“Every little transaction?”
“These were fairly minor transactions.”
At that moment their drinks arrive.
After having a decent swallow of her wine, his mother tells him that Mr. Heath, the lawyer, has passed all the loans as being in line with the terms of the trust.
What she needs to tell him now, she explains, is that there’s going to be a new loan.
“A new loan?”
“Yes.”
“To him?”
“To István, yes.”
“How much? How much?” he says again when she doesn’t immediately answer.
Samuel drives her back to London.
“Did you tell him?” István asks her when she arrives at Cheyne Walk.
“Yes, I did,” she says.
“And? What did he say?”
“He wasn’t happy.”
In the kitchen with its marble-topped island and huge window overlooking the garden, István is making tea. He asks her if she wants one. She says she does.
“What do you mean not happy?” he asks, putting out a second mug.
“He wasn’t happy,” Helen says again.
“Why not?”
“Why do you think? He said he wants to talk to Heath about it.”
István pours water from the kettle into the two mugs. “Can he do that?”
“Yes.”
“What would be the point though?” István asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Heath has already signed off on it.”
“I know,” she says. “I told him that.”
“So?”
Outside it’s raining steadily, although it’s nearly too dark to see that now.
“Does he think he can stop it?” István asks.
“I told him he couldn’t.”
He lifts the tea bags out of the mugs and asks her if she wants oat milk.
She nods.
“The whole thing wasn’t very nice,” she says. “He was very angry and upset.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He said some horrible things. About you too.”
“I’m sure. Like what?” István asks after a short silence, wanting to know despite himself.
“He said you exemplify a primitive form of masculinity. He said he was surprised that I ever found that attractive.”
“He said that?”
“Yes, he did.”
István snorts with a show of derisive amusement. It hurts though. He’s surprised how much it hurts.
“What else did he say?” he asks.
“About you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
Seeing that she doesn’t want to talk about it he leaves it there.
For a while, a few weeks, Thomas doesn’t do anything.
That he knows what’s happening now and still does nothing about it makes him feel disgusted with himself.
To escape from those feelings, he smokes more weed than ever.
One day, nervously, he phones Heath.
Heath tells him that everything that’s happening is perfectly legal.
When Thomas doesn’t seem satisfied with that, Heath suggests that he speak to István about it himself.
Thomas says that he intends to.
Weeks pass, however, without him doing so.
His mother wants him at Cheyne Walk for Christmas. Her siblings and nieces and nephews will all be there, she says. She wants him there too.
At first he says no.
He says he’s planning to spend Christmas with Mathilde.
It’s only later that it occurs to him that Christmas would provide an opportunity for him to talk to István. One of the things he likes about the idea is that Christmas is still a few weeks away, and until then he will have an answer when he asks himself why he isn’t doing anything.
He sends his mother a WhatsApp telling her that he will be there after all.
Thank you x, she sends back.
When he returns to London at the end of term he stays at Mathilde’s house. She isn’t there. He has a key though, and the housekeeper is expecting him.
On Christmas Eve he meets some Oxford friends for lunch in London. Afterward they go to a pub in Knightsbridge with an open fire. It’s one of those winter afternoon drinking sessions that merge into evening in a way that’s almost imperceptible as it’s happening. It’s just suddenly nine o’clock. The last thing he remembers is trying to order an Uber on the pavement outside the pub and having to throw up.
He wakes up the next morning with a hangover and makes a spliff to smoke with his coffee.
He’s not supposed to smoke in Mathilde’s house—particularly not weed—and he smokes it out the window. The lunch at Cheyne Walk isn’t until two so he thinks he should be all right.
He has another spliff at twelve, though, and is still slightly feeling it as he sits in the taxi two and a half hours later.
He tells the taxi to stop on the Kings Road and walks the rest of the way.
He feels he needs some fresh air.
He arrives at the house, at the leafless wisteria entwined in the iron railings, and has the usual feeling, the feeling he has had for some years now, of this being his home and not his home at the same time.
Entering the hall he hears that they’re still in the drawing room.
The lunch hasn’t even started yet.
He wonders whether to slip out again and come back in half an hour.
He’s been seen though.
His mother’s sister Sarah has seen him from the stairs.
“Hello,” she says.
He waves.
“How are you?”
“Yeah, okay.”
She’s hugging him now.
“Your mum was worried you weren’t going to show up.”
“Well.”
She leads him up the stairs.
Helen meets him on the landing outside the drawing room.
“Here you are,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?” she asks, sort of frowning.
“Why?”
“You don’t look… Are you ill or something?”
“I was out last night,” he says.
“You’re sure that’s all it is?”
“Yes.”
In the drawing room there’s a massive Christmas tree, presents lying around.
Some servant Thomas doesn’t know—she looks like she’s from the Philippines or something—is circulating with a champagne bottle.
“Do you have a glass?” she asks him.
“No,” he says.
“Should I get you one?” she asks.
“No,” he says. “Thank you.”
She smiles and moves on.
Not long after that, lunch is served.
In the seating plan, his mother has placed him and István as far apart as possible, at opposite ends of the table.
There’s a moment, toward the end of lunch, when he thinks that maybe he won’t say anything to István after all. And then he understands that if he doesn’t say anything, if he just attends this lunch and doesn’t say anything to him, it will have almost the opposite effect of what he wanted to achieve—it will seem to be almost a sort of acceptance on his part of what is happening.
With darkness already falling outside, István quietly withdraws to his study.
He’s in there smoking a cigar when there’s a timid knock on the door.
“Yeah,” he says, thinking that it’s probably Helen wanting him to join them downstairs again, or to tell him that some members of her family are leaving.
In fact it’s Thomas.
“Thomas,” István says, surprised.
Since he arrived at the house two hours ago Thomas has avoided even looking at him, and has hardly said a word to anyone else.
“I need to talk to you,” he says now, still half-hidden by the door.
“Sure,” István says.
Thomas steps into the room.
He looks terrified.
His lips are stained with wine.
“What is it?” István asks him.
There’s a long pause and then Thomas says, “I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“Stealing from me.”
István laughs. He shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not stealing from you.”
“Yes, you are.”
For a few seconds they stare at each other across the desk. It used to be Thomas’s father’s desk.
“I don’t need to talk to you about this Thomas,” István says.