Lucy’s first birthday party was the noisiest event outside a football stadium that Fletcher had ever attended. Annie had made so many friends in the neighbourhood that he found his home full of young children who seemed to all want to laugh or cry at the same time. Fletcher marvelled at how calmly Annie handled spilled ice cream, chocolate cake trodden into the carpet, a bottle of milk poured over her dress, without the familiar smile ever leaving her face. When the last brat had finally departed, Fletcher was exhausted, but all Annie said was, ‘I think that went just fine.’
Fletcher continued to see a lot of Jimmy, who, thanks to his father — his own words — had landed a job with a small but well respected law practice on Lexington Avenue. His hours were almost as bad as Fletcher’s, but the responsibility of fatherhood seemed to have given him a new incentive, which only increased when Joanna gave birth to a second child. Fletcher marvelled how successful their marriage was, remembering the age gap and academic disparity. But it seemed to make no difference, because the couple simply adored each other and were the envy of many of their contemporaries who had already filed for divorce. When Fletcher heard the news of Jimmy’s second child, he hoped it wouldn’t be long before Annie followed suit; he so envied Jimmy having a son. He often thought about Harry Robert.
Because of his workload, Fletcher made few new friends, with the exception of Logan Fitzgerald, who had joined the firm on the same day. They would often compare notes over lunch, and have a drink together before Fletcher caught his train home in the evening. Soon the tall, fair-haired Irishman was being invited back to Ridgewood to meet Annie’s unmarried girlfriends. Although Fletcher accepted that Logan and he were rivals, it didn’t appear to harm their friendship; in fact, if anything, it seemed to make the bond between them even stronger. Both had their minor triumphs and set-backs during the first year, and no one in the firm seemed willing to offer an opinion on which of them would become a partner first.
Over a drink one evening, Fletcher and Logan agreed they were now fully fledged members of the firm. In a few weeks’ time a new brace of trainees would appear and they would progress from pack horses to yearlings. They had both studied with interest the CVs of all those who made the shortlist.
‘What do you think of the applicants?’ asked Fletcher, trying not to sound superior.
‘Not bad,’ said Logan, as he ordered Fletcher his usual light beer, ‘with one exception — that guy from Stanford, I couldn’t work out how he even got on the shortlist.’
‘I’m told he’s Bill Alexander’s nephew.’
‘Well, that’s a good enough reason to put him on the short list, but not to offer him a job, so I don’t expect we’ll ever see him again. Come to think of it,’ said Logan, ‘I can’t even remember his name.’
Nat was the youngest in a team of three at Morgan’s. His immediate boss was Steven Ginsberg, who was twenty-eight, and his number two, Adrian Kenwright, had just celebrated his twenty-sixth birthday. Between them, they controlled a fund of over a million dollars.
As the currency markets open in Tokyo just as most civilized Americans are going to bed, and close in Los Angeles when the sun no longer shines on the American continent, one of the team had to be on call to cover every hour of the night or day. In fact the only occasion Steven allowed Nat to take an afternoon off was to watch Su Ling receiving her doctorate at Harvard, and even then he had to leave the celebration party so he could take an urgent phone call and explain why the Italian lira was going south.
‘They could have a Communist government by this time next week,’ said Nat, ‘so start switching into Swiss francs,’ he added. ‘And get rid of any sterling we have on our books because the UK has a left-wing government, and will be the next to feel the strain.’
‘And the deutschmark?’
‘Hold on to the mark, because the currency will remain undervalued as long as the Berlin Wall is in place.’
Although the two senior members of the team had a great deal more financial experience than Nat, and were willing to work just as hard, they both acknowledged that because of his political antennae Nat could read a market more quickly than anyone else they had ever worked with — or against.
The day everyone sold the dollar and went into pounds, Nat immediately sold the pound on the forward market. For eight days it looked as if he might have lost the bank a fortune and his colleagues rushed past him quickly in the corridor without looking him in the eye. A month later, seven other banks were offering him a job and a considerable rise in salary. Nat received a bonus cheque for eight thousand dollars at the end of the year, and decided the time had come to go in search of a mistress.
He didn’t tell Su Ling about the bonus, or the mistress, as she had recently received a pay rise of ninety dollars a month. As for the mistress, he’d had his eye on one particular lady he passed on the street corner every morning as he went to work. And she was still reposing there in the window when he returned to their flat in SoHo every evening. As each day passed, he gave the lady soaking in a bath more than a casual glance, and finally decided to ask her price.
‘Six thousand five hundred dollars,’ the gallery owner informed him, ‘and if I may say so, sir, you have an excellent eye because not only is it a magnificent picture, but you will also have made a shrewd investment.’ Nat was quickly coming to the conclusion that art dealers were nothing more than used car salesmen dressed in Brooks Brothers suits.
‘Bonnard is greatly undervalued compared to his contemporaries Renoir, Monet and Matisse,’ continued the dealer, ‘and I predict his prices will soar in the near future.’ Nat didn’t care about Bonnard’s prices, because he was a lover not a pimp.
His other lover called that afternoon to warn him that she was on her way to hospital. He asked Hong Kong to hold.
‘Why?’ Nat asked anxiously.
‘Because I’m having your baby,’ his wife replied.
‘But it’s not due for another month.’
‘Nobody told the baby that,’ said Su Ling.
‘I’m on my way, little flower,’ said Nat, dropping the other phone.
When Nat returned from the hospital that night, he called his mother to tell her she had a grandson.
‘Wonderful news,’ she said, ‘but what are you going to call him?’
‘Luke,’ he replied.
‘And what do you plan to give Su Ling to commemorate the occasion?’
He hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘A lady in a bath.’
It was another couple of days before he and the dealer finally agreed on five thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the little Bonnard was transferred from the gallery in SoHo to the bedroom wall in their apartment.
‘Do you fancy her?’ asked Su Ling the day she and Luke returned from the hospital.
‘No, although there would be more of her to cuddle than you. But then I prefer thin women.’
Su Ling stood and looked at her present for some time before she gave a pronouncement.
‘It’s quite magnificent. Thank you.’
Nat was delighted that his wife seemed to appreciate the painting as much as he did. He was only relieved that she didn’t ask how much the lady had cost.
What had begun as a whim on a journey from Rome to Venice to Florence with Tom had quickly turned into an addiction that Nat couldn’t kick. Every time he received a bonus he went in search of another picture. Nat might well have been dismissive of the used-car salesman, but his judgement turned out to be correct, because Nat continued to select impressionists who were still within reach of his pocket — Vuillard, Luce, Pissarro, Camoin and Sisley — only to find that they increased in value as fast as any of the financial investments he selected for his clients on Wall Street.