The Steep Approach to Garbadale (43 page)

Somehow, in the drawing room after dinner, he’d got into a theological debate with this Anthony K. Fromlax guy, Vice-President, Mergers and Acquisitions, of the Spraint Corporation, Incorporated under the laws of the state of Delaware, United States of America. Even calling it a theological debate was dignifying it a little; basically they were disagreeing about the very existence of God, groups of gods and so-called higher beings in general. Tony Fromlax was a tall, muscular, lithe-looking guy of about Alban’s age with wide, enthusiastic eyes. A sharp-looking haircut ascribed a veneer of order to naturally unruly fair hair. He had a degree in physics as well as an MBA and Alban had half hoped, on being introduced to him by Win, that he’d prove to be one of those Americans who hadn’t been born again. This had proved - perversely - to be a pious hope.

It wasn’t that Alban went looking for this sort of argument, just that he always seemed to get involved in them. People said something that made it obvious they’d fabricated some assumption that was completely wrong either about Alban or about the way he looked at the world and he seemed to be constitutionally incapable of letting these things go, of treating them like something embarrassing just tripped over and best ignored; he always had to turn back and pick it up, inspect it, shake it, worry it, make an issue of it, demand an explanation. In this case it had been Tony wondering aloud about where people would be worshipping come Sunday. From that had spread a whole escalating avalanche of argument, assertion, counter-assertion and nonsense.

‘Pray there’s no god? Did you hear what you—?’

‘I’m sorry for you, Alban, in your pride and your arrogance, that you can’t see that Jesus is reaching out to you, that He would be your friend, your saviour, if only you’d listen.’ Tony sat forward on his couch, hands splayed in front of him, reaching out. ‘There is no way you can be right, but even if there was, think what a terrible place the world would be without the Word of God to guide us. That’s what—’

‘Now, Tony, how are we here? This looks like it’s lively. Talking share price, yeah?’ Larry Feaguing, Senior Vice-President, Mergers and Acquisitions, clapped Tony on the shoulder and sat down by him on the couch. Feaguing was a chunky guy, not much shorter than Fromlax, about twenty years his senior, with endearingly black hair. He had a deep, serious tan that Alban already imagined was visibly fading in the mellowing light of a Scottish October. He had a deep, serious voice, too, and used it to good effect. ‘How’re you guys getting on?’ he asked. ‘Okay?’

‘Mr McGill believes we’re descended from monkeys and Christians are no better than Muslims,’ Fromlax told his boss, who at least had the decency to look pained.

‘Or Jews, to be fair,’ Alban said reasonably as Fromlax’s eyes widened. ‘I’m an atheist, Mr Feaguing,’ he said, turning to the other man. ‘I was trying to explain to Tony here that, from where I stand, Judaism, Christianity and Islam don’t even look like separate religions, just different cults within this one big, mad, misogynist religion founded by a schizophrenic who heard voices telling him to kill his son. And I do indeed believe in evolution rather than magic. I take a pretty firm line on lightning not being divine thunderbolts, too.’

‘Well, a man’s beliefs are his own business, I guess,’ Feaguing said, looking at both men in turn. ‘The most important thing is being able to talk, come to agreements, where agreements are possible.’

‘The most important thing is to live in peace,’ Alban said, hoping this in itself sounded like agreement - it wasn’t particularly meant to be.

‘Tony,’ Feaguing said, putting his hand between the junior exec’s shoulder blades, ‘would you have a word with Mr Percy Wopuld—’

‘It’s Schofield,’ Alban said. ‘Uncle Perce married in.’

‘Schofield, of course, I beg your pardon,’ Feaguing said, nodding and holding up one hand, glancing at Alban and then smiling back at Fromlax. ‘Percy’s the Brand Manager? Guy with the glasses over there, sat next to the fire with Winifred? He has some questions.’ Feaguing patted his junior’s back. ‘Would you do that?’

‘Certainly,’ Fromlax said, and - with a last, part dark, part pitying look at Alban - got up, retrieved his laptop from the narrow table behind the couch and went over towards the group of people gathered round the fireplace.

Feaguing watched as Fromlax joined them. ‘She’s a very special and wonderful lady, your grandmother,’ he told Alban.

‘Oh, she’s something,’ Alban said. He decided he was getting rather good at this seeming-to-agree ploy.

‘You’ll have to excuse Tony,’ Feaguing said. ‘The guy takes his religion pretty neat.’ He grinned broadly. He was dressed in slacks and a shirt and sweater and held a tumbler with whisky and ice. ‘You kinda have to make allowances for some of these younger guys, cut them a bit of slack.’ He held up one hand. ‘Not that he’s any younger than you, Mr McGill. But you know what I mean.’

‘Of course.’

‘Me,’ Feaguing said, gesturing at his chest with his whisky glass, ‘I’m a devout capitalist.’

‘Please, call me Alban; after all, Tony and I were on first-name terms and we were close to blows.’

Feaguing grinned, sat back. ‘I understand you’ve been speaking up for the family firm staying with the family,’ he said. He held up one hand as though to forestall something. ‘I just want to say, I completely understand. In your position, I’d have mixed feelings myself.’

Alban thought of saying that his feelings weren’t mixed, they were totally against the takeover, but this wasn’t strictly true, he supposed, so he didn’t.

‘It’s a big decision,’ Feaguing said, sitting forward, cradling his glass in both hands, looking thoughtful. He nodded, also thoughtfully. ‘And I know and respect what your family has done with the heritage that
Empire!
and the other games represent. It’s a record to be proud of. Your family should be proud.’

‘There haven’t been too many sins this family hasn’t indulged to the hilt,’ Alban said. ‘I doubt we missed pride.’

Feaguing grinned again, flashing very white teeth. ‘Now, look, obviously, I’m here to close the deal.’ His hands were spread wide. ‘But I want to tell you about the corporate attitude at Spraint, about the way we work, about our philosophy. I did say to call me Larry, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did,’ Alban told him. ‘Larry, you want to buy the family firm because you think you’ll make more money owning what we own rather than licensing it. It then becomes a question of how many of us value our holding above whatever your best offer turns out to be. I don’t see how philosophy really comes into it.’

Larry looked pained, scratched behind one ear. ‘Well, we’ve kind of made our best offer,’ he said. Alban didn’t even bother to do anything with his expression. ‘But anyway,’ Feaguing went on, ‘I want you to understand that I’m sincere here, Alban. Don’t be over-cynical, please. Different companies do business in different ways. If that wasn’t true, your family firm wouldn’t have succeeded so well over the last century and more. If it wasn’t true then there’d be no winners and losers, just everybody doing pretty much the same, and life is certainly not like that. At Spraint we believe in the long term, we believe in commitment, we believe in shared values. It’s not just about money.’

‘I thought you had a duty to increase shareholder value.’

‘Absolutely. But there are as many ways of doing that, once you include all the variables, as there are, well, say, of becoming better educated. What classes do you want to do? What do you invest in? Both simple-sounding questions, both infinitely complicated answers.’

‘But it is still about money.’

‘You know,’ Larry said, sitting back, frowning, ‘this might sound like a strange thing to say, but in a way money is kind of irrelevant.’

Alban widened his eyes. ‘Really?’

‘What I mean is, it’s just how you keep score. Like a ball game. The scoreboard, the numbers on it; they’re just things. It’s what those numbers buy you, what they get you that matters; not the numbers themselves.’

‘I wish I was an economist,’ Alban said, ‘we could debate this properly.’

‘What matters is how people feel,’ Feaguing said. ‘Do people feel good having a bunch of money in the bank, or in stocks? Do they feel better owning a Harley or a Lexus or a Sunseeker or a Lear Jet? How many of those can you use? Do they feel better being involved with a company that is simply trying to give them the figures to buy the same sort of stuff they could buy with shares in any other company, or - and here’s the thing - do they feel better investing in a company that shares the values they hold themselves? Values of long-term commitment to worthwhile projects, the very real worth of excellence for its own sake, a proven long-term commitment to extensive charitable works, a belief in the future of science and technology allied to a recognition of the basic human need for diversion and game-playing
and
all the life-enhancing lessons that the best scenarios and games are able to teach.’

Alban sat in his seat, looking at Larry Feaguing. Alban had his legs crossed, one elbow on his knee and his chin on his fist. He had the distinct impression he was getting a regurgitated, slightly jumbled version of a more coherent - and doubtless more inspiring - speech Feaguing had once been on the receiving end of. Alban shook his head. ‘Well, they do say Europe and North America are growing further apart all the time. You have to hope they’ve left enough slack in all those transatlantic cables.’

Larry sat back and looked pained again. ‘Alban, I’m just trying to tell you that companies have characters, like people do, and I feel proud of the character of Spraint Corp. That is not bullshit. Excuse me, but I mean this sincerely. We honour what you’ve done with
Empire!
and the other games and we think we’ll be worthy inheritors of that heritage. Your family has done wonderful things with those games in the past. Together we’ve done wonderful things with the various properties over the past six years, but it’s our belief that there’s an even greater potential in the titles that we’re confident can only be realised if we are allowed the privilege of taking over their stewardship.’

Alban shrugged. ‘I won’t argue you’re not sincere, Larry. But ultimately of course this is all about money.’

Feaguing shook his head. ‘I wish I could make you believe otherwise, Alban, I really do.’

‘Maybe we’re both getting this the wrong way round,’ Alban suggested. ‘Perhaps you’re right about the character and morals of Spraint Corp, but you’re giving the Wopuld clan way too much respect for their beliefs and collective character. Maybe all
we’re
interested in is money.’

‘Do you really believe that, Alban?’ Feaguing asked quietly.

Alban looked around the room at all his many, many relations, this widespread but, for now - briefly - concentrated family, which he had loved and hated and served and exiled himself from and longed for and come to an accommodation with and still half loved and half hated sometimes, and then he looked back at Feaguing with a small smile. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But if I were you I’d treat it as a decent working hypothesis.’

 
Fielding snored, Alban discovered. It was so bad that he ended up having to pad along to the nearest bathroom and make a couple of little wads of toilet paper to stuff in his ears as plugs. He lay awake for a while after that, thinking of VG, wondering where she was laying her tousled head that night, how she was sleeping. The rain and the wind had barely slackened all day.

A gust - which he heard over Fielding’s snoring and through the improvised ear plugs - shook the windows in their frames.

 
He was struggling to make his way down through the upward stream of water, blown this way and that by the pummelling wind and rain. There was somebody down there, somebody ahead of him, somebody who’d fallen through the rushing stream in front of him. He’d watched her go and then realised he had to save her and so thrown himself in too but then the water hadn’t let him, it was rushing back up at him, flowing the wrong way, forcing him upwards so that he had to struggle against it and fight his way down.

‘Alban!’

The voice sounded distant, underwater. For a few moments he thought it might be her voice, but it wasn’t. It was too deep.

‘
Alban!
’

He woke up tangled in damp bedclothes, as though the stream he’d been fighting had suddenly set, coagulating around him into a twistedly solid form.

‘You okay?’ It was Fielding.

Alban realised he was at Garbadale, in a single bed, sharing a room. He took one of his ear plugs out, cleared his throat and ran a hand over his sweaty face. ‘Sorry, yeah.’ He kicked at some of the sheets, releasing a trapped leg, sticking it out to cool. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Nightmare?’ Fielding asked, his voice sounding normal now, not underwater.

‘Kind of.’ Alban looked around. The room was perfectly dark. He couldn’t see a thing. He twisted his head and looked at the little bedside cabinet, just to see the sea-green glow of his watch dial, hovering in the darkness like the face of a tiny, constant ghost.

‘Sounded like it,’ Fielding said.

‘Sorry if I woke you up.’

‘Never mind. Try and get back to sleep. No more nightmares.’

‘Yeah. Thanks. No more nightmares.’

He lay awake for a while after that, staring at the unseen ceiling, listening to the wind and the rain and trying to recall who it had been he had thought he was trying to rescue.

 
Breakfast was another straggled, well-spaced affair. Alban spent a couple of hours in the dining room, taking a very long and leisurely breakfast and talking to most of the people he hadn’t managed to talk to already. He got the impression that a lot of people were assuming everybody else was all for the sale, while they themselves weren’t, but still expected to lose the vote. A surprising number were against the sale at any price, or so they said.

The weather was starting to improve and there was talk of some of the adults forming a shooting party after lunch, to cull a few hinds. Various males were already committed to spending most of the day in front of the big plasma screen in the TV lounge, watching sport. Andy came down late for breakfast, looked at the still falling rain and suggested tomorrow might be a better day for Alban and him to scatter the flowers on the loch. Alban agreed.