The Mark and the Void

by Paul Murray

  ‘Okay, fine.’

  But she doesn’t leave; instead she hovers by the door, examining us where we sit at the table. ‘Vot are you doink?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Chasing again the waitresses?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Daddy’s writing a story!’ Remington sings from the floor.

  ‘A story?’ She looks from me to her husband and back.

  ‘You didn’t tell her?’ I say to Paul.

  ‘Tell me vot?’

  Paul flurries a hand impatiently. ‘It’s nothing. We ran into my old editor last week and we’re trying to put together a proposal for him. It probably won’t come to anything.’

  ‘He was very interested in seeing something new,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. She looks surprised.

  ‘Have a good game,’ Paul says.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. Her imperious façade seems to waver, then she gathers herself.

  ‘Bye, Mama,’ the little boy calls. The door closes, and we hear her clop away down the hall.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her you met Dodson?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh God, Claude, she’s been through that wringer so many times, what’s the point of putting her through it again? When we don’t even have anything concrete?’

  ‘So let’s make something concrete,’ I exhort him. ‘I think we dismissed the alienated banker too quickly. Think about it: the reasons you want to throw it away, aren’t those in fact its strengths? He’s boring, his life is boring, isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what makes his story true? He’s the modern man, he lives to work, he has everything anyone could want – or rather, he has enough money to buy anything anyone could want – yet his life is empty. And then he meets this beautiful waitress –’

  The key turns in the door. Clizia, grimacing, comes limping into the apartment.

  Paul jumps up, hurries to assist her. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ach, I come out of building, my foot slip on kerb.’ She sinks into a chair, massages her ankle. ‘Ugh, all these stairs, I think I never make it.’

  ‘You should have called me,’ Paul reproves her, bringing some ice from the kitchen. ‘You think it’s sprained?’

  She sighs stoically. ‘I’m sure is fine. Maybe I rest him for a little while.’ She casts a sidelong glance at the notebook on the table. ‘How is story going?’

  ‘Oh Christ, don’t ask,’ Paul says.

  ‘It’s actually going quite well,’ I tell her.

  ‘You should use this green crayon, Daddy,’ Remington says, proffering a box. ‘It’s a better colour for stories.’

  ‘Have you had your bath yet?’ Clizia says.

  ‘I don’t need a bath.’

  Paul protests that she should stay off her feet, but Clizia insists that she already feels better now that she has taken her boots off. She leads Remington towards the bathroom.

  ‘But I want to show Daddy the other good crayons,’ he says.

  ‘Daddy’s working,’ she replies, and the ghost of a smile crosses her lips.

  It takes all evening, but at last I persuade him to give the banker another shot. We draw up a list of supporting characters; he promises he will call me early next week, when he has a rough idea of the plot, the basic mechanisms by which our Everyman is brought together with the woman who will transform him.

  Ish is back in the office the following afternoon. She is in good humour, cracking jokes, flirting with clients, apparently with no idea that her fate hangs in the balance. But she’s the only one. Bankers, beneath the façade of reason, are as superstitious as sailors, with a preternatural sensitivity to bad luck. Her colleagues might not know what exactly she’s done, but they can tell something’s up, and the whole Research Department gives her a wide berth. Eyes track her from behind every terminal, then vanish as she draws near; when face-to-face contact is unavoidable, they try to keep at least one dividing wall between them, and wince anticipatorily, as if a bolt of lightning might descend and incinerate her at any moment.

  But the lightning bolt doesn’t come – not that afternoon, nor the next morning. As we slip into afternoon with no word from the Uncanny Valley I begin to allow myself to hope. Maybe Rachael changed her mind? Or maybe I imagined the whole thing? Maybe she doesn’t know about the email to Blankly, maybe Jurgen was just making a general inquiry?

  ‘Hey, Claude, you’re on TV!’

  I look up. There I am on the plaza, explaining to a journalist why it is a very good thing that the government is giving the last of its money to a failed bank.

  ‘I never noticed how big your head was before,’ Jocelyn Lockhart says.

  ‘Or your fucking accent,’ Gary McCrum says. ‘It’s so French.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Ish says. She is looking into her computer; it’s as if I can hear her go pale. She turns to me with eyes like moons and says in a hoarse whisper, ‘Just got a mail from Rachael. She wants me to come up for a chat.’

  ‘Oh?’ I try to sound casual.

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘Hmm,’ I stroke my chin. ‘Well, probably, she just wants to see how you are. Talk about life generally. You know. A chat.’

  ‘That woman’s never had a chat in her life,’ Ish says. Her face is like a ghost’s; the fake tan somehow makes her look paler still. ‘Christ – you reckon it’s about the email? Am I going to get canned?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I say firmly. ‘You are a valued member of the team.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she says, and covers her face with her hands.

  As soon as the lift door closes over her I run to the department head’s office.

  ‘I don’t fucking know, Claude,’ Liam English says. ‘She dropped the fucking ball in a major way. We’re in the middle of not one but two giant takeovers, and she’s writing the CEO letters, like my fucking eight-year-old asking Santa Claus to save the rainforest?’ He tugs furiously on his electronic cigarette, sends coils of vapour ghosting over his head. ‘It’s not just the fucking impudence of it. We’ve borrowed up to our tits to pull these deals off. We don’t want anything happening that’d give our backers the heebie-jeebies. And here’s Ish, trying to get us to carry the can for global fucking warming! What if the press got hold of that email? Bank Drowns Primitive Island Race – how’s that going to fucking look?’

  ‘Isn’t it possible that helping Kokomoko could bring some good publicity?’ I plead. ‘You know, banks have had a lot of bad press, but here’s one doing something positive? Ready to act ethically?’

  Liam sits back in his chair, looks at me square in the eye until I feel my will buckle and collapse. As I return to my desk, I catch Kevin tracking me: calculating what’s just happened, how much it’s damaged me, the best means of taking advantage.

  ‘Fax for you, Claude,’ Kimberlee says, clipping in from Reception.

  I take the paper from her hand. There is no text; it is a solid block of blackness. ‘What is this?’

  ‘That’s how it came out,’ she says, shrugging. ‘But with your name on the top.’

  I stare at the page. It reminds me eerily of the painting I saw in William O’Hara’s house, some deathly message coiled just beneath its surface.

  ‘Looks like someone’s marked your cards, Claude-o,’ Gary says, without looking away from his screen.

  ‘Bollocks, it’s just some student trying to use up our ink supply,’ Jocelyn says.

  ‘Look out, capitalism,’ Gary says.

  The lift doors open. I spin round in my chair just as Ish emerges. No security guards with her: that’s a good sign. Yet she looks shell-shocked – grey as ashes, her eyes wide but focused on nothing.

  ‘Are you all right? What happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  Ish begins to speak, then, glancing up, realizes that everyone in the office is staring at her – with a kind of appreciative mystification, as if five minutes previously they’d seen her jump out the win
dow. Tugging my sleeve, she leads me into the lobby.

  ‘Rachael was livid about that email,’ she says. ‘You’d think I’d sent Blankly a photocopy of my arse.’

  ‘But she didn’t … you’re not…?’

  ‘She was going to, I have no fucking doubt. But then in the middle of everything – Howie called.’

  ‘Howie?’

  ‘Yeah, he phoned down and insisted he be put through to her, there and then. So she listens to him for a couple of minutes, barely says a word herself. Next thing you know, she’s sending me back downstairs, telling me in the future to keep her in the loop.’

  ‘What loop?’

  ‘From what she said it sounded like the island was part of some ATCM investment strategy.’

  ‘ATCM? Howie’s fund?’ The more she tells me, the more confused I am.

  ‘She says if I’d clarified that with her, none of this would be an issue.’

  ‘Wait … Howie’s fund is going to invest in Kokomoko?’ This is like hearing that Hitler has deployed the Waffen-SS to build an owl sanctuary.

  ‘That’s what he told her. I mean, I presume he just made it up, to get me off the hook.’

  She is calling his mobile but there is no answer. ‘Fuck it,’ she says. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘What about the Chinese wall?’ I say. But she has already charged off up the stairs to Agron Torabundo Credit Management.

  The factotum who answers the door is not pleased to see us. ‘You can’t be up here!’ he scolds.

  Ish just pushes past him; the factotum throws his hands in the air, then promptly vanishes, leaving us to find our own way.

  Life is very different here on the ninth floor. There are paintings on the walls, and fresh flowers on every flat surface; operatives zip back and forth in loafers and chinos, exuding an air of easeful mastery that is a million miles from the feverish hamster-wheeling of the research area, to say nothing of the bellowing chaos of the traders’ den. The only discordant note is struck by the two men sitting squeezed into a comically small and ornate chaise longue – burly, lumpen characters with a single eyebrow between them, furrowed menacingly at anyone who happens to look their way.

  ‘Ish!’ Howie is standing in an office doorway, waving his arm at us as if from the top deck of a yacht. To one side of him, an astonishingly tall and beautiful woman is helping a stubby, moustachioed man into a camel-hair coat. Whatever has happened in the office, the stubby man seems very pleased about it. He shakes Howie’s hand and takes his leave; the burly men rise and button their jackets.

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ Howie says, beckoning us in. The office is enormous, with an enormous monitor and an enormous view of the mountains. On the enormous desk sits a holdall filled with banknotes.

  ‘Are we interrupting something…?’

  ‘New client,’ Howie says. He zips the bag closed; a moment later the beautiful woman returns and takes it from his hand. She looks a little like one of the dancers from Velvet Dream’s; her attire – extremely high heels, metallic micro-skirt, huge hoop earrings – might comfortably be described as unsecretarial.

  ‘Zenya, babes, I’m not taking any calls for the next few minutes, okay?’ Howie tells her.

  She trembles doubtfully on the threshold then turns away, pronouncing his words silently to herself as if trying to keep them in her head.

  ‘Sex alphabet,’ Ish mouths to me.

  Howie slides into his seat and smiles expansively. ‘So the two of you have practically given Rachael a prolapse,’ he says. ‘That deserves a drink.’ Fishing under his desk, he produces a bottle and three glasses. ‘You heard the Secretary of the US Treasury was on to her about Royal Irish?’

  ‘The US Treasury?’ I repeat. ‘In Washington?’

  ‘Very, very concerned that nobody loses money,’ Howie says, pouring out three-finger measures of single malt and passing them to us.

  ‘Meaning Walter?’ I say.

  ‘Meaning Danforth,’ Howie says. ‘Danforth’s deep into them.’

  ‘What’s Royal Irish got to do with the US Treasury?’ Ish says. ‘And what’s Walter got to do with Royal Irish? And Danforth?’

  ‘Ask Crazy Frog here. His report was all set to nuke the lot of them.’

  Ish turns to me questioningly, but I don’t reply. I have no idea how Danforth could be involved in Royal Irish; I’m feeling increasingly like the whole day is one ongoing dream.

  ‘I don’t know what they’re getting so riled up about,’ Howie says. ‘The Minister’s not making the decisions anymore, so your report’s pretty much irrelevant anyway. But you know the Americans, they want every box ticked – cheers.’

  We return the toast circumspectly. The exuberant burn of the whiskey seems exactly wrong for this time and situation.

  ‘So I just met Rachael,’ Ish says.

  ‘Yeah!’ Howie yelps with laughter. ‘Jesus, Ish. Asking Porter to save a bunch of cavemen in the middle of the Pacific! What were you thinking? Did you have your period or something?’

  ‘How did you find out?’ Ish asks, in a small, flat voice.

  ‘Blankly! You should have heard him! Who does this little bitch think she is? I’ll piss those fucking monkeys underwater myself!’ He laughs to himself. ‘Well, anyway. I managed to sort it out. Just don’t send him any more emails. Seriously, even if the Earth’s about to crash into the sun.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ish says meekly, chafing her legs together like a little girl.

  ‘No problem,’ Howie says.

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  The opulent smile again, dripping diamonds. ‘I told him you were irreplaceable. Which is the truth.’

  ‘Rachael said something about you investing in Kokomoko.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Howie chuckles.

  ‘That was BS, right?’

  ‘Nope, that was true too,’ Howie says, and then, ‘Well, well, look who’s out of his box.’

  Grisha is eyeing us warily from the doorway. He’s lost weight, and gained deep rings around his eyes; in his filthy clothes he looks like a defrocked Rasputin, chained up in some dungeon of the mind.

  ‘What are you doing here, Ivan? Smell the pretty lady, did you?’

  Sticking close to the wall, Grisha sidles in and hovers behind us, a blurred darkness like an unexplained shadow.

  ‘I’m just telling Ish about Phase Two,’ Howie says to him. Grisha only grunts.

  I take the bait. ‘Phase Two?’

  ‘It’s still in development. We haven’t thought of a name for it yet. Probably Gaia or Ecofund or something like that.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with the island?’ Ish asks, and only someone who knew her well would pick up the trace of dread in her voice.

  ‘To get Porter and Rachael off the warpath’ – Howie stretches back, putting his arms behind his head – ‘I had to persuade them you were doing a nixer for me, and that this island of yours had something to do with the fund. Which, let me tell you, was not easy. I mean, it’s got no infrastructure, no exports, no educated workforce. Plus there’s the small matter that it’s about to be buried by a tidal wave. Very difficult to pass it off as a business venture. But then it hit me: maybe that’s the point.’

  He pauses dramatically, and it strikes me, just as it did on the hotel balcony that night, that this is a performance. But I can’t tell what kind; I can’t tell whether he believes what he’s saying, or even whether he wants us to believe it.

  ‘How is it the point?’ I say at last.

  ‘I’m glad you asked me that, Crazy. Now, you two might want to hold on to your seats, because this is some heady stuff. So I told you before about how our little fund here operates. That by using a lot of very, very complicated maths, Grisha’s established a financial instrument that can essentially reverse the polarity of losses, meaning that if you invest with us, you’re guaranteed to make money. Which in today’s uncertain investment climate is an attractive proposition. And we’ve been doing pretty well fo
r a couple of greenhorns, haven’t we, Grisha?’

  Grisha doesn’t reply, just blazes darkly by the door.

  ‘Until now, we’ve been using the instrument defensively, as a safeguard. This losses-to-profits operation isn’t just a matter of changing minuses into pluses, after all. It’s a difficult process. But for a while now we’ve been looking at other options, other ways to maximize our returns. None of them seemed quite right. And then you came along with your island, and everything just fell into place.’

  He drains his whiskey, pours himself a fresh measure. ‘This is actually very good,’ he notes.

  ‘The island,’ Ish presses.

  ‘Oh yeah. So I thought to myself, what if, instead of using the instrument as a backup, we used it offensively? You’ll remember Wall Street did that with credit default swaps – first they used them to insure their own loans against default, and then they started using them to bet on other people’s loans defaulting. What if we started deliberately targeting losing propositions? Sank our money into investments we knew were going to fail, that no one else would touch – could we use providential antinomies to turn those losses into profits? So that the worse something did, the more we’d make?’

  ‘Wait,’ Ish says, in a high, strained voice, ‘are you talking about investing in the island … because it’s going to sink?’

  ‘I’m talking about going beyond the counterintuitive.’ Howie’s voice shrugs off its ironic mantle, takes on an oracular resonance. ‘I’m talking about monetizing failure. If you could do that … what would it mean?’

  ‘But that is pure alchemy,’ I say. ‘Monetizing failure – it’s completely irrational. I can’t understand how such a thing could be possible.’

  ‘Of course you can’t. You’re not a mathematical genius. And much as I like you, Claude, you’ll understand if I don’t tell you our secret formula. You know what something like that is worth? As it is we’ve got to keep Grisha here under lock and key. Good thing he doesn’t like going outside, right, Grisha?’

  The Russian smiles an empty smile. Ish shakes her head, wilts back in her chair like a flower sprayed with a toxin.