Dave Hart Omnibus

by David Charters

  Afterwards, I worry that I’ve never actually met the Chief Executive and Chairman of Pattison Construction – I only know the Finance Director. But I guess that’s a detail.

  Wednesday, 3rd November

  B minus 43

  TODAY my worst nightmare happened. Well, not quite my worst nightmare, but something pretty bad. I got stuck on the Underground. To anyone accustomed to travelling by Tube, this may not sound too frightening – irritating, yes, even inconvenient, but not life-threatening. And for anyone used to living in the Third World country that modern Britain has very nearly become – at least outside the Square Mile – it was almost normal. Except that today we were launching a deal.

  Today the European subsidiary of All Nippon Rubber were bidding for the Great Western Chassis Company. The bid would be announced at the market opening and I had to be there, so I left half an hour early to get into work. I didn’t actually have anything to do with the bid, and had never met the client, but it was essential to be around when the deal happened.

  It was actually Nick who was working on the deal, having been briefed by the Corporate Finance team, and I had only learned about it last thing yesterday. But that really didn’t matter. If it was well received, I’d make a point of going around to anyone senior and influential to tell them about the deal, so that they first heard about our role in it from me. I could bask in reflected glory, while Nick was still too busy actually doing the deal to take any laps of honour himself. On the other hand, if it went badly, I’d keep my head down and carefully pick my moment to wander over to anyone who was around from the Management Committee. Shaking my head sorrowfully, I’d let them know that it really was Nick’s baby, and maybe he’d been just that little bit too ambitious, just a tad too aggressive, perhaps a little impatient – all great qualities in an investment banker, providing they weren’t taken too far. He always had the best of motives, of course, and naturally he’d learn from this one and I for one was still optimistic about his long-term potential…

  So that was the plan, but half way into work, midway between stations, the train stopped. To begin with, I wasn’t concerned. I glanced at my watch, then carried on reading my paper. The carriage was crowded, but I had a seat and I wasn’t sitting next to anyone too objectionable. After a few minutes, people started to complain. An old lady standing in the middle of the carriage, barely able to reach the straps hanging from the ceiling, started giving me ‘meaningful’ looks, as if she thought I was going to offer her my seat. Instead I just gave her one of my wide, beaming smiles, nodded encouragingly and went back to the FT market report. Still nothing happened, and then a very large, very pregnant, very ugly woman pushed her way through to me and asked in a thick Midlands accent if I’d mind giving her my seat. She was probably in her early thirties, but looked older. Her bushy, unplucked eyebrows very nearly met in the middle, she had a teenage boy’s moustache, a mole on her cheek with long bristly hairs coming out of it, a sweaty sheen across her face and was wearing crimplene and polyester with clumpy, square, practical shoes. Why on earth would anyone ever breed from her? I looked around indignantly, but all the other seated passengers seemed to be very old, very infirm, and mostly women. Damn – this is what happens when you have a means of transport without First Class.

  ‘Qué?’ I look at her, putting on a puzzled look, doing my best dumb Spaniard impression.

  ‘You’re reading an English newspaper.’ She says it as if she’s talking to a moron. Her accent doesn’t help. Shit. I’m never at my best in the morning.

  ‘Be a gentleman – can’t you see the poor soul’s expecting?’ It’s the old bag who was staring at me earlier, the one who tried to exert moral pressure on me. Some judge of character she turned out to be. The problem now is that having started out by pretending to be Spanish, but reading an English newspaper, I have to decide whether to keep up the pretence that I’m Spanish – which I can’t, because I don’t actually speak it – or admit that I’m English and offer her my seat. Just as I’ve decided to do neither, and ignore the lot of them and carry on reading my paper, there’s a big jolt, and the train moves forward. The problem is, the pregnant woman, who would not be the lightest or slimmest I’ve ever come across, even without being pregnant, stumbles and falls onto the floor of the carriage, crying out in pain. As the train lurches forward in jumps and starts, everyone stares at me accusingly, as if I’m somehow responsible.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I sigh, and fold my newspaper and prepare reluctantly to get up and offer her my seat, when an older man steps forward through the crowd and kneels beside her, comforting her, trying to stop her idiot sobbing – I can see she’s cut her knee on something, and it’s bleeding quite badly – and then shouts across to the people nearest to the door, ‘Pull the communication cord. She needs to get it seen to.’

  I glance down quickly to check she hasn’t bled on my shoes or suit. I’m wearing shoes by Lobb of St James’s and my suit is hand-tailored at Gieves and Hawkes. A close shave. As he turns back to her, he also gives me a hostile stare. What is it with these people? Am I expected to take responsibility for everything?

  The cord is pulled just as we pull into the next station – Westminster – and the train stops, but the doors don’t open, while station staff go up and down the platform looking for the source of the trouble. I check my watch.

  ‘Jesus Christ – I’m going to be late.’

  Now they’re all staring at me.

  ‘We’re launching a deal.’ I emphasise the word ‘deal’, in case they really can’t get it into their dumb, bovine skulls that there are some things in life that rank ahead of a blubbering woman with a cut knee. Eventually some station staff open the carriage door and come to help her out. I breathe a sigh of relief, check my watch again, and calculate that I might still just make it, but then one of them asks if anyone saw what happened, and the old bag points to me and says, ‘He pushed her.’

  Can you believe that? This wicked, evil, malicious old bag accuses me – quite wrongly – of an act no gentleman would ever dream of. And they all stare at me again, and no one intervenes to put her right.

  ‘That’s nonsense. I never touched her.’ I almost add, ‘I wouldn’t touch her’, but luckily I stop myself.

  ‘Yes, he did.’ She sticks her jaw out stubbornly, with one of those ‘I will not be budged’ looks that old people who are really long past their sell-by date sometimes put on. You just know there’s no reasoning with her, and I have an almost irresistible urge to punch her.

  The other passengers get out of the way as two of the station staff – young men in uniforms, who don’t earn a bean compared to me, but infuriatingly take authority in absurd situations – ask me to get off while they call a police officer to establish exactly what happened. I look around helplessly, but no one is willing to meet my glance and I have no choice but to get off the train, inwardly raging, and wait while a policeman is called to question first me, then the old bag. The policeman – when he eventually arrives – looks like a child. I wouldn’t even hire him as a graduate trainee, but I have to listen respectfully and go through the motions of taking the whole situation seriously, all the time glancing at my watch and realising that the deal will be launching any minute. The ‘victim’ – who could potentially sue me if they believe the old bag! – has been taken to hospital for stitches, so she can’t corroborate anything, but then the old bag relents and says she may be mistaken, and after leaving my contact details I’m finally allowed to go. Can you believe all this? I could kill her. It takes forty minutes – forty minutes of precious, irreplaceable deal time.

  Inevitably, there is now a delay. The next train will be along in fifteen minutes. As I climb the steps from the station to try to hail a cab outside, I look back and glare at her. She deserves to die. I actually thought we lived in a free country run according to principles of decency and fair play. How naïve am I?

  By the time I get to the bank, Nick’s deal has been announced, everyone�
��s smiling, high fives all round, and he’s a hero. The shares did rise unexpectedly just ahead of the announcement, which is odd, but otherwise it was flawless. Nick grins at me.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Oh – I… er… I was detained… I mean – held up. Well done, Nick. Congratulations.’

  Damn. The only thing worse than a colleague having a deal go wrong is a colleague having one go well – and getting to claim the credit for it.

  Thursday, 4th November

  B minus 42

  I’M ON MY way to New York for a day and a half of business meetings, sitting in the Heathrow Express, which I’ve discovered is actually convenient, quite comfortable and really fast, though of course that’s not the point. I should have been collected from the flat by a limo service. Even if it takes longer, and costs more, it’s a question of doing – and being seen to do – the right thing.

  As I catch sight of my reflection in the window, I ask myself again if I’m looking at a loser. On the surface, everything looks fine: the steely grey eyes, the wavy brown hair, the dashing good looks that captured Wendy’s heart almost ten years ago. But I can’t escape reality. I’m thirty-seven years old, a Managing Director who has no one reporting to him. I share a secretary, I have to request the support of members of the graduate trainee pool if I need help on something, and I’m not even properly paid. Last year I got a useless, insulting, mediocre six-fifty, before tax, and half the balance was paid in options that are so far away from being meaningful that I feel like papering the bathroom with them. Surely life has to be about more than this? Three years ago, on the back of a monster year in a raging bull market, I got nine hundred. A lousy, hopeless, useless nine hundred in what was otherwise a fabulous year. How am I meant to live? How am I meant to support my wife and child? Wendy has aspirations – it’s only natural. And so do I. I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of – I want the best for myself and my family. We all do. That’s why we’re prepared to make the sacrifices we do.

  And talking of sacrifices, here I am, travelling on the Heathrow Express, to board a BA flight where I’ll sit in Business Class, not even at the front of the plane in First. There was a time when we used to joke about not knowing how to board a plane and turn right, but these days we’re made to travel with the masses. Personally I think it’s a bad business decision. The fact is that investment bankers ought to feel good about themselves. This is necessary in order to project an image of confidence and success, to reassure clients and win business. It’s not as if we don’t work hard – tell me how many other people you know who work the hours we do, who travel as much as we do, who ruin weekends as consistently as we do – and for what? It’s clear I’m not even going to make a lousy million this year.

  I stare out the window, too depressed for words. I need that million. It’s not for myself, it’s for Wendy and Samantha. In fact I really need two million. Fat chance. And all the time I have this nagging doubt that Rory doesn’t like me. Yesterday he walked past the desk, stopped to exchange a few words with Nick Hargreaves, then chatted to a couple of the juniors, but when he passed my workstation and I looked up and smiled in a confident, relaxed way, he walked straight past, into his office, and closed the door! He didn’t even glance at me. What is it – have I turned invisible all of a sudden? Am I totally transparent? And it’s not the first time. Last week something similar happened by the coffee machine at the end of the trading floor. Rory doesn’t use the coffee machine, because his PA brings him proper filter coffee from a machine in the corner of her office, so it was quite unusual to see him chatting to some of the guys, and I hurried over to get a refill. I smiled and nodded and said, ‘How’s it going?’, just as he turned to go. I looked around, but he didn’t even acknowledge me. What am I supposed to make of that? It can’t have been an oversight – he cut me stone dead. Don’t try telling me he had things on his mind, because we all have things on our mind at this time of year. It just doesn’t make sense, unless… well anyway, it doesn’t make sense.

  YOU MAY find this surprising, but bonus time can bring out the worst in people. Sitting on the plane, sipping my first glass of champagne – before you ask, no, it’s not vintage, what do you expect in Business Class, sitting with the oiks? – I remember a Swiss German on our team a few years ago, called Richard Fresser. He pronounced Richard as if it was ‘Rick–hart’, but it made no difference, because we all just called him Dick. And that’s what he was, three years ago, when Rory called him into his office to pay him. Dick felt the amount was so small as to be insulting, and he did a very Swiss Germanic sort of thing – he got up and stormed out of Rory’s office, back to his workstation, where he swept the entire contents onto the floor, and then walked out, shouting Swiss Germanic insults in the direction of Rory’s office. Only a Swiss German would act like this over money – talk about a provincial, small-minded, little prick. The rest of us would have been much smarter. The next day, he realised that even the insultingly small amount he had been paid would never reach his bank account if he was no longer an employee of the bank in a month’s time, when the cash actually got distributed. So he tried to come back in. Can you imagine? Naturally, Rory’s PA had immediately cancelled his staff entry pass to the building and his corporate credit card and had cut off his company mobile phone. So when the security guards called from reception to ask if he could be allowed up, we all went downstairs for a laugh. The best part of all was that he never really saw the funny side. It must be a Swiss German thing.

  WE’RE AN hour away from landing at JFK, and I haven’t slept a wink, though the lights have been turned down and the rest of the passengers in Business Class seem to be sound asleep. There’s a very attractive stewardess, who keeps fussing around me, asking if there’s anything else she can do for me. Her name badge says she’s Donatella, which I suppose is Spanish or Italian, and she has a slightly dark complexion, which I don’t usually go for – being a gentleman, I prefer blondes. But I’ve worked my way through most of a bottle of champagne, and I’m finally starting to relax, so that I can appreciate the way the top buttons of her blouse are undone and the tilt of her head and all the eye contact. I look at her and wonder what she would say if I offered her dinner in Manhattan. She looks interested and I’m the only passenger still awake in Business, so we could potentially… And afterwards, naturally I’d stand her up. I stare at her and ponder the possibilities.

  Have you ever had sex on an aeroplane? I thought not. It’s actually not that great, especially in Business – or so I’ve heard. In First, where you have seats that fold flat, turning into beds with small wooden partitions around them, the girl can slide in under your blanket and you can quietly, unobtrusively get on with it – at least that’s what I’ve been told. In Business, forget it. You have to use the toilet cubicle, which is not only unbearably cramped, but by this stage of the flight isn’t exactly fragrant.

  Did I ever tell you about Piers Hawkins? Piers was an Englishman with the ‘right’ connections who worked on our team for a couple of years and then joined a German firm. The reason he moved – the real reason – was that no one on the team took him seriously after an episode on a flight to Hong Kong. It seems he made out with a stewardess in the toilets, when he thought everyone else was asleep. But the first time they did it, they made too much noise, banging up against the door and the partition wall, and woke a few people up. That would have been okay if they had discreetly exited, one at a time, and called it a day. But after a pause and a change of position, they started again, and a few more people woke up. By this stage, things were pretty tricky, but they might still have got away without too much embarrassment. But then – and at this point I have to give him full credit – he had another go. Yes, that’s right – jet-lag be damned, they really went for it. This time they woke up everyone, and when they finally emerged, the cabin lights were on, everyone was staring at them, and they got a round of applause.

  Naturally, no one took him seriously after that, par
ticularly his soon to be ex-wife.

  Which brings me to the question of infidelity. No, not infidelity to Rory – that would be unthinkable, at least this side of the bonus. I mean good old-fashioned fooling around. Looking at Donatella, who has quite an athletic figure, I could imagine having a really good time with her – briefly. Should I be concerned that Wendy would be upset if I did this? Well, yes, technically she would be upset, if she knew. And if she ever played away, I’d kill her. But is there really anything morally wrong about the brief enjoyment of purely physical pleasure by a man without any emotional commitment or betrayal? Some of the team say that it’s no worse than the physical, sensual pleasure you get from an old-fashioned shave in a barber’s shop, or a really invigorating massage: the person you’re with is faceless, unknown to you before or afterwards, simply providing a service. It just happens that in this case, the part of the body that gets serviced is… well you know the parts that get serviced. It’s all a question of relative values. In some cultures it’s perfectly normal and widely accepted, and if anyone should be able to stand above the constraints and the relative norms of everyday morality in one particular society, surely it must be global investment bankers who benefit from a truly international perspective. We really are different from the rest of you, so there can’t be any moral problem. Can there?

  I’m glad we settled that. But the real question is, do I need the complications now, when I’m utterly stressed out about the bonus? I’m not even sure I could perform right now, so – nah, I won’t bother. Not this time. I look away from Donatella, close my eyes and pretend to go to sleep. By the way, you remember the terms of the Kai Tak Convention, don’t you? I only shared this with you because we’re on an aeroplane. I’m a happily married man, after all.