The Mark and the Void (7 page)

Ish squints at him. ‘You’re not
censoring
me?’

‘Of course not. I am simply advising you, as your superior, that this is not the kind of information the average Joe Bloggs reader is interested in. I know, because I have asked myself, as the average reader, if I am interested in reading about the bank’s origins in slavery, and the answer I have come back with is a resounding “No”.’ He issues a decalorized smile. ‘Now, time to work. Claude, please review this report for Mellon. The statistical information seems underdeveloped.’

He tosses a heavy folder on to my desk. I wait till he’s gone, then hand it to Ish, who hands it to Kevin. ‘Put in more pictures,’ she tells him.

Seven o’clock becomes eight becomes nine, with no sign of Paul. I try to work, but find it hard to concentrate; in fact, I have been fretting all weekend. What did he mean when he said he wasn’t getting to the heart of things? The bank’s whole purpose is to get
away
from the heart of things – to turn things into numbers, then those numbers into imaginary things, then to divide up the imaginary things into pieces to be bought or sold, swapped or hedged, back and forth, again and again, until the underlying reality they emerged from is entirely forgotten. He knows that; it’s what drew him to the subject in the first place. So what’s the real issue? If he thinks something’s missing – does he mean me?

His eventual appearance, shortly before eleven, does nothing to reassure me. He is pale, tired, preoccupied; I give him the
Forbes
article, but he puts it aside with barely a glance.

‘Something is bothering you.’ There is no sense ignoring it.

‘It’s just a little more complicated than I expected,’ he says. His smile, meant to put me at ease, only flags his own frustration. What can I do? I offer to make him a flow chart showing the different departments and their various tasks; I ask if he wants to go over the analysts’ assessment methods again, price/earnings ratios, free cash flow, and so on. No, no, he shakes his head, it’s not that.

‘So what is it?’ I ask, with my heart in my mouth.

‘It’s the money,’ he says at last.

‘The money?’

‘If it’s a book about banking, ultimately it has to be about money, right? But I don’t …’ he trails off, knits his brows. ‘I don’t
see
anything. You do all these deals, you get paid all these fees, and it’s all just …’ He makes a
poof! g
esture with his hands.

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Maybe you need to visit the back office.’

‘Back office?’

‘The administrative part of the bank. It’s where they do the paperwork, record into the system all of the trades, underwritings, bond issues, and so on, put the actual money into the accounts.’

This seems to awaken his interest. ‘How come I haven’t heard of it till now?’

‘There is a Chinese wall between it and the rest of the bank.’ Seeing his blank look, I clarify: ‘That just means that access is barred to us. In case someone is tempted to sneak in during the night and change the records, cover up a bad trade or losing ticket, even re-route funds into an unauthorized account.’

‘Right, right,’ Paul says, frowning again and opening his red notebook to jot this down. ‘So you can’t go in there?’

‘From our side, no. The doors are locked. But I’m sure you can get clearance, if you are looking around only for your book.’

He asks me if I will make the arrangements. This turns out to
be difficult, and not just for reasons of security. There is a strict hierarchy to investment banking, of which back office lies at the very bottom, below even lawyers. Suspecting, accurately, that the analysts and traders look down on them (just as the M&A bankers look down on us), back office are notoriously unsympathetic to requests for help. My banking career started in the back office, however, and this gives me a certain amount of currency among them. Eventually, Paul gets his tour.

When he returns, however, his mood seems even worse. He takes out his notebook and sits by the window, but he writes nothing, instead just stares balefully out over the river. Then, though it’s not even 4 p.m., he gets up and leaves. He doesn’t say goodbye.

That evening, the Minister gives a press conference to announce further exceptional liquidity assistance, that is to say, money, for Royal Irish Bank. On the TV screen, he has regained his air of command, though he grips the lectern with both hands, as if anticipating the torrent of fury that will come back at him; sitting on the dais behind him I spot the little sallow man, staring at the Minister as before, like some horror-movie psychic demonstrating mind control.

‘I don’t get it,’ Kevin says.

‘You’re not the only one.’ Since the news came out, the zombies have been beating a drum by the unfinished HQ, with motorists honking their horns in solidarity.

Not long after the announcement, we discover the reason for the Minister’s clandestine visit the previous week. He has commissioned BOT to write a special report on Royal Irish Bank.

‘Essentially, they are worried that more recapitalization will be needed,’ Jurgen says. ‘A lot of taxpayers’ money has been put into the bank. Now they are getting nervous that the bank’s executives have misrepresented its return to health.’

‘Fucking right,’ Ish says. ‘Talk about make-up on a corpse.’

‘They don’t have advisers already?’ I ask.

‘Up until last week they were being advised by Gerson Clay,’ Jurgen says. ‘However, as you are aware, Gerson have gone bust.’ He pauses to allow himself a brief moment of gloating. ‘I need hardly tell you that this is a highly prestigious commission.’

‘Good job, Claude!’ Ish ruffles my hair.

‘Is it going to be a lot of work?’ Kevin says.

‘Most of the work’ll be deciding how much we can get away
with charging them,’ Ish says. ‘Poor old Minister, he hasn’t got a clue. If we told him to buy a really big mattress and stuff all the country’s money in it, he’d go and do it.’

‘We will not be advising the government to put the country’s money in a mattress,’ Jurgen says. ‘Rachael is keen that we find a positive angle. A way forward which will produce the most favourable outcomes for the major players.’

News of the government commission, as well as our rival Gerson Clay’s demise, buoys the whole office. I have my own reasons to be glad. Royal Irish was the centre of the great Ponzi scheme that was Ireland’s property market, with one hand doling out money to the developers who built the apartments, housing estates and mansions, and the other doling it out to the people who wanted to live there, neglecting, at every point, to establish whether anyone was in a position to pay it back. This report, directed right into the heart of the national folly, will surely give Paul what he needs to root his novel.

When the writer arrives at the office next morning, however, he is not alone. A man is with him: a great, hulking creature almost seven foot tall, with a sloping forehead and brawny, knotted forearms that extend from an ill-fitting nylon shirt. Paul introduces him as Igor Struma, poet, professor of contemporary art and member of the celebrated Vladivostok Circle.

‘He’s going to be helping me with some of the more conceptual stuff,’ Paul explains. What exactly this means I am not sure, but for the rest of the day, instead of observing me and my colleagues, the two of them spend their time muttering in secluded corners, or slinking around the office, making inscrutable gestures – knocking on walls, poking at ceiling tiles, tracing with their fingers mysterious vectors from the floor, behind computers, up to the power supply.

I have a bad feeling about this Igor. One cannot say what a poet ought to look like, of course, any more than one can say what a murderer ought to look like – but he definitely looks more like a
murderer than a poet. He smells bad in several different ways at once, like curdled milk in a public lavatory, and when I type his name into the search engine, a red VIRUS WARNING!!! sign flashes up immediately on the screen, and a moment later a member of the IT team bursts into the office, demanding to know what I’ve done.

The others do not seem to share my reservations. Jurgen, on the contrary, is positively ecstatic. ‘
Two
famous writers! We have almost enough to start the salon!’

‘But what is he doing here? Has anyone checked his credentials?’

‘Paul asked him to help out with the book,’ Ish says. ‘You said yourself he was having a few problems. This is a good sign. You don’t want him to pull the plug on the whole thing, do you?’

‘Of course not. I am just confused. If Paul is writing a book about me and my work here, why is he spending all his time with some poet?’

‘This is the artistic process,’ Jurgen says, with a shrug. ‘Who are we to question it?’

I do not want to obstruct the artistic process, but when I see Igor, under Paul’s supervision, making a gun-shape with his thumb and finger and boring an imaginary hole into the wall, it is hard not to think the novel is being dismantled before my very eyes.

Later that day, Paul invites me to the Ark for lunch, with his helpmeet nowhere to be seen. ‘I thought I should fill you in a little on Igor’s role,’ he says, as the waitress guides us to a table. ‘You’re probably wondering what he’s doing here. I’m writing the book, you’re the subject, what am I doing bringing a third party into it?’

I make a stock gesture of innocence, as if the thought had never crossed my mind.

‘The fact is that while the romantic image is of the writer working away in solitude, it’s often much more of a collaborative activity. Every writer has his strengths and weaknesses. It’s quite
common to draft in a colleague to help out with elements you’re less sure about.’

I have heard about such practices in other art forms, but I confess that I had not encountered it in literature before.

‘It’s kind of a trade secret,’ Paul says.

‘Can you give me an example?’

‘An example … well, I suppose the most famous partnership would be J. R. R. Tolkien and Ian Fleming.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. When Tolkien was putting
Lord of the Rings
together he was great at working out, you know, the ancestral backgrounds of the elves and so forth, but in terms of
plot
, he was hopeless. So he brought in someone who did know about plot: his old friend Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. The whole magic-ring thing was Fleming’s idea. In the original version Tolkien was just going to have the hobbits and the elves reciting poems to each other.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ I say.

‘Similarly Tolstoy, when he was writing
War and Peace
, found the Peace parts no problem, but he really got stuck when it came to War. So he got in touch with an up-and-coming young naval officer called Winston Churchill.’

‘Winston Churchill co-wrote
War and Peace
?’

‘Just little bits here and there. Details. Like I say, writers generally prefer not to talk about it.’

‘And what is Igor’s specialism?’

‘Places. He’s a master. Big places, small places, indoors, outdoors. He can do mountain ranges and lakes; he could write a paragraph about a broom cupboard that would have you bawling your eyes out. I suppose you could say he has an intuitive grasp of
structure.
’

‘Which you feel has evaded you in the bank,’ I say.

‘Exactly. It’s an unfamiliar environment – to be frank, not one that readily yields up its inner poetry.’

‘That’s true,’ I concede.

‘So I thought, okay, time to call in the expert. Given that I have this incredible access – which I am so, so grateful for – I might as well take advantage of it. So Igor’s going to be concentrating on the location details. The character stuff, plot, all that will still be me.’

This does make sense. ‘And you have known Professor Struma for long?’

‘That man taught me everything I know,’ he says simply.

‘Oh …’ I say, struggling to conceal my surprise. Perhaps I have misjudged him.

At that moment the door opens; Paul waves and Igor lumbers, creaking, towards us. He takes off his ancient rain mac, releasing a cloud of pungent inner odours, and gives the waitress his order with a dry, smacking mouth; he stares after her as she leaves, like a cat watching a pigeon.

‘So I was just telling Claude something about the collaborative process,’ Paul says.

‘There is nothing wrong with collaborating,’ Igor says, rather confrontationally.

‘I mean in the book. You’re going to help me out with the book.’

‘Eh?’ Igor says.

‘The book,’ Paul repeats. ‘Set in the bank. The tale of the Everyman.’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ Igor says. ‘Everyman, James Joyce, real life.’ His bloodshot eyes swivel over to me. ‘You are the Frenchman,’ he says. ‘Paris.’

‘That’s right,’ I say uncomfortably.

Igor stares at me without speaking, his head weaving ever so slightly from side to side. ‘Lately I have watch excellent film about Paris,’ he says. ‘In this film, three horny guys are going there and diddle many French prostitutes. Title of film is,
Ass Menagerie
II
: French Connection
. You have seen?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Is sequel to first
Ass Menagerie
.’ He thinks about this, then adds, ‘Though story is very similar.’ He retreats into a prolonged, cacophonous cough, a sound like shovelling coal.

‘So Igor was wondering whether he might be able to see some floor plans of the bank,’ Paul says.

‘Floor plans?’ I say, surprised.

‘To help him with his descriptive passages,’ Paul says.

I glance over at Igor. He glares back at me with his basilisk eyes. I don’t know what to say; then, to my relief, the waitress comes along with his coffee, and he is distracted once again by her departing posterior. ‘Very nice,’ he comments, and then asks Paul a question I don’t quite catch, but which sounds something like, ‘Have we got a file on her?’

Paul clears his throat in a way that might or might not be artificial, then says, ‘So maybe I should explain a little more about Igor’s process –’

‘I am sorry,’ Igor cuts in, ‘I must move seats. I cannot look at this fucking painting any longer.’

With much clattering, he rises and drags his chair to the opposite side of the table, so that his back is to the offending artwork.

‘
Simulacrum 18
,’ I read from the label. ‘Our friend Ariadne Acheiropoietos again.’

‘So the way Igor likes to work –’ Paul persists.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ, this one is even worse!’ Igor says, discovering he has moved seats only to find himself staring directly at
Simulacrum 33
.

‘Is everything all right?’ the waitress asks, hurrying over.

‘He’s just having a strong reaction to the art,’ Paul explains.

‘I feel like I have fingers in my brain,’ Igor laments, rubbing his eyes.

‘Oh,’ the waitress says. ‘Well, let me know if you need anything.’ She beats a retreat to the kitchen.

‘So about these floor plans,’ Paul says.

But Igor has turned his gaze to me again. ‘What does this mean, this
simulacrum
?’ he demands. Is he serious? Didn’t Paul say he was a professor of contemporary art? Or is he trying to catch me out?

‘It is a term from philosophy,’ I say reluctantly. ‘It means a bad copy or false image of something.’

‘Why are they covering the wall with fucking simulacrums, in this place where people are trying to eat?’ The reptilian stare bores into me again.

‘Ah,’ I stammer, ‘well, I imagine the artist is making some comment about fakes and counterfeits. Maybe by calling her painting
Simulacrum
she is pointing to some much bigger falseness in the world around us. “Art is the lie that shows us the truth”, didn’t someone say this? Though I am sure you know more about it than I do.’

For a moment I think I have satisfied him. Slowly he sets down his cup and appears lost in contemplation. Then he leans over the table. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he says, in a low, guttural voice.

And I see he has curled his fingers into a fist.