“Yes.”
“A successful one. In cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“Well, doesn’t that involve a little lying, a little bending the truth, a little bit of the dark arts?”
“I always tried to keep myself human but, well, yes.” Margaret looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned in and whispered, “I’ve got top secret clearance. I used to read people’s MI5 files. They knoweverything.You wouldn’t believe some of the things people get up to. I couldn’t look the foreign secretary in the face after I found out what he liked to get up to at the weekend.”
Carol raised her eyebrows.
“Leather. Lots of leather,” said Margaret. “But that’s all I’ll say. My lips are sealed.”
“Then think of this like that. A little bit of the dark arts for the greater good.”
Margaret sighed, conceding Carol’s argument. “All right. If it’s for the greater good.”
They passed Elisa, who was alone at Reception going through some paperwork. Carol and Margaret moved through the lobby quickly, keeping their heads down. Polly was in an armchair near the lifts, with a pot of tea and a bag of yarn.
“That woman is always knitting,” mumbled Margaret.
“Cup of coffee, before we put our plan into motion? Perhaps something stronger for courage?” said Carol.
“Why not?”
They traveled up to Carol’s floor in the lift. Margaret said she could feel her morning G and T in her legs. Carol turned the key in her front door.
Twenty-Nine
Giles Temple shutthe door to his office and climbed out of his beekeeping suit. His back was sticky with sweat. Installing a shower in here was a nice idea but how much would that cost? He needed incomings, not outgoings. Black, not red. Giles Temple needed a miracle.
How did other people do it? How did they keep their heads above water? Was it a case of the swan’s legs? Were they hiding their frantic paddling?
It wasn’t as if Giles hadn’t been dealt a good hand. He’d boarded at Eton. Oxbridge had been a stretch, but he’d managed to get himself into St. Andrews, and a ruddy good time he’d had there, too, as president of the Drinking and Shagging Society. Then a couple of years of traveling—eight to be exact.
When he’d finally arrived back in Blighty, he’d found his dad waiting for him, unimpressed by the depth of his son’s tan, hands on hips. “What are you going todo, Giles?” His friends were all making good progress in finance, well on their way to an earlyretirement, and his working life hadn’t even got started. A couple of years (twelve to be exact) running a restaurant in Fulham followed. His dad had put up the money, told him not to mess it up, and when his dad had finally cut him off, when the bailiffs had finally caught up with Giles, his father’s hands had rested on his hips again. “You’re on your own now, old boy.”
And then something wonderful happened: Giles’s father died.
His sister got the country house, but Giles got Sheldon Oaks. He’d never have to worry about money again. To tell the truth, he’d never worried about money before. That, in fact, had been the problem all along. It was now, only now, that his money worries would start.
The place had run successfully as a high-class home for the elderly for thirty years. “Don’t tinker with it and you can’t go wrong,” his dad’s accountant had told him. But Giles had had ideas. His dad had been too conservative, too stuck in the past. Giles would be an innovator, bring luxury living for the aged into the twenty-first century. Perhaps, if he was ambitious enough, if he had a good tailwind, he could even get it into the twenty-second. In the first year, he splashed around cash like it had no value. A sauna, a pool, state-of-the-art DJ decks, a climbing wall. “This is an old people’s home,” his sister had reminded him, but Giles knew best. He’d traveled, he’d seen the world, he knew a thing or two. He wasinvesting.Elderly people don’t know they want a state-of-the-art sprung-floor martial arts studio until you give them one. He borrowed money against the value of the property and skipped all the meetings with his accountant. And now it was all coming back to bite.
There’s an inexhaustible supply of old people, he’d thought.The conveyor belt runs in one direction: They’ll keep coming. And they did, but not enough. The numbers didn’t add up anymore and he was in deep trouble, looking desperately for a way out. Selling up wouldn’t even pay off the debts, let alone leave him—a man without a CV worth wiping your arse with—any cash of his own.
Sometimes he’d slope off to a Wetherspoons during the day and look at the patrons. Could he just become one of them? They seemed happy enough. But when Giles stared at his bedroom ceiling at four in the morning, he couldn’t even work out how to fundthatlifestyle. How do they do it? How do they live? How doesanyonedo it?
Supplementary income. “Side hustles” was what they called it. That would get him out of his mess. The latest idea was honey, but after spending thousands on the suit, the equipment, the hive, he was coming to realize that he had no idea how to grow or sell it. He knew you could get about ten pounds a pot from gullible tourists in Borough Market. Not bad. If he could just find a route to zero overheads and zero tax, then all he needed to sell to get back in the black was one million pots of honey.
Giles Temple butted his head against the wall. And then again. And then again.
Thirty
“Geoffrey?” Carol saidhis name in a way that asked all the questions at once. What are you doing in my flat? Why are you asleep on my sofa? Who the fuck do you think you are?
Geoffrey opened his eyes, clearly not entirely sure where he was. The wide-awake Catherine walked out from the bedroom with a lamp in her hand. She waved it in the direction of Carol, like she was fending off a crocodile. “Geoffrey, we need to get out of here right now.”
“Oh, let’s not be silly, shall we?” said Margaret. “There’s safety in numbers. What are you both doing in Carol’s flat?”
