wanted something to hang on to, something hard and real, so that this wave of fear would not sweep him clean away. It had already ripped out his stomach, an ice wind through his body, and he would cover the hole if only his hand would move. What was it? What was wrong with him? If he knew, if he could name it, then everything would be fine. Was this a dream? It must be. If not a dream then why not move, speak, laugh, cry? Anything to break this lockdown. He was sleeping, he was dreaming, there was nothing to be frightened of.
He was dreaming, he noted, almost coolly, in black and white, in shades of grey with an occasional splash of red. The brick of the Georgian terraces opposite was grey; the windowsills painted white and the railings shiny black. A woman appeared from behind a black front door dressed in a pillar-box coat. Two magpies tumbled together across the road, chased off by a black car. A red car would follow, he predicted, and sure enough, there it was. A black cat slunk behind the railings, with something in its mouth. It crept up the stairs and through a cat flap, after a little fussing, figuring out how to push the blackbird inside. The sage bushes in the smart planters quivered and the fragrance of the silver-grey leaves reached his nostrils, and he thought of what a wonderful herb it was, how underrated, and how he would never overlook it again.
‘Chef,’ said Fairweather. ‘Chef?’
‘I was just … I was …’
‘Seen a ghost?’
‘Thinking,’ said Gabe. ‘I was thinking …’ The blood that had frozen in his body began to flow again.
Fairweather touched Gabe’s arm. ‘You know, I was thinking myself. I was thinking I’ve finally done it. I’ve literally bored someone rigid. Talked at you until you were stiff as a board.’
‘No,’ said Gabe. ‘Oh, no. I was interested, I am interested, it’s good to … I enjoy … sometimes, it’s a low blood sugar thing, and if I was … if it seemed like I wasn’t listening … no, oh no, it’s not often that I get a chance … with work, and everything. No, I like …’ They were walking along again. Gabe paused to try to pull a sentence together. They had been talking about the economy, about jobs, before he’d fazed out for a minute or two.
‘Quite understandable,’ said Fairweather, though even Gabe in his current state was capable of recognizing this as an untruth.
Gabriel breathed deeply. He told himself he felt completely fine again. It seemed to help. ‘Wealth creation, we were just saying, all the new jobs that have opened up.’
‘We politicians,’ said Fairweather, reverting to his usual tone, a smooth blend of humility and utter self-belief. ‘I’m afraid we do tend to love the sound of our own voices.’
‘I wanted to hear your thoughts.’
‘We have our own job creation scheme now, don’t we?’ said Fairw
eather. ‘Eight employees at the start.’
Gabe looked at Fairweather. It was amazing, it really was, how he could flick some kind of switch and change. He had gone into full politician mode. It wasn’t just his voice, it was everything; the way he held his body, the expression in his eyes, the attenuation of sharpness, like a sauce that has been thickened with butter and cream.
‘And it’s a gastronomic desert round here,’ Fairweather continued. ‘There’s nowhere to go. There’s a population that’s not being served – it’s why the streets are so quiet. Then there’ll be the Westminster crowd.’
But everyone, thought Gabe, must do it. Wasn’t he a different person when he was in the kitchen with Oona or Victor, or out with Charlie (don’t think about her) or in Blantwistle with Dad? Gleeson always brought out the worst in him, and Lena, well … how could he begin to account for himself?
‘Actually,’ said Gabe, the words coming out more aggressively than he’d intended, ‘I’m quite capable of discussing things on a broader level. I can get my head out of the cooking pot now and then.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Fairweather. He looked Gabe up and down and appeared to come to some kind of conclusion. ‘Look, what do you want to know? It’s a matter of interpretation. There is no gospel truth, off the record and between the two of us. There are more people in employment now than when we were elected. I guess that’s indisputable; the rest is up for grabs.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning what do you prefer to emphasize? I could say that the financial sector is thriving or I could say there’s around a million white-collar drones inputting data and answering phones. Of course the Opposition would bang on about how many more foreigners we’ve got filling jobs in construction and agriculture and catering and how there’s a pool of unemployed and virtually unemployable Brits.’
‘There’s a lot of xenophobia about,’ said Gabe.
‘Don’t doubt it,’ said Fairweather. ‘Listen, what happened about that porter chap of yours in the end? The one who died? Did you find out any more about it? Was it one of those bonded labour situations, living in the cellars, desperate to pay off his debts?’