Page 184 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

marked up in red; and when they were hired it was marked up in
black. For years I had sat and looked at those boards and seen the
green dots turn to black ones, and now I was looking at them and
seeing the colours fade away. The thing that struck me was how
quickly it had happened: three months before the boards had
shown evidence of all the activity, but as the weeks passed they
became increasingly empty. I had spent seven years working
unbelievably hard to make it a success – I had made it a success –
and the sensation of having it taken away was really quite
crippling and I just didn’t want to be there.
I found myself in the very strange position of driving a
Rolls-Royce and living in a mansion but I wasn’t making any
money. I had achieved what it takes most people a lifetime to
achieve and was still only thirty-one. Although I knew we
wouldn’t starve or become homeless – we could always have
moved to a smaller house, or downsized to a smaller car – I felt
like a complete failure, as if my dad had been right all along. It
was the business that paid for everything, but it wasn’t just that I
wondered how I would pay the bills – my fear was more
fundamental than that. When you live in a house like that and
have a lifestyle like I had, without the income to support it you
actually feel wrong, as if you don’t belong, and that feeling of
insecurity started to eat away at me.
It’s a strange sensation to own a Rolls-Royce and not be sure if
you can afford to fill its tank. Even without a mortgage the bills
were massive: there was the pool guy, the guy who cleaned the
cars, the insurance on the cars, the gardener. I don’t know how
else to describe my emotions at the time except to say that it felt
wrong to live in that house and say, ‘You know what, I’m not
going to use the Rolls this weekend,’ or ‘Let’s not have that
birthday party for the girls.’
Knowing I didn’t have the income to support the lifestyle was
emotionally damaging. I was disillusioned, disheartened, and I was

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