Iain Banks - The Business

(a) the major force behind the New World Order (which appears to be what Americans too stupid to realise that the Cold War is over, they won, and the world is theirs, have adopted as the new bogey monster now that Ronnie's Evil Empire has a GNP a little less than Disney Corp.);

(b) an even more extreme, hideous and sinister branch of the International Zionist Conspiracy (in other words, the Jews);

(c) a long-term deep-entryist group of dedicated cadres charged by the Executive Council of the Fourth International to bring down the entire capitalist system from within by gaining control of lots of shares and then selling them all at once to produce a crash (which is the one I find most amusing);

(d) a well-funded cabal of the little-known Worshippers of Nostradamus cult intent on bringing about the end of the financial world through a roughly similar strategy to that of the International Marxists (which may or may not imply a rethink for this plucky group of theorists if we do all make it past the millennium);

(e) the militant commercial wing of the Roman Catholic Church (as if, given the antics of the Banco Ambrosio and the Black Friars, they needed one);

(f) a similarly extremist Islamic syndicate sworn to out-perform, out-deal and out-haggle the Jews (probably the least plausible so far);

(g) a zombie-like remnant of the Holy Roman Empire, which has risen from the grave, unspeakably putrid but grotesquely powerful, to re-impose European dominance over the New World in general and the USA in particular through sneaky cosmopolitan business practices and the introduction of the Euro (top prize for invention, I feel);

(h) the front for a cartel of Jewish Negro financiers intent on enslaving the White Race (I confess I'm still waiting for my first introduction to a Jewish Negro financier, but maybe I just move in the wrong circles…except I don't);

(i) an alien conspiracy run from a spacecraft buried under the New Mexico desert, sent to bring about the collapse of (well, see any or all of the above) or

(j) just Bill Gates' retirement fund.

Heck, we've all been there; you've reinstated the underwater night-time flare-path and cleared the weeds out of your mile-long landing lake, some enterprising pilot's skimmed a dinky-looking dove-white Ilyushin seaplane successfully down over the hills and trees, kissed it on to the water and taxied noisily to the far end of the waterway to considerable applause from all those sports fans who've managed to prise themselves out of bed for the crack of noon, and then your steam catapult — guaranteed repaired by the best technicians money can buy just yesterday — suddenly goes on the blink. Hellish, isn't it? Actually I thought the pilot — a dashing Iranian — looked relieved.

'Bugger and blast!'

'Don't take it personally, Uncle Freddy.'

'Dammit, bugger and blast!'

Uncle Freddy's shepherd's crook decapitated two urns' worth of Michaelmas daisies and hydrangeas with one swinging swish.

Well, we missed the spectacle of an ex-Soviet navy seaplane being catapulted across the valley at the hills on the far side — if you looked carefully you could still see the craters where the engineers had fired old trucks loaded with steel plate into the woods to calibrate the catapult's throw — but we did get to play dodgems.

Being battered on all sides by over-enthusiastic revellers without either a decent hangover or the rudiments of driving ability while sitting in a small car resembling a garishly tin-plated slipper beneath an electrified metal grid is not necessarily my idea of the best way to ease myself back into sober normality, but it seemed only polite to Uncle Freddy to join in, after the disappointment with the catapult.

Re CW.

Who what where?

C Walker. Pay attention.

What about him?

Said Hi to him yesterday at Unc F's. Maintained he'd just flown in day before (ie Thursday). Does not compute.

Oh right: more detail on Adrian George's spotting of CW. Original message was garbled (not at my end, obviously). AG saw CW while on way to office, not in it. Glimpsed presence in cab in street. Wednesday, this would be. So? Probably that aspect was garbled too.

Never mind.

OK. How's the party going?

What party?

You mean you're not @ B'crg @ the moment?

OK, yes. Party usual low-key affair btw. Where's your ass at?

Singapore.

Fun? I always thought it was a bit like the East would be if it was run by the Swiss. (This is not intended as a compliment.)

See your point. Did you know chewing-gum's banned out here?

Yup. Lee Kwan U must have sat on a piece once and got all upset.

Wonder if there's a flourishing smuggling trade?

Careful, even talking about that sort of thing's probably a crime, or at least a misdemeanour.

Fuck em! I laugh in the face of their vicious anti-chewing-gum laws!

Yeah, you're probably safe; they'd never make it stick.

Ack. - - Goodbye.

'Kate.'

'Uncle Freddy.' I had been summoned to Uncle F's large and chaotic study in Blysecrag after lunch, while most people were still recovering from the excesses of one night and preparing themselves for those of the next.

'Jebbet E. Dessous.'

'Gesundheit.'

'Come now, dear girl. He's a Level One.'

'I know. Isn't he the one in Nebraska? Collects tanks and stuff?'

'That's right. Made the news a while ago when he bought a couple of them what-d'ye-call-'ems. Rocket thingies.'

'Scud missiles?'

'That's right.'

'Was that him? I thought that was another guy, in Southern California.'

'Oh. Maybe the other chap got caught, then, and Jebbet didn't. That would be more like Jebbet. I can't remember.' Uncle F looked confused and stared at something long, grey and untidy on the floor, which turned out to be one of the wolfhounds. The beast stretched, yawned with a single echoing snap of its extensive jaws and then — such extreme activity having entirely exhausted it — rolled flopping back over with a long sigh, and fell asleep again.

Uncle Freddy opened his mouth as though to speak, then became distracted by something on his desk. Uncle F's desk was covered to a depth of several inches with a bewildering assortment of mostly paper-based rubbish. He picked up a long, elegant-looking, Y-shaped piece of metal and turned it over in his hands, a look of intense concentration on his face, then he shook his head, shrugged and put it back again.

'Anyway,' I said.

'Anyway. Yes. Fancy paying old Jebbet a visit?'

'Do I have to?'

'What? Don't you like the fellow?'

'No, I've never met him, Uncle Freddy, though his reputation goes before. Why do I have to go and see him?'

'Well, he's sort of asked to see you.'

'Is that good or bad?'

'How d'you mean? For him or you?'

'For me, Uncle Freddy.'

'Ahm…pretty damn good, I'd say. Can't do any harm getting to know old Jebbet; very highly respected amongst the other top brass, he is, oh yes.' Uncle Freddy paused. 'Completely mad, of course. Thing is, you know his, umm, nephew or something, don't you?'

I said, 'Dwight?'

Now. There is a certain way of pronouncing Dwight's name that I find it hard to resist — sort of Dih-Wight? — when I'm trying to make it clear that the prospect of encountering the lad again has a coefficient of attraction roughly on a par with being invited to chew on a wad of silver paper. I made no attempt to resist that temptation here.

'Dwight.' Uncle Freddy looked puzzled, staring up at the study ceiling. 'Is that a real name, d'you think, Kate? That Eisenhower fellow was called that too, I remember, but then he was called Ike as well, and I could never work out which was a contraction of the other.'

'I think it is a real name, Uncle Freddy.'