Page 56 of Copper Script
“There’s a possible strike being fomented.It’s our role to keep an eye on the organisers to make sure it’s all being done legally.”
“Hang around in an intimidating way, breathe down people’s necks, make heavy-handed threats, pretend the organisers are in the direct pay of Moscow, and bring the hobnailed boot of the law down on anyone you can at the shade of an excuse?”
Aaron blinked at him.Joel shrugged.“I did a bit of work on a left-wing newspaper.You know what I mean, though.”
“Yes.And...yes, that’s my superior’s intent.I have no problem with ensuring the law is observed, but that’s not what he’s asked for.”
“And that’s a problem?I mean, joking apart, you’re in the Met.Isn’t that what you do?”
He didn’t know, Aaron reminded himself, couldn’t know how much that simple syllogism hurt.You’re in the Met, the Met breaks unions, that’s what you do.Who you are.
He took a deep breath.“My father was a union organiser.Quite well known.His name was Terry Fowler.”
Joel blinked.“Terry—you don’t mean Firebrand Fowler?Oh good God, you do.How on earth are you in the police?No, wait.How are you related to Paul Napier-Fox if you’re Firebrand Fowler’s son?”
“He’s my father but I’m not his son.That’s rather the point.”
Joel raised a finger for a pause, and carefully eased more fish off the bone.He added rice and more saag paneer to his plate, plus a dollop of pickle.“Right, I’m ready.Enlighten me.”
“My mother was a Napier-Fox.Wealthy upper-crust family, high society, a Bright Young Person before her time.She went to Italy to study art one summer when she was nineteen, and married an Italian painter on a whim.”
Joel’s eyes flicked over his face.“Ah.”
“The family got the marriage annulled without much difficulty, but it was already too late.She was packed off to an aunt’s house in the Midlands for a year to have the baby, regain her figure, return, marry, pretend it had never happened.I’ve never known what they intended to do with me.A childless family, an orphanage, the doorway of a police station?”
“Lovely.”
“But instead she met Terry Fowler.The family, the Napier-Foxes, were livid.She was told she’d be cut off without a penny, but she didn’t care and nor did my father.He married her, knowing she had nothing and with another man’s child in her belly.”
“Gosh.He must have loved her very much,” Joel said.“Or been a very good man.Or both.”
“Oh, he was a good man,” Aaron said.“An excellent man.He was willing to take on a child that wasn’t his.He let everyone—her, me, everyone we ever spoke to—know how he had taken on this child that wasn’t his, all the time.I never had a chance to forget how good he was about that.”
“Oh.”
“It was what he did.He sacrificed himself—for the Cause mostly, but for anything else he could see going, and he never asked for anything in return, despite all he’d done for you.I was always, unchangeably, drowningly, in his debt.”
“Oh God,” Joel said.“I’m so sorry.”
“My mother got back in touch with her family when I was around seven, and insisted on me and Sarah, my sister, spending time with them.My father hated that.Well, so did I: they were mostly dreadful to us.Paul’s mother was particularly vile, and he was a shocking bully, but I rather liked my grandmother: she was a fierce, proud old woman.She detested my father.She paid for my schooling, Harrow.I didn’t like it—Paul was there too, and made it very clear I oughtn’t be—and my father loathed the very idea, but Mother put her foot down.”
“It sounds like you couldn’t please anyone.”
“No,” Aaron said.“I couldn’t.Too common for the Napier-Foxes, too stuck-up for the Fowlers, and too visibly foreign for my father to forget, even for a second, what a good thing he’d done in taking me on.”
“Shit.”
“Mother died when I was thirteen.Grandmama died a few years after, and left me a generous legacy.She left Sarah nothing: she said that since her father despised the Napier-Fox family so greatly, he wouldn’t want them funding his child.”
“Oof.”
“It was spiteful.But she had outlived her daughter and missed the greater part of her life, and I suppose she preferred spite to regret.Happy families.Anyway, my father made it clear that he didn’t want a penny of my legacy.He had provided for me all my life, another man’s child, without ever asking for anything and he didn’t expect any return for it now.So I told him that was an admirable attitude, and by the way, I was joining the Met.”
“Just as a slap at him?”
“No,” Aaron said.“Or, not only.I really did want to do something useful.”
“To sacrifice yourself thanklessly for others?”Joel suggested.
