Don't Get Me Wrong (5 page)

He was still staring, lost in thought, when the phone rang. It took him a moment to pick up.

“You're on. Fifteen minutes.”

“What about Phillip?”

“Not in.”

The phone went dead.

Harry stared. He looked across at his boss's desk. Empty.

Nothing stopped Phillip coming to work. Except a car accident, maybe. He always drove too fast.

Harry closed his eyes. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

Ten minutes later, head buzzing with panic, Harry was striding across the trading floor. All around him were equity traders and salesmen, row upon row of them. You could feel it in the
air, the anticipation before the market opened, like prematch nerves. Harry concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He reached the lectern. His collar felt so tight he could hardly breathe. He panicked, briefly, about whether he'd remembered to shave.

And now his face, his magnified face, was on drop-down screens across the trading floor—simultaneously across the bank's offices in London and Frankfurt and Milan and Paris and Madrid—and he could see his huge mouth opening and shutting as if he was a contestant on
The X Factor
, and he could hear himself (a junior analyst, still wet behind the ears, what did he know, what did he know about anything?) giving his considered opinion that although the new drug had failed level-two FDA testing, the company was way ahead of the competition and had two more attempts to pass the trial—so on balance, despite an initial panic, the stock would perform as predicted. His throat was dry.

But, strangely, Harry-on-the-screen looked quite relaxed. You wouldn't know that real-life Harry, Harry from Essex, badly educated Harry—Harry from an indifferent school where no one had ever aspired to anything much except, perhaps, getting away with it—was so frightened his stomach was somewhere on the floor.

And then it was over, and Harry was walking back through the trading floor, and his shirt was sticking to the sweat on his back, and no one was staring at him in horror, or shouting after him, or even looking at him at all, because their eyes were back on the constantly changing data, flicking from screen to screen, tracking minuscule movements like cats watching mice in the dark.

I did it.
I did it.
And who knows? I might get lucky. Maybe
the stock will do exactly what I said. He was suddenly, gloriously, happy. Maybe, he thought, grinning from ear to ear, it's like
Ocean's Eleven
—one massive confidence trick. It doesn't matter what you say, just how you say it. Act like you know what you're talking about and you can get away with anything.

But back at his desk, the doubts set in. He'd made the wrong call. There was no way he should have sounded so confident. How did he know what the shares were going to do? He checked his emails. There was one from Syed.
And the Oscar goes to . . .

Harry smiled. He had forgotten that Syed would be listening to him. Reveling in the drama, probably. Trading was a game to Syed. He loved it—the gossip, the backstabbing, the extravagant excesses (including one memorable lunch bill for £10,000). An East End boy from a Bengali family that could trace its London roots back to the 1770s, Syed took everything to extremes. He was a fitness fanatic. He rarely slept. He even managed to find time for traditional City vices like gambling and strip clubs.

No one at home had any idea what he got up to. Especially not his mother.

“I always think you should tell your mother as little as possible. On a need-to-know basis. As in, she doesn't need to know.”

“So you're one person at home and someone completely different at work.”

“Isn't everybody?”

No, thought Harry. According to Eva, I'm consistently unreadable all the time.

Melanie, one of the secretaries, stopped behind his desk. “Coffee?”

“I'll get you one. I need a walk anyway.”

For Syed, thought Harry, as he headed for the coffee machine, the City is like
Star Wars
. A cosmic battle. He sits there on the trading floor in front of all the live screens—Bloomberg, instant messaging, information updated second by second—and it's everything he could possibly want. It's competition, danger, money, power, and the best interactive digital game anyone has ever invented.

Maybe that's why he's so good, thought Harry, watching the jet of coffee squirt into his cup. I work with graduates from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge. But none of them has Syed's nose for the market. He sniffs out change before it even happens. He smells it in the air.

Harry put a white Styrofoam cup on Melanie's desk. “What happened to Phillip?”

Melanie looked up, surprised. “I thought you knew.” She hesitated. Then her forefinger traced the air across her neck from ear to ear.

It was only when Harry glanced across to Phillip's desk that he realized it had been stripped. There was nothing there—no papers, no pens, no files, no photographs. It was as if he had never existed.

That's how it works in the City. Maximum gain. Zero security.

•  •  •

Kim went white. “He can't do this.”

They were sitting in the kitchen of the ramshackle house in Nunhead. It was a room that had seen better days—last decorated in 1991 when their father, in one of his odd bursts of enthusiasm, had bought several tins of yellow paint from a street
market in Peckham. It made you feel, said their mother wearily, as if you'd been drowned in a vat of custard.

Open on the table was a creased piece of white A4. The paper had been handled so often it was going thin and wispy at the edges.

“I didn't show it to you before now,” said Eva, “because you were doing exams.”

Dear Eva,

I have just come off the phone after speaking to your mother in Nice, and she requested that I write to you.

As you know, Kim will graduate from university this summer. This means that neither you nor she is any longer in full-time education. As such, you are now adults and responsible for making your own financial arrangements.

This letter is to give you notice that I intend to sell the house in Nunhead as soon as you can make alternative arrangements.

Jia tells me that it can be difficult to find affordable property to rent in London. I am, therefore, prepared to set the end of this year, that is 31 December 2006, as an appropriate date by which I will expect you to have vacated the property.

Best wishes,

Dad

Kim's eyes were big with shock. “He's making us homeless.”

“We'll never be homeless,” said Eva. “As long as Christine's next door.”

Christine, who took in all south London's waifs and strays. “What if we refuse to go?”

“It's his house. He can sell if he wants to.”

“What about Mum? Isn't it hers as well?”

Eva shook her head. “He bought her out when they divorced. She used the money to buy the flat in France.”

“But why's he doing it?”

“I don't know. Maybe he thinks we don't need it anymore.”

“But we do.”

“We've been lucky in a way. He could have sold it years ago.” Eva always defended their father. It wasn't just that she was trying to be fair. She didn't want to hate him.

“I don't feel very lucky.”

“I know, but look at it from his point of view. He's got a new family to support.”

“Oh yes,” said Kim. “The lovely Jia.”

“I wonder what she's like.”

“I don't.”

“Really? Ever?”

“Why would I?” She broke up a family. She stole our father. I try not to think about her.

“Don't be too hard on her.” Eva sounded weary. “From the sound of it, she persuaded him to let us stay on for longer than he wanted us to.”

You're too reasonable. It's irritating. “So what are we going to do?”

Eva leant across the table and took her hand. “Harry said he'd help.”

Kim snatched her hand back. “No.”

“Just as a friend.”

“I'd rather starve.”

Eva, who normally treated Kim's furious dislike of Harry as a huge joke, looked defeated.

“We can manage,” said Kim. “We'll find somewhere. I'll get a job. Maybe you could look for something part-time as well as your teaching—”

“I sent a reply,” said Eva, “asking him to reconsider.”

Kim was surprised. Eva wasn't usually so assertive. “What did he say?”

Eva's expression was unreadable. She held out another folded sheet of A4.

Dear Eva,

May I offer my congratulations.

I do not feel that your news should alter the decision I have already communicated to you in my previous letter.

You have sufficient time to find alternative accommodation. I believe that I am under no obligation to offer financial assistance as you have made an independent, adult choice to keep the baby.

Yours ever,

Dad

The letter fell to the floor.

“I always knew he'd make a good grandfather.” Eva's smile was sad.

Kim was too stunned to breathe.

“It was your finals,” said Eva when the silence got scarily
long. “I thought I shouldn't tell you about the house. Or this. In case it freaked you out.” She bent down, picked up the letter, and folded it back into the envelope, smoothing it carefully so that it lay quite flat.

“So you're—”

“Fourteen weeks.”

Kim swallowed.

“It was a relief, in the end, when I found out. I thought I'd got some terrible disease that was making me throw up every day.”

“So was it—?”

“Planned?” Eva shook her head. “No. But I'm OK with it now. It seems a good thing to do when you're twenty-five. Have a baby.”

Kim's whole body felt heavy, as if someone had filled her with wet cement. So that's why Eva's so calm about the house being sold. She'll move in with Harry.

“What did Mum say?”

Eva pulled a face. “That my pelvic floor would never be the same again.”

You can't believe how much I suffered having babies.

They sat at the wooden table, pitted and pockmarked from years of family meals and teenage experiments with henna and leg wax and burning incense, and looked at each other.

“So I'm going to be an auntie.”

“Auntie Kim.”

“I'll be brilliant.”

“I know you will.”

Kim tried a smile. It was a bit wobbly, but it was better than nothing. “So when's it due?”

“The New Year. A January baby.”

“Boy or girl?”

“No idea.”

“Can you feel it?”

“Not yet. They say you don't always, the first time round. Another month maybe.”

They used to call it the quickening, when the baby first starts to move. The thought of Eva having a child was so huge that Kim had to take a deep breath to calm herself. This wasn't supposed to happen. Eva shouldn't be tied down like this. Eva should be free. Sitting by a campfire, the light red and gold on her face. Traveling, her guitar slung over her shoulder, weighed down by nothing more than an old canvas bag.

After a while, Eva said, “So you'll let Harry find somewhere for us?”

Kim looked at her in horror. “For all of us?”

Eva frowned. “For the two of us. You and me. You don't want to live with Harry, do you?” When Kim still looked puzzled, she said, “Kimmy, Harry and I aren't together.”

I know. He's been cheating on you for years. I saw him once with that girl with red hair who's been all over the magazines. “What do you mean?”

“We're not a couple.”

Kim felt the pressure of all the words she couldn't say. “But you're always together.”

Eva smiled. “How would you know? You've been away for three years.”

“He hasn't been living here?”

“He's my friend. My best friend.”

Not me. Harry. Treats my sister like dirt and ends up with her devotion.

“This is my baby. My decision. Nothing to do with him.”

Kim was hot with confusion. “So he's not the father?”

Eva's face was calm. “I'm not going to say who the father is. Not even to you. I promised myself I wouldn't.”

“You can say whether or not it's Harry.”

“All right,” said Eva. “OK. It's not Harry. Of course it's not Harry.”

Do I believe her? Or is she just saying that to shut me up? “Is that true?”

“You see? You won't stop. It's not fair, Kim. You're not trying to understand. You'll go on and on and on until you get what you want. So it's better if I don't say anything at all.”

After a while, Kim said, “Why won't you say?”

Eva shook her head.

“Because you won't? Or you can't?”

“You're not listening.”

A rush of fury—or possibly grief that was being screwed down so tightly that an explosion was inevitable—made Kim say, in a very loud voice, “But we don't have any money.”

Which, roughly translated, meant: If this is Harry's baby, he should pay for it.

Eva looked over to the window. Outside, the leaves of the sycamore tree were bright green. “We'll manage.”

“How?” said Kim in a small voice.

“We always do,” said Eva.

•  •  •

Harry rolled out of bed and killed the alarm. He always woke before it went off. But last night he hadn't slept much anyway. A July heat wave. Thirty-six degrees at Gatwick. The senior vice presidents had already disappeared to Tuscany or Provence, spending their days dozing in hammocks, or half-asleep under olive trees, or swimming in private infinity pools. But the bank's less important employees carried on as usual, emerging late in the evening from the ice-cold fridge of air-conditioning to the dark, smelly sweat bath of London's streets.