Nathan but I wasn’t sure what I would say. Instead, at five fifty-five, I walked out, tentatively making my way towards the main apartment through the connecting door. I passed a vast empty dining room, what looked like a guest bedroom and two closed doors, following the distant murmur of conversation, my feet soft on the parquet floor. Finally I reached the drawing room and stopped just outside the open doorway.
Mr Gopnik was in a window seat, on the telephone, the sleeves of his pale blue shirt rolled up and one hand resting behind his head. He motioned me in, still talking on the phone. To my left a blonde woman – Mrs Gopnik? – sat on a rose-coloured antique sofa tapping restlessly on an iPhone. She appeared to have changed her clothes and I was momentarily confused. I waited awkwardly until he ended his call and stood, I noticed, with a little wince of effort. I took another step towards him, to save him coming further, and shook his hand. It was warm, his grip soft and strong. The young woman continued to tap at her phone.
‘Louisa. Glad you got here okay. I trust you have everything you need.’
He said it in the way people do when they don’t expect you to ask for anything.
‘It’s all lovely. Thank you.’
‘This is my daughter, Tabitha. Tab?’
The girl raised a hand, offering the hint of a smile, before turning back to her phone.
‘Please excuse Agnes not being here to meet you. She’s gone to bed for an hour. Splitting headache. It’s been a long weekend.’
A vague weariness shadowed his face, but it was gone within a moment. Nothing in his manner betrayed what I had seen less than two hours previously.
He smiled. ‘So … tonight you’re free to do as you please, and from tomorrow morning you will accompany Agnes wherever she wants to go. Your official title is “assistant”, and you’ll be there to support her in whatever she needs to do in the day. She has a busy schedule – I’ve asked my assistant to loop you in on the family calendar and you’ll get emailed with any updates. Best to check at around ten p.m. – that’s when we tend to make late changes. You’ll meet the rest of the team tomorrow.’
‘Great. Thank you.’ I noted the word ‘team’ and had a brief vision of footballers trekking through the apartment.
‘What’s for dinner, Dad?’ Tabitha spoke as if I wasn’t there.
‘I don’t know, darling. I thought you said you were going out.’
‘I’m not sure I can face going back across town tonight. I might just stay.’
‘Whatever you want. Just make sure Ilaria knows. Louisa, do you have any questions?’
I tried to think of something useful to say.
‘Oh, and Mom told me to ask you if you’d found that little drawing. The Miró.’
‘Sweetheart, I’m not going over that again. The drawing belongs here.’
‘But Mom said she chose it. She misses it. You never even liked it.’
‘That’s not the point.’
I shifted my weight between my feet, not sure if I had been dismissed.
‘But it is the point, Dad. Mom misses something terribly and you don’t even care for it.’
‘It’s worth eighty thousand dollars.’
‘Mom doesn’t care about the money.’
‘Can we discuss this later?’
‘You’ll be busy later. I promised Mom I would sort this out.’
I took a surreptitious step backwards.
‘There’s nothing to sort. The settlement was finalized eighteen months ago. It was all dealt with then. Oh, darling, there you are. Are you feeling better?’
I looked round. The woman who had just entered the room was strikingly beautiful, her face free of make-up and her pale blonde hair scraped back into a loose knot. Her high cheekbones were lightly freckled and the shape of her eyes suggested a Slavic heritage. I guessed she was about the same age as me. She padded barefoot over to Mr Gopnik and kissed him, her hand trailing across the back of his neck. ‘Much better, thank you.’
‘This is Louisa,’ he said.
She turned to me. ‘My new ally,’ she said.
‘Your new assistant,’ said Mr Gopnik.
‘Hello, Louisa.’ She reached out a slender hand and shook mine. I felt her eyes run over me, as if she were working something out, and then she smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile in return.
‘Ilaria has made your room nice?’ Her voice was soft and held an Eastern European lilt.
‘It’s perfect. Thank you.’
‘Perfect? Oh, you are very easily pleased. That room is like a broom cupboard. Anything you don’t like you tell us