Once again, he was relying on the fickleness of the markets to survive: he hated that.
Once again, he felt helpless. But this time, his mind didn’t go back to the disaster at Bloomfield Weiss, but to another time, twenty years before.
He was eleven. His father had been dead for nine months. The lives of his mother, his younger sister and himself had changed dramatically. They had moved house, from a semi-detached in a nice cul-de-sac, to a flat on the seventh floor of a tough tower block. His mother went out to work in the local VG Stores during the day and had taken on night-shift work at a warehouse three days a week. Although she was proud of him for getting into grammar school, even that would bring more expense. But despite the lack of sleep, the worry about money, the red-rimmed, fatigue-darkened eyes, he never saw her cry. She always had time for him and Anna, to listen to their fears, to comfort them. At eleven, Chris had found that he once again needed to feel the warmth of his mother’s arms, and they were always there.
Until one evening, when he left school late, and met her outside the shop. Anna was playing at a friend’s house. They walked home rapidly, chattering together, and took the stinking lift daubed with graffiti up to the seventh floor. Their flat was at the end of the walkway. As they approached, his mother suddenly quickened her pace and then broke into a run. Chris followed. The front door was swinging open. Inside, the flat was trashed. Chris’s mother ran to the chest of drawers where he knew she kept a lot of his dad’s stuff. The drawers were open. She stood silently staring at the mess inside. Tentatively, Chris joined her. His dad’s watch was gone. So was his wedding ring. So were several chess medals, worth nothing to anyone but Chris’s mum. Their wedding photograph lay on the floor, the glass broken, the print ripped.
Her shoulders heaved, and she let out a kind of animal howl. Then she began to sob. Scared, and unsure what to do, Chris grabbed hold of her and led her back to the bed. She began to bawl like a child, tears streaming down her face. Chris’s eyes stung, but he was determined to hold back the tears, be the one to support her for once. He clung tightly to her shoulders, hoping she would quieten down. She pressed her face into his chest and wept.
Eventually, much later, she stopped. She lay still for several minutes, Chris unwilling to disturb her. Then she sat up on the bed and turned to him, her face puffy and damp with tears, her dark curly hair, usually so carefully tamed, a mess.
‘You know what, Chris?’ she said.
‘Yes, Mum?’
‘Things can’t get any worse than they are right now, can they? It’s just not possible.’ She sniffed, and from somewhere she summoned a quivering smile. ‘As long as you and me and Anna stick together and help each other, they can only get better. So come on. Let’s get this mess tidied up.’
And she was right. Eventually things had got better. The flat was cleared up. The pain of the loss of his father became a persistent ache. She found a better-paying job in a travel agency, and was able eventually to afford a small house for them. Anna married and had two kids. Chris went to university. She’d done it. She’d pulled through.
So would he.
The train drew into Penn Station and Chris took a taxi downtown to Bloomfield Weiss. He remembered the thrill of anticipation he had felt that morning ten years before when he had first entered the building with Duncan and Ian. He took the lift up to the forty-fifth floor. And, just like that first day, Abby Hollis was waiting for him.
She had changed little. She was wearing a white blouse and her blonde hair was tied severely back. But she was chewing gum, and she smiled when she saw Chris.
‘Well, how are you doing? Good to see you.’ She held out her hand, and Chris shook it. ‘Come through to the floor. It’s quiet enough at the moment. We can talk there.’
She led Chris through the clutter of desks, chairs, bins, jackets, papers and people towards the far corner of the room.
Chris looked around him. ‘This hasn’t changed much,’ he said.
‘Management keep on talking about getting a new one, but there’s not much point. This is still where it all happens on Wall Street.’
If that was true, then there was nothing happening on Wall Street at that particular moment, which wasn’t too surprising for four o’clock on a Monday afternoon. The room was crowded, but those on the phone looked casual and unhurried, and most people were staring at their screens, the newspaper, or simply into space. There was the odd cluster of large men in white shirts goofing off. Somehow, it all seemed less intimidating than it had ten years before. Chris no longer expected someone to scream at him at any second to go and get a pizza. In fact, he saw a couple of frightened trainees squatting at the edge of a row of desks that he could scream at himself if he felt like it. He didn’t.
Abby worked in Muni sales, not the most glamorous of departments at Bloomfield Weiss. As they reached her desk, Chris recognized Latasha James, wearing a smart black suit.
‘Hello, Chris! It’s been a long time.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Lenka.’
‘Yes, it was terrible,’ Chris said. ‘I see they still haven’t let you out of Municipal Finance.’
Latasha rolled her eyes. ‘I guess not. I work upstairs in origination. But it’s not so bad. Some of these cities need the cash we can get them, you know what I’m saying? I guess I’m doing more good here than I would in many places.’
‘Doing good at Bloomfield Weiss. Now there’s a thought!’
‘Isn’t it just? I’ve got to run,’ Latasha said. ‘See you around.’
‘She’s really good,’ said Abby, sitting down at her desk. ‘She wins us more deals than the rest of the guys upstairs put together. The public officials love her. And not just the black ones.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Chris said, pulling up a chair, and glancing at the familiar screens on Abby’s desk. ‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘Nine years,’ Abby said. ‘I eventually escaped from George Calhoun’s clutches. It’s OK. I keep my head down, I’m nice to my customers, I put up with shit from my boss, they keep me around.’
‘An achievement these days,’ Chris said.
Abby smiled. ‘I heard it was Herbie Exler who screwed you on the convergence trade. They should have gotten rid of him, not you.’
Chris raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realize other people knew.’
‘Oh, yeah. They all know,’ Abby said. ‘They’re not about to mention it, though. Herbie is not someone you want as an enemy. Nor is Simon Bibby. He’s head of Fixed Income in New York now.’
‘Well, I’m glad I’m out of it.’
Abby chewed her gum contemplatively. ‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch on the training programme.’
Chris was startled. ‘You weren’t a bitch.’
Abby smiled. ‘Oh, yes I was. I wanted to be the meanest programme coordinator Calhoun had ever seen. I know that’s what he wanted, and I thought that was the only way I was ever going to make it in an investment bank. I was so uptight about everything.’
‘They get you like that, don’t they?’ Chris said.
‘They sure do. I was just as bad here, at first. Then, it dawned on me that it was possible to have a quiet life and work at Bloomfield Weiss. You just have to know how. Excuse me.’
One of the lights on a panel flashed and Abby answered it. She chatted amiably with someone on the other line, and ended up selling him three million dollars of a New Jersey Turnpike bond.
She hung up. ‘Where was I?’
‘Reliving the good old days.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Abby laughed. ‘Now, how can I help you?’
‘I wanted to ask you something about the programme. I think it might be related to Lenka’s death.’