The School of Night: A Novel (20 page)

‘You don’t have any clothes that are maybe a little more formal, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Is it really possible to live so entirely the life of the mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know, Sean, given your singular incompetence in the normal procedures of life, I do sometimes wonder if you shouldn’t have joined that religious order you used to knock around with at Oxford. Who were they again?’

‘Dominicans.’

‘There was a rumour going about that you’d signed up. Then you could have made a feature of your unworldliness.’

‘A feature, Dan?’

‘That’s how estate agents refer to awkward and immovable facts. If your west wall falls down the night before you go on the market, they say, “One of the original features is a lovely open prospect of the sunset.” With you we could say, “A total absence of material preoccupations is one of our candidate’s more endearing features in these pursey times.” But as things stand I can’t help thinking it’s something of a liability. Anyway, the first thing we’ll do is pop down the road and get you some new togs. Don’t worry: it’s all on the account. I’ll put it down to company expenses. Did you really used to make money dressed like that?’

‘Not much.’

‘Life at the BBC, eh? The monk’s parlour.’

‘Not any more.’

Thus did I acquire the first dark suit I’d had since the one I’d worn at Oxford for my examinations. Some shirts. A few ties. Then, looking down at my shoes, Dan had taken me a few doors along and bought me some new black ones. When we got back he suggested I change into it all, which I did. Staring into the full-length mirror, if only for the briefest moment, I hardly recognised myself.

‘Right,’ Dan said, as he came back in, ‘you’ll do. Do you want a drink?’ I nodded. He picked up one of the telephones on the low table by the bed and ordered two gin and tonics.

‘This one’s the internal phone,’ he said. ‘That one’s the outside line.’

‘What is it you want me to do, Dan, that’s worth installing me in here and kitting me out in all this clobber?’ Dan went and stood by the window, looking across the rooftops of Chelsea.

‘I’d like you to be the one person in this building who’s here on my behalf rather than his own, that’s all. I don’t suppose you know much about the catering business, do you, Sean?’ He didn’t even wait for my reply. ‘The thing to remember is that cash is constantly moving. Out of pockets on to tables. Out of pockets on to bars. From tables and bars into tills. And out of pockets into pockets. What I’d like is for most of the money that comes out of pockets in this place to end up in my pocket. I’d like to put the amount I specify in the pockets of my employees, rather than having them specify how much they’ll put there themselves.
Comprendo
?’

At this point there was a knock on the door and after Dan had shouted, ‘Come in’, a man in his mid-twenties entered, well groomed, blond and bearded. When he asked where to put the drinks it was evident he was American.

‘Jess, this is Sean Tallow. You’ll be seeing a lot of him. He’ll be staying here in my absence.’ Jess bowed slightly and said he was pleased to meet me. If there was anything he could do, I was to let him know. Then he left us.

‘So what do you make of Jess?’ Dan said, handing me my drink.

‘He seemed pleasant enough.’

‘That’s because he is pleasant enough. Why do you think he’s working here?’ I shrugged.

‘The start of a career? Work experience? Between two other jobs?’

‘Get something clear in your mind, Sean, or you’ll be no use to me at all. He’s working here because that’s the best money he can get. He doesn’t have a valid work permit for a whole year, but I don’t care about that. The labour here is largely cash and no questions asked. He wants to make enough money in twelve months to get himself through college back in the States. He’d do just about anything to acquire it. If I were to toss him down on that bed over there and roger the boy, he probably wouldn’t complain too much as long as I gave him a large enough pile of readies afterwards. He doesn’t get paid all that much, to be honest, and if he were to see a nice pile of money downstairs and feel confident no one would notice if he took it, then he’d take it. And I don’t blame him because I would too, if I were in his shoes. And that applies to just about everyone in this building. None of them’s doing it for love, believe me, and I don’t trust a single one of them. But I trust you. Which is why you’ll be my ears and eyes while I’m gone. All you have to do is be here and look and listen. And the fact that they know you’re here, my old friend from the north, looking and listening, will make it a lot less likely that they’ll put themselves in the way of temptation. Places like this go bust because they’re left in the hands of a manager, who starts helping himself, or not paying attention, or cutting deals with the suppliers. All you have to do, Sean, is be here every day and keep watching what’s happening. You’ll soon get the picture, believe me. Someone spends hours on the phone to her boyfriend instead of serving the customers. Someone has a funny habit of disappearing every hour and when he comes back his mood has noticeably improved. Can’t just be the one Silk Cut then, can it? Always keep a close eye on the very friendly ones, the ones who smile even in the morning. They’re usually nicking something. And if you catch anyone at it, you phone this man.’ Dan took a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

‘He’d be round within the hour. I’m not expecting you to do the hiring and firing. You’re not a natural manager, are you? I’m not really sure what you are. You should probably have got your First and become a don instead of just staying in bed with a headache. Anyway, I can re-dress you but I can’t reinvent you completely, not at this stage in the game. So you’re my spy, Sean. That’s what you can do for me. Congratulations on your new appointment. Now let’s go downstairs and have a walk around.’

We stepped briskly from one room to the next, from restaurants to bars, Dan making brief introductions as we went. His yellow-clad minions all nodded to me respectfully and smiled. Inside the main entrance stood a woman in a brilliant green trouser suit, her hennaed hair twisted into twiglets, and gilded at the end with tiny scraps of foil. Both Dan and I stared at her for a moment in silence before he spoke.

‘Yes, Cinderella, you
will
go to the ball.’ Her male companion, a little shorter than she was, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and a jacket that looked two sizes too large, heard this and turned, with an expression as menacing as he could manage, towards Dan. Evidently defending the good lady’s honour.

‘What did you just say?’ Dan smiled at him confidentially, man to man. He lowered his voice.

‘Perhaps you could inform your wife, for future occasions you understand, that in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea it is still a criminal offence to impersonate a Christmas tree. The management will, however, see fit to overlook the matter on this occasion.’ Then we were off once more on our tour of inspection.

‘It won’t be the same when you’re gone, will it, Dan?’

‘What won’t?’

‘Words of welcome in the atrium. Must pull them in, I should think.’

‘It certainly hasn’t been keeping them away. There’s no need to fawn on humanity, Sean. They don’t really like it anyway. If I learnt one thing from Shakespeare myself, it was that even the kings hold courtiers in contempt. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern couldn’t stand the sight of themselves, as I remember, which is presumably why fate had split them into two, as some sort of amoeboid punishment. Then they couldn’t see anything but the mirror image of what they most loathed.’ We walked in and out of rooms. The king and his newly appointed intelligencer.

‘Don’t get too autobiographical, Sean,’ he said to me as we were walking upstairs. ‘After all, nobody knows whether you have any experience in this business or not. They don’t know about your hidden years at the BBC and you don’t have to tell them, do you? All they know is you’re my man. And that’s all they need to know. Keep a certain distance, all right? And if you want to unzip a banana, do it discreetly.’ The curious protocol of early Dan, the fruiterer. After our drinks we went outside into the courtyard.

‘Give me the details on your driving licence and I’ll put you on the insurance policy. You might as well have the Porsche while I’m away.’

‘I can’t drive, Dan.’ He turned to look at me, then started shaking his head.

‘Everyone can drive, Sean. Even my fucking mother can drive. Not that she does, but she can.’

‘Well, I can’t.’

‘The life of the mind, eh? Get it cleaned once a week, then. I can’t stand seeing performance cars collecting dust. The place is usually open to between three and four in the morning. Most of the funny business would happen after midnight, if my experience is anything to go by. That’s when folks in the city loosen up. And that’s more or less when you get up, from what Dominique tells me.’

‘A bit earlier.’

‘But you’re a night owl.’

‘Yes.’

‘Stay awake then. Now, money. Come back up with me to the flat.’ So up we went once more. On the way Dan shouted at one of the young men in yellow suits, ‘Get this mess cleared up, David. And quick.’ Then we were back in the apartment. Inside the drawer of a desk was a large black metal box. Dan took a key from his pocket and opened it. There were a lot of notes, both large and small denominations.

‘Once a week the man whose name is on that card is going to come here and give you some cash. Count it. Then put it in that box. Take what you need out of the box. You’ve already got board and lodging round here, so you shouldn’t need more than five hundred a week. And there’ll always be more than that there.’

‘Where does it come from, Dan?’ He looked at me for a moment as though the years between Mark Scully and the present had never occurred. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Right. This is a cash business and a little bit of the cash comes here, that’s all. We don’t bother notifying the VAT man or the Inland Revenue.’

‘A sort of slush fund?’

‘There you are, Sean, you’re getting the idea already. If you’d come in with me all those years ago, instead of joining the BBC, you’d probably even have a driving licence by now. So, that’s our little pile to keep you in the manner to which, I’m sure, you’ll very soon become accustomed. Don’t advertise it and don’t lose that key. And on the sheet of paper in the bottom of the tin you write down the amount Freddy brings in each week so I can check it all out when I get back.’

I said what was on my mind. ‘Is this completely legal?’

Dan sighed and laid a hand on my shoulder.

‘One thing always amazes me about you intellectuals: you spend the whole of your life studying information, but you still never get to the facts. And the fact of having money is always a bigger fact than where it comes from. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s precisely legal or not, does it? As long as only a few of us ever know. We can keep a secret, can’t we, old friends like us? After all, you’re not going to be much use to me as a spy otherwise. I already pay more than enough tax to keep Yorkshire in social services for the next half-century. I’m not stealing anything; I had to work for it all, you know.’

‘Where are you going, Dan?’

‘To America. By boat. My new partner’s boat. Always fancied sailing the Atlantic.’

‘What are you going to do there?’

‘I’m going to buy, well, we’re going to buy, a company called Arborfield.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Deals in timber. Lots and lots of timber. North American at the beginning and now South American too. One of the world’s most popular commodities. We really can’t do without it.’ He tapped my head gently. ‘We’ll be needing some to do the repairs on you up there one of these days. Always a good idea to buy a big pile of what people can’t do without, Sean. And I don’t even intend to sell this place to do it.’

‘Is that because it’s cheap?’

‘No, it’s going to be extremely expensive. But the Americans are smarter than we are about how convincing money can be when you just let it get on and do its own talking. It seems to make more and more of itself as it goes along. The line of zeros gets longer and longer. High-yield bonds, my friend, are going to change the way we run the world. You’ll see.

‘Come to St Katherine’s Dock next Saturday. We’re having a little party on the boat before we set sail in the early hours. Who’d have thought it? My dear old friend Sean Tallow on the payroll at last.’

*   *   *

That Saturday night I took the tube to London Bridge. I walked around the harbour until I found the
Zeta
, the forty-five-foot ketch where Dan was holding his party. A little crew was standing on the deck with drinks in their hands, talking and laughing. All the navigation lights were on, giving the boat the twinkling air of a window display. Dan was at the prow, clutching one of the stays. He beckoned me on board and told me to help myself to a drink from the buffet table in the cabin. Then he introduced me to some elegant men and women, and finally to his partner, Gerry, an American with golden hair and a heavy tan, who looked about fifty. And he looked rich. His skin and his teeth and his hair all spoke eloquently of the virtues of money. Sunshine, vitamins and money.

‘You’re the guy holding the fort for Dan here while he makes some on the other side of the Atlantic.’

I nodded. ‘I’m his spy.’

‘All good businessmen need one.’

‘And what do you do, Gerry, when you’re not captaining boats?’

‘I’m an arbitrageur,’ he said. Then with a wry smile: ‘Do you know what that means?’

‘The only thing I know is that it involves large amounts of money.’

‘That’ll probably do.’

Later that night I headed back to Chelsea and my new apartment at the top of the Pavilion, and Dan headed west across the ocean to the New World. I thought of his last words to me: ‘And call in on Sally from time to time. She gets lonely, too, you know.’

5

In Zimbabwe people are buried with straws coming out of their mouths. When the first maggots emerge into the air, then the spirit is known to be escaping at last. So maggots aren’t always bad news. The early alchemists were fascinated by how the lion, that golden king of the sun, could be transformed in days into a seething lake of gentles. This gave them hope regarding the transmutation of metals. They did not concern themselves with such things as flies and eggs, only with the ultimate universality of matter and how different forms could be imposed upon it, depending on the disposition of the planets and the commanding spirit.