14

Despite danger signals on the horizon, such as the fall of Northern Rock in the uk and Bear Stearns in America, the clear directive in Nat Am and in other banks is to keep up the policy of lending, and to turn a blind eye to the economists. ‘It’s in our fucking make-up to moan’ is Sharkey’s explanation. He is in ebullient mood one Monday morning after clinching another multi-million loan at the Glen on the previous Friday, and the afterglow of his success shows in his topped-up suntan.

This time the loan is to Halos, a pharmaceutical company from Illinois, which wants to open another factory in Ireland. Three years before, it had been granted fifty million Euro from Nat Am to expand its portfolio. On that occasion Halos had succeeded, by means of an ingenious advertising campaign, to scare the public about the safe levels of cholesterol in order to promote the company’s latest product called Statinmol Plus – to be sold over the counter.

‘Somewhere way back – the Famine or some such place,’ Sharkey puts on the whining voice of ancient Ireland, and quotes an old Irish lament, ‘“We’ll all be rooned”, says Hanrahan, “before the year is out.” Moaning is a national fucking pastime.’

He holds to that even when one of Nat Am’s big clients, a developer, has a whole row of empty houses out near Clonsilla. For that project, Wheeler and Brennan had granted a multi-million loan after they had finished eighteen holes with the developer’s son and his quantity surveyor at Mount Juliet one Saturday afternoon.

Towards the end of that week, one of the major shareholders drops a bombshell by withdrawing his ten percent interest in Nat Am. He had heard the whisper doing the rounds in The Shelbourne that Nat Am is skating on thin ice – loaning like there’s no tomorrow, when the markets elsewhere are contracting. ‘The chickens are coming home to roost,’ he was told. ‘Once a maverick always a maverick.’

St John Dunleavy is all for riding out the storm, but Sharkey has a plan which he unveils to a few of the managers, including Philip, in the executive lounge. He would give some of the big fish a loan to invest in Nat Am through stockbrokers; in that way, it would show the market that Nat Am is in a healthy condition. Their investment would be regarded as a customer deposit.

‘Is that kosher, Aengus?’ Egan asks. ‘It seems a little odd. After all, it’s our asset reserves that are being put at the service of these clients. And look at what Providence Investment Services came up with the other day – thirty-five per cent downside risk to commercial property values – one has to factor that in.’

Sharkey ignores Egan and appeals to St John Dunleavy: ‘We’ve too much to lose; another drop in the share price and investors will be looking closely at the bank. It’s either that, Breffni, or we’re toast, and we’ve all put too much into Nat Am to let that happen.’

‘Still, isn’t it robbing Peter to pay Paul?’ Egan persists.

The half-dozen managers ignore Egan and turn to St John Dunleavy, who asks Sharkey: ‘How are you going to get that off the ground?’

‘I’ve got the big guns lined up; they’re ready to come in,’ Sharkey assures him.

St John Dunleavy looks worried. ‘Well, I don’t know. Let’s put it to the board.’

‘Breffni,’ Sharkey says, ‘I think we should park that for the present. The less they know at board level, the better – until this whole thing cools. The market will recover. Only a blip. A couple of the clients I’ve lined up are on holidays. Conrad Brennan is in Madrid talking to one, and Kyran Wheeler has flown to Barbados to talk to two others. But – trust me – I have it in the bag.’

Sharkey tries to put Dunleavy’s mind at rest. ‘They’re all guys who made a fortune through tax breaks in the urban renewal scheme. You know – hotels, private hospitals, third-level colleges – that sort of thing. But we gave them the lolly, so they owe us one.’

‘Quite so, Aengus, quite so.’ Dunleavy seems a little relieved.

Like people skating to their heart’s content, and who suddenly hear the dreadful crack somewhere out in the lake, and know now it’s too late, investors and loan-holders in the banks listen in horror to the crushing news about the Wall Street collapse, and how it’s only a matter of time before Europe also goes down. People who wouldn’t bid each other the time of day on the dart are chatting like members of a support group who have an alcoholic in the family.

Farmers on their high-powered John Deere tractors are stop-ping on country roads to console one another and share their grief. Instead of lamenting about the poor prices for their milk and livestock, they are exchanging the latest piece of information from news bulletins; they know that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Nat Am.

Plasterers and taxi drivers with properties in Spain and Portugal are telling their bartenders that the politicians should be put up against a wall and shot for allowing such a state of affairs to happen.

Panic-stricken people are phoning in to chat shows for advice: should they transfer to the post office? Is anything safe now? Old women afraid of losing everything ask: ‘Should I withdraw and hide my life savings in the mattress?’ Self-appointed banking experts who sit together in bars with pints and chasers on the counter declare that it’s only a matter of time before the multinationals pull out of Ireland.

Questions sprout that frighten the living daylights out of couples, and tear at the jaunty masks they wear for lunchtime Ballsbridge. Couples who had been given full loans to buy the ‘must-have’ mews, and dine with Saturday night friends in one of the café bars along Ranelagh Road, are cracking.

Reports of road accidents are brought to the tense plaza over cups of coffee: nothing serious, just a lapse in concentration. Someone else had a bad dose of flu, or fell and fractured her wrist. The nightmare is spreading: words like ‘redundancy’ and ‘unemployment’, which most people thought had been dead and buried, are sprouting with a vengeance. And can you believe it? Shanahan’s on the Green is down thirty percent. Oh my God.

On his way home from work one evening, Philip glances at the sheaf of newspapers carried back and forth between the lanes of traffic by the Hungarian woman at Sutton Cross; he picks up the banner headline before the lights turn green: ‘Banks on Life-Support Machine’.

Kevin Egan – holding on to his job by his fingernails – wakes one morning with a strange feeling in his head. At first, he puts it down to a hangover, but the dizzy sensation hasn’t gone by evening and now he is beginning to have double vision and a blinding headache. He drops in to his gp, who arranges for him to be admitted immediately to the hospital for tests.

Egan’s blood pressure is sky high. The tests also show he has diabetes, so he is kept in hospital against his will, and then advised to rest at home for a week or so. ‘Your stress level seems high,’ the consultant tells him, ‘and that may have contributed to your condition.’

The following day, Philip sits with him in the lounge of the hospital where soft lights and easy listening music cause visitors to talk in low voices; patients in dressing gowns drag their feet along the deep pile carpet.

‘I’m scared shitless that bastard will edge me out. Can’t afford to retire, Philip,’ Egan tells him. ‘Nor can I afford to spend a week resting. The houses in Galway and France – neither paid for – and then the loan for the shares that Sharkey was ladling out.’

‘But your health …’

Egan is all the while tapping his fingers on the lamp stand beside him. He straightens. ‘This is only a wake-up call. I’ll be careful from now on.’

As twelve-year-olds, they had started secondary school to-gether. In their late teens, they had busked a couple of summers underneath the Eiffel Tower and, in all that time, Egan had always maintained a laid-back attitude, and rarely spoken about his worries to Philip, except the time when he feared Gillian was going to run off with the builder of their holiday home in Oughterard.

So, even now, he sidesteps his sickness with the latest joke. ‘I’ll be out of here in no time; all I need is to get the weight down, and then …’ he grins and raises an index finger, ‘I’ll be taking money off you at the Glen. ’