Page 2

Mid-December 2019

‘Your first mistake, Alexander, was bringing them to a chophouse for lunch. These bastards don’t want steak and ale, even if your hipster joint does serve chips in an aluminium basket and the table is reclaimed wood from the Tower of London. They want a Louis XIV dining experience: ￡400 bottles of port, ortolan birds eaten under white napkins, baba soaked in Armagnac.’

Alex stays mute as Charlie pauses his lecture to inhale a mound of Ossetra caviar, followed by a large gulp of Screaming Eagle wine.

‘Lucky for you, the project manager phoned me. I got them into the Connaught for the chef’s table. Focking steak. Christ, you’re an amateur. We want them to stay with us when they get the contract. They’ll need lobbyists all year round.’

Charlie claps Alex on the back with enough force– had Alex been choking– to dislodge the incriminating object.

‘ Fucking steak, Charlie,’ Alex says, quietly. ‘It’s fucking with a U, not an O.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘And it was vintage c?te de boeuf.’

‘Old steak. Bloody hell.’

‘The Cassidys will be lucky to get the contract, Charlie,’ Alex says. ‘I’ve thrown everything at it, but the government doesn’t know what it’s doing with the ports and it can’t afford the technology these guys want to sell.’

‘They’re going to have to do something to keep the beggars out, Alex. It’s the people’s will. The PM has to announce a plan to deal with Brexit customs checks. Why not the Cassidys? Magic, contactless customs. Bloody geniuses, those brothers.’

‘I think the PM’s budget stretches to cardboard signs and black markers,’ Alex retorts.

‘We need more lubrication, you dry sod,’ Charlie says, and stands up abruptly, off to locate Serena, the hostess.

Alex fills his glass with the dregs of the wine and surveys his work colleagues, all one hundred and twenty of them packing out the large, dimly lit cellar room of The Fig House. This is the annual Christmas party of Thompson, Mayle ornate copper amphora vases nestle beneath traditional arches, and the leafy plants lurking in corners are reminiscent of summers in cedar-lined gardens.

The firm’s event organiser has chosen The Fig House because it’s popular, not because it’s seasonal.

Fock Christmas anyway, Alex thinks.

He had assumed when he started working in the Regency-era building that houses TM then there’s the fact he’s only gone and become a sell-out, too.

Charlie pursues Serena for the rest of the night but it’s Alex who ends up taking her home. Charlie Mills is a cocky chap with plenty of money, but Alex has plenty of money too and, ultimately, he has five inches’ height on Charlie, his hairline isn’t receding, he weighs about three stone less and is a good deal better-looking all round.

When the phone rings at 5.30 a.m., Alex wakes thinking it’s his alarm. He’s forgotten it’s Saturday. He can’t remember why there are black, lacy knickers on the floor, and the rain is so loud against the window of his top floor apartment, he’s already talking himself out of his morning run.

Then he sees Ed’s name flashing and answers the call.

‘Dad?’

‘Alex?’

‘What’s up?’ Alex shimmies quietly into an upright position. Serena barely stirs. She’s just as beautiful sans make-up, so much so Alex can forgive the fact her Bobbi Brown foundation is now spread across his 500-thread-count white pillowcase.

‘You need to come home,’ his dad says.

Alex blinks a few times, then tenses.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘Is it Vicky?’

Of course he thinks of Vicky first. Why wouldn’t he? Vicky’s employment over the last few years has entailed bouncing from one dodgy tourist resort to the next. Vicky is the sort of person to see hitch-hiking as a cheap travel option, as though those nightmare stories involving missing backpackers could never apply to her.

‘Your mum’s in hospital. She’s had a heart attack.’

Alex inhales sharply.

Mum’s only fifty-five, he thinks. She’s too young to die.

‘Is she okay?’

Serena is waking now, her hand creeping across the sheet, trying to establish where she is without opening her eyes.

‘She’s fine. She’s stable. But you need to come up here. Now.’

Ed hangs up.

Alex stares at his phone.

Why the urgency, if his mother is okay?

There’s something Ed’s not saying.

Alex shivers.

Is his mother fine. . . for now?

As he dresses, he rings Vicky’s mobile. The line doesn’t even connect, just goes straight to voicemail.

‘Vicky,’ he says, once the automated message service plays out. ‘You have to come home. Mum had a heart attack. You need to get here, quick.’

He hesitates.

‘This is my new number.’

Please, don’t let me regret giving it to you, he thinks.