Virginity Despoiled

by Charles Brett

  "By the way, I want to be specific. Dig deep into olives and olive oil production. I'll do the same for the broader olive oil industry. We'll compare notes travelling down."

  "You still haven't explained exactly what we'll be doing on Friday."

  "Oh, that. It can wait."

  Inma displayed a warped grin, one she knew exasperated as well as amused Ana in equal measure. She over-succeeded.

  "Damn you, Inma!" wheezed Ana, once she'd recovered from her spluttering caused by the Rías Baixas descending the wrong way. "You always make me wait."

  "Better me than Davide?"

  Ana threw metaphorical daggers at her cousin. Inma grinned back, emitting a malevolent innocence.

  Thursday: Úbeda

  Enrique heard Lili's car drive into the reconstructed village where they produced their olive oil. He recognised her Cayenne, now almost ten years old and imported from London. It threw out a distinctive Porsche burble. He left the mill to confront her.

  "Did you cancel tomorrow's meeting?"

  "No, Enrique, I didn't. I told you I wouldn't. Sorry. We can't afford to ignore possible savings, never mind new income streams."

  The previous week Lili had explained about the California interview and its unintentional window to rescue the business before she might (as she'd put it) have to accept the bank's job offer. As she expected, he'd been unhappy. She'd also summarised their financial position. This made him unhappier.

  Her most devastating blow came when, in the broadest of terms and without enumerating the actual figures, she revealed how her savings had underpinned their olive oil operation. In effect she had subsidised from behind the scenes.

  Enrique had been shocked at the scale of this, even without knowing the precise figures. Finally, almost rubbing salt in, she'd indicated that if forced to leave she did not expect anything back. It would be his.

  For a couple of days Enrique had become introverted and defensive. Lili had mauled his sense of self-worth. From believing they were running a premium product business almost covering its costs he had to face the new reality in which almost all the investments occurred courtesy of her savings. This cut deep.

  Gradually he absorbed Lili's facts. Indeed it was his shame that had made him resist for so long, shame that Lili could invest so much without his realisation. He felt stupid, a sensation he hated. Lili, meanwhile, had continued as if little had changed. She worked at her usual feverish rate seeking out sales and proposing new initiatives. If anything she worked harder than normal, as if she feared she would have to leave.

  It was this that convinced Enrique he must force himself out of his despond. If she wasn't giving up nor should he. What terrified him was the notion of her departure. What would he do without her? How could he cope? She ran the financial side as well as sales and marketing. The inescapable fact was she was as irreplaceable as him but if in different ways. This was a verity he had dodged for too long.

  Just as he was adjusting, she'd sprung another unwelcome surprise. The introduction, made in the US that she'd mentioned on the drive from Madrid, involved re-insurance and a lady who came with glowing endorsements. The problem was, when Lili named this person, Enrique knew of her – and disliked what he knew. She reeked of Opus Dei, an organisation Enrique believed had manipulated his grandparents.

  The Condesa de Arenas de Ávila was a director of Reaseguros OD, España, a large Madrid re-insurance firm which traded on its intimacy with Opus Dei. From Enrique's memory she was rumoured to be a high mucky-muck in the Opus hierarchy. At one point she'd been the sidekick to the Number Two in Opus, until he dropped dead, whereupon she had assumed many of his responsibilities.

  Lili had never heard of Opus Dei. Enrique had to explain.

  "Opus is a secretive Catholic institution. Even the Vatican is rumoured to fear it, though its founder was canonised by John Paul II. While Escrivá – the founder – sought to combine religiosity with the ability to earn a living and contribute to society it had, after his death, become more covert and influential, with members in all parts of the Spanish and South American religious, political and social hierarchy. In many senses it is a Catholic version of the Masons, and I resent it."

  Challenged by Lili to support his dislike he continued by laying out how his paternal grandmother had been seduced into becoming a devotee not long after his father was born. Over time she'd risen to the status of Numerary. This allowed her to continue to live with his grandfather but on terms of celibacy. They were then in their thirties and, in an era when families were large, his father remained their only child. Worse, his father had told Enrique of watching his own mother suborn her husband into handing over ever-increasing amounts of money; monies that would have prevented Enrique's father's financial distress and subsequently his own.

  No, he instructed Lili, he would not meet with anybody from Opus Dei. He distrusted everything associated with it, and most of all if delivered by a brown-tented misery called the Condesa de Arenas de Ávila.

  When Lili had queried this description he portrayed the Condesa as infamous in Madrid for her aversion to those who weren't either Opus Dei or a business prospect to be milked. His profile sketched her as an intelligent, obsessive religious-cum-business bigot whose principle justification in life was making money for Opus.

  Lili asked if he'd met her. No, he had never spoken to her but had seen her at a relation's wedding surrounded by Opus addicts and ignoring all those who weren't. She hadn't even bothered to make an effort for the wedding, turning up as if dressed for business in her trade-mark dress, a shapeless brown tent.

  Lili listened without agreeing or disagreeing. Now Enrique learned that she had ignored his instruction.

  "Enrique, I repeat; we need to talk to these people."

  "People? You mean there's more than one coming? I don't care how much we need them. Blow them off. We don't need Opus – ever."

  "Sorry, Enrique, but I've invited them and they've confirmed an arrival time of eleven tomorrow. That's all there is to it."

  Lili paused for emphasis. Enrique had to listen.

  "We'll hear what they say. If we don't like it, I'll 'blow them off', to use your inappropriate wording for such religious people. But if they do bring a proposition that might assist us in securing the business, I want to hear it. So do you. We've too few choices."

  Enrique harrumphed. He wasn't happy. Lili as usual was getting her way. Yet, in the back of his mind, he could not forget how much Lili had done already. While he hated the idea of meeting the Condesa and her appalling organisation, the 'fait was accompli'.

  For a moment he grinned. Seeing the unexpected, Lili raised an eyebrow. He explained about how he had abused 'fait accompli'.

  She liked it. The sun came out. Harmony between them was restored, at least until tomorrow.

  Friday: On the road to Úbeda

  Inma and Ana had decided to leave Madrid early and stop for coffee and something to eat on the road. Inma was to drive while Ana talked, a plan that lasted all of seconds as the heavens opened when they exited the underground car park where Inma kept her X5. A sodden Madrid collapsed into one large crawl zone. The stopping and starting killed productive conversation.

  Rather than the twenty minutes they'd expected, Inma had fumed and fretted for more than an hour as they crawled towards the A4 and its gateway to the south. By the time they found open road, both women's tempers had frayed.

  Ninety minutes after leaving the garage the clouds parted and blue skies ruled. It should have relaxed them. That took another half-hour as Inma drove fast and furious trying to make up for lost time. At least the roads were clear and she could maintain an illegal 150 kph.

  "At this speed the X5 guzzles diesel. We must refuel. I'm starving and desperate for a coffee. You, Ana?"

  "Suits me, though coffee isn't so urgent. I grabbed one before meeting you. A bathroom, however, is. Then I could eat at least one, maybe two, tostadas, though perhaps without olive oil."

  "Why?"


  "My researches are pretty clear. The probability that the Extra Virgin Olive Oil which you or I buy for five euros or less in the supermarket is the real thing is infinitesimally low. It has about as much likelihood of being what it labels itself as does used car engine oil being presented as fresh motor oil poured out of a new canister."

  "That's a hideous image."

  "It is. But take this to its logical endpoint. If that's what you or I choose, what will a café or service station or restaurante buy?"

  "The cheapest they think their customers will accept?"

  "Exactly. You can't blame them. They have to make a profit somehow. My expectation is that our tostadas will come with something horrible."

  "Okay. Sounds like you've been finding much the same as me, though your analogy is way more cutting. What else?

  "Hang on! There's a service station. Shall we pause? But not for too long?"

  "That's fine. You're the boss. While you fill up, I'll exploit the bathroom."

  Inside they ordered tostadas con tomate y aceite. The aceite came in its own labelled bottle, conforming to EU law, and proclaimed itself to be Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Inma poured out a little onto her plate. They stared at it, then at each other. It was thin and unpromising. Inspection of the crushed tomate suggested its oil was superior. They spread this on their tostadas.

  Fifteen minutes later they were back on the road. Coffee'd, fed and bathroom'd they had at least two hours more to go, if the GPS estimate was accurate.

  "So, tell me more about what you found?"

  Ana paused to collect her thoughts. She had put in a lot of effort. Was it enough? Inma was a hard taskmaster.

  "Here are some factoids. There are hundreds of olive tree variants, called cultivars, much as vines are called varietals. Olive trees grow all over the world where conditions are right. The olive tree, though this depends on the specific cultivar, is tough, meaning it survives near-drought conditions as well as from hot to freezing temperatures.

  "Olives are valuable in many ways for the olive tree's owners. They can eat the fruit, make oil for food, as well as possess lighting. Olive leaves make an excellent 'tea'. Olive trees can live for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Its wood burns slow and makes excellent firewood when chopped.

  "The Comarca, in which Úbeda sits, produces an unbelievable 20 per cent of all olive oil worldwide. Olive oil is referred to as liquid gold for its many uses. These vary from the taste on a salad, to fruit to eat with a drink, to the grease to help an engine run smooth, to an ingredient for making foods, to providing light inside churches or homes. Even its pits, the stones, are valuable when available in industrial quantities. They can be burned for electricity or heat generation. In short, the olive tree and its fruit astonishes.

  "Two last factoids. Most people know little or nothing about olive oil or olives. I'm proof of that. All this was new to me. Yet I've been consuming olive oil all my life. Finally, the definition of olive oil, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil, is so feeble it's easy to pass off the bad as good, as we saw at the service station. Even though the definition of Extra Virgin Olive Oil is explicit, the implementation of standards is lacking in many places. In such environments deception is easy when ignorance rules."

  Inma hesitated. She wanted to ask Ana many more questions. No, she would wait. It was time for her to share.

  "That pretty much coincides with my own researches. I will add that olive oil-making has been plagued by abuse for millennia. Even the Romans were aware of olive oil fraud. Today most substitutions of bad for good are low key. But infiltration by Mafia, or mafia-like organisations, is on the increase as crooks adapt sophisticated food-making machinery to refine poor or bad oil into what seems like good oil. They achieve this by deodorising residues obtained after the production of good olive oil, until those residues are tasteless, when they add back a small percentage of decent oil to misrepresent the whole as good. No wonder we didn't try that bottled olive oil. What shocks me is that a week ago I would've done so without a qualm."

  "Me too. So, given all we've just discovered, where's our angle today and who are we visiting?"

  "You don't give up, do you, Cousin Ana? Quite right too. Where shall I start?"

  Inma fell silent. All of a sudden she pulled over when a rest stop conveniently appeared.

  "You drive. I'll talk, while trying to organise my thoughts. I'll also navigate. Where we're heading is pretty obscure and we'll need the GPS."

  Having switched places Ana felt good. She enjoyed driving the X5, even though it was far bigger than her tiny Cinquecento.

  "What's our opportunity? Over the past years a couple of our client insurance companies, the cedants, have approached me about re-insuring a portion of the olive oil production and product risks they're underwriting. Their customers, like the people we're visiting today, operate in the premium market and are requesting improved insurance cover.

  "I've always resisted being interested in this. In the past it seemed to me impossible to separate out the individual risks in order to price the re-insurance. I've thought about trying by risk type. For example, in case of crop failure, drought, or even bad production. That seems inadequate. If there's another way of organising, and then pricing, risk, so far it eludes me. As I must have said to you far too often, when puzzled you don't write insurance, or re-insurance – unless you want to lose money. For some while I've mulled over whether some of the insured might participate in re-insurance."

  The X5 swerved. Ana gasped at what she had just heard.

  "Drive straight, Ana. You don't have to run us off the road. Yes, what I just suggested contradicts pretty much everything I've asked you to learn. Yet think about it. If the insured business possesses a stake in a small part of the re-insurance pot, that insured business has an incentive to minimise claims. With fewer claims, insurance premiums reduce. The insurance company only calls upon the re-insurance, which it has bought, if the insurance company's claims exceed a pre-agreed level. As we have discussed before, re-insurance arises when insurance companies buy their own insurance against customer claims over that pre-agreed level.

  "The opening I see occurs if the business buying insurance also accepts some reinsurance risk. The business buys the primary insurance policy from an insurer. The insurer, referred to as the cedant, lays off, in betting terms, its own risks above a pre-agreed threshold. It does this by buying re-insurance from re-insurers. If the original business buying insurance has a small stake, and thereby income from the insurers by accepting a slice of the re-insurance pie, it's in its interest not to make big claims.

  "Of course, this can only work on a small scale for each individual policy holder. But, scaled up, there may be economic advantages. After all, agricultural crop failures or weather damage tend to happen to everybody at the same time in a given area."

  "You need to let me think about all this, Inma. My head hurts. You're upending everything you've taught me."

  "No. Perhaps I tilt the insurance landscape a tad, but not to turn it upside down. It's not that severe. I think the logic flows.

  "As for who we're visiting today, he is a specialist Extra Virgin Olive Oil producer named Enrique Ramos. Our connection comes via his partner. I don't know whether they're business or personal partners or both. She's a Canadian called Lili Tremblay, formerly a high-flying investment banker dealing in mergers and acquisitions. The business is unoriginally named Olivos Ramos y Tremblay. It enjoys a good reputation for decent oils."

  "Sounds strange, even by your standards, Inma. Have you met them before?"

  "Don't think so. Let's see what we make of them. If it's a waste of time we finish the meeting and enjoy our weekend spa and accompanying exercise."

  "And we'll have learnt a little about olives, olive oil and what not to buy."

  Friday: Near the Guadalquivir

  "Lili, I told you we should have cancelled this wretched Condesa."

  Little animation was evident behind Enrique's whine. Whil
e he wanted nothing to do with Opus, he had accepted Lili's logic for the meeting.

  "Perhaps I was the stupid one. Sorry, Enrique. I shouldn't have suggested meeting here rather than in Úbeda. I gave our usual directions. Maybe they're so city street-focused they can't follow country instructions. What time is it?"

  "Past eleven forty-five. You confirmed for eleven?"

  "Yes. I hate it when people are so late. Should I –"

  "Hang on! That's an engine coming this way. It might be them. It doesn't sound like an agricultural vehicle."

  "Are you insinuating my Cayenne is agricultural?"

  "Well, you did tell me that vehicles like it are known in London as Chelsea tractors."

  As Lili batted the back of her hand across his face with affection, an oldish X5 passed through their gates into the yard.

  "Two ladies are in the BMW. I guess it's them. I'll go out. Stay here. I'll bring them inside."

  Lili opened the door. Enrique observed as she approached the X5. Out of the driver's side climbed a tall, slim woman with short hair, aged in her mid-thirties and dressed in relaxed office clothes; smart yet not hiding her features, not least long legs seated in modest half boots. She was pretty. No brown tent there. This must be the assistant.

  From the other side emerged a mass of dark hair falling over the shoulders of a woman perhaps ten or more years older than the assistant. She was dressed in simple grey, perfect-fitting jeans, a matching silk shirt underneath an expensive long leather jacket. The effect was mannish yet feminine, hinting at a rich figure. Enrique's impression was of lithe, fit and sexy. It was clear there was no brown tent; perhaps the gods had been kind and the Condesa had been unable to come. It would be a relief if true, though Opus would still hang in the air.