BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 7

 BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 7

TUESDAY

 

Over lunch Steph thought of buying a smart new business suit for the upcoming Management Meeting to be held later that evening. But she reasoned that might call attention to her. She should probably keep a low profile over the next two weeks until Project ‘Tom’ was over and buried. She had informed Tom she was completely behind his project.

 

She popped home to find her father in his business suit. She had intercepted him in the morning on his way into an office which had closed a decade previously. Tom had warned her that this situation was unsustainable.  Steph would have to find him secure sheltered accommodation. She was reluctant to accept reality. She was all too familiar with nursing homes and their smell of boiled cabbage and disinfectant. The rows of chairs in the ‘activity room’ where the inmates spent their afternoons watching television without understanding what was going on. The cruelty of old age she reflected. The blessing of old age was becoming the curse of old age. Her father’s generous pension from the insurance company would comfortably pay his fees in the best nursing home. She would be free to travel. Maybe it was a sign from a God she did not believe in. 

 

Returning to the office after lunch she threw herself into a mountain of paperwork that would be necessary when the trades went ahead. If the plan was to succeed the bookkeeping would have to be exemplary both during the operation and as testimony in its aftermath. The younger staff complained of additional work and longer hours.  She reassured them it would all pay off. If they were curious about the project, no one showed it.

 

Fr. Salvatore PP alighted the plane in the private terminal of Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. The airport staff showed no surprise or interest in the well-dressed cleric who could be seen in deep conversation with deeply tanned business men with heavy overcoats. Within five minutes the conversation was finished. Fr. Salvatore was back on the plane heading to Catania Airport, Sicily’s second most important. He made a point of trying to call in on his ageing mother once a week. But he also had some personal business to attend to. 

 

Tom’s flight from London had arrived in time, and he was now in a taxi crawling through dismal Dublin traffic. The windows had misted up. It seemed to Tom that every time it rained in Dublin the traffic turned to glue. And it rained often enough. As he entered the Bank, he was surprised to find his mother, a spry wiry little woman with silver hair. She was quietly reading the Irish Times which the receptionist had kindly given her.

 

Tom felt a pang of guilt. He had totally forgotten this was the day his mother had arranged to pop into the office at midday and together they would head out to the National Concert Hall for a lunchtime concert. Occasionally they would skip the concert and head to the National Gallery of Ireland which boasted a simple but wholesome restaurant beside the entrance opposite the gift shop. His mother liked nothing more than to spend half an hour deciding how to spend five pounds on a gift for her granddaughters. It was a matter of profound sadness to Joan Nolan that her younger son Mike had gone into self-imposed exile over ten years ago after a number of ill-fated business deals which had left everyone out of pocket including Tom who had to pay up under a personal guarantee he had signed on Mike’s behalf. Tom made some half-hearted efforts to contact Mike who seemed to have disappeared in the undergrowth of East London. Joan’s husband died shortly after Mike’s birth leaving Joan a widow longer than she had been a wife. Joan put Mike’s excesses down to the absence of a father. At least she had Tom who never failed to keep an eye on her. She was proud of how he had progressed in the Bank. But it troubled her that his marriage was not happy despite the effort two or three times a year to play happy families. She was genuinely fond her granddaughters even though she would have been happier if they went to a local ‘free school’ rather than the expensive secondary school they attended.

 

Tom made his apologies. But his mother would hear nothing of it. ‘’Sure what else would I be doing?’ she asked, not expecting an answer. He brought her round to nearby Buswell’s Hotel for a soup and sandwich. He reasoned that she would not have taken the number 7 bus from Sallynoggin and waited three hours unless there was something amiss. ‘I’ve never interfered’ she began. Tom sensed that was about to change. She explained she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the pancreas, Stage Four. She had received the news two months ago. She didn’t want to create a fuss. She had lived a long and fulfilled life. She had made the best of life after the early death of her husband Pat. She had no regrets. She would be spared the indignity of languishing in a nursing home.  She wanted to die in her home in Pearse Villas, surrounded by the people she knew and loved. The end would come quickly. She held no fears for the future. She attended daily Mass but remained a sceptic, not completely reassured by the Church. 

‘You and Mike have to make it up, whatever it takes.'

‘I will definitely try’ he promised.

‘Now, you’ve got to try and help Janet help herself’

‘I’ll try he replied', reflecting that would be a taller order. He had lost track of the number of times he tried had tried to intervene without success. He had concluded that she was an alcoholic because she had so decided.

 

‘Was there anything he could do, to make her life more comfortable or at least less painful?’ He asked.

‘No’ she replied'. 

As always, she had organised her little life. As she had for the past forty years since Pat was taken from her in the flash of an eye. She had managed payments on the house, she had returned to primary school teaching, she had bought her car and had it serviced diligently. Now she had arranged for the sale of the car to the local mechanic to whom she had promised first refusal whenever she went to sell it. No one could believe that her little Mini had less than seven thousand miles on the odometer after nineteen years. The car hardly ever left Sallynoggin. Everything she wanted or needed was there. Occasionally she ventured into neighbouring Dun Laoghaire and in the summer, she might venture to Bray the seaside resort in neighbouring Co. Wicklow. She had reviewed her will. Not that there was much to leave. A small terraced house that had been Corporation stock in the forties. Clean and neat, unchanged since built. She came from a generation of Irish women who had little time for sentimentality. They picked themselves up and just got on with life. There was no time or point in complaining or self-pity.

 

 

Tom explained he would love to bring her home but tonight he was working late and attending a management meeting. He arranged however for a taxi to drop her home on the Bank’s account. ‘It’s the least they can do’ he thought. He promised her Sunday lunch in her favourite hotel in nearby Killiney. They would catch up. They would have a lot to cover.

 

Tom returned to the Bank. He informed Steph and Maura who had been chatting in the kitchen of his mother's news, if only to advise them that he might be preoccupied, depending on events. They both expressed their sympathy, especially Steph who had known Joan for years. Steph always made a point of making time for Joan when she met her in reception.  Steph had had already given Tom her backing. Tom looked over to Maura for her response.

 

Tom thought that Maura looked a little worse for wear. There were the tell-tale signs of recently applied mascara and the heavy smell of mints, obviously intended to mask the smell of alcohol. 

‘One hundred percent’ chipped in Steph, perhaps unnecessarily.

‘Two hundred per cent’ added Maura.

Tom tried not to look surprised but was pleased the plan was coming together.

Tom filled them in on the London Meeting. Steph produced a fax from Banco di Positano. True to his word Fr. Salvatore had delivered. Tom hadn’t doubted him somehow.

 

‘Great’ said Tom. ‘The pieces are coming together’. I expect to get the go-ahead this evening. Then it’s all hands on deck. The devil will be in the detail.’

“Ladies we have two hours ahead of the management meeting to get our ducks in a row.’

 

'Maura you might have a quiet chat with Ben Osbourne off the record to see ho

w London might be disposed'. I suggest you follow up with a meeting in London soonest. You might keep your diary free for the next ten days’

Maura seemed to brighten up. This project might well suit everyone’s agenda. She made her excuses and left for her office.

 

Tom sat down with Steph and outlined the shape of the deal. There would be a huge number of trades, but it was all manageable if people were prepared. All leave would be cancelled and no excuses.

 

Maura was correct. When she rang him Ben welcomed the development and surprised and excited by the progress IBB had made already. He began to wonder if BBB might reconsider selling the bank. But that was for another day. Ben called Robert Lyons into his office. Robert was only too happy to see BBB take a fifty percent stake in the trade from IBB. Indeed the greedy wretch would have taken 100% if Ben had not reminded him that is was the Dublin office who had the relationships. Even so, there was a lot of money to be made. Or indeed lost. But like all traders Robert was a sunny optimist.