“How did you get it?” Colin asked. “They only started making them this year. I thought there was a two-year waiting list.”
“Being famous has its advantages,” Jeff said. “Although, you will have to put up with me on your spamtxt for the next three months. I did an endorsement deal with Jaguar’s PR division.”
They groaned.
“I know,” Jeff said, grinning. “Sellout.”
“But worth it,” Simon said. “Definitely worth it. This is so much dead on.”
“Can I sit in it?” Rachel asked.
“Of course.” Jeff put his palm on the biometric pad, and the passenger door opened smoothly. She gave him a long thank-you smile as she wriggled past him.
Vanessa stuck her hand up eagerly. “Me too.”
“Do we get to ride in it?” Philip asked.
“’Fraid not, we’ve all had too much to drink. And I haven’t got a hack for the breath sensor yet.”
“Can I at least sit in the driver’s seat?” Colin asked querulously.
“I guess so.” It was the first thing Tim had asked when they went out for a test drive yesterday morning. He’d even let Tim drive the Jag for a couple of miles along the country lanes, where there was no chance of the boy putting his foot down.
Despite the lack of an open road, the Jag had been a dream to drive. Tires clung to the crumbling, potholed tarmac as if they were rolling along a newly laid motorway. Sitting behind the wheel on a sunny morning, U2 cranked up to level twenty on the sound system, gliding through the countryside in a car that would make most other men weep, was another of those defining best moments. Jeff’s life seemed to be clocking up a lot of them right now.
When he was first young he’d hated the sight of middle-aged men in coupes. They were all posers, with no right to own cars like those. And they all wore the same kind of cap, white canvas with a peak, as if it was some kind of Masonic uniform requirement. Didn’t they realize how sad they looked? He’d always sworn he would never repeat their mistake.
Now here he was, pulling off the whole sports car scene with considerable class.
Once he’d dropped Tim off he zoomed over to Stamford to meet up with the birthday girl in their suite at the George. He couldn’t resist driving her home afterward. Sitting behind the wheel on a warm summer’s night, delectable teenage sex kitten at his side with Bruce Springsteen at level twenty—his quality of life had taken a remarkable quantum leap inside a few short hours.
AFTER THE YOUNGSTERS HAD DEVOTED a suitable amount of time to worshipping the Jag, Jeff went back into the study while they settled back around the patio. The call came in a couple of minutes early, just like he knew it would.
“You having a good time?” Annabelle asked. She was in her bedroom at home, a drab box of a room, with ancient burgundy-red curtains already drawn against the night. The single bed she was perched on took up a third of the floor space. The wall behind was covered in posters of Stephanie and Sir Mitch.
“I just want you to be here,” he said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“How about you, are you having a good time?”
“Oh yeah.” Her face went all petulant. “All my friends are round at your place with Tim. And you’re there, too. School’s finished, I’ve nowhere else to go. I hate it here, Jeff, I really hate it.”
“I’m sorry. I was there for you this morning, wasn’t I?”
“I know. I just want to be with you, Jeff.” Her hand reached out to press against the screen. “Can’t we be together?”
“We can. We will.”
“I’m being selfish. Sorry. How’s the party?”
“Hmm.” Jeff glanced out the window at the floodlit patio. “They’re getting ready to watch the football match. It’s going to be a long evening, I’d guess.”
“Great.”
“This is getting ridiculous, isn’t it. I want you here, with me, tonight.”
“I want to be there,” she said mournfully.
“I’m going to go and tell him.”
“No, Jeff.”
“For Christ’s sake, the boy’s got to learn there’s thorns among the roses sometime.”
“Please, Jeff, you’re drunk, and randy, and tonight is not the night to tell him.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Jeff, promise me you won’t.”
“All right, all right.” He waved his arms in a conciliatory motion. “I’ll be good. But you’ve got to promise me we’ll talk about this soon. Creeping around meeting in hotel rooms is fine and fun for a few days, but I want more of you than that.”
“Really? Do you mean that?”
“Of course I mean that.”
“I’ll wait till tomorrow,” she murmured.
“That’s the whole point. I don’t want to wait.”
WHEN JEFF GOT BACK OUT onto the patio he just managed to hold off glaring at Tim. If he had, it would have been noticed. His son had avoided any drink other than water and lemonade all evening; he was the only sober one left. Even so, Jeff must have given away some kind of clue.
As soon as he plunked himself down in the slatted oak chair, Tim leaned over and used a quiet voice to ask: “Everything okay, Dad?”
“Sure.” Jeff slapped his son’s knee. “Sure. I’m fine.”
“Here we go,” Colin yelled.
They’d all pulled their chairs into a semicircle, facing a portable five-meter screen, which Tim and Jeff had wheeled out of the pool building earlier. It was showing the Barcelona versus Chelsea European premier league match, live from Milan.
Rachel slumped back into her chair next to Jeff. “This is going to be boring,” she muttered, folding her arms over her chest.
The Five Star Sports access provider logo flashed up over the Milan stadium. Every seat was filled with chanting supporters. Players were running onto the pitch, its grass weirdly bright under the big lighting rigs. A line of ten small grids appeared along the bottom of the screen, providing alternative camera angles. Two of them were carried by the captains, mounted on the side of their helmets. The logo faded out to be replaced by Rob Lacey’s campaign symbol, a white dove flying out of the circle of gold European stars. A streamer scrolled down one side of the screen, declaring that the match’s wideband pan-European access costs were being paid for by the Rob Lacey for President Committee. The ad started in a swirl of music. The main picture and every grid showed shots of Rob Lacey being involved with people, talking to groups of children in several European countries, inspecting a factory, looking out across the sea from the bridge of a EuroNavy destroyer, in shirtsleeves at a head of state meeting where he argued his point. “Rob Lacey,” the announcer said in a magnificently basso voice. “The man who cares about you. Rob Lacey did not come up through the Brussels system, he can see it needs reforming and simplifying. If elected he will do that. Bureaucracy must be cut back, freeing people to reach their full potential. Only Rob Lacey truly values individuals and—”
Jeff let out a bored yawn. The images that had been flipping up to illustrate how magnificent the candidate was suddenly showed Rob Lacey and Jeff walking around the manor’s garden. The prime minister was listening with a seriously thoughtful expression on his face as Jeff waved his arms around, chattering enthusiastically.
The youngsters round the patio jeered and booed loudly. Jeff stood up with a lazy grin on his face, and gave them a sweeping bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
Up on the screen, Rob Lacey was applauding a modern dance troupe from a German inner-city social regeneration project, half of whom were second-generation immigrants from Eastern Europe and Turkey. Jeff sat down as the ad finished with an appeal for inclusive voting, and any donations possible for the election campaign, ten percent of which would be given to the charities so ably supported by Mr. and Mrs. Lacey. He frowned, thinking about the time Lacey had visited the manor. Hadn’t he been talking merely about pruning the sycamores when they were walking around the gardens together?