by Tony Salter
‘I’m surprised you’re still talking to her,’ said Dave. ‘Not really your style.’
‘Nicki’s an exception,’ I said, smiling. ‘Life would be dull without exceptions, wouldn’t it?’ I pushed my chair backwards and started to stand. ‘Are we done, Dave? If not, I’m sure Nicki can give us another ten minutes.’
‘No. We’re good,’ he said, his brow furrowing as though he was trying to remember something. ‘I’ll see you in a few weeks at the dinner.’
Home Comforts
Despite the lack of countable farm animals, I did fall asleep eventually and woke up at ten o’clock with the book spreadeagled over my nose and slobber all over the cover. After all my sensible plans, I was late for the train and had to skip breakfast and run for the tube.
I didn’t run fast enough and ended up on the slow train which stopped at every station between Paddington and Oxford, and which was going to make me very late for lunch. At least I had plenty of time to catch my breath while pottering through the urban sprawl of West London and mile after mile of green fields with the odd glimpse of boats on the Thames.
It had been good to tell someone about Pulsar. Karl might have been less than a listening audience, but the act of actually describing the situation had helped me to stand back and look at it objectively. Whatever angle I took, I kept coming back to the conclusion that I had a realistic chance of getting the job.
If I did, it was also reasonable to assume that the salary would be decent and there would be a lot of expenses-paid travel. The experience would be exceptional, and would look good on my CV – probably better than another two years plugging away at the FT.
I was lining up my arguments like ducks in a row – mentally preparing for the grilling I was about to get from my grandmother. Granny was a firm believer in traditional post-war values – a job is for life, look after the bird in the hand, keep your head down, don’t rock the boat.
Post-war values? It was incredible that so many references were still being made to the Second World War even though we were close to the centenary of the first shots being fired. A hundred years of relative peace was a reason to drag out the bunting; there’d been a few close calls since then and there were still lots of local conflicts, but humankind must be doing something right.
My conversation with Karl had also helped me to pour a bucket of icy water over my childish fantasies about Julie Martin. She wanted me to ghostwrite a book about her business and she had some unorthodox ideas about the candidate qualifications. That was it. No reason or room for imagined innuendo.
Dad was waiting in the car park, standing next to his new, red Mini Cooper. He looked good for his age, still wearing his trademark chinos, blue shirt and yellow jumper draped over his shoulders. He even had enough hair left to stop his Raybans falling down.
‘Big night?’ he asked as he gave me a hug. He stepped back and looked at my face. A single father of an only son could answer that question easily without waiting for – or caring about – whatever answer the son might come up with.
‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ I said, grinning. ‘For once, I’m totally innocent.’
He laughed as we got in the car. ‘I might even believe you,’ he said, ‘but you’re still late and you know what your Granny’s like.’
We pulled away silently, and I heard him tut-tutting next to me.
‘Drives well. Doesn’t it?’ I said, knowing full well why he was irritated.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ he said. ‘It’s not only the absence of noise. It makes my stomach feel as though it’s falling backwards. There’s something not natural about it.’
‘Let’s face it, Dad,’ I said. ‘Cars have never been that natural, have they?’
Although petrol cars had been banned for over a year, Dad was an old-school petrol head and had no plans to become an electric convert. Him grumbling about the imminent – and now recent – death of the internal combustion engine was part of the soundtrack of my life.
He laughed. ‘Good to see you, boy. Granny says she hasn’t cooked you lunch for ages and Daz should be along later.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Belly pork?’
‘In the oven,’ he said. ‘She’s been at it all morning.’
Granny’s Sunday roasts were legendary, and I was suddenly very hungry.
‘How’s Gramps?’ I said.
‘I’ve not seen him since last week,’ said Dad, ‘but he’ll be the same. This isn’t something which gets better. He probably won’t recognise you.’
My Gramps had been the glue which held our family together in the years after my Mum died. I’d been too small to understand anything, and the true story of her death had revealed itself bit by bit as I grew up. Dad had been a great father, but there’d always been a cloud hanging over him and I’d learned to spot the times when he was putting on a cheerful act for my benefit.
It wasn’t until I was in my teens and learned that Mum had taken her own life that I began to understand what lay behind his sadness. I must have been unbearable – angry and resentful – and I hadn’t been able to see past my own misery until Gramps sat me down and explained.
He made me understand how both my dad and Granny thought they should have done more to help Mum and how they each blamed themselves for what happened. Over a couple of years, and many quiet conversations in his small fishing boat, he helped me to realise how much courage it had taken for Dad to push back his feelings of grief and guilt so that he could look after me.
Gramps had always been strong; his confidence and sense of humour had been exactly what we’d all needed to support us through those hard times. When I’d needed to escape, I would always run to him for refuge and he’d always known exactly what to say, or when to say nothing at all.
As I sat next to my father, driving silently up the gravel drive of The Old Vicarage, I realised that I’d been avoiding coming here since Gramps started to decline. I hated seeing him with the light gone from his eyes and still childishly hoped that he’d miraculously turn a corner and come back to us.
We almost managed to get out of the car before Granny came out of the house. She moved quickly for someone who must have been almost eighty and her beaming face was solid evidence that she was very pleased to see us. I felt my own twinges of guilt and made a quick mental note to come and visit more frequently.
‘Hello you two,’ she said. ‘Just in time.’ She gave me a hug; her grip was still strong, but her body seemed light and insubstantial – almost bird-like – as though her muscles and bones were preparing for flight.
‘Hi Granny,’ I said. ‘Sorry it’s been so long.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ she said, scurrying round the car to give Dad his welcome hug. ‘You’re here now. That’s what matters.’
As we walked into the hall, I peered through the living room door, expecting to see Gramps in his usual place. His chair was empty, cushions plumped up and untouched.
‘Granny,’ I called over my shoulder. ‘Where’s …’
‘Come on through,’ she said, striding down the hall towards the kitchen. ‘Daz said he’d be late and that we should start. The crackling will be ruined if we don’t eat straight away.’
I looked at my dad who shrugged his shoulders before following his mother into the kitchen. ‘Better do what we’re told,’ he said.
Eventually we were all sitting down with full plates in front of us and Granny couldn’t find reasons to avoid my question.
‘Where’s Gramps,’ I asked her. ‘How is he?’
Granny seemed old and frail as she looked first at me and then at my father. Her eyes were watery, the piercing blue gaze diluted to the washed-out aquamarine of a bullfinch egg.
‘He’s upstairs in bed,’ she said. ‘He’s been there for a couple of days now. He’s not well enough to come down.’
‘Has the doctor been?’ said Dad.
‘Of course he has,’ she snapped. ‘He thinks that John would be better off in a ho
spice.’
‘Well, maybe he’s right,’ said Dad. ‘It must be very difficult for you to …’
‘No!’ she said. ‘You know how much he’d hate that, Rupert.’
‘Yup,’ he said, looking down at the table. ‘I know that …’ He looked up at his mother. ‘… But I’m going to organise someone to come and help you, Mum. You can’t manage all by yourself.’
As I watched the two of them, I realised what a selfish child I still was. All I’d been thinking about was the way I felt about Gramps. This was so much more difficult for them – a wife and a son – and I still expected them to be available to comfort me. It was time to grow up.
‘Can we see him?’ I asked, after the two of them had been glaring at each other for what seemed like an age.
‘Not now,’ said Granny. ‘He’ll be sleeping. We’ll go up before you leave.’
‘Anyway,’ said Granny, serving second helpings to me and Dad without asking. ‘Enough talk about John. He’d hate it. He’s eighty-one, and he’s had a wonderful life. What about you, Sam? Is there anyone special in your life?’
Nothing if not predictable. ‘Not at the moment, Granny,’ I said. ‘Lou and I broke up a couple of months ago.’
‘Lou?’ she said, tilting her head to one side. ‘Oh, Louisa. Shame. She was nice.’ If I’d had to guess, her look was intended to express pity and disappointment. ‘Pretty little thing, too.’
‘Yes. She was lovely,’ I said. ‘But she moved to Munich, and it all got a bit complicated.’
‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Relationships are always complicated, Sam. They always take a bit of effort and you don’t want to leave it too late.’
‘Of course not, Granny,’ I said. ‘Anyway, changing the subject. I might have a very exciting new job opportunity …’
The next half hour unfolded in an even more predictable fashion. Me trying to explain about the Pulsar opportunity, Granny not understanding and mostly disapproving, my dad interested and excited and waiting for an opportunity to ask me more. The ringing of the doorbell brought merciful relief.
Uncle Daz made any situation easier. He had a rhythmic calm which seemed to ripple steadily out from his core in slow-motion waves. A committed anarchist all his life, he was the last person anyone would have expected to become close friends with my Granny. I don’t think he fitted a single one of her ridiculous social criteria.
He enveloped us in hairy-bearded bear hugs, each in turn, before wrapping an arm around Granny’s shoulders and steering her out into the hall.
‘We’ll catch up in a minute,’ he said to me and my dad. ‘I want ten minutes with Virginia first.’
As he walked out, my father turned to me and spoke quietly. ‘Daz has been calling your granny once or twice a day for the past few weeks. He’s been amazing.’
Daz was a mental health nurse with a lifetime of experience and probably understood what was happening to Gramps better than most GPs. He would be able to give Granny the right advice on what was best for him and, just as importantly, for her.
They were out for a very long ten minutes which gave me and Dad time to clear up the kitchen. We expected to be in trouble for our unasked-for interference later on, but Granny had looked really tired.
By the time the unlikely couple returned, we were sitting back at the table, feeling pleased with ourselves and finishing off the delicious bottle of Burgundy we’d liberated from Gramps’s cellar.
As Granny bustled past me to put the kettle on, I couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were red; Daz didn’t believe in white lies.
‘So, young man. I hear you’re about to sell out to the biggest, tax-avoiding, exploitative corporate devil of all time?’ said Daz as he eased himself into the bench seat next to the Aga.
‘It’s not like I’ve been made an offer,’ I said. ‘Let’s not get carried away.’
‘But if they offer you the job?’ he said. ‘You’ll take it? Despite everything I’ve tried to teach you?’
‘Like a shot,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought it through and can’t see any downsides.’
Daz shook his head from side to side slowly before grinning through his beard. ‘I suppose it’s no worse than real estate,’ he said, looking at my dad. ‘You’re a pair of lost causes. I give up.’
Granny had made it back to the table with a pot of tea and a heaped plate of home-made brownies. ‘Don’t be so mean to him, Daz,’ she said. ‘He’s very excited.’
Would wonders never cease? I’d been terrified that she’d disapprove and there she was fighting my corner.
‘Now, Sam,’ she continued. ‘You said you’d written some sort of introduction as part of the interview. Aren’t you going to read it to us?’
All Coming Together
Dave took his time leaving Zaks; there were so many distractions on the way. Eventually he pushed reluctantly through the door and out onto the street. I turned back to Nicki.
‘So, who’s Professor Dave then,’ she said. ‘He looks young to be an academic.’
I gave her the potted history of Dave and our plans, but could see that she wasn’t fully engaged. She wanted to talk about Odell and I had to admit that I was equally excited to hear what she had to say. The professor’s nano-technology could wait.
She didn’t need much of a nudge and seconds later was bent forward over the table, eyes wide and shining, preaching at me in a stage whisper.
‘It’s amazing. There’s so much more potential than I imagined. The user database is unique. We can link social media and demographic data directly to over four billion people. Between seventy and eighty per cent of the voting population in the G10 markets. Even with the AI systems we already have, we can tailor personal messaging and adverts to every one of those four billion. Every individual will react differently to that kind of manipulation but, when we’re looking at thousands and tens of thousands, the herd response can be predicted with statistical certainty.’
I smiled at her and shrugged my shoulders.
‘I know. I know,’ she went on. ‘I should stop telling you things that you obviously already know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s still amazing, though. No-one else has anything close – not even the NSA. No wonder Odell is always on the winning side.’
‘No wonder, indeed,’ I said. ‘Let’s face it, the entire universe operates on the basis of random quantum movements. Why should tens of millions of people be any less predictable?’
Nicky nodded vigorously and, having released the head of steam that had been building inside her, she seemed to calm down and become more serious. ‘Obviously, there are issues,’ she continued. ‘I can guess where the user profiles must have come from. Aren’t we exposed?’
What Nicki didn’t understand about me was the way my mind worked. At times, I almost wondered if I could actually see the future, but it wasn’t that; I had the capacity to see multiple futures, each one laid out in infinitely dividing decision trees spreading far into the distance. I’d seen, and planned for, this particular scenario from the first days of Pulsar. And I’d covered all my bases.
I was hoping to glimpse similar abilities in Nicki, but sadly she appeared to have a more pedestrian form of intelligence; she was extremely sharp and analytical, but I couldn’t see any real evidence of the clarity and certainty I was looking for.
‘We can always get caught out,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing more foolish than blind hubris. But Pulsar’s user terms have always included a right to collect and use data for marketing purposes. The company might, and probably will, be obliged to delete or ring fence the profile data eventually, but the data we currently have is legitimate.’
‘But Odell has nothing to do with Pulsar and we don’t exactly use the data for marketing purposes do we?’ said Nicki. ‘Did Pulsar have the right to hand over four billion user profiles?’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘There’s the thing.’ I shrugged and grinned at her. ‘It might be that Odell “obtained” that data without any actual permission as such.’
She looked at me with eyebrows arched. ‘And the traceability?’
‘Until they figure out how to reconstruct the journey of a physical hard drive in a handbag, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.’
‘Good,’ she said, moving on without a pause. ‘Then we can park that. According to my initial estimates, we already have enough profiles to last at least twenty years even if we can’t access updates going forwards. Probably longer. This gives Odell a massive competitive advantage.’
She kept stating the blindingly obvious, but I didn’t care. My biggest worry had been that she would struggle to accept the questionable origins of Odell’s massive database. Many of my plans for her would have been seriously compromised if she’d developed a sudden attack of morality.
By the time she’d finished her summary, I was even more certain we were on the same page. There was one more piece of the jigsaw to find and slot into place, but we were almost there.
Nicki wanted to talk me through the detailed numbers and assumptions she’d prepared for me, but I had a treat waiting for me at the office and was impatient to get back.
‘Leave it with me,’ I said to her. ‘I’ll spend some more time going through your report and we’ll meet back here in a week or so when I’m back from the States.’
Her face sank as I picked up the folder, stood and turned to leave. Why were people always so needy?
‘This is good work,’ I said, stopping and spinning around to face her again. ‘Really good work. Well done, Nicki.’
I waited long enough to acknowledge her grateful smile before leaving.
Although I didn’t intend to start the book project until the New Year, I’d asked Sam to write a draft opening chapter as part of the final stage of the interview process. He’d been told there were three other short-listed candidates and the draft chapter would be an important factor in my final decision. Amusingly, he hadn’t been even slightly put off by my admission that a key competency requirement was to be young and good looking.