Nick Harkaway - The Gone-Away World

I stand in the gallery and watch, and chat. The Brandon Club gallery, overlooking the courts, has ferns and fig trees in little pots at inconvenient intervals, and supremely uncomfortable chairs made from bamboo. Anyone spending any significant amount of time here will develop expensive back pain, and the club has a health spa which is particularly good at dealing with injuries sustained from sitting all day in a lounger. The walls are painted off-white (because true white makes the guests look ill) and there’s a great deal of glass. The point appears to be that you could only possibly pay what you pay to be a member here if you are very rich, because anyone with less money would demand better service at the price.

From Buddy and his friends—who rotate on and off the court, so that one of them is always talking to me in a somewhat wheezy voice and mopping his underarms—I learn that Haviland City is filled with excellent bars; that it is (like ancient Rome) constructed on a string of hills, the precise number of which no one can quite recall. I learn that the market (this being the stock market, not the local produce market, although in fact the produce market is of course a subset of the other) is low at the moment owing to a string of vanishings and the recent fire on the Pipe (Old J.P.), but that certain people confidently expect it to rise shortly when these matters are resolved. (Resolved how? Just resolved. ) I learn that Haviland City is now the centre of operations for Jorgmund, although the old head office remains out along the Pipe (the Silver) a way, where it all began. These things are moderately interesting, but not what I came here for. I wait. Sooner or later, they have to ask me to join the game. And they do. Buddy Keene, red from the neck up and dripping sweat from his earlobe, gets down on one knee. Would I like a shot at the title? I give Buddy a bit of polite surprise. Oh no. No, I’m waiting for Someone. Buddy catches hold of the capital S. His eyes light up. Is it a babe? Babes who play Brandon Racquets (the club’s own variant, which has few or no rules about physical contact) are hot. They are hot racquet babes. They get physical. Yeah!

“No,” I murmur, infinitely bored, “I’m here to see Richard.”

“Richard?”

“Washburn.”

“You mean Dick?”

“I call him Richard.”

“He prefers Dick.”

“How ambitious.”

This is easy. No one here is telling the truth. Every single one of them is living for every other. They do things because they must be seen to do them. These are type D or even type E pencilnecks vying for an upgrade. They’re here to lose a bit of identity, to become more the Right Kind of Guy. The rules they know are their own rules, and someone who breaks them without fear must be playing on the next level up.

I look at my watch. It’s not expensive. They stare. I tap it.

“Piece of crap. Won it off a guy.”

“You bet for that?”

“That . . . and his job.” They all suck air sharply, and Roy Massaman takes a little step back.

Yes, tiny men. I eat what I kill.

“Anyone know where Richard is? I’m due on a call at five. I’ll see him later.”

“He’s going to the party this evening.”

“Good. I’ll see him there. Is that the board thing?”

“Uh, no. There’s a board thing?”

“If there isn’t, I’ve come a long way for nothing. So where’s Richard going to be?”

And of course they tell me. Anything to help a fellow out. Particularly if you suspect he may be your next boss. Buddy Keene is looking at me, little wheels turning in his head. Think, Buddy. Take a risk. Grift.

I toss Buddy his racquet. We’ll do drinks, okay? And yes, they all say happily, we’ll do drinks. I step out into the corridor, and I walk away. He might not come. He might not have anything to offer. And then, heavy footsteps, the flat clatter of someone trying to lose speed in training shoes.

“Hey,” says Buddy Keene. “Wait up.”

Goodness me, whatever can it be?

“You’re coming to our office? Here in Haviland?”

“Seems that way.”

“Well . . .” Buddy Keene smiles an ingratiating smile. “There’s a meeting of the Planning Horizons Committee in an hour. Would you like to sit in, unofficially?”

Yes, Buddy. That would be just ideal.

JORGMUND has the big building on the left, with the annexe. The big building on the right belongs to the mayoralty. It is not as big as the big building on the left, which is topped with the circular snake logo, and has a couple of extra floors to drive the point home. The mayoralty had permission to go taller, but since Jorgmund was doing the construction, they somehow never got around to asking for those extra levels.

We are on one of the middle floors, and Buddy Keene has explained to everyone that I am absolutely not here, and given them to understand that I am a bigwig from back along the Silver. He says this with the absolute conviction of someone who wants to be first in line for promotion when I ascend, and his avarice is incredibly persuasive.

Buddy Keene, with a smile on his lips, opens his first red folder and slaps it down on the table in front of him. “Right,” he says. “Let’s rule the world.” Everyone grins. I assume that he is joking. A few minutes later I realise that he is not, or not entirely. They aren’t actually ruling the world, but they’re planning for Haviland City, and what goes for Haviland goes everywhere else in Jorgmund’s domain, which is everywhere.

Everything in Jorgmund is governed by the Core. The Core is the final authority, the yes or the no. Naturally, everyone wants to get into the Core. This is made more difficult by the fact that no one knows who else is in it. (Buddy Keene is almost 100 per cent certain that Humbert Pestle is in the Core. That means Dick Washburn has the ear of the Core—if such a thing can be said to exist—and hence that I am going around telling everyone that I’m one better than the guy who knows the guy who is almost certainly one of The Guys.)

Between us in this room and them in whatever corporate Olympus they occupy, there is the Senior Board. The Senior Board is composed of people who would very much like to be in the Core, and who therefore go out of their way to demonstrate how ruthless and commercially minded and efficient they are by going through the proposals of the Planning Horizons Committee and kicking out the weak, kittenish ideas and retaining only the fanged, pitbull ideas. Everyone here (except me) can name the Senior Board, list their hobbies and their weaknesses, knows how they like to be called and what their favourite drink is. Dick Washburn is tipped as surefire Senior Board material, as long as the Lubitsch Project comes out well.

“That was a bold initiative,” I murmur, and there’s a great deal of nodding and harrumphing. “Did anyone see the projections?”

“They’re huge,” says Buddy Keene.

“Really major,” says a woman named Mae Milton.

They look at me to see if they’ve said the right thing. I realise they have no idea what it is.

The Lubitsch Project. I turn the words over in my head. I don’t like them. I don’t like the fact that it has a name rather than an incident number or a nickname, or that they’ve heard about it in a place with the word “planning” in the title. I don’t like it that the name attached is Gonzo’s, in particular. This wasn’t about the Free Company. It wasn’t about Jim Hepsobah and his expertise, or Sally Culpepper and her negotiator gong fu. It was and is about Gonzo, in person. You were set up. Yes, Ronnie, we were. And yes, indeed. Who profits?

Buddy Keene is talking about house prices. Apparently, they’re on the rise, and many employees are asking for higher salaries to cope with the difference. Buddy Keene suggests that Jorgmund encourage them to move to the fringes of town where property is cheaper. This will entail new construction ( Jorgmund has a large construction arm) and better transport (supplied by Jorgmund Rail & Road). The longer commute will take a chunk out of employees’ days, of course, but this will leave them with more disposable income during their remaining leisure time. The alternative is to pay them more, have them live in a more expensive neighbourhood and feel underpaid, beginning a cycle of disaffection which can only be bad for the company. Additionally, people who spend more time with their families develop attachments and retire early, sometimes have children, and require day care and leave, whereas people who work long hours do not develop such strong outside attachments; they swim in the company water and think it’s the whole world. Day care and recruitment are expensive, and thus to be avoided. Since it is the major real-estate owner in Haviland City, Jorgmund could lower rents and sale prices, but this would mean taking a loss in a sector which is at present growing well. That kind of option is available to the Senior Board, but not to Planning Horizons.