after he’d done it. He was avoiding me. I didn’t know what was happening at that point, of course. But when it came out, I think he felt ashamed. Or at least very confused.’
‘Is there no explanation?’
‘None that makes sense.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘Annika, that’s his wife, she says he claimed he was bullied into it. I said to her, who would bully him? Nobody here at work, we are all like a family, it’s very informal.’ His voice is cracking. ‘She said it was kids. Kids! He must have been having a breakdown.’ He gulps and shifts in his chair, offering me a three-quarter view of his features. They’re struggling, and water is welling in his eyes. ‘His son’s eighteen. They have a good relationship. He’d never bully him or get his friends to. And what do kids know about futures markets? What do they care ? Hesketh, I’m so sorry. I—’
Lars Axel has started to cry. Huge sobs disrupt his body. He leans forward and hides his face in his hands. Swiftly, I start to fold paper in my head. I know I should do something else, but I’m at a loss. Then, before I can even begin to configure the etiquette of the situation, he has sprung up and walked out of his office, openly weeping. Through the glass panelling, I watch a female colleague attempt to console him. A man joins her. Then together they lead him away slowly and with great gentleness.
I stay where I am for a long time. Then I open my briefcase and take out some origami paper, and select a sheet of Classic Ivory.
Japanese tradition requires one, on a first visit, to present a gift to the host. I’m not Japanese and nor is Lars Axel, but I think: Lars Axel will see that I wanted to make a gesture of some sort, to mark his pain and my awareness of it: a memento of the few awkward moments that we spent in one another’s presence. I know that Sunny Chen appreciated his praying mantis. I make a lotus flower, and balance it carefully on his desk. It’s not much by way of consolation, I suppose. I realise I’m not talented in this department, in the way Lars Axel’s Swedish colleagues are. But nor am I ‘a robot made of meat’.
Then I leave.
Back in the hotel I sift through the financial files a second time and sort them into piles according to their relevance. I read more on the acte manqué , which leads me into medical descriptions of the psychogenic ‘fugue’ state, in which part of the mind can ‘dissociate’ from the rest and make its own independent decisions. Trauma or heavily suppressed negative emotions such as guilt, jealousy, resentment and rage can play a role in triggering the mind going behind its own back in this way. Most interesting to me are those cases which involve self-sabotage, such as the man who sends an anonymous letter to the police, accusing himself of his wife’s murder, and then denies he ever wrote it, or the nurse who injects the wrong drug ‘by accident’ to five different patients on the same day and cannot explain why, or the bride who sets fire to her wedding dress as she prepares for the ceremony. I sketch out some Venns. If I am on to something, my blood feels it before my brain and I get very hungry. I raid the mini-bar. Dried fruit. Salted cashews. The inevitable Toblerone. As I eat, I shut my eyes and wait for the connection to materialise.
But instead, along comes Freddy. He does this more and more.
I open my eyes and check the time. He will just be home from school now.
My body-clock remembers his schedule.
For my birthday back in February he gave me the dinosaur that subsequently became my one souvenir of him. It has toilet-roll cardboard legs and goggly egg-carton eyes. Its skin is a crude layer of papier mâché painted green with red spots. When I asked him what it was called, he said, ‘a Happybirthdayosaurus’. Children have no inhibitions about inventing words. The Happybirthdayosaurus stands on my desk at home next to the semi-assembled hermit crab. Freddy’s
‘Is there no explanation?’
‘None that makes sense.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘Annika, that’s his wife, she says he claimed he was bullied into it. I said to her, who would bully him? Nobody here at work, we are all like a family, it’s very informal.’ His voice is cracking. ‘She said it was kids. Kids! He must have been having a breakdown.’ He gulps and shifts in his chair, offering me a three-quarter view of his features. They’re struggling, and water is welling in his eyes. ‘His son’s eighteen. They have a good relationship. He’d never bully him or get his friends to. And what do kids know about futures markets? What do they care ? Hesketh, I’m so sorry. I—’
Lars Axel has started to cry. Huge sobs disrupt his body. He leans forward and hides his face in his hands. Swiftly, I start to fold paper in my head. I know I should do something else, but I’m at a loss. Then, before I can even begin to configure the etiquette of the situation, he has sprung up and walked out of his office, openly weeping. Through the glass panelling, I watch a female colleague attempt to console him. A man joins her. Then together they lead him away slowly and with great gentleness.
I stay where I am for a long time. Then I open my briefcase and take out some origami paper, and select a sheet of Classic Ivory.
Japanese tradition requires one, on a first visit, to present a gift to the host. I’m not Japanese and nor is Lars Axel, but I think: Lars Axel will see that I wanted to make a gesture of some sort, to mark his pain and my awareness of it: a memento of the few awkward moments that we spent in one another’s presence. I know that Sunny Chen appreciated his praying mantis. I make a lotus flower, and balance it carefully on his desk. It’s not much by way of consolation, I suppose. I realise I’m not talented in this department, in the way Lars Axel’s Swedish colleagues are. But nor am I ‘a robot made of meat’.
Then I leave.
Back in the hotel I sift through the financial files a second time and sort them into piles according to their relevance. I read more on the acte manqué , which leads me into medical descriptions of the psychogenic ‘fugue’ state, in which part of the mind can ‘dissociate’ from the rest and make its own independent decisions. Trauma or heavily suppressed negative emotions such as guilt, jealousy, resentment and rage can play a role in triggering the mind going behind its own back in this way. Most interesting to me are those cases which involve self-sabotage, such as the man who sends an anonymous letter to the police, accusing himself of his wife’s murder, and then denies he ever wrote it, or the nurse who injects the wrong drug ‘by accident’ to five different patients on the same day and cannot explain why, or the bride who sets fire to her wedding dress as she prepares for the ceremony. I sketch out some Venns. If I am on to something, my blood feels it before my brain and I get very hungry. I raid the mini-bar. Dried fruit. Salted cashews. The inevitable Toblerone. As I eat, I shut my eyes and wait for the connection to materialise.
But instead, along comes Freddy. He does this more and more.
I open my eyes and check the time. He will just be home from school now.
My body-clock remembers his schedule.
For my birthday back in February he gave me the dinosaur that subsequently became my one souvenir of him. It has toilet-roll cardboard legs and goggly egg-carton eyes. Its skin is a crude layer of papier mâché painted green with red spots. When I asked him what it was called, he said, ‘a Happybirthdayosaurus’. Children have no inhibitions about inventing words. The Happybirthdayosaurus stands on my desk at home next to the semi-assembled hermit crab. Freddy’s
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