Gideon Rusk arrived carrying his own umbrella.
Frankie had expected someone else to carry it. That was useful. He handed it to June himself, shook the rain from one cuff and asked whether the man at the piano was new.
“He is,” June said.
“The last one always sped up when he thought we'd stopped listening.”
“We mostly had.”
Gideon laughed.
Vivian went towards him.
“Gideon.”
“Mrs Holt.”
There it was, exactly as she'd told Frankie. A place for each person, with himself generously leaving room at the centre.
He kissed Vivian's cheek. He was broad across the shoulders, neatly dressed, with a tie chosen to look as though he didn't need one. Frankie noticed his shoes, cleaned after a morning when everyone else's carried weather.
He'd parked somewhere close.
“Celia Quinn,” Vivian said. “She's helping me with the Table.”
Frankie offered her hand.
“Mr Rusk.”
“Gideon.”
“Celia.”
He kept her hand a fraction longer than courtesy required, just enough to make the second introduction seem his idea.
“Mrs Holt tells me you're bringing something back.”
“We're deciding what deserves to come back.”
“Good. Most revivals make you understand why they stopped.”
He was going to be enjoyable. That could be inconvenient.
Vivian led them towards the Morning Room, which June had made available for lunch after explaining that available did not mean empty. Two other guests sat near the windows. Arthur Brant was one, eating with someone Frankie hadn't met.
Gideon looked towards them.
“Busy.”
“Operating,” Vivian said.
He liked that answer. Frankie saw it.
They sat at a table with no extra place settings. She'd asked for that. A man used to taking the largest table should notice how little space had been left for anybody he might decide to summon.
Nina stood near the wide doors, speaking to June. She wore black trousers and a bright blue shirt, a working choice which gave Gideon something other than a costume to see.
“That's your producer?”
“Yes,” Frankie said.
“She's young.”
“She's experienced.”
“Those can go together.”
“They do.”
He smiled.
They ordered lunch. Gideon asked a practical question about how long something would take, and June gave him an answer which made him choose something else. He didn't insist on rewriting the kitchen's afternoon.
Frankie adjusted her picture of him.
“You do this professionally,” he said.
“Some of it.”
“The Table.”
“No. That's the interesting part.”
He leaned back.
Vivian looked at her, then busied herself with the napkin.
Frankie put one of the old menus on the table.
Not a pile. One.
Gideon picked it up.
“Real?”
“Yes.”
“Fifty-four.”
“Vivian's family kept them.”
He looked at the names.
“Anybody left?”
“Not from that evening.”
“Then who gives you the authority?”
Frankie waited just long enough to seem to consider whether the question required an answer.
“The house holds the history. We're making the occasion. Neither would be enough on its own.”
It wasn't an answer to who appointed her. He noticed. She saw him turn the menu over.
“And who gets to come?”
“The people who'll make it good.”
“That must be irritating to determine.”
“Very.”
“What makes me good?”
There was an opening for flattery so broad she could almost have walked through it carrying a tray.
She didn't.
“I don't know yet.”
Vivian stopped moving her napkin.
Gideon looked at Frankie.
Then he laughed.
“Well.”
“You asked.”
“People often manage not to answer.”
“I'm sure.”
The lunch arrived. She let it interrupt them.
Gideon liked the fish. He asked Vivian how things were, and she told him about the roof without ever making it sound as though his money might be useful. He knew enough about the house to ask the next question correctly.
It made the lie stronger. It made him harder to handle.
Frankie ate and watched.
When he spoke about an event his company had given in London, he had the room sizes, guest numbers, transport delay and last-minute cancellation ready without needing to stop enjoying the story. He was competent. He liked the mishap because it had let him fix something large in front of people who could afford to remember.
“Then everybody gets there,” he said, “and tells you what a lovely evening they've had, as though evenings occur naturally.”
Nina came over.
“They don't.”
He looked up.
“Exactly.”
She took a spare chair from the wall rather than ask Frankie to invite her.
“Vivian wanted you to see the light in the other room before you go.”
Vivian had wanted no such thing. Frankie could tell by the way she blinked, then recovered.
“I did.”
Gideon looked towards the Ballroom doors.
“Now?”
“When you've finished. It won't improve your lunch.”
He smiled.
“Very sensible.”
Nina went back to June.
Frankie let the conversation drift.
She could feel the point where Gideon expected somebody to make an offer. He was used to lunches which eventually revealed their price. If she brought it too soon, he'd place her beside all the people who'd ever described a room as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
He would have had quite a lot of those.
Instead she asked about one of his events, how he'd chosen a guest whose work had nothing to do with anybody else's.
“He was Felix's idea.”
The name came reluctantly.
“Your brother.”
“Yes.”
“And did it work?”
Gideon put down the fork.
“He got people talking.”
“About?”
“Anything. That was the appeal.”
Frankie looked at the old menu.
“That's difficult to buy.”
“It was very easy to buy. I did the buying.”
Vivian asked for coffee.
For a while Gideon said nothing about Felix. He didn't need to. Frankie could see the effort of dismissing somebody who had entered the room without arriving.
When lunch was cleared, they went into the Ballroom.
Nina and Sol had worked there that morning. The table stood on the low dais, four places set for a demonstration of the old supper. Not a fake crowd. A beginning.
At one of the places sat Duncan.
Frankie had watched him dress earlier, trying not to watch too much. The grey jacket, a plain shirt, no tie. He'd looked at the room, sat down and begun reading a book Vivian had lent him.
Now he glanced up.
“Gideon. This is Lorne Bell,” Vivian said.
Duncan put a finger inside the book to hold his place.
“Hello.”
No rising rush, no delight at meeting an entrepreneur. He stood because someone had approached the table, not because somebody important had arrived.
Gideon offered his hand.
“Good to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Have you been involved long?”
“Not long enough to have a speech.”
Frankie smiled.
Gideon laughed.
“Excellent. There are a lot of those.”
Duncan looked towards Frankie.
“Celia was going to persuade me I needed a better story about myself.”
“Did she?”
“I said I'd rather hear somebody else's.”
He had changed the line. Her version had been about being too private to appear in brochures. This was better. Gideon couldn't dismiss it without admitting that he wanted a room interested in him.
Nina moved towards the lamp.
The light shifted. Very little. The space above the table seemed to become deeper, the places at it more distinct. Vivian was in the photograph come alive, without having to pretend she was younger.
Gideon looked round.
He didn't speak at once.
Frankie let him have the silence.
“This is good,” he said to Nina.
“It's a start.”
“I'm not flattering you.”
“I wasn't waiting for that.”
He grinned.
“What do you use?”
She told him enough to satisfy a man who had hired production teams before. Frankie listened without pretending to understand more than she did. The light had a practical source, people who'd done the work. Hiding that would make it less convincing.
Gideon pulled out one of the chairs.
Frankie put a hand on its back.
“Not that one.”
He looked up.
“Why?”
“It's Vivian's.”
Vivian had been about to sit somewhere else. She paused, then took the offered chair as though the objection had been hers.
“Quite,” she said.
Gideon moved to the next.
He sat.
The room worked on him. Frankie could see it in the shoulders first, then in the way he looked towards the doors, imagining arrivals. He liked being seen where a person had chosen to put him.
“What happens at the reopening?”
“A weekend,” Frankie said. “A first evening. People coming for the house, some because they've heard the right thing from the right person. A small founding company.”
“Founding.”
“It has to start again somehow.”
“And how many?”
“We haven't decided.”
“What if someone wanted to bring a guest?”
“Who?”
“That's rather forward.”
“You asked about a person.”
He studied her.
“I usually bring someone.”
“I'd need to know who.”
“What if I wanted it to be a surprise?”
“Then you'd need to make it a good one.”
Duncan was looking out towards the Morning Room. Arthur and his companion had got up from lunch, their chairs left slightly away from the table.
Gideon followed the look.
“Those doors stay open?”
“When they ought to.”
“And the menu?”
“Vivian's kitchen,” Frankie said. “Not an exhibition of how much food can cost.”
He liked that too.
He was beginning to offer her things: a guest, a menu, an opinion, his own company at the table. She accepted each as though it might be useful, never as though it had already secured a place.
When he stood, she didn't mention money.
It was hard. Not because she wanted to take it that afternoon, but because a pitch left unfinished could be mistaken for a failed pitch if the wrong person watched.
Vivian was watching.
Gideon took his umbrella from June.
“Send me something,” he told Frankie.
“What?”
“About this.”
“Not a brochure.”
“No. I've seen enough brochures.”
She smiled.
“I'll let you know when there's something to say.”
He gave her a look which asked her not to mistake that for indifference.
Then he went.
Vivian watched the door close.
“You didn't ask.”
“He hasn't decided he needs to be asked yet.”
“He looked interested.”
“He was.”
“Interested isn't money.”
Nina was putting the lamp back where it belonged.
“It's usually before money.”
Duncan closed the book.
Frankie looked at the chair Gideon had taken.
He'd left it pushed in neatly. Not everybody did. He hadn't wanted to seem like a man who came, sat and left the room worse.
She took her hand off the back of Vivian's chair.
“He'll ask,” she said.
She liked saying it.
She liked the fact that the others wanted to believe her.