by Karen Swan
‘I said not inside!’ Emma yelled, leaning over the balcony, her dark hair framing her face. ‘Oh, Alex! You’re here!’
The others ran out at the sound of their voices – Anna and Elise.
‘You came!’ Elise cried. ‘Thank God!’
‘We didn’t think there was any chance of getting hold of you, much less getting you here,’ Anna said as Emma jogged down the stairs and joined them, concern written on all their faces.
‘I was pretty much passing anyway,’ she mumbled as everyone greeted her with hugs as though she was one of them and not the Judas in their midst, the traitor who had sold out their dear friend. ‘Who . . . ?’ she asked in bafflement, as the kids tore around the hall before running down the front steps onto the lawns.
‘Oh, the muckiest, loudest ones are mine: Bella, Charlie and Miles,’ Emma said with a roll of her eyes. ‘They’ve gone feral, I’m afraid – always do when we come to stay here; I haven’t been able to get them in the bath since they came on Wednesday.’
‘My girls leading them astray,’ Daisy tutted. ‘They need no excuse.’
‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t know you even had kids,’ Alex said in astonishment. ‘Where on earth were they hiding last weekend?’ Had she somehow overlooked them, Alex wondered? Was she really that self-absorbed?
‘They go to stay with my mother when we have our MacNab weekend. Strictly no ankle-biters allowed. It’s party-time for the grown-ups.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She realized they were all looking at her and she tried to draw herself up, move back onto a professional plane. ‘And Sam – how is he?’
‘Max has looked him over but it’s not his area,’ Emma continued.
‘Well, not unless he gives himself a heart attack,’ Max himself said, walking into the hall just at that moment. ‘Which is within the realms of possibility, the way he’s going. It was good of you to come.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ve given him a sedative.’
‘Do you think you can do anything?’ Elise asked, biting her nails.
Alex nodded. ‘It’s what I do. Crisis callouts are my bread and butter.’
‘He’s in there,’ Daisy said, pointing to the library. ‘Ambrose is with him.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘We’ll be in the kitchen, okay?’ she said. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’
‘Great.’ Alex heard their voices – anxious, agitated – recede as she walked over to the library door and knocked lightly.
The door opened almost immediately, making her startle and step back. ‘Oh!’
‘Sorry,’ Ambrose said, slipping out of the room and joining her in the hall. ‘I didn’t realize you were there. I was just coming to join the others. He’s sleeping.’
‘Oh,’ she said again.
‘Max gave him something an hour ago; poor bugger’s worn himself out. He didn’t sleep at all last night.’
‘What’s happened, exactly?’ she asked, watching him. ‘My PA said he backed a bad deal?’
‘More than bad, it’s catastrophic.’ He sighed. ‘Look, without sounding crass about it, I’m assuming Lochie must have told you something of Sam’s success?’
She nodded.
‘The boy had done good. He certainly didn’t need to work ever again after he sold the app, but he’s not the sort to spend the rest of his life on a yacht on the French Riviera either. He wanted to stay in the game. It didn’t matter what the business was, he was up for the challenge. Computer games, whisky trading, you name it – he prided himself on being able to jump between markets. But he backed the wrong horse this time – ploughed ten million sterling into shares of a biotech that was racing to be first to market with an antenatal test based on screening foetal DNA – only for the patent to be denied on a technicality because it’s based on natural biological process. Or something.’
‘And so the biotech’s stock has dived,’ she said, predicting the cause of Sam’s crisis.
Ambrose nodded.
Ten million was a lot of money. Precious few could take a hit like that and stay on their feet, much less be able to walk away, but Alex still smiled.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll get him through this.’
‘Should I wake him up?’
‘No, let him sleep. It’s the best thing for him if he’s been up all night. Even just forty minutes will make him feel better. He should wake up with a clearer perspective.’
‘Fancy a coffee then, while we wait?’
‘Great.’
Everyone was gathered in the kitchen, sitting around the large farmhouse table when they walked in a moment later, the Christmas carols in the background somewhat paradoxical in mood to the subdued group. They looked up expectantly.
‘That was quick!’ Daisy said.
‘He’s sleeping,’ Alex replied, shaking her head.
They sighed collectively.
‘Well, I guess that’s good, right?’ Elise said. ‘If he didn’t sleep last night?’
‘Yeah, but not so helpful for Alex,’ Emma pointed out.
‘It’s no problem.’
‘But you’ve come all this way and now he’s out for the count? What were you thinking, giving him that sleeping pill?’ Emma asked, whacking her husband on the arm.
‘I was trying to keep him calm,’ Max protested.
‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve changed my flight to the seven ten. As long as I’m away by four thirty, it’ll be okay.’
‘Well, it’s very good of you to do this . . . What are your plans for Christmas anyway?’ Max asked, nobly attempting small talk and pulling out a chair for her as Daisy poured a coffee and handed it over.
‘I’m just having a quiet one at home. I haven’t been home in almost nine weeks in total, so it’ll be good to just get back and . . . flop.’
‘Are you spending it with family?’ Max asked.
‘No. There’s only me and my father and he lives in Switzerland so I’m flying out to see him on Boxing Day.’
Max arched an eyebrow, but if he thought it was odd that she wasn’t going out in time for Christmas itself, he didn’t say. ‘That’ll be nice.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you ski out there?’
Alex hesitated. ‘No. Not that.’
‘Oh, don’t you ski? I sort of assumed you would after the MacNab; you seem very accomplished with all things outdoorsy.’
Alex looked into her coffee. ‘Well, I do but Dad doesn’t,’ she smiled.
‘Fair enough. My ortho colleagues are constantly telling their patients there comes an age when it’s not worth risking the knocks and bumps. One fall can mean a new hip, right?’
‘Yes, right.’ She smiled weakly, wanting to get off the topic. ‘By the way, where’s Jess? Isn’t she here?’
‘Oh, she had to go into town, get some last-minute bits,’ Daisy said, lifting down a bag of potatoes from a shelf in the walk-in larder and bringing it through.
Alex nodded. Wasn’t that slightly odd, for a woman to go shopping when her husband was standing in the still-smoking ruins of his financial empire?
‘I think she needed to get out,’ Anna said as though reading her mind. ‘Clear her head a bit.’
‘Sure.’
‘Right, who’s going to help me make a start on these tatties?’ Daisy asked, setting down several large pans in the middle of the table and rifling in the cutlery drawer for vegetable peelers. ‘Many hands make light work.’
Everyone groaned.
‘What?’ Daisy demanded, planting her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not cooking for the lot of you on my own.’
‘Fine. Give it here,’ Anna said, reaching for the peelers and giving one to Elise too.
‘And you boys can make yourselves useful too, by filling up the log baskets and coal scuttles. You may as well get the heavy stuff done while we’ve got a bit of time and it’s still light.’
Ambrose and Max got up with dramatic reluctance, but they knew better than to argue and Alex heard
them laughing out in the hall a minute later as they pulled on their boots.
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean you,’ Daisy said, reaching to take back the peeler from Alex. ‘I’m not putting you to work. It’s bad enough we’ve dragged you up here to a sleeping patient when you could have been halfway home by now.’
‘But it’s no problem. I prefer to keep busy.’
‘I think you should take the opportunity to stop for a bit,’ Daisy said, reluctantly giving her the peeler anyway as Alex reached for a potato from the bag. ‘She looks tired, don’t you think?’ she asked the others.
‘Yeah,’ Emma and Anna and Elise agreed.
‘It’s because you’re in black,’ Elise said, patting her hand. ‘It’s a very draining colour.’
‘Oh my God, not that again,’ Anna chuckled, starting on peeling the potatoes with expert proficiency.
‘So, besides Switzerland, what’s next for you, Alex?’ Daisy asked interestedly. ‘Jess said your PA said you’re booked all the way through to June?’
It was Jess who had called? Alex wasn’t sure why this should have surprised her; it was her husband who was in crisis, after all. ‘Well, yes, but it’s not as bad as it sounds – I’ve got a long trip booked for Sri Lanka at the end of next month.’
‘Nice!’ Anna said. ‘Work or pleasure?’
‘Most definitely the latter. It’s a yoga retreat, I go there every year.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Although they did ask me if I would run a stress-management course within the camp to complement their mindfulness classes.’
‘But you’re not interested?’ Elise asked.
Alex shook her head. ‘No, it’s where I go to recharge my batteries. I need to keep it reserved for me and my headspace. The problem with my job is that by constantly examining other people’s problems, it’s easy to avoid confronting my own. I have to allocate time in my diary to step away and work on myself or I’d never do it.’
‘I expect you have to be disciplined about not blurring the boundaries between work and your private life?’ Anna asked.
‘That’s right. When I’m working with a client, it tends to be to the neglect of my own life; I go to where they live and work, I focus entirely on their lives, work to their schedule, meet their colleagues, friends, families.’
‘Like us.’
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean—’ Alex said quickly. ‘You’re different.’
‘Are we? Or will you go back to London tonight, step back into your own life and we’ll just be the friends of a former client of yours?’
‘I feel like we’re all friends.’ Alex hesitated, detecting an edge. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘Of course we are,’ Elise said quickly, patting her hand and shooting Anna a look.
‘Of course,’ Daisy said, but her eyes were on the vegetables and Alex wasn’t convinced.
Everyone fell into an uncomfortable quiet, curls of potato peelings piling up and spilling off the plates onto the refectory table. In the background, Bing Crosby was singing ‘Snow’ – one of her mother’s favourite Christmas songs – as outside the window Ambrose and Max crossed to and fro on the gravel path, lugging coal and logs from the stores, the cold east wind blowing their hair off their faces.
They were moving on to the carrots and parsnips when there was a sudden crash from the other side of the house.
‘What was that?’ Emma gasped as they all sprang from the table.
‘Oh shit,’ Daisy hissed as there was the crunch of gravel on the drive. ‘That’s all we need! Jess is back just as Sam starts bouncing off the walls again.’
‘Don’t worry, you keep her here, I’ll go in to him,’ Alex said, grabbing her bag and hurrying from the room, making her way straight over to the library. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door again, noticing that the key had been put on the outside. Were things really that bad? There was no reply but she could hear movement in the room. She walked in.
Sam was in profile, pacing the room, fragments of blue glass peppered across the floor – a vase? An ashtray?
‘Sam?’ She walked further in and closed the door behind her just as she heard Jess coming into the hall and calling his name.
He looked over, confusion buckling his brow at the sight of her. ‘Alex? What are you doing here? Where’s Lochie?’
‘He’s not here. Jess called my office. She thought we could talk, you and I.’ He looked back at her blankly and she wasn’t even sure he was hearing her. Had he heard Jess’s voice in the hall? Perhaps he was wondering where his wife was. ‘I’m not sure if you’re really aware of what it is I do, but I’m a business coach. I specialize in helping people – leaders – when they’re . . . in the kind of trouble you’re in.’
He stared at her hard for a moment before gripping his hair and turning away. ‘Christ, what good’s talking going to do now? It’s gone! I fucked up!’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’ She watched him closely. ‘How are you doing?’
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and he planted his hands firmly on his hips, looking down at his feet, trying to hold it together. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. But the tips of his fingers were blanched and his shoulders were sitting two inches higher than they should.
‘Really?’
He looked up at her, his composure fleeing as he saw her concern. ‘Fuck no! What the hell was I thinking? I had everything – I’m married to the woman of my dreams, I’ve got a great house, more money than we could ever need. And I threw it away; I might as well have lit a bloody match under the entire lot of it.’
Alex walked over to the deep partner’s desk and leaned against it; she was closer to him now, close enough to be able to lower her voice – which would force him to have to concentrate on her – but not so close that he’d feel trapped or hemmed in. She could see he needed to move and she wanted him to; as long as he stayed on his feet, his movements would likely remain open and expansive. It was if he sat down on the sofa that he was at risk of closing down, physically and mentally.
‘Look, I know things seem bleak right at this moment, but I can assure you, if you made a fortune once, you can make it twice,’ she said, keeping her voice calm and matter-of-fact; too much sympathy would arouse the panic that pity was deserved. ‘And you will. I work with people like you all the time Sam – risk-takers, gamblers, entrepreneurs; losing’s just part of the curve of winning. No one who really makes it big ever got to the top without a knock. You will get past this.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Her calmness began to still him.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘How?’
‘Scotch Vaults for one thing – that’s going to be the foundation of your second fortune. It’s an excellent idea, plus you’re the first ones in to that particular market.’
‘Does Lochie know you think that?’
She shrugged, even though she felt physically jolted at the sound of his name. ‘It doesn’t matter what Lochie thinks about my thoughts. The question is, do you believe in it?’
He looked out of the window, nervously sliding his jaw from side to side, the gesture a stress tic as his fingers drummed on his thigh, tension hard-wiring his frame. It was hard to equate this friable, jittery man with the party animal leading the drinks last weekend and who had flung her round the room in a flamboyant salsa. But then how much had changed for them all since then? Since Lochie had slept in this room, all their lives had fallen apart.
The door behind her opened and she knew it was Jess coming to check on—
‘What the fuck?’
She turned and almost dropped on the spot at the sight of Lochie standing there, holding an enormous bunch of yellow tulips, presumably for the now defunct vase on the floor. She looked at him – he was as glassy-eyed as the stressed-out man standing behind her. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t compute. What was he doing here?
There was a sudden scrabbling noise behind her and she turned, startled, again as Sam suddenly appeared in her frame of vision,
heading straight for Lochie.
‘Sam? What the hell is going on?’ Lochie snapped, looking between the two of them in bewilderment. ‘Jess told me to put these in the vase and I find her in here?’
‘Ah, yes, don’t worry. I’ll put these in water, mate.’ Sam patted his shoulder apologetically. ‘Just be careful over there, won’t you?’ He pointed to the glass fragments on the floor. ‘I may have slightly had to break some glassware – you know, to get you both in the same room.’
What?
‘What the fuck is going on?’ Lochie thundered, turning on the spot as Sam suddenly darted to the door, hiding behind it for protection, his head and the fingers of one hand all that was visible.
‘It’s called staging an intervention.’ Sam looked across at her and winked. ‘You two need to talk this out. Good luck, kids.’ And before either of them could even move, he closed the door behind them – and locked it.
‘You have got to be kidding me!’ Lochie yelled, running over and pulling at the handle. But the key was on the other side and the door was ancient and heavy; it had withstood five hundred years of Ambrose’s ancestors; it wasn’t going to crumble now. ‘This is not fucking funny. Open this door now. Right now! . . . Sam! Ambrose! You fucking fuckers!’
And before Alex could even process what she was seeing, he punched the wall, bending double in the next instant and holding his hand protectively. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’
Alex watched in mute horror. This had been a set-up? Suddenly the ‘off’ atmosphere in the kitchen made sense, the other women bringing her back into the fold, just enough to allow this charade to happen, not sure yet whether she was the best thing to have happened to their friend – or the worst.
‘Loch—’
‘No!’ His voice was like venom as he whirled round, one finger pointed at her like a gun. ‘You don’t get to speak. Your words count for nothing.’
He was right, of course, they didn’t – she had lied to him from the start.