“Evening. You look…original,” he said as I opened the front door, trying to wriggle out without him seeing the chaos inside. “Your carriage awaits.”
The chauffeur stood by the car, and as we approached, he opened the rear door. “Hello,” I said to him as I ducked my head to get in, and he ignored me.
“Do you always have a chauffeur?” I asked James as the door closed on us.
He shook his head. “It’s a service you hire. I’m just trying it to see if I like it. I have him until midnight tonight.”
“Then the limo turns into a pumpkin,” I said.
He stared at me blankly for a moment, and we drove in silence out of the village.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we wound through country lanes; it wasn’t the usual route into town. It came out sounding as if I thought I was being kidnapped. “There’s no money for a ransom.”
James smiled a more natural smile. “It’s called Jacques’s,” James said. “It’s just off Mary Magdalen Road.”
“I’ve never heard of it.” Mary Magdalen Road was not renowned for its nightlife.
“It’s not really advertised to the mass market.”
That sounded posh. I hoped I had enough money for a round. I would probably have to duck out before a second one, or forgo eating for the month.
But when we got there, my worries were for naught. It was colorful, it was cheerful, the smiles of the staff looked like real smiles. They brought us cocktails at a table below which was an aquarium, so we could look down and see neon tetras and something yellow I didn’t know the name of. A sign on the wall told us the fish tanks were soundproof, to protect the fish, but asking us to please not knock on them.
“All on my tab,” James said when he saw me scouring the drinks menu for prices. “So, what are you doing with yourself these days? Big career? Nonstop social life?”
“I’m in retail,” I said. “It keeps me really busy. I’m thinking about taking on a sideline though.” He waited for me to elaborate, and I waited for him to offer me some cleaning shifts at Langley Hall. When he didn’t, I said, “Tell me about cryptocurrency.”
“It’s pretty straightforward, really. You mine for coins, put them in your wallet—your virtual wallet—and in a matter of months theydouble, triple, quadruple their value. Simple as that.” It did sound easy. He continued, “Where I come in is that people don’t understand it, so they don’t trust it. Or they don’t know how to mine for it, or which currency to invest in, or how to monitor it. It really could make everyone rich if they knew what they were doing. Instead, those that have vision, but not the expertise, invest in it through me. I cut through the confusion. Do you have anything you want to invest?”
“What’s the minimum investment?”
“A thousand pounds.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I was thinking about it. If I could get my hands on a thousand pounds, I could double, triple, quadruple my investment. Then maybe I could invest it again, double, triple, quadruple it and so on. It didn’t take many multiples before I lost track of the fortune I could make, in the unlikely event I could get my hands on a thousand pounds.
“Are you planning to stay in your house?” James was asking. I nodded, he continued, “It’s a big house. There’s a lot of equity sitting there doing nothing. You could sell it and invest the proceeds.”
“I’m using it for living in for the foreseeable future,” I said. “I shouldn’t think I could live in a crypto coin.”
He smiled a charming smile. “I don’t mean for you to risk your security. I was thinking, if you fancied living somewhere smaller one day, you could downsize and you could also have an investment for later. But don’t do anything hasty.”
“It’s something to think about,” I said, and that was true. I could sell the house, buy a modern flat, with a cooker, and run the heating all day every day with the money I would make from the cryptocurrency.
But my family had lived in that house for generations. It was full of my memories, and it was full of my possessions, which were threatening to make their way out of the front door and all over the garden. I needed every single one of them, and I didn’t know how I’d fit them into a smaller abode. But I’d think it over.
And in fact, it was all I could think about while I was stacking shelves that week. Especially since my washing machine was sounding rattly, and I didn’t relish the idea of doing my washing in the sink once a week.
I should save a grand and invest it in cryptocurrency. I’d failed to save up for a cooker, but if I kept to a strict regime, if I had no disasters, if I could get extra shifts, maybe I could save it within four years.
After that it would be just a few months to see my investment double, but I would leave it for longer. I would wait for it to be five thousand, ten thousand, twenty. In five or six years’ time, I would never have to work again.
***
James invited me on another date.
We went to the local fun fair, which had rolled into town a few days before and was not a place I thought I’d be visiting myself. I wore a pair of secondhand jeans I’d embroidered around the hems and pockets, and a T-shirt made from patches of other T-shirts. James said that while the jeans were very individual, the T-shirt sounded a bit cannibalistic.
