Cents and Sensibility

I found the hum of newspaper offices immensely reassuring. The gentle tapping of keys, the constantly moving pools of chatter and murmuring voices, with the odd shouted phone call, bursts of hysterical laughter and occasional screaming matches, added up to an aural landscape that really felt like home to me.

I didn’t get in until after ten that morning, which didn’t give me much time to get ready for a meeting with Peter at ten thirty. He wanted to see how things were developing with the section.

I showed him what we’d pulled together so far and he made a lot of helpful suggestions, and then I decided it was time to tell him what had been going on with Jeanette.

He listened carefully to what I had to say, nodding sagely, with the tips of his fingers forming a little steeple over his mouth.

‘So what should I do?’ I asked him, when I’d finished the sorry tale.

‘Nothing,’ he said, in a particularly Yoda-ish voice. ‘Just stay aware of what she is up to and defuse it gently when you can – exactly what you have been doing already in fact – and I’ll do the same.’

He narrowed his wily old eyes and nodded slowly.

‘It’s very important that she thinks she’s winning, you see, because that will be her downfall. The thing is, with people like her, who try to scheme and scam their way to the top, is that it gets them to a certain point, probably more quickly than simple hard work and talent would have done, but then it generally blows up in their face.

‘It’s a type who seem to be particularly attracted to newspapers for some reason – or maybe there are just loads of them everywhere. Anyway, you watch. The Lovely Jeanette is going to go up like a bag of penny rockets.’

He smiled at me with all the serenity of a Buddhist monk.

‘I love fireworks, don’t you?’

I always adored Peter’s pronouncements, but it was hard to stick to his advice that afternoon, when I would have liked to have gone round to Jeanette’s office with a chainsaw.

It all started when two carrier bags – one Prada, one Louis Vuitton – arrived in the loading dock, with my name on them. For some reason – and I strongly suspect it wasn’t an accident – the post boy delivered them to her office and not to mine.

She produced them in the section editors’ meeting.

‘Oh, Stella,’ she said, when it was just about over, but before anyone had actually left the room. ‘These arrived for you.’

She held them up like Exhibit A, so that everyone in the room could see exactly what they were.

There were a few snarky ‘Oooh’ noises and one ‘Pra-di-dah, darling…’ from the editor of the food section.

‘You must be very far ahead with your section, Stella,’ continued Jeanette, ‘if you’re already calling things in for shoots – and you’re nowhere near launching yet.’ She left a just long-enough pause. ‘Or maybe these are just some more of your lovely gifts?’

I didn’t know what they were. I hadn’t called anything in from Prada or Louis Vuitton, so it was possible they could have been presents – or they could have been press releases in carrier bags, which luxury brands did sometimes, to make sure you looked at them.

But whatever they were, it seemed very unlikely to get two on the same day – and as I really didn’t know, I couldn’t defend myself.

She handed them to me – one at a time, for added effect – with a plastic smile of Julie Andrews brilliance and then turned away again immediately, leaving me alone holding the ‘evidence’ in a room full of highly cynical and competitive section editors.

‘Go on, then,’ said the food editor. ‘Open them. I want to see what they are.’

Every head in the room swivelled back to look at me.

‘I wasn’t expecting anything,’ I said, too flustered to think. ‘I’ll open them later. I need to get on.’

Then I fled from the room.

When I got back to my office and did open those carrier bags, I wasn’t sure whether to be deeply relieved or furious that I hadn’t opened them in front of my colleagues.

In the Prada bag there was a pair of their latest cult sunglasses; the huge black TV-screen shades every fashion editor in London was gagging for. The Louis Vuitton one contained a fabulous logo baseball cap. And they were both presents – from Jay.

Although I wasn’t sure how I was going to ask him not to send me any more designer presents to the office, I rang immediately to thank him.

‘Well, if you’re going to sneak around with me,’ he said, ‘I thought you should do it in style. And talking of sneaking around, I’ve had an idea for something fun we can do later. I really don’t feel like staying in another night, do you?’

He wouldn’t tell me any more – it was becoming clear to me that Jay loved springing surprises on people – and we just agreed that I would go round to his place as soon as I could get away from work.

‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!’ he shouted, as he opened the door to me. ‘I’m going nuts stuck inside.’

‘Have you been in all day?’ I asked.

‘Yep. Too many people I know live round here. If I stepped outside too freely, it would be all over. I did manage to put some gasoline in the car this afternoon – in Kilburn; they know me at all the gas stations round here too – but that was it for today’s fun.’

‘So what’s your plan for tonight, then?’

‘We’re going to go over to see my pals, George and Zaria. They are great people, you’re going to love them and I really want them to meet you.’

I must have looked as surprised as I felt, because he put his arms round me and continued.

‘I know we agreed to tell no one, but I really can trust them one hundred per cent not to tell anyone about us, OK? George is my oldest and closest friend and he has, er, similar issues to me. He gets it. Our secret will be safe with them. Fort Knox safe. Trust me.’

I pulled away from him.

‘Jay,’ I said. ‘You are seriously whiffy. You must have been pounding that running machine.’

He sniffed his armpit and grinned.

‘You’re right. I need to take a shower badly’ He grabbed my hand. ‘And you can come in with me…’

I did as I was told and looked out for the black Ferrari. I felt really stupid standing there in my cap and dark glasses, and when a vintage-looking car in a light brown metallic colour pulled up, I thought I was being kerb crawled. Then the passenger window went down and I saw Jay grinning at me.

‘Want a ride, pretty lady?’ he said.

‘I was looking for the Ferrari,’ I said, climbing in.

‘Oh, I took that back,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t really my thing. Too obvious. I only had it for a test drive. I prefer old cars.’

‘What’s this one?’ I asked him.

‘It’s an Aston. You know, Aston Martin? It’s a DB6 Mark 2. It’s my favourite car. Do you like it?’

I nodded, it was ringing a bell with me.

‘Isn’t this what James Bond drove?’ I said. I only knew that because Ham was obsessed with these cars. He had a Dinky toy of one of them in his office.

‘Close, Moneypenny. Although that was actually the DB5. But watch out anyway. You’re in the ejector seat.’

George and Zaria, whoever they were, lived in Kensington Palace Gardens. It’s a private road right on the edge of the park – so private, in fact, that you have to get a security guard to let you through the barrier.

It was clear they were expecting us, though, because the barrier shot up as soon as Jay gave his name. They waved ‘Mr Pêcheur’ right through.

Although I had lived within walking distance of it all my life, I’d never actually been along that road before. It was too forbidding even to stroll down, but I knew about it. Everyone in London knew about it. Especially since one of the houses had gone on the market for £85 million, a few years before.

I had thought it was pretty much all embassies, but Jay drove up to the Bayswater Road end, where there was a sleek, modern seventies apartment block overlooking the park.

‘OK,’ he said, as we pulled up. ‘Like I said, George is my best friend since school days. We kind of grew up together. He married Zaria a couple of years ago. She’s an old friend of mine as well – I introduced them actually. No kids yet. They’re both great people. Just be yourself and they will love you too.’

He squeezed my hand reassuringly. I didn’t quite understand why he seemed to be briefing me about his friends, but I liked it anytime Jay used the word ‘love’ in relation to me, especially with ‘too’ nearby.

‘Great,’ I said, squeezing his hand back.

It wasn’t until he pushed the buzzer that I understood why he had prepped me that way. The label next to the button Jay had just pressed read: G and Ζ Xydis. Now that was a surname even I recognized.

They were one of the great Greek shipping families. There was Onassis, Niarchos and Xydis. And I knew who Zaria was too. She was one of the famous Taylor sisters.

There were four of them, from a majorly moneyed American family – shopping malls or something, and relatively recent, but that didn’t matter in America – they were all preposterously beautiful and they had all married spectacularly well. I’d seen the Xydis wedding in Hello! at the hairdresser’s. I remembered marvelling at her monogram.

It didn’t make any rational sense, but now I knew who they were, I couldn’t help feeling a little nervous. For the first time I began to understand the odd way people reacted to Jay, when they knew who he was at first meeting and, at that moment, I was very glad he was still holding my hand tightly.

‘The Xydis residence,’ said a strongly accented woman’s voice over the intercom.

‘It’s Jay Fisher,’ said Jay.

‘Please come up, Mr Fisher,’ said the voice. I knew it wasn’t Zaria.

When the lift doors opened, we were met by a tiny little woman in a full-on maid’s uniform. The white apron and everything.

‘Hi, Flo,’ said Jay.

‘Good evening, Mr Fisher,’ she said. ‘Mr and Mrs Xydis are expecting you.’

She turned to me.

‘May I take your coat, miss?’ she asked.

I handed her my jacket, wondering if she’d notice the Warehouse label.

‘Please go through,’ said Flo. ‘Mr and Mrs Xydis are in the drawing room.’

Jay clearly knew his way around and headed off to the right, still holding my hand. I wished he would slow down a bit, so I could take in the decor. It was seriously fabulous – a perfectly balanced mix of mid-century classics, and more recent signature pieces – set against a sleek background of polished and textured surfaces, topped off with a quirky combination of modern art and tribal artefacts.

It was beautiful, but one of Ham’s expressions did run through my mind: decorator salad. It was clear Zaria hadn’t chosen the rugs herself.

We had just reached a large set of double doors, when they flew open to reveal a deeply suntanned man with very black hair. He was even browner than Jay, with even whiter teeth.

‘Jay, my main man,’ he said, in an accent as mixed-up as Jay’s, although his definitely had a twang of something exotic there. Greek, presumably. They embraced heartily.

‘I’m so glad you were in town,’ said Jay. ‘It’s great to see you and…’ He turned to me. ‘I really want you to meet Stella. Stella, this is Georgiou Xydis; George, this is Stella Montecourt-Fain.’

‘Stella, great to meet you,’ said George, or Georgiou – I wasn’t sure any more – shaking my hand and giving me a kiss on both cheeks. ‘Jay has told me all about you. He was a bit blue about you for a while back there…’

He smiled at me. I liked him immediately, whatever his name was. He had a naturally friendly face. He was nothing like as good-looking as Jay, in fact he was a bit on the short and chubby side, but he was so warm, you just felt comfortable with him right away.

Jay punched him playfully on the bicep.

‘Hey, Georgie boy, that’s enough of that – don’t give away all my secrets now. Where’s Zaria?’

‘Oh, she’s here somewhere… Zee Zee? Honey?’ he called out.

He led us into the next room and then into the one after that, and the one after that – it was clear the apartment covered the entire top floor of the building – but still there was no sign of ‘Zee Zee’.

‘Now where is that wife of mine…?’ George was saying, as we passed through a couple more reception rooms. ‘She was right here a minute ago. Ah, there she is.’

And there she certainly was, standing outside on a vast terrace, her golden skin perfectly lit by the last of the evening sun, the gentle breeze just disturbing the strands of her long blonde hair, the curves of her slim silhouette outlined against the sheet of water that was falling down the wall behind her.

Now, I’m no Teletubby, but I took one look at Zaria Xydis and felt as dumpy as a Shetland pony – and about as well dressed. She was wearing a slip of a frock, which I happened to know was by Alberta Ferretti, and suddenly my white Earl jeans, wittily paired with a flimsy top from New Look, didn’t feel nearly as chic as they had when I left home.

My girlfriends were always complimenting me on my knack for finding great bits and pieces in chain stores and mixing them with designer gear, but looking at Zaria, I felt as cheap as my top. I was so glad I had a great pair of Prada heels on. New season, too.

‘Jay, darling,’ she said, coming towards us, a beatific smile on her face. ‘We’re so excited you’re here. We haven’t caught up for so long, it’s crazy’

There was a big hug and lots of smacking kisses, until Jay extracted himself and put his arm out to bring me into the aura of golden glow that seemed to surround Zaria.

‘Zee, this is Stella – you know, the girl I was telling you about?’

‘Hi, Stella,’ said Zaria, putting out her hand to shake mine and while Jay looked happily on, she smiled sweetly at me. ‘Great to meet you.’

But as George distracted Jay, to come into another room to see some photograph he’d just bought, Zaria’s friendly smile went out like a light and she looked me full in the face, eye to eye for a few distinct beats. It was a very significant look and it clearly said: And who the hell are you?

I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

‘Come and sit down,’ Zaria – or Zee – said eventually. ‘Flo will bring us some drinks. Champagne?’

I nodded. ‘That would be lovely’

But when the drinks arrived Flo handed Zee a long glass of mineral water, with a twist of lime.

I also noticed that when she took the canapés around, she never offered them to Zee, which made it even harder for me to say no, even though I didn’t particularly feel like a slab of foie gras the size of a paperback book at that particular moment.

‘So, where did you meet Jay?’ she asked me, without any warmth, after Flo had gone to take flutes of champagne through to the ‘boys’, as Zaria called them.

‘At the Cap Mimosa,’ I said. ‘We were both there for the Jericho jewellery launch and a mutual friend introduced us.’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Zaria, in unashamedly icy tones. ‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said as brightly as I could, although the way she had said it, the name of my profession might more normally be used for the words ‘crack dealer’.

‘Who do you hack for?’ she asked.

‘I’m a senior writer on the Daily Journal,’ I said, just managing to keep the edge out of my voice. ‘I write about luxury brands – the designers, the artisans, the hot trends and the history, right through to the business side of things.’

She remained stony-faced. Clearly my description of my job – which was subtitled: Look, bitch, I don’t do gossip bullshit, so back off – hadn’t done anything to impress her.

‘Do you know the paper?’ I asked eventually, out of desperation.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, shrugging. ‘George gets all the papers, they’re all the same to me. I only read the Times really. The New York Times…’

There was another long pause. What was I supposed to say? So, what do you do, Zaria? Apart from having your nails painted and paying someone to redecorate the odd island? They’d been given an island, I remembered, as a wedding present, from one of their fathers. I couldn’t recall which one.

Really, there was nothing for me to say to her. If there was sometimes a chasm between me and Jay, there was a black hole between me and Zaria. And she clearly wasn’t planning on building any bridges across it.

I was just starting to feel seriously can-I-go-home-now-please uncomfortable, when Zaria crossed her legs. It was the first time I’d noticed her shoes. They were exactly the same as mine.

‘Nice shoes, Zaria,’ I said brightly, raising my own foot in the air and waving it around so she couldn’t miss it. They were even the same colour. What the hell, I thought, I had nothing to lose with her. This might be the only thing we ever had in common.

Zaria looked at my foot and an expression of horror came over her face.

‘Oh!’ was the best she could come out with, she was so clearly taken off guard. Then her features tightened up again. ‘Did Jay buy those for you?’

I laughed.

‘No, he did not. I bought them for myself. In Milan. I love these shoes, aren’t they great?’

That was it. I wasn’t going to take any more of that ice-maiden shit from her, I didn’t care if she was Jay’s best friend, she was being a bitch to me and I wasn’t going to play her game.

‘Look at this, guys,’ I said, when he and George came back into the room. ‘Zaria and I have the same shoes on, isn’t that hilarious?’

‘That is so funny,’ said Jay, looking delighted. ‘I knew you two would get along.’

Zaria, who had clearly missed her vocation in Hollywood, was suddenly all delighted beams.

‘Isn’t it so cute, George?’ she said. ‘You’ll have to take our picture, with our shoe cousins on, eh, Stella?’

‘I can’t wait,’ I said gaily. ‘Shame we can’t breed ’em, eh?’

Flo came round with some even fattier hors d’oeuvres, once more bypassing Ms Lemon Rind and heading straight for me. I declined, without a pang of embarrassment and asked her loudly if I could have a glass of mineral water – with a lime twist.

‘Don’t you like Cristal, Stella?’ said George, sounding sincerely concerned, and clearly willing to crack open the Krug, or the Dom, or whatever would make me happy.

‘Oh no, I love it,’ I said. ‘It’s just I’m a little thirsty and I don’t want to swig it down like lemonade. I want to savour it.’

Zaria was looking at me with narrowed eyes. She knew I was giving her the finger. I didn’t care. I smiled brightly at her and waggled my foot. I really didn’t give a shit any more. It was one of the great advantages of not being fixated on marrying the man you were sleeping with, I thought. You didn’t care if his best friends hated you.

Flo came in again and spoke to Zaria.

‘The dinner is ready, madame,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to serve it?’

‘Oh no, that’s fine, Flo,’ said Zaria. ‘You go home now. We’ll see you tomorrow. And thank you so much.’

Well, I thought, at least she was nice to the help.

‘So, tell me again,’ he was saying, ‘why is it you two are hiding out like a couple of bank robbers?’

I glanced at Jay. I didn’t know how much he would have told George. Did he know it was partly because my father had made it all into a ridiculous Montague and Capulet situation?

Jay looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. I got the message. Leave it to me, he was saying.

‘Well,’ he said.’It was the usual gutter-press shit. Stella and I met in the South of France, when we were both at that Jericho jewellery thing and we went out dancing – we went to that club Wonderland. Have you two been there yet? It’s nuts.

‘Anyway, somehow the paparazzi creeps found out we were there and because I’d been seen having a drink – and believe me, nothing more than that, I value my balls – with Jericho in Aspen just a whiles before, they sold the pictures to an English rag and then, because of who Stella’s dad is, they blew it up into a big story and after it came out, poor Stella got seriously hassled by the paps back at home.

‘And, of course, her dad wasn’t too happy about that, which is understandable, so we have to play it cool for a while.’

Nice work, I thought, making it sound like I was the one the paparazzi were after, and I was gratified to see Zaria’s head flip round towards me just at the moment Jay mentioned my dad. That was logged, I thought. Good.

‘So you don’t want to risk being seen together again in case you get more paparazzi hassle?’ said George. ‘We went through all that, didn’t we, Zee baby, when we first started dating?’

She nodded.

‘But now we’re just boring old married farts, they leave us alone,’ he continued, laughing heartily. ‘Which is a great relief. Did they stake out your home and everything?’ he asked me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s really scary when you’re not used to it. Of course, I’m a journalist myself…’ I glanced at Zaria. ‘But the paper I work for doesn’t do that kind of thing. It was quite a shock.’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said George, getting enthusiastic. ‘You work for the Journal, Jay told me. Now that is a seriously great newspaper…’

He was clearly about to ask me more about the paper, when Zaria cut in.

‘Why don’t you just go to New York for a while?’ she said, like it was the most obvious thing. ‘You won’t get hassled there.’

She glanced at me, with narrowed eyes the ‘boys’ couldn’t see – a nobody like you won’t get hassled there, was what she meant, of course.

‘You tell her, Stella,’ said Jay, smiling at me mischievously. ‘You tell Zaria why we can’t go away, like I want to.’

I stuck my tongue out at him.

‘I work,’ I said loudly, to the whole table. ‘I have a job. A job I love and that I’m very committed to. I’ve just been promoted and I can’t take any time off right now.’

‘Well, good for you,’ said George. ‘That’s great.’ He looked a bit pensive for a moment. ‘You’re really lucky, you know, having a job you love, something you really want to do.’

‘I know,’ I said, deliberately misinterpreting him. ‘I tell myself that every day – I could be stacking shelves in a supermarket, or working on a chicken-plucking line, and instead I work on one of the world’s great newspapers. I feel very privileged.’

Take that, Lamebrain, I thought, but she was already on to something else.

‘So who is your father?’ she asked me directly.

‘Oh, yes,’ said George, beaming again. ‘Jay told me about him. Stella’s dad is the guy who did the museum for the Fishers, you know, Zee…’

‘The Fisher Institute in Boston?’ said Zaria, her eyebrows almost meeting her immaculately highlighted hairline. ‘Wasn’t that Lord Montecourt…?’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling cheerfully at her. ‘That’s Daddy’

‘Stella’s dad is so amazing,’ said Jay. ‘You should see their country place, it is a seriously radical take on the family home…’

And he went into a long and loving description of Willow Barn, and then the London house, while Zaria appeared to thaw before me, like a time-release film of a glacier melting.

By the end of the meal, she was practically sitting on my lap.

‘We would love to meet with your father,’ she was gushing. Her habit of talking in the royal ‘we’ was seriously starting to irritate me. ‘And we would love to see Willow Barn. We have a property on Long Island where we are going to build our beach house and your father is one of the architects we are thinking of commissioning for the project.’

Take a ticket, join the queue, I thought, Ham’s time was booked up for years. And the likelihood of me ever introducing him to Jay’s best friends looked very slim indeed.

‘George is lovely,’ I said.

Jay’s head snapped round to look at me.

‘Was Zee a bitch to you?’ he said.

‘Somewhat,’ I said. ‘Until she found out I had a famous father. With a tide…’

‘Oh, shit,’ said Jay. ‘I’m sorry about that. I really hoped she wouldn’t do that to you. The thing is, Stells, Zee is a little overprotective of me. She’s seen me in the clutches of too many miners…’

‘Minors?’ I said, horrified.

‘Diggers? Miners for precious metal…’

‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘Zaria thought I was a gold-digger, mining for the Fisher billions. How hilarious.’

‘Yeah, well, coming from money herself, she knows just how many users there are out there. Plus, she and I used to date, back in the day – don’t worry, way back – and I guess she feels she has some kind of extra proprietary role with regard to my romantic life. And then, I’m George’s best friend and so she’s just a little possessive. I did ask George to tell her to behave towards you, but I’m afraid he’s blind to his wife’s little personality defects.’

‘He seems like a really lovely guy,’ I said, sincerely, and glad to shift the focus off beastly Zaria.

‘You know what? He really is. And he hasn’t had the easiest time, with his mom dying when he was so young…’

As he spoke, that sad story came back to me – his mother had killed herself, when he was a young boy. It was one of those classic jet-set tragedies and there had been a huge piece about it in Vanity Fair not long ago. It was twenty-five years since it happened, or something.

It was a perfect story for that magazine – the beautiful French showgirl from a humble background who had married the Greek billionaire and then couldn’t cope. Well, he clearly hadn’t inherited his mother’s height, I thought, but he must have got his charm from her, because his father was a famous tyrant.

Jay was still talking. I tuned back in.

‘So, after his mom died, he spent most of his school holidays with me at my mom’s place – he doesn’t really get along with his dad, something we have in common – so we’re pretty close. He’s like another brother to me really. Anyway, I’m real glad you two hit it off and I’m sure you and Zaria will get along fine. She just needs to get to know you better. Give her another chance, would you? For me?’

He squeezed my hand. I lifted it up to my mouth and kissed it tenderly. But I couldn’t help thinking, as we drove on, that Zaria was exactly the kind of product of inherited wealth my father had warned me about. And although I liked him enormously, so was poor motherless George.

Apart from George and Zaria, he still wasn’t in town as far as his friends were concerned, and I was seriously paranoid about word getting back to Ham via the paparazzi if we were seen, so we sneaked about, getting food sent up from local restaurants. And he always paid for it with cash.

Now I understood why he always carried wads of banknotes and never paid for anything with credit cards, if he could avoid it – a black Amex card emblazoned with the name J Fisher was the equivalent of a neon sign over his head.

For someone who had always dreaded the cosy sofa supper, I sure was having a lot of them.

During the day, I would go to work and he would hang out with George, mainly playing tennis at obscure suburban courts where no one would know who they were.

When the weekend came around George insisted we borrowed a really pretty cottage on the Xydis family estate in Berkshire. It was gorgeous.

Total isolation – just the two of us – country walks, cooking, napping and just hanging out. We even risked a trip round the local Spring Flower and Produce Show together, which really took me to a new level of cosy coupledom. And no one recognized Jay among the displays of giant gladioli.

And then, at last, after ten days of our oddly proscribed bliss, the moment I had been dreading arrived. We were lying in the bath together on the Monday night – one at each end, having races with wind-up bath toys – when he brought it up.

‘I’m sorry, Stella, but I can’t stay over here much longer,’ he said, abruptly.

‘Is the solitary confinement getting to you?’ I asked him.

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘It is a huge pain – although it’s worth it for you…’ He made a small turtle walk up my thigh. ‘But even apart from that, I have to go back to the States.’

He sighed deeply and put his head right back, leaning it against the edge of the bath, running his hands through his wet hair. Something about his exposed throat made my heart turn over with lust and admiration and tenderness, that brand-new mixture of feelings I had whenever I looked at Jay.

‘It’s the anniversary of my brother’s death next week,’ he continued, lifting his head and looking back at me again, causing another minor earthquake in my abdomen. ‘And it’s always a really hard time for my mom, so I usually go and stay with her for a while and we go on hikes and cook and do all the stuff we do and I help her through it.’

I smiled sadly at him.

‘You’re a good son,’ I said.

Jay laughed, bitterly. ‘Oh, boy. I don’t hear that very often. From her, yes, but from the rest of them – I’m just a useless piece of shit.’

He crashed the turtle down into the water so hard it made a huge splash. Then he shuddered, quite violently, as if trying to shake the association off.

‘I’m sorry, babe, but just thinking about my dad makes me angry’

‘What’s his problem?’ I asked gently, wary of going over the line.

‘Oh, I’m the problem – not serious, not interested in the trusts, not properly respectful of what the name Fisher stands for. “A playboy not a player”, that’s his latest one. God, sometimes I understand why my uncle Michael drinks. Do you know what having dinner with my dad is like?’

I shook my head.

‘You can be in the most beautiful restaurant in the world – beautiful decor, beautiful people, beautiful food – and it is like having a twenty-ton weight on your head. He just crushes any energy out of you with the sheer pressure of his disapproval. No one is good enough for him – me least of all.’

I didn’t know what to say. Jay was pretty perfect as far as I was concerned.

‘Why do you think he is so down on you?’

Jay shrugged.

‘He always has been. My older brother was the golden boy – I mean, I loved my brother, but he did have a lot more in common with Dad than me. I don’t know if it was because he always knew he was the heir from the day he was born, whereas I knew I could just cruise it – or thought I could – but really, I think it was just genetics.

‘Bob was more like my dad and I’m more like my mom, and I don’t know why they ever got married, so Dad and I are just plain incompatible like they were.’

He picked up a small plastic whale, threw it high up into the air and caught it.

‘I wish I could divorce him too.’

14