Weeks in Naviras (25 page)

‘Well sir, it’s come to us quite suddenly, as you can imagine,’ I said, far more assertively than I’d expected to sound. ‘But I’ve had some thoughts about the causes I’d like to champion.’ That was a lie. I told the King a lie.
Good on you, Ellie
, I imagined Lottie saying as I tried to hold eyes with him.

‘Very good,’ he muttered. His eyes closed and didn’t re-open for a few seconds. ‘Very good indeed. But you’ll remember, of course, that your husband will need your support foremost, in this most important of roles?’

I couldn’t quite believe he was asking me this as a question.

‘Oh it’s quite astonishing, the amount Ellie manages to cram in,’ replied James, for me. ‘Sometimes I think she’d be the right person for the job.’ He laughed nervously.

The King didn’t reply. His eyes had closed again. He tried to say something but only slurring and drooling came out. I’m sure one of the words he was trying to say was ‘lonely’.

That was our cue. ‘Prime Minister, if you’d like to follow me,’ said the permanent secretary, to my left.
It was unsettling to hear James referred to by his new title.

‘Surely he’s in no fit state to be King?’ I whispered as we walked quite quickly back down the sumptuous corridors to the courtyard. ‘I had no idea things were so bad. There needs to be a Regency Act, surely.’ I added the second part very quickly.

‘Never been a top priority,’ said James in a low voice. The permanent secretary was walking three feet ahead of us.

I looked up at the sky as we emerged into the courtyard, the sun was trying to burn a hole in the clouds which now looked more like smoke. The helicopter continued to keep watch but the noise of it had lowered to a purr, at least in my head. The PM’s car was waiting for us right outside the door, so the camera attached to the chopper would have only seen the tops of our heads for the briefest moment.

Our first time in that car, and could I smell the previous occupant’s perfume? Heading to Downing Street I wondered what she and her husband were doing at that very moment. Getting back to their old house, one they hadn’t lived in for years? I imagined it ossified, festooned with cobwebs, the furniture enveloped in some kind of sheeting. Hazy shafts of light coming through gaps in long-closed curtains.

The helicopter followed us on the short journey from the palace. There were quite a few protestors, both in Trafalgar Square and along Whitehall. We drove quite fast so it was sometimes hard to make out what was on their placards. TORY SCUM; so hackneyed but fitting comfortably onto a poster, at least. Others alluded to the brownouts; IN THE DARK, read one. But the protests were only scattered, possibly because there hadn’t been time to mobilise the Tories’ opponents to London, given it had all happened so fast. Also it was still technically summer-time, not that you’d have thought so from the weather. People were on holidays and London seemed largely empty. I remembered when I was student how the capital had thronged with tourists; they’d understandably given the city a wide berth since the power had become unreliable.

There was quite a crowd on Whitehall, which grew larger and more boisterous the closer we drew to the gate protecting Downing Street. The cameras were everywhere, their flashbulbs like a violent electrical storm. James was smiling out the window at the crowds. There seemed to be quite a mixture of supporters and opponents, all being held back by police. The car slowed down – something was preventing the gates from opening. An egg splatted against the window on James’s side. It had been a good shot, landing right in the centre of the glass. I was glad because it made it almost impossible for us to be seen.

Then we were moving again, the gates slid back and we were passing into Downing Street, small and gloomy, immediately feeling like a compound. James realised he was sitting on the wrong side of the car – he’d want to get out on the side facing the cameras.

‘We need to swap, Ellie.’ His voice was tight. He reached over me and hauled himself across me as I slid to the right. Even though he’d only showered about an hour before, he smelled very lightly of sweat as we swapped sides. It was the closest our bodies had been for months.

Fortunately the egged window was now facing away from the TV crews assembled opposite the door to Number Ten. Someone opened the door for James and he stepped out of the car. All I could see was his backside as he was waving to the crowds at the end of the street.

My eggy door was opened for me by Rav, who must’ve been waiting for us inside Number Ten. I got out and walked slowly toward the black door. It had all been rehearsed a bit - ‘recced,’ as Rav had called it – the day before, but only talked through. I stood just slightly to the left of the step leading up to the door. I put my heels together, clasped my little purse in both hands in front of me.  Initially I could barely see James in the glare and flash of the press pack, perhaps they stopped flashing so quickly or maybe my eyes got used to it.

I watched the whole thing back the next day. It had looked pretty flawless, actually. This is not the impression I’d had during the event, I’d been worried holding my bag in the way I had would look defensive, like I was hiding something. As it turned out I sort of blended into the background. A couple of shots had focused on me but only briefly. I’d been standing in just the right direction so my stomach looked flat but my bum wasn’t too on-show.  I’d come across as the perfect wife, staring dutifully at my husband with calm admiration as James spoke into the microphone that’d been placed in the middle of the street.

‘This is a moment for us to reflect on the huge and lasting contribution Oliver Drake has made to the future of this country,’ James was saying. ‘And to wish both him and his wife Arabella the very best for the future, whatever it may hold for them.’

Oh yes, I thought, a future hastily re-ordered after my husband and his cronies  stabbed them not in the back, but square-on in the chest.

‘And to reassure the country,’ James paused. ‘That the programme of securing our energy requirements and reform and restoring our place in the world will continue.’

I imagined a collective groan going out from millions of houses across the land.

‘But this government, this new government,’ James’s voice was rising, ‘It will listen to the concerns of those who feel politics has lost its way. It will learn from the mistakes of the past, while taking forward the best of those achievements and ideas which have seen the Conservative party triumph under Oliver Drake.’

It was difficult to make out what James was saying because the jeering was getting louder from outside, coalescing into a chant of ‘Tories out’.

‘I pledge to you, today, that programme of listening and learning, building and growing, it will start from the very moment I walk through that door behind me,’ James concluded. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a lot of work to do and I’m going to crack on with it. Thankyou.’

And with that James turned from the microphone, walked toward me and we kissed. Such a ridiculous, pointless kiss, but necessary. James’s lips were damp with sweat. He took my hand and raised it and his up high – ill-advised, I thought, since he hadn’t really won anything so far, save for a nasty leadership contest.

After standing there for just a few seconds longer we turned and walked through the door of Number Ten. It closed behind us and James let go of my hand. We walked through the small antechamber where visitors are made to surrender their phones, entering the main vestibule. Around fifty staffers were there, standing against the walls and clapping. It was a perfunctory applause – many of these folk had just said goodbye to the Drakes and weren’t sure about us, the invaders.

James and I were introduced to Number 10’s head of operations, along with a few of the staffers who’d be helping with the transition. In the months and years to come I’d end up speaking to them far more than James, who always
channelled everything he wanted doing through Rosie. Although she hadn’t been given her job formally I knew she’d become a constant fixture. Rav, of course, became chief of staff.

‘Right, I’m going to the office to make a few calls,’ James said to me after the initial hellos and shaking of hands. ‘I’ll probably be a few hours, if that’s okay?’

I have no idea how James would have responded if I’d suddenly said it wasn’t okay, but instead I said, ‘Sure, Rosie brought the kids here through the back door. I expect they’ll be upstairs.’

‘Okay,’ said James, as we walked up the staircase for the first time. ‘Why don’t you go and make yourself at home?’

Of course I’d been in Downing Street before, countless times. Still it felt different, knowing I’d not be leaving. I took the lift up to the top floor, then the little staircase up to the flat. People had tried to spruce the place up over the years, but the topmost floor had a faded look to it. Very few people ever went up there.

The kids were waiting for me, Bobby old enough to realise the practical constraints almost immediately. ‘Are we going to all live in here?’ He’d already seen the
size of his bedroom and was nonplussed.

‘Not all the time,’ I said. ‘We’ll be staying at Chequers, too. That’s a big house in the countryside with lovely gardens for you two to play in.’ During the course of the evening our boxes were brought upstairs, luckily the kids’ toys came in one of the earliest deliveries. It dawned on me very quickly that there wasn’t nearly enough storage for everything, even though I’d been warned quarters were close and that much of our stuff would have to remain elsewhere. Another of the early boxes contained a painting of Lottie’s, one of her earlier renditions of Naviras Bay as viewed from the top of Casa Amanhã. She must’ve painted it from the balcony of Room Seven. I hung it on the wall of the flat above the staircase. That delivery also contained my box of nicknacks. I didn’t open it, instead placing it on the topmost of a set of shelves by the kitchen area, pushing it right to the back against the wall.

It was past midnight when James finally came up, I was already in bed but not asleep. I’d been thinking about how two different people had slept in that bed only 24 hours before, feeling like I’d checked into a grotty hotel. I heard him sit down in the living room, then Rosie’s heels on the stairs. She didn’t stay long, they exchanged only the shortest conversation. Then her heels on the stairs again, the door to the landing closing behind her. I got up, put on my dressing gown and walked into the living room. James was sitting on the little sofa, a champagne flute and his computer on the coffee table in front of him. He was playing back the speech he’d given outside earlier, but when he saw me open the door he put something small and black into the breast pocket of his shirt.

‘All settled in? There’s some champagne in the fridge if you fancy a glass.’

‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’

‘The thing you just put away.’

‘Oh,’ he looked a bit sheepish, a look I hadn’t seen on his face for many years. ‘Well, you might as well know,’ he reached into his pocket again and pulled the thing
back out. It was a memory card. ‘It’s the full footage.’

‘Of the Chancellor.’

‘Yup. I’m going to destroy it.’

‘You leaked the video.’

‘Well not
me
, as such, but yeah. It was a collaboration of efforts.’ He took a sip of champagne. ‘Camera never lies.’

‘You disgust me sometimes, James, really you do,’ is exactly what I wanted to say, but didn’t. I said precisely nothing, instead turning around and going back into the bedroom. I didn’t slam the door as hard as I could, I let it click quietly into place.

‘I’m disappointed in you, Ellie,’ says Bill loudly over the sounds of the waves, standing with his legs apart as I step up from the beach bar path. ‘It would’ve been so much easier if you’d just trusted us. Now we’re not going to be able to save you, I’m afraid.’

‘None of this is real,’ I shout. ‘You’re not real, none of those people were.’

‘Oh, but they are,’ replies Jean. ‘They’re all still there.’

‘They’re not still there, they’ve all gone,’ I gesture behind me.

Jean tuts. ‘No, Eleanor, it’s you who’s moved, I’m afraid. It was better for everyone’s sake, you were causing disruption.’

‘Is that what happened to Morgan? Was she disrupting things for you? Is that why you punished her with those things?’

Bill hesitates, then gives a small shrug. ‘I’m afraid Morgan didn’t quite take to things the way we’d hoped. She’s going to have to stay here for quite a while, until she understands that.’

I hear them before I see them. The same buzzing noise, muffled at first. Jean hears them, too. She’s turned her head slightly to look at the cliffs. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Ellie. We had high hopes for you, really we did. But once this is over you’ll be back on track, I promise.’

They come around the side of the cliff, all four of them, flying a few feet above the surface of the ocean. They must be a hundred feet out, but even in the darkness I can see their mandibles, their black legs tucked in underneath their furry bodies as their wings propel them forward. They don’t head towards us at first, instead crossing the bay, keeping out to sea just above the waterline like they’re parading themselves. Then they turn left, hurtling towards the beach. As they grow larger I begin to make out their black eyes.

I turn back to Bill and Jean, taking in a deep breath. ‘
Vá-se foder!
’ I yell at them, before running down the slipway into the ocean. The water’s freezing cold, just as it should be. I don’t look back but wade as quickly as I can into the water, diving underneath the surface just as one of the bees lunges with its sting for my face.

It’s hard to see in front of me because it’s so dark, I’ve never swam at night and it’s horrible being so blind. Even through the water I can hear them zig-zagging at the surface. I hold my breath, swimming further out. My sarong had slipped from my waist, hopefully providing a distraction for them. My chest’s contracting, my lungs about to burst. But they can’t get me under the water, they can’t swim. I almost laugh. They’re still trying to attack though, hovering above the surface and thrusting their stingers down, trying to harpoon me. I swim deeper, my cheeks puffing out as the air inside my lungs tries to escape. I know that once I blow out I’ll have to take in water but I don’t care. Whatever’s in store for me will come regardless.

Just as I can’t hold my breath any longer I hear the voices again, the ones I’d heard as I’d walked down from Casa Amanhã. This time I can make out the words.

‘She’s rejecting, again.’ A woman’s voice. ‘Do we reset?’

‘Another 200 meperidine.’ A man’s voice. ‘Now. Just do it.’

I blow out the remaining air, feel the bubbles travel past my nose. My chest’s on fire, the voices began to slow, deepening in pitch.

The woman’s speaking again. ‘No response. If we don’t reset we’re going to lose her.’

I try to breathe in water but my body won’t take it. I begin to choke, I’m floating up to the surface. White patches scoot across my vision as the buzzing gets louder and even more furious.

‘She’s going into arrest. Do I reset?’

‘I need to refer up.’

I can feel one of the bees’ legs touching my back as I approach the surface. One of their stingers punctures the water next to me.

‘No time.’ The voice is slowing down, the last word more like a yawn.

‘Unplug. Get him in here.’

Everything goes white, searing and painful. There’s something attached to the front and sides of my face. I convulse, arching my back in the air. I reach up to my head but my arms are being held back by something, they can’t quite make it. I pull harder, feel sticky things unpeel from my skin and scalp. I feel weightless but heavy, like I’m being dragged down by my own skin. It feels like teetering, about to fall one way or the other, or maybe split in half. Hands on me, trying to stabilise me, grab my arms. I wrestle with them, manage to get my left hand to my face. There’s something rubbery over my mouth. Still I can’t see for the light, which had started out as a singular beam but is now separating into distinct orbs all around me. I pull one of my hands to my face, feel plucking and twanging all up my arm. I grab the rubbery thing and pull it away from me, recognising it by touch as a breathing mask.

The hands are still trying to restrain me, stopping me from flailing. ‘No, they’ll kill me,’ I’m trying to scream but my throat’s too dry, my voice sounds cracked. I’m beginning to make out shapes around me. Translucent wires no thicker than fishing lines are emanating from all over my body, stretched out to connect to the walls and ceiling.  The wires are more concentrated around my head, like artificial strands of hair.

I’m shimmering, wearing what looks like chainmail but made of hundreds of little black ballbearings. Each one reflects the lights. My brain’s screaming, threatening to shut off. I try to move my legs but they can’t quite touch the floor.

‘Easy, Eleanor,’ an American man’s accent. I try to twist my head around, all I see is half a blurred face. ‘It’s going to be okay, you’re okay. Easy.’

Another hand on me, a familiar voice. ‘Shhh, L, it’s okay, it’s fine, you’re with me. You’re okay. Nobody’s going to get you. You’re safe.’

It’s James’s face hovering above mine. ‘You’re safe, L. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’