LITMIR.BIZ

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can have the fuckin’ job,’ said Vic, snorting into his now empty glass. ‘It’s all a fuckin’ fake anyhow.’

      ‘True,’ said Brad, still grinning at me. ‘But some of us are better at faking it than others.’

7

      I spent the weekend, as I often had during the summer, at the Battle mansion on a hill overlooking the Hudson River in upstate New York. The place was originally built by the financier Jay Gould as an early-twentieth-century rural retreat. The fact that it had thirty rooms and resembled an eighteenth-century English manor house didn’t seem to faze either Mr Gould or Mr Battle, both of whom looked upon the estate as roughing it. After all, trees could be seen, grass, wild animals (rabbits and an occasional deer) and even mountains – the distant Catskills looming across the river in the distance. The fact that they usually viewed these wonders past the heads of the household help waiting on them hand and foot didn’t interfere at all with their sense of roughing it.

      The mansion was ornate, the grounds gracious, the view of the Hudson River and distant mountains spectacular, and Mr Battle pointed all this out to every new guest and then never noticed any of it again. But someday, I hoped, if I could just stay on the straight and narrow path of upward mobility, it would all be mine!

      But as I drove up the winding drive that Saturday morning in a cab from the train station I knew that chance was always trying to upset the applecart of my personal life with the same arbitrary interventions that ruined some of my most scientific trades. Accidental meetings, absurd attractions, arbitrary diseases, suddenly exposed secrets – life had a horrible tendency to undermine the orderly man with sudden chaos. The unexpected appearance of the FBI and my having to confess my father’s existence to Mr Battle was a tiny tremor of warning that accident, like death and taxes, was always with us.

      Now as the cab slowed to a halt opposite the ornate columns of the formal entrance, and the tall and lugubrious Hawkins came with slow dignity down the steps to greet me, I was both pleased by the opulence and a little depressed by it. I knew that the place would be so crawling with well-dressed people that life would seem as formal as a tea party. Mr Battle even insisted that Honoria and I sleep in separate bedrooms, whether from the illusion that we hadn’t yet slept together, or to maintain the façade of Victorianism, I couldn’t tell.

      I got slowly out of the cab, paid off the cabbie and watched Hawkins pick up my suitcase and lead me up the steps. The ‘family’, Hawkins announced solemnly, was out back on the patio.

      Although my whole march up the ladder of success led to precisely this elegant mansion owned by my boss and future father-in-law, something about it made me feel out of place. What was it? Why didn’t I feel comfortable with the people who shared my vision of a life of reason, rapaciousness and riches? Why didn’t I care more about the things I was supposed to care about? Why did Brad Burner’s enthusiasm for various numbered or named Porsches or BMWs seem so trivial? I owned a Mercedes but only as part of my uniform of success. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between driving my Mercedes and driving a Honda Accord or Chevy Corsica, but knew if I began driving around in a Corsica I would soon be seen as on the way out.

      I continued through the huge lower hallway to follow the formal and funereal man in black, then up the long winding stairs towards my guest bedroom. Along the staircase were hung paintings and drawings: a Matisse next to a Norman Rockwell; an oil portrait of a grinning Ronald Reagan next to what looked like a giant Rubens nude.

      Why couldn’t I appreciate my colleagues’ obsession with their clothing, furniture, cars and connoisseurship of art? I myself owned three original oils by a famous avant-garde artist whose name I could never pronounce, but I thought of them like my car and suits – pan of my necessary uniform. And I derived less pleasure from looking at my an – or anyone else’s – than I did at looking at a sunset over the river. Since I hated spending a cent more than I had to, it pained me considerably to have to pay thousands of dollars for things I didn’t really want. Looking at them as necessary business expenses, I deeply resented the IRS for not letting me deduct them from my income tax.

      And the subtle differences between suits, sports cars, vacation spots, athletic clubs somehow escaped me. Mr Battle had almost ordered me to quit the Red Rider Athletic Club, pointing out with a subtle shudder that most of the people who belonged to it were athletes.

      I had always assumed that I would have to spend time doing what I didn’t really like doing in order to become rich and successful so I could then do what I did like doing. Instead, I was finding that success consisted of doing a lot of additional things I didn’t like doing.

      As I turned at the top of the stairs to head down the upper hall I suddenly said: ‘What am I doing here, Hawkins?’

      ‘Preparing for lunch, sir,’ Hawkins replied without breaking stride.

      ‘Ah, right.’

      When Honoria arrived at my room to bring me down to meet the guests I embraced her with a pleased smile. Seeing her dressed with stunning casualness in a pool-blue jumpsuit that showed off her figure, I realized that I’d never caught her off guard: she was always groomed, coiffed, made-up and ready. As I held her my heart didn’t leap, but my male vanity felt its usual surge of satisfaction: what a priceless acquisition! And mine! Or soon to be so. I gave her an extra squeeze.

      ‘Is that Jap still on the make for you?’ I asked after we’d exchanged a light kiss and were headed down the stairs.

      ‘Oh, yes, last night he came on to me like an eager college sophomore,’ she said gaily, linking her arm in mine. ‘But today I think he’s shifted his interest to Kim.’

      ‘Kim?’

      ‘Yes, you know, that kook cousin of mine whose escapades I’ve told you about.’

      ‘Oh, her,’ I said, looking to see if the Japanese were down in the hallway. ‘I thought she moved to the west coast or something.’

      ‘She did. She went there to see some famous guru.’

      I vaguely remembered Honoria’s telling me about some black sheep of the family who was shamefully interested in things like the I Ching, tarot, nature hikes and nuclear disarmament, and even more shamefully unable to hold a job or accumulate money.

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said as we headed through the hall towards the patio where some sort of meal was being served.

      ‘But now she’s back,’ Honoria went on. ‘Much to Daddy’s disgust. And when she’s not chatting with sexless spirits on some astral plane she’s often enticing sexually charged bodies on this earthly plane. I think she’s already got Akito salivating and – ah, speak of the devil.’

      As we moved out on to the patio Mr Battle was standing near a large round table, and past him three figures were making their way up the lawn towards us. As I casualty tried to brush down my hair in preparation for meeting them I was puzzled to see Mr Battle frowning at the approaching people as if in disapproval. As we came up beside him he turned to me and whispered fiercely: ‘Be brilliant.’ And added strangely, ‘And ignore the girl.’

      The girl. Walking with a jaunty bounce between the two neatly-dressed Japanese bankers and clutching them both firmly by the arms was a lovely young woman whose striking photograph I realized I had noticed once in one of the Battle albums. Dressed with heretical informality in sneakers, jeans and a sweatshirt, she was laughing easily at what the taller and more impressive of the two men had been saying. She had a glowing vitality that immediately made her seem out of place, impolite even, her vibrancy almost resembling that of a woman in heat.

      Although the two Japanese were dressed identically in business suits, they were otherwise opposites, the one being tall and broad-shouldered with a thick head of wavy black hair, and the other short, plumpish, grey-haired and bespectacled. When the three grinning newcomers came to a halt near the table, Mr Battle bounded forward with a sudden warm smile.

      ‘Ah, Mr Akito

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