Eric rolled his eyes.
They made an unlikely double act. Eric was tall, upright, with a square jaw, a neat haircut, and a smile that showed the gleam of perfect teeth. Alex was six inches shorter, wiry, with curly hair, and stubble that suggested he hadn’t shaved that morning. His tie was lopsided and the top button of his shirt was undone. His brown eyes twinkled with humour and intelligence under thick dark eyebrows. Chris found himself warming to both of them.
‘I didn’t like the look of that Professor Waldern,’ said Duncan, bringing the conversation back to what was worrying him.
‘Nor me,’ said Chris. A lithe, intense man with a greying beard and bright beady eyes, Waldern had seemed to take real pleasure in outlining how much work they would have to do, and how hard he would be on those of them who failed to do it. He was supposed to be on the faculty of a fancy business school, but it seemed to Chris that he must be spending most of his time teaching bond mathematics and capital markets to Bloomfield Weiss trainees. The pay was probably excellent.
‘He’s supposed to be tough,’ said Eric. ‘They say he can make a grown man cry.’
‘I can believe it,’ said Duncan. He turned to Eric and Alex. ‘You must have a better idea how the programme works. Is it really going to be that bad?’
‘Probably,’ said Eric. ‘Calhoun took over the training programme about six months ago. The scuttle is he wants to change things. Make it more Darwinian. The idea is to weed out the losers before they even start real work. Apparently, the Management Committee discussed it and decided to go with him. I guess we’re the guinea pigs.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ said Alex. ‘Like everything, it all depends who you know. If there’s a managing director who wants you in his department, no one will can you. Stay cool.’
‘And is there?’ asked Duncan.
‘I was working in mortgage trading for my first six months,’ said Alex. ‘The guys there like me. I’ll be OK.’
This made Duncan even more worried. ‘And you?’ he asked Eric.
‘Oh, I’m not sure where I’ll end up,’ he replied. ‘We’ll just have to see what happens.’
‘You’ll go wherever you want to go,’ said Alex. ‘They love you.’
Eric shrugged. ‘There’s the next five months to get through first.’
None of this was pleasing Duncan. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone in London who gives a toss what happens to me.’
Chris knew the feeling. The three of them had been passed round the office like unwanted lost children, while the other London trainees were doing their stuff in New York. They were the lowest of the low.
‘Oh come on, chaps,’ said Ian, in his best public school accent. ‘Let’s not panic here. That’s what the bastards want us to do. We’re in New York for five months on investment bankers’ salaries. Let’s have some fun.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Lenka. She lifted her glass, which was already nearly empty. ‘Cheers!’
They all raised their glasses to her.
‘Duncan,’ said Lenka. ‘If ever things get really tough, you know what you do?’
‘What?’
‘You come down here and drink beer with us. It’s the Czech way. It works.’
Duncan smiled and drained his glass. ‘You’ve convinced me. Let’s get some more in.’ He physically grabbed a passing waiter, who scowled at him, but took his order for refills.
‘So you’re from Czechoslovakia?’ Chris asked. ‘I didn’t know Bloomfield Weiss had an office in Prague.’
‘Yes, I’m Czech. But I’m a New York hire. Now the Iron Curtain has lifted, the investment banks want Eastern Europeans. And so they asked me if I could tell them all about Eastern Europe. They said they would pay me a lot of money. Actually, I know all about Keats and Shelley, but I didn’t tell them that.’ Her English was fluent and confident, but she had quite a strong accent.
‘You’re an English major?’ Alex asked.
‘I studied English and Russian at the Charles University in Prague. Then I went to graduate school at Yale. But all this structuralist bullshit became too much for me. America’s all about money, and so I thought I’d better find out something about it. I only joined Bloomfield Weiss two weeks ago.’
‘Don’t you have any econ at all?’ asked Alex.
‘I don’t think the kind of economics they teach in my country would impress Bloomfield Weiss very much. But I’ve read a couple of American books on the subject. I’ll be OK.’ She turned to Chris. ‘What about you, Mr Szczypiorski? Are you Polish?’
Chris smiled as she pronounced the unpronounceable so deftly. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘My parents are from there, obviously. But I come from Halifax in the North of England. I’ve only been to Poland once. And I speak Polish with a Yorkshire accent.’
‘Ee by gumski,’ said Duncan.
Chris smiled thinly. Jokes about his accent, or his Polish name, had ceased to amuse him years ago.
‘That is quite a name you’ve got there,’ said Alex. ‘What is it... Zizipisky? That’s a mouthful even by American standards.’
Chris didn’t bother to correct the pronunciation. ‘I know. I’ve thought about changing it to Smith or something, but it’s all too complicated.’
‘That’s what we had Ellis Island for,’ said Alex. ‘Throw in a couple of vowels, lose the zees, and you’ve got a name as American as apple pie.’
At university Chris had become so fed up with having to spell his name twice at every bureaucratic opportunity that he had gone as far as gathering the forms required to change it by deed poll. But he had stopped at the moment of filling in the new name: ‘Shipton’ was what he had actually chosen. Szczypiorski was his father’s name and he didn’t have enough of his father left. He would just have to tolerate it. At least he was able to shorten his first name from Krzysztof to Chris easily enough.
‘Who is this bloke, Rudy Moss?’ Duncan asked. ‘Did you see the look he gave me when I suggested going out for a drink? It was as though I’d told him his sister was a lesbian.’
‘He’s an asshole,’ said Alex. ‘There are a bunch of people like that on the programme. He’s just the worst. Don’t take any notice of him.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Duncan.
‘We’ve spent six months with them,’ said Alex. ‘A lot of them are brown-nosers. They think if they kiss the right ass, they’ll get the best job. And it’s not just that, they want to be first to kiss ass. That’s Rudy’s specialty.’
Duncan grimaced.
‘There’s a culture of competition here,’ explained Eric. ‘We’re all supposed to be competing against each other for the best jobs and the best scores on the programme. Guys like Rudy Moss have bought into all that.’
‘But not you?’ said Chris.
‘I guess I’m a team player. I like to work with my peers rather than against them.’
‘So what on earth are you doing at Bloomfield Weiss?’ asked Ian. ‘That hardly seems the company line.’
Eric smiled, and shrugged. ‘Calhoun was right. Bloomfield Weiss is the best on the Street. I’ll go with the best, but I’ll do it my way.’
They all nodded solemnly, apart from Alex, who laughed. ‘Don’t give me that bullshit. “Doing it your way” means coming home blasted at three in the morning, and not getting up till noon the next day.’
‘I like that attitude!’ said Lenka enthusiastically.
Eric grinned. ‘Hey. You’re talking about a Bloomfield Weiss investment banker here.’
Duncan finished his beer. ‘Well, I suppose we’d better be going if we’re going to make a dent in all that work they gave us.’
And so they headed uptown on their different coloured subway lines. Chris, Ian and Duncan made their way back towards the apartment they shared on the Upper East Side, Duncan being very careful this time not to assault a whole carriage full of commuters. But he did spend most of the journey speculating on Lenka’s charms. She had clearly made an impression. Chris could understand Duncan’s point of view, but he was determined to remain faithful to Tamara, his girlfriend back in London. Idle lusting after Lenka wouldn’t help.