Sleeping Arrangements (2 page)

'So,' said Hugh hurriedly. 'Do you . . . want to have a coffee? Or buy anything in the shops?'

'As a matter of fact, I've just realized I left my make-up bag behind.' Amanda's brows knitted slightly. 'So annoying. My mind just wasn't with it this morning.'

'Right!' said Hugh heartily. 'Project Make-up.' He smiled at Octavia and Beatrice. 'Shall we help Mummy choose some new make-up?'

'I don't have to choose,' said Amanda as they began to walk off. 'I always have the same.

Chanel base and lips, Lancôme eye pencil and mascara, Bourjois eye shadow number 89 . . .

Octavia, please stop pushing. Thank God I packed the sunblock separately . . . Octavia, stop pushing Beatrice!' Her voice rose in exasperation. 'These children . . .'

'Look, why don't I take them off somewhere while you go shopping?' said Hugh. 'Beatrice?

Do you want to come with Daddy?'

He held out his hand to his two-year-old daughter, who gave a little wail and clung to her mother's leg.

'Don't bother,' said Amanda, rolling her eyes. 'We'll just whiz into Boots and whiz out again. Although what I'll do if they don't stock Chanel . . .'

'Go without,' said Hugh. He reached up and traced a line down her lightly tanned cheekbone. 'Go naked.'

Amanda turned and gave him a blank stare.

'Go naked? What on earth do you mean?'

'Nothing,' said Hugh after a pause, and attempted a smile. 'Just my little joke.'

The sun seemed to mock Philip as he stood on the scorching pavement, passing suitcases to a sweating minicab driver. It had been the hottest British July for twenty years: day after day of baking, Mediterranean-style heat that had taken the nation by pleasant surprise.

Why go abroad? strangers kept asking each other smugly in the street. Why on earth go abroad?

And here they were, about to fly off to an unknown villa in Spain.

'Any more bags?' said the driver, standing up and mopping his brow.

'I'm not sure,' said Philip, and turned towards the house. 'Chloe?'

There was no answer. Philip took half a step towards the house, then stopped, full of heat-wave apathy. It was too hot to move ten feet. Let alone hundreds of miles. What the bloody hell were they doing? What had they been thinking of, organizing a holiday in Spain, of all places?

'No hurry,' said the driver comfortably, and leaned against the car.

A little girl on roller skates passed by, eyeing Philip curiously over her ice lolly, and Philip found himself glaring resentfully back. No doubt she was on her way to the sanctuary of some cool, shady lawn. Some green and pleasant English garden. Whereas he was forced to stand out here in the blistering heat, with nothing to look forward to but a cramped ride in an un-airconditioned Ford Fiesta, followed by an even more cramped ride in a packed plane. And then what?

'Paradise,' Gerard had called his villa, waving a brandy glass in the air. 'Pure Andalusian Paradise, my loves. You'll adore it.' But then, Gerard was a wine reviewer: words like

'paradise', 'nectar' and 'ambrosia' fell off his tongue all too readily. If he could describe a perfectly ordinary Habitat sofa as 'transcendental'—and it was on record that he could—then what might this 'Paradise' of a villa turn out to be like?

Everyone knew how disorganized Gerard was; how thoroughly hopeless when it came to practical matters. He claimed to be DIY-dyslexic; unable even to change a plug, let alone wield a hammer. 'What exactly is a rawl-plug?' he would ask his assembled guests, raising his eyebrows; waiting for the roar of laughter. When one was sitting in his luxurious Holland Park flat, drinking his expensive wine, this ignorance always seemed like just another of his entertaining affectations. But what did it bode for their holiday? Visions of blocked drains and crum-bling plaster began to fill Philip's mind, and he frowned anxiously. Maybe it wasn't too late to abandon the whole idea. For God's sake, what did this holiday have to offer that couldn't be accomplished just as easily—and a lot more cheaply—with a couple of day trips to Brighton and a night out at a tapas bar?

At the thought of money his heart began to thump, and he took a deep breath. But already a few wisps of suppressed panic were beginning to escape; to circle his mind looking for a place to lodge. How much were they spending on this holiday? How much would it come to, after all the outings and extras?

Not much in the grand scheme of things, he reminded himself firmly, for the hundredth time. Not much compared to other people's extravagances. All things being equal, it was a modest, unambitious little holiday.

But for how long would all things remain equal?

A fresh spasm of fear leapt through him and he closed his eyes, trying to calm himself.

Trying to empty his mind of the thoughts that attacked him whenever he allowed his guard to drop. He had promised Chloe faithfully that he would try to relax this week; they'd agreed that they wouldn't even mention it. This would be a week of escape on all levels. God knew, they needed it.

The taxi driver lit a cigarette. Philip quelled the desire to ask for one, and looked at his watch. They were still in good time for the flight, but even so . . .

'Chloe?' he called, taking a step towards the house. 'Sam? Are you coming?'

There was a stretch of silence, during which the sun seemed to beat down on his head more strongly than ever. Then the front door opened and Sam appeared, closely followed by eight-year-old Nat. Both boys were dressed in baggy surfing shorts and wrap-around shades, and walked with the confident loose-limbed swagger of youth.

'Awright?' said Sam confidently to the taxi driver. 'Awright, Dad?'

'Awright?' echoed Nat in his high-pitched treble.

Both boys dumped their bags in the boot and went to sit on the garden wall, headphones already plugged in.

'Boys?' said Philip. 'Nat, Sam, could you get in the car, please?'

There was silence. Nat and Sam might as well have been on a different planet.

'Boys?' repeated Philip, raising his voice sharply. He met the taxi driver's sardonic eye and quickly looked away again. 'Get into the car!'

'There's no hurry,' said Sam, shrugging.

'Sam, we're about to go on holiday. The plane leaves in . . .' Philip tailed off and glanced unconvincingly at his watch. 'In any case, that's not the point.'

'Mum isn't here yet,' pointed out Sam. 'We can get in when she arrives. No hass.' He settled calmly back on his perch and Philip stared at him for a few moments, a little impressed despite his annoyance. The truth was, he thought, Sam wasn't being deliberately impertinent or obstructive—he merely believed his own opinion to be just as important as any adult's. At sixteen, he considered the world to be as much his as anyone else's. More so, perhaps.

And maybe he was right, thought Philip morosely. Maybe the world did belong to the young these days, with its computer language and teenage columnists and Internet million-aires; with its demand for speed and novelty and now. Everything was immediate, everything was online, everything was easy. And the slow, redundant humans were simply thrown out, like pieces of obsolete hardware.

A familiar gnawing began in Philip's chest, and to distract himself, he reached into his inside jacket pocket to check the clutch of four passports. At least they hadn't put these on computer yet, he thought savagely. These were the real thing, solid and irreplaceable. He leafed through idly, glancing at each photograph in turn. Himself—only last year, but looking about ten years younger than he did these days. Nat, aged four with huge, apprehensive eyes. Chloe, looking about sixteen, with the same blue eyes as Nat's; the same blond wispy hair. Sam at twelve with a sunburned face, grinning insouciantly at the camera. 'Samuel Alexander Murray', declared the passport.

Philip paused for a moment, staring with a tweak of fondness at Sam's irrepressible, twelve-year-old face. Samuel Alexander Murray.

S. A. M.

They'd changed his name by deed poll from Harding when he was seven, when Chloe was pregnant with Nat.

'I don't want my boys having different names,' she'd said, her voice full of a hormonal weepiness. 'I don't want them being different. And you're Sam's dad now. You are.'

'Of course I am,' Philip had said, taking her in his arms. 'Of course I'm his dad. I know it, and Sam knows it. But what he's called . . . that's irrelevant.'

'I don't care. I want it.' Her eyes had filled with tears. 'I really want it, Philip.'

So they'd done it. For courtesy's sake, she had contacted Sam's real father, who was now a professor in Cape Town, to tell him about the proposed change in Sam's name. He had replied briefly that he really didn't care what the child was called and could Chloe please keep her side of the bargain and not contact him again.

So they'd filled in the forms, and had Sam re-registered as Murray. And to Philip's surprise, as superficial a change as it was, he'd found himself strangely affected by it: by a seven-year-old boy—with no blood ties to him—taking on his name. They'd even cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. In a way, he supposed, it was the closest they'd ever come to having a wedding.

His thoughts were interrupted as the front door opened and he saw Chloe ushering her last customers out of the house—a red-faced girl in shorts and a waspish mother whose eyes met his suspiciously, then darted away again. Beside the pair of them, in her flowing cotton dress, Chloe looked cool and unruffled.

'Think about it, Bethany,' she was saying. 'Goodbye, Mrs Bridges. Nice to see you again.'

There was a polite silence as the woman and her daughter walked towards their Volvo. As their car doors slammed shut, Chloe breathed out.

'At last!' She looked up at Philip, her eyes lit up. 'At last! I can't believe it's actually here.'

'So you still want to go,' said Philip. He was, he realized, only half joking.

'Idiot.' Chloe grinned at him. 'Let me just get my bag. . . .'

She disappeared back into the house and Philip looked at Sam and Nat.

'OK, you two. You can either get in the taxi now—or we can leave you behind. Your choice.'

Nat's head jerked nervously, and he glanced at his older brother. There was a slight pause—then casually Sam stood up, shook himself down like a dog and ambled round to the passenger door of the car. With a distinct air of relief, Nat followed, and buckled himself into his seat. The taxi driver switched on the engine, and a DJ's cheery voice cut through the still air of the street.

'Right!' Chloe appeared at Philip's side, slightly flushed, clutching a large wicker bag. 'I've locked up, so we're all set! Off to Spain.'

'Great!' said Philip, trying to muster a matching enthusiasm. 'Off to Spain.' Chloe looked at him.

'Philip . . .' she began, and sighed. 'You promised you'd try to . . .'

'Enjoy myself.'

'Yes! Why not, for a change?'

There was silence.

'I'm sorry,' said Chloe, and rubbed her forehead. 'That's not fair. But . . . I really need this holiday, Philip. We both do. We need to get away from the house and . . . and people . . . and

. . .'

'And . . .' said Philip, and stopped.

'Yes,' said Chloe, meeting his eyes directly. 'That most of all. Just for a week, I don't even want to think about it.'

An aeroplane came into earshot overhead; although they were used to living on the flight path, involuntarily they tilted their heads back to look at it.

'You do realize the report's due out this week,' said Philip, staring up at the blue sky. 'The decision will be made, one way or the other.'

'I do,' said Chloe. 'And you do realize there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Except worry and obsess and give yourself several more ulcers.' She gave a sudden frown.

'Have you got your mobile phone on you?'

Philip hesitated, then pulled it out of his pocket. Chloe took it from him, walked up the path to the house and posted it through the letterbox.

'I'm serious, Philip,' she said, as she turned round. 'I'm not letting anything spoil this holiday. Come on.' She walked to the taxi and opened the door. 'Let's go.'

The nanny was late. Amanda sat at the appointed Costa Coffee table, drumming her finger-nails, sighing with impatience, and squinting every so often at the monitor.

'You realize they'll be boarding soon,' she said at intervals. 'You realize we'll have to go.

What are we supposed to do, accost every twenty-year-old girl we see on the plane and ask if she's called Jenna?'

'She's sitting next to us,' Hugh pointed out mildly. 'It's bound to be pretty obvious who she is.'

'Yes, but that's not the point,' said Amanda twitchily. 'The whole point was, she would meet the girls and get to know them a little bit before the flight. Then she can take care of them, and we can relax. . . . It was all worked out! Really, I don't know why I—' She stopped rigid as her mobile began to bleep. 'God, don't say that's her. Don't say she's bloody cancelling on us, that's all I need. Hello?' Amanda's face relaxed. 'Oh, Penny. Thank God.' Amanda swung away on her stool, putting a hand over her other ear. 'Everything OK? Has the paint-effects girl arrived yet? Well, why not?'

Hugh took a sip of espresso and smiled at Octavia and Beatrice, who were silently making their way through a plate of biscotti.

'Looking forward to the holiday?' he asked. 'Octavia?'

Octavia looked blankly at him, rubbed her nose and bit into another biscotto. Hugh cleared his throat.

'What subject do you like at school?' he tried, to another stony silence.

Did five-year-olds have such things as subjects? he wondered belatedly. She did go to school, he knew that much. Claremount House, $1,800 a term plus lunches, drama club and something else club. Dark green uniform.

Or dark blue. Definitely either dark green or dark blue.

'Mr Stratton?'

Hugh looked up in surprise. A girl in scruffy jeans with dark red dreadlocked hair and a row of eyebrow rings was peering at him with narrowed eyes. In spite of himself, Hugh felt a lurch of apprehension. How on earth did this girl know his name? Was she going to ask him for money? Perhaps this was the latest scam. They found out your name from your luggage labels, followed you, waited till you were relaxed . . .