in mid-August and George watched as the last blue light surrendered to the gathering stars.
Somewhere in the car was an insect which George wouldn’t find until it bit him. He wound his seat back as far as it would go. It wasn’t far. A Lotus Esprit is not designed for men of stocky build to camp out in, as George had by now proved many times over. But his first attempt outside in a tent had been a disaster, with a summer storm leaving him soaked and desperate and since then he had preferred the car’s cramped interior to any tent, no matter how spacious.
He closed his eyes with a sort of fantasy idea that closing his eyes would send him to sleep. It didn’t. His legs sent him a message which he mostly ignored, but it had to do with bucket seats, feather beds, and their relative merits. Somewhere outside the car, an animal screamed. George remembered seeing video footage of a puma loose on Bodmin Moor, apparently still not caught. But they couldn’t attack Lotuses, could they? He wound up the window, just in case.
As he slumped back into his seat, the insect found George, and slap around though he did, George failed to find the insect. He struggled for the light switch, found it, and swatted round aimlessly for a minute or two, using the copy of the Financial Times which lay rolled up beside him.
As the light was on and the paper in his hand, George looked again at the familiar page. A section of classified ads, all but a few of them with blue lines through them. He’d carry on with the rest tomorrow, then it would be time for the next paper and the next set of ads, and so it would be until his last dribble of cash ran out, leaving him stranded in his Lotus Esprit, too poor to afford a gallon of petrol.
Zack and Matthew might laugh about his billionaire friends, but George knew the rules of the international jet set better than they did. If you wanted to be part of it, you either had to pay your way or be young enough and pretty enough to sleep your way. George hadn’t the cash or the body for it. As soon as people found out his wallet was empty, he’d be dumped faster than last season’s clothes. He’d sooner do the dumping himself.
He threw the paper down. On his answering machine at the flat, there had been three messages from his sister and one from Kiki. He missed them both.
He turned off the light again and tried to sleep.
10
Matthew emerged on to the floor of the deserted trading room. Except for the red digital wall-clocks and the flicker of screens, the room was in darkness. Matthew turned on an Anglepoise lamp over his desk. He liked the dark and the hour of silence before the cleaners arrived at five am. He fetched a cup of black coffee and got to work.
In the five weeks since he had really got started, Matthew had his routine well developed. By the time Luigi came in with fresh coffee at seven, Matthew would have prepared five neat piles of painstakingly referenced and highlighted bundles of research. At first the piles had been a welcome luxury. They had since become little short of essential: the Saint Matthew Gospel, as Luigi put it.
The fictional lira which marked Matthew’s progress with Luigi had nudged up to nearly one dollar. In practice, Matthew knew, Luigi would vote in favour of Madison’s offering him a full-time job to start once he had completed his degree. But that wouldn’t do. He had three years to make a million, and he wasn’t going to spend one of them studying economics. Matthew needed a job and he needed it now.
Later that day, Matthew was to have an interview with Brian McAllister. The son of a Glaswegian truck driver, McAllister ruled the trading floor with quiet voice and omniscient eye. By reputation, he knew each trader’s market better than they did themselves. He was willing, as most traders were, to take large risks in search of profit. Less commonly, he was also willing to refrain from risk whenever he judged the conditions were wrong. Many people had made bigger profits than Brian McAllister, but none had made smaller losses.
McAllister’s judgement would decide Matthew’s fate, and there was no court of appeal.
Just after nine, Luigi came by his desk. ‘Matteo, where does ze lira stand today?’
Matthew pretended to check his screen. ‘Hey, Luigi, what d’you know? The lira equals one dollar exactly.’
‘And how is the Italian deficit, please?’
Matthew touched some buttons on his keyboard. A new screen flashed up. ‘Well, look at that. Rupert Murdoch’s just bought the Italian government for a zillion dollars and the deficit’s been eliminated.’
Luigi grinned. ‘Seriously, Matteo, Big Mac will ask me why you suddenly work, when before you were the most goddamn lazy prick I have ever seen. How do we know which one we’re buying?’
‘My dad died six weeks ago,’ said Matthew, who had said nothing about it earlier. ‘About five weeks ago, I realised I needed to look after myself now. So I did.’
Luigi nodded seriously. His trader’s eyes scanned Matthew’s face, looking for the truth behind his words. ‘I’m sorry, Matteo, I didn’t know.’
Luigi walked off to find Big Mac, as McAllister was known behind his back, never to his face.
Luigi’s conversation lasted perhaps five minutes. Given the number of demands on McAllister’s time, that counted as a long interview. Matthew drummed nervously on his desk and felt inside his jacket pocket to reassure himself that a certain document was still there. Luigi returned, and one by one Anders, Cristina, and Jean-François went to speak with McAllister. Matthew believed they would support him. Each of them had said to him privately that his support over the last weeks had really given them an edge in the free-for-all of the market. Their trading profits still depended on their daily judgements, but Matthew had helped them and they were grateful.
Jean-François came back. He patted Matthew on the back. ‘Allez,’ he said, and gave a wink of support.
Matthew walked over to McAllister’s office. McAllister had taken advantage of the thirty second gap between Jean-François’s departure and Matthew’s arrival to take a call from his counterpart in the Paris office. The phone call blared from a speaker on McAllister’s desk. The subject of the conversation appeared to be how the French bond markets would react to a European summit being held the following day.
McAllister saw Matthew come in and signed him to sit. Privacy was unheard of on the trading floor. Conversations were yelled across the room. Phone calls were recorded. Pierre d’Avignon, on the phone to McAllister, wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if he knew that somebody else had just come in to sit in on his call. D’Avignon asked McAllister a question, something to do with the European summit.
‘An interesting question,’ said McAllister, in his strong Scots accent. ‘I’ll get our analyst here to do some research on that point and we’ll get back to you tomorrow.’
‘OK, but it needs to be tomorrow first thing, before the markets open.’
‘Aye. First thing tomorrow.’
‘And put one of your best guys on this, eh, Brian?’ said d’Avignon. ‘We’ve got five hundred million dollars’ worth of bonds on our books at the moment, and we don’t want to make a mess.’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll have the best.’
D’Avignon hung up. McAllister looked at Matthew.
‘Got that?’
‘You
