“Too bad our Richard needed a Good Samaritan. Mind you, the way you took charge of things back at the pub impressed her to pieces. She said it showed how self-possessed you are when a crisis strikes.”
“She said that? Actually said it?”
“Pretty much verbatim, yes. At the taxi rank.”
Olly’s glowing; if he was six inches tall and fluffy, Toys R Us would ship him by the thousands.
“Olly, mate, I’ll bid thee a fair repose.”
“Sorry, Hugo, sure. Thanks. G’night.”
BACK IN MY bed of woman-smelling warmth, Ness hooks a leg across my thighs: “ ‘Headmistressy’? I should kick you out of bed now.”
“Try it.” I run my hands over her pleasing contours. “You’d better leave at the crack of dawn. I sent you to Greenwich just now.”
“That’s hours away, yet. Anything could happen.”
I draw twirls around her navel with my finger, but I find myself thinking about Immaculйe Constantin. I didn’t mention her to the boys earlier; turning her into an anecdote felt unwise. Not unwise: prohibited. When I zoned out on her, she must have thought … What? That I’d entered a sort of seated coma, and left me to it. Pity.
Ness folds back the coverlet for air. “The problem with the Ollies of the world is—”
“Glad you’re so focused on me,” I tell her.
“—is their niceness. Niceness drives me mental.”
“Isn’t a nice boy what every girl is looking for?”
“To marry, sure. But Olly makes me feel trapped inside a Radio 4 play about … frightfullyearnest young men in the nineteen fifties.”
“He did mention you’d been out of sorts lately. Ratty.”
“If I’m ratty, he’s an overgrown wobbly puppy.”
“Well, the course of true love never did—”
“Shut up. He’s so em barrassing socially. I’d already decided to dump him on Sunday. Tonight just seals the deal.”
“If poor doomed Olly’s a Radio 4 play, what am I?”
“You, Hugo,” she kisses my earlobe, “are a sordid, low-budget French film. The sort you’d stumble across on TV at night. You know you’ll regret it in the morning, but you keep watching anyway.”
A lost tune is whistled in the quad below.
December 20
“A ROBIN.” Mum points through the patio windows at the garden, clogged with frozen slush. “There, on the handle of the spade.”
“He looks freshly arrived off a Christmas card,” says Nigel.
Dad munches broccoli. “What’s my spade doing out of the shed?”
“My fault,” I say. “I was filling the coal scuttle. I’ll put it back after. Though, first, I’ll put Alex’s plate to keep warm: Hot gossip and true love shouldn’t mean cold lunches.” I take my older brother’s plate to the new wood-burning oven and put it inside with a pan lid over it. “Hell’s bells, Mum. You could fit a witch in here.”
“If it had wheels,” says Nigel, “it’d be an Austin Metro.”
“Now that,” crap cars are one of Dad’s loves, “was a pile of.”
“What a pity you’ll miss Aunt Helena at New Year,” Mum tells me.
“It is.” I sit back down and resume my lunch. “Give her my love.”
“Right,” says Nigel. “Like you’d rather be stuck in Richmond over New Year than skiing in Switzerland. You’re mega-jammy, Hugo.”
“How many times have I told you?” says Dad. “It’s not—”
“What you know but who you know,” says Nigel. “Nine thousand, six hundred, and eight, including just now.”
“That’s why getting to a brand-name university matters,” says Dad. “To network with future big fish and not future small-fry.”
“I forgot to mention,” remembers Mum. “Julia’s covered herself in glory—again. She’s won a scholarship to study human-rights law, in Montreal.”
I’ve always had a thing for my cousin Julia, and the thought of covering her in anything is Byronically diverting.
“Lucky she takes after your side of the family, Alice,” says Dad, a dour reference to my ex-uncle Michael’s divorce ten years ago, complete with secretary and love child. “What’s Jason studying again?”
“Something psycho-linguisticky,” says Mum, “at Lancaster.”
Dad frowns. “Why do I associate him with forestry?”
“He wanted to be a forester when he was a kid,” I say.
“But now he’s settled on being a speech therapist,” says Mum.
“A st-st-stuttering sp-sp-speech therapist,” says Nigel.
I grind peppercorns over my mashed pumpkin. “Not grown-up and not clever, Nige. A stammer has to be the best possible qualification for a speech therapist. Don’t you think?”
Nigel does a guess-so face in lieu of admitting I’m right.
Mum sips her wine. “This wine is divine, Hugo.”
“Divine’s the word for Montrachet seventy-eight,” says Dad. “You shouldn’t be spending your money on us, Hugo. Really.”
“I budget carefully, Dad. The office-drone work I do at the solicitor’s adds up. And after everything you’ve done for me down the years, I ought to be able to stand you a bottle of decent plonk.”
“But we’d hate to think of you going short,” says Mum.
“ Oryour studies suffering,” adds Dad, “because of your job.”
“So just let us know,” says Mum, “if money’s tight. Promise?”
“I’ll come cap in hand, if that ever looks likely. Promise.”
“ Mymoney’s tight,” says Nigel, hopefully.
“You’re not living out in the big bad world.” Dad frowns at the clock. “Speaking of which, I only hope Alex’s frдulein’s parents know she’s calling England. It’s the middle of the day.”
“They’re Germans, Dad,” says Nigel. “Big fat Deutschmarks.”
“You say that, but reunification is going to cost the earth. My clients in Frankfurt are veryjumpy about the fallout.”
Mum slices a roasted potato. “What’s Alex told you about Suzanne, Hugo?”
“Not a word.” With my knife and fork I slide trout flesh off its bones. “Sibling rivalry, remember.”
“But you and Alex are the firmest of friends, these days.”
“As long as,” says Nigel, “no one utters those six deadly words, ‘Anyone fancy a game of Monopoly?’ ”
I look hurt. “Is it myfault if I can’t seem to lose?”
Nigel snorts. “Just ’cause no one knows howyou cheat—”
“Mum, Dad, you heard that hurtful, baseless aspersion.”
“—isn’t proof you don’tcheat.” Nigel wags his knife. My baby brother lost his virginity this autumn: chess magazines and Atari console out, the KLF and grooming products in. “Anyway, Iknow three things about Suzanne, using my powers of deduction. If she finds Alex attractive, then ( a) she’s blind as a bat, ( b) she’s used to dealing with toddlers, and ( c) she has no sense of smell.”
Enter the Alex: “Who’s got no sense of smell?”
“Fetch Firstborn’s dinner from the oven,” I order Nigel, “or I’ll rat you out and you’ll deserve it.” Nigel obeys, sheepishly enough.
“So how’s Suzanne?” asks Mum. “All well in Hamburg?”
“Yeah, fine.” Alex sits down. He’s a brother of few words.
“She’s a pharmacology student, you said?” states Mum.
Alex spears a brain of cauliflower from the dish. “Uh-huh.”
“And will we be meeting her at some point, do you think?”
“Hard to say,” says Alex, and I think of my own poor dear Mariвngela’s vain hopes.
Nigel puts Alex’s lunch in front of our elder brother.
“What I can’t get over,” says Dad, “is how distances have shrunk. Girlfriends in Germany, ski trips to the Alps, courses in Montreal: This is all normal nowadays. The first time I left England was to go to Rome, when I was about your age, Hugo. None of my mates had evergone so far. A pal and I got the Dover-Calais ferry, hitched a ride down to Marseille, then across to Turin, then Rome. Took us six days. It felt like the edge of the known world.”
Nigel asks, “Did the wheels come off the mail coach, Dad?”
“Funny. I didn’t go back to Rome until two years ago, when New York decided to hold the European AGM there. Off we all jetted in time for a late lunch, a few supervisions, schmoozing until midnight, then the next day we were back in London in time for—”