“I didn’t say a word.”
“You saidmm. After all these years, I know what yourmmmeans, and I will not have it.”
James was wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Barnaby. Barnaby, do you remember…God, what was his name? The Italian boy in the Lower Sixth, the one with the —”
“Tomasso.”
“Tomasso! Tomasso, who wouldn’t give Vidal the time of day for a whole term. Vidal followed him round the cloisters like a tiny deranged sheepdog, and what did he tell us at the time? Do you remember what he said?”
“He said,” Barnaby supplied, “I am not interested in him in that way at all, James, I simply enjoy teasing him out of his shell. He is so terribly buttoned up and somebody has to do it.”
“BARNABY.”
“And then,” James said, “we found Vidal in the chapel with Tomasso’s hand down the front of his trousers six weeks later.”
“BOTH OF YOU. I am ending this call. I am withdrawing my friendship and my correspondence and my Christmas cards, all of which I now realise have been wasted on a pair ofsnakes, a pair ofvipers.”
“Vidal,” Barnaby said, kindly. “We love you very much. But we all know you’re going to end up fucking poor Beauchamp.”
“I am going. I am hanging up. Goodbye, Bash. Goodbye, Jaime. May you both choke on a quail bone.” He jabbed at the red circle with his thumb and the little bright square went black.
Chapter Eighteen
Vidalhad been at the kitchen table ranting for the better part of forty minutes, and Beauchamp was beginning to suspect that no power on earth could stop him.
“— and the worst of it, Beauchamp, the very worst of it, is that he has the audacity to ring me at half past nine in the morning to ask whether I am beingcarefulabout Connor.Careful, Beauchamp. As though I am a debutante in 1953, and he is an aged uncle who has read of my activities in the society pages!”
Beauchamp turned the page of the security briefing he was, in theory, working through at the other end of the table. He had stopped reading some pages ago. He was sitting at the table to listen, and they both knew it.
He couldn’t get past the fact that Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester worked under the delusion that he could influence Vidal. The other thing that struck him was that Barnaby knew about Connor, and the fact that Vidal was talking to his friends about Connor meant that this thing between Vidal and his neighbour had gone beyond the casual.
“Do you know what I said to him, Beauchamp? I said, Barnaby,ménage à trois, you absolute fucking hypocrite. Because Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester would not currently have an Olympic boxer in his bed were it not for me. He would be a monk, Beauchamp. A handsome, well-tailored, Olympic-eventing monk, lying alone in his enormous bed, reading a biography of Wellington. For FUN, Beauchamp! Do you know what got him there?”
“No, sir.”
“A glass dildo from Murano that I sent him as congratulations for winning his Olympic gold. It is the finest gift I have given anyone in my adult life, and now its beneficiary has the temerity to lecture me about my choices.”
Beauchamp’s mobile buzzed against the wood of the table, saving him from having to comment on Vidal’s dildo largesse. He glanced down without lifting it.
DAD:EMERGENCY CALL NOW.
He breathed out through his nose and rose from the table.
“Beauchamp?”
“It’s my father, sir. Do excuse me.”
He lifted the mobile and made for the doorway. Vidal, who had never read a room in his life, was on his feet and following before Beauchamp had reached the corridor. “What is wrong with him? Is it the chickens again?”
“Sir, I’d appreciate a moment.”
“You shall have all the moments you require, Beauchamp, in my company.”
Too tired to try to argue this point, Beauchamp thumbed the green Accept Call circle and brought the mobile to his ear. “You all right, Dad?”
“Hendrix, my darling boy.”
“What’s the emergency?”
