Tucked away behind Sloane Square, in a converted hotel, Hamilton Hall charged fifty per cent higher fees than all of its smart London rivals. For this astronomical yearly sum, it scooped up all of the wealthy London families whose offspring had been rejected by the traditional top-tier schools, often for such trifling reasons as low academic ability. Tatiana threw Oxbridge-educated teachers and a rigorously old-fashioned teaching style at the problem – she had basically copied Max Bingley’s approach to the letter – and spat the children out at the other end with the top eleven-plus exam results in the country. Indeed, in the four years since Hamilton Hall had first opened its doors, it had leapfrogged to the top of the independent schools rankings with a speed that had astonished and horrified its competition in equal measure. What was Tatiana Flint-Hamilton doing with these kids? How could a non-selective school possibly achieve such consistently excellent results?
Tatiana was coy in her answers to these questions in the apparently endless series of profiles written about her and Hamilton Hall by the national press. The Sunday Times, Vogue, Londoner Magazine and even Vanity Fair had all featured Hamilton Hall’s beautiful headmistress and her handsome, elusive young husband in their hallowed pages. The Vanity Fair article in particular had done wonders for the school’s reputation abroad. When asked how long the Hamilton Hall waiting list was by the magazine’s reporter, Tatiana had responded robustly:
‘We don’t do waiting lists. Never have, never will. We’ll take anyone prepared to pay our fees.’
‘But surely you’ll run out of space at some point?’ the reporter countered.
‘Hopefully,’ said Tatiana. ‘And when we do, we’ll expand.’
Just weeks after that interview was published, Tatiana sold eighty per cent of the Hamilton Hall ‘brand’ to an investment consortium, mostly made up of American hedge-fund and real-estate entrepreneurs, with a smattering of aristocratic Brits thrown in at board level for good measure. The money from the sale had bought the Eaton Gate house, with a comfortable cushion of cash to spare. Tati and Jason retained a twenty per cent stake in the business and a lucrative three-year contract for Tati as CEO. She no longer had time for any teaching, still less to run the Sloane Square school as a headmistress, so she poached Drew O’Donnell, the brilliant headmaster of Colet Court to take her place – yet another, much-talked-about coup.
New premises on Clapham Common were already under construction, a twenty-million-pound venture that was taking up immense amounts of Tatiana’s time. In addition she was scouting opportunities for growth of the Hamilton Hall model abroad, everywhere from the US to Asia. The school had become so successful, so quickly, it was tempting to look back on its foundation as a sure thing, some sort of fait accompli. In reality, however, starting Hamilton Hall had been a huge risk, one which Tatiana and Jason had taken together. She’d sunk her own modest savings into the first, flagship school. But it was Jason who had put the real money at risk. Every penny of his sizable trust fund had gone into the business, despite Brett’s best efforts to claw the cash back.
‘Hamilton Hall is your business as much as mine, you know. Your success as much as mine,’ Tati reminded Jason constantly. She was always very generous and inclusive in this regard. ‘Without your trust fund, and your belief in me, this could never have happened. You believed in me when no-one else would.’
It was true. Yet to Jason, it always felt like a technicality. Hamilton Hall, both the school and the brand, had been Tatiana’s baby from the beginning She’d worked herself into the ground building and running a business that was, quite rightly, synonymous with its foundress. All Jason had done was write a cheque. A cheque he hadn’t even had to work for. As a result, their beautiful home, and his expensive clothes, and the free time he had on his hands, all felt as if they rightfully belonged to someone else. To Tatiana, in fact. Jason Cranley was a passenger in his own life again, just as he had been when he lived at home with his parents. The fact that the ship he was now sailing on was a super-yacht, and that his was the presidential suite, didn’t make him feel any better.
‘What about your parents?’ the therapist prodded gently. ‘Are you close?’
‘I’m close to my mother,’ said Jason. ‘My father …’
The word hung in the air, like an unfinished road to nowhere. How to sum up his relationship – non-relationship – with Brett in a single sentence?
‘My father doesn’t approve of my marriage. That makes things difficult.’
‘I’m sure.’ The therapist nodded understandingly. ‘Your loyalties are with your wife.’
‘Yes,’ Jason said thoughtfully, surprised as he said it by how true this was.
His loyalties were with Tatiana. And hers, he still believed, were with him. And yet there could be no denying that their marriage was not, and never had been, what a marriage should be. For one thing their sex life was close to nonexistent. Neither of them it seemed had the will or the energy to try to change this. Tatiana was consumed with the school, her expanding educational empire. And Jason? I have my music. The thought was so pathetic it made him laugh out loud.
‘Is something funny?’ the therapist asked.