Red Notice

39

‘Tom must have taken quite a shine to you, my dear,’ his mother had said to Delphine, as she passed the vegetables that evening. ‘He has never brought any of his girlfriends home before. You must be a good influence on him. We’re still hoping he’ll come to his senses one day, settle down and take over the estate, or at least find a more suitable job. With his father’s contacts in the City—’ She broke off as she became aware of Tom glowering at her. ‘Yes, I’m talking about you, darling,’ she said. ‘I was just saying that you could have had your pick of jobs and professions.’

‘This is ancient history, Mother.’ Tom gave Delphine a look that said he’d known bringing her was a mistake. ‘Do we really have to cover this ground every time I visit? I’m a soldier, and I do it not because I’m forced to or because my parents want me to —’ his wide eyes challenged her ‘— but because I want to. I like to fight. Why don't people understand? It’s just as valid a profession as medicine or the law. I’m afraid you need to get used to it.’

‘Profession?’ She focused on Tom so completely it was as if no one else was in the room. ‘It’s not a profession.’ She changed her tone to one of concern. ‘Tom, you kill people.’

‘When it’s necessary. But, Mother, I’m not a psychopath. I don’t kill people for kicks. Surely you understand that.’

She shrugged as if she did, but that it was beside the point. Her tone went back to disappointed. ‘If you really needed to join the army, you could have taken a commission. But look at you, you’re not even an officer.’ She gave a brittle smile, as if it had been meant as a joke, but Delphine had heard the edge in her voice.

‘I’m not an officer because I don’t want to be an officer. I’m happy where I am.’

Tom had been a disappointment to his parents; Delphine understood that now. They’d placed a silver spoon in his mouth when he was born, he’d told her. The spoon the family’s great-great-great-grandfather had taken from the Duke of Wellington’s field dining-table the night after his victory at Waterloo. The spoon all Buckinghams had sucked ever since. Tom had been the first to spit it out.

She discovered that Tom’s two younger brothers had kept firmly on the family’s pre-ordained trajectory. One was still at Eton, the other up at Oxford. Both had stunning futures ahead of them; that was the way their parents had mapped things out. Tom knew that they wouldn’t have much choice in the matter.

‘Mother, I keep explaining to you that I like my life as it is. Why can’t you understand that, and be happy?’

She had no words to give back because she wasn’t happy. It was as if Tom had deliberately joined the army as a squaddie to spite her.

He looked like he knew where this was going so just moved onto the next part of the drama that they played out every time he came home. No wonder he never brought any women back.

Tom’s father studied his glass of claret as if he was looking for the ray of light that touched the spirit in the bottom. He obviously knew it was time to keep quiet and his head down.

Not only had Tom disappointed his parents by joining the army as a squaddie, he’d told Delphine in the pub one night, he’d joined the Rifles, an infantry regiment. He was consigning himself, in his father’s view, to a lifetime of wet, cold and hunger. His parents couldn’t even hide their regret at his passing-out parade. When mothers from housing estates in Leeds, Manchester, London and Glasgow had cried as they’d watched their little boys turn into young men, Tom’s mother had joined in. But hers, he had told Delphine, were tears of sorrow. Where had she gone so wrong? Tom had had everything. Why settle for less than the best he could be? Why waste his life playing soldiers?

He sat there as his mother continued to look as if she was sucking a particularly sour lemon. Delphine read Tom’s expression. Should he try to explain to her yet again, it said, and to his father, who shared the same disappointment but let his wife do the talking? He’d told Delphine he’d been saying exactly the same thing for the past twelve years. Even when he’d passed Selection there had been no message of congratulation. They still couldn’t understand his lack of ambition. Why waste his time in the trenches? People with his privileged upbringing had much better things to do.

‘Mother, everyone I know in Hereford is there on merit, not because their father was something in the City or their mother owns half of Worcestershire. I like that.’

His mother leaned over the table towards him, her face full of compassion. ‘But, darling, we worry about you keeping safe. We were worried sick at the state of you.’ She reached out and gently touched his scar.

‘Mother, I got that at a Fight Night in Hereford. Nothing to do with my work.’

She took a breath, frustration perhaps getting the better of her as she tried to find the words that would show Delphine she was a good mother. But Tom was too quick for her. ‘Mother, everything is fine. Sometimes, when the adrenalin’s pumping, you don’t really notice it. It’s OK, really it is. People tend to be more frightened of the idea of fighting, in Afghanistan or on a Fight Night, than of the reality. It’s just that you don’t know about things like that, and there’s no reason why you should.

‘In a few years I might start doing something even you can approve of, but this is my life for now, and though I don’t expect you to like or understand it, I do expect you to respect my decision.’

There was a long silence while Tom’s mother stared at him, as if she were trying to understand why her son had become such a stranger to her.

Delphine broke the silence. ‘I understand.’

Tom let that sink in before his hand reached out to hers. ‘Thank you.’

What she didn’t say was that to her the conversation could just as easily have been about Tom having an undesirable lover. She was French, after all, not British all the way back to Alfred the Great like his mother had probably always planned. She now understood Tom better than ever. She loved him; probably had from the first week they had met. She also respected him, but she now knew more than ever that he had a powerful and seductive mistress with whom, if this relationship ever came to anything, she would be competing.

Tom’s mother turned back to Delphine, trying hard to hide her anger and sadness. Her expression said that she had lost her son; she’d known it would happen one day, but wished it had been to an English rose of her choosing.

‘I’m sorry, my dear.’ She made an effort to widen her smile. ‘How rude we are, monopolizing the conversation with domestic chit-chat when we have a guest at our table. Now, do tell me all about yourself. You come from Nice, I believe? Such a beautiful city. We were there ourselves just a couple of months ago, staying at the Negresco. My grandmother used to winter there.’

As Delphine started to talk about her home and her family, she tried to ignore Tom, who was visible over his mother’s shoulder. He was miming being hanged, with his head on one side and his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

His father, meanwhile, had been tasting the wine, pouring a little into his glass, sniffing its bouquet, then sipping it and rolling it appreciatively around his mouth. As he looked up, he followed Delphine’s gaze and rapped the base of his glass on the table. ‘Tom, for God’s sake, stop playing the fool. If you want something useful to do, you can pour Delphine a glass of this wine.

‘It’s a burgundy,’ he said to Delphine, as Tom filled her glass and she sipped. ‘As I always say, France for the wine, Italy for the coffee—’

‘Ukraine for the prostitutes?’ Tom interrupted.

His father almost choked on his wine.

‘What?’

‘Sorry, Mother.’ Tom had a mischievous gleam in his eye that had probably always spelled trouble. ‘If I were an officer I wouldn’t be making jokes like that, now would I?’

Delphine spluttered into her glass as Tom’s father turned an even more impressive shade of puce.

‘No, you would not!’

‘I mean, if I were an officer, I would have said Mayfair.’