Evensong

“And,” he said, remembering their dinner, “you declare all your costs. Have your finance people given you an amended operating statement yet?”

She didn’t hear his question. She was in full flow. “You know, Archbishop was a title I inherited five years ago, but it doesn’t sound right now. In a few years, when the New Anglicans are a finished product, I might change my title. To CEO. Or—” she glanced at him “—Controller-General.”

Or, he thought, Archbitch. The word was already in his store of privately-invented names, like Meatslabs and Lucifer’s Lesbian and Levin’s Levities. They were all rather anal-retentive: a reflection of how much time he spent alone, adding building-blocks to his interior world. A world that was ordered and comfortable, and about to collapse.

“You know,” she said, “you’ve made yourself ridiculous here. No one would ever say so, not to your face, but they’re laughing behind your back.”

“You mean because I shut myself in the Signing Room?”

“Yes.”

“But you know why I did that.” This was more safe ground, and it suited him. Operational detail. “We’ve made sure there’s nothing of theirs in there. The signing ceremony is scheduled for October 23. So if that was their preferred option, it’s gone.”

“So it could be any time.”

“Yes. But you said they wanted it live and in public at the summit. So any time during the nine days commencing October 15.” When she didn’t reply, he hurriedly added, “But it was their preferred option. This one will be...”

“Less preferred. But earlier. Look, I was wrong, let’s not waste those few days. Let’s go back to how it was.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes. Let’s go back to just fucking each other senseless,and each of us takes what we want from it.” She watched him as he visibly lightened. It was as though a weight was slipping off him. She added, “I mean it. No relationships, just relations.”

“I’d like nothing more,” he said, then added, as the relief spread through him, “but not here in front of the altar?”

“I can find somewhere better.”

Later, in her bedroom, they went back to how it was. This time she raised her bottom slightly to assist him in pulling down her underwear. He didn’t seem to notice consciously, though he was aware that his preliminaries worked a little better. She knew how he liked her passive during this part, so he could enjoy doing his part slowly and artistically.

It was a minor embellishment which might, indirectly, help her. Just a detail, and later she’d add others. Build empathy in careful penny pieces. Not all in one lump, as she’d tried so clumsily and embarrassingly before. The next detail— the thought came to her quite suddenly—could be to find a replacement for his book.

“Retard,” she murmured afterwards.

“Bag of shit,” he replied, and they went again.

How many times have we gone tonight? she thought. He’s like a pistol. As one chamber’s spent the next one comes around. And keeps coming.

She was learning empathy, though her version of it, unlike Arden’s, didn’t come naturally. And—because of who she was— there was something oblique and sinuous about it. Starting a relationship with him by accommodating his embarrassment at the idea of a relationship. Sharing with him his wish not to treat sex as something to be shared.

She would work at it, carefully and quietly. Not her usual style of working, but it was worth it. He was obsessive and strange, potent and vulnerable, but he was the only one with a chance of protecting her. That, at least, was the obvious reason to draw her to him, but that—she told herself over and over until she almost believed it—wasn’t the only one. There was something else.

Empathy had found her, and it would find him. And—the admission frightened her—she wanted it to find him. Nobody else would do. 

NINE: OCTOBER 7 - 10, 2060

1

The delegations for the summit started to arrive on October 7. They were minor officials and support staff, put up in hotels all over Brighton. The VIPs—political leaders and senior staff— would not arrive until two or three days before the summit. The most important would be put up in the New Grand, the others in the more prestigious hotels along Marine Parade. Their suites were being made ready.

Yuri Zaitsev, the UN Secretary-General, would also be taking a suite in the New Grand. He was due to arrive on the evening of October 14, when he and Olivia would co-host a reception to mark the opening of the summit.

The first administrative and housekeeping matters had begun. They were the first of a multitude: agenda headings, translations, dietary requirements, transport, media relations, religious observance. The New Anglicans’ staff had foreseen them and prepared for them, and addressed them with their usual efficiency.

As well as the host of security issues associated with the summit, Gaetano was attending to something else.

Proskar had gone.