Luna: New Moon

‘When you were at that pool party you were all over Ya Afuom, and you were out of your skull on gods-know-what.’

‘Nothing happened with Ya Afuom.’

‘I know.’

‘And why would it matter to you if something had happened?’

Abena takes a deep breath, as if about to explain a hard truth, like vacuum, or the Four Elementals, to a child.

‘When you saved Kojo, I would have done anything for you. I respected you. I respected you so much much. You were brave and you were kind – you still are. But when you go to see Kojo in Med Centre, all you want is to get his apartment. You used him. Like you let Grigori Vorontsov use you like a sex toy. I’m not a prude, Luca, but that was gross. You needed stuff and you used anyone who could get it for you. You stopped respecting other people, you stopped respecting yourself and I stopped respecting you.’

Lucasinho’s face burns. He thinks of excuses, defences, justifications – I was angry at my father, my dad cut me off, I’d nowhere to go, I was off the network, it was all people I felt something for, I was exploring, it was a mad time, it was only for a little time, I didn’t hurt anyone – not badly. They sound like whining. They can’t abolish the truth. He didn’t fuck Ya Asamoah, but if he had it would have been for a few nights in her apartment; a soft bed and warm flesh and laughing. Like Grigori, like Kojo. Like his own aunt. He is guilty. His only hope for repairing hearts with Abena is to admit it.

‘You’re right.’

Abena stands, arms folded, magnificently magisterial.

‘You’re right.’

Still not a word.

‘It’s true. I was vile to people.’

‘People who cared about you.’

‘Yes. People who cared about me.’

‘Make me a cake,’ Abena says. ‘Isn’t that what you do to make amends? Bake them a cake?’

‘I’ll make you a cake.’

‘I want cupcakes. Thirty-two. I want a cup-cake party with my abusua-sisters.’

‘What kind of flavour?’

‘Every kind of flavour.’

‘Okay. Thirty-two cupcakes. And I’ll stream you the video of me making them, so you can see I’m making them right.’

Abena gives a little shriek of false outrage, slips off her right shoe and bangs Lucasinho none-too-gently on his chest.

‘You are an insolent boy.’

‘You tried to drink my blood.’

Security alert, Jinji says in Lucasinho’s ear. Remain calm, Corta Hélio security personnel are en route. Across the room hands fly to ears, faces ask questions: what where? A woman in a Tina Leser frock vaults over the bar, pushes Abena away and puts herself between Lucasinho and the danger. She has a knife in each hand.

‘What’s going on?’ Lucasinho says and then the movement of the guests away from the restaurant door shows him. With six corporate blades at his back, Duncan Mackenzie has crashed the party.

Heitor Pereira strides forward to confront Duncan Mackenzie. The CEO of Mackenzie Metals stops centimetres from the outstretched hand. He raises an eyebrow at the Corta man’s flamboyant uniform. Behind both men are their armed retainers, hands on blades.

Rafa pushes through the line of security personnel. Lucas is a step behind him, on either shoulder Carlinhos and Wagner. Lucas flicks a glance to his son; Lucasinho pushes past his bodyguard to fall in with the men.

‘What are you doing here?’ Rafa says. The room is motionless. Not a cocktail supped, not a glass of tea sipped.

‘I’m here to pay the compliments of the day to your mother,’ says Duncan Mackenzie.

‘We’ll throw you out like we threw you out at Beikou,’ a voice shouts from the line of security men. Rafa raises a hand: enough.

‘Boys, boys.’ Adriana touches Rafa on the hip and he drifts aside. ‘You’re welcome here, Duncan. But so many men?’

‘Trust is a short market right now.’

Adriana extends a hand. Duncan Mackenzie stoops to kiss it.

‘Happy birthday.’ Then, in a whisper of Portuguese, ‘We need words. Family to family.’

‘We do,’ Adriana replies in the same tongue, then, in command, ‘Have another place set at my table. Beside me. Drinks for Mr Mackenzie’s entourage.’

‘Mamãe?’ Lucas says. Adriana brushes by.

‘You’re not hwaejang yet. None of you.’

The food is exquisite, dish after dish, course after course of harmonious flavours and discordant textures, liquids and gels, geometries and temperatures but Adriana can only pick at it with her poison-sensing chopsticks. A scent, a taste to understand the theory and the skill. On her left hand Duncan Mackenzie eats with enthusiasm and many compliments; honouring the skill by not speaking until the last course is cleared.

‘Congratulations on the Mare Anguis,’ Duncan Mackenzie says. He lifts his glass of mint tea.

‘You don’t mean that,’ Adriana says.

‘Of course I don’t. But it was cutely done and I admire that. You have fucked up our helium-3 development plan. How did you hear about the licence?’

‘Ariel is in the Pavilion of the White Hare.’

Duncan Mackenzie chews over this aftertaste for a few moments.

‘We should have known that.’

‘How did you learn about it?’

‘The Eagle of the Moon is a terrible pillow talker.’