Chapter 7: Edward - The Golden Hours

Edward was rather embarrassed to be turning up alone, but not at all about failing to let anyone know he was coming. Family, after all, is for taking for granted. Polly and Gerald, bless them, always had enough for everyone. And what’s the point of being well off if you can’t share it?

Edward was no longer well off. He missed it. He had been good at it. He had enjoyed spending his unearned money on pretending every day was his birthday, and his working hours pursuing women who – unlike his dear wife Villy – liked going to bed with him. Being made to leave Villy for one of those women, Diana, had been a challenge, but he felt he’d risen to it in the end. He’d certainly done his best in a very difficult situation, even though neither woman seemed to understand that or appreciate the efforts he’d made. And Diana had, after all that, left him. This he put down purely to money. To the fact that he no longer had any.

He was living now in a small private hotel in Bayswater, perfectly respectable and the staff were civil, almost chummy, but it was not the Ritz, in fact it wasn’t entirely clean, and though there was sometimes champagne, you couldn’t rely on it being properly cold, or indeed real, and people would look at you if you ordered it. Edward had never minded being looked at – he was a notably handsome man. But in admiration, not in, well, disapproval: ‘Who does he think he is?’ ‘Ooh, there’s fancy’ in a Welsh accent. He thought about it during his long walks in Kensington Gardens and came up with the answer: he did not feel at home in a world where people did not feel at home with champagne. After a lifetime of prosperity, with management jobs and a seat on the board, not being well off didn’t suit him. But what was one meant to do about it? He was sixty-five years old. Fit as a fiddle, yes. But the simple fact, a fact he worked hard not to recognise, was that there was no role for him in the bigger world.

He’d recently been spending his pretend birthdays with a lady called Mrs Eagleton, but unfortunately her intentions were honourable. Really, he felt, she should have known there was no way he could honour that. He’d managed to bungle two marriages, and neither of his ex-wives were speaking to him, as she well knew, so why would she expect him to want to add to his collection? No, the way forward was offspring. His children were fond of him, he felt, and even young Roly was now, what, twenty-five? Lydia was a bit far away, of course, in Edinburgh, but it was definitely time for a visit. And Teddy in Africa! A little too far perhaps. But Louise, he gathered, though he hadn’t seen her for a while, was doing terribly well. He was representing some lines of investment that she might be interested in. Better he visit her than that she come to where he was. Louise had always had standards. Even when she was living in the dreadful flat above the grocer’s, that smelled of raw chicken, she’d made it nice. Was she still living there? He didn’t actually know. But no, he didn’t want her coming to the hotel.

So, yes, Christmas. Excellent opportunity for a catch-up. And dear Hugh would be there. There was always such comfort in the mere fact of Hugh. Always had been.

‘Rachel!’ Edward cried cheerfully at the sight of his sister, straightening things as usual in the drawing room. ‘You look well!’

‘Edward, dear,’ she said, stepping away from the fireplace and embracing him carefully, warmly enough, but with that damned look on her face, which had been there for more than half a century now, of expecting him to have some bad news, or a sorry confession to make. ‘How are you?’

Dammit, now she’s being sympathetic! What for? He didn’t need sympathy, for goodness’ sake.

Rachel started enquiring about people’s health. ‘How are Jamie and Susan? And the boys?’

For a second he couldn’t think who she meant by ‘the boys’. Then – oh, of course, his ex-wife Diana’s older children. And the mention of his two youngest children, Jamie and Susan, felt unfair to him. Tactless. If they didn’t often cross his mind it wasn’t that he’d forgotten them, or didn’t love them. But if people won’t speak to you there’s not much you can do about it. It might even be kinder just to leave them to it. They too were adults now, after all. It’s up to them if they want to see me, was his view. There was something quite pure about that, he told himself. Respectful. He needn’t feel guilty. Actually, he felt a little hard done by.

‘Fine, I believe,’ he said, in a closing-down sort of voice.

‘Oh Edward, I’m so sorry,’ said Rachel, and the genuineness of her warmth made it all the more unforgivable to him.

‘Nothing to be sorry about!’ he declared, smiling broadly, squeezing her arm, and resolving not to find himself alone with her over the next few days. She blinked at him, but he was already breezing across to greet Gerald and the others by the drinks cabinet, moustache neat, delighted to see everyone, just in time for gifts and lunch.

‘Marvellous car you’ve got out there!’ said Simon, and Edward was happy for them to think it was his own, not borrowed from Mrs Eagleton. She had already given him his gift: a bottle of Trumper’s West Indian Lime. He had hoped for – well, never mind. He smelled splendid, and had brought a lovely big tin of biscuits.