Sweet Talking Money Read online

  Cameron’s expression moved comically between anger and tears, uncertain which way to turn. Meg continued to play with her hair, wiping her eyes and forcing her to look straight ahead.

  ‘You’re right about one thing, Cammie.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Even the nicest men are nine-tenths brain-dead when it comes to looks.’

  ‘Ah!’ Cameron snorted angrily and reached for the rubber band which would take her hair out of Meg’s inquisitive hands and away from sight and reach. Meg stopped her.

  ‘Cammie, for God’s sake. You’re a bloody pretty woman and you act like you’ve got something to hide.’

  ‘Look, if men want me, they better want me. I’m not going to dick around playing stupid little cutesie games for their benefit. If they want me, they can come get me.’

  Once again she reached for the rubber band in order to lock her hair back under house arrest. ‘Damn it!’ said Meg, who fought for the band and cut it into pieces with some surgical scissors which sat nearby.

  Cameron was white-faced and angry. ‘Screw you, Meg! This hairstyle works for me, and I’m not going to monkey around with it for you.’

  ‘Too bloody right it works. Why don’t you just tattoo sorry not interested on your forehead and have done with it?’

  ‘Where do you get off telling me how to live?’

  ‘Listen, gorgeous, when it comes to physical attraction, men have brains the size of pickled walnuts, not even located in their skulls, and it’s no bloody wonder that they don’t look twice. You choose, Cammie. You can go through life guarding against the possibility of romance, and feeling bitter because romance never comes. Or you can go out looking for it, and bloody well find it. On everything else in the world, you’re the original braveheart, scared of nothing. But on this subject, you’re the ace, king and queen of wimps.’

  Meg flung down her challenge with a flourish, then stopped, wondering if she’d gone too far as Cameron sat, face down, plucking thoughtfully at the corners of her mouth. At last, she looked up.

  ‘You think I’m pretty?’

  ‘No, babe, you’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Honestly.’

  Cameron accepted the information with a tiny nod, then went back to her thoughts and her mouth-plucking.

  ‘OK, then. I’ll do something with my hair. If that makes men run after me like dogs after a bitch on heat, then more fool them. But I’ll do it. Only nothing I have to fuss over the whole damn time.’

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, spending a few minutes on your hair would be good, but that’s only the start of it. There’s clothes, there’s make-up, there’s flirtation, there’s getting out of the laboratory and actually meeting people. The hair’s only a start.’

  ‘Meg, I am not going to spend my life –’

  ‘How are you going to spend it? Single or with someone? That’s the choice. And if you want to spend it with someone, you’ve got to join the human race.’

  Cameron paused, tugging at her hair as though using a leash to pull her back. Eventually she decided. ‘No, Meg. Sorry. I’m not a coward. Not about my hair, not about anything else. But in the end I don’t give enough of a damn. If a guy wants me for me, then that’s fine. If he wants me because of a bit of make-up, then forget it. I’ll wait for a grown-up to come along.’

  ‘You’ll wait for ever.’

  Cameron held the other woman’s eyes for a moment, smiled sadly, and went back to work.

  5

  Night-time in the boathouse. Outside, the barge nudges against the little jetty, creaking. Inside, everything is dark and still, except upstairs in Mungo’s tiny attic room, Pod Mungo, as it’s known.

  The room is crowded. It has three computers, two printers, a fax machine, four phone points (one voice, three data), mounds of junk food, a microwave, handfuls of computer CDs and manuals, and all the other nameless piles of rubbish which form Mungo’s chosen habitat. The carpet is rich in a kind of alluvial layer of discarded food, and the air is strong with the scent of printer toner, hot wires, and piles of dust and paper warmed by the stacked-up electronics.

  Mungo isn’t there, yet he’s hard at work. His three PCs are switched on and busy, running a simple computer program. The job they have is this: to dial phone numbers in the Connecticut area. For each three-digit exchange code, they begin dialling at xxx-9800, and then go on up: xxx-9801, xxx-9802. It’s dull work but the PCs don’t mind. Knowing them, they probably enjoy it. Each time they ring, they’re looking for the characteristic response signal of a modem. Each time they find one, they transcribe the number to a data file, hang up, and dial again, xxx-9803, xxx-9804, xxx-9805. And once they get up to xxx-9999, they move on, to the next three-digit exchange, and the next, and the next, right through the night, every night.

  6

  Bryn’s dad is sick. No one recognises the illness, and Mervyn Hughes is too old, too stubborn, too damn bloody-minded to see a doctor. If he calls it anything, he calls it flu and goes about the farm as best he can.

  It’s not a very good best. The jobs which have to be done are done, but all those things like mending fences, digging ditches, dunging fields and rehanging gates just aren’t happening. The farm is beginning to slide, and a sliding hill farm is hard to stop.

  Mervyn, in his lethargy and brain-fog, is the only one who won’t admit the problem. The others – Gwyneth, Bryn, Dai – admit it, talk about it, worry about it. But until the stubborn old man consents to change, there’s nothing much they can do. Dai does what he can for the farm in his spare time, and Bryn, too, goes up at weekends. But it’s not enough. Once again, and with more urgency than before, Gwyneth has asked Bryn to come home and settle.

  FOURTEEN

  1

  Mungo drifted in, walking gingerly, like an insect with half its legs broken. A bruise hung over his forehead like a cloud of purple smoke, and the smell of tobacco, mixed with other popular combustible inhalants, clung to his refugee-style streetwear.

  ‘Heavy weekend, Mungo?’

  Mungo pointed to his knees and elbows. ‘Skating. Wounds of honour. Came off doing my first switch tailslide. Had another go and did it. Sweet.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Bit sore today, though.’

  Bryn smiled. ‘Yeah, well, take it easy.’

  Mungo hadn’t had much of a childhood. His father had been a brief visitor at the best of times, and his mother suffered from bouts of mental illness which had left her unable to care for her family. Mungo and his two sisters had been in and out of care, in and out of foster homes, all their lives. JoJo and Dar, the two younger girls, had always depended on him for mothering and fathering, as well as simply big-brothering. In some ways, Mungo was as old as the hills, in others he was hardly grown up at all. Given a different start in life, he’d have been an internet zillionaire, or a top video game author. Or perhaps he’d simply have been ordinary and happy. As it was, Bryn liked him, relied on him, and was happy to play the kindly father that Mungo had never had.

  ‘I’m going to see if I can get some of that ethanol off Cam’ron. Paint myself with it.’ He mimed dabbing the ethanol on his wounds, then hopping as it began to sting, then smiling seraphically as it anaesthetised the cuts.

  ‘It wears off after a few minutes. And it’ll sting.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s wicked. I’m going to try, anyway.’

  Bryn nodded permission with a smile, then turned to business. He pulled out a sheaf of phone bills.

  ‘See these, Mungo?’

  Mungo looked and nodded.

  ‘Spot anything wrong?’

  Mungo shook his head.

  ‘They’re about one quarter of what they ought to be. I thought maybe you’d taken it into your head that we were paying too much for our online research services.’

  ‘You were being ripped, man.’

  ‘I don’t care, Mungo. We can’t just nick things when you don’t like the price.’

  ‘No, man, I know. Yo
u already told me.’

  ‘Well, look, can we just go back to the old-fashioned way of paying for what we use? Think of it as a generation gap thing.’

  ‘No, man.’ Mungo sought a way to explain the obvious. ‘I’ve been grafting. Took a data compression system off the net, and hooked up with New Zealand for our data feed. It’s cheaper. Big bandit problem here, man. Suit-bandits, worst sort. It’s all pukka, man, straight-up. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am, Mungo. Thanks. You’ve done a splendid job.’

  Mungo’s frown of worry passed into a radiant daybreak of delight. ‘Alright. So we’re sorted?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. We’re sorted.’

  Mungo did something involving his nose, his sleeve and the back of his hand which caused all three to be briefly connected by strings of green mucous, before a vigorous rubbing on the seat of his trousers disposed of the evidence.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Meg asked me to give you these.’

  Mungo passed over some letters. ‘Dear Mr Hughes. Thank you for your recent loan application. While we were impressed by … blah, blah … we regret that … blah, blah,’ he read. There were two others, both of them all but identical to the first. ‘Wunch of bankers,’ said Mungo, illustrating the thought with a hand gesture.

  But Bryn wasn’t listening. He was frowning in thought, knuckling his jaw as though trying to muscle a way through. Eight loan applications sent. Six rejections received. That didn’t add up. Right now, the Fulham Clinic was riding a wave of public popularity. Bryn had a stellar record in business and finance. Yet the rejections didn’t even invite negotiations. They just said no, plain and simple. It was strange, unexpected.

  He began to thump his first into his palm. If at first you don’t succeed – thump, thump and thump again. The rhythm of his fist softened into a slow, meditative pounding. Rays of light wove gentle lightning around his head.

  At length he looked up, almost surprised to find Mungo still there. ‘Can you get Meg in here, please? I think it’s about time I asked my old friends at Berger Scholes for a loan, don’t you?’

  2

  Mungo left, clearly surprised that Bryn hadn’t previously thought of anything so obvious. But when Meg came in a moment later, followed in a series of short flaps by an increasingly confident Tallulah, her surprise was for a different reason.

  ‘Berger Scholes won’t give you a loan for a few million, will they? I thought they didn’t touch anything under fifty million bucks.’

  Bryn shrugged. ‘Not usually, no. But for one of their favourite ex-employees, you never know.’

  ‘If you say so,’ she said, deeply sceptical.

  ‘Get a set of loan application documents together, can you?’

  Meg nodded and turned to go, but hesitated. As she paused, trying to make up her mind about something, a speedboat passed outside. At its wheel was a young man driving too fast, and a young woman standing up, getting her face wet in the spray. The girl was pretty and wore a short skirt, which lifted as the boat accelerated. Bryn raised his eyebrows and smiled. Meg’s hesitation came to an end.

  ‘Honestly, what is it with you? I know you used to have your problems with Cecily and everything, but at least you tried. Where’s all that commitment stuff gone? All you need is the sight of a girl’s legs to make you all creepy and adolescent again.’ Meg’s tone of voice came out more ferocious than she’d intended, and Bryn waved her into a seat.

  ‘Listen Meg, I can’t remember when I appointed you guardian of my romantic life, but for what it’s worth, I’m very fond of Kati and she’s very fond of me. But that’s as far as it goes. We enjoy each other’s company, and every now and then – not as often as you might think – we have sex. When we do spend a night together, it’s about fun, it’s not about all eternity. She was really cut up about her fiancé leaving her, and I was upset about Cecily. When I got married, I intended to stay with Cecily for the rest of my days, and I’m just not yet ready to start down that path again. Maybe in a month or two. Maybe in a year or two. When the time comes to separate with Kati, we’ll deal with it like responsible adults. I am not going to let you guilt-trip me over my one and only casual relationship in ten years.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, I didn’t mean to get heavy. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ In the corner of the room, Tallulah had begun to peck at the training shoes Bryn had been out running in that morning. ‘And get off my shoes, you revolting bird.’

  ‘You go on, Tallulah,’ Meg said protectively. ‘Eat the horrible man’s trainers if you want to … And if he wants a meaningless relationship with the second-best-looking woman in the clinic, then I suppose it’s none of my business.’

  ‘It’s not meaningless, Meg, it’s just not church bells and wedding dresses. And I hate to let you down, Meg, but she’s not the second-best-looking, she’s top.’

  Meg shook her head. ‘Second.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s always you, of course, unless you meant one of the nurses. I suppose Karen is quite –’

  ‘Not me, you idiot. Cammie’s top by a bleeding mile. Knocks the rest of us into a cocked hat.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Bryn laughed.

  ‘Ten pounds says she is.’

  ‘How are you going to prove it?’

  ‘Are you on?’

  ‘OK, but I say you owe me a tenner.’

  ‘Well, she may not look it, but she’s a stunner.’ Bryn was about to object to her logic, but Meg was unstoppable. ‘She’s tall, thin, good face, full lips, big eyes, good skin, hair you could do anything with. She doesn’t use any of it, but she’s got the lot.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just have to make do with number two, then, won’t I?’

  ‘You don’t, actually. Cammie fancies you like mad. Truly, madly, deeply.’

  ‘Cameron? Meg, you’re joking. No.’

  ‘She does.’

  Bryn closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, so that his barrelled ribcage rose steeply with the in-breath. He exhaled. ‘Please tell me that you’re kidding. Please.’

  ‘She started falling for you back in Boston. She’s been falling ever since. Right now, she’s head over heels in love with you. Even when I tried to talk her out of it, listing all your bad points – it’s quite a long list, actually, when you start to spell them out – she didn’t listen. It’s still all you.’

  ‘Oh, shit, Meg.’

  ‘O-shi!’ squawked Tallulah, making a sudden breakthrough in her understanding of human communication.

  ‘Good girl!’ said Meg encouragingly. ‘Good parrot.’

  ‘Honestly, Meg. I’ve never done anything to lead her on – never, I swear.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Her girl-meets-boy skills are a little rusty – well, OK, they’re completely rusted up – but, yes, Cameron loves you. I had a long chat with her last night. She told me all about it.’

  Bryn was still disoriented. Cameron was so closed down in some ways, it had been fairly easy not to think of her as a sexual creature at all: just a brilliant intellect, whose chosen body-form happened to be female. Bryn hated the idea of hurting her, but he’d be just as likely to go out with a mainframe computer as with her. Speaking gently, he said, ‘I hope you told her that I …’ He shook his head.

  ‘She’s nice. She’s amazingly intelligent. She’s passionate, warm-hearted, committed. She’s a totally brilliant all-round human being, even if she can be a bit odd. Plus she adores you, I don’t know why, but she does. And she’s not the teeniest bit stuck up, not like your oh-so-delightful ex.’

  Bryn’s oh-so-delightful ex had begun to deluge him with short sharp letters, asking him how come her paintings and furniture and other valuable items hadn’t yet been shipped as agreed. A fair question, and one not so easy to answer, given that the whole lot had now been sold and the money plunged irreversibly into the clinic. But still, that was a problem for another day.

  ‘Meg, no,’ he said. ‘Definitely not.’ Still Meg paused. ‘Definitely,’ he added. ‘Definitely, definit
ely, definitely.’

  ‘And good-looking, I promise you.’

  ‘She could look like Claudia Schiffer, Meg, she’d still drive me nuts.’

  ‘Not Claudia Schiffer. More like Julia Roberts without the hair – no, I know, she’s like a skinnier version of –’

  ‘Meg, no. Just no. Definitely not. You’re on to a loser here. Have you ever even heard me and Cameron in a room together without us getting into an argument within about ten minutes? The very first time I met her, she punched me.’

  ‘You’re both Aries. You should expect a fiery relationship.’

  ‘Meg, please. I’m really sorry that Cameron should be in this position. But just make sure she knows she needs to look elsewhere. Don’t tell her I said so, but head her off. It’s the last thing on earth I need right now. The last thing she needs. Last thing the company needs, for God’s sake.’

  ‘It’s your funeral. I’m not going to let her stay single for long.’

  ‘Bryn Hughes, RIP,’ said Bryn, crossing himself. ‘And you can take that damned bird with you when you go.’

  Summoning Tallulah with a snap of the fingers, Meg went back to the door, wondering whether to tackle Bryn one last time, but her boss was deep in thought again. Having his medical director deeply in love with him was one problem, but it didn’t threaten the company’s existence.

  His hand reached for his Rolodex, twizzled the cards, dialled a number.

  ‘Rudy Saddler? Hello, it’s Bryn Hughes …’

  3

  Meg didn’t know it, because Cameron never told her. And Bryn never knew it, because Cameron never let him see. But the fact was that Cameron heard what she was never meant to hear. Standing with her hand on the handle of Bryn’s door, she heard the whole conversation between Meg and Bryn, including his final savage summary of his feelings: ‘It’ – Cameron, in other words – ‘is the last thing on earth I need …’