Page 170 of Private Lives

Cath frowned. ‘Would it ruin the surprise to ask why?’

Anna took a swallow of her cocktail and prepared to tell her friend a little white lie. ‘Johnny Maxwell organises these big parties, networking things, for this society guy. I need to get to one of the parties, but the host hates Donovan Pierce lawyers because we’ve sued him.’

She hated lying to her friend.

‘It’s like James Bond,’ laughed Cath, and Anna gripped her arm.

‘Come on, we’re going over. He’s looking at us. I think he wants to take our pictures.’

‘Pictures? What for? You sure this is kosher, Anna?’

‘Absolutely,’ she whispered, and stepped forward.

54

The weather had finally turned, the long hot summer slipping suddenly into melancholy autumn in just an afternoon. Light rain spotted the pavement and a brisk wind whipped off the river, making Matt wish he had worn his trench coat rather than this thin summer suit jacket. He looked up at the leaden grey skies, surprised at how jittery he was feeling. He’d had dinner with his father on numerous occasions before; always at some flash restaurant where everyone knew Larry’s name and would approach his table to exchange ribald anecdotes while Matthew fixed his gaze on his carrots and wished he was somewhere, anywhere, else. Tonight he was eating at Larry’s house; something that to most people would sound everyday and mundane. Yet this felt so much more significant. Matt had not eaten with his father, at his house, since he was four years old and it was the Donovan family home. Tonight didn’t feel just like supper. It felt like the start of a new family life. Or perhaps a way of claiming back a lost life that had been snatched away from him.

Larry answered the door in a white apron scarred with something crimson.

‘What’s all this?’ said Matt, smiling.

‘You said you wanted supper, so I’m cooking for my son. How hard can it be?’

‘I had rather assumed you would be getting some famous chef in to do the hard work.’

Larry waved his hand dismissively as he walked back into the house. ‘Chefs? I’ve seen those telly programmes. They just drizzle olive oil on everything and bang it in the oven. I’m perfectly capable of that.’

Matt handed his father a bottle of wine and followed him into the warm kitchen. Whatever Larry was cooking did smell delicious. It reminded Matthew of the early days of his marriage, when Carla had just given up work and used to keep the house smelling wonderful with expensive candles and Waitrose suppers.

‘What’s cooking?’

‘Coq au vin.’

Larry held the bottle up, casting a critical eye over the label. Grunting, he quickly uncorked it, then pulled the roasting tin from the oven and poured Matt’s Merlot over the top of it.

‘That should perk her up a bit,’ he said.

‘Shit, Dad, that cost me forty quid.’

‘Good food is made from good ingredients,’ Larry quipped, closing the oven door with a clang. ‘Anyway, I’ve already got something waiting for us,’ he added, disappearing into the next room.

Matt walked over to the far wall, where dozens of photographs had been hung in smart black frames. There were some of Larry and Loralee’s wedding, and their honeymoon too, somewhere hot and beachy with the groom in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Then there was a series of pictures of Larry with famous clients, and shaking hands with Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela. The biggest photo was of him laughing with Bill Clinton, looking like old friends.

‘Now that figures,’ murmured Matthew with a bittersweet smile, realising how little he knew about his father’s life but excited by the idea of hearing some of the stories behind these pictures.

Larry came back holding a balloon of red wine aloft.

‘Here, try this,’ he said. ‘One of the great bottles of claret of the twentieth century.’

‘Sounds expensive,’ said Matthew, sniffing the wine.

‘It was. I’ve just been waiting for an occasion to drink it.’

They clinked their glasses together and each took a seat at the oak-topped island in the middle of the kitchen. It was funny: there had been a time, not so long ago, when the thought of having a convivial supper with Larry Donovan would have been impossible. Matthew had been too angry, too resentful. He had grown up embarrassed by his father and ashamed of the failure of his family. It wasn’t the missed Christmases and birthdays and graduations that had upset him; it was all the little things. The disapproving whispers at the school gate, the sight of other dads having a kickabout with their kids in the park, the lack of anyone to ask about girls, shaving, even sport. His mother had done her best, trying to be enthusiastic about Lego and Action Man and rugby, stretching herself thin as she tried to juggle her career and Matthew’s needs. She was a stoic, independent woman who neither encouraged contact between father and son nor badmouthed Larry to Matt either. It was as if Larry barely existed. But the truth was, Matt had thought about his father a lot, never sure if Larry was some kind of monstrous bogeyman or whether life would be more exciting with this unreliable, but unpredictable man in it. And that was what he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive his father for. For abandoning him. For being able to cut him out of his life as if he was a piece of gristle on a prime cut of fillet steak. Since he’d become a father himself, it was something he felt more fiercely.

As if he was reading his thoughts, Larry gave his son a slow smile.

‘Who’d have thought we’d be doing this, eh?’