‘I can see you’re not convinced.’ Ricardo leaned back and smiled. ‘Still, a touch of realism isn’t bad in our business.’ He paused and drew from his cigarette, never taking his eyes off mine. They were deep blue, and contrasted sharply with his thick black hair, and tanned skin. They showed power and a piercing intelligence, but somehow they were welcoming, not threatening. ‘Come here,’ they said, ‘you’re safe with me.’ Although I had only known him for quarter of an hour, I felt drawn towards Ricardo Ross. I could see why Jamie thought so highly of him.
I just sat there, letting him assess me, waiting for him to decide.
It didn’t take long. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now, just stay here a moment. I want to have a word with the guys.’
He left me in the conference room, while he walked back to his desk. I watched as he called over the people I had seen earlier in the day. There was Pedro Hattori, then I recognized the tall Argentine aristocrat, the American woman who was head of Research, the Cockney trader, a Mexican salesman, a Frenchman whose job I had forgotten, and finally I saw the fair hair and broad shoulders of Jamie, with his back to me. Well, he had certainly done a good job for me so far.
The next three minutes seemed to take for ever, but finally the group broke up, and Ricardo returned. He held out his hand. ‘Welcome,’ he said, with a broad smile.
I hesitated for just a moment. Shouldn’t I think about this? Did I really want to change my life now, to sell out to the City?
Thirty thousand a year, with maybe much more to follow? Or nothing?
I recalled the letter I had received the week before from Mr K.R. Norris at my building society. If I didn’t meet the arrears on my mortgage payments within thirty days, then they would repossess my flat.
It was a simple decision. I shook his hand. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll see you at seven on Monday morning,’ said Ricardo.
‘I’ll be there,’ I said, and made for the door.
‘Oh, just one more thing.’
I turned. Ricardo glanced at my suit. Polish. One hundred per cent polyester. I tried not to wear it unless I absolutely had to.
‘How many suits do you have?’
‘Er. One.’
Ricardo pulled out a cheque book, and wrote in it with a slim fountain pen. He tore off the cheque, folded it and gave it to me. ‘Use this to buy some clothes. Pay me back whenever you can.’
I put the cheque in my pocket, and Ricardo showed me out of the little meeting room to the lifts. I caught Jamie’s eye as I left, and he gave me a broad grin.
As the lift sped the forty floors down to earth, I opened the cheque and studied it. It was large with an intricate pattern in green, and it was drawn on Ricardo’s personal account at a bank I had never heard of. The words were elegantly penned in black ink. Pay Nicholas Elliot five thousand pounds only.
‘Congratulations, Nick!’
Kate looked up at me with her big hazel eyes, and took a gulp of champagne. She and Jamie had come round to my flat to celebrate.
‘Don’t congratulate me, congratulate your husband. You wouldn’t believe what lies he told Ricardo.’
‘Just doing what comes naturally.’ Jamie smiled his broad white smile. ‘No, I knew what I was doing. Ricardo’s looking for someone just like you. And I know you won’t let him down.’ He laughed. ‘You’d better not. Or it won’t be just you looking for a job.’
‘Well, thanks anyway, Jamie.’
‘It’ll be good to work together. Just like those Hemmings tutorials, do you remember?’
‘I hope for Dekker’s sake you know more about the markets than you knew about Plato.’
‘It’s just the same. Shadows on the wall of a cave. You’ll soon discover that.’
Jamie and I had been good friends ever since we had found ourselves tutorial partners in our first term at Oxford. We were different. Jamie approached university more energetically than me, throwing himself into a series of different indulgences: playing rugby, drinking, smart parties, scruffy parties, affected ennui. The one thing he did consistently was chase women. This he was good at, with his twinkling blue eyes, and his broad infectious grin, which he used to reward anyone who paid him attention. I followed him at an amused distance through most of these activities. I was less successful with women than he, being tall, dark-haired, unremarkable and a little shy. But we had fun together. And after university the friendship had broadened and deepened.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to become a banker!’ exclaimed Kate. ‘Especially after all the grief you’ve given Jamie.’
‘I know. Shocking, isn’t it?’
‘So when are you getting the BMW? And you’ll need a mobile phone. And some braces.’
‘Hold on, Kate, one step at a time,’ said Jamie. ‘Do you have any pinstripe underwear, Nick?’
‘Does Ricardo wear pinstripe underwear?’ Kate asked him.
‘How the hell would I know?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s just all you people at Dekker are so close...’
‘I shall wear my M & S Y-fronts with pride,’ I said.
We drank our champagne. I was in good spirits, excited. I was feeling more and more sure I had made the right decision.
‘So, what did you think of the Marketmaker?’ asked Jamie.
‘The Marketmaker? Who’s that? Ricardo?’
‘Yeah. That’s his nickname. It comes from when he was about the only person in the world who made markets in Latin American debt. Now everyone trades the stuff, but he gets the credit for developing the market into what it is today.’
‘Well, I was impressed. But I suppose I expected that. What surprised me was how approachable he is. I mean, it would be wrong to say he was just an ordinary guy, because he clearly isn’t, but he seemed to treat me like a real person.’
‘That’s not so strange,’ said Kate.
‘I don’t know. I suppose you think that someone that powerful would treat someone like me like dirt. He’s used to dealing with presidents of countries, not unemployed academics.’
‘That’s part of his secret,’ said Jamie. ‘He makes you feel special whoever you are. Whether you’re the finance minister of Mexico or the coffee boy.’
‘Well, at least you can keep the flat now,’ said Kate, glancing round the small living room. It was pleasant enough, and looked out through some french windows on to a little garden. But it was tiny. My whole flat was tiny. There was scarcely enough room for all my books, let alone human beings as well. I didn’t know how Joanna and I had managed to spend so much on such little space. Sure, the location was good, just a few minutes’ walk from Primrose Hill in North London, but even so. Six years later the market had still not climbed back to the level it had been when we’d bought the property. Sometimes I doubted whether it ever would.
‘Yes, I’m glad,’ I said. ‘I’ve grown quite attached to the place. I would have hated to lose it to the building society.’ I was looking forward to writing to Mr Norris to inform him of my change of fortune.
‘Joanna might not have had much of a financial brain, but she had good taste,’ said Jamie.
‘She was awful!’ said Kate. ‘She was never good enough for you, Nick. And the way she left you with this place!’
I smiled at Kate. The subject of Joanna never failed to get her going. And I probably had been taken advantage of. Our relationship had survived my two years in Russia, and when I’d returned we’d decided to buy a house together. It would be a good investment. Joanna, with her two years’ experience in a merchant bank, was the financial brains behind the purchase, and she had found the flat. When, three years later, we’d split up and she had gone off to New York with an American investment banker, she had let me have her half and all the furniture in return for giving me the mortgage obligation as well. It had seemed like a good deal at the time, especially since she had put up all of the original equity, but my salary had never proved up to the task.