Holly Lester (20 page)

As they all sat down, Holly suddenly jumped up. ‘Canon Flowing,' she said, ‘perhaps you would be kind enough to say Grace.'

At first, Canon Flowing said nothing in reply, chiefly because his mouth was already full of the bread roll each of them had on a side plate. Unruffled, he stood up slowly, swallowed carefully, then intoned, ‘Oh Lord, thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the fruit and meat. Thank you, thank you Lord.'

‘The old fraud,' said Queenie aloud, as they all sat down to their vichyssoise. Billings exchanged pleasantries about living in London with Adele Eloise while Queenie ate her soup loudly. As the main course of roast beef was served, Harry entered the room in a rush, apologizing loudly, with the ambassador in tow and a very tall man Billings recognized as his press spokesman, Hamish Ferguson. All three men wore polo shirts and blue blazers; Billings realized that he and the
Professore
were the only men wearing ties.

Harry was in exuberant spirits. ‘Sorry darling,' he called down to Holly. ‘We were on the phone with the
President
.' The boyishness of this boast was almost endearing.

‘How is he?' asked Holly.

Henry Eloise, the Ambassador replied. ‘In excellent form. And so much looking forward to meeting you both next month.'

Queenie turned to Billings and rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky them,' she said.

Adele Eloise took her literally. ‘He's just the most charismatic man,' she said, with a hint of a Texan accent.

‘That seems to be what all the girls say,' Queenie declared, and Adele Eloise blushed.

Harry Lester was continuing to talk with Henry Eloise as they were served thin slices of rare roast beef, taking great gulps of the light Italian red wine on the table. Billings caught Holly watching him watch her husband. As he blushed slightly, she gave the faintest hint of a smile.

When Adele Eloise turned to her left to talk with Trachtenberg, Billings concentrated on his plate, straining to hear the conversation between Harry and Henry Eloise. At first he thought they were talking about election campaigns, since their language was full of combat metaphors. ‘That was the bloodiest of the battles,' said Henry Eloise.

‘Many casualties?' asked Harry solicitously.

‘Lots. And more the next month when we tried to storm the hill.'

The Ambassador must have been a Vietnam veteran. Which battle was he remembering so cheerfully? The fight for Hue after Tet? Khe Sanh? Billings couldn't remember any more names. Queenie tilted her head at him, and said, ‘How was
your
war, Mr Billings?'

Thinking to humour the old bird, he explained that, being English, he had not found it necessary to fight in Vietnam. She laughed harshly, as if she had a steel rattle in her throat. ‘Neither did he,' she said, pointing at the Ambassador. ‘He and Harry are swapping
anti
-war stories. You know, where were you when the mounted police charged in Grosvenor Square? How much tear gas did you inhale after Kent State? Or are you too young for these names to mean anything to you.'

‘No, not too young,' he replied with a shake of his head.

‘Insufficiently committed then?'

He laughed. ‘Insufficiently political, actually.' He'd discovered English watercolours and girls instead, and had spent every spare moment he'd had paying for dinners he couldn't afford or hunting out remote antique shops looking for bargains. Bristol, Bath, Burford, Bury St. Edmunds – the best places for discoveries (well, for watercolours at any rate) had all seemed to start with ‘B'.

‘I was explaining to James here,' Queenie said loudly, and Billings realized she was addressing Harry at the end of the table, ‘that you and Henry share an anti-war past.'

‘And I was just saying to Henry, who would have thought in 1970 that either one of us would be sitting here?'

Queenie smiled. ‘You mean instead of demonstrating against a war, you're planning new ones. Instead of banning the bomb, you want to use little ones on the Iraqis.'

‘Not the same situation at all,' Harry said tersely, looking as if it were a struggle to suppress his irritation.

‘Of course not,' said Queenie languidly. ‘But you can understand people's confusion. One small Third World country, several large superpowers. Many bombs dropped, many people killed. The suburbs of Hanoi, the suburbs of Baghdad.'

‘Not the same at all,' Harry repeated. ‘One was a national liberation struggle, the other is a fascist state.'

‘Then kill Saddam Hussein,' urged Queenie.

‘We couldn't do that,' said Henry Eloise.

Harry explained: ‘It's not for us to force a leader on another country's people. That would go against all our democratic principles. That went out with the CIA death squads – you know, trying to poison Castro's beard. That sort of thing.'

‘I see,' said Queenie musing. ‘Since you can't kill their leader outright, you try and get the people to remove him instead.'

‘Exactly,' said Henry Eloise and Harry simultaneously.

‘And you get the people to do that by killing them.'

From the far end of the table, Holly was beckoning Harry. ‘What is it darling?' he asked in relief.

‘Alan's been telling us about the London One Thousand plans.'

Next to Billings, Queenie gave a small moan. But Harry's face lit up. ‘It could be the most important thing we do this year,' he declared. ‘Our Crystal Palace and then some.'

‘I'm sorry to be uninformed,' said Henry Eloise, looking down the table at Holly. ‘But what is the London One Thousand?' Billings was grateful to the man for asking, since he had trouble remembering himself. Some form of honour, was it, possibly for a thousand people, prominent citizens all – like that bizarre list in one of the newspapers of the most powerful figures of the land?

Trachtenberg spoke up. ‘Strictly speaking, it's twenty-two areas of chemical-infested waste land in south London. If we can transform that site, I think we can be trusted to do anything.'

‘Will there be a building?' asked Henry Eloise.

‘Many buildings,' said Trachtenberg flatly. ‘Some old, some new – actually, they'll all be new, but some will look old. A miscellany of London architecture over a millennium, showing how the city has developed since its origins a thousand years ago.'

London had started a thousand years ago? This was news to Billings. ‘A thousand years ago?' asked Queenie sceptically, reflecting his own doubts.

‘Precisely. We've documented it very well.'

Queenie looked at her son sharply. ‘You were never much of an historian.'

‘Does it really matter very much?' said Holly, like a solicitor trying to temper the zeal of a client.

‘Will there be anything
inside
the buildings?' This came from Adele Eloise, sitting next to Harry. She spoke in a flat Texan twang.

Holly started to smile, and when Adele looked puzzled, Sally Kimmo explained. ‘That's what we've just been arguing about.'

‘Couldn't you have little replicas inside?' asked Adele. ‘You know, like those models from Lilliput?'

Holly shook her head gently. ‘Alan wants to go the populist route. Arcades for the young, perhaps a disco, that sort of thing.'

Trachtenberg added, ‘You have to have something to attract people. History alone would be a little dry.'

‘It depends on what sort of people you wish to attract,' said Sally Kimmo. An image grew in Billings's mind, of the scruffy man by her car shouting ‘RICH BITCH'. He had a pretty clear idea what Sally thought about the masses Trachtenberg wanted to attract.

‘The people must be there,' declared Harry, holding a spoon full of crème brulée aloft. ‘London One Thousand was a key election promise which we have to keep. I'm not letting some bunch of elitists hijack it.'

This time Queenie's groan was audible. Holly stopped smiling, and Trachtenberg scowled at his mother. Sally Kimmo spoke again, deftly tempering her views. ‘Modern art is no respecter of class. Anyone can enjoy a Hockney, don't you think, Arnio?'

Arnio? It was the
Professore
she addressed. Billings supposed he had to have a name. The
Professore
looked unperturbed. Blinking slowly, he stared at the Georgian salt cellar in the middle of the table, then turned towards Harry Lester and said softly, ‘Perhaps Mr Billings has a view.'

Thanks a lot, thought Billings, almost dropping his own spoon of crème brulée. ‘Well,' he said, trying to gather his thoughts. Thoughts, what thoughts? Furiously he tried to make sense of the recent conversation. ‘I suppose,' he said slowly, buying time, ‘that I think there's an opportunity with the London One Thousand project that should be taken.'
Oh yeah?
, he heard the voice of Ratner in his head. Suddenly he felt visited by an epiphany – well no, just a coherent thought. But it would do. ‘If you're showing the architectural history of London on the outside, shouldn't you show its artistic history on the inside walls? You know, from Holbein to Hockney, Canaletto to the Camden Town School?'

There was a silence around the table. So much for that idea, thought Billings, beginning to blush. He hastily spooned more pudding into his mouth, then looked cautiously around him. Harry was staring at Holly, as if waiting for his cue. She nodded at him, smiling. ‘I think it's a
brilliant
idea,' he said enthusiastically. Henry Eloise and his wife both beamed at Billings.

‘Put
him
on your committee,' said Queenie to her son. But from the sour expression on Trachtenberg's face Billings wasn't going to hold his breath.

After lunch they had coffee on the terrace outside, above an immense parterred rose garden, set apart by a length of lovely lavender hedge. Sally Kimmo came up to Billings. ‘Have you been here before?' she asked.

‘Never. Have you?'

‘Once, with my husband. During Mrs Thatcher's time. This is much more enjoyable.'

‘Is that what your husband would think?'

She laughed as the
Professore
joined them. He looked at Billings benignly and said, ‘You are surprised to find me here?'

‘To be honest, yes.'

‘Sally is an old acquaintance.'

‘I hadn't realized you two knew each other,' she said, as if somehow someone should have told her. ‘From your gallery I take it?'

The
Professore
nodded. Billings noticed he was wearing especially beautiful shoes – mocha slip-ons with a gold band across the bridge of the foot.

‘I was
fascinated
by what you were saying at lunch,' Sally said to Billings. She wore a frock of white cotton with fluttering sleeves that only half-concealed the wrinkly skin of her forearms. She must be almost seventy, Billings thought with surprise, as he nodded politely. She continued: ‘I only hope it got through to Alan. He is such a Philistine at times.' She lowered her voice. ‘And that mother of his is an absolute
cauchemar
. Of course, her husband was a Communist.'

The
Professore
pursed his lips impassively while Billings thought about what next to say. Fortunately, Holly came to the rescue, and began chatting brightly about the history of Chequers. On the edge of the foursome, Billings drank his coffee, and looked out dreamily at the landscape of distant trees and rolling hills. This was the England he had missed in New York, the Albion of oaks and rose gardens, of beer and chips, of... a sharp pain in his right knee checked his reverie, and he looked down to find Sebastian the boy ready to take another imaginary penalty against his shin.

‘Darling, don't do that,' Holly said sweetly, and Billings fought against a pressing need to rub his wounded leg.

‘Mummy I'm bored.'

‘Then go and play. Terry will play with you.' Her voice was saccharine and warm.

‘No he won't. He says he's busy working to guard you. Anyway, Terry's
boring
. He never lets me hold his gun.'

Sally Kimmo tittered, and the
Professore
raised his eyes. ‘I want to play football,' Sebastian said emphatically. He looked up at Billings. ‘Will you play football with me?'

‘Perhaps later darling,' said Holly. ‘Mr Billings is talking with us all right now.'

‘
Please
,' begged the little boy, and began to howl. ‘
Please
,' he implored between rising sobs, looking again at Billings.

‘Okay,' said Billings, ‘I'll play. But just for a little while.' He excused himself and followed Sebastian around the back of the house, where the boy collected his football and Billings checked on Sam, who was sleeping peacefully across the Volvo's back seat. Lurking near the cars was Terry the Runt, talking on his mobile. He scowled at Billings and watched as he and Sebastian walked to the north side of the house and its large striped lawn.

Football consisted of Sebastian kicking the ball and Billings chasing it. Tired after five minutes, Billings was exhausted after ten, and he sank onto the lawn with his arms held up in abject surrender. Sebastian kicked the ball towards a distant Henry Moore sculpture and sat down beside him. ‘Are you here because of Daddy?' he asked.

‘Sort of.'

‘I bet you're not as important as Daddy.'

‘That is true.' Billings sat up. At a window in the house Mrs Diamond stood, watching them impassively.

‘
Why
aren't you as important as Daddy?'

Billings scratched his head. He liked children didn't he? Wasn't he a welcome sight for McBain's two, didn't R-A's young enjoy his small jokes and efforts to please on his occasional weekend visits? Hadn't he once wanted children himself, back in the first flush of love for Marla? ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?' he asked Sebastian. A little hackneyed perhaps, but he was at a loss how else to turn the subject away from ‘Daddy'.