Bloodline

‘Of course.’ Tatiana was Nicholas and Angela’s only child, my niece, and also my god-daughter. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Your father says he and your mum won’t be coming now. He says it’s too soon after all this and that we should cancel or postpone. But I think that life has to go on and we’ve made all the arrangements, and we’ve paid for them too. The bloody marquee costs a fortune and don’t even talk to me about the caterers. I can’t afford to cancel and then do it all again later. And Tatiana is so looking forward to it. All her chums from school are coming. I don’t really know what to do.’

‘I am sure Clare would not have wanted you to cancel. Anyway, I’ve been writing my godfatherly speech in readiness.’ I smiled at him.

‘But are you sure it’s all right to go ahead?’

‘Certain. Take no notice of Dad. I’ll try and have a word with him and change his mind about coming.’

‘He’s been very quiet since the service.’

‘Silly old bugger,’ I said. ‘I wonder why he gets so angry all the time.’

‘It’s because he feels challenged by you.’

I looked at him. ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘You and Clare, but especially you, you’re the only ones in this family who don’t do what he tells you to. Angela is all for cancelling Tatiana’s party simply because he says we should. But then you tell me to take no notice of him. So, you see, you are the only one who doesn’t do as he says and, what’s more, you never have.’

‘But why does that challenge him?’

‘He’s the eldest male member of the family and he believes it is his role to decide on family matters, and everyone else should agree with his decisions without question. But I think he knows, deep down, that you are likely to make better decisions than him and, if you feel he’s wrong, to not follow his orders.’

‘Damned right,’ I said.

‘That is why you should have been here this week helping him make the right decisions for the funeral. All week he’s been trying to second guess what you would have said.’

‘But we would have fought. It would have all ended in a shouting match and I would have walked out. Better that I kept away.’

‘You think that service was better for you keeping away?’ His voice was full of sarcasm.

‘No. I suppose not.’

‘No. Then you and your father will have to learn how to make compromises without fighting, and to make yourselves heard without shouting.’

‘You should be a counsellor,’ I said.

‘I am.’

‘Are you really?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘But don’t tell your father. He thinks I’m a merchant banker in the City. And I do work for a bank, but I don’t deal with the money. I’m the company counsellor.’

‘Doing what exactly?’

‘Counselling the staff. It is one of their inclusive company benefits.’

‘Counselling them on what?’

‘Anything they like, but marital problems mostly. They all work so bloody hard and for such long hours, trying to earn the tons of money they need to pay their huge mortgages, and only because they think their families will be happier living in enormous houses with indoor swimming pools. The families, however, would much rather live somewhere smaller and see more of Daddy. By the time these guys get to fifty-five and are ready to give it all up to live on their accumulated millions, their wives and kids have had enough of being on their own, have left them, taken half their money, and gone to live with someone else. It’s all rather sad.’

‘So what do you tell them to do?’

‘Go home earlier, and stay out of the office at weekends.’

‘And do they listen?’

‘Not often,’ he said with a laugh. ‘In the city, money equates to testosterone. All of them are driven to get more and more of it, irrespective of the human cost.’

I knew some people in racing who were just like that, people for whom winning was like a Class A drug, and they were addicted.

I took a tray of sandwiches and offered them round to the miserable bunch of my relatives who were sitting in the drawing room. Conversation topics, it seemed, were minimal and the food provided some relief, something to talk about. Nicholas followed me with the wine that I hoped might lighten the gloom.

I went back to the kitchen to find Brendan helping himself to a large glass of red.

‘Just what I need,’ he said, taking a sizable slug. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought the kids. They’re quite distressed by it all. Their first funeral.’

‘How old are they now?’ I asked, not really that interested.

‘Christopher is sixteen, and Patrick will be fourteen next week.’

‘Mmm,’ I said, ‘maybe they are still a bit young.’ Nicholas and Angela hadn’t brought Tatiana and she was older than both of Brendan’s boys.

‘But the boys were so eager to come.’ He laughed. ‘Probably just to bunk a day off school. But I think they might be regretting it now though. There’s not much fun in this family.’

I poured myself a large glass of red as well.

‘How often did Clare ride for you?’ I asked. I was thinking of one of the definites I had found in the database, the race when she had stopped Brendan’s horse, Jasmine Pearls, in the Chester City Plate.