A few days later I was back at work. I kept waiting for a formal meeting or a debrief but it was as if I hadn’t made the visit at all. Nobody mentioned my trip and in itself that was not so unusual, many other things were going on at the time — a new album, a new tour — but in the subtle way of the best bullies Judy and Aimee strove to freeze me out of all important decisions while simultaneously ensuring that nothing they said or did could be explicitly interpreted as punishment or retribution. We were preparing for our autumn transition to New York — a period in which Aimee and I were usually glued to each other — but now I hardly saw her, and for two weeks I was given the kind of grunt-work more appropriate to the housekeepers. I was on the phone to freight companies. I was cataloging shoes. I accompanied the children to their yoga class. I cornered Judy about it early one Saturday morning. Aimee was in the basement, working out, the children were watching their one hour of weekly television. I trawled the house and found Judy sitting in the library with her feet up on the baize desk, painting her toenails a terrible fuchsia, a white foam wedge stuck between each long toe. She didn’t look up until I’d finished speaking.
“Yeah, well, hate to break it to you, love, but Aimee doesn’t give a flying fuck what you think of her private life.”
“I’m trying to look out for her interests. That’s my job as a friend.”
“No, love, not accurate. Your job is: personal assistant.”
“I’ve been here nine years.”
“And I’ve been here twenty-nine.” She swung her feet round and placed them in a black box on the floor that glowed purple. “I’ve seen a lot of these assistants come and go. But Christ, none of them has been as delusional as you.”
“Isn’t it true? Isn’t she trying to get him a visa?”
“I’m not discussing that with you.”
“Judy, I spent today mainly working for the dog. I have a degree. Don’t tell me I’m not being punished.”
Judy pulled her fringe back with both hands.
“First of all, don’t be so bloody melodramatic. What you are doing is working. Whatever you may think, chook, your job is not and has never been ‘best mate.’ You’re her assistant. You always have been. But recently you seem to have forgotten that — and it’s about time you were reminded. So that’s our first issue. Number two: if she wants to bring him over here, if she wants to marry him, or dance with him on top of Big fucking Ben, that is no concern of yours. You’re very far out of your area.” Judy sighed and looked down at her toes. “And the funny part of it is, she’s not even pissed off with you about the boy. It’s not even about the bloody boy.”
“What, then?”
“You spoken to your mum recently?”
This question made me violently blush. How long had it been? A month? Two? Parliament was in session, she was busy, and if she wanted me she knew where I was. I was going through these justifications in my head for a long moment before it occurred to me to wonder why Judy was interested.
“Well, maybe you should. She’s making life difficult for us right now and I don’t really know why. Would help if you could find out.”
“My mother?”
“I mean, there’s a million issues in this little shithole of an island you call a country — literally a million. She wants to talk about ‘Dictatorships in West Africa’?” said Judy, using finger quotes. “British complicity with dictatorships in West Africa. She’s on the TV, she’s writing the op-eds, she’s standing up in bloody Prime Minister’s Question Tea Hour or whatever the fuck it is you people call it. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about it. Fine. Well, that’s not my problem — what DfID does, what the IMF does — that’s out of my area. Aimee, however, is my area — and yours. We’re in partnership with this crazy bloody President, and if you go and ask your beloved Fern he’ll tell you what a tightrope we’re walking right now. Believe me, love, if his Highness-for-life the all-mighty King of Kings doesn’t want us in his country? We are out of there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. The school gets fucked, everybody gets fucked. Now, I know you have a degree. You’ve told me, many, many times. Is it in International Development? No, I didn’t think so. And I’m sure your big-mouth mother out there on the back benches probably thinks she’s being helpful, too, God knows, but you know what she’s actually doing? Hurting the people she claims to want to help, and pissing on those of us who are trying to make some kind of difference out there. Biting the hand. Seems to run in the family.”
I sat down on the chaise longue.
“Jesus, don’t you ever read the papers?” asked Judy.
Three days after that conversation we flew to New York. I left messages with my mother, texted her, e-mailed her, but she didn’t call me till the end of the following week, and with the extraordinary timing of mothers chose two thirty p.m. on a Sunday, just as Jay’s cake came out of the kitchens and streamers fell from the ceiling of the Rainbow Room, and two hundred guests sang “Happy Birthday,” accompanied by violinists from the string section of the New York Philharmonic.
“What’s all that noise? Where are you?”
I opened the sliding doors to the terrace and shut them behind me.
“It’s Jay’s birthday. He’s nine today. I’m at the top of the Rockefeller.”
“Look, I don’t want to have an argument with you on the phone,” said my mother, sounding very much like she wanted to have an argument on the phone. “I’ve read your e-mails, I understand your position. But I hope you understand that I don’t work for that woman — or for you, actually. I work for the British people, and if I’ve developed an interest in that region, if I’ve become increasingly concerned—”
“Yes, but Mum, can’t you become increasingly concerned about something else?”
“Doesn’t it matter to you who your partners are in this project? I know you, darling, and I know you’re not a mercenary, I know you have ideals — I raised you, for God’s sake, so I know. I’ve been into it very deeply, Miriam, too, and we’ve come to the conclusion that at this point the human-rights issue is really becoming untenable — I wish it wasn’t, for your sake, but there it is. Darling, don’t you want to know—”