“I just told you. I lost. It still hurts. I can remember every sodding word!” He laughed again and, for thirty seconds or so, the two of them seemed to concentrate, as if their shared past had come immediately and jointly alive behind their open eyes. “And to have argued the case for democracy - speciously, I might add - and then not to have exercised your bleeding franchise the first time in British history that an eighteen year old had the opportunity of doing so really did take the biscuit!”
“...which at the time would have been a Wagon Wheel...”
Cartwright laughed long and hard. Christine joined in.
“They were good, but not as good as Mrs Thingy’s home-made pasties.”
Christine’s smiles continued as she skilfully changed the subject. “I thought we might include a discussion of your background - family, education, college and the like - in the second interview.”
“Include whatever you want,” he said without hesitation. He was still laughing as he delivered the phrase, which was also strained with increasing volume as he rose from his seat. He began to mount the balustrade, and then, using the adjacent roof pillar as his support, he rose to stand on the rail. As his muscles strained and his breathing wheezed his exertion, he spoke again, “...but I reserve my right not to answer, just like you didn’t vote, you democrat!”
The final word was shouted as he dived into the sea and disappeared from view. Christine peered past the angle of the balcony to the water’s surface, but he did not reappear. She stood in her now usual way, backwards, forcing herself up onto her limb using the arms of the chair, and then turned to look down at the water, but by the time she reached her vantage point at the balcony rail, Cartwright had swum away underwater to disappear under the surface’s reflected glare.
She picked up her own and Cartwright’s plate and spoon, stacked them so she could carry them in one hand and then set off round the veranda to the sink at the back. It took her some minutes to walk the few paces, since she was still unsure of her footing on the lashed bamboo poles. When she turned the second corner, she was momentarily startled.
“Thanks for bringing the plates,” said Cartwright as he advanced to relieve her of her burden.
“You know, there’s another fellow just like you in this house. He just jumped off the front balcony and went off in that direction...” She waved generally towards the mainland.
“I needed to start the washing up.”
“And you washed up yourself first.”
“Correct.” He rinsed the plates and then dried them with a cloth before replacing them in the cupboard under the sink. The plastic bowl he emptied with the flick of one arm over the balcony. There was a slap as its scant helping of water hit a rock. For a couple of minutes he busied himself with a cloth, wiping out his wok and cleaning the surfaces next to the sink and cooker. Christine watched in silence, no doubt thinking, as I was, that this was a man whose routine of existence was quite set, honed to eliminate any waste of energy or effort, and, in its idiosyncratic way, calculatedly efficient and thus highly successful. “When?” he asked, standing to face her.
She said nothing, but still managed to ask a question.
“When do you want to do the next interview?”
“How about tomorrow morning? How about early, very early, before the sun gets high?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll have to work on my script this afternoon and evening.”
“Fine. I have some work of my own.”
And with that he went inside, closed the door of his cubby-hole office and all sound seemed to cease.
Christine remained standing on the veranda for some time. “How on earth can you can sit in that room without air conditioning or a fan defeats me.” His office door may have been closed, but the walls did not go to the ceiling, so he would have heard the words even if whispered.
He did not answer, so Christine returned to the front balcony, to the chair she had left, the chair that had already, it seemed, become her private property, her own space in Cartwright’s little empire. She reached down to her bag, took out her file, found a pen and began to read through her papers.
“And someone who invokes democracy and then doesn’t vote deserves a biscuit!” he shouted.
“Wagon Wheel,” she mumbled without looking up.
Thus we entered another period where only I had the privilege of being able to see what both of them were doing. I sat and watched Cartwright work with what appeared to be complete concentration for the more than four unbroken hours that he devoted to his task. He eventually filled one page of his notebook. And again I printed off a still of his efforts and asked a specialist to read it. As before it was unintelligible, the reply this time implying that I might even be wasting departmental time.
In fact I rested during Cartwright’s hours of study and reviewed them later on fast forward, just to make sure that what was almost deliberately angled forward towards my camera at the end of his labours actually did represent the focus of his attention for the previous four hours or more. I now cannot decide whether Cartwright’s ‘work’ actually represents his serious endeavour or, alternatively, whether it might represent some practical joke on his part, a deliberate ploy to present meaningless mumbo-jumbo that will divert us and occupy our energies. Are those unintelligible notes and symbols really the true language of a mathematics only he understands, or are they, like his false leg erections of those years ago, merely a practical joke, a brainless diversion?
I decided later to review these work sessions and I did notice a pattern. First, he never once brought his own personal computer alive in any session. I assume this must have been wholly out of character, since all of his business has been transacted via the internet. To have never bothered even to check his accounts or read his emails suggests he was deliberately avoiding the display of any personal information and that there was something on that computer that he desperately wanted to hide.
I accept, however, that his system has proved so reliable over the last two years or so for him not to worry about the short-term direction of travel in his accounts. For him, being worth a billion more or less each day is neither here nor there, so why bother yourself with detail?
A second point of interest lies in the fact that thus far he had never opened a file of old material. This meant he never seemed to refer to previous work, but each time merely continued from the point where he had previously abandoned his notebook. Given the presumed complexity of his system, this seemed to be improbable behaviour. Thirdly, and even more inexplicable, he really did seem to angle his work towards my camera, as if he wanted to provide an easily reproducible image of what he had been doing. If he remained convinced of its originality and uniqueness, however, there was no inherent danger in his doing this, and there may just have been a strand of arrogance in his motive. But if this really was gibberish, then it was also possible he was consciously trying to mislead us.
When he emerged from his office, he behaved true to the type I had by now learned to anticipate. He cast a cursory greeting towards Christine and then let himself down off the front balcony into the sea, where he pottered around diving and surfacing for just a few minutes. He then clambered back up to the balcony, unhitched the mooring ropes to release his boat and then announced that he was going to check the lines and pots he had set early that morning. I was surprised, since I thought I had monitored all activity around the house. When I checked back I realised I had missed his exit just before dawn. Strangely, he had taken the boat away on its oars, presumably to keep down the noise while Christine was still asleep, but of course it may have been a ploy to avoid attracting my attention. And it worked. I had completely missed it. What I did not miss, on re-examining the footage, was that he had taken a bag with him when he left early that morning, a bag the right size and shape to contain a notebook computer. Through the gloom, via the
camera facing directly off the balcony, I could see that he parked the boat about fifty metres from the house, but I could not see what he was doing. On seeing this material, I immediately placed a request to check the content of the internet traffic through his router at the time, since this may well have been powerful enough to allow him remote access from his boat. At time of writing, I await the result of that request.
When Cartwright returned, he did so with something of a catch. In the distance I could clearly see him inspect a line attached to floats and then retrieve four nearby pots. Thus he returned with a few small fish, mainly bream, and half a dozen blue crabs. He had the whole lot in a mesh bag slung over his shoulder and across his body as he clambered up his pole ladder. The crabs were very much alive and trying to nip his flesh through the bag string, so he moved quickly. And, as he ascended, he had light strings attached to both guy ropes from the boat tied around his ankle. Once back on the balcony, he was thus able to drop the crab bag and moor the boat as before in just a few seconds. Christine had watched this obviously practised and accurate manoeuvre from her balcony chair.
“We’re in luck,” said Cartwright. “Crabs for dinner.”
The sun was sinking fast by the time sounds of cooking peppered the microphones. His technique was simple: he had a heavy iron wok that he placed, dry, on the gas. When it was very hot, he dropped the live crabs, which were quite small, straight onto its surface. He had a lid ready in his right hand which he slammed on top of the pan as they tried to jump out. There was a commotion of scratching for a few seconds, but it soon died away and, just a couple of minutes later, Cartwright removed the lid and slopped a glug or two of red sauce from a large bottle that seemed to live next to the stove. A few seconds later, he turned out the completed dish onto a plate. A quick wipe of the pan with a cane brush and a drop of water that was cast over the balcony into the sea left its surfaces clean, ready to take the oil he added and then, just a minute later, he tossed in his small fish, each of which he had gutted over the balcony rail through the gills with his fingers while the pan was heating. He cooked the fish three times to crisp them and these, along with the crabs and a few broken salad leaves he took from a bag hanging on a pole nearby, was then a complete meal. A moment extra was all he needed to make a salad of sliced green mango and tomato, both of which also came from a hanging bag, as did the kalamansi he squeezed over it as dressing. The entire process, from live crabs to meal took ten minutes at the outside, and Christine was not at all ready to join him when he shouted, “Food!” round the corner of the house.
“Foot!” shouted Christine with a laugh.
It took Christine over two minutes to lay down her papers, negotiate a rise to her feet and then shuffle to the corner. She looked immediately at the large metal platter of chilli crabs, crispy fried fish, salad leaves and green mango and, surprised, asked, “Do you eat them just like that?”
“No, you have to put them in your mouth,” he answered, crunching and sucking on a claw.
Christine ignored the comment. “What about the shells?”
“They aren’t strong. You can crack them with your fingers, but if you insist...” He placed two of the whole crabs on the table and gave them a sharp but controlled tap with the flat of his cleaver, which was to hand next to the stove. “There, those can be yours.”
“Can we wait a while?”
“You can wait as long as you like. But the flies will get extra helpings.” As he spoke he also unhitched a black, red and white food cover from a nail on the wall and covered the whole serving dish, and then weighted it down with an upturned pan over its apex. Christine had already started back to her seat on the front balcony and Cartwright now rose to follow. He had not yet reached his own seat when Christine spoke.
“Now about this interview...”
It seemed that little of interest would happen for a while. Christine was running through the points she wanted to raise and a pensive Cartwright was making mental notes of each area, but wrote nothing. I will include none of what transpired here, since the text of the interview covers everything and more to the same depth and in the same terms. And the light was already beginning to fade when they finally decided to eat. By then Christine had suggested several alternative approaches, none of which, frankly, was substantively different from any of the others and throughout Cartwright offered little more than near-silent assent. They continued to talk about the interview as they ate, slowly, and then continued for a further half an hour in the same vein as before. I gloss over the entire period, since the content of the interview itself covers everything of relevance. They shared no more small talk except cursory good nights and an aside from Christine. “The green mango alongside the crab meat is absolutely superb.” Despite her regular and extensive professional travel, she hardly ever ate anything other than hotel food.
One-On-One
Christine Gardiner on Haji Salleh Abdullah (aka Thomas Cartwright)
Programme two of three
Awaiting final edit
Text to be inter-cut, possibly, with later material
[Standard title sequence and credits; cut to specific caption for this edition, as above; fade to continuity shot of host and subject sitting in bamboo chairs, host on the right, subject left; both two-thirds facing the camera but looking at each other; host holds clipboard and pen; cut to host full face for introduction]
C Hello. My name is Christine Gardiner. Thank you for joining me again for the second One-On-One interview with the newly crowned richest man in the world, Haji Salleh Abdullah, aka Thomas Cartwright. In our first encounter...
T I have no crown, Christine.
C [laughs]
T ...and if I had been given one, I would have refused it or handed it back...
C [laughs louder] All right, Tom, I’ll...
T My name, please, is Haji Salleh.
C Sorry again... Let’s try again. Thank you for joining me again for the second One-On-One interview with the newly identified richest man in the World, Haji Salleh Abdullah, aka Thomas Cartwright. In our first encounter, we examined the source of Haji Salleh’s wealth and tried to identify the role that luck may have played in his considerable good fortune. This time, however, I want to get behind the figures and find out about the man behind the title. Exactly what has motivated this sixty-year-old British man, brought up as Thomas Cartwright in a northern mining village, to achieve such staggering success in business? [Turning to subject as view widens to include both Christine Gardiner and Thomas Cartwright in shot.] Haji Salleh, how and when did you leave Tom Cartwright behind?
T [Pauses for several seconds with evident momentary confusion] We coexist, perhaps.
C ...and becoming a Muslim?
T [Pauses again, this time longer.] It was required. I married a Muslim. I converted.
C But you and your wife are now separated...
T We occasionally live separate lives.
C ...and you have never considered converting back?
T Back to what?
C Christianity presumably, whatever you were before you became a Muslim.
T I was never a Christian, Chris. You know that. I never went to church as a child, was never required to do so by my parents. I said The Lord’s Prayer and sang hymns in school assembly because we were required to do so. I have been to funerals, weddings and even Christenings in various churches over the years, but I was never a Christian. So if I converted ‘back’, as you put it, I would convert to nothing, not even atheism, because I had no previous association with that either. But my Muslim faith now precludes change. Once a Muslim, a Muslim you stay. There is no going back.
C And that is fine by you?
T Of course.
C So you suffer no pangs, no homesickness, no desire to be British again?
T What one earth has that got to do with anything? Why ar
e you linking nationality and religion? I am British. I have British passport...
C ...and another one. You have dual nationality, don’t you?
T I do, but that is nothing special. I have lived here for decades. I have become naturalised. But what has being British got to do with anything you have just asked? Couldn’t I also be a British Muslim? There are lots of them, after all.
C But you weren’t born a Muslim.
T Nor a Christian.
C Some people might think it strange that a man in his late forties, who has ostensibly never had a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, should suddenly, without warning, announce that he is getting married to an air hostess, twenty-five years his junior.
T Some people might. So what? And who says I had never had a relationship with a woman before that?
C There’s nothing on the record...
T It depends on whose record you listen to, doesn’t it, Christine?
[CG featured full face, expressionless. Shot edited in later]
C We’re here to listen to you, Haji Salleh, so why don’t you play your record now?
T You know very well what happened, Christine. It’s in your notes.
C How about from the horse’s mouth?
[Cartwright gives a deep impatient sigh]
T Well... as you know. We met on a flight to Singapore...
C ...but that was not the first time you had met...
T [impatiently] As I was about to say, Noraya was a former student of mine. This... [A gesture with the full arm indicates somewhere beyond the camera] ...is a pretty small place. You expect to run into people you have met over the years both frequently and regularly. She had been a former student of mine, about ten years before, when I was teaching in secondary schools. She wasn’t a particularly outstanding student.
C So you knew her first as an adolescent?
T [suspiciously] Chris, I have been a career teacher. I have taught in schools and colleges for most of my life. I have ‘known’ literally thousands of adolescents, and you can quote me on that if you so wish. And I remember most of the students I have ever taught, and furthermore, when I meet them - as I often do, quite by chance - I can usually put a name on a face, no matter how many years it might have been. Noraya was not an exception, neither as a student, nor as a memory.
One-On-One Page 9