by Ashly Graham
In the non-marine market, the nearest thing to a tonner was called a Contingency Risk, in order to make it sound more dignified and above board than the nebulous deals that were consummated downstairs. The difference, supposedly, was that whereas a tonner in its innocent infancy was an indemnification against ignorance, a contingency contract was an insurance against the possibility of financial loss as a result of something that had yet to happen, such as a golfer making a hole-in-one at next week’s golf tournament and winning a motor car.
One senior broker recalled, only too well, such a risk that he had been asked to place, guaranteeing the success of the Inuit whale blubber harvest. It was a three-year deal, or ordeal, meaning that the subscribing underwriter or underwriters could sustain a total loss on each of three consecutive harvesting seasons.
But since Lloyd’s did not permit commitments for longer than a twelvemonth at a time, there was a merciful let-out provision enabling those whose love of whale blubber did not match the obsessive level of the Inuits’, to commute their sentences at the end of each annual period, and wait for a broker to bring in something that was more to their taste, such as the ability of pigs to meet their truffle-hunting quotas.
The broker had in mind as his sole underwriter on the contract an old-school stalwart called Clotworthy Blandblind. There were very few such sportsmen as Blandblind who, in addition to not being able to resist the occasional punt, would be greedy enough to swallow the whole thing. But despite it being especially bad practice to accept a line of one hundred per cent on such a risk…because in the event of a loss in the first year no underwriter in his right mind, and many were, would agree to continue, which would require the broker to find someone who was prepared to deem the incident a “non-repeat” loss and take up the slack, and nobody was that...well, there were very few such sportsmen around as Clotworthy Blandblind. Actually, none.
In this case the broker was fortunate in that, having fagged for Clotworthy B. at Eton, he had grown sufficiently friendly with him in after-years, based on a shared love of racing, as to own a leg of one of C.B.’s thoroughbred horses. There were a couple of other things going in the broker’s favour: the sum of the beast’s quarters had just won by three times his length at Newmarket; and the day that the broker chose to do battle on behalf of the blubbering Inuits was Blandblind’s birthday.
The broker timed his appearance at the Blandblind Syndicate box for a quarter to one, when Clotworthy was pawing the ground with impatience to race for the finishing-post at the Marine Club, where he would be awarded, in place of a cup or rosette, the first of a number of large pink gins.
The reason for the broker’s timing his arrival for just before lunch was that, a) everyone in the market knew how much Blandblind looked forward to lunch time; and, b) everyone also knew, in consequence of a), never to go and see Blandblind after lunch either on his birthday or on any other day of the year when he was in training for his anniversary to roll around again.
A hint to the uninformed regarding the foregoing was seeing Blandblind passed out at the box every afternoon with head on folded arms on his desk, dreaming of winning the Derby while the other underwriters on his box ignored him and carried on with their brokers as usual. There was no broker in the Room who would risk incurring Blandblind’s wrath by waking him up, possibly while his animal was in the lead on the final furlong.
On this day, just as Blandblind had consulted his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes, and was preparing to whinny and plunge out of the starting-gate, he sighted, out of the corner of his eye through the pre-prandial scurry in the Room, an unhandicapped loose horse; which, as it got closer, proved not to be a horse at all but his one-time fag with an expression of determination on his face.
C.B. froze. He knew how few and far between were this very important executive broker’s man’s visits to the Room, laden as he was with the demands of management, and he knew that he was coming to see him. The underwriter’s grey lined features turned whiter than the ice-block lodgings of the Inuits whose livelihoods he was about to learn so little about, and he slumped in his seat and wondered how long it would take before delirium tremens and visions of pink elephants instead of pink gins set in.
Whatever it was that was about to be presented to him, and C.B. knew it was going to be something damned unusual, he knew he was going to write a hundred per cent of the damned thing, and he knew that it was damned likely to turn out a total loss. The outcome was assured before the damned slip was set before him.
When it was it was indeed very short, there not being much, or any, underwriting information available regarding the Inuit’s track record of hauling in blubber, and how many whales wearing the stuff were hanging about in Inuit territorial waters willing to let themselves be caught and flensed of it. Bloody hell, it got worse: the broker, damn his eyes, had written in the premium as if the underwriter had no say in the matter.
Clotworthy B. groaned; he knew that there was no point in asking for more money, for his tormentor was expert in calculating the highest figure he could get his client to pay that would earn the broker’s maximum possible commission. And not only had the intermediary already written in the premium, he had had the gall to pencil the underwriter’s initials where he was to put down his stamp, and write “100%” next to it.
The broker had not even opened his mouth in salutation.
Blandblind shot a glance at a framed photograph that was propped on a shelf above his head, and shivered. It was a picture of his grandmother, Etheldreda Blandblind, aged one hundred and three. She was a grim-faced, bearded, and still mentally functional woman, who walked with the aid of a shillelagh and had a stare that bored into his skull and read his every thought; which is why Etheldreda’s grandson had learned to keep his mental traffic as light as possible.
Granny Blandblind was the largest Name on the syndicate, which her husband had founded, and every time that Clotworthy looked at her picture or was in her presence he felt as though he were still a schoolboy in short trousers.
With a heavy heart Clotworthy turned Etheldreda’s photograph face-down, and rummaged in his drawer for a small key. Then, reaching under his seat, he unlocked a pocket drawer and retrieved a dusty stamp, which he spat on and wiped on his sleeve and banged several times on a pad to ink it up.
The rest of the box fell silent, as the deputy and assistant underwriters (the Blandblind Syndicate was a sizeable operation) suspended their more vocal—Clotworthy’s broker had still not said a word and did not look pregnant with speech—discussions with other brokers to watch in fascination. The stamp was for a “baby” syndicate on which Clotworthy and Etheldreda Blandblind were the only Names, and it came out of its lair about once every dozen or so blue moons. Most of the staff had never seen it.
Clotworthy stamped the slip and the broker’s sealed lips twisted with satisfaction.
The blubber harvest, of course, was a disaster—not that the Inuits gave a fish’s tit: they had not even bothered to get their boats out, so glued had they been to their new satellite digital premium-channelled plasma HD televisions, paid for on the never-never by the future proceeds of their insurance contract—and twelve months to the day later the broker re-approached his market for the second year, or first renewal, of the contract.
Blandblind’s horse had just lost an important race, and as he saw the broker bearing down on him he was certain not only of what he was bringing, but that the risk had tanked, and that he was nonetheless going to renew it with no increase in premium.
It would not be the first time that Granny Etheldreda, now a hundred and four, had threatened to kill him; however Clotworthy, for all his misgiving, could not stand the thought of someone, if such a person could be found, taking over his contract and of it running clean in the second year, thereby depriving him of the opportunity to get his and the old lady’s money back.
It was imperative that Clotworthy recoup the loss; despite her great age his ancient relative went through
the accounts every year with a fine-toothed comb and berated him, literally with her shillelagh, for anything that she attributed to bad underwriting judgement. It was her syndicate, she would remind him through clenched gums, and had been for the last forty years since her husband Billy Blandblind died, and she was not going to permit her grandson to drive it into the ground. The subterranean motion of Billy spinning in his grave counter to the earth on its axis was bad enough.
Clotworthy B. unlocked the little cupboard for the first time since the previous year, and, wincing at the thought of how much witch hazel he would need for his bruises if things went south again, soldiered on...as before without a word being exchanged between him and the broker.
The second year was the same as the first: the whales, who were bored now that no Inuits in sealskins were chasing them with harpoons, had altered their migratory paths and the harvest was as poor as it had ever been, even unto the point of being non-existent.
Not that the Inuits gave a squashed cock, for they had a policy from Lloyd’s that had just paid out in full, and their broker’s assurance that they would shortly get another banker’s draft for the same amount, on the strength of which they had acquired the latest model of Apple iPads, delivered free by helicopter, to watch films on while they ate the junk food—they had quite lost the taste for whale blubber, and their harpoons and whaleboats were in a folk-history museum—that Tesco air-dropped to replenish their very green freezers.
Even now that he had no chance of recouping his loss, Blandblind, as he did his best not to blubber on his own unnegotiable behalf, could not bear to miss out on the final year of the mutely transacted contract, in hope of halving the amount that he was in the hole for; and the number of strokes when she found out about Inuit Fiasco Part Deux that Granny Etheldreda had rained on his back after she found out about the first inglorious instalment.
When the third and final period turned out the same as the other two, the Inuits—who had been basking in Lloyd’s of London’s assurance of good faith, and the global warmth that was fast melting their igloos and food freezers—could not give a flying fuck: they moved onshore into condominiums and townhouses, and switched from eating junk food to vacuum-sealed gourmet meat sent from overseas, at the expense of the Blandblind Syndicate.
It had not been a good year in other respects either for a certain underwriter. Clotworthy Blandblind’s horse, that year’s Derby favourite, had come a cropper at Epsom, fractured a leg and had had to be put down; and Clotworthy had developed gout and was restricted to drinking ginger ale.
When he was informed by the family solicitor that his grandmother, at a hundred and five, who had upon discovering last year’s total loss broken her irreplaceable shillelagh on her grandson’s shoulders, would be taking over as the syndicate’s active underwriter, and had disinherited him, Clotworthy Blandblind resigned from Lloyd’s and retired to breed hogs, which he had received as salvage on a farm contract gone wrong on a smallholding in County Wicklow.
There was one broker who never came near that part of the Room again. Walking the long way round the balcony was preferable to being tossed over it by a vengeful centenarian.
Chapter Eight
Two months after she joined Chandler Brothers, when it was decided that she was ready to go broking on her own without a nursemaid, and with a brand new risk to get led off instead of just the usual scratches or a straightforward renewal, to the consternation of everyone Arbella was the first broker who refused to fall for the disingenuous suggestion that she start by picking up an easy line from Mr Carew.
She insisted that if and when she did go to see the man it would be at a time of her choosing: as a woman she considered herself exempt from schoolboyish blooding rituals; and that, she said, was that.
It was the advice she got from Freddie Garbanzo-Myers, The Galloping Major, that alerted Arbella to the possibility that broking to Carew might not be the productive exercise she had been led to expect it would be. Carew would be the perfect place for her to begin, he said, leaning back in his chair and eyeing her chest; he wrote two and a half per cent on pretty much everything he was shown, very few questions asked, often none at all.
‘Actually,’ said Freddie, ‘for someone with a face and figure as spectacular as yours he might squeeze five per cent, or even seven and a half if the limit’s not too big. Now, here’s how you play him...’ At the next row of desks, Cyril Cholmondeley and Ramses Barrington-Knightley raised their newspapers. ‘Cold, hard facts is what he likes,’ the Major continued. ‘Look him in the eye and sock it to him. Keep it simple, and don’t give him any of that scientific crap the college types dish out. I say, d’you fancy a spot of lunch? I’ll book my booth at Balls Brothers.
‘Or you could come over to my pad at St Catherine’s Dock—actually, it’s not mine, I live in Chelsea, it belongs to a friend and I use it sometimes during the day when he’s away. I’ll defrost you...some lasagne. Or a drink after work? Better still, what about dinner?’
‘Did Mr Carew write the first risk you showed him, Freddie?’
‘’ Course he did. He rather took me under his wing, I don’t mind telling you. “Major,” he said, “Lloyd’s is privileged to have a man like you, fresh out of uniform, credit to Queen and Country, honour us by choosing to join the market and inspire us with your professionalism. You’re a credit to your firm, Major, and I shan’t hesitate to call your director and tell him so.”
‘So you can take it from me, Arbella…Abby…I’m old Carew’s pro-tay-jay. Having fly-fishing in common with him is a plus.’
‘I didn’t know you were a fisherman, Freddie. You don’t seem the type. Doesn’t it require a lot of patience and a love of being alone in wild places in variable weather?’
‘The Major is a fisher of women, Abby. I always take two or three girls along who are eager for me to dangle my tackle for them. And I’ll let you into a secret: women catch more fish than men. Proven fact, something to do with pheromones. So I get the girls to handle my flies and get my rod extensions out for me and grease my line. Then it’s just a matter of hooking ’em and reeling ’em in as fast as I can and bang…bagging ’em one after another, or sometimes more’n one at a time.
‘When I need a bit of a rest the girls make themselves useful getting the lunch together, a proper one. I like having it on a blanket in the heather as much as the next man, but I prefer to do things in comfort and style in a tent with all the proper equipment. Are you a sporting girl, Abby?’
‘No. I prefer art.’
‘Ah, etchings. You must come over to my place and I’ll show you some of mine.’
‘Talk to you later, Freddie.’
When Arbella moved away and decided to test her intuition regarding Mr Carew linear promiscuity by applying for a trustworthy opinion from Cyril and Ramses, to her surprise they reddened and got up, folded their newspapers over at the county cricket scores, tucked them under their arms and headed for the door. Gathering speed, Chumley went through the motion of changing up through the gears of a motor car, with accompanying noises.
Intrigued by such uncharacteristic behaviour she trotted after them. ‘Mr Cholmondeley? Could I ask you about Mr Carew, please, and how you would suggest I handle him? Mr Barrington?’
‘Can’t stop now, young lady. The Lime Street citrus grove this morning exerts a strange allure.’
‘Busy day ahead, my dear. Sorry.’
‘But there won’t be anyone in the Room yet, not for another hour at least.’
‘The weather report is for rain and we both forgot our umbrellas.’
‘There’s a drought and it isn’t expected to rain for another month. And your umbrellas are both in the stand by the door, a whangee and a cherry, you told me they are, with pearl-button fasteners. You would no more forget them than not put on your trousers in the morning.’
Ramses and Cyril looked at each other.
‘Chum old fellow,’ said R.; ‘the gamps to which the young lady refers, which both
blew inside-out in that howler of a wind last week and broke a couple of spokes...not what one expects from a Swaine Adeney Brigg with a Fox frame…we dropped them off for repair at the place opposite the Royal Exchange, did we not?’
‘What wind?’ said Arbella. ‘The days have been halcyon.’
‘Silly us, Ram.’ said C.; ‘we picked them up yesterday, remember? Thanks for reminding us, Arbella. A gentleman is naked without his umbrella. Now then, Ramses, we’d best be toddling up to the Room, a couple of old tortoises like us, or that chap from the Golden Mile’ll be on our case again.’
‘You speak true, Cyril. Ta-ta, my dear!’
‘Gentlemen, please. Can’t you tell me anything about Mr Carew?’
The pair halted. ‘He is a good man, Arbella,’ said R.
‘Indubitably,’ said C.
And off they went.
Exasperated and as a last resort Arbella tapped on the glass of Oink’s goldfish bowl of an office and entered before he could look up from his desk. Picking up an empty folder from the floor, she used it to brush the débris of food and ash off the only spare chair, a metal one, pulled it further away from Oink’s station over the carpet tiles and sat down gingerly.
Oink looked up, startled. Most people had an aversion to witnessing him smoking, masticating, and talking at the same time. Besides which he was very proprietorial about his food and regarded every incursion as a raiding party. Whatever it was he was chewing at this moment, he continued to do it without removing the cigarette from his mouth.
Permeating the air in this Circe’s garden was an uneasy alliance of the odours of onion, stale smoke, and eau de cochon. Torn paper bags that had contained rolls and sandwiches were strewn about, and particles of matter that had sprayed from the occupant’s chops bespattered the semi-opaque window and perspex walls, where they had dried into cement-like permanence. A dazed ring of flies circled beneath the strip lights, patiently awaited by a number of fat spiders that lurked in webs at the ceiling corners.