Jonathan Lee - High Dive

‘Have you asked her?’

He shook his head. ‘If you had a daughter you’d know that questions like that never get answered. They stare at you in a way that suggests you’re a nutcase from outer space, Mari, and that the kindest thing would be to laser you into the ground. Pow. BZZZZZZ. ’

He expected another smile, a warmer one, but her lips didn’t move. Had he been insensitive? Perhaps her own childlessness was a source of pain? Her easy warmth with Engelbert suggested she’d make a good mother. It wasn’t necessarily too late.

‘Engel OK?’ he said.

‘Y e s. In your office.’

‘Good.’

‘I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Emma is babysitting. He’ll sleep soon, I hope.’

‘Set up camp in the side room?’

Marina nodded. ‘She’s trying to tire him out. Last time I looked, they were making a castle from tinfoil. My sister would kill me if she knew he wasn’t sleeping.’

‘Have they found my rolls of tape? For the — the construction?’

Now the smile came. ‘Tell me, why do you need all this tape?’

‘I buy in bulk,’ he said. ‘Saves the hotel money.’

‘What about friends?’ Marina said. ‘Who is she friends with at the moment?’

‘Emma?’

‘Freya.’

Someone downed a glass of champagne and said, ‘Ahhhhh.’ A few jackets were being positioned on the backs of chairs. One woman had a bow tie draped around her neck. Mrs Thatcher was definitely late.

‘Well,’ Moose said, ‘there’s that Tracy girl. The one with the, how do I put this … with the fashion sense? And of course Susie Thingy, who I think is currently outside protesting against our Prime Minister, which is interesting. Have you noticed that there seems to be a fair amount of chatter about the PM’s speech tomorrow? About how if it doesn’t go well she might be, you know …’

‘I thought they don’t see each other so much these days. Freya and Susie.’

‘Yes, yes. Did I know that?’

‘An argument one or two weeks ago.’

‘How do you hear this stuff?’

She shrugged. ‘People tell me things.’

‘That’s what I’ve always thought about myself, that people tell me things.’

‘Maybe you don’t listen to what they are telling.’

‘That seems a bit harsh.’

‘Also silence,’ Marina said.

‘Sorry?’

‘If you create a silence, people speak.’

Silence fell. Moose made a point of not speaking.

Marina said, ‘She’s swimming again, no?’

‘Yes, yes. She’s definitely doing that. We went together, actually.’

‘That was weeks ago.’

‘It went well, though.’

‘You had a heart attack, Moose.’

‘Well … true.’

‘I was talking of recently.’

‘Right.’

‘Who does she swim with these days?’

‘Who with? One of her old swimming-team friends, I think. She’s a grown-up, Mari.’

‘Such as?’

‘As?’

‘Which friends?’

He sunk his fist into a flap pocket of his jacket. He’d cleared out all of the coins. Usually coin-play gave him comfort, the quick answer of cool metal in his hand.

‘Mari, is this an interrogation, or what? I’m supposed to be able to name them? Are you suggesting —’ someone shoved past him, rude, thoughtless — ‘that I’m, what, a bad father in some way? Because I’m trying to make the best of a tricky situation, you know. Her mother I get nothing from. I get sweet FA from her mother. I know I’m only a mediocre dad.’ He capitulated to a pathetically painful cough. ‘I’m trying my best.’

‘Where are the sausage rolls?’ someone shouted. Another pocket of laughter erupted. For a split second Moose felt an incandescent urge to turn a gun on everyone in the room.

‘I’m not so familiar with the divorce benefits here,’ Marina said.

‘What?’

‘The sweet FA. I don’t know what this involves.’

Was she being funny?

‘I’ve spent years pursuing dead ends, Mari. What I need is —’

‘A photograph in the paper with Margaret, and some glowing endorsement. I know, and I do not think you are a mediocre dad.’

Photograph. The word was triggering a memory. ‘Your exhibition, Mari. The picture of the pig and the islands. Tell me I haven’t missed it.’

‘Not yet. Don’t worry.’

‘God. Good. I want to know the date. And this is not ego, Mari. This is me trying to get a career going. Why? So Freya can go through university without having to stack shelves. So she can get an education and have a good life. Corny but true.’

‘Does she actually want to go to a university, though? Is that her idea of a good life?’

‘She’ll go eventually. She’s smarter than all of us put together.’

‘So smart she will do what is expected of her, as women must.’

‘Look, Mari, I don’t expect you to understand. If I’d had certain opportunities that Freya has. If I had had the encouragement that —’

‘I am hearing a lot of I here,’ Marina said, and in saying it sounded so terrifyingly like his mother that Moose wondered, briefly, whether he could ever again bear to fantasise about rolling around with her on a sunny square of grass in … Somerset? Dorset? Which got better weather? OK: he could, he could.

He was feeling a little dizzy now, light-headed, regretful about that last glass of Coke. The doctors hadn’t said anything about Coke. They’d just advised him to avoid cigarettes and ‘sugary and fatty foodstuffs’. How much sugar could there be in a modern glass of Coke? Just a dash, these days, surely.

‘Mari,’ he said, ‘I admit it’s partly personal. I feel … I just feel … I feel like if I could do one perfect thing, you know, I’d be happy.’

In response Marina began to say something about daughters, but at that moment Moose saw, on the far side of the room, the familiar red jacket of the Captain. He seemed, oh God, to be talking to the Secretary of State for Education and Science. How had he slipped past security?

‘I’m going to have to deal with this, Mari. Sorry. He’s cornered Sir Keith.’

A gap opened up between Patrick Jenkin and Kenneth Baker. Baker was heading for great things, people said; he’d need to catch a moment with him later. He took the gap, closed in on the red jacket. The injection of pace left him breathless.

‘Your Excellency,’ he said to Sir Keith, which was definitely the wrong form of address.

Keith Joseph stared at him, a face full of tortured intensity. His features thinned into a wince and he wiped the wince with a conference-blue napkin.

The Captain whispered something to Sir Keith and Sir Keith said, ‘We’ll come back to that, we will. Have the two of you met?’

‘Of course,’ Moose said. ‘Of course.’ He slung a friendly arm around the Captain’s shoulders, surprised by the way his fingers seemed able to press between the bones. He said, ‘Sir Keith, not wishing to interrupt, but would you like me — well — I could introduce you to Mr Jenkin or Mr Baker over there, perhaps?’ He tried out something between a wink and a blink, still clutching the Captain’s fragile shoulders. Steering them, in fact, in the direction of the bar. A man like the Captain could probably be bribed into silence with a drink or two. An outright ejection from the hotel would risk making a scene. Nice guy — Moose meant him no harm — but he was out of place here. This was a private function.

Sir Keith’s gaze fell on Moose’s name badge. ‘I can assure you, Mr Finch, that I don’t need to be introduced to either of the two gentlemen you mentioned.’

‘Ah, of course, not introduced — not introduced as such — I just meant —’ He did a quick sideways nod in the direction of the Captain. Saving you! Saving you! He’s fun but a little bit crazy!