Page 18 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Whatever,” Connie rolls his eyes. “You’re just lazy.”
“Can we get back to this fucking baby, please?” I cut in.
“Oh, yeah, right,” George nods. “So, she had the baby a little bit after you left, Charlie signed with England—football—but when he’s away Lottie stays here with Athena.”
“Athena lives here?” I look around expecting her to jump out from the wall.
“Well,” he wipes away a smile, cheeks flushed a bit. “She’s with me, ain’t she? So wherever I am, she’s there. I still spend most of my time at the hotel but this gaff pisses all over that.”
“Says words like ‘gaff’ while sitting on a twelve grand sofa,” Connie laughs. “Your wealth is wasted on you common people.”
Albie reaches behind, lobs a TV remote at his head.
Connie’s face goes red. “We fucking spoke about throwing stuff at my head! Stop it!”
Albie then throws a cushion over at him.
Connie jumps up, tackles him to the floor.
“And then they start kissing,” George laughs, rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he nods his chin at me. “I’ll give you a tour.”
We start at the front of the house—a term in which I use very lightly—talks me through some of the art lining the walls. Jean Degottex’s Çabda II, Tom Wesselmann’s Drawing for Great American Nude, Norman Rockwell’s A Trench Spade, Andy Warhol's Chocolate Bunny.
“Your parents take up another side hobby?” I ask, my head titled as I study the paintings.
Hands on his hips, deep frown on his face George says, “Nah—arts all cocks and fannys these days, mate. It’s hardly thought provoking stuff.”
He takes me through to the left, into the custom fitted kitchen—the whole colour palette of the house is what you’d maybe expect from Sullivan and India Stratton, black, white, red, gold.
I was right in thinking that there were more than one family rooms, turns out there’s another four. Thirteen bedrooms upstairs, spa, sauna, gym, cinema—he briefly mentioned a speakeasy on the bottom level but he didn’t take me in there, said it was occupied.
“You said Athena lived here, where is she?”
George nods, another one of those smiles on his face. “Out with your Phoebs—had dinner last night, went a bit tits up.”
I laugh. “She’s not ‘my Phoebs’ anymore.”
George leans against the balcony in his room that looks over the decent sized garden. “Why not? Because you went away and became a better man, that stops her from being yours does it?”
I stare at him, think about it.
It does in a way but also she’ll always be mine, won’t she?
Hate to think of her being someone else’s—bit of a secondary school way of thinking, getting jealous or whatever when she has every right to move on.
I always questioned why she never left, why she stayed, why she didn’t move on at any given chance.
“Do you wanna see a picture of her?” George asks.
“I’ve seen pictures of her, I read the papers.”
“I know,” he nods, reaching for his phone. “But an updated one.”
Without my consent, he pulls up a photo, one of Phoebe from what I’m assuming was their New Year’s Eve party. Wearing a short sparkly dress, leaning into Zara Blane at the table. Can’t see Digby anywhere in the background which makes me strangely proud.
But I’m actually not focused on that or her new friend, I’m focused on the only thing I have been since I was five years old. Her. And Christ, the longer I stare at the picture, the more it reminds me why I did what I did.
I had to do it.
