Page 76 of The Last Train Home
‘But I will retract the invitation, if you don’t want me to see him again. Just say the word.’
Sean re-enters, sliding the balcony door closed. He walks towards the air-con and cranks it back up again.
‘Dad, I’ve got to go. Sean and I are going out for dinner.’ My dad starts to ask me something quickly and I cut him off. ‘Love you, Dad, bye!’
I hang up. Sean looks at me. ‘That sounded a bit … abrupt.’
‘Not really.’ I put my phone down.
‘Arewe going out for dinner?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes,’ I say, sidling towards him. I need to get out of the flat right now. I need to process that conversation with my parents, but I’m not going to do it here, now. Instead, I file it away for analysis later. My head’s a mess. I’m not sure how to process this, but I need to focus on something else – anything else. I run my hands over the thin cotton fabric of Sean’s shirt. ‘Or we could just stay in,’ I say seductively.
‘And eat what?’ he says provocatively, looking down at my crotch.
‘Are you being gross?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ he chuckles. ‘A bit.’
The moment’s lost and I’m not in the mood to play this game. ‘Fine, let’s go out,’ I say.
‘Oh no, come on, you were being seductive. Any second now you were going to bust one of those lacy pink numbers out of the naughty drawer and we were about to go at it, like only unmarried people do.’
‘Don’t say that,’ I reply desperately, tuning back into the here and now. ‘Sex will still be fantastic when we’re married.’
‘Pfft! You say that now.’
‘Then let’s not get married,’ I say urgently. ‘Let’s just be like this, for ever.’
Sean seems to be weighing this up. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I want to be married to you.’
‘Even if the sex is bad?’
‘Even if the sex isnon-existent,’ he enthuses.
I force a laugh. I do hope the sex isn’t non-existent.
‘So are we eating out oreating in?’ he asks, his eyebrows going up and down for sordid effect.
‘We’re going out, Sean.’
He grabs his keys. ‘Fair enough.’
Chapter 49
Tom
September 2008
I’m frozen to the spot in my office. Normally by now I’d be on my second coffee, with both my oversized computer screens loading graphs and data, and I’d be typing, dialling, writing. I’d be in a frenzy of non-stop work. But today’s not like that.
It’s been going steadily wrong for the best part of a year, ever since a Spanish bank discovered how tied up they were in subprime mortgages and began withdrawing credit. And one by one the dominoes have fallen down, as other banks finally worked out where the hell all their money had been going and, more importantly, that they were never going to get it back.
My job focuses mainly on analysing specific mergers and acquisitions. But even I can see what’s been going on, down on the investment coal face – the day-to-day trades and the freefall of money to who-knows-where that came to a grinding halt earlier in the year. And our company has been all over the news for months. Our share price has tanked to the point of no return; we can’t find a buyer, we’ve been shedding divisions, hoping for a bail-out. Other banks have beensqueezed down to their bare bones and have gone, cap in hand, for financial help from the government – from anyone.
Shortly after I joined, the company went on a hiring freeze. No one new joined and, if you left, you weren’t replaced. The last few months have been like circling around the fire pits of hell, all of us working flat out to avoid falling into the flames. But today we’ve been kicked into the fire head-first, and none of us is coming out of this intact.
My team and I stand in front of the news that’s on rotation on the TV. We’re watching the end of the financial world as we know it. There’s swearing, crying, phones are ringing off the hook as investors panic about the location of their money. It’s too late. Across the floor we can see the money guys flat out, trying to get the bank – and themselves – out of this. But it’s no good. We’re a bank without money. It’s laughable. It’s tragic.
