About Last Night

Evita Chamberlain was in fact still beautiful at sixty-four, with strong features, piercing green eyes—the only thing she’d passed along to him—and straight, thick white hair cut in a severe bob. She wore an immaculate white linen suit with pearls and a black blouse. As usual, she looked sharp enough to draw blood.

“Hello, darling. Is that a new suit? I don’t recognize the designer.” This was Mother’s way of asking if the suit was off-the-rack. He ignored her, his usual response. “I thought we’d have lunch at the club. Winston will be joining us. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you boys. You never come to visit.”

“I’ll be up for the bank holiday.”

She arched one eyeb

row. They both knew Winston had spoken to him about the bank holiday. They both knew who was behind the scheme. Neither would speak of it. “Of course you will, but I wish you’d have come in July. We had the most lovely weekend with the Richardsons. You remember their daughter June, don’t you? Beautiful girl, very bright.”

She was already walking away as she said this last bit, expecting Nev to follow her. He did. She continued chattering about June Richardson, whom Nev couldn’t recall ever having met, all the way down to the lobby, where they encountered Grace Dawson.

“Grace, how lovely to see you again,” his mother said in a tone Nev recognized as completely contrived. Mother grabbed her by the elbows and kissed the air beside each of her cheeks.

“Mrs. Chamberlain, what a surprise,” Grace replied, submitting to the greeting with poise.

“Neville and I were just on our way to lunch with his brother. Would you like to join us? I’d love to have a chance to catch up with you about the campaign. Grace and I are on the NSPCC committee together,” she explained for Nev’s benefit.

“I’d be delighted,” Grace said, “so long as it’s not an imposition.” She was a better liar than Mother. Or perhaps it was simply that he had more experience with Mother’s lies. In any event, Nev wasn’t fooled. They’d set this up in advance. He wondered if they needed him here at all, or if they’d be as content to be escorted to lunch by a marionette with his face tacked on.

“No imposition,” Nev said, playing his part in the charade. He offered Grace his elbow. “It will be our pleasure.”

Winston and Mother spent the meal finding reasons to speak to each other, leaving Nev to attempt polite conversation with Grace. She was an attractive woman, with smooth sable hair and an elegant manner of dress. Intelligent enough. She was also insecure, needy, and frighteningly single-minded. Since he’d stopped seeing her, Nev had tried being polite, apologetic, and even cold, but nothing seemed to put her off him. If it weren’t so disconcerting, he would almost admire how skillful she was at finding opportunities to brush up against him in the corridor or lean in to whisper in his ear as if they were still lovers.

She didn’t care for him. Barely even knew him, really. But Grace had apparently fallen hard for his wardrobe and his family name. Mother was mutually infatuated with Grace’s pedigree and her designer shoes. They were a match made in heaven. If only they’d leave him out of it.

Nev tried to be pleasant, but he found it difficult to attend to the conversation. He couldn’t help but compare Grace to Cath. Though she wasn’t as conventionally pretty, Cath had more beautiful eyes. A more brilliant smile. A body that he couldn’t think of without getting hard. He liked her black wardrobe and colorful lingerie. He loved her flyaway hair, which made her despair, and the way she’d bite her lip with her slightly uneven teeth when overwhelmed or aroused.

“Neville?” His mother interrupted his reverie in a sharp tone. “Isn’t it interesting, what Grace was just saying about the holiday? You should bring her up to Leyton with you. I’m sure she’d enjoy seeing the house and grounds.”

Bugger. He’d let down his guard for a moment, and Mother had moved in for the kill. “I’d be delighted to see Grace at Leyton sometime,” he answered, hoping to convey that such an event would occur only at his mother’s initiative, “but I’m afraid I’m already engaged for the bank holiday.” He put a little extra emphasis on engaged for Mother and Winston’s benefit.

Mother pursed her lips in irritation, but she apparently couldn’t come up with a way to interrogate him that wouldn’t be blatantly rude, so she changed the subject.

When Grace excused herself to use the lavatory, Mother pounced. “You didn’t tell me you’d invited someone for the weekend, Neville. You ought to have mentioned it. Who is she?”

He shrugged. “No one you know.”

“And are you and this woman … serious?” Her eyes narrowed. They both knew what she was asking.

He ought to say no, but saying yes would prevent his having to endure another lunch like this one. Besides, he and Cath were serious. Even if Cath didn’t know it yet.

“Fairly, yes. I think you’ll like her, Mother. She has your joie de vivre.”

Grace returned, and his mother steered the conversation in a new direction. But he caught Winston looking at him several times before lunch finally came to an end. Nev had bought himself a brief reprieve, but at what cost? He could hardly take Cath home to Leyton. Mother would loathe her. Winston already did.

And Cath— She wouldn’t fit in there. She’d wear the wrong clothes and say the wrong things, and she’d see where he came from and like him less for it. She already teased him about his accent. His background made her uncomfortable—or his money did, at any rate. One time he’d caught her laying a neatly folded pile of her clothes on the floor of his room. He’d suggested she put them on the chair instead. She’d refused, telling him the chair was worth more than what she earned in three months. “It’s only a chair, love,” he’d told her. She’d given him an odd look. “No. It’s not,” she’d said. And then left her things on the floor.

Glancing at Grace, who’d thrown in the towel on their conversation and begun talking to his mother about charity work, Nev repressed a sigh. The idea of marrying a woman like her—of sharing the rest of his days with someone so obsessed with appearance, status, and money—made his skin crawl. But he had to admit, it would be simpler than falling for a woman so completely unsuited to his life—and so utterly uninterested in being a part of it.

Banking regulations. Capital reserves. Global interest rates. He’d been listening to the drone of the speakerphone for two hours running, and the notepad on his desk was covered with absentminded doodles. Mostly Biro sketches of various parts of Cath: the curve of her ear, her tattoo wrapping around her waist, her mouth. It was half-five, with no sign the board conference call would wrap up anytime soon. Perhaps he ought to have Angela send out for something to eat before she left for the day.

He made sure his speaker was muted and crossed toward the door of his office, which was slightly ajar. “… on a call right now, and I’m afraid I’m not to disturb him,” Angela said. “Is he expecting you?”

“No. Sorry. He said I could— You know, never mind. I don’t want to bother him.”

Cath’s voice. He yanked the door open, and there she was in his outer office. A tiny oasis in the desert of the bank. Quite possibly a mirage. Already turning to leave.

“Cath.”