I had Farah take the youngsters into the smoking room first. We could have an aperitif there prior to dinner. I studied them on the CCTV screen from the control room. They had no idea they were being watched as they ambled slowly among the huge leather chairs, examining the portraits on the walls. Good. That was just what I wanted. How romantic they looked, if a touch macabre to those unfamiliar with the disease.
He’d grown a lot: a good eight centimetres. Lanky, like his uncle on his mother’s side.
Farah had told them I would be along shortly and brought them drinks. I was interested to watch how my son imbibed his. He had slightly refined the process since leaving us.
I studied the girl. She moved with assurance far from the awkwardness usual for that age, and this betrayed a certain maturity that matched her lovely appearance. Here was a girl commencing the peak of her attraction, glowing with sexual power, but not yet cynical and overly aware of her impact upon others. Even her affliction she bore with grace.
I sent a message to Farah, advising her to initiate subplan B. This involved a suggestion that they shower and change before I, now regrettably delayed, could attend. Separate showers were offered in the east annex, and a small wardrobe of clothes bought especially, following the advice of my informants on their respective sizes.
I took the opportunity to catch up with some reading of reports and preparation of material for the minister’s red box. He does like to be kept informed.
But we all only know what we are told or trouble to find out for ourselves, don’t we? And bothering to find out for themselves is usually far too much effort for most people.
It is not knowledge that is power, so much as the control of the gathering and supply of the same. My distant ancestor—another Robert—knew that to perfection.
When they re-emerged into the smoking room, they were in clothes of my choosing. The girl was resplendent in a casual suit of brushed cotton, of a shade matching her eyes, that accentuated the curve of her waist. Italian shoes, a silver necklace and earrings, and a coral clasp for her hair completed the picture. She seemed happy with the choice. Robert looked more uncomfortable in a pair of woollen trousers flecked in brown and orange, and a rye-green knitted shirt. His hair was blow-dried and tied back into a ponytail. A touch more presentable.
I had ordered their own clothes to be burnt. They wouldn’t need them any more.
It was now that I made my entrance in my pewtergrey Singapore suit and a sky-blue silk shirt, with a tie bearing the family crest. I am not a tall man, but I nevertheless strive to create an impression.
I was introduced to Kestrella and gave myself the pleasure of kissing her dainty hand. I insisted that she know and henceforth vow to use Robert’s true and given forename. I made small talk to put them at ease: the shooting and polo competition trophies in the cabinet, the African mementoes from the Boer War, the carved ivory elephants carrying sedan chairs given by the Rajah.
All the time awaiting the inevitable questions to which I had prepared my answers.
Finally they came and I said, “Why don’t we wait until we dine? I do hope you are not averse to oysters, followed by a little venison in red wine?”
Mohamet had done a perfect job on the table. I enjoyed their reaction to the glittering, candlelit spectacle: awe, overlain by the suspicion that this was bait to lure them into the stickiest of webs. As, of course, it was, but there was little they could do about it now.
At the head of the dining room, above the mantelpiece, hung an enormous oil painting of our distant ancestor from the seventeenth century. He looked down with an expression of lofty disdain over his pointed beard upon the three of us, now seated at a table long enough for thirty.
Following a toast, which welcomed them to the house and wished the best for their future, Robert at last said: “But, Dad, is this really your house?”
“Indeed it is,” I smiled.
“So who’d you steal it off?” he sneered.
I smiled. “Why, it is rightfully mine—and will no doubt be yours one day, if you are still here. I expect you are wondering why you were not raised here. The answer is simple: I had to wait to inherit it—from my uncle, who died childless. This is why we lived in exile in those awful suburbs among the great unwashed. Sometimes one just has to bide one’s time until the appropriate moment comes to make one’s move. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Suppose so,” he replied, with all the articulacy of adolescence.
“Well, Robert, how have you been?” I enquired after the oysters had arrived. “Your mother says you have become a resourceful chap. You must have done, or you would not have the dubious distinction of being the first person ever to have absconded from the Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation.”
“I did have a little help,” he said, sipping the puréed oysters which I’d had the kitchen prepare especially.
“Nonsense!” I replied. “That is not what the official report says,” and I winked at him. It took him a couple of beats for the old penny to drop.
“I…see,” he said. “And what else does the official report say?”
“That you are dead,” I said abruptly.
The old penny took a few more beats to descend a little further. I offered an encouraging smile.
“Um, er, you mean…they’re not looking for me any more?”
“Not as such, no,” I said cheerfully. “But that could always change.”
I knew I should not underestimate the girl for she now said, “Er, why does the report say this?”
“Robert is my son.” I gave another planned response. “Why should I not want to protect him from harm?”
Now he departed from the anticipated script with a violent outburst. “If that’s true, why did you bloody well go and leave me? How could you do that?”
I must confess to being taken by surprise. “What do you mean?” I flustered slightly.
“Don’t come all innocent with me! Don’t play games with me!” He was shouting now, by increasing the volume of that odd mechanical voice of his. “You know what happened! I came back from school one day to find the house empty, you and Mum gone, and no trace of any of my own or anyone else’s stuff in the house I’d spent all my life in—even if it did feel like a bloody mausoleum half the time! Where the hell did you go? Why did you abandon me like that? Why?”
I paused to regain my calm and waited for his storm to subside a little, popping another oyster into my mouth, then wiping my fingers and dabbing my lips with the monogrammed linen napkin before responding. “You mean you didn’t see the note we left?”
His chair leapt back. “Note? Note? What bloody note?”
I could hardly contain my own incredulity. “The one we left on the kitchen table!”
“Kitchen table! I-I—What the hell do you mean?” he said.
“There was a letter for you. What did you do when you got home?”
“I-I can’t remember!”
“Johnny—I mean, Robert—had his memory badly damaged in the CGR. He’s only got some of it back,” explained Kestrella.
“I see,” was the best I could manage.
“You see what? Tell me what it said, Dad! Have I spent the last two years on the streets for nothing?”
I let Mohamet clear away the dishes before replying in as quiet a voice as I could manage. “You must realise the predicament your mother and I found ourselves in…following the onset of your…illness. Of course, as a child you took no interest in the positions we held in our public life, but, as you now know, your mother holds a senior medical management position in the battle against the disease, and I myself am the senior Civil Servant in the Home Office. That is to say, I have the honour of writing the official policy to combat the disease.”
I was acutely aware of the intensity of the stares now upon me and what they signified, but I ignored them as Mohamet introduced the venison and accompanying dishes to the table. “Therefore, the discovery that our own offspring had become afflicted presented us with not only a personal tragedy but a tragic dilemma. Were we to declare the matter, you would have had to be put into the CGR, since our responsibilities were too great for us to care for you personally.”
“But you’re rich! You could have paid for this care!” Robert intervened.
“Now we are, yes. Or rather I am—your mother and I are now separated, but on reasonable speaking terms by the way.”
“Oh, thanks for telling me,” he chipped in again.
“But back then our circumstances were somewhat different. I wouldn’t want to trouble you with the details but we were in substantial debt, and striving hard to pay it off. You must have noticed the lack of furniture and decoration. It was appalling—everything was in hock. Thankfully, my uncle’s untimely death somewhat redeemed the situation—one’s fortunes did an about-turn. But at the time, naturally, we did not want you in the CGR, knowing full well what fate would have awaited you. So you see, you could neither have become a Blue nor a Red. The only choice, then, was for you to become a Grey and seek your fortunes elsewhere.”
“But the note! What did the note say?” said Kestrella.
“The note merely explained this situation and gave you certain detailed advice on what to expect, where to go for help, how to avoid the Gene Police and where you might find comrades and sanctuary, based on our intelligence advice from MI5.”
I watched, this time with sadness, the old pennies drop further still, further than I had anticipated.
“Right,” Robert said. “Sanctuary. Comrades. Help. Advice. All the things I had to do without for two years. I can’t believe it.”
I adopted silence for a moment, noticing that venison in red wine sauce had never lacked so much flavour. The others had not touched theirs (in Robert’s case another purée). “I’m afraid so. When we didn’t hear from you, we thought the worst. Or that you must hate us so much that you wanted to punish us with your silence.”
“As, of course, I did.”
“And your mother blamed me for forcing the wrong choice upon us and left me. But it was her decision as well, you know. Not just mine.” I took a large gulp of wine to regain my composure. “Hm. In a way I imagine that congratulations are in order. You certainly hid yourself well. Our best intelligence failed to find you, or, when it did, you had already moved on. Until the happy accident when your trajectory happened to coincide with Malcolm Winter’s cousin. And later that of the laughable Thomas Gunn.”
“You know him?” asked Kestrella.
“Oh come, come, do you think us novices? We have a couple of moles in his little band. Now, please, do enjoy your meal. Perhaps, in time, you can come to forgive us, Robert. It’s not our fault you didn’t find the note.”
“If only I could remember what happened—maybe I did find it. I just don’t know. But if I had, why would I have been living the way I know I did?”
“Shall we just draw a line under this and move on?” I offered. “I do have some more interesting and positive news. But first, as you don’t seem to have much of an appetite, why don’t we withdraw to the drawing room?”
Mohamet took the signal and came to clear away the dishes and silverware as I guided them into the next room.
“I have a little present for you, Robert,” I said after we had settled down with our coffee and, in my case, a glass of port. “Think of it as a kind of welcome back present.”
I fished out a vellum envelope and handed it to him. Inside were two things: a cheque for £20,000 and a copy of our family tree. I smiled and stroked my upper lip with pleasure as I watched him examine them. “Is it not your birthday around now? You are sixteen soon; consider the cheque a birthday present.”
He stared at it as if it were something from another planet.
“The family tree is to help you understand your heritage and birthright,” I continued. “It is very much my fault, and I apologise for it, but while you were growing up this could not be revealed to you. The truth is, I had a fortune and lost it. At the gambling table. A fortune inherited from my father. Ah, not only that, but your mother’s fortune too. I don’t mind telling you that I felt absolutely awful. More than once I thought of topping the old self. But two things encouraged me to carry on: the knowledge that I could serve my country, as I still had an excellent position, and you, Robert.”
I could see that he was enthralled by what he was reading. “Yes, you are part of one of the most illustrious families that has ever lived in this country. Members of the Cecil family have served in various high positions for thirteen generations and included Prime Ministers, Home Secretaries, and countless members of the aristocracy and Civil Service. All the portraits you have been looking at on the walls are of your ancestors.”
It was true. The first noted nobleman in the line was William, for forty years chief secretary of state to Elizabeth I, and the “chief architect of Elizabethan greatness” as I explained to Robert while pointing out his portrait above the fireplace. “And his son, your namesake Robert, was the first Earl of Salisbury, Queen Elizabeth’s first minister and the kingmaker to James I. His picture you saw above the fireplace in the dining room. The line continues right up until Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, the last Tory leader of the House of Lords in the early twenty-first century.”
It was then that I noticed what was on Robert’s screen. Perhaps he was trying to tell me something, I don’t know, but there was a face with its tongue hanging out. My voice faltered to a halt.
“Is there something you want to say, Robert?” I asked.
“Like, I am supposed to be impressed by all this?” he said.
“Impressed? I don’t know, but don’t you feel, well, lucky, to be part of such an illustrious family? I mean, it’s not as if everybody can boast having so many important statesmen as ancestors.”
Now his girl spoke up. “Why on earth should it make any difference who your ancestors were? It doesn’t make you any more special than somebody whose mother was a prostitute or whose father was a tramp.”
“No, of course not,” I said quickly. “But it must surely change your perspective on things.”
“Actually, Dad, it all looks the same when you see things from the gutter, which, by the way, is where I have been the last two years, if you remember.”
“Yes, well, I assume that you are still in a state of shock due to your recent experiences,” I said, trying to make excuses for him. “It must have been terrible for you, Robert. But—you’ve survived, you see, and that must say something about what kind of mettle you’re made of, eh?” I tapped him gently on the left shoulder. Unfortunately, he flinched away.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “I really must try to develop a positive attitude. Thanks for the advice, Dad.”
He lapsed into silence, slumping in a chair and taking his girlfriend’s hand. I assumed they must be tired and suggested bed. I summoned Farah and asked her to take them to their rooms. They looked relieved. Poor things, they hadn’t even brought any travelling bags with them. Even though they wouldn’t be going back to where they came from.
Whether they liked it or not, this was going to be their home from now on.