The Midnight Train — Maximum Speed

Maximum Speed

The Dreamer was dumbfounded. “You just carried on? You didn’t slow down your life…even after all that?”

“I sped up, if anything. I had mistaken being caffeinated and adrenalized with being alive. I had mistaken an addiction for purpose. There was no balance. I got greedy. The old gain, gain, gain. Our strategy became one of takeovers…We went hard on the discounts…We got into trouble with local booksellers because we were moving next door to them and taking their customers. I felt a kind of calm when competitors closed down, never thinking of what that meant to people’s lives. I wanted a world of no competition, no variety. Just Budd Books everywhere, my name on everything. I’d totally lost what I was in this for and it was as far away from Agnes Bagdale’s original shop as it was possible to be. I was Thomas and Ebenezer together at times…But a new era had dawned. And there were no punishments for greed. Only rewards.”

Something caught his eye through the window: Wilbur—suited, with slicked-back hair—on stage at the Excellence in Business Awards at the Metropolitan Hotel on Park Lane in London, forgetting to mention Maggie in his speech, while she sat on a table next to his empty chair, trying not to worry about the lump she had found.