TWENTY-THREE
A week later, on Saturday morning, Aubrey was woken by his flat’s doorbell at a hellishly early hour which turned out to be ten o’clock. He growled at the clock on his phone as though it was personally responsible for his nights of insomnia and walked stiffly to the intercom, imagining vivid ways of killing all delivery drivers everywhere.
It was Roscoe.
“Thought we were going for a run?” the man said when he walked into the flat so happily and healthily Aubrey wanted to hit him. He frowned at Aubrey’s crumpled pyjamas. “Rough night?”
“Week.”
“Work?”
“Women.”
“Ah.”
Roscoe followed him into the kitchen, where Aubrey poked at the useless fucking coffee machine until it came to life.
“Want to talk about it?” asked Roscoe.
“No.”
“Liv?”
“No.”
“Evie?”
Aubrey flinched, said nothing, hands braced on the kitchen counter, looking at the coffee machine and the small blue light that cheerily claimed to be doing something and clearly was not.
“Hugo called me. Howell bringing in the vegan meal is already family legend. Everybody knows, Aubrey.”
“Knows what, exactly?”
“That you and Evie… You know… You have a thing.”
Aubrey gave a humourless laugh. “A thing.” A thing that stood no chance. Evie would probably start a fundraising campaign for it. Find a straw-lined box for the poor thing to slowly die in.
“Admittedly, I didn’t quite believe it at first when you two met at mine a while back. But you were barely out of the door when Poppy tried to wager me a ton you’d be together by Christmas. I’ve learnt not to make bets with that woman.”
“Would have been an easy hundred, Ross.”
“She insisted there were ‘sparks’.”
“Mm. That’s often how disasters start.”
“So what happened?”
“She met me.”
Roscoe let out a sigh, even his famed good humour being put to the test. Aubrey gave the coffee machine a slap, then gave up and turned to lean against the counter, arms folded.
“Domnall signed,” he said. “Fifteen percent.”
Roscoe searched his face for a moment, frowning. “It’s a start. But…”
“Not the seventy-plus your father was hoping for, I know.”
“Any ideas why he’s holding back?”
“Because I’m refusing to let him treat us like a mafia laundrette.”
Roscoe winced. “I bet that’s making you popular.”
“Hugely.”
Roscoe sighed again but in sympathy this time. “Get out of the way,” he said mildly, shifting Aubrey away from the coffee machine. He pressed some buttons. The machine came to life.
“Go for your run, Ross. I’m not good company.”
“All the more reason to stay.”
“I hate you and your entire family.”
“I know.”
Aubrey stood rock still while Roscoe got cups out of the cupboard. He was panicking, the situation sliding out of his control, Roscoe determined to make him talk and admit to feelings, and he very much wanted to jump out of the window instead.
“I think I broke your sister’s heart. You should be challenging me to a duel in the street.”
Roscoe paused. “Is that true? Should I be at Evie’s making coffee for her instead?”
“She has something called a Zig.”
“Is that Dr Seuss?”
“An environmentalist. Knits houmous.”
Roscoe shook his head. “I barely understand you when you’re not morbidly depressed and cagey. Stop talking in riddles.” He handed Aubrey a coffee. “Tell me what happened.”
There was almost precisely nothing that Aubrey was prepared to tell Roscoe about what had happened between him and his sister. Not a single thing from her appearing at the Awards event to Aubrey returning to the flat after Asha’s birthday and crying at the sight of a pink fluffy hot water bottle.
“I got over Liv. Fell for Evie. She momentarily forgot I was a heartless bastard, then remembered. Et voilà .”
Roscoe took a sip of his coffee, regarding Aubrey for a long moment. “You’ve been busy. OK. But given you’re not remotely a bastard of any description, what prompted her to think you were?”
“The community garden she spent months building that I got Domnall to concrete over for tax reasons.”
Roscoe choked on his coffee, punching himself on the chest a few times. “Jesus Christ, Aubrey.”
He sipped his coffee, shrugged. “ Et voilà .”
“And you’ve apologised? Begged forgiveness? Promised to buy a wildflower meadow and dedicate it to her? You need to talk to Hugo. He can give you some tips on making things right.”
Aubrey put his cup down, throat too tight to swallow, something sharp in his gut. “I didn’t apologise.”
“But…”
“I was doing my job, Roscoe. Am I meant to apologise for my every waking minute? Because ninety-nine percent of them are spent doing things exactly like that. Or worse. How is that any foundation for a relationship, if the woman you’re falling in love with hates the very essence of who you are?”
“Love?” Roscoe echoed.
“Fuck,” Aubrey breathed, realising what he had said. He covered his eyes with his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose, and breathed slowly in, out, holding back the sudden trembling in his chest.
“Two things,” Roscoe said quietly, after a respectful silence. “Perfect things can come from imperfect beginnings.”
Aubrey breathed a bleak laugh. “Don’t quote fucking social media affirmations at me.”
“I’m talking from experience, Aub. As you know. And the second thing, also from experience: the job isn’t who you are.”
Aubrey was at work on Monday morning when he was copied into a sudden flurry of emails that had him marching to George Blackton’s office.
The man looked up, sitting back in his chair, resigned and unapologetic, as Aubrey came to a halt before his desk.
“What is the point in having me here if you’re going to go over my head and approve half the things I’ve recommended against?”
“I’m starting to wonder that myself,” George drawled.
Aubrey bit back his anger, refusing to make a fool of himself in front of the man. “I am trying to preserve some semblance of credibility here, create a department with integrity. One that is legitimate, legal —”
“You’re still thinking like a fund manager. Cautious. Hedging bets. We need a more aggressive approach.”
“And do we need the regulators in our business, too? The whole of BlacktonGold’s reputation called into doubt? Who’s going to want us managing their funds if they can’t trust us? If they think we’re at risk of being closed down?”
“I told you before, Aubrey, that you’d have time for scruples once you’d done the job I’m paying you for. Instead they seem to be increasingly hindering your use to me. Is this my daughter whispering in your ear? Getting you under her mawkish, tear-stained thumb? I thought you of all people would be immune to her hysterical whimperings. You’re a grown man. Act like one.”
Aubrey looked down at the glossy wood of George’s desk, using every shred of control he possessed to wrestle his black fury into something cool and hard.
“Perhaps Evie has influenced me,” he said, voice deceptively light. “But I can’t help but think that everything you’re currently doing is also a reaction.”
“To what?” George asked coldly.
“To Roscoe leaving. To the fact the beloved son you raised to take your place can’t even stand to be in the same building as you.”
George sat forward in his seat, reddening, furious, but Aubrey didn’t let him speak.
“Would you have taken this department in the same direction if he had still been here, at its head? Would you have risked him to the regulators? Or is this pathetic, grubby pursuit of Domnall and his chequebook, this macho, posturing bullshit and self-destructive flirtation with petty crime… Is all of this the reaction of an impotent, middle-aged man realising he’s powerless? That he can’t bully his children anymore? Realising that his entire family hates him?”
He leant his hands on the desk and looked George in the eye.
“You don’t deserve to have Evie in your life. I hope she abandons you just like Roscoe has. I hope she never sits at your dinner table again, letting you starve her. Your dirty money can keep you company in your old age, George. I won’t help you make any more of it.”
He left to go and pack his things and found Liv sitting at his desk.