Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

‘Porter doesn’t think he’s a bullshit artist. Kevin told me New York’s started bringing him in on strategy meetings.’

‘That bloke’s never had a strategy in his life that didn’t involve putting his dick up some poor unwitting bastard’s arsehole.’

‘Well, in their eyes he is a genius.’

‘Yeah,’ Ish says disconsolately. ‘Who knows, maybe he is.’ She turns back to her terminal. ‘Bend over, world. Here comes another genius.’

The Financial Times posts an article by a former head of the German Bundesbank about the future of the euro. He likens the currency’s situation to that of Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. There, the fairy is brought back to life when all the children in the world who believe in magic clap in unison. ‘In Germany, however, the public and politicians are determinedly sitting on their hands. It is not that they do not believe in magic; rather, they do not believe the other, naughty children should benefit from that magic. They would rather the fairy die, and teach the other children a lesson. Therefore it is not a sentimental judgement to say that the currency may die from a want of love.’

The naughty children in this case being Greece. While the protestors fulminate fruitlessly through the streets, the country’s future is being rewritten by the IMF.

‘What are they going to do?’

‘Sell off national resources. Cut services. I’d guess most public sector workers will be fired. Pensions will be gone, taxes will double, and so on. Until the books are balanced again.’

‘Meaning, until the Germans get their money back,’ Ish says sardonically.

‘The Greeks got huge development grants from the European Union,’ Jurgen insists. ‘Many billions of euros, which they used to build swimming pools on their roofs and have a ten-year tax holiday.’

‘How did they persuade anyone to give them anything?’ Kevin asks. ‘If their economy’s so batshit crazy?’

‘Porter Blankly,’ Ish says. Kevin looks quizzical. ‘The Greek government paid Blankly’s old bank Danforth Blaue three hundred million dollars to fiddle the accounts and shift their debts out of sight,’ she explains. ‘So on paper they looked legit.’

‘That was legal?’

‘Danforth got their money,’ Ish says with a shrug.

‘The EU are big boys,’ Jocelyn Lockhart says. ‘If Danforth cooked the books they should have spotted that for themselves.’

‘Didn’t the head of the EU also use to work for Danforth?’ I remember.

Wheels within wheels; but it’s not our place to make moral judgements, only to forecast where this information will drive the market. Right now it resembles an enormous, international game of keep-away, with money taking flight from any company that so much as booked a junket to that side of the Mediterranean. But there is plenty of scope for things to get worse. A bet against togetherness is never a bad option, financially speaking.

I come out of a meeting on Grand Canal Dock that afternoon to see I have missed a call from Paul; after a certain amount of debate with myself, I call him back.

The phone is answered by a high voice. ‘Pinaco Sooshin?’ it says.

‘Excuse me?’ I say.

‘What?’ says the voice.

I realize I recognize it — ‘Remington?’

The response is a loud thudding in my ear; then in the background I hear Paul’s voice say, ‘Don’t just throw it on the floor, Remington, Jesus,’ and Remington’s squeaky apology.

‘What is Pinnacle Solutions?’ I say when Paul picks up the phone.

‘Our conversation the other day got me thinking,’ he says. ‘Maybe we gave up on Hotwaitress too easily. I talked to Igor and we decided we’d put a few feelers out, see if it was worth having another try.’

So, my worst fears have been realized.

‘I should send you a copy of the prospectus. I bet you know lots of people who’d love to get in on the ground floor of something like this — hey,’ his voice becomes loud and sharp, ‘if that paper clip gets stuck there, I’m not pulling it out. Sorry, Claude, where were we? You were interested in having a look at the prospectus?’

‘No, I am simply returning your call,’ I say, although now I wish I hadn’t.

‘Oh, right. Well, listen here, I’ve been pretty swamped with Hotwaitress the last few days, but I did find time to speak to your waitress friend this morning, and that whole mix-up the last time, that’s all been squared away.’

‘Squared away?’ I stop right there on the street; I feel a surge of omnidirectional gratitude, like a patient being given the all-clear. ‘How did you manage that?’

He laughs. ‘That’s my job, right? Think of it as an editorial intervention.’

‘But what did you say to her?’

‘It’s not important what I said. The point is, if you want to try again with her, you can do it with a clean slate.’

‘That is very good news,’ I say — and yet a sliver of doubt keeps niggling away at me. ‘Although a clean slate — you cannot simply erase her memory …’

‘I explained it to her, that’s all. I went in and casually brought you up and asked if she’d noticed you acting oddly lately. Then I told her you’d just been diagnosed as bipolar.’

I stop again, this time without the all-consuming sense of well-being. ‘Bipolar?’

‘Yeah, when you think about it it’s really the only explanation that makes sense.’

‘But … but …’ For a moment I can do little more than splutter. ‘But the whole point was to stop me from looking like a madman,’ I manage at last. ‘How can you call it a blank slate, if she thinks I am some kind of lunatic?’

‘I said you were bipolar , not that you were a lunatic. Everybody’s bipolar these days. It’s practically à la mode! At the very least, it’s not contagious. Or wait — is it contagious?’

This seems to me the exact opposite of a clean slate.

‘I’m telling you, Ariadne’s fine about it. And from a narrative point of view, it’s strong. Gives you a bit of edge, you know? So now we can move on to the next chapter. I’ve had a few ideas for what we might do …’

Can it hurt to hear what he has to say? ‘Go on.’

‘This time, instead of creating a whole new persona, I think we should work with what’s there. Find out your good points and build on them. Now, the fact is that most of the qualities women look for in a man are ones you don’t have. Are you tall? No. Are you handsome? I might not be the best judge, but I would have to say no. Are you brave? That would be a tough sell, given that the last time Ariadne saw you, you were fleeing in terror. But you do have one thing that sets you apart: wealth.’

‘I told you before, Ariadne isn’t impressed by money,’ I say, with a certain amount of frustration. If she was, why would I need you?’

‘I’m not saying you should go in there in a fur coat and stuff a fifty down her cleavage. But nobody’s immune from money. It’s a matter of how you present it.’

‘Present it?’ I say, simultaneously suspicious and intrigued.

‘Wealth means money, and money means power, and power means transforming one situation into another situation. And waitresses, I’ve learned from my extensive research, are all waiting to be transformed. This one wants to be an actor, this one wants to be a dancer, this one wants to be a children’s book illustrator. While you’re sitting there eating your cheesecake and fantasizing about her, she’s dreaming of the day someone gives her her big break.’

‘Modern life is being somewhere else,’ I remember.

‘Exactly. Being a waitress is all about not being a waitress. Ariadne’s a perfect example. She wants to paint, but she spends her days kowtowing to people who’d burn down the Louvre if they thought there was a buck in it. She’s crying out for someone to recognize her talent and set her free. That’s where you and your money come in. Suddenly you’re not a grasping, malevolent banker any more. You’re a sensitive, art-loving, bipolar-but-not-overly-so Frenchman who wants to be her benefactor.’