In the far corner, emerald-socks’ eyes lighted for an extended stay on Jimmy’s prominent forehead as it ducked down once more to its never-finished work. Unusually, he, the great Patrick O’Hara, could see no way in straight away. He had always been able to find something, but this time he couldn’t quite pull it out. Couldn’t even sense where it might lie. Just a cold steel wall.

Patrick’s eyes lingered much longer than he was used to, or than he would really want. He didn’t like to give anything away this early on in a relationship. There’s a time for giving and a time for taking. Even Patrick was pragmatic enough to allow for a bit of giving, on his own terms, when appropriate. Not yet though. Not here.

Everybody had something, and they were normally too ignorant to know how or too vain to want to hide it from a skilled observer. And Patrick was skilled, no doubt about it. He had made a career from putting the right people together in the right environment and letting the magic happen. It would be too simplistic to suggest that everybody conformed to a certain definable type, but nobody strayed too far from the seven paradigms among which Patrick felt completely at ease. Identifying those paradigms, especially in a situation where meaningful conversation was impossible, was the tricky bit and where his particular talent came in. He could normally nail someone from the giveaway signals that sweated out of them, and it was very rare that he struggled. In some odd circumstances, a specimen might sit itself into two or three possible classifications, but they could be whittled away within a few minutes. Give him a table, a quart of beer and a conscious counterpart and he’d have him sussed, packaged up and filed in no time. No matter how much they want to believe it, there is no new thing under the sun.

But he had to move along. Patrick didn’t do staring. The young man with the giant earphones was protected by a rare aegis, letting nothing out and, worse, nothing in. Like he had roughly stripped and then scalded away all vestiges of persona, leaving just a quest, a single reason for existence. Anything unconnected with this all-consuming pre-occupation was either on an undetectable frequency or just white noise.

Don’t underestimate how annoying this was to Patrick. He wasn’t used to cluelessness, and there was something so barren and unyielding about this one that he wasn’t even convinced that, given all the time he might ask for, he would ever get to the root of it. That was a terrible thing to think and he had to shake thoughts like that straight out of his head.

So Patrick didn’t stare, although he got close, and he teetered perilously on the edge of a catastrophic loss of confidence. That the single most important tool of his trade could be so unceremoniously bashed to within an inch of disintegration by an unsophisticated brick wall did concern him, for an instant, before he came to his senses and counter-attacked like the champion he knew himself to be. Complacency can be a terribly insidious thing, he almost thought.

And in this case he didn’t have to travel far for the salvation he needed: leaving the inscrutable bookworm aside for a minute, he directed his attention straight opposite. There sat a welcome confidence booster; one of his earliest moments of inspiration, in the days when those powers of perception were starting to come to the fore and mark him out.

It was unlike Patrick to forget names but he couldn’t for the life of him recall this one. Their encounter has been a while ago, granted, but it was still hellishly uncharacteristic. He recognised the man and the type, naturally: probably his first first-hand experience of what he liked to call a “scrummer”, the most numerous among all his phyla. Physically strong and intellectually well-drilled, when he’s told to push, he pushes. And he can push with the best of them.

Scrummers work in large gangs, and Patrick had yet to witness a team that didn’t increase in happiness and productivity the larger it became. The beauty of it was that there was no discernible or forecastable critical mass, just an unending logarithmic relationship between size and happiness approaching infinity. Best suited to keeping large, already moving, bulks on the same interminable course, these populations needed precious little guidance once underway: their sheer power ensured negotiation of the more turbulent parts of the journey with little more than a bit of fuselage rattle. All Patrick had to do was add extra power where he could and set them off in the right direction. If things started to get sticky, Nature would take its course, and Nature can be harsh.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Olly, the scrummer in question, recognised the snake opposite him, of course, and even remembered his name. The green socks were a bit much when combined with the never-still eyes, but that was what you could expect from Patrick. He probably hadn’t been quite confident enough to sport such verdancy when they first met. All that time ago. Yes, it was a long time ago and almost everything that Olly knew then about lots of things had since been overwritten.

But the ephemeral nature of knowledge hadn’t been the first problem on Olly’s mind that day in the long-gone past. He had found himself an opportunity that didn’t come along very often. In fact, he had never before heard of such an opening. The firm was notoriously closed to outsiders and had become something of an Avalonian myth to those in the industry. The vacancy was being dealt with by an obscure and secretive bunch of consultants and somehow, despite his relative youth and inexperience, he had managed to get his name noticed and had been invited for an audience.

Preparation had been impossible: he was armed with only a company name, a time and an address; the consultancy’s one public face, the website, was enchanting but meaningless. At first it appeared to be made up of simply random splashes of colour, but spend some time staring, preferably blankly, and you could just detect the slow and subtle changes. As it turned out, over a 24-hour period, every pixel on the page would change its colour. That wasn’t all: there were transient links, too. They could appear anywhere on the page and would remain for anything from fractions of a second to months. Olly had located some of these during what he called his “research” time.

The least arcane content behind one of these links informed him that the changes in colour came about based extremely precisely on sub-spectral interpretations of everyday phrases that had been translated as literally as possible from English to an appropriate Athabaskan language, generally Navajo or Mescalero, then back again. Phrases like “You can’t eat chicken like that!”, “This is mine now. If he wants it back he can whistle for it.” or “Maybe, but my odometer is a little on the unreliable side…” (when used as a punchline) can produce some surprisingly ravishing results. These were young, hungry artists and they didn’t like boundaries. The only rule, which they reluctantly agreed to stick to, was that each and every pixel must change its assignment over the course of the pre-defined cyclic period. The website had won platefuls of awards, Olly learned.

The impossibility of preparation was an initial concern, but he grew strangely comforted by the unfamiliarity of the situation. The fact was, he had nothing to lose and only precious experience to gain. Several days before the appointed time, while on a stag night in Tbilisi, he’d tried to make more sense of the whole thing with some of his closest friends.

‘I shouldn’t worry about it, mate. Native Americans, phrenology, it’s all just random shit. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. And vice versa. Get this down your neck. You’re in the chair!’ Dolly’s laissez-faire was often refreshing, but not particularly so in this case. The same could be said for the warm Georgian brew that tasted like someone had poured backwater gin into it. But Dolly was by far the most experienced of his pals in this sort of combat. He must have something to give.

‘I know, but if I’m to put myself at an advantage over the other candidates then I’ve got to find a USP. I bet they’re all doing that right now while I’m shortening my life in this hellhole. Whose bloody idea was this place anyway? I might have blown it already, and it would probably have only taken me a few more hours of trawling. I just got a bit sucked in by the whole thing, but there’s information on everything out there if you only look in the right place. What would you do?’

‘Mate, you need to worry about your unique shagging point right now. Olllll-y! Olllll-y! Olllll-y! Olllll-y!’ Thirteen virulent faces shuddered into his own, the associated pairs of hands had taken control of his movements and were sending him into an open-sided sedan chair that might once have been opulent but was not now. Thick burgundy velvet curtains dropped discreetly over the sides. All the light squeezed out underneath them.

It was dark for a moment, until a small electric bulb lit above him, taking in small tubercular breaths. She was stunning even in this light, but she looked kind of wired and her mouth was moving too much considering the lack of any sound. She took a large drink, lit a cigarette and placed it in the ashtray beside her. It took less than five minutes, untouched, to burn down completely. Clearly not an expensive western import.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The time back on home turf had brought no more useful information to light, but somehow less and less frustration as Olly slowly sunk into a state of resigned torpor. He only just managed to emerge from it as he approached the anonymous building, which was much easier to find than he thought it would be. How prosaic. He announced himself and the time of his appointment to the receptionist.

‘Take that lift to the seventh floor,’ she robotically indicated the lift in question with a laser pointer. ‘Go into the room directly in front of you as you exit, sit down and wait for Mr Jackson. Please don’t sit in his chair.’ This conversation was over.

On the seventh floor, each lift corresponded directly with an office door on the opposite side of the corridor. There were eight lifts. He knew it had been important to pay attention when she was waving the laser thing around. For all he knew, this could be part of the whole selection process: attention to detail and the ability to follow simple instructions. In the office was a circular table surrounded by six identical chairs. The external wall had a large picture window covered in a brown wooden venetian blind, the slats growing smaller as they approached the ceiling. The other walls were glass, and he could see out to the corridor and into the seven sister offices, all identically furnished and all empty of people. Unsure, he took one of the seats facing the door.

 

After a couple of minutes he heard brisk footsteps approaching. They stopped. A head poked round the door, smiled, introduced itself as Freddie Jackson and frowned. Expensive shoes.

‘You’re in my seat,’ Jackson looked confused and hurt, despite owning such great shoes.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure which one was yours – they all seem the same and there was no indication…..’

‘Never mind. Would you be able to sit in any one of the others please?’ Olly moved to a seat opposite, with his back to the door. Jackson sat straight down in the chair he’d vacated. He touched his sheaf of papers to no noticeable effect, glanced at his watch and beamed an impossible beam.

‘Right then. Mr 10.45! Let’s set aside the fact that you’re a complete cunt who sat in my chair and get this thing started. Do you have a name?’

‘Olly Sharp.’

That got it started, alright. Once Jackson knew who he was dealing with, there was no stopping him. He was without a doubt the nicest man that Olly had ever met. Totally and disarmingly charming. He spoke rather a lot, especially for somebody conducting an interview, but not too quickly, and he was an extremely attentive and sharp listener too. He picked up on all the points that Olly had expected, and more, and was surely unequalled as an interlocutor. He didn’t have much in the way of conversation at home as his wife was rather attached to any number of television serials and he didn’t like to interrupt. Every fortnight or so he would escape to his local and have a good chinwag with anyone who was willing, or he’d stop by early evening client drinks to check out how his charges were doing and enjoy a chat for half an hour or so before heading off. He didn’t like to be late, though. She enjoyed routine.

Olly had trouble grasping the situation. Here was a man, made to converse, married to a vegetative mute. What a mindboggling loss to the world of a rare talent. It was like Don Bradman surveying a vast selection of perfectly serviceable cricket bats, mulling it over for a day or so, a measured stroke of the chin, a wry sideways grin at those patiently awaiting his decision, an ironic hitch of the brow, further pondering and weighing up, then picking the one made of blancmange.

As the interview stretched out past the hour mark, strong coffee was brought in silently.

‘OK Oliver, now I want you to talk me through the worst decision you’ve ever made,’ Jackson sipped at the treacly liquid and showed his appreciation. ‘It can be professional or personal, I don’t care. But as you talk me through it I want you to draw it up on the wall. The thought processes, the risks, the decisions, the consequences, all that guff. Convert those to diagrammatic form as you’re talking.’ He produced a silver marker pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and rolled it proudly across the table using both forefingers. ‘And I also want you to draw, in an identical diagrammatic format, what you think you should have done. With the benefit of hindsight, naturally. We should be able to see what the alternative outcomes would have been. You can draw that concurrently if you like, or you can do it afterwards. Your choice. You’ve got a minute of complete silence, starting now, to get your thoughts together.…… Oh, and pretend I’m somebody really important. I mean really important. Like the Queen or a hot girl or your hangman, or anyone that you desperately need to impress.’

It was safe to say that Olly hadn’t expected this. But he should be able to pull it off. Stay calm. Keep it nice and simple. Not too personal, and nothing that makes him look like a complete idiot either. Start as far over to the left as possible – don’t run out of room. Gauge his interest and keep him talking. Shouldn’t be too difficult with this guy, he thought.

The major problem was that the lines and annotations he was making with the silver marker were almost totally invisible on the clear glass.

‘It’s no good, I really can’t see the lines on the glass,’ sighed Jackson apologetically after a few minutes. ‘Your commentary is first class: targeted, concise and well-paced, but that’s only half of the exercise. If we don’t have the accompanying diagrammatic interpretation, it’s not a meaningful task. We’d have to do it all again another day. Oh dear. And probably in another room, wouldn’t you think?’ He looked along the corridor, both ways, at the other identical rooms. It disheartened him a bit more.

‘Why not try these?’ He produced two black markers from the same pocket as before and left them on the table in front of him. ‘You can use them to draw a border around the silver lines and I’m sure that will pick them out much more effectively.’ He sat in silence while Olly trudged over to pick up the markers and back again to the wall, then painstakingly drew thin borders around arrows, text, exclamation marks, stylised likenesses, you name it. It was slow work, but things were going so well in general that he didn’t want to rush it and make it untidy.

‘Excellent!’ Jackson had really perked up now. ‘That’s much clearer, and it looks rather stylish too, I might add. It has fair come alive! Please continue.’ Olly was on a roll. The entire process played itself out across the width of the wall as if it were designed specifically for it. It wasn’t swift progress, but the outlining lent depth and gave him the time to embellish his commentary as he was completing the shading. When he had finished explaining the predicament, he started on the alternative course of action, directly above on the wall, as instructed. Jackson leaped up and insisted on drawing the outlines himself – it would get him closer to the action, physically, and would allow much quicker flow of the story. Olly was amazed at how proficient he was, both markers in his left hand, the perfect distance apart, following lines and detours as if he had predicted what would come next. Sometimes he would even take over the narrative if Olly left a gap while considering the next piece.

They both sat back down and admired their work. It’s true: hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only Olly had taken the correct decisions way over on the left, by the rubber plant, his future would have been the top half of the wall and not the bottom. Anyone could see that was better.

He had been in the room for over two hours now and was starting to feel jaded. It had been a high-pressure session, albeit thoroughly enjoyable. He didn’t even notice that someone was standing directly behind him. ‘Well, thank you Oliver,’ Jackson repatriated his marker pens to their pocket with a jealous glare, stood quickly, extended his warm hand and took his leave charmingly and completely inscrutably. On his way from the office, he had to pass close by Patrick, who held the door open for him. ‘International cunt circus,’ he muttered audibly. ‘Finish him.’

Olly was more than a little startled to find this other man in the room. He followed him with his eyes as he rounded the table and sat down in a previously unused chair, much closer to Olly than Jackson had been. His green eyes stared stonily at Olly for a full minute until they brightened and he sat back in the chair a little.

‘Alright?’ His voice wasn’t quite a caricature, but not far off.

‘Very well, thanks. I’ve had an extremely interesting discussion with Mr Jackson. I didn’t realise we’d been talking for over 2 hours.’

‘Did you draw that crap on the wall?’

‘Er, yes. Mr Jackson and I were realising how some of my decision….’

‘Wipe it off please.’ He produced a filthy rag from his trouser pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Olly, who did as he was told. ‘I’m Patrick O’Hara. It’s good that you got on with Freddie; I set a lot of store by his opinion. He has a knack of understanding what people are really like. So far I don’t think he’s ever been wrong about someone. It doesn’t really matter what my opinion is, but I like to meet potential candidates because I’m the one who has to take the crap from the client before and after the appointment. Freddie doesn’t have to deal with all that. He’s lucky. It’s me they call and whine at when it all goes shit-shaped.’

There was an awkward silence while he calmed down a bit.

‘Having said that, it hardly ever happens because Freddie doesn’t make mistakes. The mistakes are only ever made by others. I can’t say whether it’s the pricks we put into jobs that are beyond them, or if it’s the pricks who don’t know how to use them properly once they’re there. But it’s not my place to say that anyway, so I wouldn’t even if I could. Do you think you could do this job properly? That was a lot of drawing on the wall.’

‘Well, I’ve always performed my roles up to now pretty effectively. I’ve moved steadily through the structure where I am today and have developed a pretty good platform of experience in the industry. The two years in Singapore were invaluable in providing me with a global perspective. I’m certainly ready for the next challenge, and I’m aware that this role would be a serious challenge.’

‘Yeah, yeah. All that’s great. I just need to know if you reckon you can do it. If you think you can and so does Freddie, that’s good enough for me. I just need to know because I’ll take all the arse when it goes wrong.’

‘Exactly. It’s your reputation that I’m representing, not just mine, if I get appointed.’

‘No it isn’t. Don’t you worry about my reputation. Worry about yourself. I just don’t like people phoning me up and giving me shit. Especially when I’m trying to watch a Grand Prix. They always call during a Grand Prix. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to hear with all that engine noise going on?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Well, fuck it, one day you might realise.’ He was sending a text message now. Quite a long one. ‘OK, that’s enough then. Listen, you’ve got the job, but these people are complete arseholes. It’ll probably take a few weeks for it to happen. If they don’t argue the toss and call me every name under the sun and change their mind back and forth until you’re not sure where you started or where you’ve ended up, they don’t feel like they’ve been part of it. I’ve told them before “interview them yourselves if you like – leave me to get on with the rest of my life”, but they won’t. They haven’t got Freddie, have they? How will they know who to bring in? I’ll call you in a few days or weeks. Might as well hand in your notice now. It’ll save time and get you ready for when they do eventually get their act together.’

Patrick was as good as his word. Over the following weeks he called and called with bizarre or irrelevant updates until the news came through that everyone had been waiting for. Here’s a date, a name and an address. Olly was delighted in so far as he now actually understood what was going on.

He started at the appointed time and settled in quickly. His talents were quickly appreciated and he found himself among sound and confident colleagues. Everyone seemed to know the ropes very well and he took every opportunity to spend time with the more experienced types, hungry to immerse himself in the culture that was everso slightly different from what he had previously known. Although it was difficult to say how, exactly. Maybe just a bit more professional, a bit more detached and impersonal compared with many other environments you would find in the early 21^st century, but minutely so. They were all extremely helpful guiding him through the murky waters of his first week and he felt he’d made a promising start.

Patrick came to see him on Friday and treated him to lunch, not to mention a fully animated breakdown of how he’d circumvented the waiting list for his wife’s rhinoplasty. Patrick could do anything. Olly felt like Johnny Cash:

Why me Lord?
What have I ever done
To deserve even one
Of the blessings I’ve known.

Expected though the following Monday itself was, what it brought with it was quite another thing. There was somebody sitting at his desk, for a start. Another new guy. As an old hand now, Olly was expected to show initiative and find his own home, as per the hotdesk policy. It was a bit of a blow but it was reassuring to know that his new team held him to be one of their own already. Being the new boy is all very well for a while but there is always a time when your mother has to put you down and from necessity you learn to crawl. If you want to bang that remote control on the glass-topped table, nobody else is going to do it for you; like it or not, you’ll have to get it yourself. And you’re always new, no matter how old that new might be, until someone else newer appears. That was why Olly had loved Cranfield: a chance to get some fresh blood into his group for the first time in almost three years. This time it had only taken a week.

This new blood was disturbingly at home in Olly’s desk. He seemed to know things he shouldn’t have known. Each lunchtime brought him a new date: these detached professional types who had so politely steered Olly through his first week were rough-and-tumbling newbie from one initiation ritual to the next. It seemed wrong, somehow, but why? What was wrong?

Wednesday evening was ordeal by tequila. The lights may have been superficially dim but they knew where they were supposed to shine and the outlines were sharp. Olly made sure he was close to Youngblood from the start.

‘Where have you come from, then, Doolan?’ He didn’t want to sound desperate to know, but he might well have done.

‘Oh, I’ve been in The City for a few years. Been to a few places. You’ve got to keep hopping off in ports until you find a ship that can take you where you’re going.’

‘So have you worked with some of these guys before?’ Please say yes.

‘No, never met any of them before this week. What a great bunch though. Fucking crazy, the lot of them.’

‘Yeah, they really know their stuff too. I can see why this place is tough to get into when there’s so much experience in a team like this. It must be odd for them to have two new starters in two weeks.’

‘What are you talking about? Most of this lot have been here less than six months. Only Billy has broken the year.’

Olly downed his tequila, went to the toilets to throw up, bought his round, picked up his empty bag and left. It was 7.30, March and there was nobody in the courtyard. Walking to the tube wasn’t easy – it never is when you can’t feel your feet in your shoes, but he was sure the sensation would return one day.

Friday brought Patrick again. He was great for restoring lost mojo and Olly was incandescent with anticipation. Pizza this time: Doolan had a marinara, although Patrick always had the meatballs. Doolan had had his recent speeding ban quashed and even managed to get the solicitor to pay his own fees. Patrick was impressed. Olly’s feet disappeared again.

It’s difficult to swim when there’s a stingray on your back. Quite apart from their considerable flat weight, the wings lie heavy on your flanks and impede movement of the arms. It is possible to swivel one’s head enough to get some air, but the ray neither needs nor wants to leave the water to breathe, so won’t co-operate. For much of the time it will glide along serenely, expending no effort, using your endeavours alone, but every occasional flap of those giant wings will speed it along so gracefully that it’s easy to forget about its venom. The downdraft from those flaps sends you lower in the water, further from the precious air. Scramble back up to take a gulp before it settles on you again.

Of course, there is only so long that a swimmer can bear this torture. The breaths become further between and swifter snatched, and the sheer endurance required to stay afloat doesn’t come naturally to most. Olly tested out his concerns on friendly ears one Friday. While Patrick and Doolan shared a marinara, he would pick at a rat salad and bemoan his latest conspicuous shortfall, hoping that exposure of his displaced world to the open air would assist in the healing of the fracture. He wasn’t sure about opening up so much, with Doolan around, but he hadn’t managed to get any airtime at weekends: weddings, breakfasts, long Twickenham afternoons, flat porcelain surfaces: there never seemed to be a good time to bring it up, and his efforts fell pretty unceremonious among Dolly and the others. But, with them, distractions were plenty, so why not use them? After all, no stingray at weekends, just a shoal of friendly sentinels.

His last meeting with Patrick came in an early summer thunderstorm. Olly nibbled the celery from his Bloody Mary, ruminating in time with the strains of Patrick’s annual love-in with the taxman which had, predictably, ended spectacularly in his favour, although he was bloody angry with the amount of paper that had been required to arrive there. Olly felt brittle, more translucent than opaque. Nothing he tried seemed to work; he just needed a small groundswell of support, he said, just enough to build up a head of steam, and there could be a breakthrough. The ideas are good, the research is sound and execution is his game – he can take care of that. Just a team who he can trust and they’d be flying. That’s all. He could barely get the words across the table.

Doolan nodded at the waitress, hand on pocket. Patrick sent a recognitionless look painstakingly out across the table, straight at Olly’s corpse. ‘Don’t go back now. Just go home.’ And disappeared through the door that Doolan held open for him. Olly, poor filleted Olly, watched them as they ran, dodging the lightning, hand in hand.

He couldn’t even go home properly. It took him three days. Next door’s cat had been trapped inside his flat and had died by the time he returned. He didn’t bury it for a week. The next time he saw Patrick in town several months had passed. He was eating meatballs, amongst four or five faces that Olly didn’t recognise, hanging on every sauce-spattered syllable. That night he remembered to tell his neighbour what had happened to her cat.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Patrick looked back on the episode with righteous nostalgia. He was a young man then; young at his game. He hadn’t been sure, but hedged and came out of it a winner. There’s always a way to win, and sometimes it requires more creativity or a touch of cold steel. If others suffered that was just the way it was meant to be. They must take responsibility for themselves.

He was glad to still work with Freddie, who was his right-hand when it came to contract and employment law and human rights legislation. He had long since been removed from selection duties, since Patrick’s particular talent became more clearly defined. But none of that altered the fact that across, to his right, next to Doolan, sat the knot that might prove his undoing.

Jimmy’s impenetrable shell was not vulnerable to Patrick’s powers. If he wasn’t mentioned in Marquez’ unbounded prose or name-checked in any of Kid A’s tracks, he was insubstantial. A spectre, and Jimmy didn’t believe in ghosts.

Patrick hated losing. Jimmy was unaware he had won.