BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 12

 BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 12

THURSDAY

 

Joan Nolan made her way to 10.00am Mass in the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Sallynoggin. The morning was piercingly cold but bright. The handsome church roof stood against the pale blue sky. She had attended daily Mass for more years than she cared to remember.  On Sundays she had brought Tom and Mike proudly to the midmorning Mass which was packed to rafters. They needed to be in their seats ten minutes before Mass started. Numbers now had fallen. Morning Mass nfeatures no more than thirty faithful scattered around the cavernous church. The majority were widows like herself.

 

She passed her neighbour Nancy O’Brien as she entered the church, making the sign of the cross with the holy water in the font.

‘It’s a grand day Nan’

‘It is, thank God’ replied Nan who proceeded up the right-hand side of the church to kneel on the pew beside the storage heater.

The men in the congregation wore ancient suits under overcoats. The women had sensible scarves and shoes. The elderly couples, spared to live together into old age, supported each other as they shuffled up the aisle. The cries of young children in prams occasionally broke the scared silence. These were the hardy faithful who stuck with the Church and their customs despite the scandals of recent years. Their experience was of the good priests who had served them well.

 

After communion Joan returned to her seat and looked around. She reflected that in less than a week she would be no longer making the daily walk to Mass. She thought of sharing her news with Nancy O’Brien as they left the church arm in arm to face the freezing February breeze. She thought the better of it and spoke instead of the bingo they would attend later that day.

 

Sebastian had arrived a few minutes early, as he always did, to meet a Quaker friend for morning coffee in his yacht club. Lily had fussed and insisted he wear his heaviest overcoat. She insisted on dropping him down to the Train Station in Killiney. The train ran every quarter of an hour and took only ten minutes to reach the picturesque town of Dun Laoghaire. Ireland had been part of the British empire in the nineteenth century and they had built a very fine harbour with two magnificent piers that ran like outstretched arms into the sea. The town boasted four sailing clubs with elegant buildings that offered fine wining and dining facilities. Sebastian always enjoyed the train journey which started with a view of the magnificent Killiney Bay. Then followed  dark tunnels as the train approached Dalkey. The remainder of the journey to Dun Laoghaire continued in a deep cutting into the granite. This was the requirement of the owner of the lands when the train was first mooted in the 1830’s. Coincendtally the railway, the first in Ireland , was built under mostly Quaker management and with the support of Quaker shareholders, especially the Pim. Dun Laoghaire Pier had been built from rock hewn from Dalkey Quarry and transported on an ingenious narrow-gauge railway powered by gravity called the Atmospheric Railway. The railway worked fine until rats ate away the leather valves which created the required vacuum for the return journey with the empty carriages.

 

Sebastian rose to greet Philip Goodbody and offer him a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Philip nodded appreciatively. The Quakers were long associated with the importing of tea and coffee into Dublin. Philip had arrived in an ancient Rover P5 saloon. It was twin tone and looked the part. It had been bought in the late fifties and Philip was fond of it. People may have thought it posh but it was almost worthless. Philip found the leather seats and the walnut dashboard comforting and homely.

 

The Goodbody family had acquired land in south county Dublin in the middle of the nineteenth century. Over time the land was surrounded by expanding villages. Throughout the middle of the 20^th century Phillip had sold off parcels to developers, quietly unobtrusively. Always at a price that allowed the builder make ample profit and allow decent houses to be built for thousands of young couples arriving to Dublin and setting up home. He sold only to builders he knew and could trust. Estate Agent approached him with higher bids from dubious builders but Philip always said a polite and firm ‘no. The funds were then invested in the stock market, mostly in London but also in Dublin. The portfolio was divided between banks and industrials. He invested in shares that were stable and paid dividends. Most of the shares he held for decades through Goodbody Stockbrokers, cousins, of course. Shares were bought once, and for life. 

 

In January every year Philip wrote a cheque for ten percent of the profits of the previous year divided among about ten charities, Quaker and otherwise. He had never married but had enjoyed a long, happy and stable relationship with Georgina. They spent the summers together in small pretty cottage by the sea outside Clifden in Co. Galway.  Georgina spent her winters in Tenerife while Philip was happy to spend them in Ireland. Christmas in Ireland was too good to miss. He enjoyed a day like today – crisp and bright.

 

Sebastian had known Philip since childhood. They attended the same Quaker Meeting House and sat on various charitable committees over the years. They had discussed business over the years albeit in a general way. Philip was intrigued by the call. Sebastian explained his predicament and Philip’s opportunity. Bottom line he needed to raise over forty million pounds in the next two weeks or it was possible IBB might be sold or taken over. Sebastian was approaching Philip because he rated his judgement, and money. Sebastian thought here would be no point in swapping one set of greedy owners for another. That ruled out American investors completely in Sebastian’s view. American values seemed too transactional and too temporary, and too skittish. Philip did not demur. 

 

‘Your timing might be very good’ opined Philip. This weekend I am due to be joined in Dublin by a group of friends I have known for decades. Mostly Quakers, but not exclusively from the UK. Many have divested of shares in the mid-eighties. They missed the crash of 1987 but they also missed the fun of the recovery. They have tired of being very small cogs in very big wheels and might relish the possibility of buying something where their opinion matters. Some are descendants of the Quaker Banking families, Barclays and Lloyds and served until recently on their Boards. Do you have any figures you might share with me?’

‘I thought you might ask’ said Sebastian, as he produced a booklet of about twenty pages that summarized the bank, its history and policies, its personnel and trading.

‘If it goes further, I can produce a more detailed document which like this will be fully confidential’

“Of course, understood’ replied Philip.

 

Their conversation was coming to an end when the room filled with middle aged women sensibly dressed, who ordered teas and coffees ahead of a nine-hole game of golf in the nearby Dun Laoghaire golf course. A course that seemed simple until played. Tight with trees.

 

On an impulse Sebastian invited Philip to join him for  a walk along the East Pier, the slightly bigger and more established of the two piers. He was glad he had listened to Lily’s advice regarding hat scarf and coat. The walk brought the men to the end of the pier that looked out across the bay to Howth. The walk gave Philip the time to ask questions that had been quietly forming. What changes, if any, would Sebastian like to see? Who were the capable managers and where the weaknesses.  Were there new lines of business the Bank might consider? Sebastian took it as a good sign that Philip was asking these questions. Philip asked about the loan book. He seemed duly impressed when Sebastian ran through the names, nearly all familiar to Philip.

 

Sebastian was excited that Philip seemed excited. It wasn’t often that Quakers got excited. He knew there was many a slip between cup and lip. Sebastian took the train home. He thought of ringing Jim to appraise him, but thought the better of it. It was early days and it would be wrong to rise his hopes only to see them dashed if the cavalry did not arrive in time, or at all.

 

 

Fr. Salvatore was surprised to receive a phone call from the Secretary for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Bos. The Cardinal would like to see him when he was free. This was not an invitation but a command. The Order Pro Pontifice preferred to remain in the shadows and kept well away from the big beasts of the Church and the infernal politics. Normally Salvatore would have got a heads up from his excellent sources in the Congregation, but nothing this time. The head of the Congregation was Dutch. He who took nonsense from no one and was innately suspicious of the shadowy Pro Pontifice Order and its powerful backers. Fr. Salvatore was made wait over thirty minutes in the ante room to Cardinal Bos’s office. Lesser men than Salvatore would have been shaking in their soutanes. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the enforcing agency of the Catholic Church. Its job was to enforce orthodox belief and strict morals within the clergy. The files of bad priests, bad Bishops and occasionally bad Cardinals all found their way to the desk of Cardinal Bos. He was intimately familiar with the Church’s failures. he was appalled and didn't hide his disappointment with his colleagues. Most of his colleagues led blameless lives. But a small minority did not. Their sins cried to the heavens. Cardinal Bos took no prisoners. He wasn't exactly the flavour of the month within the Curia that was more tolerant and lackadaisical.  

 

Normally matters were dealt with discreetly. A bishop would quietly hand in his resignation, a priest would be reassigned, a Cardinal called back to Rome to a desk job. Cardinal Bos was not a fan of pussyfooting. His Dutch character had encouraged him to call a spade a shovel. He didn’t always have the patience to wait so as not to rock the boat or displease the Holy Father. He often took decisions and to heck with the consequences. His desk was groaning under the weight of an ever-increasing number of files relating to complaints about the clergy under the areas of drugs, or sex or money. It was unusual to have complaints of all three focussed on one cleric.

 

Cardinal Bos bade Fr. Salvatore into his office. Unusually Bos dismissed his private secretary due to the delicacy of the matter. He came straight to the point.

‘Fr. Salvatore I have had three complaints about you in as many months.

Fr. Salvatore protested his innocence. He offered explanations and alibis for everything. Cardinal Bos was unmoved. 

‘So there are three cases of smoke, yet no cases of fire, you would have me believe?’

Cardinal Bos looked straight at Fr. Salvatore. ‘One more case of smoke, one more strike and you’re out, relieved of your clerical duties and working in a place far from the glitz of Rome, or Catania’ he added.

Fr. Salvatore smiled. He assured the Cardinal he would hear of no more smoke and kissed the Cardinals ring as he left.

 

It became clear he would have to devise a plan to deal with the Cardinal.