***
At around half past one, Conchita knocked on the open door to my office—my office doors are permanently open to all and sundry unless there is a need for confidentiality—and I waved her in. The name Conchita is a shortened version of María de la Concepción. This name actually celebrates the date of conception of Jesus Christ's mother, although I am uncertain as to whether the date was recorded somehow and is therefore a factual one, or whether it was simply guessed at using the average length of time until the birth. Anyway, Conchita was a junior administration assistant who had until now reported to María del Carmen. She was around thirty years old, jet black hair, neither attractive nor ugly, and the single mother of a young daughter.
Pedro had told me that she relied heavily on her employment with us and that she did her best to keep it. She was a good and conscientious worker. Well, if she were as good and conscientious as Pedro seemed to think, she would not only get to keep her job but, with María gone, I would be handing her some additional responsibilities. And if she dealt with those acceptably, she would also receive an interesting salary hike. Good and conscientious are not attributes you find on every street corner and, in any case, such attributes should be appropriately rewarded. Also, in the interests of fairness, justice and honesty, let us admit that salary raises also reduce the risk of losing such people.
Pedro had already made my day, and here was Conchita about to make it for me all over again. She had just returned from a visit to our bank and she informed me—wide-eyed she was, and not metaphorically so—that our current account had been credited with the impressive amount of €3.4 million. Was it correct or was it an error, she asked. It was quite correct, I told her, just one of our outstanding problems which by chance we had been able to fix quite quickly.
I asked her to kindly arrange for the transfer of €3 million to our deposit account for the moment. I didn't believe, I said, that my password authorization was necessary for internal transfers between two of our own accounts, but if so, she should please let me know.
She looked at me as if I were Superman, or maybe Batman or Spiderman—I personally am toying with the idea of one day creating Snakeman, a cold-blooded limbless hero who would experience truly bizarre adventures, perhaps including an on-off affair with Lizardwoman—and she went out half-backwards and sat down at her desk in the open office area.
In the afternoon I didn't do much. But one thing I did do was check my personal on-line account. And there was Jeremy's €400,000 snuggling nicely in among the more minor items and for the time being I transferred it together with the €300,000 into my interest-earning account. I would have to think about what to do with it all next week. Or maybe it didn't exist, maybe it was all a hallucination, maybe I was suffering from a delusion, I had caught a virus from Jeremy. Bullshit. But I would still check that bank balance again tomorrow—just to make sure, you understand.
I celebrated by ending my workday promptly. I loaded the suitcase into a taxi and was back in my Illetas hotel at a time when plenty of Spanish businessmen were still returning to their offices after a long lunch hour.
I hadn't forgotten to collect the tuna fish from the office refrigerator and the hotel chef was pleasantly surprised when I handed him the gift and told him how fresh it was. I'll have to get approval from the manager, he said, there are rules about accepting gifts, especially edible ones. Of course you would have to do that, I replied, but the rules do not apply to a personal gift from me to you and your family. How to make friends, even in a kitchen.
I spent an hour floating around in the sea and for the remainder of the evening I ruminated on recent events, ate some dorada for dinner and continued my ruminations over a coffee, a cigarette and a simple Hennessey; followed by another cigarette and another simple Hennessey.
Yes, I am usually a very fast worker. But—honesty to the fore as always or fairly often at least—the results of the past few days in both the Naviera and my personal finance areas were down purely and simply to Lady Luck. A couple of mermaids if you will; young ones, washed by chance into my path on an ebbing tide.
And so it was enjoyable to chew things over, and that's what I continued to do. And then I typed and transmitted two invoices for €200,000 each to Jeremy. And then I was tired and climbed happily into a bed which wasn't a damp bunk in a ship captain's cabin and fell asleep thinking about piles of money and cranes and insurance companies and tuna fish, the latter for some reason being neatly piled up on several Euro-sized pallets.
DAY 43
I decided to beat Pedro to the office today. Not to set the tone, he didn't need that, but just to make sure he knew he did not have a boss who had rules for himself and others for those who work for him. At the same time it would not be psychologically bad for the crew of the Gerona Sol to see me already there when they arrived in port.
And so I got out of bed at 4 a.m. and was in the office at shortly after five and was smoking my day's first cigarette as I watched the Gerona Sol inching its way through the harbor until it finally reached our wharf and docked. And my neurons suddenly became very pleased with themselves again, they had had another idea. Or at least they had thought of a question which was well worth putting. Why did the ship need to arrive so early, a considerable amount of time before unloading would begin? Certainly, the sooner they were back on land, the happier the ship's crew no doubt was. But an hour or two later would mean they could travel at a slower speed and that would translate into some additional significant fuel savings. I agreed with my neurons that they could file the matter under 'Urgent' and that I would discuss it with Pedro next week. After all, for all I knew, there could be a very good reason for the ships to arrive early. But even if…perhaps we could start the unloading and loading operations earlier and the ships could then leave earlier and sail at a slower speed in the other direction. Hah! Worth finding out about anyway.
At around nine o'clock Conchita brought in the few invoices which had arrived yesterday. One of the documents contained the company's credit card costs for the past month and judging by the size of some of Alfonso's travel and entertainment expenditures on the mainland, the future cost savings were not to be sniffed at. Minor ones, O.K., but all corn and malt—or grist as some would have it—to the mill.
I called Conchita back and I handed her back the invoices. I also asked her to cancel the company credit cards. I explained to her that in future any expenditures on behalf of the company by me or anybody else would be paid for by the persons involved using, if they wished, their own credit cards. They would be reimbursed via expense claims which would normally be paid before their credit charges hit their accounts. All expense claims would, for the moment, require my signatory approval. Except for mine of course, I continued, mine would need to be approved by Sr. Pujol and were not to be paid unless they had been signed by him. Even if I ask you to, I smiled. We will put these and several other procedures into writing next week, and then you will have both the responsibility and the authority for ensuring they are complied with.
She had a happy look on her face as she left the room. I think that her Mr. Superman had also become her Mr. Honestman and I think she was having some good vibes about the way the company was going to be run from now on. And this is the way it should be. A company with happy employees operates far more efficiently than one without.
Later in the morning, Pedro came to see me, quotes in hand. He recommended the second most expensive quote for the crane and the most expensive one for the ship. He explained that he had spoken with both Agustín and the crane operator, and also with himself. His recommendations were based on two criteria, he said. Firstly, both of his recommended companies were the ones most renowned for their quality and reliability, and secondly, their quotes were not crazily higher than any lower quotes, something which might, admittedly, have complicated matters somewhat. He stood fully behind his proposals.
I told him I was impressed. His criteria were the correct ones, I didn't even need to th
ink about it, I was convinced and would he please go ahead and place the orders. No need to attempt to negotiate a one or two percent reduction in price on this occasion, I said. The priority is for quality work on undertakings such as these, so let them make their profits. No provoking them into looking for ways to cut corners on the job.
Call the lucky ones up, I continued, and please ask Conchita to prepare the bank transfers for the initial down payments. And now it was Pedro's turn to be impressed. His recommendations had been accepted, his boss had trust in his views, a decision had been taken fast, and major, major problems were going to be resolved without delay.
So he also left my office with a happy look on his face. Another contented employee, another guy who would be giving his all to help make his company profitable.
I made myself a coffee and checked through my emails. And among them was a message to boggle the mind, (boggle being a fine four hundred year-old word for which one must praise its creator, whoever he was, a word whose descriptive precision is impeccably rivalled by its apposite resonance). There was only one possible reaction to this message, and that was 'Praise be to Ploutos', Ploutos being, as you probably know, the Greek God of Wealth and Riches. He was also blind, blinded by Zeus—that god who was more powerful than all of the other Greek gods put together—so that he would have to distribute the wealth indiscriminately and not only to the good, the virtuous, and any others who might have deserved it. So no matter which category I fell into, my neurons told me, I had no need to worry.
The email was from the shipping agency. Their client had after all agreed to my offer, they wanted a two-year contract with an option to prolong, and how soon would we be able to start with the first shipment? Thanks to Ploutus, and I shouldn't forget Zeus, this would wipe out our loss-making and slam the company into healthy profitability, irrespective of anything else that may or may not turn out to contribute.
It was a sunny day; pleasant, not too warm, not too cold. I went down to the dock and invited Antonio to a lunch of tapas and white wine.
"Antonio," I asked, "if I were to say that we could pull one of our ships off the Barcelona-Palma run without losing any business, and have it do a weekly run to Ceuta or Melilla instead, which ship do you think would be the best?"
"Mine," he replied without hesitation.
"Why?"
"Because with only one ship for the Barcelona-Palma route, it should be the most reliable one and that is the Mahon Star. Irrespective of anything else, that ship, and therefore its engine, is several years younger than the Gerona Sol."
"Good reasoning, Antonio," I said. "And are there any other matters to consider in this connection?"
"Not exactly," he said. “Although three of the crew on my ship are Moroccans, which might turn out to be helpful one day. And,” he added with an ambiguous smile, “everybody knows that Agustín has a girlfriend in Palma.”
And if we act on your suggestion that it be the Gerona Sol, when do you think we could start?"
"Well…let's see…I think the Mahon Star should stick to its routine, which means that it would have its non-operating Sunday here in Palma. And we would have our day off in Barcelona. If we could be loaded in Barcelona tomorrow afternoon or on Sunday, we could sail for Morocco next Monday already. Unless, of course, the cargo situation requires us to make an additional run back here; we could then start with the Africa route on, say, Thursday."
"Antonio, thank you very much," I said. "I will talk to Pedro about this and get back to you as soon as I can." And he thanked me for lunch and off he went in his jolly manner, scratching his sandy hair, and I wondered at the apparent ease with which seamen would happily sail anywhere you wanted them to. A bit like airline pilots, I supposed.
Pedro couldn't believe the news. Here was somebody else looking at me as if I were Superman and by now even I was beginning to enjoy the undeserved aura of a fake genius, why not? He agreed that the Gerona Sol was the best choice. He said that there were no cargo problems and he saw no reason why they shouldn't depart from Barcelona on the Monday as Antonio had suggested. He would speak to Antonio, who would tell his crew, he would contact Agustín who would do the same, he would speak with Fernando in Barcelona who would contact the shipping agency and start organizing the necessary loading and documentation requirements, and he would inform our employees here in the office. I asked him to arrange a small staff meeting for Monday afternoon—the Gerona Sol would be on its way to Africa by then and I would be talking fait accompli—so that I could explain to them the change and the reasons for it in more detail.
And then I replied to the shipping agency and told them Monday and would they please courier a signed notarized contract to us because our ship would not load until we had received it. I would return the contract signed as soon as possible. Alternatively, I wrote, we can start on a later date.
My new company mobile rang. It was Geoff from United Fasteners.
“Hi there, Peter,” he said, “Geoff here. So your new Spanish number works!”
“Hello Geoff, how are things?”
“Things are fine; really fine, especially the progress at Clark’s. But excluding the weather of course. It’s not Spain here!”
“Yes, I can’t say I am suffering in that regard.”
“Quite! But Roger has asked me to enquire if you could possibly make it over here for a meeting before the end of the month. Get you away from the beach. We need your advice. We ourselves have now become the object of a takeover bid. We don’t know what to do about it. Or at best, we are only 99% sure; and so we thought of you.”
“Ha, ha, Geoff, only 99%? Sure I’ll come over. Shouldn’t be a problem. And who, might I ask, dares to be interested in United Fasteners?”
“One of our shareholders; a group which has recently been increasing its shareholding on the open market. This particular group is becoming increasingly known for its successful acquisitions. You may have heard of it. Goes by the name of Obrix.”
My neurons were not surprised. Over the past few weeks they had been required to raise their surprise resistance levels more than once. They accordingly remained as calm as if they had just been told that England had lost a World Cup game. I told Geoff that I would call him within the next few days to agree on a time and date.
I then swapped phones and called Jeremy. I went straight to the point. “The connection between Obrix, United Fasteners, and me please, Jeremy,” I said.
“Ah, you have heard already?” he asked. “Well, I will explain everything to you in detail the next time we meet, Peter. This is not a matter for a telephone conversation, trust me. Briefly however, we were thinking of acquiring the United Fasteners Group. But it had a big loss-making subsidiary. And having heard about your performance from one of your prior clients, I arranged for Roger and Geoff to hear about you. And seeing what you had then began to achieve at Clark’s, I decided to find out if you would like to assist me in my university work. Anonymously, of course, in case it didn’t work out.”
Here we go again. Always these feasible explanations which fit in nicely with his alien student hallucinations. Well, I was annoyed. I was offended. What a load of crap. But there was really no point in my launching into a telephone tirade. And I would also like to continue with my money for nothing contract in Slough. So I said thank you and I said goodbye. But just you wait, Jeremy. Just wait until we next meet. You are a pleasant enough person and I quite like you but your explanations are going to need some supreme and magnificent delusionary activity on your part to have a chance of overwhelming my neurons’ mixture of perplexed confusion and outright disbelief.