István’s mother is still looking straight at him.
He says, “She has the income from the… shares or whatever. She can do what she wants with that. Until Thomas is twenty-five. Then he gets that too.”
His mother says, “So what happens then, when Thomas is twenty-five?”
“Well, I told you—”
“No, what happens to Helen? Specifically. If she was left nothing herself.”
“I don’t know. I suppose the idea is that he’ll look after her.”
“Is that the idea?”
“I suppose.”
“And will he?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“And you?” she says. “Will he look after you?”
He stands up and goes to one of the windows. A cloud has covered the sun. The water of the lake looks dark and still.
“Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that,” he says. Which is true, although it’s also true that he has more often avoided thinking about it.
There’s a long silence.
“You need to do something,” she says.
“I know,” he says.
7
THE HOTEL IS ABOUT HALFWAY up Park Lane. Roddy meets him in the lobby and István follows him along a gold-carpeted corridor toward the doors at the far end and the expanding sound of several hundred voices talking.
A wall of noise meets them. Numerous tables under only slightly less-numerous chandeliers is the impression that he has as Roddy leads him among them.
There are some familiar faces here and there, faces he knows from the TV news. It’s strange to see them in this setting, just having dinner like normal people.
They arrive at a table on the far side of the room and István waits while Roddy leans down and says something to the minister.
István knows him by sight, of course.
“Hey,” the minister says.
He’s a few years younger than István, and looks younger still.
István shakes his hand, envying his very thick hair.
“You sitting here?” the minister asks, indicating the empty place next to him.
“Yeah, I think so,” István says.
“Have a seat, then.”
As István sits Roddy is already moving away.
“Thanks for coming,” the minister says.
“Sure,” István says. “I’m happy to do what I can.”
“Well, we appreciate it.”
“And sorry I’m late.”
The minister shrugs tolerantly. The starters have already been served and he resumes eating while István makes momentary eye contact with Helen, who’s on the far side of the table.
Sorry, he mouths.
He isn’t sure if she sees it.
She’s speaking to the person next to her, and the line of sight is anyway partly obscured by a tall floral arrangement.
There are about a dozen people around the table, all experiencing the slight tension that comes from the presence of fame, or perhaps just power, since the minister is hardly a household name or even a particularly familiar face.
He’s eating his goat’s cheese whatever with the focused and almost hearty energy, the ultimately humorless determination, that he probably brings to most of the things he does in life. Like entertaining the other people at the table, which is obviously his job for the evening. He says to István, “So you’re doing this development in Rainham, is that right?”
Roddy or someone must have primed him about it.
“Yes. That’s right,” István says.
“Tell me about that.”
The minister listens, eating, while István, temporarily neglecting his own food, tells him about the Rainham project.
“Sounds ambitious,” the minister says.
“We didn’t see any point in messing about,” István says.
“No,” the minister agrees. “Sure.”
István takes out his phone and says, “Actually, I have some pictures.”
He scrolls past hundreds of thumbnails, mainly of Jacob.
“Who’s that young fella?” the minister asks.
“That’s my son,” István tells him.
“How old?”
“Seven next month.”
“Handsome like his dad.”
István laughs. “If you say so.”
He finds the pictures he’s looking for, and holding the phone where the minister can see it, starts to flick through the full-size images.
“So these are?” the minister asks, not quite understanding. The images are computer-generated but so realistic that it takes a moment to work that out. They show a group of very large buildings that seem to be set on a network of tree-lined canals. People stroll along the canalside paths and congregate on café terraces in the piazzas formed by the buildings’ sides.
“These are just visualizations,” István explains.
“Okay.”
“There’s nothing there at the moment.”
“Looks like quite a project,” the minister says.
“Yeah, it is.”
They talk for a few more minutes, and then they’re interrupted by the arrival of the main course, at which point the minister turns to the person on the other side of him and István finds himself having to engage with his own other neighbor, an elderly lady who wants something done about immigration.
She’s embarrassed when she understands, after a minute or two, that István is himself a foreigner.
“I don’t mean you, of course,” she says, putting a hand on his arm.
“No, of course not,” István says.
“We need people like you.”
“Well,” he says. “It’s nice of you to say so.”
“You’re not the problem.”
“I hope not.”
“So what do you do?” she asks him, perhaps feeling that she needs to show some interest in him now, to prove that she doesn’t wish he wasn’t there.
He tells her that he’s a property developer.
“What does that actually involve?” she asks.
He explains what he does and tells her about his latest project in Rainham.
“Which is where exactly?”
“It’s in London.”
She seems surprised. “Is it?”
“It’s sort of beyond Dagenham.”
“Beyond Dagenham?” she says. “Is that still London?”
She might be joking and he tries not to take the question too seriously—he’s learned the hard way how often that spells social disaster here.
She says, “So what is it exactly, this project of yours in…”
“Rainham.”
“Yes.”
He tells her and then with slightly disconcerting directness she asks him if it’s his own money that he uses to finance his developments.
He says it’s mostly loans.
“Loans?”
“Yes.”
When she asks who lends him such large amounts of money he’s vague and eventually excuses himself for a visit to the men’s room.
The next hour passes slowly. There’s some entertainment in the form of a well-known newsreader talking jokily for twenty minutes, and then there’s an auction involving various items of Tory memorabilia as well as the opportunity to play tennis with the foreign secretary or have lunch with Damian Green. Making sure that the minister notices, István puts in a few losing bids.
He and Helen leave at about eleven.
“Well, that was awful,” Helen says, as Samuel drives them home.
“You seemed to be having an okay time,” István says.
“I always seem to be having an okay time.”
“True.”
“I promise you,” she says, with a laugh, “I was not having an okay time.”
“I’m sorry,” István says.
“Did you get what you wanted?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” he says.
“What did Roddy say?”
“He seemed to think it went okay.”
“All right.”
Samuel drops them in front of the Cheyne Walk house.
As they walk up the stairs he says, “Do you want to sleep alone?”
“Yes, I think so,” Helen says.
“Okay,” he says.
For the last few years they’ve had separate rooms.
After saying good night to her he doesn’t go directly to his own, though. He walks up to the floor above, where Jacob and the nanny have theirs. His mother also lives on that floor, and although it’s eleven thirty he knows that she will still be awake.