Assembly(11)

Outside, it’s quiet and oppressively still. The wrought-iron entry gate has slid back into a closed grimace. Miniature lamp posts cast narrow yellow cones, illuminating a path up towards the house. The parents greet us at the door. Helen and George – first names, as they insist – bundle me inside. A radiator-bench hulks against one wall of their wide entryway. They’re all smiles, close and welcoming. The mother, Helen, rubs her son’s shoulder.

They take me through to a cosy, carpeted side room with a crackling fire. Sit anywhere, they gesture towards the arrangement of sofas and armchairs. I do sit, on the worn floral two-seater beside the fire. The father opens a cabinet and reaches, spidery, into the rows of glasses and bottles. Their son chooses a reading chair opposite me, leans back and crosses his ankles. His body unfurls and twists as he eases into a yawing-stretch, his balled hands pull his arms up and out, ending in a slow and melancholy roar.

‘So,’ the father begins as he pours. ‘Tell me how you ended up in finance. Why aren’t you off shaking up change in the Labour Party?’ He winks. ‘Ushering in a new world order.’

‘She’s more of a Blairite,’ says the son.

‘Aha –’ The father looks back to me, intrigued, but the mother cuts him off, gently reproachful.

‘Politics, at this hour?’ She smiles at me.

The father carries on pouring.

‘Alright, alright,’ he says with warm humour. ‘Another topic!’

He replaces the decanter, then sits across from me beside his wife and their son, who’s now sprawled out on his chair, drink in hand. I feel too warm, sitting this close to the neatly flickering flames.

‘Gas!’ the father grins. ‘You spotted that? I know, I know it’s a cheat.’

He tells me about the fireplace, and the tricky mantel restoration a few years prior. His son chips in. The mother, too. They all talk and I observe. Mostly – I am practised at saying nothing. I listen, react, ask, occasionally. They list some of tomorrow’s guests, family friends – political types, of course, but also creatives, academics, lawyers, and so on. A quietly dazzling array.

What am I doing here?

Since stepping on to the train, I’ve felt this gruesome inevitability. Like I can’t turn back. But I’m fascinated, too. I’ve met Georges before, many, across their various guises, the roles they assume. I have observed and examined and concluded before, but now here I am, seeing one at home. With his wife and son. I don’t want to be a part of it. I want to grab at it, grab its face and pull open its mouth, prise its jaws apart and reach down, in, deeper. Touch what’s inside.

The son asks about his siblings, will they join us?

‘Ellie’s upstairs, already,’ the mother says. ‘It is late.’

But the father still has questions. With excited and unwavering eye contact he asks my opinions on everything. Love Island? Cambridge? Knife crime; the BRICS; China’s investment in Africa?

The questions sound less like questions than elaborately worded treatises.

‘—but we can’t very well let it carry on unfettered!’ He polishes off his drink, then clinks the empty tumbler down. ‘Can we?’

The son lies back with his eyes closed. I am uneasy, too tired for such Socratic conversation.

‘Right, how about – oh, yes. This is a good one. Everyone will love this. The royal baby? Meghan Markle? Now that’s progress, that’s modernization. Inspiring stuff.’

Their son, too, had been excited about the wedding. He’d planned a barbecue, put up Union Jack bunting, bought drinks and mixers and gathered friends over. They watched the BBC’s coverage with a smirking, wide-eyed sincerity. To him, and them, it seemed to signify – something. He makes eye contact with me from where he sits, across the fireplace.

Inspirational, I agree.

When we finally do say goodnight, the son insists on an impromptu house tour en route up to his bedroom. He’s an enthusiastic guide, opening doors with flourish by their brass knobs. After you… As we go, he spins unlikely tales about the property’s history or just recounts, fondly, his childhood memories. Playing Sardines here or hiding a broken vase over in that chest. The rooms are what I’d imagined: grand architecture dressed down in shabby country chic. Mostly, I am impressed by the corridors; they’re spacious – seemingly endless – with elaborate mouldings up where the walls finally give way to ceiling. The patterned carpets are well trodden, but bright and cared for. Perfectly laid along corners, up stairways, and through doors. He stops ahead of me, waiting to show off the library. I’m slow to catch up, stopping to take in the occasional artworks as though I’m at a gallery. It’s an eclectic collection; cheerfully framed prints (exhibition posters, classics) and photographs hang alongside serious-looking originals, properly stretched, mounted and framed. Plus a few that I assume were painted by the children themselves.

He says the library was his favourite room, growing up. Though he admits it’s more of a large study.

‘Just with rather a lot of books!’

A few, he points out, were written by his father. Others, older, pertain to individuals from or aspects relating to his meticulously documented ancestral history. A couple, newer, make reference to the father – if only obliquely. Some are just books.

‘My father made a name for himself in this room,’ he says. The line sounds rehearsed. His father had started at a conservative think tank, then advised policy makers. Bigger and bigger names, morphing his own into a talisman of shadowy political influence. Who knows how much of it is true? I have no way to verify the father’s grandiose anecdotes. Still, those shadows loom over the son. He chases after them. But wouldn’t he rather do something else?