Greta had lied about where she had been the previous night. She hadn’t been hundreds of miles away like she’d said, tending to her sick mother in Manchester. She’d been downstairs in the basement entertaining a strange man who wore his hair in a ponytail and had a scar running down under his ear. She’d told him to be patient, to wait a little longer. Wait a little longer for what? Thomas wondered, as he had done off and on ever since he’d gotten back up to his bedroom the night before.
There were so many unanswered questions. Who was the man? Why had Greta lied? What was she waiting for?
Thomas put his hand up to his cheek and gently ran the tips of his fingers over the spot where Greta’s lips had placed her good-night kiss. He remembered how pretty she’d looked when she’d spoken those lines from the play, and then, with a rush, he remembered his dream.
Chapter 11
The next morning Thomas waited at the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen. He could hear his mother talking to his father, who was clearly about to leave — Thomas could see his briefcase out in the hall with a raincoat draped over it — and his natural instinct was to avoid his father if he could. But he also wanted to hear what his parents were saying — he knew they were talking about him, because they kept using his name.
“You need to spend more time with the boy. Either that or he’s going to need some outside help.” Thomas could hear the anxiety in his mother’s voice.
“I will. I told you I will.” Peter sounded irritated. “I’m taking him out today, aren’t I? It’s your fault for keeping him down in Flyte all the time. He needs to go away to a good school. That’d make him grow up.”
“He is going to a good school. We’ve been over all this, Peter. I don’t agree with you about English boarding schools. I never have and I never will. All they do is turn out emotional cripples with a taste for sadomasochism.”
“But tying him to your apron strings isn’t doing him much good either, is it? We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Thomas was an emotional success.”
“No, we wouldn’t. He’s obviously got some sort of a death fixation. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that. And it’s gotten a lot worse since his dog died.”
“Dogs do die,” said Peter brutally. “It’s part of growing up.”
“For you, maybe. But you should have seen him yesterday. His imagination’s completely out of control. I mean, he’s a world authority on executions. He could take the tourists round the Tower of London himself, telling them how many axe blows it took to dispatch Anne Boleyn, and what they did with her head afterward. And then Macbeth — he was practically jumping out of his seat.”
“Well, that’s your fault. You shouldn’t have taken him to the bloody play if he’s got this problem.”
“I know I shouldn’t. But he’s not the way he is because of going to the theater. You know that, Peter.”
“All right, I get the point. What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to spend more time with him. Take him out in the world a bit.”
“How? You stay down in Suffolk all the time, and I’m trying to be a cabinet minister.”
“Well, we’ll both have to try harder, that’s all. We are his parents, you know. I’ll bring him up to London more, and you can take him out when I do.”
“Okay, it’s a deal. Starting today. After I’ve dealt with these Arabs. They want to buy a whole lot of fighter aircraft to use on each other. Have him meet me at twelve. I’ll be free by then.”
Thomas’s parents came out into the hall, and he ducked back behind the banister. As they kissed each other good-bye on the front doorstep, they looked just for a moment like a normal middle-aged couple at the start of a working day, instead of two people who only saw each other two weekends each month.
After the door shut, Thomas waited a minute or two before going down to join his mother in the kitchen.
“You look better, Tom,” she said brightly. “It’s wonderful what a proper night’s sleep will do for a tired boy.”
“I do sleep well. Why do you keep on going on about how weird I am?” he asked irritably.
“I don’t. Where do you get that idea from?”
Thomas didn’t reply. He wanted to know what his mother had meant by outside help, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to own up to eavesdropping.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“He had to go early. Something came up with his work, but he’s still taking you out to lunch and showing you round Parliament.”
“Oh, God, Mum, do I have to?”
“Yes, of course you do. Don’t be so mean, Thomas. You should be proud of your father and all he’s achieved.”
“Well, he’s not proud of me. Any chance he gets he’s on about how hopeless I am. Doesn’t play cricket. Doesn’t play rugby. How can I when they don’t even play rugby at my school?”
“I know. He needs to get to know you; spend some time with you. That’s why I’m so pleased about today. You’re to meet him in the lobby of his office building at midday.”
“What? In Whitehall? Will I need a pass?”
“No, of course not. You’re only going into the reception area. You might need one later, I suppose, when he takes you on the Parliament tour, but he’ll organize all that.”
“Do you think we’ll see the prime minister?” asked Thomas, suddenly shaking off his lethargy as the full possibilities of the tour opened up to him.
“I don’t know, but you’ll need to be dressed smartly if you do. You can wear your blazer and the trousers we bought at Harrods the other day. And you better take a coat as well, in case it rains.”
Lady Anne was going to the hairdresser and then on to her dressmaker, so Thomas was alone in the taxi as it went past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. He felt confused by his emotions. He was still smarting with resentment at the offhand way in which his father had talked about him earlier, but he was also curious about what he was going to see. Not every boy was the son of a cabinet minister. More than anything Thomas felt nervous as he got out in front of the tall gray stone Victorian office building with the gold plaque on the side of the high doorway bearing the legend MINISTRY OF DEFENSE. He became almost tongue-tied as he tried to explain his business to a porter who seemed to consider it part of his employment contract to wear an unvaryingly dubious expression when dealing with members of the public, whatever their age.
Thomas waited for nearly five minutes, wilting under the porter’s withering stare, until Greta appeared at the top of a flight of red carpeted stairs. She looked different today. In Flyte and again on the previous evening she’d been dressed casually, but now she was wearing a dark gray business suit over a plain white blouse. The material was soft and beautifully cut to display her figure to the best advantage, and the hemline of the skirt was high above the knee, revealing the perfection of her long, tanned legs. Thomas’s head swam for a moment as his recent dream of Greta returned to him with sudden intensity.
She came running down the stairs carrying a picnic basket. She put down the basket and kissed him on the cheek, just like she had the night before, resting her arm on his shoulder so that he felt her breasts for a moment brushing against his chest.
“Been looking after our young guest, have you, Mills?” she said, turning with a mock serious expression toward the old porter, who grunted in response from behind his desk. Not even Greta in a miniskirt seemed capable of changing his dubious exterior.
“Miserable Mills we call him,” whispered Greta, bending toward Thomas so as not to be overheard.
“I can see why,” he whispered back, but his voice came out louder than he’d intended and he was sure that Miserable Mills had heard them. He looked suddenly quite warlike, gripping a stapler on his desk with apparently ferocious intent.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” said Greta, ignoring the outbreak of militancy behind her. “Your father can’t make it. There’s been a semidisaster this morning. The Saudis are threatening to cancel a big defense contract.”