‘I’m not working for my father this summer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m going round Europe.’
Sasha looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose I could get an agent in Paris.’
‘No. I think you should stay in London.’
‘But what about Europe? Can we go to St Tropez? Please?’
‘I’m going with Alex.’
Her face crumpled and he felt a well of disdain.
‘What? Alex Doyle? But what about me? Us?’
Miles pulled away from her. Her voice was beginning to sound like the insistent buzzing of a bluebottle. Us. The words made him cringe. He wanted to dump her now, finish it for good, but he knew that it would only lead to a scene, and tonight was going to be bad enough with his father as it was. He was sick of women, with their constant chatter and inane obsessions with shoes and gossip. He just couldn’t see the point.
‘Look, Sasha, we need to talk.’
Suddenly there was an excited yodel from the direction of the tiki hut. Looking over, Miles could see one of the twins – at this distance, he could not tell which one – wrapped around the trunk of the coconut tree, at least twenty feet above the beach.
‘What the fuck ...?’
There was a loud cry. And then, as if in slow motion, the body descended like a ripe coconut, hitting the sand with an audible bone-crunching thud.
Suddenly the beach was full of the sound of screaming.
Oscar – or was it Angus? – lay on the ground, surrounded by a flurry of waiters and butlers who’d sprung into action and were fussing round the body.
‘Nightmare,’ said Sasha, beginning to break into a run. ‘I hope the silly sod hasn’t hurt himself.’
‘So do I,’ growled Miles, upping his pace to follow her. ‘His mother’s American, and if the daft twat has hurt himself, I bet she goes and sues us.’
5
Dinner was not a success. Despite the perfection of the menu and the free-flowing, premium-quality alcohol, with Oscar in bed, in pain, everyone had to pretend to be concerned about his welfare and spent most of the meal discussing it, even though they all secretly felt that the night was more enjoyable without him.
Although the formal dining under the tiki hut had been prematurely disbanded, Alex had no intention of letting the evening, the holiday, finish there, and when Sasha suggested he get his guitar for a sing-song around the fire, he thought it was an excellent idea.
‘Not calling it a night already, are you?’
Alex was coming out of his bedroom, guitar in hand, when he saw Grace coming down the hallway towards him. He felt his mood lift. He had always found his friend’s sister approachable and down-to-earth and he suddenly wished he had been sitting next to her at dinner. As it was, he had been stuck at the other end of the table, next to Sarah, opposite Angus and within earshot of Robert Ashford. Feeling intimidated and completely out of his depth, he’d kept quiet until Sarah had seen his red star tattoo poking out from under the edge of his T-shirt, at which point she had asked, in a loud voice that had echoed all the way down the table, whether he was a communist and, with everyone listening, had grilled him with all sorts of tricky questions about nationalisation versus state control. How was he supposed to know the difference between Karl Marx and Stalin? It was just a design he’d picked out of a book in the tattoo parlour in Manchester’s Afflecks Palace. The only way Alex had been able to get through the meal had been to keep drinking.
‘I was just listening to the football results,’ said Grace, pulling a jumper over her shoulders. ‘The World Cup. England versus Germany.’
‘I can’t believe I missed it, but I couldn’t find the channel on the radio. Did we win?’ he asked hopefully.
‘We lost. Gazza cried.’
He swore under his breath and then began to laugh.
‘What’s so funny? The nation’s in mourning.’
‘I was just thinking of you following the football.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’