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Friday, 9th March 2012, 3.20 p.m.
Martin and the children had popped in – most unusual but lovely to see them. Martin seemed to be needing more contact with them at the moment.
The telephone cut across their conversation with its electronic insistence and the three adults looked
at each other in mute surprise, as if insulted that the outside world should interrupt them ... surprised, even, to be reminded that another world existed outside their several dramas. Timothy bounded, like a gazelle, out the door and into the dining room, to answer the phone.
“Hello, Timothy here,” he said as he had been taught. He was soon back in the lounge, sipping on his drink.
“Timothy, who was that on the phone?” asked Martin.
“It was a wrong number, Dad,” said Timothy, importantly, “they wanted Arthur Bayly and so I said he didn’t live here.”
“Ah, Timothy,” said Arthur, “I’m Arthur Bayly.” “But you’re Grandad,” said Timothy, confused.
“Timothy!” said Martin, irritated, “you don’t answer other peoples’ phones. Haven’t I told you that before! It’s not your property so leave well alone.”
Timothy began to sob and Joan picked him up and held him on her knee. “Would you like another piece of cake, dear? And Katie?” Timothy hopped down and he and his sister leaped upon the sponge cake with enthusiasm.
“Hey, you two!” said Martin, his voice steadily rising, “put that down, now, you know better than to scoff it down like yobbos!”
The children stopped, stunned, with cake and cream on their faces and hands, looking guilty and confused.
“Put it down, now!” yelled Martin, going quite red. “Now go and wash yourselves up. You know better than that, don’t you!”
“Come on, dears,” said Joan cheerfully, “let’s get your faces sparkling clean, shall we?” The children followed meekly, furtively looking back at their father.
As they walked out the phone sounded again and Timothy leaped forward, unable to resist his instinctive fight or flight reaction to the phone.
“Timothy! Stop!” yelled Martin, leaping up. “I told you to leave the phone!”
“It’s alright Martin,” said Arthur, getting up and striding across the room and out to the phone. He patted Timothy on the head as he passed. “You’ll make someone a grand secretary one day, won’t you?” he said, smiling down at the boy.
Timothy went red and smiled, embarrassment mixed with gratitude, as Arthur picked up the phone.
“Good afternoon, Arthur speaking.”
“Ah, Arthur, I thought I might have a wrong number,” came the unmistakable voice of Mary Collins. AIL Insurance seemed such a long way off, now, almost off the new map his life was drawing.
“No, it was my grandson, Timothy ...”
“Yes, well, good to talk to you, Arthur,” said Mary. “I heard you’d had a bereavement. Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes, well, we’ve had a few things happen and ...”
“Yes, yes, okay, I’m sure it’s been a particularly trying time, then,” said Mary, bulldozing through the conversation as usual. “Now, Arthur, there has been ... ah, a new development with that Atkinson case you were working on and we’d like, ah, we wondered when you’d be ready to get back to it.” “Yes, I suppose I should get back to it,” said Arthur, feeling a sad lump in his tummy.
“Yes, well, when you’re ready, Arthur,” said Mary with unaccustomed reserve, “just to tidy it all up. With the reorganisation, there’s lots of tidying up we need to do.”
“Reorganisation?” asked Arthur, trying to imagine what new trauma had happened. “There wasn’t any great hurry for that case, was there?”
“No, there isn’t ... wasn’t,” said Mary. “But some new developments and, with your specialist knowledge, we thought it might be expedited with your valuable input.” Arthur had never before heard so many compliments from Mary.
“So, has it become urgent, now?” asked Arthur, trying to get some facts.
“Look Arthur, we can explain it all when you get in here,” said Mary, her voice rising a semitone.
“When might that be?”
“You want me back in?” he asked, surprised.
“Well, yes, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, I’m not sure, Mary, I’ll need time to think about it – to talk about it with Joan.” said Arthur, wishing he had the courage to say what was actually on his mind – ‘I don’t ever want to come back, Mary, thanks. Goodbye.’
“Look, Arthur, we can make a special reimbursement, a special rate for this assignment, we can put you on contract ... whatever is best for you,” said Mary, sweetening the incentive.
“Yes, yes, I appreciate that, thank you,” said Arthur, trying to absorb and understand the new developments. “But things are quite ... ah, quite tender here and I do need to talk to my wife about this. When would you like me to start?”
“Well, this afternoon would be great,” said Mary, anticipating some progress. “We thought that seventy five pound an hour would be a fair recompense.”
“Gosh, that soon!” said Arthur, remembering that she’d said no problem at all a minute ago and that seventy five pound an hour was treble the wage he had previously been on. “Yes, well, I’ll talk to my wife and ring you back.”
“Well, please do, Arthur, yes, please do,” said Mary, speaking as if she was unable to breathe. “Now do you have a pen and paper there, Arthur?”
“Ah, yes ...”
“Good, then call me back on my direct number. Save you going through the reception. Much quicker,” said Mary, giving him the number.
“Right, yes, I’ll do that,” said Arthur, surprised that direct numbers existed in his old firm.
“You’ll ring me right back, yeah?” asked Mary, begging.
“Yes, yes, I will Mary,” said Arthur, still trying to absorb the rising sense of urgency coming at him. “So what was that about?” asked Joan, coming up to him. “You look a little shaky.” “Do I?” he said, more to himself than to her, shaking his head.
“What did she say that has you shaken, Mr Bond?” asked Joan. Arthur was momentarily stunned, wondering how she knew of his fantasies.
“Not sure,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “I just have the odd feeling that something odd’s going on.”
“You look like you need a hug,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
“That’s the only thing that’s normal or understandable, isn’t it?” he said with a sheepish smile.
“What is?”
“Well, hugs and you and our family,” he said into her shoulder. “Nothing else makes any sense any more.”
“Mmm.”
“I don’t know, life used to be regular, stable, predictable,” Arthur said as tears filled his eyes. “I keep doing what I’ve always done and it suddenly isn’t good enough any more ... and then it is and they want to pay me treble for it! I sit on a park bench, minding my own business and become a hero. Your mother dies and we’re supposed to be bereft but it’s brought us closer together. And then there’s
Martin’s situation ... and there’s all these Australians and New Zealanders popping up ...”
“Well, dear, you have to admit that every insane thing you’ve mentioned has brought us closer,” she said, standing back a little and looking into his eyes. “Not just my mother’s death but everything has reconnected us. Maybe that’s what it’s all about, do you think?”
“Actually, my love, I don’t know what to think at all. Not at all.”
As they returned to the lounge, Arthur explained to Martin what the call had been about.
“So, Dad, what’s so important about this job that they want you back so quickly?” asked Martin.
“The Atkinson case?” said Arthur.
“Not the Lord Atkinson case, is it?” asked Martin, laughing.
“Well, he is a Black, actually ...” said Arthur, feeling a chill sliding through his bones.
“Oh my God!” said Martin, the laugh quickly falling from his face. “Not the one with the hunting lodge in Ludlow, the apartment in Kensington and the resort in Jamaica? The one with the race horses and mansion just south of here, in Wallington?”
“Exactly the one,” said Arthur, incredulously. “How did you know?”
“Oh, one of my partners has been working for one of Lord Atkinson’s larger claimants, the Empire Aid Bank, the EAB. You know, the development bank that used to be the government department that supplied everything for the empire, from railways to cutlery for the ambassadors.”
“Yes, yes, I know the bank,” said Arthur quickly. “They’re claiming money for some project in Nigeria ...” He vaguely recalled that was the bank the young Australian was ousted from. ‘Greg Cousins, wasn’t it?’ he wondered to himself.
“Absolutely, that’s the one,” said Martin, excitedly. “After the bank was privatised in 1998, it really got into funding in developing countries, using aid money from, mainly, the British, Japanese and Swedish governments.”
“So what’s the project in Nigeria?” asked Joan.
“I’m not sure but what I do know is that the EAB has been having a few slip-ups, lately,” said Martin. “Well, it is over 150 years old and, after privatisation, it seemed to develop some holes, some slip-ups.”
“What sort of slip-ups? Large ones?” asked Arthur.
“All sorts, really – big and small,” said Martin, warming to his favourite subject, commercial intrigue. “Since the British colonies have dwindled over the last 100 years, they needed to diversify to keep all the jobs for the boys and girls there. So, they privatised the bank, sort-of, and became an agent
for many governments, besides the British one ... and the United Nations aid programme.” “Sounds like a good cause to me,” said Joan.
“Yes, and that’s the problem,” said Martin. “When people are dealing with what seems like benevolent work, others are loathe to question or audit that work. For example, the British government’s aid department, Department for International Development, DfID, runs no aid
programmes but just gives EAB money to dispense as per its requirements.” “But the DfID must audit or check that spending,” suggested Arthur.
“Well, yes it does, but only superficially, not wanting to take away any jobs from people in the government club and afraid of interrupting these ‘benevolent’ acts,” said Martin. “So, the two-yearly audit is simply a matter of visiting friends at the EAB’s London head office, enjoying drinkies and food and listening to two or three inspiring talks on the great works of EAB and watching a video of their amazing success.”
“But they must be doing a lot of good helping these poorer nations, surely?” asked Joan.
“Oh, absolutely,” said Martin, “much of the money does go in the right direction but no one knows how much ... not even EAB! No one in government – or from anywhere else, for that matter – traces each pound ... or even a million pounds. They pay the money to EAB, see a result and assume they’re linked!”
“So where does our Lord Atkinson come into this,” asked Arthur.
“A good question and no one’s quite sure, yet,” said Martin. “But Simon Cruickshank, the partner I mentioned, knows that Atkinson is great friends with many in the current government and he has, over the years, provided large sums of money to both Labour and Conservative administrations.” “You’re talking about bribery! Surely not!” said Joan, astounded.
“Not sure. However, what we’re very sure about is that the change to privatisation has not been entirely healthy,” said Martin. “Instead of employing experts in international development, they’ve favoured existing staff and moving them sideways, some to their levels of incompetence, one might say. So, when they finally admit they can’t do something, they do a quick-fix by bringing in short-term consultants ... who never remain short-term. Because EAB know little of the function they’re hiring the consultant for, they don’t know whether they’re getting valuable consultants or charlatans – it’s a bit of a lottery, really.”
“A lottery where cronies of the government, with inside connections, favours and knowledge of available contracts, can take advantage of, like our Lord Atkinson?” said Arthur, suddenly understanding much about the insurance claim that he didn’t before.
“Well, yes, we need to be careful of who we’re accusing of what, just yet,” said Martin in solicitor mode, “but it seems there’s intense competition for these contracts – hand out a million or so, with little checking how you spend it – quite a gift for someone with profit in mind!”
“And anyone giving out millions to poorer people would gain a lot of friends and favours from those poorer people!” said Arthur, grimly.
“My God, Dad, you should have been a detective!”
“Just my cynical insurance mind in overdrive,” said Arthur.
“So, we have the perfect scenario for tossing around government money – many governments’ money – to benefit the wrong people,” said Martin, smiling at his father with unaccustomed admiration. “And the governments themselves are into it too. For example, the European Union’s aid programme provides huge amounts of funds to UE governments to provide aid. But the checking at the EU is as shoddy as in here in England. Some of these governments – the Spanish and Italian ones are apparently the worst offenders – just don’t get around to spending all the UE funds they receive and it’s a great source of revenue for them – helps their balance of payments deficits considerably!” “But that’s OUR money, Martin! Don’t they care about that?” asked Joan, astounded.
“Why should they?” asked Martin. “It’s not their money and it’s free to them!”
“Well, you look after other peoples’ money, other peoples’ interests.”
“Yes, Mum, most people do but when you’ve got access to large amounts of power and money, those thoughts of others just seem to slip out the window, somehow. When you create a house with lots of holes and lots of cheese on the floor, the rats turn up!”
“Oh dear, so what should I do about this work back at AIL then?” asked Arthur.
“Mmm, sounds like things are hotting up with your Atkinson case, somehow,” said Martin.
“Yes, it all sounds a bit desperate, a bit ... well, dangerous, if you ask me!” said Joan.
“It also sounds like a lot of fun!” said Martin, rubbing his hands together with glee.
“Insurance has never been exciting before, for me,” said Arthur, feeling a tingle of adventure in his veins. “And, maybe, I could help get some of your money back from these scoundrels.”
“Yes Darling, maybe you could, but I don’t like the sound of it,” said Joan, “and we were just starting to get along and we’re just over mother’s funeral and Martin needs help and you now want to go back to work?”
“Well, I’ll be doing it at home,” said Arthur, seeing opportunities everywhere. “I’ll fit the work in between our family needs.”
“I don’t know Arthur ...”
“Look Mum, Dad needs some excitement in his life,” said Martin, standing up for his father for the first time ever. “This could be his chance for that and a chance to really do some good.”
“Yes dear, I would rather relish a challenge like this – you never know where it could lead to!” said Arthur, wondering why he was talking about unknown opportunities, while he took her hands and looked into her eyes earnestly.
“Oh, I don’t know ...”
“Look dear, let’s you and I sit down later and work out what we need to do for each other, for Martin,” said Arthur. “Then I can tell Mary what I’m prepared to do. They seem keen to have me at any cost.”
“Yes, but why?” asked Joan, still concerned.
“And if it doesn’t work out, I can simply stop doing the work and hand it back,” said Arthur.
“I don’t know about the work but I do know I’ve never seen you so fired up about anything before,” said Joan, still looking concerned. “Maybe it is your chance to do something really special ... I don’t know ...”
“Look, you two,” said Martin, “the world won’t stop spinning if you do nothing today. Leave it till Monday and call AIL then. If they want an answer before then, just tell them they can’t have one – you’ll let them know Monday at, say, ten o’clock. This is your decision, not theirs.”
