“For you, maybe. But you should have seen him yesterday. His imagination’s completely out of control. I mean, he’s a world authority on executions. He could take the tourists round the Tower of London himself, telling them how many axe blows it took to dispatch Anne Boleyn, and what they did with her head afterward. And then Macbeth — he was practically jumping out of his seat.”
“Well, that’s your fault. You shouldn’t have taken him to the bloody play if he’s got this problem.”
“I know I shouldn’t. But he’s not the way he is because of going to the theater. You know that, Peter.”
“All right, I get the point. What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to spend more time with him. Take him out in the world a bit.”
“How? You stay down in Suffolk all the time, and I’m trying to be a cabinet minister.”
“Well, we’ll both have to try harder, that’s all. We are his parents, you know. I’ll bring him up to London more, and you can take him out when I do.”
“Okay, it’s a deal. Starting today. After I’ve dealt with these Arabs. They want to buy a whole lot of fighter aircraft to use on each other. Have him meet me at twelve. I’ll be free by then.”
Thomas’s parents came out into the hall, and he ducked back behind the banister. As they kissed each other good-bye on the front doorstep, they looked just for a moment like a normal middle-aged couple at the start of a working day, instead of two people who only saw each other two weekends each month.
After the door shut, Thomas waited a minute or two before going down to join his mother in the kitchen.
“You look better, Tom,” she said brightly. “It’s wonderful what a proper night’s sleep will do for a tired boy.”
“I do sleep well. Why do you keep on going on about how weird I am?” he asked irritably.
“I don’t. Where do you get that idea from?”
Thomas didn’t reply. He wanted to know what his mother had meant by outside help, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to own up to eavesdropping.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“He had to go early. Something came up with his work, but he’s still taking you out to lunch and showing you round Parliament.”
“Oh, God, Mum, do I have to?”
“Yes, of course you do. Don’t be so mean, Thomas. You should be proud of your father and all he’s achieved.”
“Well, he’s not proud of me. Any chance he gets he’s on about how hopeless I am. Doesn’t play cricket. Doesn’t play rugby. How can I when they don’t even play rugby at my school?”
“I know. He needs to get to know you; spend some time with you. That’s why I’m so pleased about today. You’re to meet him in the lobby of his office building at midday.”
“What? In Whitehall? Will I need a pass?”
“No, of course not. You’re only going into the reception area. You might need one later, I suppose, when he takes you on the Parliament tour, but he’ll organize all that.”
“Do you think we’ll see the prime minister?” asked Thomas, suddenly shaking off his lethargy as the full possibilities of the tour opened up to him.
“I don’t know, but you’ll need to be dressed smartly if you do. You can wear your blazer and the trousers we bought at Harrods the other day. And you better take a coat as well, in case it rains.”
Lady Anne was going to the hairdresser and then on to her dressmaker, so Thomas was alone in the taxi as it went past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. He felt confused by his emotions. He was still smarting with resentment at the offhand way in which his father had talked about him earlier, but he was also curious about what he was going to see. Not every boy was the son of a cabinet minister. More than anything Thomas felt nervous as he got out in front of the tall gray stone Victorian office building with the gold plaque on the side of the high doorway bearing the legend MINISTRY OF DEFENSE. He became almost tongue-tied as he tried to explain his business to a porter who seemed to consider it part of his employment contract to wear an unvaryingly dubious expression when dealing with members of the public, whatever their age.
Thomas waited for nearly five minutes, wilting under the porter’s withering stare, until Greta appeared at the top of a flight of red carpeted stairs. She looked different today. In Flyte and again on the previous evening she’d been dressed casually, but now she was wearing a dark gray business suit over a plain white blouse. The material was soft and beautifully cut to display her figure to the best advantage, and the hemline of the skirt was high above the knee, revealing the perfection of her long, tanned legs. Thomas’s head swam for a moment as his recent dream of Greta returned to him with sudden intensity.
She came running down the stairs carrying a picnic basket. She put down the basket and kissed him on the cheek, just like she had the night before, resting her arm on his shoulder so that he felt her breasts for a moment brushing against his chest.
“Been looking after our young guest, have you, Mills?” she said, turning with a mock serious expression toward the old porter, who grunted in response from behind his desk. Not even Greta in a miniskirt seemed capable of changing his dubious exterior.
“Miserable Mills we call him,” whispered Greta, bending toward Thomas so as not to be overheard.
“I can see why,” he whispered back, but his voice came out louder than he’d intended and he was sure that Miserable Mills had heard them. He looked suddenly quite warlike, gripping a stapler on his desk with apparently ferocious intent.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” said Greta, ignoring the outbreak of militancy behind her. “Your father can’t make it. There’s been a semidisaster this morning. The Saudis are threatening to cancel a big defense contract.”
“Why?”
“The usual thing. Somebody’s said something rude about their legal system. I must say it gets bloody difficult at times pretending it’s perfectly all right to stone women for adultery and cut people’s heads off in the town center. Anyway, it’s not his fault he can’t be here, and he is really sorry. I hope you don’t mind having me as a substitute.”
As she spoke, Greta was shepherding Thomas out of the building and into a taxi she’d hailed just as they set foot on the sidewalk.
“It’s not far, but I don’t feel like dragging the picnic around with us if we can avoid it. I thought that we could have it by the river after we’ve done the Houses of Parliament.”
Thomas was touched. His feelings about Greta were as confused as ever. The evident antipathy between her and his mother made him feel that a day spent with Greta would be seen by his mother as an act of disloyalty, but what choice did he have? His father had let him down, and his mother had gone out for the day. It was kind of Greta to take the time out and bring a picnic. She didn’t need to do that. Thomas took it as a compliment, and sitting beside Greta in the taxi he felt his skin tingle as he anticipated the day ahead.
It was the Easter recess and Parliament was not sitting. The long green leather benches in the House of Commons did not interest Thomas much even when Greta pointed out the government front bench and the microphone where his father would stand when making a statement to the House. Thomas felt let down by his father but at the same time relieved that he didn’t have to spend the day with him. He could imagine how boring his father would have made it, whereas Greta told racy anecdotes about prominent politicians, prefacing each disclosure with an injunction “not to breathe a word or I’ll get into terrible trouble with your father.”
The sun was shining high in a cloudless sky when they got outside into Parliament Square just after one o’clock, and they walked down to the park carrying the picnic basket between them. There was a blanket on top of it, and Greta spread it out on the grass near the river.
“We went on a boat yesterday,” said Thomas, making conversation while Greta unpacked the rest of the picnic. “Me and my mother. We went from here up to the Tower. Past Traitors’ Gate.”
“God, it’s a grisly place,” said Greta. “I haven’t been there since I first came to London.”
“Why grisly?”
“Well, where do you start? The Princes in the Tower. Anne Boleyn. Catherine Howard.”
“Yes, we saw where they were executed.”
“By that bastard, Henry the Eighth. The most disgusting old man in history. Marries pretty girls a third of his age, and a third of his weight too, and then he kills them when they have an affair. What did he expect?”
“But they didn’t,” said Thomas eagerly. “Not Anne Boleyn anyway. Thomas Cromwell told the King she did,
