She hangs up before he has a chance to remonstrate that Terri mustn’t speak to him like this.
He rushes through the rotating doors and the security at Portcullis House, head down, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. He takes the stairs, as he always does, to get his daily step count in. The corridors of Portcullis House look exactly the same whatever floor you happen to be on: same green carpet, same brown walls, same smooth wooden panelling leading into infinity. He reaches his new office without anyone wanting to offer him sympathy or censure, which is a relief.
The office is poky, with sloping ceilings, small windows and a cluster of unpacked boxes. A red bucket has been placed underneath the eaves after a recent rainfall caused a leak. There is room for a desk, two dark blue armchairs and two metal bins – one for recycling and one labelled ‘General Waste for Incineration’, which feels aggressive.
‘Terri,’ he says, as he takes off his coat. He looks for somewhere to hang it but there are no hooks, so he throws it onto one of the armchairs. ‘Shall we get on with it, then?’
He rubs his hands, hoping to demonstrate the good-humoured capability of a beloved headmaster or family doctor.
‘About time,’ Terri says as she gathers up her notebook and pen and comes to sit next to him. ‘OK, so, you ready?’ Terri raises one of her tattooed eyebrows. Her face has a strangely concrete quality that Hannah once told him was the result of ‘too many fillers’. Terri’s forehead is tight and shiny, her cheeks enlarged like a squirrel storing nuts for winter. Her mouth is outlined in a permanent pinky-brown that is one shade darker than her lips.
Richard sits on the sofa.
‘Sure thing. Go for it.’
‘You might want to take notes. There’s a lot to get through.’
‘So you said. Thank you. I’ll be able to retain the necessary information.’
He takes a sip of his cappuccino, now at a temperature marginally lower than the surface of the sun.
‘First off, Gary Brotherton has been in touch and says he has some offers. He wants you to call him.’
‘Ah. Great.’
Within two hours of the porn story breaking, Richard had received a call from an ex-tabloid editor called Gary Brotherton. After quitting his job during the Leveson Inquiry into illegal phone-hacking, Gary had set up a crisis PR company called Rope Inc. (‘because if you’re on the ropes, you want to give your opponent enough rope to hang ’emselves with,’ he had explained). Gary had offered Richard his services, insisting he’d be able to ‘maximise media opportunities’ and ‘resurrect your reputation’ and that he’d be willing to waive his usual retainer for the first three months, taking only a very modest 20 per cent cut of any fees he negotiated on his client’s behalf. Arthur, who generally handled comms, wasn’t keen but Richard, who felt the need for fresh blood, had overruled him.
‘So you’ll do that, will you?’ Terri asks.
Richard nods.
‘Right. Next up. Ben Fitzmaurice has sent you an invitation to his sister’s funeral.’
‘What?’
‘I said: Ben Fitzmaurice has—’
‘No, no I heard you. I just … well, I didn’t know he had a sister.’
Terri makes a great show of lifting the invitation up to the light and re-reading it.
‘Says he did here. Lady Felicity Fitzmaurice. Funeral. 27 July. Denby Hall. You can make it if you leave the opening of the school vegetable garden by 11 a.m. There’s a train from Paddington that gets you there at …’
Richard loosens his tie. He finds himself simultaneously thrilled that he’s been invited to such an intimate society event and aghast that Ben has lost such a close family member. When he’s caught between jostling thoughts, Richard is never sure how to act. He feels like asalmon trying to leap upstream but being pushed downstream by competing currents. On the one hand, Ben has invited him to an intimate family gathering (upstream!). On the other, why hadn’t Richard known that Ben had a sister, and did this mean he wasn’t in his inner circle (downstream)? He’d seen Ben in the tea-room only yesterday and Ben had been his usual charming self; not a hint of anguish and no mention of anything even mildly awry.
‘Poor Ben,’ Richard says distractedly. It’s the sort of thing he knows he must say, rather than being a thing he actually feels. Hannah used to tell him he had no emotional intelligence. Which he thought was a bit rich, coming from her.
Perhaps, he thinks, that was simply Ben’s way of coping? Stiff upper lip and all that. Still, it does rather put into perspective his own woes. Although … he can’t help his mind wandering … grief is rather ennobling, isn’t it? He’ll get a lot of press sympathy for that if he plays it right. Unlike—
‘Richard.’ Terri brings him sharply back to the present. ‘Shall I say you’ll go, then?’
‘Yes, yes, sorry.’
‘They’re asking for charity donations instead of flowers.’ Terri’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘Addiction Recovery, so we can all guess why she carked it, can’t we?’
She gives a nasty little smile.
‘Send £250,’ he says. ‘And be sure to declare it.’
