Holly Lester (23 page)

Trachtenberg passed round stapled collections of papers. ‘These are précis of the three shortlisted construction bids. I would be grateful if you could each take them away, study them, then communicate your views to me directly, in writing please. We are almost out of time if we are to make our completion date, so please tell me your preferences by the end of the week – my Fax number is on the top sheet. Frankly I think you'll find there's really only one realistic contender.
Not
for minuting,' he said to the young woman stenographer and watched with satisfaction as she held her pen aloft in the air. ‘You'll see that the Ovis bid is very expensive, and the Markson proposed schedule would simply take too long. That leaves Farquarson, though I should stress that we must keep our minds open to all three.

‘Now, for the exhibits themselves, I suggest we break into three working groups. They should meet at the same time as this meeting, and I would urge you to meet each week for the time being – there is a lot to do. Every other week we can then meet at noon and report back on the working groups' progress.' He passed out a further sheet which listed the working groups and their members. Billings saw that he, Sally Kimmo, and Canon Flowing were to oversee the choices for artistic exhibitions. Oddly, the Arts Minister Eleanor Eeley wasn't on it. ‘So, as far as our objectives go, they are simple enough: make sure construction starts, and finishes, on given dates, and in time for what we've declared the millennium date of London. Make sure the same is true of the exhibits and entertainments we will decide upon for the interiors. But in a larger sense, it will be up to us to maximize the value this project is seen to have to all London's citizens. Hamish.'

Ferguson took up the lead without pause. ‘Thank you Alan. You've rightly pointed out the symbolic importance of this project – it's the first item of business which you could say the government's created, rather than reacted to, so it's all the more important that it be a success.

‘And that means we have to work together – and not work apart. The press will be keen to seize on anything to criticize the government; never mind what they say about a honeymoon. This project is a soft target, as you can well imagine.' He looked at them as if they were properly seen as soft; there was a corrosive look to his eyes, and his harsh estuary voice was not reassuring. ‘Therefore it's critical that none of us talks to the press about the project without the express permission of Alan, or me.' Richard Bruce's cheeks swelled a little at this point, Billings noticed, but he said nothing. ‘It's best,' Ferguson explained with a patronising lilt to his voice, ‘if you don't talk to the press at all. But if you must, you should clear anything you say with us first. I appreciate some of you may have journalist friends,' and Billings found both Ferguson and Trachtenberg staring at him, ‘but duty has to come before friendship.'

When he finished they sat in silence like chastened schoolchildren. Finally Bruce spoke up. ‘Excellent, Hamish. I know you have to be off for the eleven o'clock follies,' he added mysteriously, and Ferguson nodded and left. Bruce looked around, uncertain what to do next. Trachtenberg again came to his rescue, and led them through the rest of the agenda. There was some general conversation at the end, which fizzled out rapidly when the Canon began to contribute and turned out to speak more slowly than Billings would have thought humanly possible. He had the interesting habit of speaking through a mouthful of crumbs, for he was moving through the only plate of biscuits while he talked. In desperation, Trachtenberg finally said ‘Any Other Business,' Bruce repeated for form's sake ‘Any Other Business,' both ignored the Canon's apparent efforts to ask a question, and the meeting was adjourned. The whole thing had lasted less than half an hour, to Billings's surprise and relief. As it broke up, he heard Trachtenberg whisper to Bruce, ‘Well chaired, Richard,' and Bruce beamed.

As Billings began to make his way out of the room, the man in the Marlborough tie came over and asked him to wait behind. Obeying, he soon found himself alone at the table. Out of the window he could just catch a glimpse of the Horse Guards parade ground and he stood up to get a better view, just as the man came back into the room, holding a plastic card in his hand. ‘If you'd just follow me,' he said, and Billings walked downstairs with him, then along a corridor until they came to a large white door. The Marlborough man inserted the card into a swipe mechanism on the wall, then after an audible click swung open the door. They crossed a large hallway and came to another door. He swiped the card again and led Billings into another hallway. ‘You're now in Number Ten,' said the man handing him the card. ‘Keep this for future use; it lets you get in from our meeting room. If you go up these stairs,' he said, pointing to a main staircase, ‘and keep going, I think you'll find your next appointment waiting for you.'

Pausing before ascending, Billings suddenly found himself stampeded by a crowd of men emerging from a doorway towards the back of the hall. One of them stopped in front of him. ‘What are you doing here Billings?'

It was Fairweather, last seen on Wigmore Street but not encountered face-to-face since their memorable evening in Costello's. Billings took his time. ‘Hello,' he said, ‘I could ask the same of you.'

‘Eleven o'clock follies,' said Fairweather, with a jerk of the head towards the door he had emerged from. When Billings looked mystified he explained. ‘Hamish Ferguson gives his daily briefing downstairs. We call it the eleven o'clock follies – in Vietnam the Saigon briefing from the Americans was called the five o'clock follies. Sometimes this is just as bad. You'd never think he'd been a journalist. But what are you doing here?'

He explained his appointment, but not to Fairweather's satisfaction. ‘I know all that,' he said, ‘but surely you don't meet here.'

Billings shrugged.
Never apologize goes without saying
, Ratner had been fond of saying,
but it's actually the ‘never explain' that's most important
. So he merely shrugged and said cryptically, ‘Important government business.'

Fairweather laughed. ‘Find me someone on
un
important government business. Anyhow, got to run. See you again,' and as Billings's heart rate regained normality, Fairweather went out of the Number Ten front door, shouting at a colleague to wait for him.

Once, almost a decade before, Billings had visited the White House on business, conscripted by a British friend at the National Gallery in Washington to inspect several early nineteenth-century British paintings of America (painted before his countrymen had burned the White House down in the War of 1812). Billings had gone through such a rigmarole of security that it had taken him several hours to shed the self-consciousness and work normally in a national monument. Now was quite different; the ease with which he had gone through into the Prime Minister's residence made him feel like someone who, partly through privilege, partly through luck, has slipped off from the official tour, briefly enjoyed the status of a ‘proper' visitor, yet not had any sense of belonging.

He went up the stairs slowly, nervously, looking intently at the photographs of Prime Ministers on the walls in an effort to look as though he knew what he was doing. On the second floor he found Holly waiting for him, wearing a one-piece summer frock of white linen. Her arms were deeply tanned, and the sun had brought out a freckle or two on her nose. She was surrounded by covered furniture and painters' sheets spread over the floor. She led him into what had once been a sitting room, though it was now without furniture and half the wall paper had been stripped away. A large hole in one interior wall revealed an equally stark room adjoining it.

‘You're living in this?' he asked in disbelief.

Holly looked tense. ‘Welcome to the wonders of Ten Downing Street.' She pointed at the hole in the wall. ‘And Eleven for that matter.'

‘You're knocking through?'

‘Absolutely. It's the only way to make this place liveable. The Chancellor doesn't care – his girlfriend would much sooner have him at her place. It's going to take months to do, maybe even years, so it's the perfect excuse not to live here.'

‘Is this widely known?' There had been nothing in the press.

‘No. And I'm sure there will be absolute hell to pay when it does come out. Especially about the cost. All the walls were specially reinforced years ago because of the IRA.' She pointed at the ragged wall. ‘That wall alone took three men two days to knock through. But when it does come out that we're not living here, it will be far too late – who could expect us to live in a building site? I'll stay nicely tucked up in Primrose Hill, thank you very much.'

He shook his head in appreciation, both of her
léger de main
and of the scope of the job ahead. ‘Who's doing this?'

‘What? You mean the building work?' He nodded. ‘I've got half of bloody RIBA working on it, if that's what you mean.'

‘I'm sure the building will be all right. But what about the rooms? Who's designing them?'

‘The architects of course. But if you mean, who's going to decorate them, I thought that would be something you and I could do.'

He wasn't sure he had heard her correctly, and he looked at her in the hope that he could somehow revisit the sentence and find an appropriate meaning. She interrupted this process, which in any case was assuming the futility of an atheist's pilgrimage to Lourdes. ‘You needn't look quite so startled. I'm sure you've got very good taste, and I wouldn't say I was entirely a slouch about these matters.'

‘Holly,' he said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, ‘I know sweet fuck all about interior design. I thought you'd put me on the London thingummybob committee so we could meet here privately. I thought that was excuse enough. Now I find this place is a builder's site and I'm supposed to play David Hicks with the rooms.'

‘Don't look so sad,' she said with a commanding laugh. ‘There'll be lots of help if we need it. Sally Kimmo spends more on her curtains than most people spend buying their actual house – she can get us any decorator we want. Who would say no to the chance of redecorating Downing Street?'

‘I wouldn't even know their names.' He thought of Marla's penchant for decorating; he could scarcely consult her, not after
much better if we don't see each other
. Perhaps she'd lend him her back issues of
World of Interiors
.

‘Come on,' said Holly cheerfully, as if cajoling a recalcitrant child. ‘Let's have a look around.'

Building work was not far progressed; he couldn't make head or tail of most of the rooms he now saw. He and Holly went upstairs, where he saw the cramped kitchen where Margaret Thatcher had prepared small tinctures for her closest few in the late hours before bed. Behind one door he suddenly found himself in a small bedroom, which was undisturbed by renovation work or repairs. It had a beautiful brass bed, with a white duvet and several high plumped pillows, and a large wine-coloured Persian rug on exposed floorboards. There was a rocking chair by a window he didn't dare get close to, for he felt thoroughly illicit in this eyrie. A growing sense of déjà vu engulfed him as he recalled his first lodgings in London – a room in a grand-ish house on Phillimore Gardens (distant friends of friends of his parents) where he had once snuck in a girlfriend on a weekday afternoon, skiving from his first job in a Frenchman's gallery, only to hear the lady of the house in the bath below, fatally putting him off his stroke. As he looked around him now, Holly closed the door and stared at him meaningfully. He looked back at her with surprise. ‘Here?'

‘And why not?' she asked, pushing on the door with her hand to emphasize how shut it was.

He could think of about seventy-five thousand reasons why not, but was not sure how to express any of them. ‘What about the builders?' he asked desperately. ‘Where are they all anyway? Or are you bringing back Old Labour working practices and they're enjoying a five hour lunch?'

‘Certainly not,' said Holly, beginning to unbutton her blouse. ‘I told them Harry needs peace and quiet every Tuesday at midday to get ready for Question Time in the House. They won't be back until three, so we've got plenty of time.'

‘And what about Harry?'

‘Oh, he's downstairs. But don't worry. He really
is
getting ready for the House. The last thing he wants to do is come inspect a construction site. I told him it was incredibly dusty – that's enough to keep him away. If he thinks he'd be seen on camera with paint on his suit he's not going to come near us.'

‘Are you absolutely sure?' he asked nervously.

This time Holly didn't bother to reply, but came over and pushed Billings onto the bed, then started to undo his shirt. Ten minutes later he lay beneath the duvet in an untypical state of post-coital agitation, pondering his situation. Holly seemed unconcerned. ‘How was the inaugural meeting of the committee?' she asked.

‘Largely over my head, if you must know. Everything seems somehow predetermined.'

‘Well the Tories had done a lot of work on it. And Alan has a pretty clear idea of what he wants: in committee meetings his motto tends to be Divide and Fool. But there's bound to be work for you and Sally to do on the insides of the exhibit.'

‘Funny you should say
Alan
knows what he wants. It's Richard Bruce who chairs the thing, but you'd never know it.'

‘Ah,' she said gently, ‘poor Richard. He's done very well, considering.'

Considering? There was something so patronising about this that Billings felt drawn to defend the man. ‘Surely he's got more than that going for him, or he'd never have got to where he was.' Holly's eyes widened and she smiled knowingly. ‘I don't understand,' he admitted.