PART II: MARINA
VI
Four months later, late July
‘Mama! Where are you, Mama?’
Marina’s high voice pierced my concentration. I closed my eyes, drawing my thumb and forefinger across my eyelids to meet at the bridge of my nose. So much for working at home this morning. I swivelled my office chair round and smiled brightly at the figure of my nineteen-year-old daughter scampering through the tablinum door. Still too thin for my liking, she had outgrown many of her health problems, but was still childlike in so many ways. And I feared for her.
‘I’ve met someone,’ she said, her voice and breath catching up with her. ‘Will you invite him here?’ Her cheeks flushed almost scarlet in the pale shiny face, making her look like a wax doll from Cathay.
‘Slow down, child,’ I said and pulled her over to sit on the sofa with me. Her fine hair was dishevelled, falling forward over her face, and her summer tunic was twisted at the waist.
‘He’s here on business. He’s an electronics engineer. He has his own business. He—’
‘Marina.’ I squeezed her hands. ‘Swallow. Collect your thoughts and start at the beginning.’
She made a moue, but paused long enough to take a few breaths.
‘He’s from the Eastern United States, New Hampshire, and is called William Brown. Mama, he’s tall and gentle and safe and so kind. And I love him.’ She looked straight at me, her face set. I was taken aback at how her expression mirrored my late mother’s when she was in her most domineering mood.
‘Of course, he can come here,’ I said. ‘Shall we say tomorrow, for lunch? Miklós will be here as well, so Mr Brown can meet both of us.’
She flung her arms around me, nestling her head into my collarbone. ‘Oh thank you, thank you.’
I stroked her hair, held her close and smiled down at her. After a few moments, she jumped up and sprinted off, giving me a second’s wave of her delicate hand. I waited five minutes then reached out for the handset on my desk, set it to scramble and dialled. After some clicks and beeps, a gruff voice answered.
‘Plico.’
‘Mitela here. Tertullius, could you run a check for me? Personal, so charge it back.’ I gave him the details and added, ‘And I need it by eleven tomorrow morning.’
*
Claudia Cornelia coughed.
I looked up, straight into the late afternoon sunlight. And my stomach rumbled. All I’d had to eat was a quick sandwich as soon as I’d reached my desk at the Foreign Ministry just after midday. I’d forgotten how late it was. Poor Claudia must have been itching to get home.
‘Tertullius Plico is waiting in the side room, consiliaria.’
I glanced at my desk clock. He’d come back to me in under six hours. That meant he had a full file on this Brown, or nothing.
After Claudia ushered him in, Plico studied the dark wood panelling that lined the walls until she closed the door behind her. Odd, she was cleared almost to my level, and I was now the foreign minister.
‘What have you got for me?’
‘Before I answer that, why do you want to know about Brown?’
‘It’s personal,’ I stalled.
‘How personal? You’re not sleeping with him, are you?’
‘Diana’s tits, Plico, that’s outrageous!’
‘Nice language for Imperatrix Severina’s chief advisor.’ He grinned at me. ‘You’re a similar age. He looks strong enough to cope.’
‘Just hand over the file.’
‘Keep it to yourself, will you? Don’t copy it. I’ll come and collect it myself.’
‘Why? Are you running him?’
‘No, of course not. He’s a foreigner.’
Plico didn’t glance away – that would have been too obvious – but I knew he wasn’t playing it straight.
‘When did that make any difference?’
‘You know the rules – Romans only and in situ.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s a person of interest, let’s say.’
‘In what way?’
‘Just read the file.’
Plico stood up, glanced back at the file as if he was leaving a baby with a poorly qualified minder, nodded at me and left.
*
‘Welcome, Mr Brown,’ I said, extending my hand.
A tall man, sturdy as a farmer, crossed the atrium. He smiled pleasantly, held his hand out and gave mine a firm handshake. The smile passed up to his eyes, producing small sunbursts of lines at the outside edges of his eyes – light eyes, hazel. Strange, they were almost the same colour as Caius Tellus’s eyes. Pure coincidence. William Brown had been born in the United Kingdom where a large proportion of inhabitants had light eyes, hazel or otherwise. A lack of sun, perhaps. I introduced him to Miklós and the two men shook hands. All smiles, but I watched them measure each other up in that instant way that clever people did.
‘Please.’ I indicated he should sit in one of the easy chairs by the large glass doors opening to the courtyard garden. I manoeuvred Marina to perch on the leather sofa beside me.
‘I understand you’re visiting Roma Nova on business,’ Miklós said.
‘Yes, Brown Industries is expanding and the Roma Novan Defence Ministry is very interested in our communications products.’ His bland smile was for us both, but I saw in his eyes he was watching me for my reactions as much as I was watching him.
‘Tell me a little about your family, Mr Brown,’ I said.
‘William, please. My people come from Kent, in the south of the United Kingdom, but I emigrated to the EUS when I was eighteen. I won an offer from the Cambridge Institute of Technology in Massachusetts to pursue my studies and stayed there for five years. It was a wonderful life.’
He smiled at Marina who responded immediately. They held each other’s gaze, eyes only moving to flicker over the other’s face. It wasn’t the hunger of lust, it was more; a gentle knowing. Miklós and I could have been pieces of sculpture. I undoubtedly had more sexual experience than my daughter, but I had never seen such a tangible display of bonded affection.
I raised my hand. A servant brought drinks and the moment broke.
Once we’d finished eating our lunch, Marina jumped up. She took William Brown by the hand and pulled him towards the garden doors. Miklós and I watched as she half danced alongside his tall figure. Once on the terrace at the back of the house, he gazed down at her, smiled, extended his arm around her waist and pulled her in. His other arm settled on her shoulder and he bent down to kiss her mouth, firstly with a light touch, then as she brought her arm up around his neck, a deep, passionate world-ending kiss. I sighed as we watched them progress down the garden.
Of course, it was impossible. Apart from the twenty years between them, Plico’s file had made that decision for me.
‘Why the sigh, Aurelia?’ Miklós asked. ‘They seem perfectly matched. Better than us, in a way.’ He laughed and slid his arm round my waist, but his remark stung. I loved Miklós unconditionally; he was exciting in his mind and his love-making. He made me laugh. So far, I had coped with his urge to go wandering, but in my heart I wished he would settle here with me permanently. William Brown was the steadfast type, I was sure. He would marry Marina, cherish her, give her a white clapboard house in New England and a steady home life.
*
I should have been more careful, but William Brown was due to leave Roma Nova on the first flight out two days after our lunch. He would go back to the Eastern United States and become absorbed with his expanding business. I decided to keep Marina busy elsewhere. I nudged Severina to invite Marina for the weekend; the daughters were friends as well as cousins and they hadn’t seen each other since Silvia’s birthday and emancipation ceremony three weeks earlier. My plan was going well until Silvia phoned on Saturday evening to ask if Marina was ill.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Aunt Aurelia. I
know Marina can get distracted, but she still hasn’t arrived.’ I glanced at my watch. It was five o’clock.
‘What had she arranged with you?’
‘She should have been here for lunch.’
‘My apologies to you, Silvia, and your mother and thanks for calling me.’
She rang off and I leapt up and started pacing the floor. I didn’t know how to be more furious.
‘Calm down.’ Miklós grabbed me as I returned from the other side of the room.
‘Marina’s lied to me, defied me. I bet she’s gone off with William Brown.’
I checked with the chauffeur; she’d dropped Marina at the palace side entrance, and then returned here. I called Brown’s hotel, but he’d checked out that morning.
‘You can’t set the vigiles on him,’ Miklós said. ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s of age. So what if they’ve spent the day together?’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘Suppose you explain exactly why you don’t want Marina to pair off with him. He looks so…so respectable.’ Miklós didn’t quite sneer.
‘I can’t. It’s a security matter.’
He looked long and hard at me.
Plico’s file had been explicit. Brown Industries was about to become the premier supplier of our most advanced communications and information systems. As such, we would give William Brown long-range protection and monitoring, and a Roma Novan technical intelligence officer would be employed in his company as a liaison officer.
‘How can I put this?’ I said. ‘Our government will be working closer with Brown Industries than before. There are implications.’
‘How is that bad for Marina? Surely it will make things easier for everybody? What aren’t you telling me, Aurelia?’ He frowned and released me.
‘Don’t push me, please.’
‘You’re being unreasonable. This is your daughter. Don’t you care about her happiness? Brown will look after her and give her everything. She couldn’t be safer.’
Juno, I hated this. I looked up at him. He must see my misery. I couldn’t tell him the EUS government, which was a significant customer of Brown Industries, would be wary of our involvement. Their administration would try to obtain a controlling interest or at the least exert pressure on the company or on William Brown or his family. They’d watch Marina, monitor her activities and even have an operative befriend and manipulate her. They could even honey-trap her. One day, they’d give her the choice of working for them or being the cause of Brown having some misfortune such as an accident, or threatening his company, his life’s work. And she’d comply. Gods, she’d be torn apart.
William Brown must return home to manage Brown Industries. I was sure he wouldn’t come here to live and work. Marina was scarcely able to fend for herself now, let alone survive in the harsh patriarchal society of the Eastern United States with sharks circulating waiting for an opening.
‘Marina would be so lost there,’ I said, ‘and William would be fully occupied with his growing business. He would try to look after her, but she’d become homesick, fade away, or worse.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Perhaps you haven’t given her the opportunity to stand on her own two feet. She may be stronger than you think. When I’ve talked to her, she’s always seemed to know what she wants.’ He shrugged. ‘She’s a gentle soul, but you should give her a chance.’
‘I can’t. There are other factors to consider.’
He stared long and hard at me. I had to look away in the end.
‘Sometimes, Aurelia, I don’t know you.’ He went over to the atrium windows and stared out at the rose garden. He crossed his arms and bowed his head as if in deep thought. The blazing summer light highlighted the curves in his face, emphasising his cheekbones. Last night, I’d kissed the skin and flesh just below them as we’d made passionate love. Now they were like ramparts of a fortress guarding his inner thoughts.
‘You Romans are a strange people, almost mechanical sometimes.’
‘We’ve had to harden up to get through—’
‘Don’t give me a damned history lesson.’
‘Then don’t lump me together with a million and a half other people.’
He frowned.
‘I know you’re an important functionary and you take it all seriously,’ he said, still looking to the outside, ‘but how can you put your political machinations ahead of your daughter’s happiness?’
‘It’s Marina I’m thinking of. I know I said there were other things to take into consideration, but she’d wilt in a country like the EUS.’
‘You won’t even let her try.’ He turned to face me, but he didn’t budge from the windows. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ After a few moments, he said, ‘I was wondering how to broach this, but now is as good a good time as any. I had a letter this morning from my aunt. My father is very ill and she’s urging me to go home and make my peace with him. I broke off with him years ago when he thrashed me for the very last time. I was fifteen. I left and swore I’d never go back. I didn’t know what to do this morning, but now I think I will go.’
An hour later, he was standing in the courtyard, a hiker’s rucksack on his back and a large suitcase on the ground.
‘I’ve called a taxi,’ he said, not looking at me.
‘Miklós, you can’t go like this. I’m very sorry about your father. Of course, you must stay there as long as you need to. But please don’t go believing I’m doing this for ego reasons.’
He looked at me with a sardonic expression on his face. ‘Aren’t you?’
A harsh sound from a car horn interrupted us and he picked up his case.
‘Goodbye, Aurelia. I’ll let you know when I decide to come back.’
‘Don’t count on the door being open when you do, then.’
I almost bit my tongue off the second the words were out of my mouth. The rage and hurt in his eyes were almost palpable. Gods, what had I done? I was numb with misery and couldn’t move. After a moment, I roused myself enough to run out to the front gate, but only in time to watch the passenger door slam and the taxi roar off.
*
When Marina eventually came home at nearly midnight, I was waiting for her. Nursing a glass of brandy, I sat in the dark; only the garden lights glowing through the French windows relieved the gloom. I’d grabbed the decanter and glass and flopped down in a seat in the atrium after Miklós left and had been too stunned to move since then.
Marina removed her shoes and was creeping across the marble floor without making a sound. I watched from behind the long leaves of the palm stretching over the wooden planters in the middle of the atrium.
‘Marina.’
Her hand flew up to her chest, her shoulders jerked up and she stumbled. Her mouth dropped open and she froze on the spot like a nervous cat.
‘Mama, I—’ She clamped her hand over her mouth.
I said nothing. I stood up and flicked on a standard lamp by the planter, and kept my gaze on her.
A dull flush crept up her neck into her cheeks, but she lifted her face and looked back at me, defiant.
‘Why are you waiting up for me? I’m not a schoolgirl.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re a grown woman who has responsibilities. The imperatrix and her daughter were expecting you today at the palace. And you ignored their invitation.’
‘I’m sorry. Truly. I’ll write and apologise, but I know why you wanted me to go there. You fixed it so I couldn’t see William before he went back.’ Her voice was shrill. ‘Well, we spent the day together and I’ll never regret it.’
‘I hope you don’t. Did you take precautions?’
‘Why do you have to ruin everything? We are in love. But you wouldn’t know the meaning of the word,’ she taunted.
I caught my breath. ‘My priv
ate life is not under discussion.’
‘Miklós can’t love you or he’d stay with you all the time.’
‘How dare you!’ I strode over to her and slapped her face.
She burst into tears.
I was appalled at myself. ‘Gods, Marina, I’m so sorry.’ I stretched my arms out to embrace her, but she writhed out of my reach and ran off. I dropped my head into my hands, gulped and wept. For her, for myself and for my shattered love.
VII
‘Any use?’ Tertullius Plico asked Monday morning.
‘Oh, yes, very thorough. Thank you.’ I handed the file back to him. William Brown was safely on his flight. Marina was sulking at home. She refused to speak a word to me. I didn’t know how to claw my way back to her. A heavy stone lay in the pit of my stomach and I couldn’t shift it. And the telegram I’d received last night from Miklós, tersely announcing his safe arrival and giving me his father’s farm address ‘if I was interested’, hadn’t relieved it.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Plico. ‘You look like you’re eating funeral ash.’
‘Nothing,’ I lied. I glanced away, not wanting to meet his cynical expression.
He didn’t say anything. I reached for my glass of water and took a couple of mouthfuls.
‘Very well, consiliaria, if you’re ready to continue, I have a report I want to discuss with you before it goes to the imperial council tomorrow. It’s not strictly your remit, but I’d welcome your views.’ He paused, as if weighing something up.
‘Gods, Plico, when you go this formal I worry.’ He looked as if he was holding Pandora’s jar in his hand.
Juno alone knew we had enough to be concerned about with the recent demonstrations. They’d sprung out of small group protests on the street and local meetings with a lot of declamations and heckling. Nothing to worry about, Interior said at the previous council, just some nostalgic ranting about noble toil and lost traditional jobs. The vigiles would monitor them, he said, and maintain public order; they would soon fizzle out. Unfortunately, the demonstrations were growing in number, size and frequency.
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