NEWTON'S OPTIC:CHRISTMAS WAS looking a little tight in the Emerson household until I checked the joint account and noticed we had £87 million, writes Newton Emerson.
I was surprised that a cash machine could display so many zeroes, to be honest, although I wasn't a bit surprised
to see the actual sum. You know how it is with e-banking and online credit cards. You move money around at the click of a mouse, but it always takes an age to clear and by then you've completely lost track of what's gone where. Still, £87 million was a fair sum. Perhaps
The Irish Timeshad paid me in euro by mistake. Or perhaps Cardinal
Brady had made good on his seasonal promise to recapitalise the family. But then, the Emersons aren't Catholic. We're really from Anglo-Irish stock.
I was concerned briefly that I might have done something illegal, until I realised I was now too rich to do anything illegal. That just left the possibility of something inappropriate, irresponsible, unacceptable, unethical, or otherwise legally meaningless. However, that left £87 million as well. Suddenly, I was overpowered by an urge to play golf.
"So you want to play golf?" asked the caddie at The Inextricable Links, Belfast's leading loyalist country club.
"McAleese or McDonald?"
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Left iron or right iron," he explained.
"I don't know," I burst out. "I don't know anything about golf at all. It just seemed like the sort of thing you'd do when you think you might have ripped a bank off for £87 million."
"Hang on a minute there sunshine," the caddie broke in. "Did you say £87 million?"
"Yes."
"Not £26.5 million?"
"No."
"Well, that's all right then," he replied. "We don't like those £26.5 million types around here."
I tried to concentrate on the game, but I just kept firing balls off in every direction. My mind kept wandering back to all those zeroes. Being self-employed, I put money away in a separate account every month for the end of the tax
year in March. Or is December? The tax bill arrives in January. Or is it July?
Then there's the whole North-South double tax thing to avoid. Or is it pay? Was it possible that in an entirely honourable attempt to meet my fiscal obligations, I had accidentally borrowed £87 million while moving money between banks to meet the filing deadline? What a nightmare - that was nearly one-third the value of the
house. I was going to have to phone the wife.
"Did you know that we have £87 million in bank?" I asked.
"I was aware of it at some level," she replied.
"What do you mean 'at some level'?"
"Can you give me three weeks to answer that?"
Could I give her three weeks?
Well, of course I could. Sure, haven't we been getting into bed with each other for years?