Page 239 - James Caan - The Real Deal

23 · The End of an Era

‘Imagine if you came to me and asked me to invest £100 million
of your money in stocks and shares and I turned round to you and
said, ‘‘I’ve got this great company and I’m going to put all your
money into it,’’ how would you feel?’
I thought about it, and my answer was ‘vulnerable’. I wouldn’t
want all my money in shares in one company. If something
happened to the performance of that company or that sector, I
could lose a lot of money. I had been stunned how quickly things
had collapsed in the recession and I knew shares in recruitment
firms were particularly vulnerable to the wider economy, so I
turned them down. A hundred million in cash I would have taken,
but that wasn’t what was offered.
Life on the business side of things was fantastic – absolutely
fantastic – and on the home front life was just as good. I had even
found myself a John Gielgud-style butler who had recently left
service in the royal household. We had a lot of be thankful for,
and as Aisha was about to turn forty we decided to have quite a
big celebration. We planned a wonderful evening at the Cliveden
House hotel in Berkshire and invited forty couples to join us.
Aisha’s birthday fell on a Friday and it just seemed the perfect day
for a party. But the night before the event I received a phone call
that would change everything.
My mum called at about 10 p.m. to say that Dad had been
taken into hospital. She wasn’t sure if it was kidney failure, but
the doctors were running tests. I jumped in the car and drove
straight to him. By the time I got to the hospital most of my
brothers and sisters were already there and the doctors had
confirmed that he’d had a stroke. He was hooked up to countless
machines, and was pretty much out of it. Seeing him so weak left
us all distraught.
I stayed until about 2 a.m., but the doctors insisted he needed to
be left to rest completely before tests they had scheduled for the
morning. I didn’t want to leave him but I was reassured that they

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