A Friend of the Family (39 page)

‘To you and the baby,’ he said eventually. ‘For making me a better me.’

Tony looked at his watch. Fuck. He was running so late. He threw open the door of his accountant’s office and stood on the pavement in his tux and dicky-bow, frantically looking out for a cab. He’d just had a meeting with his accountant – at six o’clock on a Saturday night. He’d planned this all so badly, timed it appallingly. But he wanted to get it sorted as soon as possible, it couldn’t wait. And his accountant had very kindly agreed to meet
him at his office on a Saturday because he was taking his wife out for dinner in the West End anyway.

He ran a hand through his hair and looked around futilely. Not even a car in sight, let alone a cab. Shit. He started walking down Great Portland Street towards Oxford Circus, ignoring the curious gazes of homeward-bound, carrier-bag-laden refugees from Oxford Street. By the time he’d found a cab he’d been walking for nearly ten minutes and had started to sweat quite profusely. It was a muggy evening, overcast but humid, and he was absolutely boiling.

He collapsed into the cab with relief and opened the window wide, enjoying the fresh air against his clammy skin as the cab drove through Soho Square. He stuck a finger into the collar of his rented evening shirt to relieve some of the tightness and then he pulled the paperwork his accountant had just given him from his overnight bag and glanced through it.

It was looking good, he thought, nodding to himself. Feasible. Definitely. He’d had a meeting with his lawyer earlier that week, too, and it looked like everything was going to work out perfectly. All he had to do now was talk to Ned tonight and then he could start the fun bit – making plans for the next stage of his life.

Surprise

‘Champagne?’

A tall thin man in black and white casually thrust a tray of champagne at them as they entered the Marie Antoinette Suite where Mum’s party was being held. Ned had really wanted to check into his big, flash double bedroom when they arrived but they’d got stuck in traffic at Victoria and Mum and Dad were due to arrive in two minutes so there hadn’t been time. Ned grabbed the fullest glass on the tray and looked round the room. Fuck, he thought, Dad really had pushed the boat out with this one. It was a huge high-ceilinged room with ornate plaster mouldings on the walls, a hand-woven carpet underfoot and an enormous brass-and-crystal chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. Candles flickered in enormous candelabra on an oversized marble fireplace and a string quartet played some kind of unidentifiable classical music in the corner.

This was pure class.

Ned recognized relatives and Mum and Dad’s colleagues, standing nervously in clutches around the sides of the opulent room, looking awkward in their rented
suits and not-quite-grand-enough-for-the-surroundings dresses. He waved stiffly at a few people who were desperately trying to catch his eye, but couldn’t face making conversation with anyone until he’d had at least one glass of champagne.

He and Ness and Gervase sauntered to the side of the room and formed their own awkward little cluster, making a big show of putting their gifts on a table. They all looked round the room in awe and felt completely out of place.

‘Wow,’ said Ness, taking a big sip of her champagne. ‘This is so cool. Must have cost a
fortune.’

Another gliding man arrived at their side bearing a silver tray full of interesting looking nibble-type things.

‘What’s that?’ said Ned pointing at a picture-perfect pink thing with tomatoes on it.

‘That is a mosaic of spiced crab and marinated tomato, sir.’

‘Yum,’ said Ned, picking one up and shoving it into his mouth.

‘And what’s that?’ said Ness, whose eyes were on stalks looking at the canapés.

‘That is foie gras parfait melba with black truffle.’

‘Oooh,’ she said, almost openly salivating and picking one up delicately between her fingertips.

‘Sir?’the man inquired of Gervase, stoically unfazed by his attire.

Gervase gave the canapés a cursory glance. ‘Er, no thanks, mate,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a bowl of peanuts, though, if you’ve got them?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said the man, turning to go. Ness grabbed another couple of canapés off the tray before he left.

Ned felt a nudge in his ribs – it was Gervase informing him that Tony had just arrived.

‘Ness,’Ned whispered into her diamond-clad ear, ‘Tony’s here. Are you… you know?’

‘Mmm,’ she said, nodding furiously and shoving another canapé into her mouth. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

‘Tone!’ Gervase bellowed across the room causing everyone to turn and look at him for a second.

Tony turned and waved, walking self-consciously towards them.

Up close he was sweaty and unkempt, his gut bulging slightly out of ill-fitting rented trousers. ‘Fucking traffic,’ he said, ‘lane out on Grosvenor Road. Nightmare. Ness. Hi.’ He leant in towards his ex-girlfriend and gave her an affectionate but slightly awkward kiss on the cheek. ‘You look great,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Tony. So do you.’

‘Hmph,’ laughed Tony, facetiously, obviously aware of the fact that he looked anything but. ‘Mum and Dad are on their way. I just saw their car pulling in.’

‘Where’re Sean and Millie?’

‘Fuck knows. Probably stuck on Grosvenor Road.’

But at that precise moment Sean and Millie walked into the room, looking glowing and distinctly post-coital. Sean looked incredibly handsome in his tux and black tie and Millie looked stunning in a red silk Japanese-style dress with a huge red choker and red high heels.

‘Very James Bond,’ said Ness as they arrived in their corner of the room.

‘Where’ve you two been?’ said Ned, eyeing their flushed cheeks and slightly dishevelled hair with amusement.

‘Upstairs,’ said Sean, knowingly, ‘testing out the mattresses. You know?’

Millie threw him a naughty look and Ned couldn’t help but glance across at Ness and wonder about the quality of his own mattress. She was talking to Tony and Ned tried to gauge the chemistry between them. Tony was looking edgy and harassed and Ness was looking calm and composed. Their body language didn’t seem to imply any latent longing, but it was impossible for Ned to brush away the knowledge that if he hadn’t dumped her, Ness would still be Tony’s, 100 per cent.

‘They’re here, they’re here!’ someone shouted in a loud stage whisper. Someone dimmed the lights and closed the doors and everyone huddled together and whispered excitedly to each other.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said a silver-haired man with a preposterously English accent, ‘I present to you our guests of honour, Mr and Mrs Gerald London.’

The doors opened, then, and the lights went on. Everyone shouted ‘Surprise’ and Mum and Dad walked in looking dazed and thrilled in their best clothes. Mum’s hands went straight to her cheeks and her wide eyes worked their way around the whole room, pointing at people she recognized until her eyes fell upon her three boys standing antisocially in the corner and she burst into tears.

‘Oh Gerry!’ she kept saying. ‘What have you done, you big lummox? What have you done?!’ People surrounded them both for a few minutes and Ned and his brothers stood patiently in line until they finally got to throw their arms around their mum and dad and congratulate them.

‘Well done, you old farts,’ said Ned, squeezing his mum in a bear-hug. ‘Forty bloody years.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Tony, hugging his dad and squeezing his mum’s hand.

‘Ness!’ said Mum, spying her ex-potential-daughter-in-law. ‘You’re here!’ She looked from Ness to Tony for a second, hope shining from her eyes.

‘Of course I’m here,’ said Ness, ‘wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And your youngest son very kindly offered to escort me.’ She threw Ned a smile and threaded her arm through his and Ned puffed up like a proud pigeon.

‘Millie!’ she said, throwing her arms around her daughter-in-law-to-be and hugging her. ‘You look stunning! Gervase! Oh my goodness –
look at you
! Look at your shirt! What a hoot!’

Dad stood behind Mum, beaming proudly and making polite conversation with Bernie’s verbose brother, Uncle Liam. Ned got hijacked by some old bloke from the antiques market who apparently remembered him from when he was three years old and he’d given him a bag of lemon sherbets. Ned smiled politely and wished to God he could remember the lemon-sherbet incident so that they’d have something
to talk about. He drank more champagne, ate more canapés, talked to more and more old duffers and was getting to the point when he needed to escape when he felt someone tugging at his elbow.

It was Tony.

‘Ned,’ he said, ‘can I have a word?’

Ned threw him an uncertain look. ‘Er, yeah,’ he said, ‘sure. Is it serious?’

‘Yeah. Well. No. It’s good. I think. I hope. Look – let’s go up to my room and have a chat, yeah?’

Big Brother Is Looking After You

Ned followed his big brother up to the third floor and felt an uneasiness growing inside him as they walked. What was Tony going to say? Was he ill? Were Mum and Dad ill? Or maybe he was going to tell him to back off from Ness because he wanted her back. Maybe he could tell how much Ned wanted her and now he’d changed his mind. Shit. He didn’t like the feel of this at all.

Tony let him in to his bedroom and Ned did a quick sweep of the room. Fucking
fantastic.

‘Shit,’ he said, ‘have we all got rooms like this?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tony, loosening his tie and sitting down at the desk, ‘as far as I know.’

‘Cool!’ said Ned, perching on the edge of Tony’s massive double bed.

‘Look,’ said Tony, pulling some kind of paperwork out of a bag. ‘I’ll keep this short. I’ve got a proposal for you.’

He stopped then and stared at Ned in a way that just increased his feeling of trepidation.

‘I’m going away,’ he said.

Oh Jesus, thought Ned, Tony’s dying! Tony’s dying and he’s giving me his will.

‘Things aren’t really working out for me at the moment. I’m a bit lost and I don’t know where to turn next. I always thought by the time I got to this age I’d be married, kids on the way, that sort of thing. But it hasn’t really worked out like that. So I’m going to get out of the country for a while, do a bit of travelling…’

Ned snorted, partly with relief that Tony wasn’t dying and partly because the idea of Tony ‘doing a bit of travelling’ was totally absurd. ‘What do you mean,
travelling
he asked disdainfully.

‘I mean I’m going to get on a plane and go somewhere and spend some time there and then get on another plane and go somewhere else.’

‘Yeah, but who with?’

‘On my own.’ Tony looked at him and Ned saw a small flash of uncertainty in his eyes, a lack of confidence in himself and realized that Tony needed him to be encouraging now, not facetious.

‘On your own. Fuck, Tony, that’s, well – Jesus. That’s cool. That really is. Good on you. But what about the business?’

‘Well,’ said Tony, crossing his legs slowly, ‘that’s where you come in.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah. Look, I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve given you a lot of thought. It must be tough doing what you’ve done – going away, putting your life on hold, coming back and finding everything’s changed except you. Mum says you’ve been temping, that you don’t like it that much. And I’m selling London Cards. Selling up
and taking up a directorship. I’ll still be involved but not hands-on. And I want to make some changes to the business in the next few weeks before I float it. Expand the business a bit, rejuvenate it, bring in some new ideas, some new blood. And there’s one area we’ve never really developed properly at London Cards – fine art. So I thought, how would you like to come into the business, set up a new division?’

‘What?!’Ned’s head started buzzing slightly. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly. I was thinking about a new range, say ten designs at a time. You’d have to source them, buy them, design them – there are other people to worry about the minutiae, the marketing, the budgeting, the finance. You’d be my fine-art buyer.’

‘Shit.’Ned dropped his head into his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, ‘Christ. That’s a lot to take in – that’s like… it’s…’

‘It’s a proper job, Ned. With responsibilities and pressure.’

Yeah. Definitely. I can see that. Fuck. Can I think about it?’

‘Of course you can. Are you working on Monday?’

‘No.’

‘Come into the office. Nine o’clock. We’ll talk some more. But I just really wanted to run it by you now – give you a chance to think about it, come up with questions. Absorb the idea.’

‘God. Tony. I can’t believe this. I thought you thought I was hopeless.’

‘Well, you were.’

‘Oh
thanks.’

‘No. I’m serious. You were. You both were, you and Sean. But now I look at what Sean’s done, what he’s achieved, and it just makes me think that you’ve both got it, you just need to find your niche. Sean’s found his niche. And now you need one. You’re qualified. You’re experienced. You’re bright. And I reckon you can be hard-working.’

‘Yeah,’Ned nodded, ‘definitely.’

‘But I’m not being entirely selfless. I’m a control freak, you know that. And it’s going to be really hard for me to let go of the business completely – just knowing that there’s blood on board, that there’s a London, someone with the company name, it’ll make a huge difference to me. And to my staff.’ He smiled. ‘Keep them on their toes. I trust you, Ned. You’re my brother and you’re family and I know I can rely on you. But it’ll be up to you to keep your job going, once I’m gone. I won’t be able to pull any strings for you. If you’re crap, you’ll be sacked, just like anyone else. But you’ll be paid a decent salary…’

Ned bit his tongue to stop himself from asking
how much
exactly.

‘… and here’s the other thing. My flat. How do you feel about staying there while I’m away?’

‘What – seriously?’

‘Yeah. Definitely. I don’t fancy renting it out to strangers and I don’t want it sitting there empty. I know you love it at Mum and Dad’s but you’re twenty-seven
now, you might want a bit more freedom. And anyway – I can’t have my fine-art buyer going home to his mum and dad every night, can I?’ He grinned. ‘So, what d’you think?’