On the Floor (35 page)

And down the road, in a high-speed lift on London Wall, Stephen adjusts his cufflinks. Accepts the approving nod from his reflection in the mirrored panelling. A bell chimes, the doors glide apart and a burst of executive sunlight blinds his eyes as he walks forward into the heavenly glow of the Chairman's office, his hand already outstretched.

All these endings streaming out behind me like a kite tail.

As we hit the M4 the driver makes a dash for the inside lane and silence invades the car like an extra passenger. My suit carrier flops against my feet and I notice it's light for a one-way trip. But the things I need for a life are things I do not yet own. And there is plenty of time.

‘You never said where you were going, love,' says the driver, pulling up at Departures. I put my bag on the ground and lean into the open window to hand him the fare.

‘A long way.'

‘Nice day for it,' he says and smiles at a sudden January sunshine.

Terminal 4 glitters coolly inside. I stand still in the middle of the concourse and look up at the blinking lights on the board. DELHI – NEW YORK – HONG KONG – CHICAGO – SINGAPORE – HARARE – SAN FRANCISCO.

On the other side of the world I picture Felix at his desk with the harbour lights winking behind him, his face illuminated by the green glow of the screens, a faint smile playing about his lips as he calculates the odds.
It is time for you to grow up and take charge, Geraldine. To decide, to make a choice. Become your own master
.

I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing and for the first time it actually works. I can feel an unencumbered rise and fall of the lung, waves breaking on a cooling sand, a caressing homesickness for a place I have never been. I am shedding the crinkled years like a stale skin.

At the ticket desk it is just as I expected – what with the war and everything there is plenty of long-haul availability, tickets for anywhere you want to go. I look up at the board again and the salesgirl waits patiently for me to say something and then smiles and taps everything
into her screen. Swipes my credit card and slots the ticket into a wallet. Says, ‘Have a nice flight.'

I walk back outside and light a cigarette, standing on the edge of the pavement breathing kerosene fumes in through my mouth, the muffled scream of planes and a chatter of arriving stewardesses trailing their overnights and clutching their hats against a sharp wind.

I open my bag, take out the two ticket wallets and hold them level in front of me. Read the itineraries printed on the flaps:

16:15 LHR – HONG KONG

16:30 LHR – SAN FRANCISCO

I think of the Big Fucking Ticket all those years ago that was the beginning of all this. And I have to look up and smile at the open skies, for this is the moment where I write the ending. So I let one life drop to the ground with a smack and walk quickly inside.

I am ready to take the wheel.

I am already there.

THE STORY THAT FELIX TELLS GERI
about Vulkan Valve was inspired by the history of Plessey, the British electronics and defence company which was the subject of a hostile takeover by GEC-Siemens in September 1989.

I am very grateful to the Yaddo Foundation, New York where I twice lost and found this book. Thanks to Mac and Michael for critical early support and to all at Serpent's Tail and Profile whom I omitted to mention on two previous occasions.

Very special thanks to Chris Seery for expert input on all things financial, encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the markets in the '80s and '90s, forensic reading of the entire manuscript but, most of all, for years of friendship on and off the floor.

The poem is ‘The Fall' by Anthony Cronin, New Island Press, 2010, which I first heard during his reading at Listowel Writers Week. All the good advice from Kant is from the
Critique of Pure Reason
, transl. Werner Pluhar, Hachette, 1987. The mathematical test Felix gives to Geri was found in
Genuis, Richard Feynman and Modern Physics
, James Gleick, Abacus, 1994. The ‘scattered children of Eire' is taken from de Valera's St Patrick's Day address which I first heard in the British Library's sound archives. Full text available on YouTube. The quote about the Charge of the Light Brigade is from General Pierre Bosquet. The version of Descartes' letter to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in 1646 is from James Petrik's
Descartes' Theory of the Till
, Hollowbrook Publishing, 1992. Geri quotes from
The South Sea Bubble
by Jonathan Swift,
The Wasteland
by
T.S. Eliot and also blends lines from Keats, Pádraic Pearse and the Gospel according to Matthew. Bertrand Russell's quotation is from
Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers
, Routledge, 1999.

An extract from what would eventually become this novel was published in
Contains Small Parts
, UEA anthology, Pen & Inc Press, 2003.