about it – and who could blame them – and those that hadn’t, which was an awful lot, sat like alley cats, waiting to pounce on a passing moneypots, fully prepared to scratch each other’s eyes out in the process. Green campaigning wasn’t quite the benevolent business people imagined it to be.
Finally getting away from the showground, Daisy pointed the Metro in the direction of London, thinking about money, wondering what she could salvage from her press campaign on the Knowles story, and doing her best to ignore the grinding noises coming from the suspension.
Chapter 3
D AVID WEINBERG AWOKE with a sense of alarm. It was a moment before he was able to identify the reason. It was the quiet; a pervasive and sinister sort of hush. For David, a Londoner born and bred, silence was unsettling: it was the world standing still, someone else getting a deal, and being dead and knowing all about it, all rolled into one.
The sound of a car in the drive reassured him sufficiently to get up. His instinct was to reach for the phone and start worrying his way through the day, but he remembered this was Saturday, he was in the middle of Scotland and this was supposed to be a break, something people like him were meant to need, though he could never understand why, since leisure had never done anything for him except upset his stomach.
Once dressed, he wandered downstairs in search of Nick. The house was quiet, the doors around the large flag-stoned hall open, no sounds issuing from the sunlit rooms. Only in the kitchen were there signs of life: coffee on a hot stand, croissants in a warming dish, butter and marmalade on the table. He helped himself to coffee, added forbidden sugar, and looked for the newspapers. Then he remembered: Nick had told him they didn’t arrive before late morning.
Without the Financial Times the croissant tasted bland, the coffee flat. The kitchen was pleasant enough – Nick had always spent a lot of money on his homes – but if David couldn’t look at the share index then he would like some company. Shoving the last of the croissant into his mouth, picking up his coffee cup, he went in search of the household. The formal living room was, as expected, empty. The room was high and vaulted, with polished wood floors, Persian rugs, Victorian-style high-backed chairs, long damask-covered settees and a vast baronial fireplace crying out for stags’ heads which, this being Nick’s and Alusha’s house, it would never get.
Nick called this the drawing room – a bit grand, David thought, even for such a grand room. There was something delightfully incongruous about Nick, whose family had never inhabited anything more impressive than a small lounge, talking about a drawing room as if he’d lived in one all his life. But then the Nick of Ashard House wasn’t the same boy that David had first met in the poky Chertsey semi all those years ago – and that was just as it should be. Of all his people, David had been – perhaps still was – proudest of Nick. Nick had made the most of himself; Nick, as David’s mother used to say, had made good. He’d never allowed himself to be taken in by the lunacy of fame and the endless flow of cash. Nick had gone his own way, in his own way.
Standing behind one of the long settees was a large drinks trolley, thickly forested with bottles. At one time Nick’s way had included the drink, of course; but even then he had drunk with style, unobtrusively, almost secretively. Unlike Mel and Joe, there’d been no benders, no downhill races towards self-destruction, no stoking up on chemical cocktails. Not to say the drinking hadn’t been a big problem: it had. Nick had drunk steadily and with single-minded concentration, as if mastering a new skill, and it was only after two unproductive years that he’d frightened himself into doing something about it. But once he’d made up his mind to stop, that was it. As David knew to his cost, Nick could be determined when he
Finally getting away from the showground, Daisy pointed the Metro in the direction of London, thinking about money, wondering what she could salvage from her press campaign on the Knowles story, and doing her best to ignore the grinding noises coming from the suspension.
Chapter 3
D AVID WEINBERG AWOKE with a sense of alarm. It was a moment before he was able to identify the reason. It was the quiet; a pervasive and sinister sort of hush. For David, a Londoner born and bred, silence was unsettling: it was the world standing still, someone else getting a deal, and being dead and knowing all about it, all rolled into one.
The sound of a car in the drive reassured him sufficiently to get up. His instinct was to reach for the phone and start worrying his way through the day, but he remembered this was Saturday, he was in the middle of Scotland and this was supposed to be a break, something people like him were meant to need, though he could never understand why, since leisure had never done anything for him except upset his stomach.
Once dressed, he wandered downstairs in search of Nick. The house was quiet, the doors around the large flag-stoned hall open, no sounds issuing from the sunlit rooms. Only in the kitchen were there signs of life: coffee on a hot stand, croissants in a warming dish, butter and marmalade on the table. He helped himself to coffee, added forbidden sugar, and looked for the newspapers. Then he remembered: Nick had told him they didn’t arrive before late morning.
Without the Financial Times the croissant tasted bland, the coffee flat. The kitchen was pleasant enough – Nick had always spent a lot of money on his homes – but if David couldn’t look at the share index then he would like some company. Shoving the last of the croissant into his mouth, picking up his coffee cup, he went in search of the household. The formal living room was, as expected, empty. The room was high and vaulted, with polished wood floors, Persian rugs, Victorian-style high-backed chairs, long damask-covered settees and a vast baronial fireplace crying out for stags’ heads which, this being Nick’s and Alusha’s house, it would never get.
Nick called this the drawing room – a bit grand, David thought, even for such a grand room. There was something delightfully incongruous about Nick, whose family had never inhabited anything more impressive than a small lounge, talking about a drawing room as if he’d lived in one all his life. But then the Nick of Ashard House wasn’t the same boy that David had first met in the poky Chertsey semi all those years ago – and that was just as it should be. Of all his people, David had been – perhaps still was – proudest of Nick. Nick had made the most of himself; Nick, as David’s mother used to say, had made good. He’d never allowed himself to be taken in by the lunacy of fame and the endless flow of cash. Nick had gone his own way, in his own way.
Standing behind one of the long settees was a large drinks trolley, thickly forested with bottles. At one time Nick’s way had included the drink, of course; but even then he had drunk with style, unobtrusively, almost secretively. Unlike Mel and Joe, there’d been no benders, no downhill races towards self-destruction, no stoking up on chemical cocktails. Not to say the drinking hadn’t been a big problem: it had. Nick had drunk steadily and with single-minded concentration, as if mastering a new skill, and it was only after two unproductive years that he’d frightened himself into doing something about it. But once he’d made up his mind to stop, that was it. As David knew to his cost, Nick could be determined when he
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