Tatiana starts to laugh. ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ she says. ‘Get a broom and mop it up. You’re repulsive.’
The young man scrabbles to his feet. The crystal glasses are filled with champagne again. The music can once more be heard.
‘Can you believe he did it?’ says Tatiana after he’s run off to fetch a broom.
Roxy
It’s a boring fucking party is what it is. And it’s not that she doesn’t like Tatiana, she does. Tatiana’s let them get on with business over the past year since she took over from Bernie, and anyone who lets you get on with business is all right by Roxy.
Still, you’d think she could throw a better party than this. Someone had told her that Tatiana Moskalev went around this castle with her own blooming pet leopard on a chain. That’s the disappointment Roxy can’t really get over. Plenty of nice glasses, fine; plenty of gold chairs, all right. No blooming leopard anywhere.
The President seems to have only the dimmest understanding of who Roxy is at all. She goes and does the line-up to shake hands, the woman with the heavy mascara and the green-and-gold eyes says hello and you are one of the fine businesspeople who is making this country the greatest on earth and the most free, without a shadow of recognition crossing her face. Roxy thinks she’s drunk. She wants to go: Don’t you know, I’m the woman shifting five hundred kilos across your borders every day? Every day. I’m the one who’s got you in trouble with the UN, although we all know they won’t do a fucking thing, just send some more observing forces or whatnot. Don’t you know?
Roxy necks some more of the champagne. She has a look out of the windows at the darkening mountains. She doesn’t even hear Mother Eve approaching her until the woman is at her elbow. Eve’s spooky like that – tiny and wiry and so quiet she could walk across a room and stick a knife between your ribs before you even knew it.
Mother Eve says: ‘The defeat in the North has made Tatiana … unpredictable.’
‘Yeah? It’s made it bloody unpredictable for me, too, I can tell you. Suppliers are nervy as fuck. Five of my drivers have quit. They’re all saying the war’s going to push south.’
‘Do you remember what we did at the convent? With the waterfall?’
Roxy smiles and gives a little laugh. That’s a good memory. Simpler, happier times. ‘That’s teamwork,’ she says.
‘I think we could do it again,’ says Mother Eve, ‘on a larger scale.’
‘How d’ you mean?’
‘My … influence. Your undeniable strength. I’ve always felt that there were great things ahead of you, Roxanne.’
‘Am I really pissed,’ says Roxy, ‘or are you making even less sense than usual?’
‘We can’t talk here.’ Mother Eve lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘But I think that Tatiana Moskalev will soon have outlived her usefulness. To the Holy Mother.’
Ohhhhhhhh. Oh.
‘You kidding?’
Mother Eve shakes her head minutely. ‘She’s unstable. I think in a few months’ time the country will be ready for a new leadership. And the people here trust me. If I were to say that you are the right woman for the job …’
Roxy almost hoots with laughter at that. ‘Me? You’ve met me, haven’t you, Evie?’
‘Stranger things have happened,’ says Mother Eve. ‘You’re already a leader of a great multitude. Come and see me tomorrow. We’ll talk it through.’
‘It’s your funeral,’ says Roxy.
She doesn’t stay long after that, just long enough to be seen to be having a good time and press the flesh of a couple of Tatiana’s other disreputable cronies. She’s taken with what Mother Eve’s said. It’s a nice thought. A very nice thought. She does like this country.
She stays out of the way of the reporters circling the room; you can always tell a fucking reporter from the hungry look on their faces. Even though there’s one she’s seen on the internet who she fancies like she could lick his flesh straight off his bones, there’s always more blokes where he came from; they’re ten a penny. Especially if she were President. She mutters it under her breath. ‘President Monke.’ And then laughs at herself for it. Still. Could work.
In any case, she can’t think about it too hard tonight. She’s got business to do this evening; non-party, non-diplomatic, non-pressing-the-flesh business. One of them UN soldiers or special representatives or whatever wants to meet up with her somewhere quiet, so they can work out how to circumvent the blockade in the North and keep product moving. Darrell’s set it up; he’s been doing operations here for months, keeping his head down like a good boy, making contacts, keeping the factory running smoothly even during the war. Sometimes a bloke is better at that than a woman – less threatening; they’re better at diplomacy. Still, to finish the deal it has to be Roxy herself.
The roads are winding and dark. The headlights are the only pools of light in the black world; no streetlights here, not even a little village with lit windows. Bloody hell, it’s only just gone eleven; you’d think it was four o’clock in the morning. It’s more than ninety minutes out of the city, but Darrell’s sent her good instructions. She finds the turn-off easily enough, drives down an unlit track, parks the car in front of another one of these spiky castles. All the windows are dark. No sign of life.
She looks at the message Darrell sent her. Green-painted door will be open. She makes a spark from her own palm to light her way, and there’s the green door, paint flaking off, at the side of the stable block.
She can smell formaldehyde. And antiseptic. Another corridor, and there’s a metal door with a round handle. Light is seeping in around the frame. Right. This is it. She’ll bloody tell them next time not to have a fucking meeting somewhere unlit in the middle of nowhere; she could have tripped over and broken her neck. She turns the handle. And there’s something weird, just enough to put a frown between her eyes. She can taste blood in the air. Blood and chemicals and there’s a feeling like … she tries to pin it down. It’s a feeling like there’s been a fight. Like there’s always just been a fight.
She opens the door. There’s a room lined with plastic, and there are tables and medical equipment, and she’s thinking that someone didn’t tell Darrell the whole story, and she has just enough time to be afraid when someone grabs her arms and someone else pulls a sack over her head.