The Madness of July Read Online Free

of a sudden it’s turned quite… political. They’re laying on lobster – the works. Can you warn Will?’
    ‘Americans?’ said Lucy.
    ‘Yup. But from where I don’t know, if you see what I mean. I expect you’ve noticed he’s been a bit distracted in the last week or two. I don’t know how much he’s told you.’ No response from Lucy, so Francesca plunged on. ‘There’s a thing going on in his family that seems to be awkward. News to you?’
    Lucy said that organizing his life in government was difficult enough without families getting in the way, and avoided the point.
    The conversation made a quiet and quick gear change, without warning, as if they had pushed open a door together. ‘Can I be frank?’ said Francesca.
    ‘Please.’
    ‘Something else has knocked him sideways, and I’m not sure what it is. You know how much Will enjoys his politics. Now it all seems to be turning sour for him, and quickly. That’s what troubles me.’
    Lucy didn’t hesitate, aware that a pause would produce awkwardness. ‘I’ve noticed. Don’t know anything about family matters, of course.’ By unspoken agreement, as if the conversation needed to be wrapped up before it took on too many complications, they were quick to wind things up.
    Francesca asked, ‘Anything on your desk that might have caused all this, if you’re allowed to tell me?’
    ‘Nothing that comes to mind. Pretty routine right now.’
    Then an offer from Francesca. ‘Lunch next week, OK?’
    ‘Please.’
    Francesca said, ‘I’m glad. I’ll fix it.’
    The two women spoke of a sultry weekend, and the unreliability of men who didn’t say where they were going, and made cheerful farewells because neither wanted the conversation to drift. Lucy closed the outer door again to get some quiet, ignoring a thick file that she saw being placed on her desk. There was too much uncertainty. Americans turning up, names unknown, to sit with him and two other ministers for a whole evening, and at the bidding of the cabinet secretary. Paul should have told her. She shifted in her chair. Coincidences, Flemyng always said, were never what they seemed.
    *
    At the Royal Opera House, Francesca was feeling a ripple that disturbed the heaviness settling over everything with the rising heat. She didn’t believe the birthday-present story that she’d concocted for reassurance, knowing Flemyng to be a last-minute merchant, but she had needed to confide in Lucy. She leaned out of her window near the top of the building, put both elbows on the ledge, and found a faint stream of fresh air. The crowds of high summer were down below, around the old vegetable market, now empty and a place of bare stone since the last traders had been shunted south of the river to their new home. A place of memories and sweet echoes. Murmurs from the holidaymakers rose towards her. She looked over the rooftop landscape towards the river. It was just an unusual day. Her man had wanted to be out of the office, get some air, have a break. That was all.
    But Lucy was off balance, which broke the pattern on which they all depended. Francesca let her eyes scan the heads of the crowd below, an anonymous throng, close and yet unaware of her gaze. A singer was practising in a dressing room one floor below, window open, and Francesca listened for a few minutes. The voice was Russian, melancholic, lonely.
    The phone on her desk was just behind her, and its ringing shook her out of her mood. A secretary from Paul Jenner’s office.
    ‘I have the names. They’re all looking forward to it. We’re so glad Will can make it, and we’re sorry to be in such a rush. You know how it goes.’
    ‘That’s just how we like it,’ Francesca said. ‘It’s opening-night panic here.’
    In Whitehall, the pavements were thick with gangs of visitors, the curious and the lost. Crackling commentaries spilled from the open-topped tour buses and a few words floated through the window in Flemyng’s inner office that