Lydia seemed downright buoyant when I spoke to her on the phone that afternoon. She’d been flirty, giddy, attentive. She hadn’t scoffed when I told her I’d upgraded her plane ticket the next day to first class. She hadn’t shot me down when I suggested we have a late dinner at San Lorenzo, something we rarely did given that it was a favorite stalking ground for photographers. Nor had she fought me when I suggested she let Lloyd drive her home that night. My only guess was it was due to the fact that she’d be leaving my smitten ass for a month the next day, but I didn’t give a shite.
Fuck me, I didn’t want her going anywhere for a month without me. If I hadn’t been up to my ears with work, I’d have gone with her. And the last thing I wanted to do was have drinks with my mother the night before Lydia left. The weekly phone calls with my mother about Humboldt were fine, but actual in-person conversations? I could count them on one hand since my father had died. We’d been avoiding each other. She knew it, as did I, but I had the distinct feeling we were finally about to have it out. After that phone call earlier in the week, I was madder than hell. And she’d booked a private dining room at Annabel’s, which could only mean she had no intention of us being overheard. My plan was to be in and out and back to Lydia within an hour—like hell I was going to let my mother take my last night with my damsel.
“Darling,” my mother said as she joined me at the table, at precisely six thirty. The woman was never late.
“Mum,” I said, forcing a smile “How was your holiday?”
She waved her hand in the air, dismissing my question, and for some reason I felt like I could see her sadness more clearly that day. Or she was showing me more of it. “I’m headed to Ibiza tomorrow. I need to get away.”
“Why not stay at Humboldt for a while?” On one hand I wanted to throttle her for being the worst snob and a terrible mother, and on the other hand, Lydia’s sympathy kept my own alive as well. I could hear Lydia reminding me that we should pick our battles, but restraint was not my forte.
“I can’t be there, Dylan.” My mother looked at me with a pleading expression, like she wanted rescuing, like she’d grown weary of pushing me away. “I can’t be there while all of this hangs in the air.” She waved her hands in the air as though all of Annabel’s hung in the balance. I had expected her expression to provide some clarity or even unity—weren’t we both enduring a substantial transition? But instead I was met with a cold stare of accusation.
“While what hangs in the air?” I asked, trying to understand her meaning. She just continued to stare at me with a combination of frustration and disappointment. “Mother, just say what you mean to say.”
“You know what I am going to say. You know what needs to be done. I can’t have my mind at ease while the fate of Humboldt Park, this family’s future, hangs in the balance.”
“Mum, don’t start with that bloody nonsense. It’s a nonstarter and you know it. You’re about to say something you’ll regret.”
“No, darling. I don’t have regrets. You need to devote yourself to Hale Shipping—it’s your legacy, Dylan. And—”
“Don’t say it—” I tried to cut her off.
“You need to marry. You need to marry appropriately. And you need to provide for the future of this family.” A baby. She was talking about a baby. With some woman I probably wouldn’t be able to stand to be in the same room with. No fucking way.
“First of all, let’s get one point straight. Hale Architecture and Design is my legacy, not Hale Shipping. I’m well aware the company must stay in the family. I’m wondering if you have any sense of what kind of trouble that company is in? Of what I’m having to do to get it back on track? Are you aware, Mother, that Father nearly bankrupted the company? That he made risky deals that lost money, that he fired managing staff who had held the company together for years in favor of sycophants who agreed with his absurdist vision for how to run a company? That the company continues to carry loans it has yet to pay back? That he took a loan from the Bresnovs?”
“That family that your grandfather knew?” she asked, clearly confused.
“Yes, the family that is now firmly entrenched in the Russian Mafia. The family that swindled Father into putting Humboldt Park into the holdings of Hale Shipping and then promptly began to extort the company for its own illegal gains. The family I have been busily trying to extricate us from for the past two years. Mother, are you aware that while Father was busy sitting on his arse before he died, I have been working with MI6 to try to apprehend that family so that we can once and for all be done with them and we can return Hale Shipping to its former status, legally? And trust me when I tell you that figuring out how, precisely, to sort everything out to everyone’s satisfaction is very much at the fore of my life these days.” My tone was low, steady, conversational. I didn’t care if we were in private; I wasn’t going to give my mother the satisfaction of losing my cool. And her expression was stiff, but not blank. “I’ll take your silence as confirmation that you were unaware of everything that’s been going on. I should hope that we can now agree that I apparently will not be abandoning the company. Now, as for the second matter. I am going to pretend you didn’t just suggest I marry and knock up some poor girl I don’t love, someone with a goddamn title who may have nothing but waxed cotton between the ears.” I was seething, and as I took a swig of my whisky, I found it harder and harder to remain in control. I was speaking between my teeth, my fury rising to the surface. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just insult my…” I wanted to say fiancée so badly in that moment. I wanted my mother to know just how futile her efforts were. And goddammit, I was going to get that ring on her finger soon to put an end this nonsense. “…girlfriend while pretending she doesn’t exist, suggesting that I give up the one thing that’s actually making me happy.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Dylan. Stop with the adolescent dramatics. You’re far too old for this nonsense. Everything you’ve just told me about Hale Shipping, while disappointing, just makes my concern all the more important.” What was bloody wrong with this woman—had she heard nothing I’d just said?
“So I see you and Father were rather aligned on this point, were you? Appearances first, no matter the cost,” I said, knowing that she often thought my father was overly cruel, that maybe I could point out the absurdity of what she was saying.
“All your father wanted was to help you get some perspective—perspective that will serve you well for the course of your life, Dylan, not just satisfy some passing boyish wants. Please, Dylan, think about someone other than yourself for once.”
“Think about someone other than myself? Mother, I’ve spent my entire life tamping down my own desires, my own goals, myself in order to please you and Father. For the first time in my life, I am taking care of myself, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m taking quite good care of Humboldt as well. I’m not going to live my life to please you anymore.”
With Lydia’s help, I’d been devoting every spare second to reorganizing the management of Humboldt Park. I’d given overdue raises. I’d scheduled repairs. I may not be eagerly attending leisurely weekend shooting parties with other aristocrats, but no one could deny that I was actively working on behalf of the estate.
“I’m not talking about me, Dylan. Or opening Parliament or any of the other duties you’ve taken on. Of course you’re doing what you should be doing there. You’ve been preparing for that you’re entire life. That’s not what I’m referring to.”
“Then what in the bleeding hell are you referring to, Mother?”
“Lydia, of course.” What was she talking about? “I know you’re planning on marrying her—as much as you may think otherwise, my head is not completely buried in the sand. I’ve seen how you are with her. Has it occurred to you how absolutely selfish that would be?”
I was truly stunned, because the fact was I had thought her head was buried in the sand.
“Mother, Lydia knows exactly what she’s getting into.”
“Does she? Do you?” My mother sat there, her hands on the table, somehow knowing without looking that a waiter was coming from behind her, that she should stop talking while he placed our drinks before us. A moment later he was gone. “Dylan, you know that I also went to Cambridge?”
I nodded.
“Did you know I had a first in French? Did you know I was offered a PhD candidacy at Oxford, that I wrote a paper that is still considered a seminal piece on French translations of early modern British literature?”
I hadn’t. I hadn’t known any of this. And she knew it.
“You see, Dylan, it’s all well and good to have these romantic notions of modernity, of continuing onward into life at Humboldt as though nothing has changed, that nothing will. But you haven’t a clue what you’re asking of this poor girl, do you? Of course it all seemed possible. Of course I thought I’d just take a year off, perhaps two, then I’d go back and continue my work. At first it was just a conference I turned down. Then I put off the position for a year, because it was the queen’s silver jubilee, and even though your father wasn’t duke yet, it wouldn’t be proper for us not to be in attendance. Then I was pregnant. There was Humboldt—it’s not a normal house, Dylan. It’s an estate that needs a master and a mistress. So you see, you may be willing to take things away from her, but is it who you want to be?”
I sat, silently. How had I not known any of this?
“I know you think your father’s infidelities were his aggressions,” she continued. “And they were, of course. But have you asked yourself what you will do if your wife, whose independence you adore now, resents you so completely for taking it away from her? What she will do if that happens? She doesn’t know what is ahead of her, Dylan. She has that excuse. But you do not.”
“Mum,” I started, but I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s time to grow up, Dylan.”
* * *
When I left the restaurant, I went to the pub a block away from the club. I texted Lydia and apologized about dinner, saying I’d see her at home in a bit, that I had some things to take care of. The darling girl wrote back with a frowny face and a promise to make coming home worth my while. What was I doing to my damsel, asking her to marry me, to give her life to me? Is that what I wanted for her? As the person who knew this life wasn’t it my responsibility to shield her from a shite life in which she’d resent me, resent us. The puzzle pieces just weren’t fitting. I wasn’t my father, but I couldn’t get my mother’s words from my mind. Fuck, it made my head hurt. My heart hurt.
I stopped thinking. I started drinking.
It was well after ten before I got in a cab. I’d sent Lloyd home—I didn’t want anyone, even him, to be privy to this.
The cab was rounding the corner onto my street when my mobile rang.
Thomas, my assistant. I reluctantly picked up—he never called at this hour.
“Mr. Hale, have you seen the Evening Standard?”