He does not raise an eyebrow at the sundress or the destination. Henderson has trained him well.
The Range Rover slides out of the gates. London comes up in slow gold light.
I sink into the back seat. My bare knees press together against the leather. Through the tinted glass the world looks softened. We pass a bus stop where a woman is holding a plastic bag full of supermarket flowers, and a man on a bike with a backpack and a tall paper coffee cup balanced in one hand.
The cognitive dissonance is loud today. £840 for a cabana. A driver. A security shadow somewhere two cars back. Old Ivy would have got the bus to a beer garden in Hackney with a £6 prosecco and a packet of crisps.
The lobby is the sort of marble-and-low-light space that makes you walk slower. A woman in a uniform glides me through to the lift, which is silent and surfaced in pale stone. The doors open onto the rooftop.
It hits me all at once, sun, blue, water, the sound of London turned down to a hum twelve floors below. The pool runs the length of the building, narrow and deep blue, and along one sidethere are sun-beds in white linen and on the other side a row of cabanas with curtains pulled half-back. There is a long pale wood bar at one end with a girl in a black jumpsuit polishing glasses. The air smells faintly of chlorine and very strongly of money.
The hostess walks me to my cabana.Number Five.It has a low daybed strewn with cream cushions, a small marble table, an ice bucket already standing tall, and a view across the rooftops to Hyde Park.
“A bottle of Ruinart to start, Mrs Ravenscroft? 2010?”
“Yes, please.”
“Aperol spritzes after?”
“Perfect.”
“Lunch menus when you're ready.”
“Thank you.”
She leaves and I sit down, the cushions taking me in. The sun comes through the canopy and lands warm on my collarbone and I take an actual breath for the first time today.
The bottle arrives in a swirl of ice. Two flutes. The pop is small and well-mannered. The girl in the black jumpsuit pours, sets the bottle in the bucket, smiles, and disappears.
I lift the glass. The champagne has a freshness about it: white flowers and toast.
The view sits there waiting. Hyde Park, the rooftops, the brassy flash of the Wellington Arch in the middle distance. I take a sip. The fine bubbles fizz against the roof of my mouth. It’s truly delicious. I take another and keep it in my mouth, lettingit bubble against my tongue. My muscles loosen by perhaps an increment, and I can’t help looking at my bare feet with the sparkling pool in the background and thinkingWho does she think she is?
CHAPTER 29
Honey Stone
ALISTAIR
Ascot Grange comes up through the trees the way it always does, the honey stone, the slate, the curve of the gravel.
Then we round the second bend and the eastern wing comes into view, and it doesn’t look like itself at all. Scaffolding. White plastic sheeting taped over the gap where the nursery wall used to be. A skip in the drive with a broken sash window protruding from it.
The crew has been stood down for the day. Mick is at the gate, waiting beside his vehicle, and he raises a hand as Henderson pulls up.
“Mr Ravenscroft.”
“Mick. Thank you for clearing the site at short notice.”
“Of course.”
“How is the build?”
“On schedule for three weeks. Could be sooner if you want it sooner.”
“How much sooner?”
“A week, if the team go round the clock and you pay them double.”
