Ask the Yeti how free he feels.

AS I TAKE off my hat and boots on the porch, I hear Mum in the front room: “Hold on a moment. That may be him now.” She appears, holding the phone with its cord stretched to the max. “Oh, it is! Superb timing. I’ll put him on. Wonderful to put a voice to the name, as it were, Jonny—season’s greetings and all that.”

I go in after her and mouth, “Jonny Penhaligon?” and Mum nods and leaves, closing the door behind her. The dark front room is lit by the fairy lights on the Christmas tree, pulsing on and off. The receiver lies on the wicker chair; I hold it against my ear, taking in the sound of Penhaligon’s nervous breathing, and the trancey Twin Peakstheme wafting from another room in Tredavoe House. I count from ten to zero, slowly … “Jonny! What a surprise! So sorry to keep you.”

“Hugo, hi, yeah, it’s Jonny. Hi. How are things?”

“Great. All revved up for Christmas. Yourself?”

“Not so great, to be brutally honest, Hugo.”

“Sorry to hear that. Anything I can help with?”

“Um … I don’t know. It’s a bit … awkward.”

“O -kay. Speak.”

“You know the other night, at Toad’s? You remember I was four thousand up when you called it a night?”

“Do I remember? Cleaned out in the first hour, I was. Not so the Pirate of Penzance, eh?”

“Yeah, it was … one of those charmed runs.”

“ ‘Charmed’? Four thousand quid is more than the basic student grant.”

“Well, yeah. It went to my head a bit, a lot, that and the mulled wine, and I thought how fantastic it’d be not to go groveling to Mum for funds every time the account goes low … So, anyway, you’d left, Eusebio was dealing, and I got a flush, spades, jack high. I played it flawlessly—acted like I was bluffing over a pot of crap—till over two thousand quid was on the table.”

“Shitting hell, Jonny. That’s quite a bucketful.”

“I know. We’d agreed to scrap the pot limit, and there were three of us bidding up and up, and nobody was backing down. Rinty only had two pairs, and Bryce Clegg looked at my flush and said, ‘Shafted by the Pirate again,’ but as I scooped up the pot he added, ‘Unless I’ve got—oh, what is this? A full house.’ And he had. Three queens, two aces. I should have gone then, wish to ChristI had. I was still two grand up. But I’d lost two grand and I thought it was just a blip, that if I kept my nerve I’d win it all back. Fortune favors the brave, I thought. One more hand, it’ll turn around … Toad asked me if I wanted to drop out a couple of times, but … by then I was … I was …” Penhaligon’s voice wobbles, “… ten thousand down.”

“Wow, Jonny. Them’s grown-up numbers.”

“So, yeah, we carried on, and my losses piled up, and I didn’t know why the King’s College bells were ringing in the middle of the night, but Toad opened up the curtains and it was daylight. Toad said his casino was closing for the holidays. He offered to scramble eggs for us, but I wasn’t hungry …”

“You win a few,” I console him, “you lose a few. That’s poker.”

“No, Hugo, you don’t get it. Eusebio took a hammering, but I took a … a pulverizing, and when Toad wrote down what I owe, it’s”—a strangled whisper—“ fifteen thousand, two hundred. Toad said he’ll round it down to fifteen in the interest of nice round numbers, but …”

“Your sense of honor brings out the best in Toad,” I assure him, peering through the blue velvet curtain. It’s a cold, dark indigo, streetlight-amber night out. “He knows he’s not dealing with an underclass scuzzball with a can’t-pay-won’t-pay attitude.”

Penhaligon sighs. “That’s the awkward thing, you see.”

I act puzzled. “To be honest, I don’t quite see, no.”

“Fifteen thousand pounds is … is quite a lot. A shit of a lot.”

“For a financial mortal like myself, sure—but not for old Cornish aristocracy, surely?”

“I don’t actually have that much in … my main account.”

“Oh. Right. Right! Look, I’ve known Toad since I got to Cambridge and, I promise you, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Penhaligon croaks a hope-tortured “Really?”

“Toad’s cool. Tell him that, with the banks closed over Christmas, you can’t transfer what you owe until the New Year. He knows that a Penhaligon’s word is his bond.”

Here it comes: “But I don’t have fifteen thousand pounds.”

Take a dramatic pause, add a dollop of confusion and a pinch of disbelief. “You mean … you don’t have the money …  anywhere?”

“Well … no. Not at present. If I could, I would, but—”

“Jonny. Stop. Jonny, these are your debts. Ivouched for you. To Toad. I said, ‘He’s a Penhaligon,’ and that was that. Enough said.”

“Just because your ancestors were admirals and you live in a listed building, that doesn’t make you a billionaire! Courtard’s Bank owns Trevadoe House, not us!”

“Okay, okay. Just ask your mother to write you out a check.”

“For a poker debt? Are you mad? She’d refuse point-blank. Look, what could Toad actually doif, y’know … that fifteen thousand …”

“No no no no no. Toad’s a friendly chap but he’s a businessman, and business trumps friendly chap–ness. Please. Pay.”

“But it’s only a poker game. It’s not like … a legal contract.”

“Debt’s debt, Jonny. Toad believes you owe him this money, and I’m afraid I do too, and if you refuse to honor your debt, I’m afraid the gloves would come off. He wouldn’t put a horse’s head in your bed, but he’d involve your family and Humber College, which, by the by, would take a dim view of its good name being dragged through the gutter press.”

Penhaligon hears his future, and it sounds like a bottle-bank heaved off the roof of a multistory car park. “Oh, shit. Shit. Shit.”

“One possibility doesoccur to me—but, no, forget it.”

“Right now, I’d consider anything. Anything.”

“No, forget it. I already know what the answer would be.”

“Spit it out, Hugo.”

Persuasion is not about force; it’s about showing a person a door, and making him or her desperate to open it. “That old sports car of yours, Jonny. An Alfa Romeo, is it?”

“It’s a 1969 vintage Aston Martin Coda, but—sell it?”

“Unthinkable, I know. Better just to grovel at your mother’s feet.”

“But … the car was Dad’s. He left it to me. Ilove it. How could I explain away a missing Aston Martin?”

“You’re an inventive man, Jonny. Tell your family you’d prefer to liquidate your assets and put them in a steady offshore bond issue than tear up and down Devon and Cornwall in a sports car, even if it was your father’s. Look—this just occurs to me now—there’s a dealer in vintage cars here in Richmond. Verydiscreet. I couldpop round before he closes for Christmas, and ask what sort of numbers we’re talking.”

A shuddered sigh from the chilblained toe of England.

“I guess that’s a no,” I say. “Sorry, Jonny, I wish I could—”

“No, okay. Okay. Go and see him. Please.”

“And do you want to tell Toad what’s happening or—”

“Could you call him? I—I don’t think I … I don’t …”

“Leave everything to me. A friend in need.”

I DIAL TOAD’S number from memory. His answering machine clicks on after a single ring. “Pirate’s selling. I’m off to the Alps after Boxing Day, but see you in Cambridge in January. Merry Christmas.” I hang up and let my eye travel over the bespoke bookshelves, the TV, Dad’s drinks cabinet, Mum’s blown-glass light fittings, the old map of Richmond-upon-Thames, the photographs of Brian, Alice, Alex, Hugo, and Nigel Lamb at a range of ages and stages. Their chatter reaches me like voices echoing down speaking tubes from another world.

“All fine and dandy, Hugo?” Dad appears in the doorway. “Welcome back, by the way.”

“Hi, Dad. That was Jonny, a friend from Humber. Wanted to check next term’s reading list for economics.”

“Commendably organized. Well, I left a bottle of cognac in the boot of the car, so I’m just popping out to—”