His phone buzzed with a text message from Terry: Get home now or the next news headline with your name in it will have the story of your wife moving out to a hotel.
He ran his hands through his hair, not knowing whether to be admiring or despairing that she’d written to the politician rather than the father or husband. Not even a video of a beheading would shift the story away from the Asian family drama if Terry Lone, celebrity interior designer, style icon, the most admired of Westminster wives by a mile, according to a recent poll, backed up her son’s story of personal animus.
Checkmated, Teresa. I’m on my way.
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Terry’s signature aesthetic was muted colors, sleek-lined furniture, and wooden floors, on display in every room of the house except her husband’s lair and the family room with its red walls, deep carpet and sofas, and white bookshelves filled with the family’s best-loved books. As Karamat approached this room he heard an unexpected voice telling him his footsteps had started to sound more portentous since he’d become home secretary.
He covered the remaining distance in the largest possible strides and held his arms out to his second-born, Emily the Uncomplicated, the son he’d never had.
“I’m here to find out if any of that racist, misogynistic ho-jabi nonsense is coming from your office, and to fire whoever is responsible,” she said, pulling away and beaming at her father. Beautiful Emily, physically her mother’s child, with the light brown hair and hazel eyes, the delicate hands with their quick gestures.
“Oh and here I thought you had come to support your old man,” he said, tugging at her nose.
“My old man will be fine. He always is. But my brother’s turned a little loopy, hasn’t he?” She threw herself down on a sofa and resumed attacking a half-eaten croissant. “Still, he is my brother. And he is your son. I thought I’d come and remind you what parental feeling feels like. And then I can whisk him off to New York until this whole thing goes away.”
He was aware of Terry in her dressing gown with her back toward them, her fingers moving along the spine of the children’s books as though they were piano keys. It was cowardly, but easier, to talk through Emily. He sat down next to his daughter, took a sip from her teacup, and wrinkled his nose at the lack of sugar.
“You know what he’s done, don’t you?”
“Mum just showed me the video. That was stupid of him. How are you going to fix it?”
Astonishingly, the story about Eamonn traveling to Karachi hadn’t yet become public knowledge. Whoever had tweeted the picture of him at the departure gate had since taken it down—whichever branch of the security services was responsible for that, Karamat was grateful. He must remember to thank James, the only one to notice it because he was the only one who had thought to include among his Google Alerts the misspelling #EamonLone. Not that it mattered very much—everyone would know soon enough. But at least he could be the one to tell his wife, who had finally turned around, her expression making it clear what a terrible idea it had been to leave the house this morning without waking her up first. “Get some rest while I talk to your father,” she said.
Emily sat up straight, looked from one parent to the other. “Sorry,” she said, kissing her father’s cheek.
When she had gone Terry walked over to the balcony doors and opened them. Her fresh-air mania undeterred by the early-morning cold. Some irritations dissipate in a marriage, some accumulate.
“Sometimes I forget how much like you she is,” she said.
“Only compared to her brother, who’s nothing like either of us.”
“That’s not true. He’s who I was. Before you. Before I concentrated my life on making myself good enough for you.”
He had to laugh at that. “I think you have that the wrong way round, my blue-blooded East Coast heiress. Remember the first time I took you out for dinner?”
But she shook her head, wanting to be alone in some distorted version of their life together. He tossed the remnants of Emily’s tea into the flowerpot with the money plant and poured himself another cup. No sugar in sight so he dropped in a teaspoon of jam and stirred vigorously. But not even that outrage reached her. Instead she stayed at her end of the room, gnawing at whatever remained of her thumbnail.
“You used to ask me what I thought,” she said. “Every campaign, every bill, every speech.”
This, again. In all the times she’d brought it up he’d always stopped himself from pointing out that in the early days it was her because there was no one else. He was the boy from Bradford who’d made his millions and bought his way into the party no one expected someone like him to join. “Is it so terrible that I want my home to be a haven away from the noise of Westminster?”
“Don’t you talk to me as if I’m some housewife here to bring you your slippers at the end of your working day. Have you even stopped to wonder what I think about this business with the boy?”
He watched the bits of jam bobbing in the tea, felt mildly revolted, but took a sip rather than admit it. “You want to protect your son. Of course you do. It’s your job. But it can’t be mine, not in these circumstances.”
“I’m not talking about Eamonn, you self-important idiot. I’m talking about a nineteen-year-old, rotting in the sun while his sister watches, out of her mind with grief. He’s dead already; can’t you leave him alone?”
His family. His goddamned family and they were the ones least able to understand. “This isn’t about him. It isn’t about her. It isn’t about Eamonn. Perhaps I don’t ask your advice anymore because your political mind isn’t as sharp as it was. And close those doors—my tea’s turned to ice already.” A way to stop drinking the jammy liquid and make it her fault. Satisfying, that, even though she seemed entirely oblivious to the whole thing.
“Sharp enough still to see what you don’t. That within the party you have enemies rather than rivals, backers rather than supporters. That brown skin isn’t made of Teflon. Why do you think I really stepped away from my business?”
The question was a surprise, and he followed it back along the thread of conversation to understand its logic rather than admit as much. Oh. “To spend your energies being—which one of us first came up with the phrase?—the silk draped over my too-dark, street-fighting muscles. As you did at the start.” He held out his hand to her, prepared to be indulgent. “It’s true I wouldn’t be here without you. That’s never forgotten.”