Full of Money by Bill James Page A

he has to speak from an established cultural background. He’s dealing with experts.’
    â€˜Adrian certainly doesn’t criticize him for that, wherever he may live,’ Dean said. ‘I expect the programme gets a lot of complimentary tickets to concerts and so on.’
    â€˜I gather Bale’s divorced,’ Pellotte said.
    â€˜Yes,’ Edgehill said.
    â€˜Adrian’s not making a moral statement,’ Dean said. ‘Merely factual. Divorce need carry no stigma these days. It can come to any of us, can’t it, self included? And I think of royalty. Some reckon there’s a positive ratio between the scale, general bullshit and showmanship of a royal marriage and the speed of its collapse, only the Queen and Philip excluded.’
    â€˜My daughter has just ended a long relationship,’ Pellotte said. ‘She knows her own mind. Very much so.’
    â€˜Yet friendly, tolerant and mild,’ Dean said. ‘Larry, how often do you suppose she’s heard that supposed joke, “Dione! How’s your saucy daughter?” from people she bumps into around the shops and so on? Dione being the mother of Aphrodite, goddess of love, as everyone knows? Our Dione will always smile, though, as if genuinely amused by the crass fuckers. This is a kindly, balanced person – as one might expect of any child of Adrian.’
    â€˜A new friendship based on shared musical tastes sounds good for both of them, Dione and Bale, then,’ Edgehill said. ‘It would give depth.’ But naturally he sensed very rough perils. Music had a lot going for it, but also limitations when considered alongside the troublesome realities of Whitsun and Temperate.
    â€˜Well, yes it might be good,’ Pellotte said. ‘I want her happy. If Bale’s the one who can do it, Bale it has to be, phoney and gauche though he is. Some of that might wear off eventually.’
    â€˜This is a fatherly thing with Adrian,’ Dean said. ‘Priority.’
    â€˜Certainly,’ Edgehill replied. ‘Understandable.’
    â€˜Understandable, indeed, Larry,’ Dean said. ‘You have no children yourself, according to our researchers, but I can see you sympathize – can see it in your body language – the way you hold your cup.’
    â€˜Certainly,’ Edgehill said. He glanced down to see how he was holding the cup, but could read nothing unusual. He had it by the handle with thumb and first finger. Did that show a wholesome esteem for family relationships? Dean might have special insights.
    He sat down again. He seemed calmer. Perhaps he had considerable stress to deal with, and not just the problem of Dione. A rumour said he and another Pellotte employee were taken in for questioning about the murder of a journalist who had possibly shown too much interest in the firm. The sniffer? But for now at least the pacing had been effective.
    â€˜Two people on the rebound from what appear to be unsatisfactory partnerships,’ Dean said. ‘It’s a familiar kind of situation in our day and age. But this doesn’t cheapen things in the least. I mean, not a matter of desperately grabbing whichever pair of trousers comes along first. Partly what I was getting at in remarks about divorce and the absence of taint now. We’re not back to all those marriage break-up difficulties covered in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times .’
    â€˜The shared musical tastes show real affinities,’ Edgehill replied.
    â€˜Yet complex, you see that, do you, Larry?’ Dean said.
    â€˜In what respect?’ Edgehill asked.
    â€˜Several of my people don’t like the idea of a daughter of Adrian Pellotte bound up with someone from Temperate,’ Pellotte said. ‘The information’s around and spreading.’
    â€˜Why I refer to Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story ,’ Dean said. ‘Obstacles.’
    â€˜But this is so narrow, Adrian,’ Edgehill