The smallest child, built like an oblong with hair, starts growling from his seat at the table.
‘Bear, my darling, don’t do that,’ Serena says as she rushes back inside to him. ‘Shush, my sweet, shush.’
She presses his head to her chest and the child starts to grab at the zip of her top, trying to pull it down like a lecherous pub drunk.
‘Gross,’ Cosima says.
‘No, no,’ Serena admonishes while removing his hand, ‘we’ve talked about this, Bear.’
She is embarrassed and offers me a wan smile.
Their closeness repels me. I think of my own mother, of the peculiar smell of her mothballed woollen cardigans and her mid-afternoon sherry, and I remember how rarely I felt her touch. Once, she held my hand after I nearly crossed the road in front of a speeding car because I was engrossed in a comic. I must have been around Bear’s age and I recall being stunned by it.
I walk outside and take a seat on the patio. The evening sun is warm, but I choose not to remove my jacket. I’ve got the dress code wrong, but taking it off would be an admission of defeat. Besides, it would ruin the outfit. Ben comes to join me, bringing the bottle of red with him.
‘Sorry it’s so hectic,’ he says. ‘The nanny is only with us Sunday to Friday, so … all hands to the pump.’
I say nothing.
‘And, y’know, Serena’s struggled with Bear going to school. Last of her kids leaving home.’
‘How old is …’ For a moment I can’t bring myself to utter it, but I take a deep breath and manage to spit out ‘Bear?’
‘Eight,’ Ben says. Naturally, he thinks eight is an acceptable age for his child to ‘leave home’. It’s what happened to him. It’s what all the Fitzmaurices have done, from time immemorial.
‘Any summer plans, Martin?’
‘Not really. I’ll stay in Cambridge, catch up with some research.’
‘Good, good.’
Ben doesn’t ask anything about my research. Instead, he squints and gestures towards a well-pruned hedge.
‘Remember the maze?’ he asks.
I wonder if he knows. The last time I was here, I engaged in an ill-advised sexual encounter by the maze with one of the waiters from the party.
‘I do,’ I say and offer no further elaboration. ‘What about your summer plans?’ I ask, moving the conversation swiftly on. ‘Going anywhere with Serena and the children?’
‘Yes, we’ve got a couple of weeks in Ibiza. North of the island, obviously. Serena found the place. Nice villa. Pool, chef … She’s found a supplier of mushroom oil out there – her new thing. She’s thinking of importing it. Could be a good little business.’
He rolls the stem of his wine glass between his thumb and forefinger.
‘You should come out,’ he offers half-heartedly. ‘But with all this leadership stuff, I suspect I won’t be able to take much time off.’
I look at his mouth as he speaks. Once, long ago, I kissed it. It was just before we left school, in the Winter Gardens at Burtonbury. There had been months of tension leading up to that point – torturous weeks of him pretending not to want me and me pretending not to care. His parents had taken us for lunch after prize-giving but we’d escaped and gone to smoke pot in the bushes next to the bandstand. I waited until we were both high and then I took my chance to reach for Ben as he lay on his back, eyes shut, allowing the weed to hit. He pushed me away but only after his lips had responded to mine, only after he’d kissed me back.
It has never been spoken of since.
‘How’s all that going?’ I ask.
‘Pretty well. I’ve got enough support – the requisite number of names and all that. You’ll have seen that a few other candidates have announced but I’m the frontrunner.’
‘So you’ll be prime minister. Just like you’ve always wanted.’
‘It’s not over until the fat lady sings,’ Ben says. ‘And there’s the child benefit issue, which is proving tricky.’
The day’s newspapers were full of a leaked briefing paper from one of Ben’s advisers suggesting the scrapping of child benefit – an absurd idea that had clearly come from some spotty, arrogant twenty-something who’d studied PPE and gone straight into a far-right think tank.
