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By Root 1164 0

On the exposed escalators the employees were carried up and down, looking both slavish and intensely important. Nick watched the motorbike messengers in their sweaty waterproofs and leathers, and heavy boots. He felt abashed and agitated by closeness to so many people at work, in costume, in character, in the know. The building itself had the glitter of confidence, and made and retained an unending and authentic noise out of air vents, the hubbub of voices and the impersonal trundling of the escalators. Nick craned upwards for a glimpse of the regions where Lord Kessler himself might be conducting business, at that level surely a matter of mere blinks and ironies, a matter of telepathy. He knew that the old panelled boardroom had been retained, and that Lionel had hung some remarkable pictures there. In fact he had said that Nick should call in one day and see the Kandinsky . . .

Sam took him through and down into a chlorine-smelling basement where the gym and lap-pool were. "It's such a godsend, this place," he said. Nick thought it was very small, and hardly compared with the Y; he saw that he came to a gym as a gay place, but that this one wasn't gay. An old man in a white jacket handed out towels and looked seasoned to the obscenities of the bankers. Nick did a perfunctory circuit, really just to oblige Sam, who was pedalling on a bike and filling in the Times crossword. He felt he didn't know Sam very well, and had a vague sensation of being patronized. Sam's friendly Oxford cleverness had hardened, he had a glint to him like the building itself, a watchful half-smile of secret knowledge. All around them other men were slamming weights up and down. Nick wasn't sure if they were working up their aggression or working it off. In the showers they shouted esoteric boasts from stall to stall.

Nick had seen their lunch taking place in a murmurous old City dining room with oak partitions and tailcoated waiters. The restaurant Sam took him to was so bright, noisy and enormous that he had to shout out the details of his £5,000. When Sam understood he flinched backwards for a second to show he'd thought it was going to be something important. "Well, what fun," he said.

It was nearly all men in the restaurant. Nick was glad he'd worn his best suit and almost wished he'd worn a tie. There were sharp-eyed older men, looking faintly harassed by the speed and noise, their dignity threatened by the ferocious youngsters who already had their hands on a new kind of success. Some of the young men were beautiful and exciting; a sort of ruthless sex-drive was the way Nick imagined their sense of their own power. Others were the uglies and misfits from the school playground who'd made money their best friend. It wasn't so much a public-school thing. As everyone had to shout there seemed to be one great rough syllable in the air, a sort of "wow" or "yow." Sam was somewhat aloof from them but he didn't disown them. He said, "I saw a marvellous Frau ohne Schatten in Frankfurt."

"Ah yes . . . well, you know my feelings about Strauss," said Nick.

Sam looked at him disappointedly. "Oh, Strauss is good," he said. "He's very good on women."

"That wouldn't in itself put me off!" said Nick.

Sam chuckled at the point, but went on, "The orchestral music's all about men and the operas are all about women. The only interesting male parts he wrote are both trouser-roles, Octavian, of course, and the Composer in Ariadne."

"Yes, quite," said Nick, slightly pressured. "He's not universal. He's not like Wagner, who understood everything."

"He's not like Wagner at all," said Sam. "But he's still rather a genius." They didn't get round to Nick's money till the end of lunch. "It's just a little inheritance," said Nick. "I thought it might be fun to see what could be made of it."

"Mm," said Sam. "Well, property's the thing now."

"I wouldn't get much for five thousand," said Nick.

Sam gave a single laugh. "I'd buy shares in Eastaugh. They're developing half the City. Share price like the north wall of the Eiger."

"Going up fast, you mean."

"Or there's