Fleur laughs. They all laugh. Fleur seems very relaxed, even a little hysterical. She has a shine as though she’s been to the gym. Julian pours her a glass of champagne – she likes a glass of bubbles – and Simon thinks he will have a glass too. He alternates between the Berry Bros Good Ordinary Claret and the Krug with impartiality.

Nobody here but Julian knows the trouble they are in. And because he’s the brother who didn’t go walkabout in a tablecloth, he can’t tell them. He’s so strung out he feels the cork could blow. He could say, Here you are, Simon, you peripatetic old card, here’s the fucking bank, why don’t you take over as chairman and do my time in Wandsworth for me while you are at it? It’s a family bank after all: anybody with a speck of the Tubal gene in him (or her) is welcome.

Fleur and Simon are getting on famously. Fleur is quite coquettish. She has a way of leaning forward and squeezing her breasts together with her upper arms when she is laughing at Simon’s anecdotes, most of which involve lovable darkies in many parts of the world. This is presumably going to be the sales pitch when he takes over the bank: we are across all the fuzzy-wuzzy cultures of the world. He says that he has decided not to renounce the baronetcy after all. In fact he’s going to a meeting of the Baronets’ Society next week. He wonders if he can borrow a dinner jacket; and perhaps Len could drive him in the Bentley to the Reform Club where the dinner is being held.

‘We’re getting rid of all gas guzzlers. It’s hybrids for us from next month. We need to show some corporate responsibility.’

‘Aren’t you going back to the jungle?’ asks Kim.

‘No, the commission from the New York Times travel pages fell through.’

Unexpectedly, thanks mostly to Kim’s limitless empathy, but also, Julian sees, because of his father’s death, they settle down into a long and happy evening, although Julian is not able to still the unease which has been haunting him, particularly when he is trying to sleep and which he knows will attack him tonight as he lies down again.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

They are sitting in the editor’s old Vauxhall Vectra in the car park of Sainsbury’s. Is the editor taking this clandestine stuff too seriously?