41. Brendan
CHAPTER 41
Brendan
T he Bach accompaniment to Gounod’s version of Ave Maria is pretty straightforward, actually.
I’ve steered away from classical music as long as I’ve played the piano, but I downloaded the sheet music for this after hearing Marlowe sing it here a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been practising it ever since.
The melody is flowing and arpeggiated and creates a serene foundation for the soaring vocals.
When I was first learning it, it made me feel happy.
Connected to Marlowe.
Now it just makes me feel sad.
And, honestly, it’s not as enjoyable without her here to sing along.
Eventually, I abandon the piano and pace around the room.
The summit is tomorrow, and I really need to practise my speech.
The problem is that my speech is boring as fuck, which means practising it is also boring as fuck.
At this time of day, my study buddies have worn off, meaning I’m in total ADHD paralysis.
My therapist has explained that this happens when my sympathetic and dorsal nervous system states collide and oppose each other at full force.
Whatever. All I know is that I’m full of pent-up energy and frustration and unable to channel it into something meaningful and productive.
Like practising my fucking speech.
I should probably record myself delivering it on my iPad.
At least if I play it back it’ll put me straight the fuck to sleep.
With a frustrated sigh, I pick up my phone and see a message from Plain Elaine.
She’s sent me a link to a research report one of the big investment banks has put out today ahead of the summit.
Her message says that their estimates for our industry’s projected carbon emission reductions over the next decade are way more pessimistic than mine and suggests that I arm myself with more hard data to back up my numbers in case anyone challenges it during the Q&A.
Well, that’s very fucking helpful, thanks Elaine.
Marlowe put those stats together for me.
She worked with the strategy team to pare them down to the ones that would paint the clearest picture.
Jesus Christ. I have no interest in dealing with this, or any last-minute curveballs for that matter.
I’m tired and cranky and nervous and sexually frustrated.
My Beth Dutton tit wank fantasy didn’t cut it in the shower this morning, and I was forced— forced —to succumb to the memory of spreading Marlowe out on my desk and eating her sometime last week in order to get myself over the edge.
It was humiliating, and it wasn’t enough.
I glance at my watch.
7pm. Marlowe should be done with jury duty for the day, shouldn’t she?
Courtrooms usually finish up pretty early.
I’ll just call her quickly.
I’ll keep it polite and professional and brief.
I’ll explain the situation and ask her to send over more of the context for the stats she gave me.
Then we can bid each other farewell like adults.
Yeah. I’ll do that. No big deal.
I’m a billionaire wheeler-dealer in a bespoke suit.
I pull off eight- and nine-figure deals without breaking a sweat.
I can sure as hell speak to my assistant without pissing my pants.
I bring up her number and hit the speaker button.
There’s a pause before it starts ringing.
Weird. That doesn’t sound like a UK dialling tone.
I’m frowning at my screen in confusion when the call connects.
Here goes.
I brace myself, unsure why my heart rate has picked up, but it’s not Marlowe who answers.
Instead, a perky woman with an American accent says, ‘Ms Winters’ phone!
How may I help you?’
Who the actual fuck is this?
‘Um. I need to speak to Marlowe.’
‘I’m afraid she’s not available right now, sir.
She’s in the ICU. May I take a message?
’
ICU? I rack my brains.
Is that—‘You don’t mean intensive care?
’ I ask. My heart is now hammering.
No no no. Why the fuck would she be in intensive care?
Has she had an accident?
‘I do, sir. But I can take a message.’
‘Why the—what’s wrong with her?
! Is she okay?’ Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
‘I’m afraid I can’t share any client information, sir.
But I’ll have Ms Winters call you back just as soon as she can, unless you’d like me to take a message?
’
I look up from my phone.
This room feels alien, as if I don’t even recognise it.
‘Hang on. I don’t—who is this?
And where the hell are you?
’
If she thinks I’m insane, she doesn’t say so.
‘My name is Norma, sir. I’m one of the duty nurses in the Paediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit here at Duke Children’s Hospital, North Carolina.
’
P aediatric.
Duke Children’s Hospital.
My head is spinning.
I can’t—does that mean Marlowe’s not in the ICU herself?
Why the fuck would she be in a children’s hospital in North Carolina?
There’s only one reason that I can think of.
Only one reason she would have lied to me to get this time off.
Marlowe has a child, and that child is ill, and my assistant is not on jury duty as I thought but instead holding some kind of bedside vigil in intensive fucking care in North fucking Carolina, and I can barely breathe, I can barely function as my overwrought brain attempts to absorb and compile and process this information.
I do the first thing I can think of and pull up Athena’s number.
She answers after a couple of rings.
‘Brendan.’
‘Does Marlowe have a kid?’ I blurt out.
She lets out a long, defeated sigh.
‘Yeah. My goddaughter, Tabby.’
‘Tabby.’ I whisper the name to myself, wondering why it sounds familiar.
‘And she’s ill?’ Pressure is building in my sinuses, and I pinch the bridge of my nose.
‘She is. She was. But?—’
‘Why the fuck are they in North Carolina?’
She sighs again, even longer and harder.
‘Tabs needed an operation to save her life. Duke is the best place on the planet to do it. Look, have you spoken to Marlowe, or…?’
Save her life save her life save her life.
‘I just called her, but this woman answered her phone. And I tried to talk to her, but this nurse said she was in the ICU, and she wouldn’t fucking tell me anything, and so—then I—but I don’t?—’
‘Brendan. Breathe for me, okay? It’s all okay.
’ There’s some rushed, low-level mumbling as she presumably talks to Gabe.
‘I need to know,’ I say, because she’s being obtuse.
I thought Athena was smart, but she’s too calm.
I don’t understand why she’s—doesn’t she realise how bad this is?
‘I need to know how—what’s the—like, is there a fucking plan here?
’
I’ve started shouting without realising it.
I just want to make her understand the urgency here.
‘Brendan. Listen. Can you make it over here? Come over and we’ll have a proper chat, and I’ll tell you what I can, though the story is really Marlowe’s to tell.
’
My mind is reeling, but the only thing I’m certain of is that I need answers.
‘Yeah. I’ll take the bike.
’ I have a bespoke Falcon in the garage downstairs, and it’s going to be by far the quickest way of taking me across London and getting me some answers.
‘Okay.’ She sounds doubtful.
‘Don’t kill yourself.
You’ll be no good to anyone if you come off your motorbike.
’
‘I won’t. Athena?
’
‘Yes?’
I can barely get out the words.
‘How old is—how old is her—Tabby?’
‘She’s eight.
Nearly nine.’ Athena’s voice is soft when she says it in a way I haven’t heard before, except when she’s mooning over my brother.
My beautiful Marlowe is mother to a gravely ill eight-year-old little girl, and I didn’t know a damn thing about it.
I don’t take the time to put on my leathers, which is probably really stupid, but I don’t care.
Besides, it’s a warm night and I’d rather stay in my shorts and t-shirt.
I get across the river quickly on my Falcon and then make my way to my brother’s house in Manchester Square as speedily as I can risk without getting pulled over.
Athena answers the door.
She surveys me with a grim countenance.
No doubt she thinks I’m having some kind of breakdown.
She wouldn’t be far wrong.
The entire way here, my brain has been downloading question after question.
I don’t understand what’s going on here, and I need some answers before I lose the fucking plot.
I follow her through to the kitchen where my brother is putting the finishing touches to what smells like stir-fry.
On the nearby table is a huge stack of Audacity Foundation brochures.
They have a stall at the green summit tomorrow.
He comes over, slaps me silently and heartily on the back once, and slides an open bottle of beer over to me.
I take it with an equally silent salute and raise it gratefully to my lips.
Jesus, that’s good.
While my mind was busy formulating questions on the bike ride over, it was also busy prioritising them, so I go ahead and blurt out what is by far the most important one.
‘Is Tabby going to be okay?’
Athena picks up her glass of white wine.
‘It seems so, yes.’
I blow out a breath.
‘Good. That’s good. What’s wrong with her?
’
‘She has a rare congenital heart defect.’
Congenital…
‘She was born with it?’
‘Yes. Her pulmonary valve, which takes blood from her heart to her lungs, was too narrow when she was born. She had an operation at birth to replace it, and one aged three, but she’s been overdue another one for some time.
She had the replacement done yesterday, and from what Marlowe tells me, it all went smoothly, thank God.
’
She’s been speaking to Marlowe.
Marlowe has shared this emergency with her.
Of course she has—her little girl is Athena’s goddaughter.
‘But I thought she was in the ICU.’
‘It’s standard for a major operation like that,’ Athena says, and her voice is so calm and assured that I could kiss her.
‘They’re just observing her.
’
‘Okay. Great. That’s good.
And—sorry, why go to the US?
’
‘Duke has the world’s leading paediatric cardiothoracic surgeons,’ she explains patiently, and I realise she’s already told me this over the phone.
‘Plus, they did it laparoscopically. Over here, it would have meant open-heart surgery. The NHS was dragging its feet and Great Ormond Street couldn’t operate before November in any case.
Tabby didn’t have time to wait.
’
Great Ormond Street.
The gala that I treated as a chance to flaunt my boring-as-fuck supermodel trophy on the red carpet was actually raising money for families like Marlowe’s.
A wave of nausea and self-disgust rolls through me.
‘How do you know she didn’t have time to wait?
’ I ask. My voice sounds thick.
My brain feels thick.
Cotton woolly.
Athena and Gabe exchange a glance that looks significant.
‘Her blue spells have been getting more frequent,’ she says.
‘That’s what we call it when her lungs are deprived of blood—she starts to turn blue in places.
Her A&E visits have been ramping up.
’ I stare at her in horror.
Every single new piece of information is like a blow to the stomach, but she’s rattling them off matter-of-factly, as if all these nightmare scenarios are something she’s profoundly familiar with.
‘They used to only happen when she exerted herself,’ she continues, ‘but they’ve been happening more and more.
We’ve all been on tenterhooks over it.
’
We’ve all been on tenterhooks.
We. I glare at my brother.
‘Do you know her?’
‘Tabs? Yeah, I’ve met her once or twice with Marlowe at Athena’s,’ he says, and I flinch.
Tabs. They’ve all been playing happy families and sharing this burden with Marlowe and I’ve been fucking oblivious this entire time.
‘Then why the fuck didn’t she tell me?
’ I ask, the frustration in my voice audible even to me, because I’m feeling stupid now.
Athena gives me a don’t be obtuse look.
‘Come on, Brendan.’
‘Come on, what? How the hell does my assistant have a sick kid and no one thinks to tell me?’
‘It was deliberate,’ she says in her measured voice, ‘and I’m sorry if that stings, but there was no way you would have hired her if you’d known her circumstances, and she really needed this job.
She needed the money.
’
I feel like I’m wading through treacle here, but my brain is fuzzy and overstimulated and I can’t work out what the fuck connection I’m failing to make.
‘What for? The flights? The trip?’
‘For the operation , Brendan. It’s costing her a fortune, but she was out of options.
GOSH had a six-month waitlist and Tabby needed that operation urgently.
It was looking increasingly likely that an emergency op would happen, which would have been far too risky and far too invasive.
’ She steps forward, her brow creased, and puts a hand on my arm.
‘Marlowe needed to find a way to get hold of hundreds of thousands of pounds as quickly as possible, and she flat-out refused to let me pay for it.’
She clears her throat delicately.
Her hand is cool against my bare arm, but it doesn’t help to dispel the nausea that’s rising inside me like a relentless tide.
‘The only option was Seraph, and I suggested you, because I was absolutely bloody terrified for her and I knew you’d look after her.
I knew I could trust you.
Honestly, it was the only way I could, in all decency, propose her for Seraph.
Yes, she was insistent on earning the funds herself, but the way I saw it, someone as inexperienced as Marlowe signing herself up for sex work was like throwing herself into the lion’s den.
She hasn’t had a boyfriend since Tabs was born, for God’s sake.
’
I stare at her, bile filling my mouth with rancid acid.
She needed the money.
I knew you’d look after her.
I knew I could trust you.
Throwing herself into the lion’s den.
She hasn’t had a boyfriend since Tabs was born.
I hired a beautiful, smart, sexy, obliging woman so I could use and abuse her.
I knew Marlowe was classy, knew she had integrity, but figured she had experience, at the very least. I figured she wanted a certain lifestyle and was prepared to do what it took to fund that lifestyle.
I fucked her in every position.
I made her suck my friend off while I took her from behind.
I dragged her into my blokey, boozy lunch and tried to finger her.
Oh, Jesus.
I intentionally humiliated her.
I treated her like a whore.
I used every trick in the book the other day to make her feel like a piece of fucking meat in front of my mates.
And she was doing it all to save her daughter’s life.
She isn’t a slick professional operator.
She’s a desperate, terrified mother who will do anything, endure anything, to save her little girl’s life.
And Athena was looking out for her—Athena engineered the whole thing, thinking she could trust me to act properly.
To look out for her friend and treat her with respect and decency.
Her face the other day in that meeting room.
Her face. Oh dear God, I can’t get it out of my mind.
Another wave of bile seeps into my mouth, and my entire body convulses.
I slam down my beer bottle and I turn, running out of the kitchen and across the huge hallway into Gabe’s downstairs cloakroom, where I fall to my knees and proceed to noisily, messily, empty the poison of my sickened stomach and my blackened heart into his toilet bowl.