About the real-estate business? No, I don’t. About you being a dick? Yes, Dad, I give a shit about that. But what can I do?
To his intense distress, Jason found his eyes were filling with tears. He fought them back desperately, forcing himself to meet his father’s angry, disappointed gaze. How he wished he didn’t care! How he wished he had the strength to shrug off Brett’s relentless, soul-crushing criticism and become his own man, making his way in his own world. But that was like a penguin wishing it could fly.
‘I should have asked the art department for help,’ he stammered. ‘I can see that now.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t want to bother them. They seemed to have a lot on their plates already.’
Brett put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘God give me strength.’ Picking up the phone, he summoned Michelle from reception into his office.
‘Sweetheart, would you see what you can do with this in the next hour?’ He handed her the offending document. ‘Jim Lewis and I are going in to McAlpine this afternoon at two. We sure as hell can’t offer them that load of old bollocks.’
‘Sure. I’ll see what I can do.’
Jason noticed the way Michelle’s hand brushed his father’s as she took the document, and the conspiratorial flash of eye contact that followed. It was an exchange he’d seen scores of times before.
They’re having an affair.
He felt the anger rise up within him. Mostly for his mother – how could Brett do this to her again? Here, in England, what was supposed to be their ‘fresh start’? But also because, in his quiet way, Jason had liked Michelle and hoped she might become a mate. With her short hair and her raucous laugh and her slightly wrong, too-sexy-for-the-office clothes, she seemed kind and irreverent and a laugh. A breath of fresh air in a corporate world that Jason found choking and stifling in the extreme. Now he would have no choice but to avoid her. Another door closing.
As soon as Michelle left the room, Brett turned on him again.
‘What’s wrong now? You look like you’ve swallowed a wasp. I’m the one who should be pissed off here, Jase, not you. You’ve let me down. Again.’
‘You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?’
Jason was almost as astonished to hear the words come out of his mouth as Brett was.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Brett sounded dangerously angry, but it was too late to back down now.
‘M-M-Michelle,’ Jason stammered. ‘She’s your new mistress, isn’t she? I saw the chemistry between you just now. How could you? How could you do it to Mum?’
‘Now you listen here.’ Brett grasped his son by the shoulders. Although Jason didn’t think so, Brett loved him. He hated Jason’s depression because it was a problem he couldn’t fix, and he resented the boy’s sensitive, open nature because he was congenitally incapable of such emotions himself. But he did love him, and he valued his family more than anything. ‘I don’t know what you think you saw. But you’re wrong. I’m not “doing” anything to your mother. I don’t have a mistress, and if I did, it wouldn’t be one of my employees. Understand?’
Jason nodded, willing it to be true.
‘Go out and get yourself some lunch,’ Brett added gruffly. ‘Clear your head. I’ll see you after the meeting.’
‘OK.’
Brett watched his son leave, shoulders slumped, feet dragging, as defeated as any retreating infantryman. He sat back down at the desk, punching the polished teak in frustration. What the fuck was wrong with the boy? He just didn’t understand it. It was as if he didn’t want to be happy, didn’t want to succeed.
Whatever Jason’s weaknesses, he certainly wasn’t stupid. At least not emotionally. He’d picked up on the vibe between him and Michelle in an instant, like a bloodhound stumbling upon a scent.
I’ll have to be a lot more careful if I’m going to continue to have him work here.
Although it pained Brett to admit it, perhaps he’d been rash in forcing Jason to join the family business. At the time it had seemed an obvious solution to his listlessness. Ever since they arrived in England Jason had been moping around like a wet weekend, hanging around the house and the village, getting under Angie’s feet. It seemed clear to Brett that he needed something to do, some structure to his life. An eight-to-six job interning at Cranley Estates fitted the bill perfectly. Add in the commuting time – Brett spent at least three nights a week at his London flat, but Jason took the train back and forth from Fittlescombe daily – and he wouldn’t have time to dwell on whatever it was that was bothering him.