by Paul Murray
‘But he’s not planning to slag us off, is he?’ Ish says. ‘You know, say we’re all wankers and fat cats and so on.’
‘He told me it was going to be a balanced account of life in a modern investment bank,’ I tell her. ‘He said he wanted to find our hidden humanity.’
‘It is about time bankers were recognized by the art world,’ Jurgen says. ‘Given that we buy most of the actual art, it is frustrating to be continually misrepresented by it.’
‘So are you going to do it?’ Ish asks.
‘I haven’t decided,’ I say.
‘You have to do it!’ Kevin expostulates. ‘Tell him I’ll do it if you don’t want to.’
‘As your superior, I think you should do it, Claude,’ Jurgen agrees. ‘Though of course the final decision remains with you.’
He adds that, while I am making up my mind, he will ‘get the ball rolling’ by running it by the Chief Operating Officer; before I can protest, he has trundled away. Maybe Rachael will say no; I decide to put it out of my mind until I hear back.
I return to my desk, feel the familiar thrill in my viscera as I sit down in front of the terminal. Here is the market: the whole world represented in figures, a tesseract of pure information. The media like to portray bankers as motivated purely by greed, but this is not quite accurate. There are those who do it for the money, it’s true – who like miners or deep-sea divers bury themselves miles below the surface of things, far from the light and everything they love, in order to return laden down with riches. But there are others who do it for the god’s-eye view; those for whom the map has become the territory, for whom the market’s operations as represented on the screen appear more complex than life itself, deeper and more intricate, bringing their own vertiginous intelligence to the brute facts of the world in the same way that a painting of a landscape magnifies its beauty by placing in a frame of consciousness the thoughtless doings of nature. For these latter sort, the highs of the best drugs are shadows next to the exhilaration they get from the shifting fields of numbers: rice growers in Henan, car manufacturers in Düsseldorf, pharmaceutical research firms in Cork and Montevideo, condensed, compressed, interacting with each other in ways of which they themselves have no conception, like molecules hurtling and dancing and colliding under a microscope.
Ish is an anomaly – not of the god’s-eye-view sort, but not especially interested in money either, other than what she needs to pay for her apartment, which she bought off the plans during the boom at a price she now admits may have been extravagant even for an investment banker.
‘Any word from the Uncanny Valley?’ she asks me now.
‘You are sitting here beside me, you know there is no word.’
‘Oh, right.’ A moment later she pipes up again. ‘Hey, Claude?’
‘If this is again a question about the book, the answer is “I don’t know.”’
‘It’s not about the book, it’s about the movie of the book.’
‘…’
‘Well, if they make a film of it, will I get a say in who plays me? I mean, I don’t want them to pick some old boot?’
The morning drags on with no response from Rachael. Shortly before noon, however, a shadow looms up behind me.
‘Crazy Frog, what the cock are you telling custies about Tarmalat?’
‘I am telling them that Tarmalat is carrying heavy exposure to Greek sovereign debt,’ I reply, ‘and there’s no way they’re going to hit their target.’
‘I’m trying to sell them Tarmalat, you fucking dunce!’ The muscles in his neck, which are extensive, bunch out like the mast lines of a ship at full sail. ‘I’ve got two hundred of the cunts going at twelve and a quarter.’
‘My source says their income’s down nearly 30 per cent on this same period last year. A write-down of Greek debt can cost them a hundred million. Your customers will thank you for sparing them.’
‘That’s not going to get us commission, is it?’ He scowls. ‘Fucking Greek pricks,’ he mutters. ‘Why couldn’t they stick to … what is it Greeks are good at again?’
‘Um, inventing democracy?’ Ish suggests.
‘They’ve been dining out on that one for a long time,’ Howie retorts.
Howie Hogan does not look like a genius. Twenty-five, and hitting the gym hard every day, he still has a childish doughiness to his features, giving him the appearance of one of those overfed, unimaginative rich boys who see the world as a kind of third-rate in-flight movie, to which they will pay attention only until they reach their real destination. This is, in fact, exactly what he is. But he is also BOT’s star trader. Beside mathematical acuity, sharp reflexes and an ability to get people to buy things they don’t want, Howie is gifted with almost total emotional dissociation. Other traders freak out, crack up, crash and burn; Howie’s only reaction, win or lose, is to smirk. I am fairly sure he smirks in his sleep. What is he doing here? He should be in London, at one of the bulge brackets, making ten times what he does at BOT; but some indiscretion in his past – details of which none of us has ever been able to establish – means he must get to the top the hard way.
Having chastised me for undermining sell-side, he would normally have lumbered off by now; instead he’s still hovering. ‘What’s this fucking bullshit I’m hearing?’ he says at last.
‘Close & Coulthard’s merger has been held up by the CMA,’ I say. ‘I IM’d you.’
‘No, about someone writing your autobiography.’
‘Oh, that.’
The smirk flickers. ‘Who the fuck would want to write a book about you?’ Howie says.
‘An author,’ I say expressionlessly.
‘For your information, he thinks Claude would make the perfect Everyman,’ Ish pitches in.
Howie laughs. ‘Everyman!’ he repeats. ‘Who’s that, the world’s most boring superhero?’
‘Isn’t there a harassment hearing you need to be at?’ Ish says.
‘Look out, supervillains! Everyman’s super-spreadsheet has the power to bore you to death!’ Howie struts away, still cackling. ‘Claude in a book! Who said the French have no sense of humour?’
‘Don’t mind him, Claude, he’s just jealous,’ Ish says.
‘Do people say the French have no sense of humour?’ I ask her.
‘Of course not,’ she says, patting my hand.
I return to my work, but this brief conversation has been enough to reawaken my fears. Howie is right. I don’t have a story; I don’t have time to have a story; I have organized my life here precisely in order not to have a story. Why would I want someone following me around, weighing me up, finding me lacking? I take out my wallet, unfurl the scrap of paper on which Paul scrawled his number, but before I can call him and pass on my regrets, Jurgen approaches from the direction of the meeting rooms.
‘Claude! Good news!’ He grins at me with excitement. ‘Rachael has given the okay for your book project.’
‘Oh,’ I say, surprised.
‘You must call your author right away!’ he exhorts me.
‘I will,’ I say.
‘Right away,’ he repeats.
‘Yes,’ I say.
He stands there, waiting. Without even wanting to, I see him as an outsider might: take in his pocket protector, his hideous tie, his strange plasticated hair that never seems to grow any longer. Is he happy? Lonely? Bored? Do any of these terms even apply?
‘First I have a small errand to do,’ I say. I go to the lift and hit the button for the ground floor. As I descend, I turn the decision over in my mind. He’s not writing a book about me, I remind myself. He’s shadowing me for research purposes. I am a highly successful employee at a highly successful bank. There is no reason to fear that he will find my life boring or empty.
The lift doors open. The security guards glance over, then away again almost immediately. Outside, the air is perfectly still. Workers clip back and forth in the windows of the buildings around me, a silent image of productivity. Yet across the river, the grey she
ll of Royal Irish Bank is populated only by seagulls, and just last week a German bank two floors below us imploded; we watched from above as the erstwhile employees filed out through the double doors – blinking in the light, clinging to cardboard boxes full of mouse mats and ficuses, casting up their eyes at the bright opaque windows as if to a land that was lost to them …
Paul answers on the second ring.
‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘Claude.’
There is a curious echo to the line, as if someone is listening in, and I have the strangest sense he already knows what I am going to say … but the sound of his voice is warm and human, not the voice of a god or an omniscient overseer. ‘How are you, buddy?’
‘I am well, thank you. I’m calling to tell you that my boss has given the green light for your project.’
‘Fantastic!’ His delight sounds genuine, which produces a proportionally opposite effect in me, as I consider the fall for which he is setting himself up.
‘So what exactly do you need me to do now?’ I say.
‘Like I told you, Claude, I don’t need you to do anything. Just be yourself.’
‘All right.’
‘I promise, it won’t be intrusive. You’ll barely notice I’m there.’
‘Very good.’
‘You don’t sound too excited.’
‘No, no, I am,’ I say; but then, impetuously, add, ‘It is not very dramatic, you know.’
‘What’s that?’
‘What we do in the bank, it is quite complex and technical. If you are looking for colourful characters, for exciting things to happen, it may seem rather … I do not know if it will give you what you need.’
Laughter comes back down the line. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’m the artist, okay? It’s my job to go in there and find the gold, wherever it’s hidden.’
‘You think there will be gold?’ I say.
‘I’m sure of it, Claude. I’m sure of it.’
To me, of course, it is unquestionably dramatic; to me, to anyone working in banking, the last two years have been like the Fall of Rome, the French Revolution, the South Sea Bubble and the moon landing, all rolled into one.
For half a decade – since, in fact, the previous financial crisis, which at that point represented the greatest destruction of capital in history – the world had been living on borrowed money. Wages went down, but credit was cheap; you were getting paid less, but borrowing the money to replace your car, take a holiday, buy a new house, was easy. The banks themselves were borrowing money at enormous rates, taking it from megabanks in Europe and lending it out again at a nice margin to you with your car, to the entrepreneur with his start-up, to the developer with his housing estate. As for the governments, they were content to let this happen, because everyone was so happy with their cars and holidays and houses; and of course the governments too were borrowing hugely to fund the services that workers’ taxes no longer paid for.
In short, the whole world was massively in debt, but it didn’t seem to matter; then, suddenly, almost overnight, it did. Someone, somewhere, realized that the global boom was in fact a pyramid scheme, a huge inflammable pyramid waiting to catch light. Investors panicked and began to pull their money out of the megabanks; the megabanks desperately began to call in loans from the regional banks, the regional banks called in loans from their customers, the customers called in loans from their trading partners, or tried to, though all of a sudden no one was answering their phones.
The consequences of this cataclysmic freeze-up of credit are still unfolding. Around the world, banks have been falling like ninepins, illustrious financial dynasties blown away like smoke. In the United States, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers are among the major casualties, while in Ireland the high-street banks are still trading only after a government bailout. That bailout, in turn, has triggered a catastrophic series of events: factories shutting down, homes repossessed, mass emigration – nearly four hundred thousand people from a country with a population less than half the size of the Paris metropolitan area. Every day on the news there is another horror story: the pensioner who’s been living on pigeons; the horses whose owners can no longer afford stable fees and have turned them loose to wander the byways, slowly starving to death. Nothing the politicians do seems to help; in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, public fury mounts, and revolution is in the air.
Buy to the sound of cannons, sell to the sound of trumpets, the saying goes. If you have positioned yourself correctly, there is a lot of money to be made.
* * *
At 4 a.m. I give up trying to sleep. I have a cup of coffee, then cross over to use the gym in the basement of Transaction House. Two traders on the Smith machines are anticipating how BOT strategy will change with the new CEO in charge – bragging about how much money they will make once they’re ‘off the chain’, how ruthlessly they will ‘fuck’ rivals from other banks.
Upstairs, Thomas ‘Yuan’ McGregor and his Asian Markets team are already at their desks; I take advantage of the early start to read through the headlines, the latest prognostications of doom for Europe. The sun creeps through the window; faces appear in the lobby, still puffy with sleep. Slowly at first, then in a flurry, the day’s small rituals begin: the tray of coffees delivered by the rain-speckled intern; the baffling jokes in the inbox amid endless emails flagged URGENT, HIGH PRIORITY, READ IMMEDIATELY; the collective groan at the sight of the courier with his package of amendments, redos, overnight changes of heart. As 8 a.m. approaches, the tension mounts. Positioning themselves for the market opening, traders call constantly, looking for updates, price-sensitive developments, anything that will give them the edge over the invisible hordes doing exactly the same thing, here and across the water. Soon the entire research floor is speaking intensely into phones, everyone completely oblivious to everyone else, eyes fixed instead on screens or on that empty point in mid-air where so much of life now takes place. It seems you can actually feel the market, straining like a dog on a leash for the moment trading begins.
The first couple of hours pass in a blur; after that, things begin to relax a little. I have arranged to meet Paul at ten. Ish and Jurgen want to come downstairs with me, but I prevail upon them to stay where they are. ‘He wants to see my life as it is every day,’ I say. ‘Everything must be natural.’
‘All right,’ they say reluctantly, and slouch off in the direction of their desks.
Riding down in the lift, I am surprised at how nervous I feel. It’s the same kind of anxiety that used to spring up years ago, as I made my way to a rendezvous with some girl I had fallen in love with, knowing that today was the day I had to make my feelings clear, knowing simultaneously that I wouldn’t do it. And when the lift doors open and I find the foyer empty, the lurch of despair is familiar too.
I check my phone, but there is no word. Has he changed his mind? Was he merely having some fun at my expense? I hover by the doors, pretending I don’t notice the security guards glare at me from their desk. And then I see him, hurrying over the rainy plaza, and just as it did at the appearance of Sylvie or Valou or Aimée or the others, I feel my heart soar.
He smiles at me brittlely, apologizes for being late; he looks almost as nervous as I am. I tell him not to worry, and bring him over to the security desk. There are various forms for him to fill in; then he is told to stand still while the guard photographs him, takes his fingerprints, scans his iris. For a long moment we wait in silence as the guard stares at a screen we cannot see. Then he sighs, and there is a clunking sound, and he reaches down to produce Paul’s pass.
‘Thought that guy was going to ask for a blood sample,’ Paul says as we turn away for the lift.
‘Ha ha, yes,’ I say.
The lift takes a long time to arrive. Finally the doors part, and I press the button for the sixth floor. ‘We are on the sixth floor,’ I say, redundantly.
‘Right,’ Paul says.
We ascend. I search about for some fact or detail that migh
t be useful to him, or at least break the silence.
‘Otis,’ I say.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The lift. It is manufactured by Otis. They are one of the most famous lift producers.’
‘Yes.’
‘That does not necessarily mean they are the best, of course. Still, this particular lift has in my experience always been very reliable.’
‘That’s good to know.’
‘I presume that Otis was the name of the inventor. Though it might have been simply a name he made up … perhaps you know?’
‘No, I can’t say I do.’
‘There is the option of the stairs also,’ I add. ‘But usually I take the lift.’
‘Right,’ he says.
Ah, quel con! I’m half-expecting that when we reach the sixth floor he’ll thank me for my time and ride back down to the ground again. It’s with some relief that I find Ish and Jurgen standing in the lobby, pretending to have an intense conversation about the potted plant by Reception.
‘It’s that fine line between watering it too much and not watering it enough,’ Ish is saying; then a hush falls as we step inside. The two of them stare expectantly at the two of us, and my anxiety gives way to an upsurge of pride.
‘Ish, Jurgen, this is Paul,’ I say to them carelessly. ‘He will be my shadow in the office for the next few weeks. Paul, may I introduce to you my colleague Ish, and Jurgen, the Financial Institutions team leader.’
‘Hello,’ Paul says.
We all smile at each other awkwardly for a minute – then, just as I am about to lead him away, Ish asks Paul quickly, as if she cannot help herself, ‘Are you really a writer?’
‘For my sins,’ Paul says.
‘Wow,’ Ish murmurs.
I roll my eyes at Jurgen, only to see an identical expression of schoolgirlish reverence. ‘A writer!’ he says. ‘It must be so exciting!’
‘Beats working, I suppose,’ Paul says.
‘Ha ha, I hear that!’ Jurgen says. He looks down at his shoes and then adds casually, ‘In fact I am being a little disingenuous, as I know something about being a writer myself, from my work for Florin Affairs, the journal of medieval economics – perhaps you have heard of it?’