by Fiona Neill
Impulsively, Ali decided to go downstairs. It was only five in the morning, but she could sit in the drawing room and run through her reasons for not telling Nick and Bryony anything of what had happened. She pulled on a short cardigan on top of her T-shirt and pajama bottoms and carefully opened the bedroom door. As Ali made her way past Bryony and Nick’s bedroom the staircase made uncomfortable groans, as though it wanted to expose the impostor treading its boards. She continued down into the hallway, shivering as her feet touched the York stone floor.
The drawing room door was open. The set of curtains at the far end was drawn, leaving one end of the room veiled in shadow while the other half was bathed in early-morning light. Ali surveyed the scene slowly, scrunching up her toes in the thick carpet as she used to do in the sand on the beach in Cromer.
She remembered the snagging list Bryony had sent her and checked the grand piano. Bryony was correct: there was nothing beneath its legs to protect the carpet from its weight, there was no bulb in the light fixture above the Francis Bacon, and the decorators had forgotten to paint the skirting board on the right side of the room. She marveled at Bryony’s capacity to retain so much information.
Ali walked toward the marble mantelpiece that dominated the drawing room. It was heavy with invitations. An art opening at Blain Southern, weddings, fiftieth-birthday parties, a school reunion for Bryony at Wycombe Abbey. She picked up one—an invitation to drinks at the Treasury in honor of Warren Buffett—and traced her finger over the gold-embossed lettering, closing her eyes as though reading Braille.
“What are you doing in here?” a voice asked. Ali jumped and turned to find Nick sitting on a sofa at the other end of the room. It was too dark to see his face, but his tone betrayed his impatience.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were back,” said Ali, knocking the invitation on to the carpet. She bent down to pick it up, self-consciously putting a hand across her chest, suddenly aware that she was wearing nothing beneath her T-shirt. “I mean, I thought you might be back, but I didn’t think you would get up so early.”
And now he was here, sitting in semidarkness with one portable computer open on his lap and another beside him on the sofa. All around his feet lay piles of paper and magazines. The Journal of Fixed Income. Journal of Corporate Finance. Risk. Euromoney. Fortune. He leaned down and started stacking them in a single precarious pile.
“I’m doing a list for the builders of things they need to put right,” explained Ali. “Bryony asked me.”
“At five o’clock in the morning?” he questioned, but his tone had softened.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Ali apologized as she stepped away from the fireplace and toward him.
This was the first time she had seen him in more than ten days. Now that she was closer, Ali could see he was wearing a crumpled white shirt with the sleeves carelessly rolled up. The top buttons were undone. His jeans were creased. Ali couldn’t help noticing that his belt was too loose and his zipper half undone. He put down the computer. Even though the screen was facing the back of the sofa away from her, she could see from the dim purple glow that it was still switched on. She also recognized from the Arsenal sticker on the lid that it was Jake’s computer. There was a shared moment of embarrassed silence.
“I was going to try and sleep for a couple of hours before I go to work, but it proved elusive,” Nick said smoothly as he snapped the lid of the computer shut. “I’m leaving for the States again in a couple of days.”
“Where are you going?” asked Ali politely, trying to avoid staring at the computer.
“To Boca, for an off-site,” said Nick.
“Boca?”
“Boca Raton in Florida. Brainstorming session with the boys from my team. And the girls. We do it a couple of times a year to try and come up with ever more ingenious ideas to make money as people copy our previous ingenious ideas and render them inert.”
“Oh,” said Ali, surprised by his unusual verbosity on the subject. “It must be great traveling so much.”
“After a while every hotel room looks the same and the piped music has the same bland quality wherever you are. It’s the downside of globalization.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“What’s keeping you awake?” Nick asked. Ali was relieved when he switched on a small radio that sat on a table beside him.
“And now the shipping forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at 0520 GMT, Monday, the twenty-seventh of November . . .”
“Your radio has seen better days,” said Ali stiffly, noticing the bent aerial and scratched face. She picked it up.
“It’s the one I had at university. It’s survived several of Bryony’s purges.” He smiled.
“Humber, Thames, southeast four or five increasing six or seven veering south four or five later. Occasional rain, with fog patches becoming moderate.” The voice on the radio filled the silence, its familiarity giving Ali more confidence.
“No gales,” she said. “They always do them first.”
“Do they?”
“Anything over gale force eight.” She nodded seriously. “Then it’s the general synopsis, then the forecast for each area.”
“I don’t understand what any of it means.”
“Once you understand the formula, it’s easy,” said Ali. “He’s telling us that the wind is coming from the southeast, at Beaufort Force four or five, and that over today it will increase to Force six or seven but not for the next twelve hours. Veering means it’s changing in a clockwise direction to the south, and moderate is the visibility. If visibility is less than a thousand meters then it’s poor.”
“I’m impressed,” said Nick.
“My dad taught me,” said Ali, presuming that Nick had read the file on her family and knew that her father was a fisherman. “Humber and Thames are the areas where he fishes off the east coast.”
“As in Humber Light Vessel Automatic?”
“That’s just the coastal weather station in that area.”
“I’ve always rather liked the sound of North Utsire and South Utsire,” said Nick, warming to the theme. “They sound so ancient and exotic. One day I’d like to visit.”
“It’s Norse. They were named after an island off the Norwegian coast called Utsire. They used to be part of Viking, actually. It’s another shipping area. The names are very atmospheric.”
“Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer—” Nick began.
“Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre,” Ali responded.
“Carol Ann Duffy,” they both said simultaneously. There was a brief moment of connection. Then Ali looked down at her feet and it snapped.
“I never have time to read anymore,” Nick said. “I can’t remember the last novel I finished, and I haven’t been to the cinema for about two years. I lead a life largely devoid of culture.”
It didn’t sound as though he felt regret, so Ali was unsure what to say, other than perhaps he should pick up a book instead of downloading porn or whatever he was doing on his son’s computer. Nick slumped back into the sofa and closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his chin.
“So how has your first month here been?”
“It’s my third,” Ali pointed out, even though she knew that he was hoping for a bland one-word answer.
“How has your third month been?” he asked lazily.
“Better than my first and second.”
“And how did you cope without us?”
“Everything was fine.”
“Children?”
“Good.”
“What did Izzy get in her maths review?”
“Eighty-nine.”
“Class average?”
“Ninety. That’s an improvement.”
&nbs
p; “But still not good enough.”
“The twins have gone up a level in reading, and Jake got an A on his English essay.”
“Did he go out?”
“Only at the weekend.”
“Foy?”
“Fine.”
“Watch him after a glass of wine, he can get a little leery.”
Ali looked down at her feet in embarrassment.
“Did he mention the photo again?”
“A couple of times. Your mother-in-law is trying to get hold of a duplicate. He’s stopped bringing sweets to the twins until they confess. But they’re sticking to their line.”
“What do they say?” There was another long silence.
“They say it was you.”
Nick opened one eye.
“They say that you went into the toilet as they came out.”
“And who do you believe?”
“I re-created the incident. The picture was too high for them to reach.”
“And what were your conclusions?”
“That Hector and Alfie are right.” Nick leaned back into the sofa and started laughing.
“A regular little spy in our midst.” He laughed even harder. “Did you tell anyone else?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“Good girl.”
The shipping forecast finished.
“What else have you discovered?” Nick teased.
“The language the twins speak is Filipino,” said Ali. “I cross-referenced the list of words with Malea.”
“Really?”
“I found out that Malea’s friend looked after the twins until I got here, then Malea helped out,” said Ali. “That’s almost the entire period that Hector and Alfie were learning to speak.”
“Didn’t you know any of that?”
Ali shook her head.
“Bryony should have told you.” He shrugged.
“She’s always very busy—there isn’t much time to chat,” said Ali, surprised to find herself defending Bryony. “But I feel bad I took the job from Malea.”
“If it wasn’t you it would have been someone else,” Nick said, his impatience tempered by Ali’s loyalty to his wife. “Malea was a good stopgap, but she would have never worked out as their nanny. She’s too indulgent. You can see they need more structure. Especially Hector. Don’t worry about it.”
“Did she used to sleep in my room?” Ali asked.
“She was always in the basement, but the twins used to go down every night and sleep in her bed. Since you arrived they haven’t. It’s a result.”
“I feel bad about it,” Ali said. “I think maybe they filled the space in Malea’s life that her own children should have filled.”
“You think too much. You know, guilt is one of the most useless emotions known to man. It wastes a lot of energy. If you feel really bad then give up the job, but it won’t achieve anything because someone else will replace you and you won’t have saved enough money to go back to university. Would it have been better to get rid of Malea so that you would never have known? She earns the same amount of money doing what she’s doing. It’s actually a better situation for her, because she can go back to the Philippines every couple of years for six weeks to see her family.”
“There are more important things in life than money,” said Ali primly.
“Not in the world Malea inhabits,” he said smiling, “nor the world I live in.”
“What exactly is it that you do?” Ali asked. She was uncomfortable with the enforced intimacy of their situation. Yet she didn’t want the conversation to end. The weeks of loneliness had heightened her need for meaningful exchange with other people.
“Are you really interested?” he asked. “It’s the kind of job that no one really understands. It’s a mystery, even to some of the people that I work with.”
“I am.” She nodded vigorously.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said, moving both computers onto the floor so that there was space beside him on the sofa. She remembered Rosa’s warning about predatory fathers and glanced nervously from Nick to the sofa a couple of times. His face was pale, as though he had spent too much time indoors. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Her own face, open and youthful, hid nothing of her feelings.
“Whatever you think I am, I am not.”
“What do you think I think you are?” Ali would have liked to ask. Instead she looked down at her feet.
“Now, do you want me to explain what I do?” Nick asked with faux impatience. “It’s a great cure for insomnia.”
He leaned back into the sofa, seemingly unaware his zipper was half undone, and a pile of papers on the arm fluttered to the floor. “Strictly Private and Confidential,” it read in big black letters at the top of the page that landed on Ali’s bare foot. She bent down to pick it up, her T-shirt billowing. He swiftly averted his eyes. “Project Odysseus.” The same document Bryony was reading in the car a couple of months earlier. How amazing that they are both so involved in each other’s professional life, thought Ali, as she handed back the paper and sat down beside him, taking care to make sure no part of her body touched his. But close enough that she could see the grime collected on his collar.
“I’m in charge of fixed income for a bank. An American bank. It’s not the kind of bank where you or I would have an account or go and withdraw money,” he started. “It’s a bit like running a shop. You work out what your customer wants, get stock in, and sell it at a profit as fast as possible. I’m in charge of two areas: principle finance, where we lend directly for projects, like building Wembley Stadium, for example, and securitization, the racier part, where we repackage investment contracts called derivatives.”
“So far so good,” said Ali.
“Do you want me to go on? It’s not something that you can explain in a sentence.”
Ali nodded. If she was being paid from the money he earned, then she should at least understand where her salary was coming from. Besides, she had never seen him so animated.
“The derivatives desks makes more money for the bank than any other,” he said. He waited for Ali to react.
“Millions?” she complied.
“Billions.” He smiled.
“The trades involve bits of paper, not goods. Sometimes people use them as a way of controlling risk. For example, if your father thought the price of crab was high and that next year it might drop, then he could buy an option for an agreed sum to sell the crabs at the current price in twelve months’ time. That way he would know how much money he stands to make and ensure he has a market for his product.”
“Surely the person selling the crab option at the lower price would lose money?” Ali pointed out.
“Good question. But what if there is an oil spill and there is a shortage of crabs, then your father loses out on the chance to make more money and the person who bet against him Hoovers up the difference?”
“So it’s like gambling,” said Ali.
“But more scientific and creative, because whenever someone comes up with a clever plan to make money, the next person copies him, and profits fall. So you have to constantly innovate.”
“It’s not really like inventing penicillin, though, is it?” Ali asked nervously. Nick smiled benignly.
“No, but I guess we’re giving loans that allow millions of poor people in the U.S. and the UK to buy their own homes,” he said, repeating a line he frequently used during meetings at the Bank of England. “We repackage debt from these mortgage companies and bundle it into bonds called collateralized debt obligations—CDOs—and sell those on to investors, like an IOU. The investors earn interest, and they get their money back at the end. The more bonds we sell, the more money we make and the more mortgage com
panies have to allow other poor people to buy their own home.”
“But how does anyone make money?” Ali asked.
“The CDOs are divided into different tranches. Some are higher risk than others. The higher the risk, the greater the return,” said Nick. “Subprime loans have higher interest rates, so people who invest in them take more risk but earn more money. And every time we sell a bond, we get a fee.”
“How can the people who don’t have enough money for a deposit on their house afford to pay a mortgage?” Ali asked. “Who picks up the bill if they can’t pay?”
“The housing market is booming,” said Nick, as though he was addressing an audience. “Every week house prices go up, so they can take out equity to pay the interest. There are mathematical formulas to work out the risk, and we take out insurance so that if something goes wrong we get paid. It’s beautiful maths.”
“So can I get paid in CDOs?”
Nick chortled loudly, and Ali felt gratified. They heard a noise in the hall. Nick stopped laughing, and they simultaneously turned toward the drawing room door. It slowly pushed open, the bottom of the door scraping against the deep carpet. Jake emerged. He was wearing his favorite pair of black jeans and a grubby white T-shirt with the White Stripes on the front.
For a moment he stood before them, arms curled above his head, eyes closed. He lifted his chin in the air and stretched, the corners of his plump mouth pulled down so that his lips parted. He smiled. All this with his iPod turned up so loud that Ali could recognize “Seven Nation Army” playing. He had obviously just come in.
On the sofa Nick looked down at his trousers, aware for the first time that his zipper was half undone and this might not look good. He pulled at it, but his hands were clumsy and it was stubborn. He tugged again, but the zipper wouldn’t budge. He gave Ali a panicked look. She instinctively moved farther away from him. But it was too late. Jake sensed the movement at the other end of the room. He opened his eyes, and his gaze fell on the two people sitting on the sofa. His eyes darted back from Nick to Ali. He took in the flimsy T-shirt and his father’s dishevelment and drew all the wrong conclusions.