‘But there has to be a cause for such a sudden collapse,’ she said but he was already making for the phone. He returned straight-faced.
‘They told me to hang on for a bit to see how things proceed. I think they’re being a bit too overcautious. This is the time to buy. They can be fools at times!’
He seemed to have no qualms at all, but an awful feeling had begun to develop deep in Julia’s stomach. Her father had been optimistic too though he had always kept his dealings secret, hoping desperately for the luck that always seemed to evade him. Simon, however, enjoyed the exhilaration of making money. Only last week he had borrowed hugely on a good tip and was even now waiting to see that investment reap dividends.
In all these years he’d never suffered any serious setbacks. There had been a few minor ones but he’d always bounced back, usually doubling his investments, and Julia had to admit they might not have made such a success of their business if it hadn’t been buoyed up by some timely selling of shares. Yet she couldn’t help the fear that nothing lasts and that a day might come when things could go badly wrong. She didn’t like the feeling of dread that was now churning in the pit of her stomach. Was this the day?
To her relief, despite calling his bank fools, he controlled the impulse to buy even more shares while they were low. Julia then began to wonder if she might be to blame for his caution. What if they shot up again and he’d missed out? How would she feel watching his disappointment?
The evening papers proved she’d been right to advise caution. Each one carried accounts of a continuing unprecedented wave of fear and panic-selling as almost thirteen million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange. Wall Street witnessed dazed brokers having to deal with terrified investors who were ordering them to sell at any price. At the peak of the panic, buyers were simply non-existent, with reports of the market in fact having ceased to function, stocks being dumped overboard for whatever they could bring.
As Simon read, Julia could see his face blenching. ‘It’ll right itself,’ he gasped, but she knew, and felt he did too, that it was wishful thinking.
Later edition papers continued telling of shocking collapses in value so that by eleven thirty New York time, the bottom had dropped out of the market, with police trying to control hysterical crowds in the streets. The tiniest rumour of intervention would send prices back up only to drop still further minutes later. Small investors were besieging the banks, clamouring to withdraw their money before they lost everything. Simon began thinking of his own hefty shares.
‘If mine ever dropped like that we could be in deep trouble,’ he kept saying. He had borrowed heavily throughout the last few years and if the banks called in their money, they would indeed be in trouble.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the panic died. Investors were told that it had been the fault of the ticker-tape system’s technical inadequacy to deal with such a massive volume of trading and that the big bankers had agreed to prop up the market with their own money.
As the US market began to rise, Julia felt herself able to breathe again and Simon even recovered his composure enough to feel more than a little disgruntled.
‘I said I should have bought while I had the chance. I said the bank is a fool! I should have taken no notice of their stupid warnings and bought!’
He was soon to change his mind. On Monday the first shock waves from Wall Street hit the London Stock Exchange. Almost hysterically Simon telephoned his bank to be told the best thing would be to sell whatever he could and take whatever he could get.
‘I can’t!’ he gasped at Julia. ‘Not at the price they are now.’
‘You must. You said yourself the bank knows best. If you don’t…’
She let her words fail on the unthinkable. Much of their business had come more and more to depend on income from his dabbling, as she often jokingly called it, in the share market.
It was their hard work too that provided for the major part of their comfortable lifestyle, but without his shares they might never have been able to survive in the cut-throat fashion world. They might have fallen by the wayside long ago to remain just a small boutique. She recognized that fact now, despite her fears that Simon often seemed far too rash. She’d never been tempted to have a go herself despite his urging her to. She knew where her money was safest; maybe not earning dividends or making interest, but safe nevertheless. Her father’s failures were still implanted in her memory after all these years. Now it seemed as if failure was about to come knocking at their own door.
The familiar saying popped into her mind: ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’ She turned away from the thought. Simon was no fool; a risk-taker maybe, but he had always managed to be ahead of the game.
Their partnership had been successful and they had done well. She had to remember that as she felt for him in the worst moments of his life, watching as he sat with his ear practically glued to the wireless for news as it continued to filter through.
Twenty-Nine
The London Stock Exchange was displaying little of the panic that had descended on New York, with every stock exchange across America having closed. The most London was saying with typical British understatement was that the market here was very unsettled!
‘Even so, I’m phoning to see what my bank has
