The Bedroom Assignment

And you don’t pursue women who work for you either, he added.

But she’s only temporary. After a week or two she won’t be working for me. And by then she won’t be hostile any more. I’ll make certain of that.

He was back by nine-thirty. He changed rapidly and went into the breakfast room. His grandfather was there, eating grilled kidneys and fulminating over the newspaper.

‘Good morning. Been for a run?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was your time?’

Jay’s hair was still damp from the shower. He pushed his fingers through it. ‘Not what it should be,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’m getting fat and lazy in London.’

His grandfather pursed his lips. ‘No, you’re not. But you’re not enjoying yourself much, either. Are you?’

Jay was startled. ‘Aren’t I?’

His grandfather rattled the Daily Telegraph at him. ‘It says here you’re going to sell out to Karlsson.’

Jay poured himself juice. ‘The word is merge, Gramps. They’d do the advertising. We’d do the PR. We’d share the research. There are lots of synergies.’

‘Except they’re a bunch of international sharks and you’re an honourable man,’ said his grandfather.

Jay shrugged. ‘Can’t stand in the way of progress,’ he said lightly.

‘You ought to compete again,’ said his grandfather. ‘You’re not too old. Cross-country running is a mature man’s sport.’

Jay’s lips twitched. ‘Thank you. I’m thirty-five, not ninety.’

‘Better use of your time than making more and more money you don’t need,’ said his grandfather. ‘It’s time you—’

‘—settled down,’ said Jay, his mouth suddenly grim. ‘So you’ve said before. Thank you for your advice.’

‘I only—’

Jay put down his juice and leaned forward. ‘No.’

‘What?’

‘No,’ said Jay again, very quietly.

His grandfather had commanded men and negotiated with leaders, foreign and domestic, who had volatile temperaments and the means to enforce their will. He had never been silenced by anyone as he was by his grandson. He huffed a bit. But he did not say any more.

Before dinner that night, though, he said to his daughter- in-law, ‘I—er—mentioned the future this morning.’

Bharati Christopher looked at him with calm eyes. She had iron-grey hair and her son’s air of detachment.

‘That will only drive him away.’

‘But—’

‘He will marry when he falls in love. Not before.’ She added, very deliberately, ‘He is like his father in that.’

Brigadier Christopher had thrown his son out long before Robert went on the hippy trail to India and met Bharati. But the old man never forgot that he had missed the first seven years of his grandson’s life because he had stubbornly refused to admit that a cross-cultural union     had ever taken place.

Now his eyes fell.

He harrumphed. ‘I suppose Jay will go off to see that gardening trollop tomorrow.’

Her eyes lit with affectionate laughter. They had mended their fences a long time ago. ‘Or tonight, if you start telling him how to run his life.’

But Brigadier Christopher had the last word.

‘Not my Jay. He doesn’t spend the night. Taught him that myself. Spend the whole night with a woman and she gets serious. Jay,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘knows how to keep his affairs under control.’

Zoe zipped through the rest of the clearing up in a couple of hours on Saturday morning. She liberated the family’s few decent pieces of furniture from their locked sanctuary in her mother’s room. By lunchtime the house was back to normal.

‘When’s Mother coming back?’ said Harry, appearing heavy-eyed at two in the afternoon.

Zoe was stretched out on her stomach on the sunlit lawn, reading a novel. She squinted up at him.

‘When Aunt Liz kicks her out, I guess.’

He flopped down beside her. ‘I hope she stays away until the mocks are over,’ he said, surprising her.

She sat up. ‘Really?’

‘She makes me jumpy.’

Zoe pulled a face. ‘She only wants you to do well.