Saturday's Child

I looked around the room. The long, highly polished board table, probably oak, was protected by green leather blotters – everyone had a blotter, a note pad with the name of the bank on it and a pencil, recently sharpened by the person who had prepared the room earlier. Everything in its place. Kirsty McKinley, Donald’s young PA was typing all the intricate detail of our discussions into her lap top without looking up at anybody, ironically as if trying to mind her own business. Kirsty didn’t do eye contact. She was female and more junior than the others and knew her place.

I was being stared at by the last ten Governors, yes I’d counted them at a previous meeting during my many hours of boredom, hung in oils for posterity, all rather portly, all grey haired, all with dark suits, all with glasses. It was strange how they all looked alike. I can’t believe that they all looked alike as small boys so I surmised that they had been morphed into archetypal bankers over time, with archetypal looks and I guess archetypal behaviours.

Across the table from me was Sebastian Simpson, the Director of Risk. Boring as hell, looked about eighty and also combined the role with being Company Secretary. He went to Edinburgh University and liked the city so much that he decided to stay. He was left handed which irked me a little because I was left handed and thought it special. Anyway he couldn’t do mirror handwriting like I could – I’d been able to do it since a child and did it all the time, especially when I was doodling. I looked down at my green leather blotter and wrote the word ‘reknaw’.

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It was sod’s law that I picked a taxi driver who wanted to talk. I liked having chats with my taxi driver friends because they always knew what was going on. What the weather was going to do, why the council were always digging up the roads, the latest gossip on football transfers and why Tony Blair was or wasn’t fit to run the country, depending on which cabbie you were riding with.

This one, Pete, was an expert on the World Cup. I guessed that all the cab drivers in London probably were at the moment but I doubted that any of them could have matched Pete’s breadth and depth of knowledge. And of course opinion, of which he had buckets full. Buckets full of opinion that he was going to share with me, whether I was listening or not.

Brazil won’t win because Ronaldo’s past it. Rooney’s not fit enough; Gary Neville’s not good enough. David Beckham’s lost it and only any good at taking free kicks. Portugal will kick us off the park. Watch out for Louis Figo because he won’t be happy about Zinedine Zidane getting all the headlines. The ref for the England game is the one that sent off Beckham in 2002. A bloody Argentinean. England won’t win because they don’t have anybody like Martin Peters.

Did I know that Angola’s centre forward has his own brand of tinned sausages?  

I couldn’t help but smile at my cabbie’s enthusiasm and apart from nodding and saying ‘really?’ every now and then I contributed very little to the conversation. Well, monologue.

Within no time we were back at Bishopsgate with my piece of paper still unopened. I tipped him, thanked him for the chat, wished West Ham well for the season and hurried back up to the office on the 7^th floor, looking for seclusion.

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I apologised for my appearance and she just laughed. I ordered an Americano to keep me awake and vodka peach schnapps for my companion who looked stunning in a short black dress. I could tell she’d made an effort and not just come straight from the office and her long bare legs stared back at me as she crossed and uncrossed them alluringly.