46. FORTY-SIX
Roscoe didn’t mean to slam the door shut behind him, but it was probably unavoidable given his anger. Three heads snapped around at the sound, but he only had eyes for Poppy.
She stood up, face pale, cheeks blotched with red. The sheen of tears in her eyes ratcheted his fury up another notch. He went to her and folded her into his arms, face pressed into her hair, murmuring he scarcely knew what. It’ll be alright, I’ve got you, it’ll be alright…
He lifted his head to meet his father’s eye, but the man just scoffed, disgusted. “I guess the relationship rumour was true.”
“Liz,” said Roscoe. “Could you take Poppy to your office for a few minutes and make her a cup of tea? I’ll be there shortly.”
“I’ve asked her to leave the building immediately,” his father said before either woman could respond. “She’s fired.”
“No,” said Poppy, drawing back from Roscoe to turn towards his father. “Actually, I quit. I’ll go with Liz and write my resignation letter.”
“That’s a coincidence,” said Roscoe. “I was about to write my own.”
“I’ll do it for you,” said Poppy, giving his hand a squeeze. Her breezy bravado was as shaky as his own. Come with me, her eyes said. But she knew he had to do this. She knew he couldn’t walk out without having this conversation with his father.
He watched Liz and Poppy leave. His father shook his head with a sardonic snort of laughter. “How dramatic. Very soap opera. Although I suppose that’s fitting. Perhaps we’ll be haunted by the ghost of Pat Butcher next.”
He sat down, gesturing for Roscoe to sit in the seat Poppy had just vacated—the place they had sat when his father opened that bottle of whisky, celebrating his win in Zurich.
“Did you think I was joking?” said Roscoe, standing his ground.
His father looked up. “About the girl? I suppose shagging your secretary is something of a joke. Although we’ve probably all done it at one time or another.”
Roscoe grimaced. It was hardly a secret his parents’ marriage was loveless. But his father usually avoided being so crass about it.
“About resigning,” Roscoe said, trying to get back to what he needed to say. He had expected to be shouting by now, storming out of the room, job, quite literally, done. But his father, as usual, wasn’t going to let the conversation go the way Roscoe wanted.
His father snorted. “Now that is a joke. Your name’s on the door. You can hardly resign from your own company.”
“It’s no more my company than it is Hugo or Evie’s.”
“Go and get the whisky if you’re going to drag those fools into it.”
When Roscoe didn’t move, his father let out a long-suffering sigh and went to the sideboard himself. He set two glasses down on the coffee table and once more nodded for Roscoe to sit down.
“Don’t sulk,” he said, when Roscoe stayed standing. “Did you think I was going to be happy about your choice of girlfriend?”
“So that’s what this is about, is it? Not the reputational damage to the company? Not the accusations of nepotism—of you manipulating the board? You didn’t call a crisis meeting about any of that, did you? Instead, you dragged Poppy in here just to insult her to her face.”
His father took an infuriatingly calm sip of whisky. “I’m too old and too tired to listen to some Romeo speech, Roscoe. Don’t embarrass yourself by flying to protect her honour.”
“Only you would think that embarrassing.”
“Oh, yes, yes—” He waved a hand through the air. “You love her, marvellous, I understand. But give yourself twenty years—when that girl is barely a memory on your bedsheets—and you’ll look back on today and wince. Now sit down. Because you’re right. We do have more important things to talk about.”
Roscoe wasn’t sure why he obeyed. The shock of his father telling him he was right about something. Or the fact that his brain was still fuzzy and dark and reeling from the whole day so far. Or maybe it was the way his father briefly rubbed his chest as though feeling a twinge. Roscoe eyed the man warily. None of this could have been good for his father’s stress levels. Roscoe imagined blood pressure rising, heart muscle pounding… He picked up his whisky and took a sip.
“How did it go today?” asked his father. “With Lissi, Domnall White?”
Roscoe stared at him. “That’s what you want to talk about? Not the news story?”
“The news story is nothing. Barely an inch buried in the business pages. PR are drafting a statement.”
“But you fired Poppy over it!”
He pursed his lips, apparently disappointed that Roscoe was still harping on about that minor point. “She’s an enterprising girl. I’m sure she’ll land on her feet. Especially with you looking out for her. But she can’t work here, Roscoe. The cat’s out of the bag. People know about your relationship. Do you think they’ll be kind to her? She’s better off at LibertyBrooks now. Write her a reference if you need. Perhaps I was hasty about that.”
Hasty? This was a complete one-eighty from ten minutes ago. Roscoe blinked, thrown. He pretended to study the whisky in his glass, tilting it this way and that and watching the play of light on the amber liquid as he tried to get the analytical part of his brain back on track.
Was this a ploy? Had his father, realising Roscoe wouldn’t back down over Poppy, decided to brush over the topic for now? Distract Roscoe with praise and whisky and…and that rub of his chest? Roscoe eyed the man askance, that blameless spot on his white shirt where he had touched his chest… But no…his father wouldn’t stoop to such petty manipulation…
Would he?
Roscoe took a slow sip of his drink. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “All this stress? It’s not too much?”
“Not at all. Just happy to get back to business. You know that’s what I live for.”
Was that a threat? Let’s talk about business because your love life might kill me…? Or was Roscoe going mad? This was his father… He was furious at his father. He was sitting down and sipping whisky with his father while Poppy was waiting outside…
The man sitting there had shouted at Poppy. Fired her. Hurt her. Did Roscoe hate him? And even if he did, could he hurt him the way he needed to in order to get free…? If he thought about Poppy’s face when he’d walked into the room, he thought perhaps he could. Right now, the man seemed far away. A stranger. The crack in their relationship that had started months ago as a bit of bitterness was black and deep, something sick and oily at the bottom of it that Roscoe was scared to look at because it was irreversible.
Get back to whatever East End gutter you crawled out of.
Was there a way back from that? When he looked at his father and heard those words?
“I sometimes do find it a bit too much,” Roscoe heard himself saying. “The stress. I don’t suppose you ever knew. I never told you. But it makes me ill working here. I’ve been to the doctor. Been given pills. But I don’t think that’s the answer—having to medicate myself to stand being here.”
His father frowned. “If you need medication, there’s no shame in that. I basically rattle these days.”
“It doesn’t give you pause for thought? What I just said? Your own heart attack?”
“What are you asking me? Yes, it’s a stressful job. It’s part and parcel of it. But what’s the alternative? This is who we are. This is BlacktonGold. Our life’s work.”
“Yours. Not mine.”
His father’s expression faltered, and now he did rub his chest again. Roscoe watched the motion with panic flaring. Could he do it? Could he really say what he needed to say? Ought he wait, wait for a quieter, calmer day, when his father might be more ready for a shock…?
“If you need some time off, my boy, of course you can have it. Maybe your suggestion about Aubrey Ford has some merit. We could bring him in as co-lead…”
Some time off, some sleep… If he passed over some of the work, if maybe Aubrey could eventually take over the project fully…
Would it help? Would it be enough, to make the walls go away, to let him wake up feeling like the days were something that stretched before him rather than something crushing and dead…
You can’t spend the rest of your life doing work you don’t enjoy.
Poppy’s voice, trees all around, the grounds of Malperton and dappled sun on red hair…
“Whatever doubts are in your mind, we can talk them out,” his father was saying. “Whatever adjustments you need, we can try to make them. But this is your company—”
“No.”
His father paused. Frowned, annoyed.
“No,” Roscoe repeated. “It’s yours.”
“Roscoe…” His father smiled, half-laughing, as though talking to a child. “This is your legacy, your inheritance. I built it for you.”
“And what if I don’t want it?”
His father’s smile disappeared, had never been real at all. “Don’t want it? I’m not offering it to you. It’s in your blood. In your name. This place is who you are.”
“Then why don’t I get a say? Why do you shut down every idea I have?”
“Your green funds? Your ethical options?” His father scoffed. “Stop being so bloody na?ve. You’re young. You need more experience. In a few years, you’ll see—”
Roscoe was shaking his head. “No.” A few more years? He couldn’t… “I can’t work here. Dad… I—”
His father suddenly stood up, face red. “You ungrateful little—” He broke off with a furious breath and turned to the window as though even the sight of Roscoe made him sick. “You’re as spoilt and lazy as your brother. As stupidly na?ve as your sister. I’ve given you everything! This place has paid for almost everything we have! And you…”
Roscoe watched, frozen, Hugo’s words in his head, the memory he’d shared of that night… “He went completely white, collapsed right in front of me; he was so angry, and it was all my fault…”
“Dad…”
“It’s not a choice, Roscoe. You don’t get to run away from your responsibilities just because the work is hard and you are soft. I refuse to let this company pass out of the family. You will step up.”
“Dad… Sit down, please.”
“Every conversation we’ve had for years. Every plan we have made—”
“Calm down, OK? I’ll get a glass of water.”
He went to the sideboard, picked up a glass with shaking fingers. The jug spilled drops on the polished wood. They looked like tears.
“If I stay,” he began, his back to the room, water glass motionless in his hand. “If I stay… I want off the tax project.”
“We can talk about that.” His father’s voice was suddenly soft, coaxing, sensing victory.
“No—”
“Whatever accommodations you need. Sit down, Ross. Sit down and talk to me. I’m your father. I can help.”
Roscoe didn’t move. One hand still held the glass. The other was splayed on the sideboard, his fingers pale against the wood, knuckles stiff and white.
“Come, Ross.”
He closed his eyes. If he stayed, it wouldn’t end. Whatever adjustments his father promised, they would be temporary, a crutch to get him over this unfortunate little blip. As though his mental health was a twisted ankle. But if he left… If he left…
The door opened. Roscoe looked up. Poppy stood there. He heard his father mutter something, but he wasn’t really listening, only saw Poppy, her face pale but determined. She walked to him. Handed something to him. It was a letter, folded.
“I thought you might need this.”
He opened it.
I hereby tender my notice of resignation, effective immediately…
His resignation letter. She really had written it for him.
He met her eyes, felt the press of her hand on his arm. “Remember,” she whispered. “The man you are is better.”
The conversation they’d had when she first came to his mews house. He had told her about his anxiety. About how he had spent twenty years trying to be the man his father wanted. “Maybe,” Poppy had said, “the man you are is better than the one your father wants you to be.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled. “I’ll be waiting across the street with the Dodge file. If you decide you need it.”
His decision, she was saying. Not, “Do this,” but, “You can, if you want to.” It had to be his decision. It wouldn’t work any other way.
She left. He turned back to his father who eyed the sheet in his hand with a sneer. “Let me guess, love letters?”
“Of a kind,” said Roscoe.
He didn’t know what leaving BlacktonGold would do to his father. But he knew what staying would do to him. And something else was clear.
“If I want to be your son,” he said. “If I want to have any kind of relationship with you in the future, then I can’t work here.”
His father stiffened. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Roscoe walked to his father’s desk and picked up a pen. He signed his name and handed the letter to his father.