Iain Banks: The Business

I stared at him. I put the cash away, not fully counted. 'What?' I said flatly.

'It's all a blind, Kate. A distraction.'

'A distraction.'

'Yup.'

'For what?'

'For the real negotiations.'

'The real negotiations.' I felt like an idiot. All I seemed to be able to do was repeat what Uncle Freddy was saying.

'Yup,' he said again, throwing the Ferrari into a gap in the traffic and past the tractor. 'The place we're really buying is Thulahn.'

'Thulahn?' This was the tiny Himalayan principality with which we had — I had thought until now — a very limited understanding; just the usual money for diplomatic passports deal. Uncle Freddy had mentioned the day before on the telephone that Suvinder Dzung, the current Prince of Thulahn, would be in attendance at Blysecrag over the weekend, but I hadn't thought any more about this, beyond reconciling myself to an evening of unsubtle flirting and increasingly outrageous offers of jewels and royal yaks if I'd leave my door unlocked that night.

'Thulahn,' Uncle Freddy said. 'We're buying Thulahn. That's how we get our seat at the UN.'

'And Fenua Ua?'

'Oh, that's only ever been to throw the other seats off the scent.'

At this point I had better make clear that during the last decade or so, when the idea of buying our own country and securing our own place at the UN had been gaining popularity amongst the high-ups, we seemed to have started referring to sovereign states as seats.

'What, right from the start?'

'Oh, yes,' Uncle Freddy said airily. 'While we got quietly on with the negotiations with the Thulahnese, we've been paying a chap in the American State Department a handsome sum every month to make sure they keep coming up with new ways of preventing us buying Fenua Ua. But I mean, pwah!' At this point Uncle Freddy puffed his cheeks out and lifted both hands from the wheel in a dangerously Italianate gesture. 'Who'd really want Fenua Ua?'

'I thought the actual place was irrelevant. I thought it was the seat at the UN that mattered.'

'Yes, but if you're going to buy somewhere you might as well buy somewhere decent, don't you think?'

'Decent? Thulahn's a dump!' (I'd been there.) 'They've so little flat land their single landing strip has to double up as their football park; the time I went we nearly crashed on our first attempt because they'd forgotten to remove one of the goalposts. The royal palace is heated by smouldering yak dung, Uncle Freddy.' (Well, bits had been.) 'Their national sport is emigration.'

'Ah, but it's very high, you see. No danger from global warming there, oh, no. Also very survivable in the event of a meteorite strike or that sort of thing, apparently. And we'll be levelling off one of their mountains to make a proper airport. Plan is to carve out lots of caverns and tunnels and shift a lot of archive stuff there from Switzerland. There's quite a lot of hydroelectric power, they tell me, but we've got a nuclear plant we bought last year from Pakistan just waiting to be installed. Oh, come on, get out the bloody way!'

This last was addressed to the rear of a caravan blocking our progress.

I sat and thought while Uncle Freddy fretted and fumed. Thulahn. Well, why not?

I said, 'The Fenua Uans will be upset.'

'They've done very well out of us. And we shan't be making a big fuss about buying Thulahn. We can keep the charade going with Fenua Ua until they have their airport or water plant or whatever from one of the other seats.'

'But in one generation they'll be under water.'

'They'll all be able to afford yachts, thanks to us.'

'I'm sure that will come as a great comfort to them.'

'Ah, bugger you,' Uncle Freddy muttered, and sent us slingshotting past the caravan; a car approaching flashed its lights at us. 'And you,' Uncle Freddy said, before throwing the Ferrari into the fluted entrance to Blysecrag's estate. 'Excuse my French,' he said to me. Gravel made a noise like hail in the wheel arches as the car fishtailed back and forth before straightening, finding the tarmac that started at the gatehouse. and roaring on down the drive.

I checked the time difference and then called one of my girlfriends in California.

'Luce?'

'Kate. How ya doin', hon?'

'Oh, fine and dandy. You?'

'Well as can be expected, given my boss-bitch from hell just beat me at squash.'

'How politic of you to let her triumph. I thought your boss was a guy.'

'No. It's Deana Markins.'

'Who?'

'Deana Markins. You know her. You met her at Ming's. Last New Year. Remember?'

'No.'

'The girls' night out?'

'Hmm.'

'You remember. We were splitting the check but they gave it to Penelope Ives because she was sitting at the head of the table and you said, Oh my God, they billed Penny!'

'Ah, that night.'

'Well, her, anyway. Oh, and my cat's in cat hospital.'

'Oh dear. What's wrong with Squeamish?'

'Serial fur balls. That's already more than you want to know, believe me. You still in Braveheart territory? They cun take ourr lives but they'll neverr take us serriously.'

'Luce, I swear you must have your own dialogue coach as well as personal fitness trainer. But no, I'm in Yorkshire, England.'

'What? This at the mega-house that belongs to your uncle?'

'The same.'

'Any chance your beloved will be there?'

'There, maybe; available, I doubt it.'

'What's his name again?'

'Gosh, I don't think I ever told you it.'

'Na, you didn't, did you? You're so cagey, Kate. So defensive. You should open up more.'

'That's what I keep offering to do for this guy.'

'Slut.'

'Chance would be a fine thing. But never mind.'

'One day your prince will come, kid.'

'Yeah. Funnily enough, tomorrow a real prince does arrive. Guy called Suvinder Dzung. I may have mentioned him.'

'Oh, yeah, the guy who made a pass at you in the scullery.'

'Well, it was the orangery, but, yes, that's my boy. I don't think that's why I've been invited, but I'm still just a little suspicious I'll only be there to keep him entertained.'

'This the Himalayan guy?'

'Well, as in hailing from, not in physical appearance. Yes.'

'So he's a prince of this place?'

'Yes.'

'But I thought he was the ruler.'

'He is.'

'So how come this guy's called a prince if he's the ruler? How come he's not the king?'

'No idea. I guess it's a principality, not a kingdom. No, hold on, Uncle F said it was something about his mother. She's still alive, but he was married briefly, so she's not the queen, but at the same time he's not the king. Or something. But, frankly, who gives a fuck? Not I.'

'Amen.'

Over the next few hours Blysecrag changed in character and became suddenly very busy. Cars, trucks and coaches arrived separately and in convoy, thundering up the mile-long slope that was the finishing straight of the driveway. Helicopters touched down briefly to disgorge people on to the pad between the tennis courts and the polo ground, from where the guests, security people, technicians, entertainers and others were ferried to the house itself by a pair of people-carriers.

Uncle Freddy was in nominal charge of all this, though as usual the people really masterminding everything were those of the Business's quaintly entitled Conjurations and Interludans division, or the Charm Monsters as they were commonly known within the company.

So up from London was flown one of the most famous chefs in the country, along with his entourage (an extremely annoyed and insistent fly-on-the-wall TV crew from the BBC were only prevented from accompanying him by being physically barred from the helicopter).

Arranged through long-predated paperwork in a manner that would make it look like a coincidence, a photo shoot with a similarly world-renowned photographer was set up for the weekend, too, by a fashion magazine belonging to one of our wholly owned subsidiaries. This was supposed to make look less sordid the fact that we had a house full of rich and powerful men, none of them accompanied by wives or partners, and a rather larger number of stunningly beautiful and allegedly unattached young women all desperate to make a name for themselves in the world of fashion, modelling, glamour photography, acting or, well, almost anything.