Chapter 7: Lost Chords

I enjoy travelling on holiday, but I loathe business travel. All of my work is on computer systems, and I am happier working in my own office; there is nothing to be gained by taking myself to another location to work. Of course, I must attend meetings in order to win contracts so the business can survive but I look on business travel as a necessary evil.

Holiday travel, on the other hand, I love. I enjoy the experience from packing my suitcase to my return home. Even long delays at airports are no hardship since I can watch people in conditions where they are somewhat stressed. Observing alien customs and adapting to them is pleasant although often challenging. I am not comfortable simply slow cooking on a foreign beach but there is usually something worth looking at close by. By the end of the holiday, however, I find myself longing for a plate of mince and tatties.

Everyone who knows me is aware of this peculiarity; they know better than to suggest I will enjoy a business trip. Sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow I was pondering over the fact that several people close to me had treated the journey to San Francisco I was about to embark on as a holiday trip. They knew that I had sold the business so perhaps they assumed that was the end of my working excursions. Other people, I know, combine business with pleasure but I am stuck with my computer-like mind that processes one problem at a time. After a business trip I give myself a day or two in the office before I consider a vacation.

They might be correct, but I had doubts. It seemed wise to take out a little insurance, so I phoned my host, the senior VP I had been dealing with, asking for a brief meeting to sign and exchange final contracts before I began the holiday phase of my visit. I represented myself as old-fashioned, even a bit superstitious and he finally agreed to accommodate me in this matter.

I fell asleep in the comfort of my business class seat shortly after take-off, awakening as the captain announced that we had made landfall somewhere over Labrador, now passing more than five miles below us. As is often the case, I woke up with my thoughts in better order than when I fell asleep.

It was in April that the first approach was made for the purchase of the company. There had been offers before but they tended to fade away when the prospective buyer considered how to integrate us into his operations. We are a small company and prefer to tackle problems by assigning a single software engineer. In fact, it is an unbreakable rule that our engineers will not talk about any aspect of their task to anyone but me.

If there is a problem, it is brought to my office. If an extra engineer is required, I appoint him or her and all meetings between the two engineers are held in my presence. This rule is so strictly applied that work on a project will stop if I am unavailable. My office is routinely swept for spying devices twice a day and I frequently call for a supplementary check before a critical meeting. We are often commissioned by outside companies, and we have never leaked a single byte of data.

This level of security is only possible because we do not form teams of software specialists; the main consequence is that we are limited to contracts that can normally be handled by one operative. At conferences, I am frequently encouraged to change my policy so I could bid for the larger, more lucrative contracts. Other companies have taken that step and become very successful – one of those is the company that has just bought me out.

My courage has often been called into question, particularly by Americans for whom growth and expansion are articles of faith. My observation is that many of the large contracts carry a high risk. Work accepted in good faith can be stopped overnight because of an adverse comment in the press. The technical officers are subject to the emotional response of shareholders. The situation is even more risky if the contract is awarded by a government department.

A single question in the chamber of the House of Commons, or its equivalent elsewhere, can stop the most lucrative contract in its tracks. By remaining too small to attract large contracts I have made a very comfortable living without undue stress. I like what I do, and I am paid well to do it. Bigger companies have been happy enough to let me get on with it. Not this time, however, and I would like to understand why.

As in any other trade or profession, we gossip when we get together. I spend most of my time at conferences listening for hints of possible future contracts. Because we are so small, I have tended to ignore the whispers about impending government work. If a few scraps do fall to me, it will be as sub-contractor to the main contractor not awarded directly by the principal.

After my meeting with Alison and Rachel on Wednesday evening, I spent Thursday morning with my solicitors finalising the trusts and arranging for my flat to be offered for sale. In the afternoon, I hunted down a very able journalist who specialises in technology to his favourite bar.

“I hear you’ve become a gentleman of leisure,” he greeted me.

“I agreed a deal on Tuesday, but I’ve been talked into visiting Lake Tahoe to consolidate it.”

“Natural enough that they should want to meet their latest VP.”

“That’s just the point. I turned down the position when it was offered.”

“Tell me that again when you get back and I might believe you.”

At that point his phone rang and the man he was awaiting turned up before he had completed the call. I finished my drink and left thinking I would hear no more, but he sent me a text later that evening: ‘The word is that you were the chief object of the offer.’

I might have dismissed that as rumour, except that the deal I was offered valued the company rather higher that I had imagined. My skills as an organiser have enabled my business to thrive for thirty years but I have not worked in the sort of highly structured organisation as the one that has bought me out. Over the years, some of their executives have been harsh critics of my courage and commitment. Not, on the whole, a likely background to a better-than-expected buying price.

It is my experience that niggles are better dealt with before they become problems, and I will be uneasy until I know what is going on. Left to myself, I would have chosen a different time and place, but it seemed sensible to accept the pressing invitation from the buyers to visit them at Lake Tahoe this coming weekend.

Selling out has opened a dam and the water released is threatening to flow into channels that have been dry for some considerable time. Like a digital computer, I store lots of information, but I only solve problems one at a time. The most important need is to deal with my children but, after my meeting with Ali and Rachel, I feel the solution can be delayed until half-term when we will be together at the Retreat.

There is another looming crisis, but it has been tucked away behind a firewall for fifteen years and I am not prepared to consider it for the moment. Even when dealing with my kids, I can keep my emotions out of the decision-making process. My personal life has been safely shielded since Rachel left me and this is no time to drag it back into the forefront of my thoughts.

There was a sleek young woman waiting at San Francisco International when I cleared customs, and she whisked me to an airport hotel where binding contracts were signed and notarised. That done, she ushered me into a limo that took us to the far side of the airport where a private jet was waiting; once I climbed the steps, the door was closed, and we were taxiing before I sat down.

“Afternoon, Fergus; I don’t know if you’ll remember me. I’m J.D. Mackenzie, ‘Jock’ to my friends – and I hope that you’ll soon be one of them.”

Mackenzie is the founder and President of the company that bought me out. He is perhaps the best-known character in the software world; there are only enough people working at the heart of the business to populate a large village. If we did live in such a community, then Jock Mackenzie would be the lord of the manor. It was one of his vice-presidents who had negotiated the deal with me, and it was a serious escalation to meet the big chief.

It was only about three-thirty, San Francisco time, but it was ten o’clock at night for me and I had been travelling for almost twelve hours. I am not sure that I would be a match for Mackenzie even at my best and the sinking feeling in my gut was not entirely due to the jet climbing rapidly. ‘What you can’t cure, you must endure,’ as my Granny used to say.

“I hear you turned down the job I offered,” he began, turning in his seat to bring him perilously close to invading my personal space.

He is tall and broad-shouldered but clearly carrying too much weight. His hair is dark brown, streaked with grey at the temples but I was close enough to be sure that the whole effect had been created by his hairdresser. He gives his age as early seventies but the rumour in the industry is that he celebrated his eightieth birthday early in the year.

“Cards on the table, Fergus,” he continued, before I could reply. “I want you in my organisation. You probably heard that I usually get what I want; that’s wrong, because I always get what I want. And I want you.”

“Why?”

There was just a moment when I detected surprise, but he covered it by ringing for a stewardess and fussing over my welfare – did I want tea or could I survive on coffee and could he rustle up a sandwich or a steak? By the time we were alone again, he had decided on his approach.

He was, he insisted, astonished that I could miss the significance of his offer. It was not simply the wealth he would give me but the power I would wield in the affairs of men. He mentioned several times that he was a frequent visitor to the Oval Office of the President of the United States, whichever party the present incumbent supported.

I pointed out that I had no experience that would fit me for the post. I mentioned that his other VPs despised me for my cowardice. He listened but it was a long time before he realised that his repetition of the same incentives was not winning; he was utterly certain that everyone, in his heart, wanted power.

The flight to Lake Tahoe should have taken about half an hour but he instructed the pilot to keep flying so our discussion could continue. I was tired and the noise in the cabin was making me feel sleepy. Then he stumbled over a sentence, and I realised that he was as weary as I was. For the first time in many minutes, I looked at him closely. He had slumped in his seat and his face was puffy and grey.

“Are you Ok?” I asked, putting my hand gently on his sleeve. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Get me a new body,” he whispered, with tears filling his eyes. “I’m dying, son.”

There was a substantial pause while he pulled himself together with a visible effort.

“What I don’t need is a snivelling coward turning down the offer of my empire!”

His anger had restored his colour, so he looked much better. I think it was his apparent recovery that induced me to turn the screw.

“Why would you want a snivelling coward to take over your business?”

“My top ten people are waiting at Tahoe. They are carefully chosen, with the right mix: four women, three African Americans – I even have a Native American as a VP. But they’re all company men, even the women – in fact, especially the women, who try to be the most macho of the lot.

“You and I are the only two who have built a company from the ground floor up. They know how to do as they are told but they don’t have the balls to do what you and I did. I like that you’re a Scot; I was born in Texas but my father was from Aberdeen. He joined Exxon and moved to the States where he met my Mum. I was brought up on Rob Roy and Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

Then the leading figure in the software industry sat and told me that his entire life was a failure. His marriages had been loveless, ending in acrimonious divorces; his children learned from their mothers to loathe him; his executives were pressing him to diversify into other more profitable areas of business. I was his only hope to keep his dream alive.

I was suddenly impossibly weary. The whole situation was surreal, and I was, I am sorry to admit, too tired to be diplomatic. I laughed at him.

“You and I have built our businesses on completely different lines. If I did take on your empire, I’d have you spinning in your grave. As soon as I could, I’d dismantle the whole structure, sack your ethnically correct board and re-build according to my notions of how a business should be run.”

“I know.”

It’s not something I often talk about, but I had a dream when I founded my company, and I have kept it alive ever since. It often gets lost in the background and there have been times when I was tempted to abandon some aspects, but I managed to hold on. Jock Mackenzie always seemed my exact opposite. I wanted a fair deal for everyone including customers and employees while he rode roughshod over everyone who stood in his way.

To my mind, Jock was the archetypal American businessman, willing to do anything in his lust for wealth and power. As I listened to him now, talking of his early days writing software, it became clear that his goals then had been very similar to my own. He too wanted fairness and equity, but he quickly concluded that the only way to reach that objective was to gain power and wealth.

He wanted to wait until he could offer fairness from a position of absolute power, with no rivals, no one to demand that he act; I had opted to be fair in my dealings every day right from the start. For my beliefs, I had been dubbed ‘coward’ by Jock and others.

He wanted me to go with him to Lake Tahoe to meet his VPs, but he made no demur when I asked to be dropped off at the International Airport. We did not talk much until we had landed, and the pilot switched off the engines. I stood and offered him my hand which he grasped in both of his.

“It’s too late for me. I’ll go on grabbing power and wealth until I die. That will be my legacy, and I couldn’t let you destroy it, even if you would take the job.”

He stood up and waved his hand towards the open door with the tarmac of the apron outside.

“Escape while you can, young Fergus. I envy you, boy – but I still think you’re a snivelling coward!”

It was a deeply upsetting experience and it needed several glasses of alcohol before I fell into a restless sleep on my flight back to Britain. Jock asked for no promises from me, and I was aware that I might be one of the very few people who knew the state of his health; it was insider knowledge that would probably bring me a fortune if bought wisely on the Stock Market. Hugh had laughed at me for involving myself in the affairs of the Retreat, but it was a wholesome alternative to the hell that Jock Mackenzie had created for himself.

Jet-lagged and full of sad thoughts, I got back to my flat just before midnight on Saturday, sleeping until early Sunday afternoon. Once up and dressed, I went through texts and emails that had accumulated. I had asked Richard, my solicitor to put my flat on the market and there was a text saying he had found a likely buyer prepared to meet the price I had suggested.

There were several texts from Ali including formal thanks for the trust fund; there was an almost identically worded text from Doh, so it was not difficult to detect the influence of their Mum. She had sent thanks on her own behalf, reassuring me that Bill was happy with the arrangement. Kate had sent a single text on Friday morning telling me that they missed me and asking when I would be coming back.

She made no mention of either Elaine or Jenny, although she did send me love from Anya and Jon. The most conspicuous absence was anything at all from either Jenny or Piers. Perhaps I was still tired from my journey and depressed by my meeting with Jock, but I was unable to remove a vivid picture of the artist and her dealer in a most intimate position.

Monday morning was spent at my accountants where I met Mariam, the lady who would ensure that I paid as little as possible of the money from the sale into the government coffers. Tax avoidance is a popular preoccupation of the rich. Like that other great tradition, fox hunting, it is rightly abhorred by people who cannot afford the tax consultant or a half-decent Hunter.

I had lunch with Hassan, Richard’s assistant, who brought along the personal representative of an Arabian princeling. He agreed to pay the asking price for my flat, subject to survey. He had been under-bidder on the last flat sold in the area and his prince was not at all happy. They are from a culture where a slap on the wrist is sometimes done with a sword resulting in the loss of a hand, so I understood his anxiety. I gave Hassan a key so they could assess the furniture and fittings with a view to making an offer.

Richard’s chief assistant, Charlotte is on the verge of a partnership, and she has been given the task of seeing my affairs through to their conclusion as, I suppose, a final test of her readiness for high office. I am sure she will be more relaxed once she is on the board, but she was unrelenting that afternoon. I used to groan at the dreadful jokes Richard used to leaven legal wrangling, but I found myself longing for them before she concluded our business for the day.

As soon as I stepped into the flat, it was as if a switch had been turned off. Two twelve-hour flights in the course of thirty-six hours had taken their toll. I found some stale bread in the bin and sad-looking cheddar in the fridge, so I conjured up toasted cheese for supper. It reminded me of the meal Kate had prepared, and, on the spur of the moment, I telephoned her.

She was just about to serve dinner to Elaine, she told me. She added that all was well with them, and she wanted to know when I would be back at the Retreat.

“We miss you so much, Fergus. There are so many things we want to talk to you about, but not on the phone. I need to see your face when we talk.”

According to my phone, the call lasted one minute and fifty-three seconds.

Later, the prince’s advisor rang to ask if the paintings were included with fixtures and fittings. I told him, as I am sure he anticipated, that each of them was for sale but at a price to be agreed. He made a reasonable offer for the rest of my stuff, and I promised to send copies of photographs of my art collection that the insurers had demanded.

On Tuesday I was at the office all day talking to our clients on the telephone and to my former employees, one at a time and face to face. The clients were mainly concerned that the engineer they had been working with would still be handling their accounts. None of them was unduly concerned that overall control had passed from me to a huge corporation based halfway round the world. Was I the only one who thought that small is beautiful?

My engineers had given a great deal of thought to their futures since I broke the news to them. They had each received an email promising them new contracts on terms similar to their agreements with me. About half of them wanted to be reassured that ‘similar’ would mean no change at all, while the remainder wanted to know if it would leave room for work outside the office. I showed them the exact clause I had agreed with the new owners and spent the rest of the interviews making soothing noises.

When I got home on Tuesday evening, I had all the mechanisms for my withdrawal from business in place. I telephoned Rachel but she and Alison were at a film premiere in town. Bill and I chatted for some time, but I became irritated when he kept referring to everything that had happened as ‘lucky’. I have indeed been lucky, and I knew it was irrational to object, but I would have liked him to recognise that some at least of my luck was due to hard work and dedication over thirty years.

I went to bed early, only to lie for some time in a very unhappy frame of mind. If I had not been so dedicated to my business, Bill would not have been able to steal my wife. Now I had sold up it was clear that the sacrifice I had made earned me only a few measly pounds – well, a few measly tens of millions, I was honest enough to acknowledge. I was really no better than poor Jock Mackenzie, when you got right down to basics.