PAPER MONEY by Ken Follett

He made a disgusted noise, then looked quickly at the bed to see whether

he had disturbed her. She slept on. Good.

Out in the street, a gray Rolls-Royce pulled up at the curb a hundred

yards away. Nobody got out. Tim looked more closely, and saw the driver

open a newspaper. A chauffeur, perhaps, picking someone up at

six-thirty? A businessman who had traveled overnight and arrived too

early? Tim could not read the license plate. But he could see that the

driver was a big man; big enough to make the interior of the car seem as

cramped as a Mini.

He turned his mind back to his dilemma. What do we do in politics, he

thought, when we face two forceful but conflicting demands? The answer

came immediately: we choose a course of action which; really or

apparently, meets both needs.

The parallel was obvious. He would stay married to Julia and have an

affair with this girl. It seemed a very political solution, and it

pleased him He lit another cigarette and thought about the future. It

was a pleasant pastime. There would be many more nights here at the

flat; the occasional weekend in a small hotel in the country; perhaps

even a fortnight in the sun, on some discreet little beach in North

Africa or the West Indies. She would be sensational in a bikini.

Other hopes paled beside these. He was tempted by the thought that his

early life had been wasted; but he knew the idea to be extravagant. Not

wasted, then; but it was as if he had spent his youth working out

long-division sums and never discovered differential calculus.

He decided to talk to her about the problem and his solution. She would

say it could not be done, and he would tell her that making compromises

work was his special talent.

How should he begin? “Darling, I want to do this again, often.” That

seemed all right. What would she say? “So would I,” or. “Call me at this

number,” or: “Sorry, Timmy, I’m a one-night girl.”

No, not that; it wasn’t possible. Last night had been good for her, too.

He was special for her.

She had said so.

He stood up and put out his cigarette. I’ll go over to the bed, he

thought; and I’ll pull the blankets off her gently, and look at her

nakedness for a few moments; then I’ll lie beside her, and kiss her

belly, and her thighs, and her breasts, until she wakes; and then I’ll

make love to her again.

He looked away from her and out of the window, savoring the

anticipation. The Rolls was still there, like a gray slug in the gutter.

For some reason it bothered him. He put it out of his mind, and went

over to wake the girl.

Felix Laski did not have much money, despite the fact that he was very

rich. His wealth took the form of shares, land, buildings, and

occasionally more nebulous assets like half a film script or one third

of an invention for making instant potato chips. Newspapers were fond of

saying that if all his riches were turned into cash, he would have so

many millions of pounds; and Laski was equally fond of pointing out that

to turn his riches into cash would be close to impossible.

He walked from Waterloo railway station to the City, because he believed

that laziness caused heart attacks in men of his age. This concern with

his health was foolish, for he was as fit a fifty-year-old as could be

found within the Square Mile. Just short of six feet tall, with a chest

like the stern of a battleship, he was about as vulnerable to cardiac

arrest as a young ox.

He cut a striking figure, walking across Blackfriars Bridge in the

brittle sunshine of the early morning. His clothes were expensive, from

the blue silk shirt to the handmade shoes; by City standards he was a

dandy. This was because every man in the village where Laski had been

born wore cotton dungarees and a cloth cap; now good clothes gave him a

buzz by reminding him of what he had left behind.

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