William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

“You’ve reached Ingram and Meredith Fryxer’s number. Please leave a message.”

“Ingram, it’s Ivo. I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Bless you.”

Ivo hung up. Ingram would know what he was referring to — so no need for him to make any histrionic ‘denials’. All was suddenly well in the Redcastle household. He wandered out of his study and called up the stairs to Smika’s studio.

“Darling? Fancy a spot of lunch?”

THERE WAS A GOOD TURN-OUT, INGRAM COULD SEE, AS LUIGI DROVE them past the entrance to the Queen Charlotte Conference Centre in Covent Garden — some dozens of people still queuing to pick up copies of the agenda and press release and to have their names verified as bona fide shareholders. Can all these people own bits of my company? Ingram demanded, as he looked at the shuffling queue. He realised he was in his usual troubled state of wonder: it always happened at the AGM, as well, when he had the chance to contemplate these earnest amateur speculators — these mums and dads, these eccentrics with their thermos flasks and packs of sandwiches. All these hundreds, thousands of individuals around the world who possessed a little bit of Calenture-Deutz paper and who turned up, along with the smart young men and women from pension funds, the investment banks and the financial institutions, to listen to what the chairman and the board had to say about the proper functioning of the company they had invested in. It seemed extraordinary and, as at the AGM each year, he found himself in two minds, trapped: was this a healthy sign of the democratic, accountable base of Western capitalism, or was it an indication that the system was hopelessly soft and too lenient? Due diligence, fair practice, corporate responsibility — or raw, lean, energetic commerce being forcibly called to account for its actions and agenda on an annual basis, in an unreal situation where it could find itself at the mercy of rivals, special interest groups, selfish investors and the occasional random lunatic.

Talking of which, Ingram thought, there was a peach, a prime specimen. They were driving past an elderly pony-tailed man in a wheelchair holding up a placard that said: “ZEMBLA-4 KILLS CHILDREN”—and underneath that the address of a website that Ingram couldn’t read. He chuckled, heavy irony colouring his semi-laugh. He was used to these posters — he’d seen worse. There had been a ‘FRYZER = MENGELE’ banner a couple of years ago. He smiled again — this drug was specifically designed to save children’s lives, for fuck’s sake. Here was the problem when you opened your doors to the public, even an interested public — such gatherings were announced weeks in advance, discretion was an impossibility, word was circulated everywhere — you didn’t even need to be a shareholder to cause trouble. Big Pharma was a legitimate target these days — like the banks, the arms dealers and the oil companies — any anarchic, eco-madman-warrior could take it on himself to make a symbolic protest, even against a perfectly harmless medium-sized Pharma company like Calenture-Deutz. At one AGM Ingram had had green paint sprayed over his £2,000 suit by a demonstrator wearing a skull-mask; at another, people in loin-cloths and with suppurating wounds painted on their bodies had Iain on the pavement outside the venue feigning toxic death. All their public meetings were routinely picketed and targeted — moronic ape-chanting carrying into the hall as the financial report was read out, banners draped over the building, silent lines of young people wearing gas masks — and so it was something of a relief to see they only had one solitary dickhead to deal with this year. Security would see to him but the sooner the whole thing was over, the better.

As he stepped out of the car Ingram experienced one of his new disorientating swoons. He staggered, Luigi grabbed his elbow, and after a couple of deep breaths Ingram felt fine again. Blood spots, ferocious itches, fainting fits, the word confusions — plus, he had to say, intermittent nausea and very short-term headaches that were so short term they were over by the time he had reached for the analgesic. It could only be stress — stress caused by this whole delicate, secret accommodation with Rilke and Rilke Pharma, the aggravation imposed by Keegan and de Freitas, not to mention extraneous factors like the brutal murder of his chief researcher: all these symptoms must stem from these pressures — he was only human after all.

Lachlan McTurk had said he had run out of tests — everything had shown up completely clear — all there was left now was the body-wide ultrasound and the MRI brain scan and so he had been duly booked in. There ‘was no alternative, Lachlan said, he could find nothing. Perhaps once this whole Zembla-4 licensing was over and as soon as the company was safely sold to Rilke Pharma his health would return to its old state — robust, uncomplicated, normal.

He went in through a back entrance and was guided along corridors to a form of green room where the board of Calenture-Deutz was gathering before it went on stage. Pippa Deere busied around him and had him fitted out with a lapel microphone. She assured him that all the international video-links had been checked and were fully functioning. Yes, yes, fine. Ingram couldn’t really concentrate — he still felt a little light-headed and he ordered a coffee to quell his resurgent nausea. He smiled and nodded at his colleagues — the doctors and the Oxbridge professors, the ex-cabinet minister and the banking supremo — and there too were his nemeses, Keegan and de Freitas, looking over at him knowingly—

There was a gentle squeeze on his elbow and he turned to find his very own ‘Lord on the Board’, his brother-in-law, Ivo, smart in a tight dark suit, his thick hair gelled into glossy quiescence.

“Ivo…” Ingram said, drawing the name out, playing for time, then paused legitimately to accept the coffee brought to him by Pippa Deere. He took a quick sip, searching for a topic of conversation. “Did you see that lunatic outside?”

Ivo chose not to answer his question, posing instead a question of his own.

“Did you get my message?”

“I did. But I didn’t understand it.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

“I knew you’d say that. Exactly.” Ivo pulled down the lower lid of his right eye. “ Exactly .”

“Why would you leave a message I wouldn’t understand? Why were you thanking me?”

Ivo leaned close. “For what you did.”

“I did nothing.”

“ Quod erat demonstrandum . Q.E.D.”

“What has been demonstrated?” Ingram was growing irritated at this ambiguity.

Ivo sighed. “I had to say thank you, for god’s sake. It’s only reasonable, decent.”

“For what?”

“For what you did.”

“I did nothing.”

“You did not do nothing.”

Ingram began to feel he was in a Harold Pinter play, involved in a sinister duologue that could conceivably go on for ever.

“I. Did. Nothing.” He repeated the words with heavy emphasis.

“I know.”

“You admit I did nothing.”

“Yes, so to speak. But I thank you all the same.”

“For what?”

“For doing ‘nothing’.” Ivo used his fingers to make histrionic air-quotes. “I know that you know. And you know that I know you know.” Ivo tapped the side of his nose. “I can read,” he said, conspiratorially.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Exactly. Point taken. No worries. Good man, Ingram, I love you.”

Pippa Deere interrupted to guide them on to the stage and their appointed seats.

Ingram forced himself to stay awake as Professor Marcus Vintage, who was chairing the press conference, spoke about the year’s progress the company had made, and the tragedy of Philip Wang’s sudden and shocking death (silence in the hall), making no mention of Zembla-4, in his Yorkshire-accented monotone before handing over to Edward Anthony, the company secretary, who would present a brief financial report. The hall was nearly full, Ingram saw, full of part-owners of Calenture-Deutz, all apparently listening intently. He glanced down at the agenda: welcome from the chairman, welcome from the company secretary, statement from Ingram Fryzer, CEO. “Statement”—that was when he would detonate his little fiscal bomb. Little did they know, he thought, looking out over the audience, that everyone in this room was going to leave richer than when they’d come in. Theoretically. He allowed himself a small smile.