Page 93 of The One Plus One
‘You have to order some food. If you want to sit down.’
‘Oh.’
The Financial Services Authority confirmed last night that it is investigating a traded UK technology company for insider trading worth millions of pounds. The investigation is understood to be taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, andinvolves the London and New York stock exchanges, and the SEC, the US equivalent to the FSA.
Nobody has yet been arrested, but a source within the City of London police said that this was ‘simply a matter of time’.
‘Sir?’
She’d said it twice before he heard her. He looked up. A young woman, her nose freckled, her natural hair teased and fluffed into a kind of matted arrangement. She was waiting in front of him. ‘What would you like to eat?’
‘Whatever.’ His mouth was the consistency of powder.
A pause.
‘Um. Do you want me to tell you today’s specials? Or some of our more popular dishes?’
Simply a matter of time.
‘We do an all-day Burns breakfast –’
‘Fine.’
‘And we…You want the Burns breakfast?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want white or brown bread with that?’
‘Whatever.’
He felt her staring at him. And then she scribbled a note, tucked her pad carefully into her waistband and walked away. And he sat and stared at the newspaper on the Formica table. Over the past seventy-two hours he might have felt like the whole world had gone topsy-turvy, but that had been a mere taster for what had been about to come.
‘I’m with a client.’
‘This won’t take a minute.’ He took a breath. ‘I’m not going to be at Dad’s lunch.’
A short, ominous silence
‘Please tell me I’m hallucinating through my ears.’
‘I can’t. Something’s come up.’
‘Something.’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘No. You wait. Hold on.’
He heard the muffled sound of a hand over a phone. Possibly a clenched fist. ‘Sandra. I need to take this outside. Back in a…’ Footsteps. And then, as if someone had turned the volume up to full blast: ‘Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Really?’
Ed stared at the booth across the restaurant. An old couple sat side by side, saying nothing, eating their fish and chips with methodical accuracy. He had thought this would be a good time to do it. How could it have been any worse?
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I can’t believe it. It’s tomorrow, Ed. Do you have any idea how hard Mum’s worked to pull it together? Deirdre, Simon, the Grahams, that couple from down the road they’re always going on about? They’re all coming. They’re coming because Mum and Dad want to show you off. Do you have any idea how much they’re looking forward to seeing you? Dad sat down last week and worked out how long it had been since they last saw you. December, Ed. That’s four months. Four months in which he’s got moreand more sick and you have fucking well failed to do anything useful other than send him some stupid fucking magazines.’
‘He said he liked theNew Yorker. I thought it gave him something to do.’
