My name is Kathryn Telman. I am a senior executive officer, third level (counting from the top) in a commercial organisation which has had many different names through the ages but which, these days, we usually just refer to as the Business. There's a lot to tell about this particular concern, but I'm going to have to ask you to be tolerant here because I'm intending to take things slowly and furnish further details of this ancient, honourable and — to you, no doubt — surprisingly ubiquitous concern in due course as they become relevant. For the record, I am one point seven metres tall, I weigh fifty-five kilos, I am thirty-eight years old, I have dual British/US nationality, I am blonde by birth not bottle, unwed, and have been an employee of the Business since I left school.
Early November 1998 in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Mrs Todd the housekeeper cleared away my breakfast things and padded silently away across the pine floor. CNN babbled quietly from the television. I dabbed at my lips with a crisply starched napkin and gazed out through the tall windows and the light rain to the buildings on the far side of the grey river. The company apartments in Glasgow had been shifted a few years earlier from Blythswood Square to the newly fashionable Merchant City area on the north bank of the Clyde.
This building had been in company ownership since we built it, in the late seventeen hundreds. It was a warehouse for nearly two centuries, was leased out as a cheap clothing store for a decade, then it lay unused for a number of years. It was renovated in the eighties to create office and retail units on the ground and first floor and loft-style apartments on the three remaining floors. This, the top floor, was all Business.
Mrs Todd glided back to complete the tidying of the table. 'Will there be anything else, Ms Telman?'
'No, thank you, Mrs Todd.'
'The car is here.'
'I'll be ten minutes.'
'I'll let them know.'
My watch and mobile agreed that it was 0920. I rang Mike Daniels.
'Yesh?'
'Ah.'
'Yesh, "Ah" indeed.'
'They couldn't find you a dentist.'
'Zhey found me a dentisht but zhere washn't time to do anyshing. I shtill look like a fucking footballer.'
'Pity. Sounds like you're in a car. I take it you're on your way to Heathrow.'
'Yesh. Everyshing'sh on schedule.'
'Any pain?'
'A little.'
'Did you call Security?'
'Yesh, and Adrian G. Zhey were even lesh help than you. I don't shink Adrian George likesh me. He'sh calling Tokyo and Pee-Esh'sh offish to let zhem know, sho it won't come ash a shock.'
'Very considerate.'
'He shaid Shecurity would want to talk to me when I get back. Anyway, zhey're going to inveshtigate. Had to hand my flat keysh over to shome flunkey before I left thish morning. Oh, who'sh Walker?'
'Walker?'
'Shumshing to do wish Shecurity.'
'Colin Walker?'
'That'sh him. Adrian G said he thought he'd sheen him in the Whitehall offish a couple of daysh ago. Sheemed to find it mosht amuzhing that he might be doing the inveshtigating.'
'I doubt that. Walker's one of Hazleton's people. He's his chief of Security. Well, more enforcement, in reality.'
'Enforshement? Oh, shit, ish thish shome department I haven't heard of? Shomeshing not for ush Level Foursh?'
'No. Officially Walker's Security. It's just he's usually regarded as Hazleton's…muscle.'
'Mushle? You mean like shum short of fucking henchman?'
'Henchman's a bit fifties B-movie-ish, don't you think? But I believe you could call him a person of hench. If we had hit-men, he'd be one. In fact, he'd probably be their boss.'
I know a little more about this sort of thing than most execs at my level because I started out in Security. That was before an interest in gadgets, technology and future trends got me angled across the company's career tracks and on to the plutocratic mainline. Maintaining contacts in Security may well prove to be one of the more astute investments I've made in my own future.
'Hazhleton. Shit. Ish he azh shcary azh everybody shesh?'
'Not normally, but Walker is. I wonder what he's doing in the country?'
'I heard a rumour zhere wash shome short of meeting nexsht week, at…umm, in Yorkshire.'
'Really?'
'Yesh. Shumshing to do wish the Pashific shing. Maybe he'sh here for zhat. Maybe Hazhleton's coming over from the Shtates. Advanshe guard. Checking out the grim old pile before Hazhleton showsh.'
'Mmm.'
'Sho, izh zhere a meeting, Kate?'
'Where did you hear this rumour?'
'Izh zhere a meeting?'
'Where did you hear this rumour?'
'I ashked firsht.'
'What?'
'Oh, come on! Ish zhere shome high-level meeting or not?'
'I'm sorry, I couldn't possibly comment.'
'…Shit, doesh zhat mean you're attending?'
'Michael, you ought really to be concerning yourself with your own assignment.'
'Ha! I'm trying to take my mind off it!'
'Anyway, I have to go; there's a car waiting for me. Have a safe and productive trip.'
'Yeah yeah yeah. All zhat shtuff.'
I was on sabbatical. One of the privileges that comes with my rank is that I'm allowed one year in every seven, on full pay, to do just as I please. This has been a Business institution for those at my level and above for about two and a half centuries and seems to be working well. We'll probably keep it. Certainly I had no complaints, even though I had not taken what most people would regard as full advantage of such a serious perk.
Nominally and for tax purposes I was based in the States. I spent about a third of the year travelling, generally in the developed world. I was still enjoying this largely airborne lifestyle, but when I did want to feel the earth under my feet I could always retreat to the modest but comfortable cabin I owned in the Santa Cruz mountains just outside the town of Woodside, Ca, within easy reach of Stanford, Palo Alto and the rest of Silicon Valley (that's 'modest' and 'cabin' in the Californian Opulent sense, with a pool, hot tub, five bedrooms and a four-car garage). If home is the place that best displays your character, then this was my home. From the stuff on the shelves you could have told that I liked German composers, Realist art, French films and biographies of scientists. Also that I was addicted to technical journals.
My European base was Suzrin House, the company's monolithic warren of offices and apartments overlooking the Thames at Whitehall, which I preferred to our Swiss base at Château d'Oex. I suppose Suzrin House was my second home, though in terms of architectural cosiness that's a bit like regarding the Kremlin or the Pentagon as a pied-à-terre. Never mind. My job, wherever I might be, was to keep abreast of current and incipient technological developments, with the brief of recommending which of those technologies the Business ought to invest in.
I'd been doing this for a while. It was, I am pleased to say, on my advice that we bought into Microsoft on its initial flotation back in the eighties, and into the Internet Server companies at the start of the nineties. And — while many of the other computer and associated hi-tech companies we've put money into have gone quite spectacularly bust — a few of our investments in the computer and IT industries had produced returns sensational enough to make the whole investment programme one of our most worthwhile. In recent history, only the portfolios we developed in steel and petroleum during the late eighteen hundreds have yielded greater rewards.
My reputation in the company was, if I may toot my own tuba a tad, at least very secure and possibly — whisper it — even verging on legendary (and, believe me, we have a generous stock of living legends in the Business). I had achieved Level Three status ten or fifteen years earlier than I might have hoped for, even as a high-flyer, and, while it depended on the goodwill of my co-workers, I was fairly confident that some time in the next few years I would be promoted to Level Two.
A close inspection of my own personal Mammon graph would reveal even to the untrained eye that my remuneration package — including commission multipliers gained as a result of my successful forecasts regarding computers and the Internet — was already more generous than that of many of our Level Two executives. It had occurred to me a couple of years earlier that I was probably what the average person would consider independently wealthy; in other words that I could have existed comfortably without my job though, of course, as a good Business woman, that was all but unthinkable for me.
Anyway, you can't rest on your laurels. These successes with computer software and communications — lucky guesses if you wanted to be uncharitable — were all in the past, and I still had a job to do. And so it was that at that moment I had high hopes for our recently taken-up stakes in fuel cell technology and had been lobbying hard for more investment in private space concerns. We would see.
The Lexus hummed its way through the mirror-wet streets of Glasgow, heading east. People hunched against the buffeting wind-rush of rain; some carried umbrellas, others held folded tabloids or flapping carrier-bags over their heads as they waited at pedestrian crossings. I checked my lap-top for e-mail then read the newspapers. My chauffeur was called Raymond. Raymond was about half my age, tall and athletic, with short blond hair. He and I had developed what they used to call an understanding over the week or so I had been in Glasgow. Raymond was perfectly good behind the wheel, though I confess I preferred him between the sheets, which was where he had been the night before when Mike Daniels had called.
If Mrs Todd knew from the start that we were involved, she was able to pretend that she didn't because Raymond had so far always succeeded in waking up in time to slip away before she arrived in the morning.
An able if occasionally overly energetic lover at night, Raymond was the soul of driving professionalism and formal politeness during the day. When I was Raymond's age this sort of compartmentalisation of roles and relationships would have struck me as hypocritical, even deceitful. Now, however, it seemed quite the most convenient, even honest way to behave. Raymond and I could be prim and correct with each other while he performed his driverly duties, and as carnally abandoned as we desired when he took off his peaked cap and set his grey uniform aside. In fact I rather enjoyed the contrast: it lent a certain anticipatory frisson to the mundane condition of being taken from one place to another.
'Ah, Ms Telman?'
'Yes, Raymond.'
'Some bad traffic up ahead,' he said. He glanced at the car's navigation screen. 'Take a different route, aye?'
'Okay.'
Raymond whirled the steering-wheel to send us down a side road leading to the river. Raymond took this sort of thing seriously. Personally I have no interest in my route to a given destination, but some people like to be told why they're going one way rather than the other.
I scanned the newspapers. Mid-term elections in the States. Dow up. British chancellor makes an announcement today about extra government borrowing. Interest rate cut expected later today. Footsie up, pound down.
Death and destruction in Central America, caused by the remains of Hurricane Mitch. Thousands buried under mudslides. Part of my mind scanned a mental list of company assets in the area, wondering how we might be affected, while my conscience shook its metaphorical head and tried to dredge up some human sympathy for the victims from the depths of my corporate soul. I could have logged on to the company's encrypted Website and found out what exposure we had in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras — and, if our Web people were on the ball, what damage we'd taken down there — but I preferred to finish reading the papers first.
General Pinochet's appeal against his extradition to Spain was due to come up in the House of Lords that week. This was of more than academic interest for us as a company. Frankly the fate of one old fascist mass-murderer was irrelevant in business terms (though I don't doubt that as a company we kept on good terms with whoever was in power in Chile throughout the Allende years, Pinochet's regime and subsequently), but the whole issue of diplomatic immunity was one that exercised us at that point. Hence what Mike Daniels referred to as 'the Pashific shing'. Personally I thought the Pacific thing was all a monumental irrelevance, but it was out of my hands — and I was probably not invited to the rumoured shindig in Yorkshire that weekend, no matter what Mike might think. That was Level One stuff, the preserve of the Hazletons and the Parfitt-Solomenides of the Business.
The chip factory lay a few miles outside Glasgow near the town of Motherwell. Standard low-level landscaping of clipped grass, ornamental water features and a scattering of thin trees, their leaves mostly gone to the autumn winds. They bent in the rain-heavy wind as the Lexus rolled up to the main entrance of the vast ochre shed that was Silex Systems' principal manufacturing facility. Raymond jumped out and was there with a golf umbrella, opening the door.
Mr Rix, the plant manager, and Henderson, his deputy, were waiting in the foyer.
'What happens to the chips that fail?'
'They're thrown away.'
'You can't recycle them?'
'In theory you could, but it would add a lot of cost. By the time they're at this stage they're already so materially complicated it would take a fortune to start reducing them to their individual constituents.
I was standing with Mr Rix and Mr Henderson in one of the cleanest places on Earth. I was wearing something not far off a spacesuit. The closest I'd seen to it were the shiny things they wear in those rather forced Hey-we're-cool-really Intel ads for Pentium processors. The suit was loose and quite comfortable — as it would have to be if you were to spend an entire working day in it — with a full face mask incorporated into the helmet. Breathing seemed easy enough, though apparently I was doing it through a sub-micron filter. The suit's slipper-like shoes were built into the bottom of the legs, so that it felt a little like being a small child again, wearing pyjamas. When I changed into the one-piece, out of my white silk blouse and Moschino skirt and jacket, I felt a moment of regret at even temporarily giving up my clothes, until it occurred to me that the suit I was putting on was probably much more expensive than the one I was taking off.
We were deep in the giant factory, in a sterile room at the centre of three concentric levels of antiseptic cleanliness. I was looking through a glass screen at a complex and gleaming machine which was depositing CD-sized wafers on a platter, spinning them and then plopping liquid on to the centre so that it flowed, apparently instantly, to cover the whole shining surface; then a metallic arm quickly flipped the wafer over and into another part of the machine.
Around us, more spacesuited workers were gliding across the high polish of the tiles pushing tall carts of wafers, or sat hunched over microscopes on workbenches or staring at computer screens, the text and graphics reflecting off their face masks while their hands pushed mice around or gloved fingers fluttered over quietly rattling keyboards. The air transmitted a whole choir of subtle humming, whining noises to my shielded ears, and smelled a little like a hospital's, except cleaner. Everywhere, under the high, bright lights, surfaces glittered and sparkled.
Even without knowing the breathtaking scale of the investment a plant like this required, you could have smelled the money here.
'I hope you can stay for lunch, Ms Telman,' Mr Rix said. 'Just the usual canteen grub for us normally, of course, but we could go further afield if you liked. Can we tempt you?' Mr Rix was a big man, a head taller than me, and wide. His jowly face gleamed behind his mask, smiling from the eyes down. I felt quite cool in the air-conditioned, variously filtered atmosphere, but Mr Rix seemed to be sweating. Perhaps he was claustrophobic.
'Thank you, I'd be delighted. The canteen will be fine.'
'Do you often take these, ah, sabbaticals as a sort of busman's holiday, Ms Telman?' asked his deputy.
'This is my first sabbatical, Mr Henderson,' I told him. 'I haven't had time to establish a pattern.' Henderson was about my height, stockier. I started walking towards one of the parts of the clean environment we hadn't visited yet; the two men jockeyed for position between the workbenches and the humming machines; a robot delivery unit on a collision course sensed us approaching and glided to a stop until we passed by.
'I think if I had a year off I'd find somewhere better than Motherwell to spend it.' He laughed, and he and Rix exchanged glances.
'It is a sabbatical, Mr Henderson, not a holiday.'
'Oh, of course. Of course.'
'However, I did spend a month on a yacht in the Caribbean at the start of the year, without my phone or a lap-top; that got me nicely wound down,' I told them, smiling broadly behind the mask. 'Since then I've been taking the occasional little holiday to let me think, and I've travelled round a lot of the company sites I'd wanted to see but never got round to. Plus I have spent quite a while in the Library of Congress and the British Library.'
'Ah,' Mr Henderson said. 'It's just that I thought you must have seen the inside of a chip plant before, that's all.'
'One or two,' I agreed. Mr Henderson was right to be surprised. In fact he was right to be suspicious, if that was what he was: despite the impression I'd been careful to give, this was not at all a casual visit. I stopped outside a swipe-card protected door in a tall blank wall and nodded. 'Where does this go?' I asked.
'Ah, this is an area where we've got the workmen in at the moment,' Mr Rix said, waving at the door. 'Installing a new finishing line. Can't actually go through right at this moment in time. Too much dust and that sort of thing, you know.'
'Plus they're test loading some of the etching chemicals today, I think, aren't they, Bill?' Henderson said.
'Oof!' Rix said, taking a comic sort of step away from the door. 'I think we'll keep well away from that stuff, eh?' They both laughed.
In the safety briefing before we'd donned our spacesuits, as well as being told what to do in the event of a fire and where to run for a dousing if something acidic splashed on us, we'd been warned about various chemicals with very long names which were used in the chip-production process. They could, allegedly, sneak through the tiniest hole in a glove, soak instantly and unnoticed through the skin and get straight to work rotting your bones from the inside before going on to perform even more insidious horrors on your vital organs.
'Well,' said Mr Henderson. The two men started to pull away from the door. Mr Rix put an arm out as though to shepherd me away.
I crossed my arms. 'What's the likely life of the plant?'
'Hmm? Ah, well, with the new lines in place…' Mr Rix began, but I didn't pay very much attention after that. I had what you might call half an ear for his tone of voice and I was listening for certain keywords, but what I was really interested in was Mr Rix's and Mr Henderson's body language; their whole demeanour.
And all I could think of was, These guys are trying to hide something. They were frightened of me, which does — I confess — give me a buzz, but it went beyond the usual nervousness of local bosses used to total deference having to answer to somebody from higher up in the organisation who has come to pay a short-notice visit. There was something else.
Maybe they're both closet misogynists, I thought; perhaps their habituated reactions to women were derisory or even coercive (I'd looked at the files on this place: there was a slightly higher than average rate of staff turnover, especially amongst female workers, and there had been a few more complaints that had ended at industrial tribunals than one might have expected), but somehow that didn't feel like it would account for the edgy vibe I was getting here.
Of course, it could be me. I could be wrong. Always check the equipment for sensor error first.
I don't know whether I'd have dismissed the feeling in the end or not — I'd probably have decided they had some lucrative little scam going that could have got them cashiered, but not something it was worth my while bothering with, given that the plant's figures looked pretty good in general — but something happened that made me think about it all later.
A spacesuited woman came into view down an aisle. I could tell her gender from her gait as much as her shape. She seemed distracted, struggling to carry a lap-top, a plastic-wrapped metal briefcase, a thick, glossy-covered manual and heavy, straggling cables. I saw her first. Then Henderson looked round, casually back at me, and then quickly at her again. He started towards her, then glanced back at Rix, whose voice faltered momentarily before continuing.
The woman was fishing in a pocket of the spacesuit for something as she approached us while Henderson strode to meet her. Just before he got to her, she pulled out a swipe card on the end of a little metal chain.
Then Henderson intercepted her, one arm out as he nodded back in the direction she had come from. Her head came up as she noticed him for the first time. Mr Rix's arm extended again and, touching my right shoulder, gently but firmly pulled me round and away while his other hand waved through the air and he said, with just a little too much hearty bluster, 'While yet before they turn it into a battery-chicken shed, eh!' He clapped. his gloved hands together. 'Well, now. Cup of tea?'
I smiled up at him. 'What a good idea.'
I had Raymond take us on a detour on the way back, to a nondescript field by what had once been a main road near Coatbridge.
'Come here, small girl.'
'Whit?'
'I said, come here.'
'Whit fir?'
'What? What did you say?'
'Eh?'
'Are you actually talking English, child?'
'Ahm no Inglish, ahm Scoatish.'
'Ah. Well, at least I understood that. I wasn't questioning your nationality, young lady. I was merely wondering aloud whether we shared the same language.'
'Whit?'
'Never mind. Look, would you kindly step closer to the car; I hate having to raise my voice…I'm not going to bite you, child.'
'Who's he?'
'That is Gerald, my chauffeur. Say hello, Gerald.'
'Aye-aye. Y'all right, hen?'
'Aye…Zat him fixin the tyre, aye, missis?'
'Yes. We had a puncture. He's changing the wheel.'
'Aw aye.'
'How are we doing there, Gerald?'
'Getting there, ma'am. Getting there.'
'Now, what is your name?'
'Ahm no supposed to talk tae strangers. Ma maw telt me.'
'Gerald, introduce us.'
'What's that, ma'am?'
'Introduce us, please, dear boy, as best you can.'
'Ah, Mrs Telman, this is, ah, the bairn you're talking to. Bairn, this is Mrs Telman.'
'Aw aye.'
'There. We've been introduced. I am not a stranger any more. Now, what is your name?…Close your mouth, child. It's unbecoming. What is your name?'
'Ma maw sez…'
'Please, miss, her name's Katie McGurk.'
'Oh, hello.'
'Boaby Clark, you're just a wee clipe, so ye are.'
'Least ah've goat a da.'
'Ah widnae want a da like yours; he's just a waster.'
'Ah, still, but. At least ah've goat wan. More than you huv.'
'Just you fuck oaf, ye wee four-eyed cunt!'
'You're a wee cow! Ah'm tellin ma mum you said that!'
'…Katie?'
'Whit?'
'Here.'
'Whit's that?'
'It's a handkerchief. Go on. Take it.'
'No thanks.'
'I see. I take it that young man was Bobby Clark?'
'Aye. Wee shite.'
'Kate, I confess I am genuinely shocked. I didn't know children your age used the sort of language you did. Exactly how old are you, Kate?'
'Eight and a half.'
'Dear God.'
'How old are you, then?'
'My, you do recover quickly. You're very impertinent, too. Gerald, cover your ears.'
'Ma hands are a bit mucky, ma'am, but I shall endeavour to keep my lugs averted.'
'How gallant. I am forty-eight, Kate.'
'Goad, that's dead old, issit no? Ma gran's no that old.'
'Thank you for your thoughts on the matter, Kate. Actually it's not terribly old at all and I don't think I have ever felt better about my life. However. What exactly are you and your young friends doing over there?'
'Missis, we're havin Olympic Games.'
'Are you indeed? And I thought it was just a bunch of little kids playing on a bit of muddy waste ground in the drizzle. What sports are you playing?'
'Och, loads. Jumpin an runnin an that.'
'And what are you playing, Kate?'
'Ahm no. Ahm sellin the sweeties an stuff.'
'Is that what you have in your bag?'
'It's ma ma's. It's old, but she said ah could have it. Ah didnae nick it or anyhin. Ah repaired the handle massel. See?'
'I see. So, you're running the refreshment concession, are you?'
'Whit?'
'Never mind. May I buy one of your sweets?'
'Aye. Ah've no many left, but. An there's nae fizz.'
'No fizz?'
'Aye. Nae Irn Bru, or American Cream Soda. Ah finished both bottles.'
'Just a sweet will do, then.'
'Whit dae ye want? Ah've Penny Dainties and Black Jacks. Or there's a few wee lucky-bag sweeties left.'
'I'll have a Penny Dainty, please.'
'That's a penny ha'penny.'
'How much?'
'A penny ha'penny.'
'A penny and a ha'penny?'
'Aye.'
'For a Penny Dainty?'
'That's the price.'
'But that's a fifty-per-cent mark-up on the normal retail charge.'
'Aye, still, but. That's the price.'
'So you said. Rather steep, though, isn't it?'
'Aye, but that's the price. D'ye want it or no?'
'Gerald, do you have any change?'
'Aye, ma'am. Hold on…Ah, I've got a thruppenny bit. That any use, ma'am?'
'Thank you, Gerald. Would you like a sweet?'
'Thanks, ma'am. Aye, wouldnae mind.'
'Tell you what, Kate. I'll give you tuppence ha'penny for two Penny Dainties. How's that?'
'Nut.'
'Why not?'
'Two's thruppence.'
'But I'm buying in bulk, relatively. I'm looking for a discount.'
'Whit? Whissat?'
'Didn't you get a discount for buying in bulk when you bought your stock?'
'Missis, ah goat these oot the machine at the bus station.'
'Ah, so you paid full retail. Still, that's your problem. My offer stands. Tuppence ha'penny for two.'
'Nut.'
'Kate, your little friends look like they're finishing their games. You might not sell much more. You could be left with unsold stock. It's a good offer. Here: take the thruppence. Then you give me two Penny Dainties, and a ha'penny change.'
'Nut. Two cost thruppence.'
'One can be too stubborn in the retail business, Kate. Flexibility is what carries a concern through changing circumstances.'
'Whit?'
'The rain's getting heavier, Kate. I'm sitting here in the dry. You're getting soaked and your pals are leaving. Two for tuppence ha'penny.'
'Nut.'
'You're being pigheaded, Kate. Maintaining or adjusting your margins should be a matter of practical calculation, not pride.'
'Ah know. Gie us the thruppence an I'll give ye the two Penny Dainties an ah'll gie a Black Jack as well. They're usually two fur a penny ha'penny or three fur tuppence.'
'Getting rid of more stock. Very sensible. Okay. It's a deal. There you are. Thank you. Gerald?'
'Ma'am?'
'Catch.'
'Thanks.'
'Here, Kate. You have the Black Jack back: I think it might stain my teeth…Now what?'
'Ma maw sez never take sweeties frae strangers.'
'Kate, don't be ridiculous: you just sold me this. However, your mother is quite right, I suppose. If you don't want it…'
'Na, okay, then. Ta.'
'My, you were hungry.'
'Aye. No much eatin in wan a those.'
'How's it going, Gerald?'
'Nearly there, ma'am. Just doin up the nuts. Be back on the road in five minutes.'
'Fine. Do you do this often, Kate?'
'Whit? Sellin stuff?'
'Yes.'
'Nut. Nivir done it before. Want tae know a secret?'
'What was that? A secret?'
'Aye. Promise ye'll no tell anybudy but?'
'I promise.'
'Cross yer hert an hope tae die?'
'Absolutely.'
'Ah goat the money frum ma uncle Jimmy. He let me play wi the pennies.'
'Oh. Really?'
'Aye, they're Irish pennies, cos he'd been tae Ireland on his boat.'
'Irish pennies?'
'Aye. They're the same shape as oors, an that, cept they've goat harps oan them. But the machine doon the bus station takes them fine.'
'And your uncle just gave you these? You didn't have to pay for them?'
'Nut. He just gied us them.'
'Ha! So you didn't pay full retail at all! Every penny you made was clear profit! You little rogue! Did you hear that, Gerald?'
'I'm shocked and appalled, ma'am. Enterprising wean, though.'
'Aye, but no fur everyhin. Ah had tae pay ma own money fur sum oh the sweeties, and the bottles oh fizz ah hud tae pretend ah wiz gettin fur ma maw. Ah've still tae take full yins back tae her.'
'And how much were you charging for the pop?'
'Penny a cup.'
'Those your mum's teacups?'
'Aye, missis. We'll no need thim till taenight.'
'I see. Oh, hello. Who's this, Kate?'
'This is Simon.'
'How do you do, Simon.'
'Hello, miss. Katie, it's affy wet. Ah want tae go hame. Zat okay? Ye cummin?'
'Aye. Here's the Penny Dainty. Dae ye want some lucky-bag sweeties an aw?'
'Awaye.'
'Ah'll gie ye them when ah get hame, okay?'
'Aw aye, that's gret. Thanks, Katie. Can we go noo, though but? Ahm soakin. Ah fell in the water jump.'
'Ah-hah. Let me guess: Simon here is your security.'
'Nut. He's makin sure nun ah these wee shites nick ma money.'
'Same thing. Katie, I'm sure you won't accept a lift from a stranger, but could you tell me where you live? I'd like to talk to your mother.'
'Missis, you said ye widnae say anyhin! Goad'll git ye fur crossin yer hert an hopin tae die! Ye'll die, so ye will! Aye, an ah'm no fuckin kiddin!'
'Kate, Kate, calm down. I'm not going to say anything about the nature of your capital…about the pennies you used down the bus station. I swore I wouldn't, and I won't.'
'Aye, well, ye'd better no.'
'Kate, is your mother very young? I take it your father's not around, is that right? That's a nice wee dress, but it's a bit thin for this weather, and too small for you. You look hungry and too small for your age. Do you go to school every day? Are you doing well there?'
'Ahm goin hame.'
'Ready to roll, ma'am.'
'Thanks, Gerald. Just a minute. Kate, turn round. I'm serious. This is serious. Do you want to stay here for the rest of your life? Well, do you? Kate: what do you want to be when you grow up?'
'…Hairdresser.'
'Do you think you'll get to be one?'
'Mibby.'
'Kate, do you know of all the other things you could be?'
'…Ma pal Gale wants tae be a air hostess.'
'Mon, Katie. Ahm freezin.'
'There's nothing wrong with being a hairdresser or an air stewardess, Kate, but I think there might be a lot of other things you could be, if you wanted. If you knew. Let me talk to your mother. May I talk to her?'
'Katie, ahm fuckin freezin, so ah am.'
'Missis…you're no a bad wummin, are ye?'
'No, Kate. I'm not a saint, and I've used my share of Irish pennies in my past, but I'm not a bad woman. Am I a bad woman, Gerald, would you say?'
'Certainly not, ma'am. Always been very nice to me.'
'Katie, mon…'sfuckin brass monkeys oot here, so it is.'
'Ye could gie us a lift, then. Zat okay, aye?'
'Really? Well, yes.'
'Aye. Come oan, Simon. We're get tin a ride home in this wummin's braw big car. Wipe yir feet.'
'Eh?'
And that is how I met Mrs Elizabeth Telman, a Level Two executive in the Business, one rainy Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1968, outside Coatbridge, to the east of Glasgow.
Mrs Telman was one of those people who always seemed about six inches taller than she really was, to me. Even now when I think of her, she appears in my memory as a tall, elegant woman, as lithe and slim as my mother was wee and dumpy, yet the two were within a couple of inches of each other in height and not really that different in build. I suppose Mrs Telman just held herself straighter. She had long, raven hair which she only stopped dyeing, gradually, in her seventies (my mother was mousy brown, though I inherited hair somewhere between fair and blonde, apparently from my maternal grandmother). Mrs Telman had a wide mouth and long fingers and an accent that sometimes sounded American, sometimes English, and sometimes something else entirely, something tantalisingly foreign and exotic. There was a Mr Telman, but he lived in America; the two had been estranged since barely a year after their marriage.
Mrs Telman had Gerald drop Simon at his house and then took me to the local shop where I bought my two replacement bottles of fizz. We arrived at my house just as my mother was staggering up the path with her carry-out, fresh, if that's the word, from the pub.
I think Mrs Telman decided she wasn't going to get much sense out of Mother right then, and so arranged to return the following morning.
My mother threatened to slap me for talking to a stranger. That night, very drunk, she cuddled me to her, her breath sweet with the smell of fortified wine. I tried not to squirm, and to appreciate this unusually drawn-out burst of physical affection, but I couldn't help thinking of the rich, subtle, beguiling odours in Mrs Telman's car, some of which seemed to come from the car itself, and some from her.
She reappeared, to my surprise, the next morning, before my mother was up. Once my mother was dressed we went for a drive. I was given a Milky Way and got to sit up front with Gerald, which was good, but I couldn't hear what was going on in the back because of the glass partition, which was annoying. Gerald kept me entertained by telling me what he thought the other drivers were saying and thinking, and letting me work the indicator switch on the dashboard. Meanwhile my mother and Mrs Telman sat in the back, swapping my mother's Woodbines and Mrs Telman's Sobranies, and talking.
That night I got to sleep with my mother for the first time in years, all the way through to the morning. I was hugged even more fiercely, and I puzzled over her hot tears.
The next morning Gerald picked my mother and me up and took us through to Edinburgh, to Mrs Telman's huge, grand red sandstone hotel at the end of Princes Street. Mrs Telman wasn't there herself: she was off doing something important somewhere else in the city. We went to a big room, where — to my consternation and my mother's embarrassment — I was washed again by a large lady dressed like a nurse, given a medical inspection, and then measured and dressed in a scratchy shirt, skirt and jacket that were the first entirely new clothes I'd ever worn. Part of my horror at all this was because I thought we were in a public room where anybody might walk in and see me in my knickers; I didn't realise that these rooms were Mrs Telman's, that we were in her suite.
I was taken to another room where a man gave me lots of sums and other tasks to do; some were purely arithmetical, some were questions about lists, some consisted of looking at little diagrams and then looking at others and deciding which one fitted with the first lot, and some were more like little stories I had to complete. They were fun. I was left alone with a comic while the man went away.
Mrs Telman came and took us to lunch in the hotel. She seemed very happy to see me, and she kissed my mother on both cheeks, which made me jealous, though I wasn't sure of whom. Over lunch, while my mother and I swapped conspiratorial looks as we tried to work out which cutlery to use, I was asked if I wanted to go to a special school. I recall being horrified. I thought special schools were where bad boys were sent for thieving and vandalising, but after this was cleared up and I was assured I would get to go home of an evening, I agreed, tentatively.
I started at Miss Stutely's School for Girls in Rutherglen the next day. I was a year behind the others, but physically no bigger than any of my classmates, and shorter than several of them. I was picked on for three-quarters of that first day, until I sent a girl home with a broken nose following a fight during afternoon play-time. I was almost thrown out and had to sit patiently through several stern talkings-to.
A tutor came to our house in the evenings to give me extra lessons.
Mrs Telman found my mother a job in an office-machine factory in Stepps; the same factory Mrs Telman had been on her way to inspect when her car had picked up a puncture. We ate better, we had proper furniture, a phone and, soon, a colour television. I found I had a lot fewer uncles than I'd thought I had, and Mother stopped walking into doors.
When I left Miss Stutely's and entered Kessington Academy in Bearsden, we moved from our terrace in Coatbridge to a semi in Jordanhill. My mother was now at another factory, helping to make things called computers, not adding machines. She never married but we went on holidays with a nice man called Mr Bullwood. Mrs Telman came to visit us every few months, and always brought book tokens for me and record tokens, clothes and little things for my mother. My mother died suddenly at Easter 1972, while I was on a school holiday in Italy. We had taken buses, ferries and trains to get to Rome, but I flew back alone. Mrs Telman and Mr Bullwood met me at Glasgow Airport and took me in Mrs Telman's car — still driven by Gerald — straight to the cemetery in Coatbridge. It was a warm, sunny day; I remember watching her coffin disappearing behind the curtains at the crematorium, feeling worried that I could not seem to cry.
A smallish man with shaking hands, wearing a shiny and badly fitting suit with a black armband up by one shoulder, came to me afterwards and breathed whisky over me, telling me with tears in his rheumy red eyes that he was my father. Mrs Telman put an arm round my shoulder and I let myself be guided away. The man shouted things at us.
Everything changed again. I was sent to board at an international school in Switzerland run by the firm Mrs Telman worked for; I was miserable there, but no more than I'd been in the months between my mother dying and completing the term at Kessington Academy. I studied for my baccalaureate and found a keen, solitary release in skiing and skating.
I was surrounded mostly by forbiddingly bright girls from families which seemed to possess infinitely deep reserves of money, taste and talent, and glamorous idiots with braying laughs who were destined to go straight to finishing schools and who had no ambitions beyond a rich marriage. I finished with a flourish and several academic prizes. Brasenose College, Oxford, awaited. Mrs Telman adopted me and I took her name.
I cried for both of them when she died last year.
The phone rang for a long time, well past the number of rings you'd normally allow before concluding that there was nobody present to answer it. Finally: 'Who is this?'
The voice — rich, sibilant and velvety — was that of an elderly man who was rather angry; the voice of a man answering a phone that rarely rang and which, when it did, was equipped to tell him the number that was ringing him, and from its memory also tell him to whom that number belonged. A phone which he expected to bring only important information.
'Hello. It's me.'
'Kate? Is that you, dear girl?'
'Yes, I'm using a call-box.'
'Ah, I see.' A pause. 'Does that mean that I was right and you've discovered something interesting?'
'Possibly.'
'Where are you?'
'Near where I've been all week.'
'I see. Would it be best to meet up?'
'I think it would.'
'Perfect, perfect. This weekend's definitely on. Can you still make it?'
'Of course.' My heart, I have to say, leapt. Uncle Freddy had told me a couple of weeks earlier that there might be a high-level meeting and general hoo-ha (to use his term) this coming weekend, and that I might be invited, but I hadn't liked to take this for granted. My contingency plans had consisted of surprising Raymond and spiriting him away for a couple of nights; I would do all the driving, we'd go somewhere discreet and expensive with a log fire and I'd feed us both lots of vintage champagne…but that would have to be put on hold. I would be going to Blysecrag.
'Good. Important get-together, Kate. The cherubim and seraphim of our tribe will be in attendance, not to mention more temporal powers.'
'Yes, there have been rumours.'
'Have there indeed?'
'Well, Mike Daniels had wind of something by last night.'
'Ah yes, the L-four whose teeth were stolen. What on earth was all that about?'
'No idea.'
'Well, the bush telegraph's obviously working. Still, be that as it may…We'll need you here on Friday afternoon. Should all be finished by Sunday, but don't count on it. All right?'
'All right.'
'I should tell you your friend Suvinder will be there.'
'Will he now? Oh, joy.'
'Yes. Still coming?'
'Uncle Freddy, an invitation to Blysecrag is something I could never turn down. Oh dear, my money is running out. I'll be there on Friday. Until then.'
'Ha, right you are! Jolly good. 'Bye.'
What happened to your phone?
This new one doesn't work out here. Can you believe that?
Heads should roll. You need another phone. I believe they sell such things there in Tokyo. How did the signing go?
Fine. KR loved his bottle of Scotch. Is it really 50 yrs old?
Yep. PS get there OK?
PS usual retiring self. Apparently the X stands for Xerxes. Last seen escorting several geishas back to his 737 to show them its circular bed. Boy can that guy talk.
Talking about talking...
Oh, right. KR didn't seem to mind my slight teeth shortfall situation at all. Smiled and bowed throughout. Probably thought it was a total hoot; toothless gaijin. Recommended dentist. Been there, done that, now got splendid set of temporary Tokyo teeth. With Teflon. Now :-) instead of :-#
Well, by gum.
That took you 24 hours?
I've been busy.
The origins of what we now call the Business predate the Christian church, but not the Roman Empire, to which it might fairly be said we owe our existence, and which, at one point — technically, at any rate — we owned.
Owning the Roman Empire, even if it was only for a total of sixty-six days, sounds wonderfully romantic; a real business coup. In fact we regard it as one of our greatest and most public mistakes, and it taught us a lesson we have never forgotten.
Most of the details are available in fairly digestible form in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, where it is recorded in Volume One, Chapter V (AD 180-248) that a 'wealthy and foolish' senator called Didius Julianus purchased the Empire at public auction from the Praetorian Guard, who had disposed of the previous ruler — one Pertinax — after he had proved too keen on tackling the Empire's various corruptions (he'd lasted eighty-six days, beating our man by nearly three clear weeks). What only we in the Business know is that the unfortunate Didius Julianus — who became Emperor Julian when he ascended to the throne — was merely a dupe; the front man for a loose consortium of traders and money-lenders who had inherited a commercial cabal already many generations old.
Possibly drunk on their success, certainly unable to decide what to do with it, the squabbling merchants let the reins of power slip from their fingers. Three generals — in Britain, on the Danube and in the Eastern Empire — revolted, and limited Emperor Julian's occupation of the Imperial throne to a little more than two months. When he fell, so did many of those who had supported him.
The Business had already existed for several centuries by then. To Rome it had brought furs from Scythia, amber from the Baltic, carpets from Babylon, and — in its most intense, risky and lucrative enterprise — every year secured a host of spices, aromatics, silks, gems, pearls and manifold other treasures from Arabia, India and the Further East. Sensibly keeping away from direct political power, all taking part had prospered; estates were purchased, villas built, fleets constructed, herds increased, slaves and works of art bought. With the Didius Julianus fiasco almost all of that was lost. As I say, it was a lesson we have cleaved to for the best part of two millennia (at least until now, arguably, with the 'Pashific shing').
Documents — clay tablets, mostly — still stored in the closest we have to a world headquarters, near Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, show that most of our original fortune was made in trading, warehousing and lending money. There appear to have been a few scams, too: shipwrecks that never happened, camel trains that were robbed by our own people, warehouses that burned down either with or without their contents, depending whether you looked at one set of accounts or another; enough of that sort of thing generally to make us no better than most but sufficiently few for us not to have been the worst.
Allegedly we still store a few items which the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire asked us to look after; sadly, nothing quite as dramatic as the body of Christ or the Holy Grail, but I've heard on good authority that we have in our possession at least one extra book the scholars don't know about which could well have made it into the Bible, a book of Leonardo cartoons, dozens of Michelangelo's pornographic paintings, various other art treasures and potentially valuable documents and several sets of crown jewels.
Rumours I've heard indicate that our Swiss Bank may be implicated, albeit marginally, in the recent Nazi gold scandal, which, aside from the morality of it all, is both careless and embarrassing, given the occasional co-operative venture we've taken on with the Rothschilds and the generally good relations we've enjoyed with Jewish enterprises over the centuries.
At any rate, one of the reasons that we are able to go quietly about our business as a company without too much intrusion or publicity — adverse or otherwise — is that we have at least a little dirt on almost everybody, whether they are other commercial concerns, sovereign states or major religions. There are other reasons, but we'll come to those later. All in good time (a resource which, given our longevity, we are obviously well used to working with in bulk).