‘Well, one boob is more of a triple M cup now. The other seems to be a triple K. She may be niche market only at the moment.’
‘How come?’ asked Alan.
‘She’s got some horrible suppurating infection from her implant. Her stupid husband’s disappeared and her children have been taken into care.’
‘Oh. Well, I absolutely hate my job. It’s OK when I’m off my head, but … well … now I can see it in glorious Technicolor, I don’t know how people keep doing it and climbing the ladder without losing their minds and their morals,’ Alan said, stretching out on the sofa. ‘I’m absolutely knackered. I need illicit drugs just to get through the day. I down gallons of caffeine, but all that does is make me pee. Do you know how many times I had to pee today? My immediate boss even remarked upon it. He must have a sad life, to have the time and energy to devote to the calculation of how many minutes I have wasted. It’s a complete frenzy in there.’
The phone rang. Poppy wanting to talk to Alan again. Didn’t that woman ever let up?!
‘Yes … of course … you’re ready to go. Yes … yes,’ repeated Alan.
‘Absolutely … well … I’ve got to go now, Poppy. I’m absolutely knackered and haven’t even seen my children yet … yes … yes … no …’
‘Poppy. Alan will phone you tomorrow, OK?’ interjected Mel on the other line.
‘Oh … Oh, all right then.’ Poppy sounded rather disappointed.
‘Thank God we’re going away soon. Have you ordered the teepee?’ asked Alan.
53
‘Well, I don’t know what’s going on. My friend Kim said that there’s a man fitting Rupert’s description lurking about near Poppy’s house … yep!’ Kelly had phoned Mel after Alan had dragged himself to work the following day.
‘There’s nothing I can say about Poppy. I’ve really no idea what’s going on. That’s their business. Do you fancy taking all our kids out together today? I’m totally at a loss as to what to do with them and they’ve only been off for a couple of weeks. Do you ever think about going back to work, Kelly? Do you remember what it was like to have your own life and not just live through everyone else’s?’
Mel really missed nursing. She knew she’d have to do a back to nursing course when she decided to return and it was the only thing that put her off. She thought she had put studying and exams behind her long ago. She didn’t really relish the prospect of writing pointless essays full of jargon again. She knew full well that the course wouldn’t really help her to be a better nurse. It would just make her better at writing essays about a load of rubbish. As long as she mentioned ‘self-awareness’, ‘taxonomy’ and ‘qualitative research’, she was bound to pass. It wouldn’t matter whether she knew which way up a patient was as long as she managed the blurb the tutors wanted. Nevertheless, she really missed having her own career and earning her own money, even if it was a pittance compared to Alan’s income. She made a mental note to herself that she would get in touch with her old friends and colleagues and enquire about returning to nursing as soon as she came back from Madagascar.
54
So Kelly and Mel decided to take the children to the Play Pit. The kids spent their afternoon knocking each other to pieces with punch bags, throwing plastic balls and hurtling down impossibly steep tube slides. It was a miracle they weren’t sick. It really was amazing how much energy children had.
‘I was in touch with those girls we met in Brighton. You know? Sophie, Tracey and Felicity? They’re going on some sort of rally in London and said they know your sister Briony. Apparently, they’ve travelled with Briony and Zeus. Is that his name? It’s a very odd name, isn’t it?’ Kelly remarked.
‘One of her sons is called Jupiter.’
‘Strange. Do you remember when people were called normal names like Janet and John? Now we’ve got no end of Pixies, Skips, Summers and Trixiebell Zoot Zoots. Even Venus. No Mars yet, but it’s bound to happen. Where do these people get their ideas from? Do you think someone might call their offspring Bluebottle, Wasp, Octopus or Brick any time soon?’ marvelled Kelly.
‘Mummy! Michael tried to push a plastic ball in my earhole!’ screeched Ivan.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s far too big to stick in your ear. Now just go and play, OK?’ said Kelly, wanting to get back to the conversation.
‘Sophie seems very anti-banking and capitalism. She says we’ll all see why, very soon. What do you make of that? Rob seems as though he’s possessed by evil spirits at the moment ... He’s like a cat on a hot tin roof. Says work is getting impossible and he needs something to help him through the day.’
55
Alan was certainly worse for wear that evening when he arrived home. Mel suspected he was back to his old tricks again. Thank goodness they were going away soon.
Time went by. The teepee was hired to be picked up at the airport in Madagascar, because the thought of taking one on the plane these days with all the anti-terrorism checks made Mel’s blood run cold. A bag containing a teepee would be too suspicious for words.
‘Have you seen the news?’ gasped Kelly next morning.
‘What news?’ Mel was busy building a wormery with Amy and Michael. Kelly had phoned and Mel was holding the phone between chin and shoulder while she tried to scrape the muck off her hands.
‘Wall Street has crashed!’
‘Crashed? Crashed into what? Has something crashed into it? It’s not some terrorist group again, is it?’ she yawned.
‘No … no … this huge investment bank has just gone bust and shares are crashing all over the place,’ said Kelly.
‘Oh. It’ll settle. I’m sure it’s not serious.’
‘Well, it looks just like something from the newsreels of the Great Depression on the telly. How can something so big go bust just like that in this day and age?’ Kelly marvelled.
Mel switched the TV on. The newsreader and all the people being interviewed were deadly serious. There was even some rumour that someone was going to jump off the roof of one of the tallest Wall Street bank buildings, because he had just lost everything he owned. It was surreal.
‘Maybe it’s a joke. Is it the first of April?’ Mel racked her brains.
‘No, Mel. We’re off to Madagascar soon, remember? You don’t think this’ll affect us, do you?’ shuddered Kelly.
‘Well … it’s only one bank. They’ll probably do something to rescue it if it’s that important. I don’t know much about finance and stuff, but they’ve literally got rocket scientists with brains the size of planets operating these things. I’m sure it won’t affect us!’
But in the back of her mind, Mel knew she was grasping at straws. Alan had become more and more frantic recently. He was permanently manic. His eyes were almost shut and his skin was red and flaky. She was sure he was now taking something noxious to put himself to sleep as well. He was like some 1950s star; he used drugs to wake himself, drugs to keep going and drugs to put himself into total unconsciousness. Something was obviously not right. Half the time, he’d even slept at work during the past week or two and when Mel had had a swift natter with him, it transpired that most of his work colleagues were doing the same thing.
‘Do you want to pop over? I’m making a wormery,’ she suggested simply. Well, what else can you say when Armageddon strikes and society as we know it is about to blow to kingdom come?
‘OK. See you in a minute.’
As soon as the phone went down, it rang again.
‘Oh my God! Have you seen the news? I hope our investments are safe. We’ve just moved them into something else, but now I don’t know what’s safe. Tarkers is having a screaming blue fit! Is Alan there?’ gibbered Poppy.
‘No, he’s at work like he is all the time at the moment. I’m sure your investments will be safe, I mean, aren’t most of them in warfare stuff? We’re bound to have a dirty great war. It always happens when there’s a huge financial crisis because it’s the way those at the top get us to attack, blame and kill each other instea
d of going for who is really to blame. And of course, a nice world war will get the population down.’ Good grief, thought Mel, I’m getting rather political in my old age!
‘And you’re buying houses … and, as they say, there’s nought so safe as houses! This is Britain, I’m sure they’d be sensible over here. Why has that bank collapsed then? It’s probably to do with some rogue trader like last time, remember? I wouldn’t like to be in his or her shoes, but I daresay it’s something quite small and self-limiting like that,’ Mel reasoned.
‘They’ve mentioned something about bad investments in housing in the States. They’re saying that people took out hundred per cent mortgages without a hope of paying it back and now, all these things based on them, called securities, I think, have been found to be worth nothing. It doesn’t look like “safe as houses” rings true any more, does it? I feel just like I did when I saw those planes flying straight into the Twin Towers. It’s like I’m watching a trailer to some film or something.’ Poppy was snivelling on the other end of the phone now. ‘Can I come over? Please, Mel. It would be nice for Algy to have someone to play with for a bit. He’s been quite lonely recently. We keep buying him things, but he really needs some little people to play with.’
It was true. Algy didn’t have a toy box. He had an amusement arcade. Algy didn’t have a garden. He had an entire fairground. But at the end of the day, it couldn’t be much fun playing with it on his own all the time. Did Algy have real friends? Did they like him or did they just like what he had? Mel had tried to explain this to the children, but they had been unconvinced. Why Mummy couldn’t just go to the hole in the wall and get a wad of money out and buy them ponies and gaming systems and swimming pools, they just couldn’t understand. She was obviously just the meanest Mummy on the planet.
‘Yes, course. Come over. Kelly’s on her way with her two as well.’
Amy and Michael were covered in dirt from the wormery, but Mel felt a sort of warm satisfaction that she was making something with them … something real, honest and dirty. The doorbell rang and before she could answer it, Kelly, Ivan and Matilda had slipped through to the back garden.
‘Have you heard from Alan yet? Is he all right?’ asked Kelly.
‘I’ve tried to phone him, but all the lines are busy and his mobile is switched off. Mind you, there’s nothing unusual about that at the moment. Alan’s either permanently wired for days or unconscious. I’ve only seen him twice this week and he looked as if he’d just ascended from the pit of hell.’
‘Oh! Nothing drastic then!’ quipped Kelly.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest. I feel like it’s always been like this.’
‘Well, no Mel. A few months ago, before Big Swinging Dick arrived, Alan was just like the rest of us. Then he decided to join the big boys. Even a couple of weeks ago, he returned to the old Alan when you went to Rome together for a couple of days. It looks like a pretty dramatic change to me,’ observed Kelly.
And she was right. Big Swinging Dick had sold his American dream to Alan. They’d all been brainwashed to the point that the very air of the City of London buzzed with testosterone. There was so much testosterone that even the women had started to look, speak and walk like men. It must be a bit like the oestrogen and progesterone from the contraceptive pill in the water supplies. All those stories about the increase of male infertility and fish growing boobs. Maybe there was some truth in it. So maybe, if there was enough male hormone in the air, it could have the same effect? Whenever doubts about what Alan was doing tried to push their tentacles into Mel’s brain, she had switched off in the same way as Alan had decided to do. It must be all right … everyone was doing it! It was making loads of money! It must be all right because the greatest brains in the Western world were running it. The people at the top of these institutions had firsts from Cambridge, Oxford, Yale and Harvard. And it made the West rich. It made their family rich. Britain didn’t make much any more. It had no real exports. Mel had often wondered how the country managed to make the money to keep the essential public services going. Then Alan had explained that Britain was now the money tree of the world and that was how the country stayed rich. Who was going to question what was going on?
56
‘Have you heard from Alan, love? You’re all going away soon, aren’t you?’ It was her father. ‘It looks pretty bad.’
‘No, Dad. I’m sure it’s fine. Just a storm in a teacup. If that bank is so important, the US authorities are bound to save it. You know the markets. One little rumour and everyone goes mad. It’s like Chinese Whispers.’
‘I only wish you were right,’ replied her dad in an ominous tone. ‘Let me know when you’ve heard from Alan, won’t you?’
‘God, Mel! Can’t come home … Can’t come home! What a mess! What am I going to do!?’ wailed Alan on the phone at about eleven o’clock that night. Dependable, rational Alan was submerged by drugs, alcohol and panic, standing somewhere outside his workplace in a tiny, narrow street with the towers of the financial world of London bearing down on him.
‘Alan, calm down. What’s going on?’ asked Mel. Alan’s tone was worrying her. ‘Why don’t you come home?’
‘I can’t! I have to sort stuff out! I’m going to lose my job, Melly! We’ll be ruined.’ He started to cry and then switched off his phone.
Mel couldn’t sleep at all that night. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go and search the City for him, not with two little kids in tow. Kelly had offered to look after them for the night when Alan hadn’t returned by eight o’clock but Mel was used to his arriving home later and hadn’t thought it was necessary. Now, she regretted it. But really, how would she find him in the Square Mile anyway? The place was like a rabbit warren, even in broad daylight. God knows what it would be like looking for a frenzied husband in a rabbit warren at night. It was bedlam there, if the news reports and the background noise on Alan’s mobile were anything to go by. So she just spent two hours at a time lying and turning and writhing about in bed, interspersed with periods of staring at all-night television and downing cups of tea. She thought about gin and tonic, but the children needed at least one responsible adult to look after them and what if Alan called and needed to be picked up from some godforsaken hole? What if the police turned up and … ? And what? … Why was Alan panicking so much about something that happened in America to a totally unconnected bank?
The next morning, Alan still hadn’t returned. Mel hadn’t slept a wink and every nerve was twanging. She phoned her parents. ‘Oh God. Alan hasn’t come back! He’s been away all night and he sounded terrible! What should I do?’ she cried.
‘Have you tried his mobile again?’ asked her mother.
‘Yes … it’s saying “unavailable” and “may be switched off”. I expect it’s run out of charge by now. He could be anywhere. I can’t call the police, can I? Would that be an overreaction, do you think?’
‘Actually no. If you’re worried and he sounded that bad when you spoke to him, it would be a totally reasonable thing to do. I would do that if I were you, then phone us back. We’re not going anywhere,’ said her mum.
Well, it would be highly unusual if they were going anywhere at the moment, as it was only seven in the morning. Her parents had always been early risers. It made sense when they were working, but Mel couldn’t understand for the life of her why they would continue with this masochistic tradition when they didn’t have to. Still, she was grateful for their little quirk now, because the night had seemed to last forever and the scary demons of her imagination had grown larger and larger as it had progressed. He could be anywhere. She imagined him being fished out of the Thames, all bloated and fly-blown … only identifiable from his dental records.
‘Oh, Alan! Where are you?’ she called out loud.
Willy the Spider heard; he knew, deep down inside, that Alan would be all right. Maybe not right now, but one day he would be all right. He just wished he could get the message through to Mel.<
br />
Poppy phoned at about ten o’clock that morning. ‘Is Alan back yet? Oh my God! I’m so worried!’
‘You’re worried!? You are worried, are you, Poppy?!’ shouted Mel, unable to maintain any façade of calm and politeness. ‘How do you think I feel? Alan hasn’t come back yet! He’s been out all night and the last time I heard from him he sounded like something howling from the depths of the abyss! What have you got him mixed up with, Poppy?’ There … it was out. Mel’s suspicions had bubbled over. She had not allowed herself to examine her suspicions before, but her emotions were now scraped raw by the long night of worry.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all, Mel. He’s just arranged mortgages for us and to transfer money from our Swiss bank account.’
‘So why had it all been so hush-hush then? Why did you want hundred per cent mortgages when you could buy these properties outright without even noticing? What have you got my husband mixed up in?’
‘I’ll talk to you again when you’re more reasonable. Goodbye,’ said Poppy stiffly.
‘And how come you know all these powerful people . . ,’ continued Mel to thin air.
‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’ Amy and Michael came downstairs. It was late for them. They had spent a long time playing like perfect little angels together in Amy’s bedroom. Amy had been talking to Willy as well. She’d been talking to him about her father and how he was never there. Willy had listened patiently, as always.
‘Oh, it’s all right darlings. Mummy’s just a bit tired today,’ answered Mel. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’
‘Nothing, Mummy. Where’s Daddy gone? Why have you been crying?’ asked Michael, putting his arms around his mum’s leg and looking as if he would start crying as well.
No answer, switched off, not available … Alan had well and truly disappeared, it seemed. If only they had gone off to Madagascar before this lot had blown up. If only they’d known. How hadn’t they known? Alan worked in banking! He had been surfing the wave’s crest since Brent had arrived from the States. They had been to Monaco, mixed with the so-called beautiful people who were more plastic than a Barbie doll, Mel had to admit, but these people were in the hub of it all. There had been hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists … everyone who should know what was likely to happen had been there. How could this possibly happen?
The Meltdown of a Banker's Wife Page 20