Instead, I spontaneously tried the door to the right of the stairs and stepped into what was clearly a study. Bookshelves lined the walls, stuffed with leather-bound volumes bought for show. I doubted anyone in this family had read the complete works of Dickens, let alone a volume by Derrida. Oh God, alphabetised. On the mahogany desk sat a fountain pen, a stack of thick cream paper and a large silver heart ornament I recognised as classic Tiffany. There were two gilt frames, both showing the Artemis trio: one which showed Bryony at her christening; the other was more recent, and peering more closely, showed the family at a Buckingham Palace garden party. Janine’s enormous hat couldn’t completely obscure the building behind them. They must have milked this moment to the max, as though it was a private meet up of mates and not a thousand-person gathering for people the Royal family would find appalling were they able to speak frankly and shrug off their duties. I picked up the photograph, and dropped it on the floor. Thick cream carpet cushioned the fall, of course. So I trod on it with my heel until I heard a quiet crack, and then put it back on the desk. The broken glass had come loose, and I used a shard to lightly scratch across Simon’s face. Then I cautiously crept back into the hallway.
I didn’t want to rush back outside, so I lingered in the main living room, nursing my glass. Janine came back out of the kitchen and I felt ready to make eye contact. Her face had such a sour expression – permanent rich-lady dissatisfaction etched into her skin. But she clearly felt obliged to come over, or perhaps she just wanted to make sure I wasn’t trying to steal the silver. As she approached me, I had a moment of panic. Sophie often commented on how my face never betrays any emotion. She seems almost offended that I don’t want to give away all my deepest thoughts with a look. But in that split second, I imagined that Janine could see my intentions plastered all over my face. I started talking about her home, using adjectives to describe her style, in a way which didn’t actually convey that I liked it. We had a brief chat about her mantelpiece, the only thing I could think of to focus on. Her posture relaxed a little as I asked questions about the wide array of different marbles in use in the living room, but her smile remained tight. That might have been because of the extensive work she’d had done, freezing her face to a point which made spontaneous expression difficult, but it was hard to say. She talked about how hard it was to style a house of this size, and told me that her most beloved ornaments were kept at her home in Monaco, as though I would understand the trials of losing track of where my best gilt candlesticks were.
‘Have you always lived here?’ I asked, as I trailed my hand across the mantelpiece, deliberately leaving a vaguely smudged handprint. Her hand twitched in reaction, and I could tell that it was taking every shred of willpower and breeding not to smack my arm away.
‘Yes, we moved in shortly before Bryony was born, since we knew we’d need a bigger place for children.’ It was strange to hear her talking about children plural. Since I assumed she didn’t mean for his illegitimate offspring, of which there could be many, it suggested they expected to have more kids. I weighed up asking about that against the prospect of getting escorted out of the house by one of the many burly security guards dotted around, and decided to hold my tongue.
‘Well it was so nice to meet you. I’m sure Simon’s kids are lucky to have a father so able to provide for them,’ I said, as I walked past her and back into the garden. I heard her calling for the housekeeper before I even got to the French doors.
I left that party feeling like I was finally getting somewhere. I had been in their midst. It wasn’t just a distant dream anymore. Until now, my interactions with Simon had been precisely zero, unless you counted my pathetic trips past his gates once in a while and the one time I saw him in the lobby of the office. And even I, keen as I was to press on, couldn’t really call them encounters.
The third benefit of working at Artemis Holdings was meeting my beloved informant Tina. Beloved isn’t exactly the right word, since I’d never have given her a second of my time if she’d had nothing to offer me but friendship, but I prized her for her information and that was more valuable to me than any mate. Tina was the PA to the deputy CEO, Graham Linton, a close friend and henchman to Simon. A man who wore grey suits with a slight sheen, like the type you see in those shops which always say they’re having a closing down sale. I got chatting to her accidentally on a fag break one day, several months into my job at head office. The office manager was very strict about people smoking anywhere near the front door of the office. There was a smoking terrace for the top brass on the fourth floor, cigar smoke would waft through the offices for hours when Graham, Simon or his brother Lee decided to indulge, but everyone else had to go around the back to the goods entrance. One day Tina mentioned that she liked my scarf and I gave her a half-hearted smile, which was more than enough for her to come and sit next to me. She was the friendliest woman I’d ever met, and that alone was sufficient reason for me to quit smoking and avoid the area. I would have done too, had she not mentioned who she worked for just as I was hastily stubbing out my cigarette. It’s horrible having to do a U-turn when you realise that you can get something out of someone, isn’t it? Suddenly having to flatter and praise a potential donor who’s been leering at you all night, or laughing at the jokes of a guy who will pay for every round of drinks? You feel slightly dirty. But really, everything in life is a trade. And I thought Tina might tell me things about the family I wouldn’t be able to find out by myself, so I sucked it up and played nice. Super nice. Getting her coffee, messaging her little cheery hellos on our office chat system, having lunch with her and pretending that she was losing weight when she asked. It was a good trade though. Tina was a loyal employee when it came to Graham （who was often called a creep by women in the office and not just because he wore an extremely unconvincing toupee）， but she’d sing like a canary when it came to the Artemis family. Nothing she ever told me was itself the silver bullet in my arsenal, but knowing more about these people who I’d watched from afar for so long was endlessly fascinating. And because almost nothing she told me ever painted them in any light other than fucking terrible, it was a reminder that I hadn’t built them up in my head as monsters with nothing to back it up. Yes, Tina was a gift, even if I had to fuck up my lungs even more to spend time with her.