The 2084 Precept (74 page)

"That is another extremely generous gesture
of yours, Jeremy," I said, "but I regrettably cannot accept it. I
don't have that kind of money."

"That has been taken into account," he
replied. "I have set up a new company whose share capital is the
legally required minimum and you, using your own personal means,
will purchase those shares. It also so happens that this company
has received some extremely high value loans from selected private
and institutional investors, these loans being for the purpose of
acquiring other companies with a view to improving their
performance and subsequently selling them off at a substantial
profit, or turning them into public companies via a stock offer, or
else simply keeping them and benefitting from above-average annual
dividends. And the first company to be bought by your new company
will be the Obrix Group, as already agreed with the main
institutional investor."

Well, not for the first time was he proving
his genius for making things happen, our friend Jeremy, and I was
absolutely not going to enquire as to whether anything telepathic
had been involved in his dealings with the investors. But probably
that
had
been the case, I thought to myself. Investors would
not normally make loans of any size to a new and under-capitalized
company—and rarely to others as well. If they
did
want to
become involved, they would buy shares, they would acquire
part-ownership and have representatives on the board.

"The funds available,” continued Jeremy,
“are not sufficient to meet the full purchase price which, as you
may appreciate Peter, is of an amount sizeable enough not to
attract any undue attention. And so the remainder will be on
credit, and this can be paid off over time by your new company's
share of the profits generated by the newly acquired Obrix group of
companies."

"Interesting, Jeremy. And may I ask what
you, as the sole shareholder on the receiving end of all of this
money, are going to do with it?"

"Ah hah," said Jeremy. "I wouldn't have
expected you to miss out on that, Peter. First of all, and needless
to say, I shall be providing for the expert and luxurious care of
Jeremy Parker following his coming relapse. And as for the rest, I
don't know. Perhaps part of it could go to somebody I know who
might want to lend it to his new company to enable it to accelerate
its loan repayments?"

Ploutus had done his fair share and, in the
absence of a Christian or Islam equivalent, my neurons latched on
to Lakmish Devi to thank this time. Lakmish Devi, as you may know,
is the Hindu goddess of wealth and consequently and unsurprisingly
the household goddess of most Hindu families. A discerning choice
in my view and preferable to a goddess of poverty if there is one,
which I would doubt, she wouldn't get her fair share of the prayer
cake. Lakmish Devi, on the other hand, is worshipped daily and
enjoys a huge following, especially among Hindu women, for whom she
is a favorite. And yes, we know that Lakmish Devi has 108 names and
is responsible for many other things in addition to wealth. She has
her hands full even if she works overtime, no doubt about it, but
what the names are and what her additional duties are, I couldn't
say. My non-Hindu neurons do not consider these nuggets of
information to be of sufficient importance to be allowed a place in
any of their archives. Only the wealth bit was stored.

"Jeremy, please tell me what I have done to
deserve all of this."

"No problem, Peter. It's simple. You have
proved yourself to be a benevolent and non-violent human. You have
also assisted me greatly and in a cooperative and non-belligerent
manner. And I find your tendency toward cynicism to be a harmless,
natural and defensive reflex which allows you to serenely and
inoffensively cope with the ghastly environment in which you happen
to find yourself, and of which you are forcibly a part. Your ant
colony," he laughed.

"My ant colony."

Funny thing, but these occasional references
to ants have finally jogged my neurons into recalling the second
poem I had published all those years ago. That poem was another
weird poem and it was all about ants; Céline's class would have
enjoyed supplying interpretations for that one as well.

"Exactly, Peter. And now we have to agree on
a day and a time at the end of next week for you to fly over and
meet with the small army of lawyers and accountants and advisory
bankers who will have a number of documents for you to sign in
connection with your purchase of the Obrix companies. The prime
minister is sending a legal representative to ensure there are no
problems or, if there are, to ensure that they are resolved. I
won’t be present, I have a lot to do and I am also involved in a
takeover in Spain. But my presence in London would be superfluous
anyway. Just you and the experts."

"Obrix Consultancy Partners," I said. "I've
been meaning to ask you about that. I see from your edict that
Obrix is your name for our planet. Does the word actually mean
anything or is it just a name? Like Saturn for example?"

There was a pause.

And the reply, when it came, was a subdued
one. “It is simply the name of your planet translated into your
language’s consonants and vowels to replicate our wave sounds,
Peter.”

“Uh-huh. But forgetting about languages and
wave sounds, does it
mean
anything? And how was the name
decided anyway? And by whom?”

There was another pause.

“I owe you some honesty on this one Peter. I
chose the name for my dissertation. Your planet is otherwise
catalogued as a reference number, sub-referenced to your star which
in turn is sub-referenced to your galaxy. A name is a good idea for
dissertation themes.

“But what does it mean?”

“The word means anomaly, Peter. I called
your planet
Anomaly
. Talk to you again soon," he said.

And a takeover in Spain, eh? A nice
coincidence, oh yes. And so we agreed on a time and a date and I
couldn't do more than say goodbye, my cerebral functions had fallen
into disrepair; not, as we know, for the first time in the past few
weeks. Their training had left them unprepared for the Jeremy
Parkers of this world. Sensory overload is the medical term, I
believe.

I spent the afternoon at the side of the
pool pondering my unfamiliar financial situation in between
occasional spells in the water. I had a contract with United
Fasteners allowing me to earn as much or as little as I wanted over
the next year or two. I was CEO and ship owners' representative of
Naviera Pujol and its consultant to boot and I was earning a very
fat sum and a very fat bonus, fat being an apt enough term for
anyone such as myself who was not a billionaire. I had way over one
million Euros in the bank from my previous consultancy and stock
market activities, plus another million from Jeremy, less whatever
tax the birdbrains needed to spend on themselves, flap, flap, or
give to Greece, flap, flap, or throw away on something else, flap,
flap.

And I was about to own a company which would
propel me into the multimillionaire bracket as soon as my pen
touched paper, at which moment in time I would cease describing the
sums from Industria y Transportes Pujol S.A. as fat. And I would
put myself on the board of my new company for a decent fee, and I
would appoint myself Chairman and CEO of it as soon as I was
finished sorting out the Naviera, with a salary to fit and a
contract providing me with bonuses, or boni if you prefer, and
plenty of stock options. And—nearly forgot—I would also be
receiving some succulent dividends every year on my shareholdings.
And—almost forgot again—my dividends and the value of my companies
would be increasing year on year at a hefty pace as soon as I began
to occupy myself as my own internal consultant.

Had I forgotten anything? I didn't think so,
but in any event I was not going to spend any more of my sunny
Sunday thinking about it or excavating the mine of providential
incidents in an attempt to rationalize how it had all happened. It
had just come about, that's all. Full stop. Or period, if you are
American and have the need to utilize a word already gainfully
employed for several other unconnected purposes, the details of
which it would serve no purpose to enter into here.

The only problem I might have is if the
Christian god turns out to be the real one. His son is quoted in
the Christian Bible as saying "
It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God."
He is quoted on this three times in fact,
twice in Mark and once in Luke, just to make sure we don't
misinterpret anything.

Well…bloody hell. Not very nice. I
mean…bloody hell. So perhaps I should develop a strategy for
dealing with that as soon as I can find the time. Perhaps I can
make use of the massive loophole left open by his choice of words,
buy a camel and then manufacture a giant-sized needle with an eye
so large the animal would be able to amble through it without even
stooping. Whatever. My type of consultant knows that problems have
solutions. I shall consider all reasonable alternatives.

The book I was reading,
Platform
,
took my mind away from it all. It is one of those books which make
you think, and it requires your involvement to the exclusion of
most everything else. I was approaching the end, which was
unfortunate. It was one of those books you would like to continue
reading for a few more weeks. The main character was holed up
somewhere and appeared to be waiting to die. In fact he not only
appeared to be waiting to die, he appeared to be
wanting
to
die—because of a woman problem. Fair enough. His decision, nobody
else's, and judging by his exotic and minutely described sexual
experiences, he would at least have the consolation of being able
to say 'I lived'. A consolation not available to all and sundry on
this planet; but there you go, what else is television for?

I will be interested to see how everything
turns out for this character in the end.

I am thinking of buying another of this
author's books. There is one called
Atomized
. The author is
an interesting and intellectual guy, clearly one of the top
intelligent 10% of the species. Although, actually, and now that I
come to think of it, 10% is a gross exaggeration. I am going to
chuck that quota, the same as I chucked the croissants. 1% would be
more like it. But if consider the subject in depth , it is clear to
me that 1% is also an outsized and far-fetched exaggeration. The
ratio should be 0.1%. That still gives us over 7 million
intelligent people on the planet (
truly intelligent
is what
I mean of course, rather than the retarded human definition of it).
And that number has a nicely pleasant and reasonable kind of ring
to it. To my ear, that is. Its consonance is of the logical kind. A
dialectic estimate, 0.1%. Around 7 million. I am happy to settle on
that.

* * * * *

I was lying on my stomach and had to turn my
head in order to identify to whom the hand lightly scratching my
shoulder was attached.

It was Céline.

My body reacted by rolling over onto its
back in panic. It then just lay there staring at her while my
panic-stricken neurons desperately searched for information as to
the correct manner in which to greet another guy's fiancée. The
pathetic result was some kind of a gurgle, a desperately weird kind
of gurgle.

"Shhh…Peter," she said. "He was a good
man…
is
a good man…but I don't love him. I thought I did and
I tried, I tried very hard, but it didn't work anymore. It wasn't
possible. It's because of you. I am…I think I am in love with you,
Peter. Probably. Even though we don't know each other. Do you think
that's stupid?" she finished.

And she stood there, not smiling, her eyes
full of query and doubt about what I might have to say. And she
pushed her glasses up higher on her nose, and that made me smile,
and that made her lean over me and kiss me gently and tenderly and
softly and it was as if we had never been apart, as if we had been
together for a long time, and as if we might never be apart
again.

If incredible sex is one of the ingredients
required to justify the use of that nebulous and frequently
misapplied word love, then I was in love—maybe. And whether that
nebulous and oft misapplied word exists as a long-term concept, or
whether it must be restricted to the characterization of a
short-term emotional state whose duration is limited to a period of
a few days or a few months or even a few years, I don't know. And
since I don't know, I reserve my judgment.

But incredible sex can sometimes be the
cause of aching bones and also of aching non-bones, and of a
pleasurable and languid weariness, and that was the state I was in
when I woke up. Céline was still fast asleep, she was mightily
tired from her extensive travels of the day before, and from ending
her day at 4 a.m. on the morning after.

She had feigned illness to absent herself
from school for a few days—only a mammoth emergency would cause her
to do something as dishonest as that, she explained—and she had
travelled from Rouen to Okriftel to find me. And the kindly,
gracious, wonderful Monika, and it may have broken her heart a
little to do it, had given her some coffee and some
Sahnertorte,
and she had also given her my address here in
Mallorca. And Mr. Brown had swamped her with his goodbye dog-kisses
and she had taken two buses to Frankfurt airport and she had bought
herself an inexpensive Air Berlin ticket to Palma and then she had
taken a bus to the Palma city center and then another one to get to
Illetas and then she had walked down the road to my hotel.

The night had been a long one. We had done
this and we had done that and we had done other things as well. And
in between the bouts of doing this and that and other things, we
had also talked a lot. And that is how I came to learn about
Amélie. Amélie was a friend of Céline’s. And she could come to
visit us soon n’est-ce pas? Mais naturellement, of course she
could. Amélie had been in London for some time, living in Barons
Court and studying at the LSE. And Amélie had had an amazing
experience. She had had to go to the police because she was
frightened of a man who had credited her bank account with the
sterling equivalent of €100,000 for no good reason. The police had
asked her not to return the money while they were investigating.
And she had police protection in the meantime. It would do her good
to get away for a while.