At Bonus Time, No-One Can Hear You Scream Read online

  Wendy on the other hand is wearing Donna Karan — a simple pale blue number to match her eyes that cost us a mere three thousand dollars on our last trip to New York. In Wendy's case it's the jewellery that does it — twenty thousand pounds' worth of 'heirlooms' for Samantha around her neck and wrists (that was how she justified them), mostly from Theo Fennel, with earrings from Elizabeth Gage: stunning, so much so that Gloria Finkelstein pays her the ultimate tribute of ignoring them, and compliments her instead on her new handbag (a mere three hundred pounds from Coach).

  I take a glass of champagne from the black sex machine, ignoring Wendy's 'evil eye' and wonder what she would say if I offered her a thousand pounds to go to bed with me. I take a sip and discover — to my utter horror — that it's Krug. Not only that, but just in case I didn't notice, the bottle is sitting in an ice bucket on the sideboard, propped up so the label is on show. If that isn't typically crude one up-manship, I don't know what is. I make a mental note — next time Matt Finkelstein drops by, I must open a bottle of vintage Cristal. (Second mental note: order some).

  We exchange the usual pleasantries: air kisses, compliments, how wonderful, it's been so long, you look amazing, how are the children, before we get down to the real business of the evening (and this even before Matt Finkelstein has appeared!) — how are you doing? Sounds like a simple question, doesn't it? Except it doesn't really mean what it says. What it really means is (and at this point Wendy looks nervously in my direction, relenting on her previous irritation at my preoccupation with the black sex bomb): are you going to be paid more than my husband this year, and if so, what does it do to our relative positioning in the social pecking order?

  Great, isn't it? As if it wasn't enough that the husbands compete, the wives have to do it too. My husband earns more than yours, he can buy me a bigger house/car/boat/holiday home and afford a better personal trainer/masseur/ beautician/guru/tennis coach and we can spend even more money than you on exotic holidays/dinners at fancy restaurants/tickets to the boring fucking opera/weekend breaks in stately fucking homes and WE MUST BE FUCKING HAPPIER THAN YOU FUCKING LOSERS. Or something like that. And anyway, since we all do this stuff, it must be right.

  Wendy does her best 'confident corporate wife', glancing at me, looking quietly confident, silently gratified at some hidden knowledge that she and I alone can share — I've been told something. Rory must have given me a hint. Obviously I can't say anything: everyone understands that. Especially Gloria. Wendy puts on such a good performance that we don't actually need to say anything. Gloria looks taken aback, perturbed, ever so slightly unsettled in a quite delicious way, and leaves us with unseemly haste when the bell rings to announce the next guests.

  To my relief, it's the light entertainment. Gloria Finkelstein, ever the thoughtful hostess, has organised a Real Loser. He's here so we can all unite against him and reinforce our sense of security and permanence.

  Joe Smith ran forward Foreign Exchange trading at SFP — Societe Financiere de Paris — until June last year. Then they closed down and pulled out of the London market. Not his fault, of course, his team was profitable, but that makes no difference: when he looks at me, and I look at him, we both know. Not that I'd ever say anything, of course. That's part of the fun.

  Our wives know too. His wife, strangely known as Charly, is Hong Kong Chinese, and I've always had a soft spot for her — I bet she's a real goer. She's wearing a brightly coloured, vaguely oriental style, silk mini dress of indeterminate origin — oh dear, my dear, no label — with pearls — okay, I guess — and intricately patterned gold earrings that probably come from the Middle East — I bet they don't have hallmarks. She's in great shape, but that really isn't the point. I wonder what she would say if I offered her, oh, let's say ten grand — or maybe fifty, he's been unemployed for nearly a year now...

  'Joe, how are you? And Charly, how wonderful to see you!'

  Wendy and Gloria rush to embrace the arriving guests, revelling in their superiority. Sweetness and success: moments like this are what it's all about. But it's all relative — imagine what it feels like for a woman to be married to Rory.

  Joe is embarrassed, trying not to be defensive, he has lots of possibilities, he's still exploring his options, obviously the market doesn't help — and yes, we all nod and no-one engages with him: because we don't have to, do we? He's a loser.

  Before you say anything, I know it's not his fault — he ran a profitable, successful team, he made a lot of money for his firm, had a fearsome reputation in the market, and paid his people well, at least as long as they performed. It's not that he was kind, you understand. After all, kind is for girls. He was ambitious, aggressive, and like most of us, he knew how to smile upwards on the greasy career ladder and shit downwards. But he didn't have friends. Not that any of us do, really. But he made it particularly clear that he didn't care what his peers at other firms thought, and that was a mistake.

  Most of us at least go through the motions, staying part of the 'club', because you never know when you might need a helping hand. Of course, for all I know, Joe's a loving, loyal husband and a wonderful father to his kids and helps small, furry woodland creatures in his spare time. But he's still a loser, and we know it and he knows it and Charly knows it too. He committed the Cardinal Sin: when he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, he had no friends and no Plan B. He was naked and alone with no-one to cry to, and when that happens, the City is a barren place — the sort of place that makes people become unravelled.

  Just as the conversation is stretching out deliriously, reinforcing my sense of confidence and good fortune, Matt Finkelstein arrives and pops the bubble.

  'Hi, I'm sorry, so sorry — we've just priced the biggest reverse forward equity swap with collars, caps and inverse reference prices that's ever been undertaken outside of the US.'

  We all stare at him. Matt Finkelstein has zits. I know I shouldn't raise this now, just ahead of dinner, but if you were here you'd see them anyway. He's tall, skinny and is losing his hair. He would say he's lean, and it's true he does work out, in the special gym set aside for the use of Managing Directors only at Hardman Stoney. He would probably also say he's clever, and in a manner of speaking, that's true — though only in a narrow, specific way that wouldn't really help him; for instance if civilisation came to an end as the result of a nuclear holocaust and he had to fend for himself in the wild. Sure, he goes to the opera, but if you were to ask him who wrote Tosca, he'd gaze vacantly at you, say 'Huh?' and look around for some Eurotrash they'd hired on their graduate trainee programme to answer the question.

  'Wow, Matt — fantastic! Congratulations. You must be over the moon.' I don't ask how profitable the trade was, because they don't necessarily know — these swaps guys are so smart, they bullshit their bosses every time they do a deal, book some huge notional profit for bonus purposes, and let their successors unwind the mess in a few years' time when it matures.

  But the really clever thing about Matt's trade is that he's done it now. A dollar earned in the run-up to bonus is worth ten dollars earned at the beginning of the year. My last major success was back in March, which gives me a slightly sick feeling. I take a sip of Krug, but that only makes me feel worse.

  'Why don't we go straight through and sit down?' Matt steers us through to the dining room, and can't help grinning as he sees the looks on our faces.

  Their dining room has been transformed. They have a new centrepiece picture hanging over the fireplace — some contemporary splurge of colour that I'm sure we're all meant to recognise and must have cost a fortune, as well as a new dining suite, at least new to them. It looks Georgian to me — with crockery that I'm sure is also new from the last time we were here. But the real killer is hanging on the wall to my right: it's roughly six-feet by five, very glossy and dark. It's a photograph, by Hiroshi Sugimoto, of a seascape by night. To you and me, it's a six-foot by five-foot dark patch on the wall, but to those who know, it says that this man, Matt F
inkelstein, has two hundred thousand dollars to spend on a museum piece of modern photographic art. Since it is completely black, I wonder for a moment if Matt could have sat in a dark cupboard with a camera with the flash disconnected and taken it himself, then got it blown up, but I don't think he has the nerve. If you study these things close up, you can see the wave patterns and starlight in the darkness. Obviously I can't acknowledge its existence by studying it, but he can't take the chance that someone won't. So it must be the real thing.

  Damn him! He's got his retaliation in first: he's done all this stuff before the bonus. How could he? I'm sure he doesn't make that much more than I do, and Gloria is High Maintenance in a way that makes Wendy look modest. The only thing I can think of is debt — he must have mortgaged himself up to the eyeballs, and he's counting on the bonus as his lifeline. I smile and find myself reluctantly compelled to pay him the same compliment that Gloria paid to Wendy when she saw her jewellery: I ignore everything and sit down, pretending not to notice.

  Wednesday, 27th October –

  B minus 50

  Today I saw a dead rat on the pavement. Now, if you're tempted to say, 'So what?', let me make clear that this is quite unusual for Sloane Square. I'm sure there are rats all over London, in fact there are probably as many rats as people, living off the rubbish that piles up on the pavements, surviving in the sewers and the gutters and rarely seeing the light of day. But this one had chosen to come out of the sewers and die, here on the pavement outside my flat, for me to find just as I'm leaving to go to work.

  In case you're wondering, I'm not superstitious, but it did put me in a really negative frame of mind. I wondered if it could somehow be a metaphor for my life, and that made me think about God. Not the Money God, you understand, but the other one — the one I don't really believe in except for social occasions like weddings and christenings. If there were a Real One — just speaking hypothetically, of course — and He were looking down on this ant-heap of a City, scrutinising us, what would He make of us? Would He think we were actually doing any good with our one unrepeatable lives, making a difference to our fellow man, or would He view us simply as parasites, an irrelevance that could be wiped out with a giant aerosol spray, leaving the planet a cleaner and happier place?

  You can guess where I came out, as I sat on the Underground and tried to focus on my newspaper. I found myself wondering if there was anything I'd ever done that was worthwhile, not in the sense of generating fees for the firm, but in the sense of making the world a better place. Like Bob Geldof. He was a rock star, and by and large I think rock stars are pretty worthless people — though it has to be said that the big names do make real money. But Geldof was different. He tried to make a difference, not just to his own immediate circle, but to the whole world. Would I ever do that, spinning madly like a hamster in a wheel on this crazy money-go-round? And if not, should I be worried about it? Would I one day look back and say it was all worthless?

  Well, not if I made two million this year. Two million would still not be real money, but it could make a difference. With two million — which after tax and assuming half the balance is held back in deferred shares or options is really only six hundred thousand — I could buy a proper place in the country — obviously with a second mortgage, because six hundred by itself doesn't get you there, but who cares about debt? Sensible leverage is, well... sensible. With two million, I could buy the kind of place where Wendy and I could invite houseguests for the weekend, possibly with our own shoot, and still get the 911 and the extras I was thinking about for the flat. Though on reflection the extras for the flat have less appeal now that Matt Finkelstein's beaten me to it.

  By the time I reached Monument station I was feeling a lot better — forget rats, think bonus.

  Thursday, 28th October -

  B minus 49

  Today Rory was happy. The sun shone and we were all smiling as we sat at our workstations and contemplated our good fortune. Truly, we work for the best of all possible bosses at the best of all possible firms.

  Just kidding.

  Rory called a departmental meeting. We were all a little nervous as we filed in to the large conference room at the end of the trading floor. We didn't show it, of course — except by the fact of all the joking and light-hearted banter going back and forth. Anyone observing us would have thought we were on something.

  When Rory cleared his throat, you could have heard a pin drop. I was staring at the conference table, wondering what the hell was going on. You see, this was not our regular weekly bullshit session, where we take it in turns to try to claim credit for anything that's gone well, distance ourselves from anything loss-making and position ourselves as busy, productive, irreplaceable members of the team. This was a special meeting, called in the middle of the trading day, at theoretically one of our busiest, most productive times, and at this time of year you only do that for one reason: the bonus. I could feel sweat underneath my shirt and wondered if I should have put my jacket on, but that would have been too conspicuous. Anyway, I could see others were sweating too.

  'Thank you all for coming.' I could have punched his ugly mug. As if we had a choice. At this time of year, if your boss asks you to stand on your head and sing Yankee Doodle, you ask in what key. ‘I have some important news concerning compensation.'

  That got our attention. I felt as if I could hear the entire room breathing — all thirty of us. The beating of my heart, my own pulse sounding in my ears, someone's stomach rumbling a few places down the table — everything became surreal for an awful, agonising moment. Let it be good news, dear God, please. Of course it wasn't good news — it couldn't be. It was all part of the softening up process.

  Rory waved some papers, which none of the rest of us could see. For all I knew they were blank, just a theatrical prop to help get the message across. 'The department...' He paused, looking around the room. 'The department is thirty per cent behind budget.' A further dramatic pause. 'That can mean only one thing.'

  One thing? It could mean several. It could mean Rory had failed to deliver what he promised management, and had decided to do the honourable thing — fall on his sword and resign. His share of the bonus pool would then be divided among his subordinates, whom he so outrageously misled with his misguided strategy, and for which he insisted on taking sole responsibility. No — this is investment banking, after all. It could mean he wanted a presentation prepared, to which we could all contribute, on a fully democratic basis, to explain to management that the budget was never realistic, but merely a ploy to get him paid more last year, and that it should therefore be revised down to a more achievable level. No — he'd never admit to mere human fallibility. Most likely, it meant we were going to tighten our belts, fire some juniors, and have our expectations managed downwards.

  'This means we are going to have to tighten our belts.' Bingo! 'We need to get control of our costs. With immediate effect, First Class travel will be restricted to members of the Executive Management Committee only.' Around this particular table, that means him. 'Travel to the airport will no longer be by taxi or limousine, but by public transport, excepting those employees whose terms of employment specify their means of transport.' Him again — a chauffeur's included in his contract. 'Overnight subsistence rates will be cut, and the list of approved hotels reviewed for those employees who do not have line responsibility for costs. In other words, if you're not liable to carry the can directly with management for costs incurred, you will be obliged to make economies.' He's the only one with that responsibility in this room, so I suppose he can work out for himself which hotels he'll stay in and whether he really needs the Presidential Suite. 'This is going to be tough on us all.' No, it's not. You're exempt. It'll be tough on the rest of us. 'But we have to keep our costs under rigorous control. I will also be reviewing the staffing requirements of our various business activities in terms of junior support.' True leadership — be decisive, fire some juniors, just before the bonus. 'And it goes withou
t saying that compensation prospects for all of us are less rosy than they would have been had we actually delivered on what we all signed up to.' Now steady on — none of us came up with that budget. That was yours. We just get to pick up the tab.

  We all nodded our heads in agreement. Then came a flash of inspiration.

  'Rory, we're with you on this all the way.' I could see heads turning in my direction, envious scowls distorting their features. 'Not only will we focus on costs — we'll focus on revenues too! We need to really go for it this side of Christmas, show management that we can deliver and that we really are the best team in the City of London!'

  I can see I've pissed off everyone in the room, except Rory, who's nodding sceptically in my direction, but then beams at us all and agrees vigorously, causing others to do the same. Soon the whole room is full of nodding, smiling, happy faces, as we all agree with the wisdom and intelligence of our Beloved Leader.

  Did I tell you Rory has five homes? Yes, just the five. He has a five-storey house in Belgravia, with four staff, not counting his chauffeur, who's paid for by the bank. Then he has his 'place in the country', in Sussex, which I've already told you about. He has a chalet in Verbier, which as far as I can tell he never visits, and only has two staff; a villa near Antibes (four staff — he tries to spend most summers there, leaving early on a Friday afternoon and coming back on Monday mornings when he can't actually take a whole week off), and finally an apartment in New York (two staff), overlooking Central Park, in preference to the suite at the Four Seasons that he always used to take when he went on business. Someone said the firm might even be paying for his place in New York as part of his contract. Anyway, that makes five homes and seventeen staff, not counting the driver. He's a one-man employment machine, providing jobs and opportunities for so many people, his contribution to third-world development alone must make him a dead cert for a place in heaven.