Bahama Crisis

Although I had been worried about the investments on Grand Bahama, three years ago I decided that an upswing was due. I floated a company, the West End Securities Corporation, a holding company which I control and of which I am President. More importantly I moved my base of operations from Nassau to Freeport, and built a house at Lucaya on Grand Bahama. Nassau is an old town, a little stuffy and set in its ways. Brave new ideas do not sprout in an environment like that so I left for Grand Bahama where Wally Groves's dream seems about to come true.

I suppose I could have been pictured as a very lucky man not worrying where my next dollar was coming from, happily married to a beautiful wife with two fine children, and with a flourishing business. I was a lucky man, and I thought nothing could go wrong until the events I am about to recount took place.

Where shall I begin? I think with Billy Cunningham who was around when it happened just before the Christmas before last. It was the worst Christmas of my life.

Billy Cunningham was a part of the Cunningham clan; his father, uncle, brother and assorted cousins jointly owned a fair slice of Texas they ran beef, drilled for oil, were into shipping, newspapers, radio and television, hotels, supermarkets and other real estate, and owned moderate tracts of downtown Dallas and Houston. The Cunningham Corporation was a power to be reckoned with in Texas, and Prince Billy was in the Bahamas to see what he could see.

I had first met him at Harvard Business School where, like me, he was being groomed for participation in the family business, and we had kept in touch, meeting at irregular intervals. When he telephoned just before Christmas asking to meet me on my own ground I said, "Sure. You'll be my guest."

"I want to pick your brains," he said.

"I might have a proposition for you."

That sounded interesting. The Cunningham Corporation was the kind of thing I was trying to build West End Securities into, though I had a long way to go. I had a notion that the Cunninghams were in a mind for expansion and Billy was coming to look over the chosen ground. I would rather cooperate than have them as competitors because they were a tough crowd, and I hoped that was what Billy had in mind. We fixed a date.

I met him at Freeport International Airport where he arrived in a company jet decked in the Cunningham colours. He had not changed much; he was tall, broad-shouldered and blond, with a deep tan and gleaming teeth. The Cunninghams seemed to run to film star good looks, those of them I had met. There was nothing about him to indicate he was American, no eccentricity of style which might reasonably be expected of a Texan. Texans are notorious, even in the United States, for their unselfconscious and nostalgic frontier rig. If he ever wore them, then Billy had left his ten- gallon hat, string tie and high-healed boots at home, and was dressed in a lightweight suit of obviously English cut. Being a Cunningham he would probably order them casually by the half-dozen from Huntsman ofSavile Row.

"How's the boy?" he said as we shook hands.

"I don't think you've met Debbie this is my little cousin."

Deborah Cunningham was as beautiful as the Cunningham menfolk were handsome; a tall, cool blonde.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Cunningham."

She smiled.

"Debbie, please."

"Tell me," said Billy.

"How long is the runway?"

That was a typical Billy Cunningham question; he had an insatiable curiosity and his questions, while sometimes apparently irrelevant, always had a bearing on his current train of thought. I said, "The last time I measured it came to 11,000 feet."

"Just about handle everything," he commented. He turned and watched the Cunningham Jet Star take off, then said, "Let's move."

I drove them through Freeport on my way to the Royal Palm Hotel. I was proud of the Royal Palm; for my money it was the best hotel in the Bahamas. Of course, it had been my money that had built it, and I was looking forward to seeing Billy's reaction. On the way I said, "Is this your first time in the Bahamas, Debbie?"

"Yes."

"Mine, too," said Billy. That surprised me, and I said so.

"Just never gotten around to it." He twisted in his seat.

"Which way is Freeport?"

"Right here. You're in downtown Freeport." He grunted in surprise, and I knew why. The spacious streets, lawns and widely separated low-slung buildings were like no other city centre he had seen.

"It shows what you can do when you build a city from scr atch. Twenty years ago this was all scrubland."

"Oh, look!" said Debbie.

"Isn't that a London bus?"

I laughed.

"The genuine article. There seems to be a mystique about those all over the English-speaking world I've seen them at Niagara, too. I think the London Transport Board makes quite a profit out of selling junk buses as farming tourist attractions."