RomperSuit | Allen Jarvis
The Globe
The collective noun for a gathering of Investment Bankers is supposedly a ‘wunch’.
It’s basically a spoonerism though, a cheap snipe: wunch of bankers.
And how the Robocops enjoy reminding you of this.
They say you’ve screwed up the economy, they say everyone hates you. More now than ever.
But it’s not the police insults that bother you this Friday night. There’s something else amiss. Something remote, unsubstantiated, a nameless dread.
For an après-work drink in the Square Mile you make a most interesting spectacle: close on three hundred Investment Bankers, mostly male, some of you Pumphouse Gang, some not, all staff of Babbage Broon though, corralled outside the Globe public house, where Moorgate meets London Wall, by sixty-plus Robocops, a handful of police horses, four dog units, maybe as many as ten parked-up Meat Wagons.
Investment Bankers stab accusing fingers at the police ranks, bawl insults, spill forward. Bare-knuckle swearing. Police camera units flit outside their cordon; CCTV scours every inch of the throng. Each incensed face of your co-workers is caught on film, framed for posterity. But the police won’t get any convictions, even if it were to kick off tonight. They know that. More importantly, you know that. They’re just feeling your collar, making their presence known. They’re simply reminding you that they are the top boys in the City. You’ve danced this dance a thousand times before.
You pull your overcoat closer to mask the night air. Jürgen Jørgensen, one of your Vice Presidents, spills out of the Globe carrying a tray laden with pints. Donnelly Babb, another of your direct reports, takes a pint off Jürgen, offers you a second pint. It’s not like you’re going anywhere in a hurry, the Robocops have the pub surrounded. The police may have you hemmed in but there’s little indication of their ultimate aim. It’s not like you’re football hooligans and can be escorted to a nearby ground or stuck on trains back to some far-flung town. No, the Robocops will just sit tight, ruin your evening some more. Coop you in one place, keep a watchful eye on you.
You’d sensed something foreboding all day, but you couldn’t just head straight home to Lane, your wife. Couldn’t swerve any extra-curricular activities. That’s not in your nature. And it’s not like you’ve any progenies to rush home for, play the doting father, making your excuses. But you’re working on that. You and Lane have been working on that.
It’s not even this that bothers you though, there’s something else unbecoming, a gut desire you refuse to acknowledge, which churns your stomach. If you didn’t know any better you’d think you were actually (and for want of a better word) scared.
But that’s just not possible. You’re pensive perhaps, overtly concerned.
Scared is not a tick-box on the year-end appraisal form.
There’s a sudden surge to split the police ranks. Investment Bankers shove into Investment Bankers, pile into more Investment Bankers. A domino effect.
The Robocops take one step back, close ranks. They adopt a battle stance. Batons drawn, shields raised, visors dropped. They try to look mean, try to maintain order. Keep you in line, show you who’s boss.
Some big black lad from, you think, your FX Markets department, is beckoning this buckle-nosed Robocop forward for a dance. Almost sounds like he’s joking, but his eyes reflect pure venom, his face a clenched fist. The big black lad is Babbage Broon and certainly looks the part, the cut of his cloth, the attitude, the swagger, but he’s not Pumphouse Gang. He’s not in the know, just another muggy bonehead with an ego and a gob. Back office staff, not the front line. Tries to show off and act the Big I Am.
Of course, no formation dancing can ever take place with the police, heaven forbid. You can rile these Robocops, rib them, pull their pigtails, but there are limits, protocols, boundaries you rarely overstep.
Two secretaries from Accounting Control clatter out of the Globe. They weave past you, one either side, don’t even register your presence. They discuss convertibles and warrants and due diligence and some new hunk in Swaps Trading they’d both like to suck off. They speak without thinking in a scattergun stylee. You may as well not be there, you’re invisible to them. They probably think you’re scum anyway. Many do. Not the scum of course, the Charring-scum, but a scumbag nevertheless. Your kind are all the same to them, doesn’t matter which Investment Bank you represent, even their own.
And then the Pumphouse Gang anthem pitches into the night air.
“Little Aussie Jack crushed upon the track!”
Each line delivered with more gusto.
“Watch the silly scummer die!”
Building it up into a fervour.
“He wanted to know but fled our main show!”
Ever louder.
“Got flattened as we waved goodbye!”
A mounted policeman, one presumably in charge, brays at your assorted throng through a megaphone. He sports a peaked cap, has ornate trim at his shoulders, stripes, some insignia. He looks little better than a hotel doorman. His mount does that thing horses are wont to do when trying to stay steady in a crowd situation. They totter just slightly back and forth, look nervy and ruffled, hooves sidestepping. They just can’t stand still. This only helps the Top Cop’s voice out in small bursts as he tries to retain his posture. Makes his words all the more laughable.
He wants to know who’s in charge here.
But you’ve no clear leadership. Admittedly, you’re a Department Head, but there’s half a dozen Department Heads here tonight, maybe more. Each of you apparent equals, though some more equal than others. You’re one unit and you all march to the tune of His Master’s Voice, but the Gaffer is way too senior (in status, and in years) to get his hands dirty here, at the coal face, tonight.
The Top Cop keeps grating, wants to know who’s in charge here. His voice sounds nasal through the megaphone, muddied and metallic.
Some morons from your Trade Finance department – who else? – are now making their presence felt to your right. Their Department Head, Mark Wire, shouts insults at the police, looks genuinely angered. His right hand man, Bhupendra Gaur, makes similar threats, his eyes mad as an axe. They push forward through more Babbage Broon like they need to prove just how much they hate the Robocops behind the cordon.
Wire and Gaur are a right pair of pork pie eaters - Wire bloated but strong, Gaur leaner but still built like an out-house. Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber.
The Top Cop still bellows from his high horse. Demands to know who’s in charge here.
But you’re too engrossed in Wire and Gaur’s sorry scene so you don’t actually catch what finally kicks it off on your left side.
The straw that broke the camel’s back.
You don’t see who did what to whom nor how they reacted.
But it goes off, well naughty. Real toe-to-toe stuff.
Everyone’s up in arms. Sol Simons from your Corporate Banking department chucks a full pint pot in the direction of the Robocops, its lager arcing over the crowd. Your Vice Presidents, Jürgen Jørgensen and Donnelly Babb are by your side, then gone, their heads lost. Lads from Equity Derivatives scream abuse. More verbals from Fixed Income. Insults from your Swaps Trading department. From Securitisation. Commodities & Energy. Loan Syndications. Everyone hell bent on causing a scene. The corporate animals are incensed.
You take your chance. Exit stage right. You don’t even think of it as cowardice, just see an escape route suddenly open up. The police round to your right, the ones guarding the pedestrian entrance to Moorfields and the back entrance to the Globe, they surge into the fracas, swing out with batons.
But you just stroll between them, like you’re not involved.
Turn your back on this farce and head for home.
You do, however, steel yourself for that tap on the shoulder.
The truncheon in the small of your back.
Your arm twisted then jerked up to your shoulder-blade.
But the Robocops just let you pass like you are not a problem.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Charlie Campbell-Fuller has left the building.
Well, escaped the police cordon at least.
A gaggle of clucking women from your Facilities department wriggle past you, also grabbing their chance to break the police lines, head north along Moorfields towards the tube station. You slip neatly into their slipstream. You pull the collars up on your overcoat, mask your nape and lower face. Like a chameleon, you’re attempting to conceal yourself, go unnoticed, just another face in the crowd. But you might as well be stalking the street naked, you suddenly feel so vulnerable and conspicuous.
Someone calls out to you. One of the security guards from your office. Eagerly bidding as you make your way towards the safety of the tube station, him coming in the opposite direction. He calls you Mr Fuller. He qualifies this with Sir.
Your mind registers his words well before your body indicates that you’ve digested/understood this utterance. You don’t even correct him: it’s Campbell-Fuller now, has been for a good few years. Deed poll has seen to that.
A billboard at the tube entrance, some campaign against assaults on underground staff. Mugshots of jovial-faced tube workers under a portentous heading VIOLENCE IS UNACCEPTABLE. This is their reality, not yours. People should not judge. All ostriches should remove their heads from the sand. You turn right down a small staircase, right again at the end towards the NORTHERN LINE, take the right hand escalator down into the bowels of the earth, switch right again at the end down a long walkway, right again at the end of that. And there the northbound platform is then the one to your immediate right. Everything, indeed, can be seen to be all right.
It’s two Northern Line minutes before a MILL HILL EAST tube pulls in, six minutes according to normal time guidelines, and you walk to keep apace with the train as it slows on the platform. Feign like you’re not actually going to board this tube, constantly checking your tangential vision, scanning for any signs of disquiet within the carriages.
By rights though, no rival firm would attack a lone Investment Banker. Unless of course that rival firm was the Charring-scum, Babbage Broon’s most hated competitors. But the scum wouldn’t dare travel this far into civilisation unless they had the numbers. And if they did indeed have the numbers just the stench of them would alert you to their presence the second they left bandit country, Canary Wharf.
Once the train’s at a halt and you’re satisfied you’ve secured a safe carriage home, you board. But you linger by the door, don’t commit to a seat. People give you a second look, possibly fear your presence for a moment too long, you not quite projecting the image of calm you might hope to convey. Them sixth-sensing the dread. They then return to their Evening Standards, its shiny Friday magazine, forget you even exist.
The tube rumbles into motion. You breathe in, blow out, balance your nerves.
At Old Street, you shape your body as if to alight from the train. You swing to face the oncoming platform, ready to exit from the carriage if any untoward groups attempt to board. Hopefully slip between them unnoticed, putting safe distance between them and you. But the platform here is deserted. You sense your heartbeat decelerate, blood pressure lessen. Stress and anxiety subside.
At Angel station you’re lowering the collars on your overcoat. At King’s Cross you allow yourself to release my overcoat’s top button, alleviate the heat and strain that’s been welling. Each new station grades another level of relaxation, of our escapism. And by Camden you allow yourself to secure a seat, take the weight from my feet. By Kentish Town your head’s buried in the Financial Times, another working day slipping safely behind us.
And when I alight at Highgate station you’re actually found whistling to yourself, walking with a spring in my step, waltzing, cocksure, retaking you over, the forthcoming weekend lifting our spirits, breathing life, the first person in you finally returning to me, your rightful owner, Charlie Campbell-Fuller.
I meander down Shepherd’s Hill towards home, kicking leaves under my feet as I go. The City is actually visible from this lofted viewpoint of London but a mere distal memory in my mind. It can be seen, but not heard. The air so much cleaner here, the stench of the City well behind, slowly dissipating from my garments, my mind. It’s an autumnal night but I now have my summer-head firmly in place.
I’ve lived in Croushén the best part of ten years, it’s London’s little secret, a villagey atmosphere near the centre of town, just as the phone numbers switch from 0207 to 0208, from inner-city to garden suburbia. I turned thirty last year, this is my rightful place in life, heading home to the wife in the sleepy suburbs, not running around the Square Mile like a loon with the lads, causing mayhem, stirring up grief, although, of course, sometimes the job necessitates these actions. Home is where the heart is. And it’s where I leave mine behind at the start of the working day as I head off to ill-gotten employment.
The Cavs are there scraping hysterically behind the front door as I amble up the garden path, almost as if they’ve sensed my presence from a hundred metres back or more, their daddy returning home from the office. Dinky and Fig spring like proverbial greyhounds from a trap as I attempt to enter the house. They spin round in circles about my feet, tongues wagging, Fig, the Blenheim, in a blur of white and chestnut, Dinky, the Tricolour, in a haze of white, tan and black. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels: the soppiest, most affectionate and most endearingly devoted of dogs. Lane absolutely adores them and I’ve a grudging weakness for them too ... when there’s no one else looking. They’re both our little babies, cute bundles of responsibility.
“Hellooo, anyone home?” I’m calling down the hallway, perhaps sensing Lane through in the conservatory, the only light in the house emanating from that way, down beyond the kitchen.
“Hiii!” my wife echoes from deep in the house.
I bluster into the kitchen, nearly tripping over a pile of clothes before the washing machine as I go, Dinky and Fig still kicking about my heels, me circling the central hob to find Lane lounging in the conservatory, her best friend Carrie squatting by her side, directing her through images on a camera. The kitchen smells mostly of vanilla (candles) and Quelques Fleurs l’Original perfume (Lane). Johnny Cash is singing from Lane’s iPad.
“Carrie’s back!” my wife informs me, sounds more Australian than I’ve heard her in a long time. Carrie’s been home in Bris Vegas for a good month or more and Lane’s been insanely jealous.
“Look, she’s taken lots of pictures of Dolly, her new niece,” my wife continues.
“Dolly’s just so beautiful,” Carrie tells me, her voice going gooey, abounding with pride, actually reaching out to stroke a camera image like one would caress an infant cheek.
The girls both make conspiring baby noises again, go starry-eyed and broody.
“Good day in the office?” Lane then asks, doesn’t seem concerned, still peruses Carrie’s pictures.
“Yeah, easy day of it,” I’m sure to tell her, remain there waiting for something, like I’m expecting a further prompt.
“I was worried when you didn’t come home on time,” Lane finally adds, still inspects Carrie’s snapshots but something in her voice speaks volumes louder than actual words and when she raises her head, gives me a half-smile, I instantly see that she was truly concerned. She’s been here without me, struggling to be brave and it’s only then that I know I’ve really, finally arrived.
“I’m, er, I’m just going to grab a shower,” I let my wife know, gild my eyes. “Slip into something more casual, okay? Get out of these work clothes.”
“Carrie and I were thinking of nipping down the Belash for a curry,” my wife starts, upbeat and happy. “Perhaps have a beer in the Queens first?”
“Yeah, not had a decent curry the whole time I’ve been away,” Carrie mentions. “That’s one thing I’ve missed about England.”
“You not missed the karaoke in the Queens then?” I rib Carrie.
“I only did ‘Mustang Sally’ that one time, Charlie,” she tells me, swivels where she squats, hands to her hips, slightly impudent. “And, as you well know, I was very, very drunk.”
“Serves you right,” my wife ribs Carrie. “You can’t manage anything stronger than Foster’s.”
“Hey, Lane! You’re supposed to be on my side, Australians-in-arms!” Carrie pretends to object, chuckling. “Just cos you married a bloody pom.”
“Oi! You live with one!” I’m quick to remind Carrie. “Where is Roy tonight anyway?”
“Oh, his cousin Martin’s recently moved down from the East Midlands, Roy’s taken him under his wing. Martin’s moved into his own little flat exactly halfway between us and you, right at the top of Ferme Park Road. I’ll give Roy a call when we’re in the pub.” Her next comment is then aimed seemingly only at my wife. “Oh, you should see Martin, Lane. So cute! But only a young ‘un, alas, he’s barely a man.”
“Er, working at the moment?” I’m interjecting. “Er, is he ... Roy?”
“Just odds and sods,” Carrie continues, back to me. “His agent thinks he might be in the running for a part in Emmerdale.”
“Sounds hopeful,” I return, then bereft of anything else to add, say, “Look, ladies, I’ll be as quick as I can in the shower.”
“Oh, did you remember, Charlie - we’re due at Jenni and James’ tomorrow?” Lane calls after me as I’m wandering along the hallway, side-stepping the Cavs, their energetic little forms.
“Sure thing.” I hang my overcoat by the front door, make my way up the stairs.
Dinky and Fig linger behind me, seem confused by having one parent pacing away from the second parent, stretching the boundaries, testing their loyalties. It’s Dinky, the little minx, who snaps first, makes a break back to Lane and Carrie. Fig pauses, soulful eyes switching back and forth, befuddled, then gives me a look as if to say ‘Sorry’ and chases her sister full pelt down the hallway, long ears flapping as she goes.
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