Chapter 27 #2
“Gone. Ejected from the party. He pissed off too many people, too many times, and his biggest mistake was putting me in here. There’s apparently some investment scandal simmering too, that he’s going to be dragged into, so he’s effectively jumped before he was pushed.
Point is, I know he had a hand in your being shipped off there, so if that was the sticking point for you, I wanted you to know that it’s been unstuck. ”
It had been part of it, of course, but nowhere near the totality of the thing. Asher is a far larger sticking point now, and I’m not sure Jasmine Thewlis will be able to unstick him. Not from my mind or my heart or my soul.
“You started this call by telling me how it was the worst job in the world. Your sales pitch needs a lot more work.”
She laughs at this. “You know just how fucking shit the job is, Christian, you’ve always known, I’m hardly going to lie to you about it. You knew and you didn’t care because your heart was in it.”
“No one gave a shit about my heart when they took my name off the foreign secretary’s door and put me on a business flight to Washington.”
“How is your heart, by the way?” she says bluntly. I get an image of Asher in bed, hair ruffled and eyes still sleepy, smiling.
“Healing.”
“I’m glad. Look, despite what everyone thinks, I do have some degree of responsibility for this country, and I do believe Bridget is right about this one: you’re the guy.
You should have been the guy after Nish; everyone here knows it, including me.
” Then, because she can’t resist the joke, she says in a very affected accent. “Your country needs you, sir!”
Perhaps it does. But do I need it?
I promise Jasmine that I’ll give my answer to Bridget after the ambassador dinner, then I go looking for Leo.
He’s dead asleep on his bed, fully clothed, pink hair fluffed out like a troll toy.
Back downstairs, I find Mrs Kennedy in the kitchen, explaining things very loudly and very carefully to a woman next to her.
It’s the new woman who sees me first, turning to me fully and dropping into a curtsey.
I have to swallow the urge to laugh, giving her a friendly smile instead.
“Hello there, you must be Marianne.” Both Gael and Mrs Kennedy had reminded me that a new member of the house staff was starting this week.
I tried my very best to learn their names, though I barely saw them unless they came in to clean my office when I was in there.
It felt to me like most of the housework was done in the dead of night because of how little I saw them.
Paintings and figurines gleamed and sparkled, the sheets were always pressed to perfection, and the lawns mown smooth and green.
“Yes, sir, nice to meet you, sir,” says Marianne with a nervous smile.
“Ambassador,” Mrs Kennedy corrects with a note of impatience. I can’t imagine she’d be very forgiving to work under.
“I trust Grace is filling you in on how much of a nightmare I am to work for?”
Grace laughs girlishly. “He’s the best one we’ve had, don’t let him fool you.”
“I was just hoping for some tea, if that’s alright?”
Both women nod profusely. “Of course, sir,” says Marianne.
“I’m in the study if you can bring it there. Tell me, is Mr Cazalla at home?”
“Yes, Ambassador, I believe he went for a swim.”
“Perfect, I’ll nip down and see him there then. Thanks.”
The pool is in the lower basement of the house, beneath the gym.
I haven’t used it once since I got here, mainly because, well, I can’t swim.
It’s embarrassing. My mother, who had a distant cousin who drowned as a child, was always terrified the same would happen to me and so never wanted me to have lessons or be anywhere near a body of water if it could be helped.
My mother, who now lives in a house by the sea.
Gael is swimming quickly and smoothly through the neon blue, powerful strokes propelling him towards the far end of the medium-sized pool away from me.
I’m not sure he’ll see me stood here since his stroke means his head barely rises from the water as he sucks in air.
But he stops by my feet and peers up at me, pulling off the mirrored goggles.
“Ambassador, sir,” he says, breathing hard.
“Sorry to disturb you, Gael. I just wondered if you had ten minutes for a quick chat?”
Some flicker of concern moves over his face quickly before it’s gone. “Of course, sir. Let me just get out and change.”
“Well, just finish up and come see me in the study.”
He nods. “Of course. Yes, sir.”
Back in my study, there’s a pot of hot tea waiting for me. As is a text from Asher. It’s a photo of him dressed in something very shiny—latex, by the looks of it—and very revealing, panels cut out on the shoulders, abdomen, and thighs to show strips of smooth skin.
Zachary:
Been thinking this for your party. What do u think?
Me:
A bit understated don’t you think?
Zachary:
You’re right. I’ll keep looking.
Smiling, I pour myself some tea and scan tomorrow’s schedule.
It’s another busy one. I know because of my absence there’s a need to get everything back to where it was, but it feels relentless.
And if I say yes to Bridget, this only gets more intense.
Yes, the work will be more important, as will I, which is what I want. Isn’t it?
A knock on the door brings me out of my thoughts and back into the room.
“Come in.”
Gael enters with his head up and shoulders back, a sort of determined look on his face, like a man about to ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage. He takes the seat across from my desk, sitting straight-backed and upright, and meets my eye. We both talk at once.
“Sir, I want to—”
“I wanted to—”
“Apologies, sir,” Gael says, looking down a moment. He looks a little angry with himself.
“It’s quite alright. Go ahead.”
“After you, sir.”
“Right, well. I wanted to ask you about Leo. I know you’ve both become quite friendly the last few weeks.”
“He… we… it’s been great getting to know him,” says Gael before pressing his mouth into a flat line.
“Then perhaps you’ll know whether he’s… alright.”
Gael blinks. “Alright?”
“Have you seen his hair?”
I see something crack then in Gael’s sober expression, and he smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Ah, yes, sir. I saw it.”
“I don’t know if all of this is something I should be worried about? Most kids rebel at sixteen. Not twenty-four. Though Leo was too busy going to rehab when he was sixteen.”
“Rehab, sir?”
“Oh, the physical kind. Did he tell you about the accident?”
“No?”
That doesn’t particularly speak volumes.
He never speaks of it. Not to me at least. Not to Stella back then, either.
He saw a therapist for a short time, but she told us they were making very little progress, as he wouldn’t speak about it to her either.
I don’t want to break his trust, so I keep it brief and vague.
“He was involved in quite a bad car accident when he was sixteen. He lost two of his friends.” He also lost his tennis career.
Cal, his best friend, had also been in the car and came away with the least damage.
Sometimes I think Cal is the only person on earth who understands who Leo is deep down.
Cal, who was now living out Leo’s dream of playing professional tennis.
“My god,” whispers Gael, his eyes turning very sad.
“Yes. Stella and I lost about ten years off our lives that night, too. But he became a lot more closed off after the accident, reluctant to let people in. Then Stella passed, and his best friend went off to university here in the States.” My heart aches thinking of how alone he must have felt then.
I was working every hour of the day, and he was trying to get through a university course he never wanted to take because he was always going to play tennis.
“Anyway, what I’m getting at is that it’s been wonderful to see him opening up a little to you, to see him making a new friend here.
” I give Gael a grateful smile, which he has some trouble returning.
He sits stiff and tense in the chair, hands fisted on his lap.
“And I’m not at all asking you to break his confidence, I just want to know if there’s anything that I need to be worried about. Anything concerning?”
“Concerning?” Gael repeats.
“Besides the hair, yes. He won’t talk to me about it, and I know he left his job a few months ago, though he never told me, and as far as I know, he doesn’t have another. I’ve no clue what he’s been doing.”
“Um, well…” Gael scratches the back of his head, looking a little uncomfortable. “I don’t know if it was intended to be a secret or anything—I wasn’t aware that you didn’t know, sir.”
“Know what?”
“What he’s been doing for work.”
I frown. “He is working?” Why wouldn’t he tell me? What on earth has he been doing that he wouldn’t want to tell me about it? “Doing what?”
Gael looks me right in the eye, almost apologetic when he says, “He’s been acting, sir. He’s making a movie.”