The Greater Fool Page 3

  What I did wrong was not burying their little corpses deeply enough. The school caretaker's terrier uncovered what they called a “mass grave”. They also found the knife. Expulsion and psychological assessment followed. My behaviour was neatly explained by the death of my mother, the loneliness of the boarding school experience, the restlessness of the highly intelligent.

  I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but who hasn’t done things they shouldn’t have? And the most important thing is that one learns from one’s experiences. School taught me many essential life skills, like how to relate to others. The tilt of the head, the empathetic dimpling of the cheeks, the understanding nod. In time, it became clear which buttons to press and which levers to pull. How most people can be played like a slot machine.

  Apparently successfully rehabilitated following my expulsion from school, I won a scholarship to another school. I was one of the smartest there, no doubt, but chose not to show it too publicly. So other boys – the sons of judges, eminent surgeons, bankers – took the limelight, were made prefects, won headmaster’s prizes, took the glory. I was happy enough to take a back-seat, to retreat from the attention of others, to settle for knowing that I was as least as smart as any of them, without necessarily showing it. I refused to apply to Oxford or Cambridge; why would I want to prolong my sojourn with those over-privileged pricks? I settled instead for Imperial, although I could have gone anywhere. But Imperial meant London, not the provinces anymore. I yearned for a wider horizon, and London offered so many opportunities to lose myself and to throw off the shackles of my upbringing.

  I could have studied anything, but I settled on Physics, not because I wished to be a physicist, but simply because it interested me.

  A fight in a strip club; seduced by a prostitute; a dalliance with someone else’s wife; all three episodes were formative to some extent, but in reflection they were barely significant, just the briefest of diversions. It was like an orchestra tuning up, preparing for the full show to begin.

  I was clear about my goal: I was going to be rich. I charmed my way onto the graduate training scheme of a city stockbroker and perfected the art of faking a detailed knowledge of stocks that I would recommend to my clients. Buy, Sell, or Hold. I was encouraged by management to change my recommendation at decent intervals – ostensibly prompted by a change in business fundamentals. These volte-faces prompted clients to load up on or offload shares in companies about which I was secretly indifferent. And with every client trade, we garnered a healthy commission. I rarely believed that the companies were compelling Buys or Sells but found that I could easily provide evidence to support my recommendation, cherry-pick and mould the data, so that what appeared in my research notes appeared to be a logical and coherent analysis of the facts, not a biased narrative driven by commercial pressures. A talent for misrepresentation, for distortion and deception, proved extremely helpful. It seems that I was rather good at massaging the truth; I rapidly rose through the ranks and in the year my father died I earned half a million — at the time, good money.

  I'd spread my wings, was soon flying higher and faster than most, and was ready to soar to even greater heights.

  7

  Lucija's picked up my prescription; I divide the contents of the goody bag between my suit jacket and desk. A surge of well-being follows, helped on its way by a pregabalin, four cocodamol, and an espresso.

  Roger's back in the office, although he's looking grey and weak. He closes the door of my office behind him.

  “Things are moving fast, Reynard. Three more redemptions, total thirty-one million.”

  “Who?”

  “Two fairly small ones: University of Norfolk and The Bryant Family Office, but also twenty million from the church.”

  “Their loss, God's loss. They're missing out on amazing returns. Now’s actually the best possible time to pile in, just when things look like they can’t get worse. Now is a great opportunity.”

  Roger sits there quietly. Finally, he says, “But Reynard, there are liquidity considerations. Specifically, we’re highly levered, no dry powder, so how do we meet the redemptions?”

  A quiver from my arsehole, which is still puckering in response to Yasmin's assault; I must get her back soon.

  “Roger, you're the money man, you're the brains, you work it out. Get the prime broker in. We just need some temporary relief, right?”

  “They're coming in tomorrow. You need to be there, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “We really need to think about offloading some less liquid assets now. Maybe some property, perhaps even Reynard House.”

  “Fuck off, no chance. Get the prime broker to tide us over, and we'll just have to get some new investors to replace the redemptions. Let me work some magic.”

  He leaves silently, a ghost of a man. Ineffective, weak, lacking creativity, weighed down by rules and regulations. Joyless.

  I need air. I soon find myself outside St Saviour's once again. The door's ajar, and I push it open. Inside, a diminutive old man guides an ancient vacuum cleaner down the length of a deep red carpet. I edge past him, briefly asking his permission to look around. He nods his assent. Above, the gallery resting on square pillars extends around three sides. A plainly decorated ceiling. Glorious stained glass, some of it dating back to c.1530, liberated from the Carmelite church in Antwerp. A series of mahogany boards just above eyeline list the rectors, back to 1782. Reredos frame a vivid painting depicting the Last Supper, with figures of the French type.

  The hoovering stops, there is quiet, and I stand there in silence for what must be at least a minute. In the silence there is the presence of something I know not what. Greatness, the eternal, the aesthetic ideal, perhaps.

  Back in the throbbing streets, part again of the pulsating mass. Some cheaply suited cunt tries to block my path along Hanover Street, but he stumbles towards a pile of rubbish bags. His girlfriend reluctantly helps him up while admiring my physique as I stride away. I have purpose, a fire in my belly; I will not be diverted from my goal.

  8

  Definitions of madness vary across cultures, have fundamentally changed over time, remain mutable, subjective and are – some would argue – rather arbitrary. The common-or-garden schizophrenic, say, would at one time have been identified as being punished by God or possessed by the devil, and as a result burnt as a heretic or subjected to blood-letting or fever therapy.

  My Uncle Ish is almost certainly mentally ill, probably a psychopath. Which is easy for me to say – I've met him. In the 1980s and 1990s he had a maid whom I remember fondly: kind green eyes, a mess of red curls, and a secret stash of boiled sweets that we used to share whenever I was deposited there by my father. I saw the bruises on her arm, and later her thighs. Had I been older, perhaps she would have told me about being locked in the larder, maybe even raped, a mock-strangling, bottles in the rectum, or something like that. But she's probably dead now, her secrets buried with her.

  I may not have proof of Ish's misdeeds, but it's clear that he's dangerous. Ish: plump – no, obese – a man of appetites, of small hands, of wily intellect, but no morals. A great big bear of a man, with a similar love of all things sweet. And almost as hairy.

  Ish: a man whose closet is chock full of skeletons, but the closet remains firmly locked – at least for the moment. Perhaps in the business pages you’ve seen the dizzying figures, the obscene remuneration. Unimaginable wealth for many people. Houses (maybe six or seven, or twelve or fifteen – it makes very little difference once you’re past three or four). A sexy young second wife, two lovely daughters, a network of influential friends, tentacles in many pies. Fêted by governments, his philanthropic endeavours widely praised, known as “a really nice chap.” But still you see through all this and you hate him. Rich cunt, you think. And simultaneously you wish you could be him, if only for one day.

  Ish: who took what's rightfully mine. My father's money, which should be working hard for me right now, instead spunked away a
s the dotcom bubble burst. Millions that should be shoring up Gyges, instead salted away somewhere offshore. More filthy lucre for Ish and his daughters to get even fatter on. Fatter every year, so confident of their position in the world, so certain of their entitlement to the houses, the cars, the clothes, the restaurants. Hermès and Bentley and Lancôme and Chanel. Alain Ducasse, Nicky Clarke, Louboutin. Names that trip off their tongues like you might say “M&S” or “Ford”. A different language, in which they're fluent. I'm fluent too, of course, but the difference is that I've earned it. I've worked hard, emerged from nowhere with help from no one, proved I'm different, hewn from the right stuff.

  But Ish is family, and sitting on a sizable fortune. And so it is with familial duty in mind that I stroll towards Coq de Platine, which offers ultra-refined French cooking, fused with a Nordic forager’s philosophy, industrial lighting, model-quality waitresses, a cheese cave. Rather passé, if truth be told, but Ish's choice. He arrives shortly after me, a maelstrom of apology and body odour.

  “Just flown in from Hanoi. A bit green about the gills, a bit jaded, you know what I mean?” He lowers his chins, presses his nose towards his armpit, and ostentatiously sniffs. “Lordy! Give me a minute to freshen up, will you?”

  A pleasant five minutes later — which I fill by watching the exotic waitresses glide from table to table like apparitions — he returns and noisily takes his seat.

  “Bring it on, Reynard.” He's clearly helped himself liberally to the complimentary toiletries in the washroom; a miasma of clashing aromas fill the air around us, the olfactory equivalent of Schoenberg. He leans forward, and I avert my gaze, but not quickly enough to avoid being affronted by Molton Brown, Cool Water, and the astringent body odour of a fat old man. Sweat beads on his forehead.

  He calls for champagne to be poured, then, when the most furious of the bubbling has subsided, pointedly raises the glass to his nose and inhales deeply.

  “How's business?” I ask, in lieu of anything more interesting to say.

  “Tremendous! Vietnam's taking off, sniffing around Indonesia, fingers in many pies. And you? Squeaky-bum time, eh?” He winks.

  “Not necessarily. Some bed-wetting going on though, that's for sure.”

  “It'll pass. Trim the sails, ride it out.”

  “Au contraire. Now's the time to act positively. As you know, Unc, the best opportunities are where others aren't looking. Why follow the herd? Now's the time to pile in – and you know it.”

  “You don't beat around the bush, do you?”

  “I beg your pardon, Unc?”

  “Come on, Reynard, what is it you want?”

  “What makes you think I want anything?”

  Ish smiles, takes another gulp of champagne, raises his eyebrows. Smugly, he says, “Okay, if you say so,” and motions for a blonde waitress to come over. We order shared Coq de Platine signature dishes to start, followed by lobster for me, Osso Bucco for Ish.

  Ish says, “Are you sure you’re alright, Reynard? You’re not your usual, er, effervescent self.”

  “What? I’m great.”

  “Hmmm. You seem a bit lost to me. Unhappy, past his prime — and lost.”

  I smile. “Sounds like projection to me. Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself? Me, I’m winning, just look at me. And seen the Rich List?”

  He sips his champagne then smacks his lips. “Don’t you find constantly focusing on money a bit boring after a while?”

  “No, why would I?”

  He shakes his head. “Because it’s not what matters in the long run.”

  “Then what does matter? The usual clichés, presumably?”

  “You know there’s often truth in cliché. The love of others. Friends. The beauty of nature. Art and music. Laughing. Sex with someone you love. I could go on.”

  “Go on then.”

  “The smile of a baby. The kindness of strangers. The warm glow of altruism. Satisfaction of a job well done. Children. That enough for you?” He leans back in his chair and smiles smugly.

  I say, “As I expected, just clichés. And amorphous and vague. At least with money you can value a life precisely.”

  “So, Reynard, it's all about money is it? So you think that if person A has £100m and person B has £200m, then B’s life is better?”

  “Well, it is in purely monetary terms. It shows that B's more successful than A. He's achieved more of what he intended to, so he's better at what he's spent his life doing. That’s hard to argue with.”

  “But it’s not how I value my own life, even though I’ve done more than okay in that respect. But I have more going on, you know, family, friends, hobbies, my charitable foundation,” he says as he tucks into a plate of Manchado de Jabugo. “You know, Reynard, I actually almost feel sorry for you. You really have nothing else, do you? For whatever reason, you just won’t let yourself even consider the things that really matter. Some friendly advice for you: open up.”

  But I'm tired, and that ache is back in my right side. What starts as a not unpleasant warmth is soon jagged, lacerating pain. I make my excuses, and in the toilets a couple of cocodamol sort things out.

  Later, Ish asks, “What was the last book you read, Reynard?”

  “God knows, I don't really have time for that kind of stuff.”

  “You should try it, you might learn. I'll send you something.”

  “Erm, okay.”

  “Chin up, young man. So everything okay with Gyges, is it? All tickety-boo?”

  “Yes thanks, Unc.”

  “So no crisis, no liquidity problems, no issues at all?”

  “None at all.”

  “Great. Well, you know where I am.” Then his smile, the psychopathic glint in the eye, the wink. We part with a handshake — firm from me, clammy from him — and I head home.

  The flat's cold and empty. Dead without Akemi here, or any of the others. Nothing happening. But tonight I don't want anything to happen. No one to share the bed, no one to complicate things. Just me, my thoughts, and a bottle of Konik's Tail to settle my dinner. A third of the way down the bottle and there's an epiphany. No, that's putting it too strongly; it’s a realisation, the logical conclusion: things can't go on like this. Yes, I need to get Gyges back on an even keel, but it’s not enough. I must find the missing something, whatever that is. Perhaps the big deal to secure my legacy, something different from the norm — or perhaps it’s something else? But how can you find what’s missing if you don’t know what it is?

  I take out the sketches of how I envisage St Saviour's after conversion. The thing about oligarchs is that they tend to know what they like. And what could they like more than living in a beautifully converted majestic church in the most desirable postcode in Mayfair? Six bedrooms, six bathrooms, cinema room, entertaining rooms, climate-controlled wine cellar, gym, sauna, roof top garden, garaging for six cars, pool. The grandest of statements: the house of a god here on earth.

  What would God make of all this? Roused from his sleep by an oligarch and his handmaidens splashing noisily in the basement swimming pool that was once the crypt. As He wipes three centuries of sleep from his eyes, He can't quite believe what He sees. Which perhaps leads Him to ask the question: what else has been going on?

  9

  I sleep fitfully, frequently woken by something unknown and unseen. Where's Akemi when I want her? We met six, seven years ago, but still she's largely a mystery to me. There's something of the will-o'-the-wisp about her, something ethereal and unknowable, and exactly who she is remains unclear. Like some mythical high priestess offering a direct route to the divine, she is somehow not of this world. She both transcends and sidesteps it, flitting through my life like some oriental nymph. But when she's not here, that's when I feel her the most. What does that mean about “us”? This can only be a rhetorical question, of course. I call her, but it goes straight to voicemail. I don't leave a message.

  It’s as if I need something to right myself; something's badly out of kilter. I st
ick Bowie on the Bose. His best album: Station to Station. Wired, strung-out on coke, his extraterrestrial genius in plain sight. There's surely no better moment in music – any music – than when he screams, about four minutes in, about Kether and Malkuth. The Thin White Duke, pretending to offer salvation for the weak, the lost, the lonely. But who needs salvation? Not me, that's for sure, although an ice-cold vodka seems to help.

  Bowie often used to dress in the way I'm dressed this morning: charcoal grey suit from Sam's Tailors, new two-ply white cotton shirt. Add the sober Hermès tie and the Church's shoes. Perfect. In the mirror, brown eyes stare piercingly back. Neatly trimmed beard and thick, black, curly hair. An intimidatingly handsome man, “dapper”, if that's the word you want to use, but I prefer “stylish”, in an understated way, not trying too hard. Credible, in control, a master of his own destiny. Tall, but not too tall. Athletic, well-toned. Plenty for women to want. A leader of men.

  In the financial press there’s the usual prophecies of doom, which I’ve learnt to dismiss. But at times I do wish it would all end, that the buildings would shed the weight of their foundations and topple, the roads ripple and rupture, the seas swell and surge over the land, washing away all the shit. When it’s all over — and it would be mercifully quick and then oddly quiet — what would be left would be just enough to start again. And perhaps this time we could get it right. In the tiniest of moments, the briefest flicker of sunshine in the grey sky above millions of acres of concrete, there's an instant when it all seems possible. And then the moment's gone.

  At the office, the prime brokerage team have already arrived and wait in the meeting room, looking even more spectral than normal: cookie-cutter white middle-class men in their forties, short-haired, inert features, firm-jawed but lifeless, grey-suited and humourless. Lucija, dressed to kill, takes me to one side, straightens my tie, takes her hairbrush and finesses my hairstyle, then suggests I brush my teeth and splash on some aftershave.