Page 39 of Duke, Actually

“Well...,” Sebastien started slowly. “I’m certain we can find you something to do at Aquilla. It’s Father’s fondest wish that you join the company.”

Max’s jaw tightened. Here he’d thought they were having a moment. But no. Seb was still Father’s lapdog. If Max had been the type to allow himself to be disappointed by people, he would have felt sadness over the fact that the boy who’d suggested they try to combine their favorite childhood games and play “footie up the mountain” andthenpretend to be wizards at the top had come home from university and fallen right into line, asking only “how high” when Father commanded he jump.

But Max wasn’t that type. You start letting people disappoint you, and you’re never not disappointed. “What everyone fails to understand is I don’twantto work in the mining company.” He heard but could not seem to excise the condescension in his voice.

“I don’t want to work in the mining company either, Max,” Seb snapped.

What?That was the last thing Max expected his brother to say.

“But someone has to do it,” Seb added, and his little-brother martyrdom irritated the hell out of Max.

“I don’t want any part of it,” Max said, and he didn’t care if he sounded self-righteous. “It’s a terrible industry.”

Seb looked at him for an uncomfortably long moment before saying, in a much quieter tone, “The way I see it, if I don’t do it, Father will get someone else to. If I’m doing it, at least I can tryto limit the environmental damage and fight for better conditions for our employees. Did you know that last year we were set to begin winding down the Rudna mine and laying off five hundred people? Did you know that I talked the board into delaying the closing for two years and committing a pile of money to a retraining fund? Do you think any of that would have happened if I hadn’t pushed for it?”

Max didn’t even know where the “Rudna mine” was or what was extracted there. “I had no idea. How did you get Father to agree to that?”

“Well, I got Elias on my side, so that helped.” Elias was Aquilla’s CEO. “I made a presentation showing that we could employ a percentage of the retrained employees in a call center I was proposing we build,” Seb said, “and that since they already knew the company there would be less turnover.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Max also had no idea why a mining company needed a call center, but that wasn’t his primary concern at the moment.

“You didn’t have any idea because you don’t pay attention,” Seb said. “You cover your ears like a child when you’re confronted with something unpleasant.”

Not a flattering assessment.

“And when youdopay attention for long enough to absorb something, it’s all black and white.” Seb’s voice was getting louder. “Mining is bad. Well, yes. But the world needs quartz, for example. What would you do without your precious iPhone? Also, we employ a great many people. Do you know how many?”

Max did not know.

“Nine thousand and change,” Seb said, not waiting for Max toanswer. “And forty-seven percent of them are in areas where the mine is the major, or only, employer. We’re it. We close, and what will happen then?”

Another rhetorical question that made Max ashamed he didn’t know how to answer.

Seb sighed, and his tone gentled. “All I’m trying to do is make our impact—on the planet, on the communities we operate in—less bad.”

Max did not know what to say. After several uncomfortably long moments of silence, he went with the truth. “I’m sorry I never knew all this.” He thought of Dani calling him “relentlessly honest.” He was proud that someone like her saw him that way. He was not a person who refused to see the truth when it was in front of him, who declined to take responsibility for that truth. No, that was Father.

“It’s all right,” Seb said, and suddenly Max wondered if Seb’s perpetual agreeableness wasn’t about agreeing so much as it was about self-preservation. One way to not be hurt by people was to make yourself immune to their opinions, as Max had done. But perhaps another way was to simply agree with them?

“Tell me about this garden project Father spoke of at Christmas.”

“It’s not a garden project. It’s a mining reclamation project.”

“Tell me more.”

“Essentially, it’s an answer to the question of what happens to mines when they’re not useful anymore, when they’re depleted or are no longer cost-effective to keep operating. And I hasten to add that it’s not as if this is an outrageous topic. It’s a standard part of the planning process for mines these days. I started thinkingabout the Lubin mine. It probably only has five profitable years left. We don’t need another call center. What are we going to do then? Abandon it?”

“Yes?”

“But what if we didn’t? What if we made it into something else? Something that kept people employed and ideally also did some good environmentally?”

“Like a charity? You could do that with an old mine?”

“Not like a charity. That’s what I can’t seem to make anyone see. It can be a legitimate business venture. It can make money. Not right away, but as with any new business, you invest at the beginning so it can be profitable later. And yes, you can do that with an old mine. You can do lots of things with old mines if you think creatively.” Seb proceeded to spin a tale of on old clay mine in Cornwall that had been transformed into an enormous domed botanical garden. “Just because this one use—mining—has run its course doesn’t mean we need to walk away.”

“That’s astounding.” Max had underestimated his brother. Probably for years. “Could we do something with a historical angle?”

“You mean a museum? Mining history? There’s no reason we couldn’t do that at one of our properties.”

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