‘Yes, Grandma,’ Cosima replies, enunciating with equal volume.
‘Oh,’ her grandmother says, haughtily. ‘I see. Well. We shan’t keep you, in that case.’
Her father rolls his eyes.
‘Want me to drive you?’ he asks, turning the page of his periodical.
‘No, that’s fine, thanks. I’ll get a taxi.’
He doesn’t push it, which disappoints her. He seems preoccupied, drumming the table absentmindedly with his fingers, making the orange juice glasses wobble.
‘Why were you talking to Martin yesterday in the study?’ she asks.
‘What was that?’
She’d noticed him at the funeral – the man she couldn’t quite place. He had seemed vaguely familiar but it was only when she overheard her mother referring to him as ‘Little Shadow’ that Cosima had remembered. When she was young, LS had been a near-constant presence at family weekends and her parents’ Notting Hill dinner parties, always on the periphery. Then, without a murmur, he had disappeared. None of the children had really noticed. He’d vanished from their life as he had existed in it – without impact. It was curious to have seen him at the funeral. She suspected there was more to it than a casual invitation. Her parents always held their enemies close and their ulterior motives closer.
‘Martin. Little Shadow,’ she says.
Her father smiles and for a moment, his face loses all its stress and he looks young.
‘You remember him? Goodness! We were just catching up. Nothing important.’
‘Are you friends again, then?’
He turns away from theEconomistand looks straight at her.
‘We were never not friends.’
‘What was that?’ her grandmother asks.
‘MARTIN GILMOUR, GRANNY,’ Cosima says.
Lady Fitzmaurice shudders. It is more noticeable than her usual tremors, which the doctors have told them are symptomatic of her Parkinson’s.
‘That trumped-up little oik?’ her grandmother says, voice rising. ‘What was he doing here, Ben? Trying to weasel his way back into our good graces? Pah! He’s barking up the wrong tree and I hope you told him so in no uncertain terms.’
When she’s finished, there is an uneasy silence. Even Hector stops chewing his cereal, milky spoon suspended between bowl and mouth.
‘Mother,’ Ben says, with studied calm. ‘Martin has proved his loyalty to us. He’s been a better friend than many and it’s good to have him back in the fold. Especially given my political future.’
That’s when Cosima knows he’s going to be prime minister. It’s not even a question of wanting. Wanting is only for the people who have to try.
Her phone beeps. It’s a text from Meadow with the address of the hospital. She thinks of River, his slumped body on the ground, the shouting of the truck drivers and the strange silence of everything else.
She’s going to visit him as soon as she can get out of here.
‘Cozzie,’ her father says. ‘No phones at the table.’
She puts the phone on her lap. The Oblivion Oil sticker gleams like a beacon.
As soon as she’s in the back of Abdifatah Mohamed’s 4.89 star-rated Prius – door slammed shut, speeding away from Denby Hall, her father’s waving figure receding into the distance – her head feels clearer again. It’s difficult to remember who she is when she goes back to her family. The wholeness she experiences in the outside world is fractured into a million pieces as soon as she walks across the Fitzmaurice threshold. She knows something is expected of her but is never able to work out what it might be. All she’s certain of is that she fails to live up to it. Again and again and again. She wonders if Felicity felt the same.
The hospital is a grey, flat building set on the edge of a provincial town filled with cheap pub chains and out-of-service ATMs. Seagulls swirl overhead, squawking disconsolately as if complaining to the manager of the sky for the terrible service. Automatic doors swish open and Cosima asks for directions to the Montagu ward. She waits several minutes for the lift, gripping the straps of her backpack more tightly. She’s still in the jumper she was wearing for the action. The right cuff is worn and has a moth hole in the seam. She pokes her thumb through it, noticing once again how nervous she feels, her thoughts fluttery and wayward.
River is in the last bed of the ward, closest to the window. His face is turned away from her as she approaches. He is looking out at what passes for a view – a car park lit by weak sunshine, straggling hedges and concrete-ringed flowerbeds.
‘Hi,’ she says.
