The boy thought about it. ‘I’m going to tell my mother not to bloody well pay you,’ he said.
Of course, by the time she came next day, half-amused, to see for herself, Johnny had applied the Clearasil of art, he’d smoothed him out, and taken something else out too, his character, such as it was. Now he was any spoilt teenaged brat.
Before his next visit, Bella suggested he stay the night – they were going to Mexico for Christmas and it would be a chance to get ahead first. They had dinner in the kitchen, cooked and served by Briony, a local woman with a fatuous confidence in her own opinions – she ate with the family too. She’d been to Mexico herself, and had nothing good to say for the place. ‘Don’t touch the food, Bella, that’s my advice. God, was I ill.’
‘How will we live then?’ said Samuel, insolent but curious.
‘I’m sure we’ll eat splendidly,’ said Alan.
Briony looked at him, with a pretence of a huff as she opened the lower oven: ‘Of course the sort of place you’re staying I’m sure everything will be very nice.’
‘You’ve been to Mexico?’ Alan said.
‘Yes – yes, we went about ten years ago,’ said Johnny – lost coupledom trailed and inviting questions. ‘We both loved it.’
Briony set a plate in front of him, baked pasta in a thick cream gloop, under cheesy breadcrumbs. ‘I’ll have you know I’ve gone to a good deal of trouble over this,’ she said.
‘Thanks very much,’ said Johnny. Vegetarians often gave their hosts a new sense of their own virtue.
‘You’re missing out on a lovely bit of veal, though I say it myself,’ she said, turning back to the range. Well, they weren’t always as brutal as that.
Alan glanced at him and said, ‘I was wondering if your old man was still alive? He must be getting on a bit if so.’
‘Dad? – oh, yes, he’s fighting fit,’ said Johnny. ‘He’ll be ninety next year’ – startled by the subject, and Alan’s belief it was all right to talk about it. He lifted his fork, sheared the stacked plateful to let it cool and saw with a familiar sinking of the heart a dozen small pink flakes in the sauce. He pressed one discreetly between two tines of the fork: salmon.
‘Gosh, marvellous . . .’ – Alan blinked at him and smiled. ‘Because that must have been quite a business, back in the 60s.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Bella, with a wince of sympathy, ‘I heard something about that.’
‘Well, it was very famous, darling,’ said Alan. ‘I’m sure Jonathan won’t mind me saying.’
‘What was it?’ said Samuel.
‘I’m not sure . . .’ said Bella, looking at Tallulah.
‘Well, there are books about it, aren’t there.’
‘Something very sad,’ said Bella primly, but then looked at Johnny as if half-hoping he would speak. None of them even imagined his quandary, but he knew how it would be once he started to explain – ‘I’m sorry . . .’ ‘No, I’m sorry,’ and Briony’s fury when she took the plate away and offered him the salad they were all due to have later.
Alan said, ‘It reminded me of the Poulson business, in a way.’
‘Well, people sometimes say that,’ said Johnny.
‘All the planning carry-on. But of course with the addition of er’ – he looked shrewdly at his daughter – ‘the other business.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ said Samuel, sitting back as his veal was put in front of him, and smiling meanly at Johnny – who saw that he still held the cards, he could honour or refuse their claim on him, or, as he usually did, dodge sideways.
Alan was reasonable. ‘I suppose if it had happened a year or two later, the affair with . . . what was he called?’
Johnny stared. ‘Clifford Haxby?’
‘Yes, that’s right – would have been quite legal. Damn bad luck that.’
‘It wasn’t exactly an affair,’ said Johnny.
‘And wasn’t there some terrifically dodgy MP involved?’
‘Yes, there was.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Briony, tucking her chin in, ‘but it sounds very fishy to me.’
‘But your mother’s still alive?’ Alan said, with a note of sympathy for her.
‘No. No, she died, some time ago now. In 19 . . . 98,’ said Johnny.
‘Right . . .’ – Alan nodding, thrown momentarily off-course. ‘But they . . .’
‘Oh, they didn’t stay together. No, Dad remarried, more than forty years ago now . . . what? . . . his secretary, yes,’ said Johnny – so Alan knew, but wanted, for some primitive reason, to have confirmation from the closest and most reluctant source.
‘Ooh, wonderful,’ said Alan, unaccommodating as he surveyed his plate.
‘I hope you don’t mind us eating meat,’ Bella said.
‘Oh! . . . no . . .’ said Johnny. ‘Though, um . . .’
‘Poor veals,’ said Tallulah tentatively.
‘They’re not bloody veals,’ said Samuel, in grinning disgust at her.
‘Actually, that’s just what they are, isn’t it,’ said Bella, receiving her fillet in its nearly black sauce. ‘I often think I could easily become a vegetarian.’
‘Mum, do I have to have courgettes?’ said Alfie.
‘I mean, I virtually am already. I hardly ever have red meat.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Samuel.
‘Samuel,’ said Alan, but laughed rather drily at the idea himself.
Johnny ran back over what he had said to Bella – he was quite sure, no creatures. He smiled at her. ‘Is something wrong?’ she said.
After dinner they went through to a sort of family room, beyond the kitchen, with big soft sofas flanking a wood-burning stove, a TV screen about the same size as the portrait he was working on, a table with a jigsaw that Bella and Tallulah were doing, Picasso’s Three Musicians, in 1,687 pieces. Tallulah had told him about it earlier, as she sat – the special problems with modern art, which she seemed determined to solve. ‘Mummy brought it back from New York for me,’ she said. ‘I love art.’ Johnny declined a brandy, which he knew would give him a headache, but yielded to a further glass of wine, which Alan poured for him with a small disparaging smile. ‘You were going to look up Jonathan’s website, darling,’ Bella said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alan, sitting down equably beside Johnny and opening the MacBook left on the sofa, which lit up for a second on the Wikipedia page about the Sparsholt Affair – he slumped backwards, pulled it towards him and typed in Johnny’s name instead, seeming unbothered. ‘You’ve got quite an individual style,’ he said, a minute later, nodding slowly as if taking the measure of what he was in for.
‘Well, I’ve been doing it for well over thirty years,’ said Johnny, ‘so I’m sure I have my bad habits as well as some good ones.’
‘I like your style,’ said Bella, making no bones about it. ‘Your painting style.’
‘Ah, I see you painted Freddie Green,’ Alan said.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Must have been right at the end of his life, from the look of him.’
Johnny thought, about the question and about what it implied. ‘Yes, he was very ill. I think his wife wanted to get him on canvas before anything worse happened.’
‘Mm . . . terrific,’ said Alan.
‘You knew him, then?’
‘Oh, I met him a couple of times,’ said Alan.
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Bella.
‘There’s one of his books around the house somewhere . . . Now, Nudes, I’m not sure I ought to look at those.’
Johnny saw him do so, sat in the mild inanity of anyone having their work looked at.
‘I hope you’re not still hungry,’ said Bella.
‘I’m fine,’ said Johnny. Soon he would ask if he could go to bed.
‘Golly,’ said Alan. ‘I’m glad my wife didn’t see these before she took you on.’
‘Of course I saw them,’ said Bella.