by Neil Rowland
“All right, just a drop, as you are offering,” Clive agreed, thinking that whiskey would maybe help.
“Take advantage of the world’s goods. Your precious metals aren’t going to last forever.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” Clive said.
“Consume them, while you can still extract them. Make sure the Chinese haven’t stuffed them all into their overcoats. There’s an ice bucket in the left cabinet, if you look.”
He tried to snap the steel trap of his elbow joint.
“Yes, rather hot today isn’t it. Warming up nicely anyway.”
“You have air-conditioning,” Clive reminded him.
“You don’t feel comfortable at Winchurch Brothers; do you Clive...not any more. The old chap with his rather touching, if hilarious attachment to his slutty daughter... while we are talking of hot and sticky situations,” he chuckled darkly.
“As far as I can remember, which isn’t very much,” Clive said. The inability to recall made him perspire even more.
“No, something has fucked with your head. You need to understand your place, Clive,” replied the gentleman. His voice was changed electronically, Clive understood - disguised - before it came to him.
“So who am I talking to?” he stated.
“Excellent whiskey though Clive, isn’t it. It’s from my own distillery in the Highlands. Such potency from absolute purity.”
“I can taste the quality of course,” Clive agreed.
“Only the best for you City boys and girls, am I right. I can see that you are a young man with nice vices,” remarked the gentleman.
“Is that the right?” Clive replied, bristling. “On what basis would this be?”
“Pour yourself another one. There’s time, I can assure you, before we are done here.”
Whiskey tackled the stress of recent experiences, although it only exacerbated his thirst, which was flaming up. Despite this luxury and the sumptuousness of his seat, Clive was feeling understandably on edge. Dark glass surfaces hemmed him in on all sides.
“Now you can explain what this is all about?” Clive suggested.
“You have to be wondering,” he agreed.
“Does this refer to my work?”
“You focus too much on your job, Mr Pitt. You fucking obsess.”
“Sometimes I can agree with you,” said Clive.
“You have to squeeze the tit of life. Get as much as you can!”
“Maybe I need a change,” Clive admitted, taking another sip from the glass. “Offer my services elsewhere.”
“Excellent, that’s the spirit!”
The drink was doing a bit of talking, but Pitt liked what it was saying. He’d wanted to discuss the shortcomings of his employment for a long time. Unfortunately at this point he couldn’t recall what they were. “I’m up to here with everything at Winchurch Brothers at the moment,” he added, for effect.
“Right, Clive! Variety is the spice of life. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Particularly that pompous little prick at the top table, huh?”
“So you have a job proposal here? Some useful information for me?” he wondered.
“This is much more interesting,” said the gentleman, with warm confidence.
“Maybe you are a scout?” Clive said.
“I definitely have a strong interest in you,” he returned.
“If you have a proposal, then I need to know your name...and who you work for?” Clive pressed.
“I don’t work for anybody. I only work for my fucking self. I could be the devil as far as you know. I am the devil to you... or your nemesis...your destroyer at least. Kill before you are killed. Well, that’s among the many other names, not to mention nicknames,” he said, “and other unflattering names.”
Ice did a dance into Clive’s lap. His whiskey didn’t look so good soaked into a trouser leg. “If you’re trying to scare me mate, then you’ve done a good job.”
“You’re not going to piss your pants are you, Clive? That would be a shame to spoil them.”
“All right, mate... now you’ve had your fun, let me out of here,”
“Keep calm in a stressful situation Mr Pitt. Don’t you enjoy chatting to the devil... the devil in the details? I understand that my publicity has been atrocious.”
“What kind of unhinged maniac are you?” Clive demanded.
There was dark laughter from behind. “A devious devil, that’s me, Clive. From when I was a brilliant little chap, barely an evil idea had crossed my almost innocent mind.”
“You’re the biggest head-case I’ve come across,” Clive insisted.
“You’re still a relative innocent yourself, aren’t you?”
“Yes, you’re doing a brilliant job at scaring people. That must have something to do with impressive props and a bass voice. Looks as if you’ve got a little synthesiser rigged up there...if I’m not mistaken.”
“Evil geniuses should be entitled to a little style,” he retorted.
“Is that right? So you hired the limo to give me a shock?” Pitt wondered.
“Why should I hire anything, apart from people?”
“OK, mate, let’s hear your proposal and then let me out.”
“Agreed Clive. As my driver promised, we shall return you where we picked you up...to the exact paving stone,” he promised.
“If you don’t mind, as I’ve duties and responsibilities.”
“Then you’ll find that the fun and games start for you. That is one of the little charms of my powers. You still have some work to do for me. You still have to appreciate my dark arts. It must come as a bit of a shock. It always does,” the gentleman told him. “I was always the boss. I was always pulling the strings, you see.”
“OK, as you like, you fire away! Then we can get this over with!”
“Fix yourself another drink. You spilt the last one,” he observed.
“But I don’t want another drink,” Clive replied.
“Suit yourself, Mr Pitt. Didn’t you see the benefits of alcoholism on your working classes? How could the polite people run their own estates and affairs, without booze, Pitt? What are the people offered these days? It is more complicated,” mused the synthetic voice.
Even while these tones came from behind him, Pitt couldn’t turn around to investigate. He continued to look rigidly ahead, and the tinted thick glass was impenetrable. Even if this was some kind of nutcase here, it was not the type of nutcase he wanted to encounter.
“Presumably you’re super-rich or mafia... you’re having fun with me. Not working for a living is your way of keeping occupied.”
“Don’t fool yourself, Clive, because the super-rich have plenty to do in these times. We’re at the top of the pyramid, a smart little band, even after the pyramid has crumbled under our feet.”
“I would rather be the guy I am, than some fruitcake in a stretch limo, going about the streets of London in a hearse, describing himself as the devil,” Clive replied.
There was electronic laughter in bass tones. “Why didn’t you join our party? You were lucky enough to be introduced. Were you too fucking dim to see that? Shouldn’t you know that, if you are so brilliant? No wonder you are taking your crumbs of comfort, in the face of oblivion.”
“Do I know you? Should I know you?”
“Should you?”
“It’s true that I feel lost at the moment,” Clive agreed.
“But you are lost, Clive, my big beautiful young man. Your time has already been appointed,” he said.
“You can seriously be fired for talking crap.”
“Now you are really having a laugh, aren’t you?”
“So you play your game. Let’s finish it soon.”
“Your notion of the game is fascinating to me.
An arrogant techie like you probably knows how it works! How very amusing and pretentious these ideas can be. The universe really operates on an even sillier principle, similar to a game of tiddly winks.”
“Tiddly winks?” Clive retorted.
“Yes, that’s right, tiddly winks,” he chuckled. “A charming little British game, a legacy from your old empire, I think... which shows moral seriousness, in this fallen universe! The Royal family play this game while they are sitting on their thrones, I can assure you.”
“This is definitely a wind up,” Clive argued.
“How does that sound to you? The truth is usually ridiculous, Pitt.”
“Look, I have to return to my desk. Just drop me, will you? So I can get out of this mean-machine of yours.” He peered out of smoky windows trying to delineate milling crowds, normality, beyond.
“You’re sure that’s a clever idea? To go rushing back to your little desk job?” he said, giving an extra dark roll to his vowels.
“You said that you have a question for me?” Clive reminded him.
“Don’t worry, I never forget a face. Do you?”
“Just questions,” Clive retorted.
“Well, not so much a question as a proposition. Actually more like a dilemma than a proposition.”
“This is doing my head in,” Clive said.
“I love abstractions. Either you will agree to go forward a year in your life, or alternatively you will have to go back a year.”
“That’s amusing,” Clive said ironically.
“I’m pleased to provoke your rebellious interest at last, Pitt.”
“Just imagine how things might be... if I have another try. I could get up my courage and ask the family to relocate to the Far East with me. Just for starters. I might have put in for promotion, rather than sticking where I am,” he ruminated.
“Never a good idea to stick about. You wanna go back a year in time?”
“You claim to have such powers? You must be completely out of your mind,” Clive concluded.
“Don’t you understand the power of information? You will have to make the choice.”
“It’s a creative proposal, but I’m not interested.”
“You have to, Pitt, and you made a choice. Unconsciously, if you like it or not, you have already chosen.”
“I refuse,” Clive insisted, seeing only his own reflection exactly reversed.
“You must be exposed to this process,” the voice stated.
“I’m not doing any time-travelling,” Clive told him.
“Why should you be so hostile to that idea? Haven’t you heard about that precocious child Albert Einstein?” he replied.
“Let me outside.”
“Your life is different. Are you not interested to step outside and find out?”
“I’m not going to be shaken up like this.”
“You went through a black hole, Clive. Didn’t you feel yourself fall? Now you have to see where your ridiculous efforts have taken you.”
The limousine drifted to the kerb and eased to a stop. Clive was invited to alight and he didn’t refuse. Indeed he was returned to the exact paving stone, except that the chauffeur didn’t come to instruct him this time.
3
The afternoon was still very hot, if not hotter than ever. Clive told himself that the macabre encounter was an elaborate prank. No doubt he’d soon discover who was behind it. Was this dark joke the brainchild of a colleague or of a hidden enemy? Maybe the perpetrator was waiting to come forward.
He stared down the street as the ‘devil’s limousine’ glided away, coiling back into the boiling flow towards St Paul’s.
Initially Clive was able to read off the car’s plates; even to commit them to memory. Yet suddenly, disconcertingly, all the characters jumbled up and he couldn’t recall them. Here he was, with a degree in economics and mathematics, not able to memorise a plate. He dealt in algorithms every hour of every working day. He stood watching for a while, disconcerted, shielding his eyes from the glare, long after the vehicle had vanished.
Clive felt a tremble of unease pass through his entire body. He was shaken after that banter in the limo. Whoever was that sinister guy?
A high level figure who wanted to scare him? A guy who liked to deploy symbols of power, enormous influence and wealth, merely to play games? At some level he might be able to laugh about this experience. It could offer an amusing and scary anecdote for his wife and their friends. What would his father have thought about this craziness, if he was alive? A father who had warned Clive, when he was recruited by Winchurch, about ‘playing with the devil’ in London. His job was very different to what his Dad had known. It was far removed from offering secure loans towards a new kitchen or a three piece suite. Family and friends would laugh at this story and, if they were being at all honest, understand why he was so shaken.
Phew! It was so damned hot outside. As hot as hell, he jested darkly to himself. He was trying to brush off that unsettling encounter. Yet his knees buckled as he walked along, there was a sliver of ice in his heart. He was then finding the crowds as he turned back in to Aldgate, knowing that he should return urgently to his desk. There was an intimidating quality to the City, as the streets stretched long and hard ahead of him - as if he’d been miniaturised. His eyes were burning in the sunlight that glistened off every shiny and hard surface and caught in the trapped traffic smog. He had been taken away from himself and suddenly he didn’t properly belong in the world.
The whole sky went white and poured blindingly into his vision. So his progress was erratic, almost alarming to passers-by, as he reeled about in the red heat and wobbled along smoking pavements. The light rolled into his mind in a tidal wave that knocked him off his feet. It took minutes for this wave of molten heat to crash over and for shapes to reassemble.
Fortunately he knew these streets like a worn treasure map. Indeed they have proven lucrative over the previous decade. Despite the whiskey inside him, there was a strange taste of fear, like scorched bone. The usual afternoon business would have to wait a bit, he decided, until he regained his own balance. He was so much out of sorts that he had to leave his urgent affairs for a while. The screens on his desk, his double triptych of sacred binaries, would remain unattended, like saints without an audience.
While he was in this dire state he had to take further time out. He needed the cooling balm of sociable company, a fix of familiar and friendly faces. He had to get off the hot street and escape his hot memories. He knew that some colleagues frequented The Banker and Flower Girl.
He negotiated a blindingly dark yet pleasantly cool stairway. Sagging limestone steps lead down into a cellar wine bar. Sporadic laughter and conversation bubbled up from the shadowy room below, until he joined the dingy but convivial melee. His vision needed time to adjust to darkness.
The Banker possessed a density of vintner’s atmospheres, and was a frequent refuge to the staff of Winchurch & Brothers. A mellow artificial light and fat candles cast a waxy lustre over crumbling ornament.
But where were his colleagues today? He didn’t recognise anyone, even within his colleagues’ favourite alcove. The bar was busy for the time of day. Customers gathered around rectangular tables and along an oaken bar, hot and weary from a morning’s toil and rumours of job cuts.
Nevertheless he fought his way to the counter and waited to get served. There was no Ann Elizabeth here or Douglas, nor Pixie or Albert, not today, but he could take comfort from the absolutely normal scene, as he observed people socialising. Otherwise he couldn’t remember the names of his closest friends. He could take his time over a bottle of ale and try to figure out his rare situation.
However, when he’d finished a beer, and put a hand into his pocket to draw out his wallet, Clive was startled by the result. When he searched there was no cash inside
or any of his own cards. Incredibly he found a company credit card, tucked away in one of the flaps. It was no prank or mistake; it was authentic plastic embossed with Winchurch Brothers and account numbers and details. A thrill of anxiety tingled his nerves and reached the ends of his fingers, as he turned it over and over. Could he really be in possession of his boss’ plastic? On principle Clive had not used a company account for private transactions.
Clive changed his next order to a glass of wine, a Sicilian Shiraz, and opted to pay with Winchurch’s credit card. Not having any means to pay himself, he would declare everything on his return to work. But he knew he was potentially making a big mistake, because the transaction would be easily traceable. Yet it was not part of his character to walk out of that bar without paying.
Then amazingly, when he was obliged to pay, he tapped a pin code and the card was approved. He must have known the number - or his fingers did. On occasions we remember as unconsciously as we can forget. After a tense delay the pin was verified, no problem at all, and his receipt was torn away. He was shocked and elated at the simplicity, like a short selling asset stripper.
The barman seemed to recognise him, but didn’t give a dirty look, not like the guy in the café. The new situation was puzzling and most untoward. What was even weirder was the discovery that, in another compartment of his wallet, he was in possession of condoms as well. There were a clutch of ribbed and dotted specimens pushed under a flap. What was he doing carrying rubbers on a work day? He was a happily married man, who’d started a young family already. Maybe some guys behaved like that, but he wasn’t one of them. Could he trust himself or anything? At least he was wearing one of his own suits - or the trousers of that suit. That was as far as his self-confidence stretched.
Shaken, puzzling, he took his glass of wine away and sat down. He tried to reassure himself about the situation, while in that friendly crowd. Laughter and conversations in the room buzzed in his head; as if his blood pressure was shooting high. He was nervous, even though he was a regular and all the patrons here were City people. All the time he’d been sitting on his boss’ credit card: maybe it was a stolen one. How, and when, did that get into his possession? The new wallet seemed to belong to him, as it was to his taste and contained personal details, such as a now out-of-date rail pass. It was the credit card that was definitely hot. Although it had been very cool when paying for his drink.