Chapter Text
The day called for linen and cotton but most of the guests milling about the lawn, Mycroft Holmes noted, had opted for varying degrees of wool and polyester. Himself included. How terribly English of us all, he thought, almost smiling. He tucked his chin to admire the manicured grass beneath his brogues.
The bright July sun lent a wonderfully beatific mood to the whole affair. It seemed to have a particularly great effect on one elderly neighbour of his parents, who had stood nattering in his ear for nearly a quarter of an hour of things of veritably little consequence. The man had intercepted him immediately upon arrival, seeking a learned opinion on his latest geopolitical obsession, and had yet to loosen his grip. Though his mask of polite diplomacy never faltered he could feel with great clarity all the different places where sweat was beginning to bead. Given the heat, and its uncanny ability to make his head swim, he had a sneaking suspicion that he was close to saying something that he was likely to regret, especially if he was forced to hear one further blockheaded opinion on the political future of The Donbas.
As tempted as he was to let the decrepit ex-solicitor know in no uncertain terms exactly how he was misinformed on the matter, he also knew how quarrelsome the man could become, and a quarrel on the lawn was decidedly not the way to get into Mummy’s good books today. He was to avoid all possibility of disappointing her on this momentous occasion, as odious as it was to him. Besides, if he was good then perhaps she would let him beg off early.
After some rather complicated conversational manoeuvres, Mycroft was able to remove himself from the old man’s company as politely as he could and began, at last, to make his way to the shade of the house where his mother had made court. With every step away from the old yammerer and towards the oxblood brick he considered a list of excuses he could use to gain permission to leave before the party really got underway. Or if not permission then at least forgiveness. Such was his habit with these things, arrive early to make his presence known and leave as soon as he possibly could. His parents’ Fiftieth wedding anniversary would be no different, if he saw to it that he got his way. His only brother hadn’t even bothered to show up at all, despite a series of reminders, so he hoped that his Image du Jour of the thoughtful and responsible son would win him enough goodwill points to let him go with minimal guilting.
He supposed he could try, again, to belabour the issue of the nearly two hour drive home. But no, he would only receive an invitation to stay the night. He dared not suffer the thought. Besides, the excessive speed with which he tended to drive had always been a point of contention with his parents; they knew very well that he could cut a journey in half if need be.
“Wonderful weather for a party, Mummy.” He said, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. “That top is gorgeous, is that one of the Barbour tunics I sent down at Christmas?”
He greeted her entourage of the moment, mostly old Oxford wives, with all the expected niceties and familial inquiries of his station. The air was noticeably cooler here, but still no match for the fine woollen layers of his suit.
“Oh, Mikey dear, your timing is perfect. Would it be terribly inconvenient for you to fetch a couple more bottles of bubbles from inside?” his mother asked. “They should be chilled already, we seem to be running dry a bit sooner than expected out here.”
He pretended not to wince at the diminutive. Another point of contention.
“I would love nothing more, is there anything else I can do?”
She shook her head with a smile, patting his hand where it had come to rest on the arm of her rattan garden chair.
He was elated to have an excuse to take a moment away from all the inane mingling to collect himself before the rest of the guests arrived. In aircon no less, a recent luxury his parents had finally allowed themselves in their old age. And, further, the request had come with no remark on the state of his waistband, which was a rare occurrence indeed. If he could slip away early after all then it could indeed prove to be a perfectly salvageable day.
Taking the long way through to the kitchen, he savoured the cold air and silence, already finding it alleviating his dour mood. He stopped once along the way to pilfer a finger or two of good rye from a bottle he kept hidden for occasions like these.
The house had seemed immense to him as a boy. His summers had been spent within its walls and in its neighbouring fields, with only his much younger brother as playmate. It was a place of fantasy and make believe, frivolities he indulged in rarely as a child, and always with a modicum of embarrassment. The place, as such, held an air of novelty that had persisted, against all odds, well into his adulthood.
Now in his mid-forties it seemed smaller than ever. His parents’ decision to make it their primary residence in their retirement had, over time, sapped it of its whimsy. The routines of ordinary living had rendered it Real. Reduced at last to brick and plaster, all its familiar sights and smells had shrunk into something immediately and quickly digestible, a mealy, arsenic flavoured mouthful.
In his quieter moments he suspected it may have been his imagination’s last remaining stronghold. The thought was equal parts freeing and strangling. He investigated it rarely.
Still it was a beautiful old house, all things considered.
He heard the kitchen before he saw its swinging galley door. It was cacophonous, whatever it was that was happening in there. Nothing more than the cooking of good food, he hoped.
He entered, priming himself for the usual routine of rakishly invasive inquiries into his personal life from his parents’ longtime housekeeper.
Mrs Martoff, the housekeeper, was an older woman of a vaguely Eastern European persuasion and had been under his family’s employ since just before he started at Oxford. She had remained in her position across two houses now. They were not exceptionally close, but she usually tended to the kinder side of things, which was a tactic Mycroft was hard pressed to recall his parents utilizing in their brief, but generally accusatory, interactions during his childhood. She was the primary reason why he, in his plumper years, had tended towards taking his meals in the kitchen rather than the formal dining room.
But it wasn’t Mrs Martoff at all behind the butcher block island. Quite the opposite in fact. Where the kitchen’s usual mistress was short and a bit stout, this new figure was slim and muscular, nearly to the point of being wiry, and stood only a half a dozen or so centimetres shorter than himself. Where she had been fair skinned, her replacement was a sun kissed olive. More than kissed in some spots. He couldn’t help but notice the small but growing patches of sun damage and premature age spots littered across her otherwise youthful face and smooth décolletage. Not that he made a habit of studying a woman’s chest, but, sun spots aside, the cut of her blouse did frame the fine structure of her clavicle in such a way so as to practically beg for appreciation.
He was, naturally, a man partially defined by his aesthetic indulgences and so was more than capable of objectively appreciating the artistry of a garment.
He noticed that her tan was both recent and deep, though not unpleasantly so. It was obviously from a period of extended exposure, maybe even over a few years. She was dressed for the weather, her skirt and loose blouse very well lived in but not particularly old. She was clearly at ease in warmer temperatures.
She didn’t seem to notice him waltz through the door. He took this to mean that the kitchen, or this kitchen, might not be her career position. She hadn’t memorized the expected ambience of the house yet, everything was unexpected so nothing was. Her deft knife work and blind multitasking told him she was at least comfortable in kitchens writ large. Just new to this one.
He’d spoken to Mrs Martoff only a fortnight ago regarding party preparations and she seemed in good spirits then, no mention of a plan to retire. No obituary had made its way across his desk either. Temporary then, he surmised. Interesting.
It wasn’t Martoff’s usual responsibility to cook for the family, his mother liked the toil of it well enough, but she often stepped in during events and such, as infrequently as they were held. It was unusual, unheard of he was certain, that his parents would splurge on such an overtly Bourgeois frivolity as a private chef. Strange, then, that one or both of them would go out of their way to hire one now. It was in their nature to deny themselves this and at the same time find the idea of a catering company too working class, a sentiment he had heard expressed by both parents in separate conversations. It wasn’t an opinion he differed on, but he could appreciate the irony. Such was the mindset of most former Landed Gentry clans.
His first instinct was to frown at the idea that this new employee, whatever her role was, hadn’t been mentioned to him before she was brought on, at the very least so he could have ensured she wasn’t some radical Cornish separatist or other such shadowy threat to the security and safety of his aging parents. Not to mention that he had helmed the more important aspects of party planning, or, more accurately, his assistant had done so with his input when needed, and so he assumed that word would have been sent had they decided to hire out. He knew his ever faithful assistant was too practiced to have forgotten a detail like this. So where did she come from, he wondered.
He cleared his throat after a moment, partially satisfied with the surface level information he had gained while she was distracted. He would definitely need her name before he made his escape.
She looked up, wide-eyed, the knife in her hand pausing midair. Japanese steel, treated cherry handle. Not terrible as far as commercially available home kitchen knives went, it was leagues above what his mother normally stocked. He was moderately impressed.
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to startle you. I don’t believe I have had the honour of making your acquaintance as of yet. The name is Mycroft,” he said, “I presume you are filling in for the day?”
He smiled placidly, jutting his chin forth and extending an open hand for her to shake.
The woman behind the bench blinked a number of times, clearly thrown off kilter by this sudden intrusion. She regained herself after a beat and met his hand with her own, before quickly pulling back to clean it of remnants of the shattered pistachios that littered her worktop. She thrust it back out with a soft smile of her own.
“Oops. Mariam Saleh.” She said, “I am, Mrs Martoff is so unwell this week, the poor thing, so I offered to fill the gap for today. I’m sorry if I was being rude just then, I’m usually more aware of myself, but these are big shoes to fill and this last bit of prep is putting me just a touch behind schedule. I hope you weren’t standing there for too long.”
Mariam’s voice was warm and inviting, a touch deep for a woman, with a rasp that suggested a moderate smoking habit. Not frequent, he didn’t think, but longstanding enough to have an effect. Mycroft found the accent difficult to place, but whatever it was, was pleasantly lyrical. Evidence of schooling on the continent, perhaps, although there was also a noticeable Maghreb fluidity to her vowels. She held herself with a familiar straight-backed confidence that was rarely seen outside of public school education, the kind that meant one had expectations of the world. It was the same posturing that was taught to him, through example if not explicit instruction, at Eton. Not the type he expected to find tied up in a kitchen apron cooking for someone else’s family.
Saleh. It rang a bell faintly, somewhere he couldn’t access. He expected it probably wasn’t a name of great importance, at least as far as Her Majesty’s security services were concerned, which made things easier. He hoped.
Her hand was strong and soft in his grip, with ghosts of hard-work callusing. He felt the rhythm of her pulse with his fingertips, quite by accident, as his larger palm enveloped hers almost whole. He was pleased, for whatever reason, to find it lively.
She gave a friendly squeeze before pulling away again. He watched her tuck a wayward lock of black hair behind her ear before she turned to wash her hands. Her hair was short and styled into a rather fashionably clinging bob, with a softly parted fringe above two thick but well groomed eyebrows. The back of her neck, which had been turned to him for only a hairs-breadth of a second, was smooth and paler than the rest of her exposed skin. Her hair had been cut short recently. An irrelevant detail, he knew, but it stood out to him regardless.
“I wasn’t waiting long at all, no apology necessary.” He said.
He scanned the room for the squat little fridge that usually stored the chilled beverages, but saw a new washing machine in its usual place. How irritating.
The woman smiled shyly, shuffling bowls and tools across the bench.
“I don’t usually do this, cook for parties I mean, but when Mrs Holmes told me that she was out sick so close to the day, I couldn’t just stand by and let the woman do the cooking herself, not after all the time she put into organizing the thing.”
His head cocked to the side while she spoke, quite without his meaning to. He opened his mouth to speak, but she filled the air again before he could get a word out. It was a small thing, perhaps, but a person who couldn’t handle a little dead air was a person who usually ground quite heavily on his nerves.
“Both Mr and Mrs Holmes had been a great support when my mother was sick. She and Mrs Holmes, Violet, were at school together, so now that she’s gone and I happen to live a bit closer I try to do what I can to help out. And, I already agreed to bring a tray of brika when I learned that Mr Holmes was a fan, so it wasn’t too difficult to do a couple more dishes.”
Mariam shrugged, her face beginning to flush from the chest up. She hadn’t meant to say anything more than ‘Yes’, or, ‘I volunteered for the day, but I’m sure I can help you out if you’ve come in for something,’ but it all came tumbling out the moment she began talking. Some sort of superfluous word-vomit.
“Sorry, that was maybe more information than you needed. I don’t know why I said all that, I’m not usually this chatty.” she said, busying herself. “Are you a friend of Mr and Mrs Holmes?”
“Not at all, I don’t mind. Each new word allows me a further moment away from that terrible heat.” he said, rushing, in his own way, to assuage her embarrassment. It was novel information to him, the fact that his parents seemed to have a young friend they never once made mention of. For that fact alone he decided that he was willing to forgive the transgression. It helped as well that she had inadvertently confirmed that his mother had been taking the praise for his planning efforts, something he had been suspicious of for years. It wasn’t the worst thing one’s parent could do, but it was irksome enough to make note of.
“They happen to be my parents, actually, but I’m pleased to hear that they could be a comfort to your family during what must have been some very trying circumstances, Miss Saleh.”
His jaw tightened as he spoke. His mother and her humanitarian image.
He wasn’t immediately aware of any friends of his mother’s who had passed on in recent years, especially not one close enough for her to stay in any regular contact with their children. Some digging would have to be done indeed, if only in the form of a thorough grilling of both parents.
Her eyes again grew wide for a moment, mouth falling into a soft O shape.
“Your parents! I’m so sorry, all this time and somehow it slipped my mind that Sherlock had a brother. I’m sure they mentioned you. Goodness, that just proves how much attention I pay to things.” she laughed, shaking off the remainder of her red glow. “It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet you, Mycroft. And, please, just Mariam is fine with me.”
Mycroft pretended not to notice that she was lying, for the sake of a swift exit if nothing else.
He said nothing at first, distracted by a shadow of some unidentifiable but familiar emotion that enveloped him like a dusty shroud. He blinked it away, whatever it was passed without a fight.
“Likewise, Mariam.” he said at last, waving his hand with one of his best ‘think nothing of it’ expressions.
He captured her gaze for only a moment as he spoke, catching at once something piercing and mostly unidentifiable in her eyes. Whatever it was caused the fine hairs on the back of his neck to raise. He felt stripped and bare, studied.
He lifted his glass of drink, forcing himself to look away, blinking. It unsettled him, being analyzed so nakedly. Not the act itself exactly, but a growing, menacing feeling in his gut that told him she’d been doing it since he announced himself. Maybe he was starting to slip.
“So, you've already met my younger brother, then, that surprises me. I wasn’t aware that he spent much time out here without having to be literally dragged by the ear,” he said. “Usually by me.”
She grinned, shaking her head. Whatever he had seen in her eyes had come and gone.
“We met once, as children, but your parents speak of him often. It’s my fault, really, that I didn’t recognize you, the description your mother gave me seems to be just as accurate to both brothers as it was to one - or to the photos I’ve seen of one at least.” She laughed again. It was clearer this time, softening her eyes and showing the lines beginning to imprint at the corners of her eyes and mouth. They were the lines of a woman who laughed often, and not ones he himself could boast among his own hearty collection. His were mostly from stress, and a fair few from annoyance. A long suffering grimace was the position his face tended to fall into naturally, and it showed.
So, Mother had shown her a photo or two as well. How neighbourly.
He decided to play along, still enjoying the manufactured cold being vented throughout the kitchen, despite the creeping feeling that he had stumbled his way into the beginning of some inverted Lovecraftian horror novel.
“And what description might that have been?”
She reddened again, but he was hard pressed to see the same embarrassment as before.
“I believe ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ was the language of choice there, although I think your mother and I may have a different interpretation of the word ‘dark’.”
He let out a monosyllabic bark of a laugh on the inhale, nearly choking and catching himself quite off guard. The lightly starched collar of his shirt felt too tight. Ants crawled through the maze of his nervous system. His legs tensed to pivot, preparing to walk themselves back out the door.
His composure was recovered quickly, and he caught hold of his canned son-of-the-hostess smile before it threatened to dissolve entirely.
“You’re too kind.” he offered, his diplomacy returned to him. “I’m not sure if you flatter me or insult my brother more.”
Mariam winced, averting her eyes.
“I’m sorry, clearly I forget myself. You came in here for a reason, is there something I can help you with?”
Finally, the champagne.
Mycroft shook his head.
“No bother, it was a welcome reprieve from some of the more asinine conversation to be had in the garden. You are lucky to be in here, believe me.” he said. “I am, however, in need of directions. Dear Mater seems to have reorganized some of the smaller appliances since I was here last and I cannot for the life of me find the beverage fridge.”
He rejoined the now-expanded crush of revellers a few moments later, brandishing two chilled bottles of Bollinger in each hand.
Mr Holmes the elder met him at the drinks table. Self serve, another faux-proletarian idiosyncrasy. Must be one of those over-60s trends he tended not to understand.
“A bit dressed up for the weather, aren’t you, Mike?” his father cheeked, pouring himself the last of one of the warmer bottles. A bit of a generous measure for a man of his age, he thought.
“I’m sure no one wants the last dead dregs anyway. Bollinger or not.” He winked to his son.
“I’m sure it's none of my business, and anyway I’ll have you know I actually forwent the tie-pin today. I find its absence lightens the ensemble considerably.”
The elder Holmes chuckled, mostly to himself. The younger felt he had missed out on some secret joke.
“Did you introduce yourself to the young lady in the kitchen when you came through?” He poured a smaller measure for his son, who accepted without argument - he’d already chosen the best flowerbed to tip it into once backs were turned.
Mycroft nodded, sniffing the champagne with feigned interest.
“Oh yes, she was a bit of a talker. It was rather impressive how she was able to turn my ten second task into a nearly five minute conversational detour.”
“Funny, most people so far have said the opposite.” he said, giving his son an unfamiliar look. “She helps your mum out from time to time. Rather a lovely girl. I do believe you know her father, actually.”
A few white clouds softened the morning’s glaring rays, almost cartoonish in their woolly shapes. The two Holmes’ stood side by side, surveying the goings-on.
“I can’t imagine I know him well. Saleh, was it?” He asked, rocking back on his heels.
His father frowned.
“Is that the name she used? I think that was her mother’s maiden name, if I’m remembering that right. I don’t speak with her as much as Mother does, I never thought to ask which one she preferred.”
Mycroft scoffed under his breath. No, he didn’t suppose he would.
“Who’s her father, then? Perhaps I do know him, my address book is rather large these days.”
“Spencer-Brown. I believe his father before him held a peerage, but I could be wrong on that. He’s important either way, I think he may even be a member of that little clubhouse you like in London.”
Mycroft turned to stare at his father, the happy simpleton that he was, his eyebrows raised. He imagined a dumber man would find himself slack-jawed.
“Surely you don’t mean Robert Spencer-Brown? Of the Foreign Office?”
“Could very well be,” he shrugged. “It sounds right enough. Mother would know better than I, she and Nour, Mariam’s late mother, went to Rosey together.”
Well, there was one question piece of conversation for him to factcheck, he supposed.
“Robert and I collaborated on a number of projects during the early years of my career. He referred me to the Diogenes, directly sponsored my application. He’s terribly old and decrepit now, I haven’t seen the man in years.” he said with a thoughtful grimace, turning back to the side. “I was under the impression that he had only the two young sons?”
“Those too. He and Mariam’s mother were only married a few years before she divorced him and packed herself and the girl up. Took her back to the continent, Holland I believe. She only just returned a year or so ago.”
“The Netherlands.” Mycroft coughed, absorbing the new data. His one-time mentor’s estranged daughter back on English soil. He supposed it wasn’t terribly odd that the old ex-diplomat never brought her up, everybody has their wounds. He found that he was, despite the obvious mundanity of it, slightly intrigued.
“And Mother is attempting to set her and Sherlock ‘up’, as it were?”
Mr Holmes laughed, a deep and true laugh. It was sharp like his own, but it lacked his self conscious reflex to cut it short before it got really going, which gave it a more comfortable, lived-in sound. He could never understand his father’s innate predilection towards emotional unsubtlety.
“She told you that?”
“Educated guess.”
“Ah Mike, my son, I will never understand how you and your brother do that.”
His father clapped him on the back, not unkindly.
“She did try, but you know how Sherlock can be. Couldn’t even get him to agree to coffee.”
“Much to her benefit, I’m sure.”
The younger man stretched the fingers of his unused hand, releasing them from the tightly balled fist he had formed without noticing.