“What a pity you’ll miss Aunt Helena at New Year,” Mum tells me.
“It is.” I sit back down and resume my lunch. “Give her my love.”
“Right,” says Nigel. “Like you’d rather be stuck in Richmond over New Year than skiing in Switzerland. You’re mega-jammy, Hugo.”
“How many times have I told you?” says Dad. “It’s not—”
“What you know but who you know,” says Nigel. “Nine thousand, six hundred, and eight, including just now.”
“That’s why getting to a brand-name university matters,” says Dad. “To network with future big fish and not future small-fry.”
“I forgot to mention,” remembers Mum. “Julia’s covered herself in glory — again. She’s won a scholarship to study human-rights law, in Montreal.”
I’ve always had a thing for my cousin Julia, and the thought of covering her in anything is Byronically diverting.
“Lucky she takes after your side of the family, Alice,” says Dad, a dour reference to my ex-uncle Michael’s divorce ten years ago, complete with secretary and love child. “What’s Jason studying again?”
“Something psycho-linguisticky,” says Mum, “at Lancaster.”
Dad frowns. “Why do I associate him with forestry?”
“He wanted to be a forester when he was a kid,” I say.
“But now he’s settled on being a speech therapist,” says Mum.
“A st-st-stuttering sp-sp-speech therapist,” says Nigel.
I grind peppercorns over my mashed pumpkin. “Not grown-up and not clever, Nige. A stammer has to be the best possible qualification for a speech therapist. Don’t you think?”
Nigel does a guess-so face in lieu of admitting I’m right.
Mum sips her wine. “This wine is divine, Hugo.”
“Divine’s the word for Montrachet seventy-eight,” says Dad. “You shouldn’t be spending your money on us, Hugo. Really.”
“I budget carefully, Dad. The office-drone work I do at the solicitor’s adds up. And after everything you’ve done for me down the years, I ought to be able to stand you a bottle of decent plonk.”
“But we’d hate to think of you going short,” says Mum.
“Or your studies suffering,” adds Dad, “because of your job.”
“So just let us know,” says Mum, “if money’s tight. Promise?”
“I’ll come cap in hand, if that ever looks likely. Promise.”
“My money’s tight,” says Nigel, hopefully.
“You’re not living out in the big bad world.” Dad frowns at the clock. “Speaking of which, I only hope Alex’s fräulein’s parents know she’s calling England. It’s the middle of the day.”
“They’re Germans, Dad,” says Nigel. “Big fat Deutschmarks.”
“You say that, but reunification is going to cost the earth. My clients in Frankfurt are very jumpy about the fallout.”
Mum slices a roasted potato. “What’s Alex told you about Suzanne, Hugo?”
“Not a word.” With my knife and fork I slide trout flesh off its bones. “Sibling rivalry, remember.”
“But you and Alex are the firmest of friends, these days.”
“As long as,” says Nigel, “no one utters those six deadly words, ‘Anyone fancy a game of Monopoly?’ ”
I look hurt. “Is it my fault if I can’t seem to lose?”
Nigel snorts. “Just ’cause no one knows how you cheat—”
“Mum, Dad, you heard that hurtful, baseless aspersion.”
“—isn’t proof you don’t cheat.” Nigel wags his knife. My baby brother lost his virginity this autumn: chess magazines and Atari console out, the KLF and grooming products in. “Anyway, I know three things about Suzanne, using my powers of deduction. If she finds Alex attractive, then (a) she’s blind as a bat, (b) she’s used to dealing with toddlers, and (c) she has no sense of smell.”
Enter the Alex: “Who’s got no sense of smell?”
“Fetch Firstborn’s dinner from the oven,” I order Nigel, “or I’ll rat you out and you’ll deserve it.” Nigel obeys, sheepishly enough.
“So how’s Suzanne?” asks Mum. “All well in Hamburg?”
“Yeah, fine.” Alex sits down. He’s a brother of few words.
“She’s a pharmacology student, you said?” states Mum.
Alex spears a brain of cauliflower from the dish. “Uh-huh.”
“And will we be meeting her at some point, do you think?”
“Hard to say,” says Alex, and I think of my own poor dear Mariângela’s vain hopes.
Nigel puts Alex’s lunch in front of our elder brother.
“What I can’t get over,” says Dad, “is how distances have shrunk. Girlfriends in Germany, ski trips to the Alps, courses in Montreaclass="underline" This is all normal nowadays. The first time I left England was to go to Rome, when I was about your age, Hugo. None of my mates had ever gone so far. A pal and I got the Dover-Calais ferry, hitched a ride down to Marseille, then across to Turin, then Rome. Took us six days. It felt like the edge of the known world.”
Nigel asks, “Did the wheels come off the mail coach, Dad?”
“Funny. I didn’t go back to Rome until two years ago, when New York decided to hold the European AGM there. Off we all jetted in time for a late lunch, a few supervisions, schmoozing until midnight, then the next day we were back in London in time for—”
We hear the phone ring, back in the living room. “It’s for one of you boys,” Mum declares. “Bound to be.”
Nigel skids down the hall and into the living room; my trout gazes up with a disappointed eye. A few moments later, Nigel’s back. “Hugo, that was a Diana on the phone for you — Diana Spinster, Spankser, Spencer, didn’t quite catch it. She said you could pop over to the palace while her husband’s touring the Commonwealth … Something about Tantric plumbing? She said you’d understand.”
“There’s this operation, little brother. It would help that one-track mind of yours. Vets do it cheaply.”
“Who was on the phone, Nigel?” asks Mum. “Before you forget.”
“Mrs. Purvis at the Riverside Villas. She said to tell Hugo that the brigadier’s feeling better today, and if he’d still like to visit this afternoon, he’d be welcome to call between three and five o’clock.”
“Great. If you’re sure you can spare me, Dad …”
“Go go go. Your mother and I are very proud of how you still go to read to the brigadier, aren’t we, Alice?”
Mum says, “Very.”
“Thanks,” I shrug awkwardly, “but Brigadier Philby was so brilliant when I went to see him for my civics class at Dulwich, and so full of stories. It’s the least I can do.”
“Oh, God.” Nigel groans. “Someone’s locked me up inside an episode of Little House on the Prairie.”
“Then let me offer you a way out,” says Dad. “If Hugo’s visiting the brigadier, you can help me collect the tree.”
Nigel looks aghast. “But Jasper Farley and I are going to Tottenham Court Road this afternoon!”
“What for?” Alex loads his fork. “All you do is slobber over hi-fi gear and synthesizers you can’t afford.”
We hear a small crash out on the patio. From the corner of my eye I see a flash of black. A toppled flower pot skitters across the patio, the spade tips over, and the black flash turns into a cat with a robin in its mouth. The bird’s wings are flapping. “Oh.” Mum recoils. “That’s horrible. Can’t we do something? The cat looks so pleased with itself.”
“It’s called survival of the fittest,” says Alex.