And he certainly didn’t want to change his impulses to action and reaction. He loved the surges of energy they brought, the rushes of adrenalin, the sudden blinding clarity of focused vision. Responding to Rose’s pre-dawn distress had been, in truth, a luxury to Tyler, and his newest idea, a determination to see her son alone was almost as compelling. Nat had been virtually unable to look at him the other night, so consumed was he by various emotions which Tyler had no doubt were both enormous and unmanageable. Poor boy, Tyler thought. Poor boy, with a father in Australia and a raw sense of obligation and filial duty to his mother that had never been exercised, let alone tested before. The thing to do, Tyler decided, brushing his hair back with two brushes as his father had taught him, was to see Nat on his own, and possibly without telling Rose, and persuade him that he really had nothing to fear by Tyler’s presence in his mother’s life. Nothing at all.
*
Nat had made an appointment to see Grace Ashton for himself and for Rose. He had finally acquiesced, over the course of three phone calls, to Rose being accompanied by just him, but had insisted – since it was, he pointed out repeatedly until she told him to stop, Rose’s decision, not his – that she had to tell Emmy herself that she couldn’t come. Emmy had, of course, raged about this. They had met as usual in the pub between their flats, and Emmy had seemed unnecessarily furious about Rose’s decision, almost as if she were badly stung by something quite other, although she insisted she wasn’t. She had been drinking tonic water, on its own, which Nat always took as a sign of some turbulence or other going on that she wasn’t ready to talk about yet. He’d have to wait. He knew of old that waiting till Em was ready to talk about something on her mind always resulted, in the end, in being told what he needed to know. Some twins, Nat knew, could read each other’s minds. Some were more like two halves of a whole. That was how he and Em were. It made them, he thought, infinitely patient with each other. Em might be, justifiably in his view, furious with their mother over seeing the solicitor, but she wouldn’t, for a moment, countenance feeling that her brother had in any way let her down. Sometimes it occurred to him that that other people, other women and men, found it tricky to persist in any romantic relationship with either he or Em, because that relationship always had to accommodate the given of twinship as well. It wasn’t exactly an obstacle or a disadvantage: it was just there. He had promised Em he would ring her the moment he could after the meeting with the solicitor, and she had been, as he knew she would be, quite content with that. With Dad overseas and absorbed in his own life, Nat said to Emmy, it was up to the three children – when Laura could be made to focus – to ensure that their mother didn’t fall prey to any person or set of circumstances that might not be to her advantage. Emmy had wholeheartedly agreed. Her agreement added to Nat’s sense of having both undertaken and fulfilled a responsible filial duty. It buoyed him up to feel so confident and in charge, and to have a solicitor’s meeting firmly in place. He felt so surely that he had done the right thing in the right way by Rose, that he was able to be quite breezy about Tyler’s unexpected phone call and his request.
‘Of course,’ Nat said to Tyler, as if he were a completely different person to the one who had been so visibly disconcerted at the meeting on Monday night. ‘Of course I’ll meet you. I can usually get away from work about six.’ He squinted up at the ceiling and took imaginary aim at the ergonomically designed light fitting in his office. ‘Tell me where you’d like to meet, and I’ll see you there.’
CHAPTER SIX
The solicitor, Rose couldn’t help observing, wore a wedding ring and a half-hoop of sizable diamonds. She was possibly in her mid-forties, buxom and self-possessed, and on her desk were photographs of teenage children and an appropriately aged man, all with wide smiles and excellent teeth. In one photograph, Rose noticed, there was also an enthusiastic-looking dog, with the man’s hand resting on its head. They looked very much like the kind of family Rose had, at the same age as the solicitor, comfortably assumed her own to be: healthy, happy enough and not too visibly successful to create insecurity and resentment in anyone else. She had not then, of course, known definitively about Gillian Greenhalgh, even if a mild but persistent anxiety about William’s susceptibility to colleagues clouded her peace of mind like a perpetual shadow. Grace Ashton did not look like someone who permitted perpetual shadows: she gave off, instead, an air of intimidating decisiveness. The man in the photograph would not, Rose suspected, be given a second chance, of any kind.
Grace Ashton shook Rose’s hand with a firm grip. Then she shook Nat’s hand. Then she motioned them both, with a gesture that expected immediate compliance, to two upright armchairs in front of her desk. Her rimless spectacles were blindingly clean, as were her well-kept unvarnished nails. When she sat down behind her desk and regarded them both, it was hard not to feel dishevelled by contrast. Rose found herself regretting the navy-blue jacket she had rejected in her bedroom that morning as too formal.
‘Please,’ Grace said, smiling at Rose, ‘don’t feel at all self-conscious. We are seeing more and more people seeking advice about late relationships. In fact, my firm has seen a twenty per cent increase in situations like yours in the last three years.’
Nat opened his mouth – to agree, Rose suspected, so to forestall him she said quickly, smilingly, ‘I’m sure that’s the case, Mrs Ashton, but I would much prefer it if you didn’t regard me as just another example of a category.’
Nat swung round to admonish her, eyes wide. Grace Ashton, however, didn’t blink.
‘Of course not, Mrs Woodrowe. I was merely trying to reassure you that our practice has considerable experience of situations like yours,’ she said smoothly.
‘Mother,’ Nat said, under his breath.
‘Perhaps you should know,’ Rose went on pleasantly, ‘that I’m here not under duress, exactly, but certainly reluctantly.’
‘Of course.’
‘Why of course?’
‘Because,’ Grace said, ‘people in your position don’t usually feel they need any advice. And,’ she smiled at Nat, ‘it is always difficult to accept pressure from one’s children.’
Nat said, as if stung, ‘I’m not pressuring. I’m protecting.’
‘Which is where I come in,’ Grace replied. She clasped her hands together lightly on the desk in front of her. Then she smiled again, this time at Rose. ‘May I explain?’
Rose gave the most imperceptible of nods. She was here, she must remember, not just because the children wanted it, but because Tyler had said it was the right thing to do. Tyler had told her that Nat and Emmy were quite justified, and when she had cried to him, ‘But I trust you!’ he had simply said, ‘All the same, sweetheart. All the same.’ She badly wanted to tell Grace Ashton that they were dealing with, in Tyler, one of the least avaricious men in the world, but Mrs Ashton’s manner did not encourage spontaneous confidences of that kind. She was regarding Rose through her shining spectacles as if emotional displays of any sort were completely out of place in her office, and would be firmly, if courteously, discouraged.
‘Mrs Woodrowe?’
‘Of course,’ Rose said. She did not look at Nat. He would, no doubt, be looking exasperated and she had no wish to see his expression.
‘Perhaps I could just start,’ said Grace, ‘by explaining the legal position? With no specific reference to your personal intentions.’
‘Please,’ Nat said tightly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see his crossed knees, in charcoal-grey suiting, and his ankles in fine black socks and the shine of his polished black brogues. It occurred to her to marvel, despite everything, at how grown up he looked, how professional, what an impression he must make at meetings where his advice was sought, and how miraculous it was to have been the witness of his transformation from a little boy clinging to her at the nursery school gates to this self-possessed adult. One foot jerked, slightly and involuntarily. Rose might have said, but didn’t, to Grace, ‘He wants
you to get on with it. I might not, but he does. He’s always been impatient, with everyone but his twin sister.’
Mrs Ashton said evenly, ‘The position, in my firm’s experience, is to answer this question: on re-marriage, later in life, how do you make the assets that both participants have accrued in their lifetimes both fair and safe? And how do you ensure that what satisfies the wishes of both parties also satisfies the wishes of their children? In our experience it is, of course, absolutely key to protect the assets of both children and grandchildren. Do you have grandchildren, Mrs Woodrowe?’
‘Two.’
‘And Mr, er, Masson?’
‘None,’ Rose said. ‘As yet.’
Mrs Ashton looked at Nat. ‘You are unmarried, I believe? As is one of your sisters?’
He nodded, swallowing. Rose had an impulse to put a hand out and touch his arm, or squeeze it, for comfort. She wanted to say, ‘I’m sure you will marry, darling. So will Emmy. There’s so much less hurry these days than there used to be,’ and was struck, simultaneously, by how idiotic and inappropriate such an impulse was.
‘We have five categories to consider,’ said Grace. She unclasped her hands, and held up one in order to tick items off on her fingers. ‘One, property. Two, businesses. Three, pensions. Four, joint assets. Five, wills. All these elements have to be considered, which is why we often recommend pre-nuptial agreements.’
‘Pre-nups?’ Rose was truly startled.
‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘A good idea, Mrs Woodrowe, in cases like yours where both parties have been married before and there is an inequality of wealth or debt between the couple.’
Rose half got to her feet. She looked from Nat to Grace.
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’
Nat cleared his throat. ‘I told her. I told Mrs Ashton about your house. I told her Tyler doesn’t seem to have any money. I just said. Sit down, Mother.’
Rose subsided, her face flushed. She wanted to say, stupidly, ‘He never calls me “Mother”,’ but instead managed to confine herself to stammering, ‘I never thought – I never imagined . . .’
‘It is always better, Mrs Woodrowe, to look at every possibility. Just as it is best to make full disclosure of both facts and assets. The law may seem a cold fish but it isn’t there for the best of all worlds but to save and protect in the worst.’
Rose stared at the carpet. She heard Nat say, sounding disconcertingly like his father, ‘As I said on the telephone, Mrs Ashton, we need to know as precisely as we can what to prepare for,’ and Mrs Ashton replying, almost as if Rose wasn’t in the room.
Rose raised her head and said clearly, to Nat, ‘Perhaps it would help if I knew exactly what you have already disclosed?’
‘Only that you have a valuable house and that Tyler doesn’t appear to have anything.’
‘He has a pension in America.’
‘We might suggest a discretionary trust,’ Mrs Ashton said. ‘Which would constitute a pre-marital agreement. If you intend to marry.’
‘I do.’ Rose sounded very certain.
‘In that case, the house would remain yours, and Mr Masson would have no interest in the value of it, but he would have the right to live in it for his lifetime. In other words, if you were to die before your husband, he, as your husband, would have the use of your assets until his own death. You need a trust to protect your assets for your children, but if you have a trust, your ability to choose and the exercise of your own discretion becomes limited. If you were to divorce—’
Rose looked horrified. ‘Divorce!’
‘We have to consider everything,’ Grace Ashton said, unperturbed. ‘A divorce court will only take notice of the terms of the trust if you and your husband have made full disclosure of all your assets when you marry.’
Rose glanced at Nat. ‘Did you know all this?’
He sighed. ‘Mum, it’s why we’re here,’ he said wearily. ‘Because it’s complicated.’
‘It is,’ Grace agreed. ‘And there might be tax issues to add to it – capital gains tax, possibly. A trust—’
‘I don’t want a trust!’ Rose almost shouted.
There was a brief and startled pause and then Mrs Ashton went on as if the interruption had hardly happened. ‘A trust would need trustees, Mrs Woodrowe. Yourself, of course, and also perhaps your children. It would be quite a drastic and unusual thing to do but in the circumstances—’
Rose stood up abruptly. ‘I think I’ve heard enough.’
Slowly, Mrs Ashton and Nat rose to their feet. Mrs Ashton said, more to Nat than to Rose, ‘I think we have covered all the ground necessary for a first meeting.’ She held a hand out across her desk. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Woodrowe. I hope that this has been helpful at least.’
Rose looked at the proffered hand as if the last thing she had any desire to do was to shake it. Then she looked straight at Grace Ashton.
‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ she said.
*
In a cafe downstairs from Emmy’s offices, Nat was staring into a takeaway cup of peppermint tea. ‘She wouldn’t really speak to me afterwards,’ he said. ‘I mean, she did all the mum stuff and asked if I was doing anything nice this evening and was my eczema better, but she wouldn’t talk about the meeting.’
‘Did you try?’
‘I didn’t get the chance. She said, the minute we were outside the door, “We’ve learned what we’ve learned and I am not discussing any of it until I’ve had time to digest it, so please don’t go for me,” and then she started down the stairs, ignoring the lift, at breakneck speed and I could see it was hopeless.’
Emmy made a face. ‘D’you think any of it went in?’
‘Oh yes. That was the trouble. She saw what her position would be if she persists in this marrying thing and she didn’t like it, Em, she didn’t like it one bit. I guess that she’s got used to the freedom she’s had since Dad, whatever the pressures and anxieties, and it didn’t occur to her that she might be compromising them if she gets married again.
Emmy said sympathetically, ‘Oh, Nat.’
‘I felt so sorry for her, Em. I really did. I’d got used to just feeling exasperated and fed up with her and suddenly I just thought – oh God, Em, it made me think of when Dad said he was leaving and she wanted to spare us and not blame him or have us think badly of him, and –’ He stopped and gave himself a little shake and then said miserably, ‘It was a whole lot easier when I just felt irritated with her, I can tell you.’
‘But it’s what we wanted really, isn’t it? I mean, we wanted her to come down off cloud nine.’
Nat looked at his tea without enthusiasm. ‘Not really. It’s not falling for someone.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘It’s wanting to marry them. It’s this marriage thing. You could see Mrs Ashton was trying to tell her not to get married.’ He raised his eyes and looked at his sister. ‘Em. Why is she so fixated on getting married?’
Emmy shrugged. ‘Dunno. Generational?’
‘What? Being married because people her age always did?’
‘Maybe.’
‘But she isn’t like that,’ Nat said. ‘She doesn’t usually care about convention. She’s learned to manage alone brilliantly.’
‘Until him,’ Emmy said.
Nat sighed. ‘I’ve got to see him for a drink. He asked me. Got my office number. God knows why.’
‘Yes,’ said Emmy absent-mindedly.
‘I’m wondering whether to head him off.’
Emmy wasn’t listening. She said, almost bitterly, ‘I think she just wants to show the world she’s got someone. That’s what this marriage thing is all about.’
Nat looked at her. He said, after a pause, ‘Em?’
Emmy picked up the scarf she had put on the banquette beside her and began to wind it around her neck.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘Mum just wants to show us all she can still pull and then get proposed to.’ She stood up. ‘Good luck with that drink.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to work. Back to wooing a dry-cleaning company to let us re-brand them, if you must know.’
‘What are you so cross about all of a sudden?’
She stepped away from the table and slung her bag on her shoulder.
‘I’m not cross,’ she said. ‘I just sometimes get bored with the whole Mum thing. Like Laura does.’
‘But you aren’t a bit like Laura. Laura’s only ever focused on her own life, her own family.’
Emmy bent and gave his cheek a quick kiss.
‘Bye Nat,’ she said. ‘Thanks for telling me.’
*
Tyler was early, on purpose. He had suggested that he and Nat meet in the bar of a hotel off Piccadilly, which was furnished in a clubby and masculine manner with leather chairs and panelling. He had told Mallory on the phone that he had asked Nat Woodrowe to have a drink with him, in the interests of being above board about all his plans, and Mallory had said, as if she were half attending to something else, ‘Oh, OK, Daddy. But why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why d’you want to meet the guy all buddy-buddy just the two of you?’
‘Because, sweetheart, I want to reassure him that I don’t have designs on anything of his mother’s but only on his mother herself.’
‘Doesn’t he know that already? I mean,’ Mallory said, her voice just edging into the contemptuous, ‘it’s not as if she’s a Hilton heiress exactly, is it?’
Tyler said, ‘Would you like to come too?’
‘No. Why would I?’
‘I thought maybe you could get to know each other a little better.’
‘Daddy,’ Mallory said, ‘I don’t need to know these people. I came the other night because you asked me, but I don’t need to make a habit of it. I have my life and you have yours. I’m happy for you, Daddy.’
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