Bold as Love

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘What ignorance. You don’t make a worm omelet with eggs, Fio. You skin the worms, beat them into a kind of patty, and fry it like a burger—’

  ‘Takes fucking hours.’

  ‘Piss poor energy audit—’

  The traditional blank wall, she thought: this cute, evasive double act is all I’m ever going to hear. Will they babble about dugouts in their sleep?

  ‘Well,’ she sighed. ‘The good news is, no nuclear power stations blew up.’

  ‘And the bad news?’ said Ax. ‘Where is Pigsty now?’

  The people in the café must have noticed it was Fiorinda, Aoxomoxoa and the Ax sitting there, but no one was letting on. At Ax’s question there was a guilty quickening of attention at nearby tables: but not a head turned. They knew Ax didn’t like being stared at, they respected his privacy. This is fame indeed, thought Fiorinda. Stone Age fame.

  When she’d told the media people to stay away from the station, their response (relayed back to her, through the San’s press office), had been hurt astonishment: what do you take us for? How could you doubt our tact in this sensitive situation? Where will it end, she wondered. For my Ax, for us all. If it has any further to go, that is. If it isn’t finished.

  It was a week since the night she’d called Ax in Bradford. It hadn’t been possible for them to leave straight away: they had to handle the story up there, before the Islamic negotiators heard about it on the news. Tact and sensitivity hadn’t stopped the media from leaping on a devastating Presidential scandal, first chance they got. Ax was sacred. The fact that the funky green Pres was helping the police with their inquiries was all over the shop.

  ‘At the hotel. The police want to move him, but I don’t think they should, not yet. In a strange environment, where he can’t believe there are no spying cameras in the room, he might stop talking to me—’

  Ax frowned. ‘To you?’

  ‘Well, yes. There’s an unused bedroom in the suite, I talk to him in there: police outside the door, and I have a panic button.’

  They were staring at her, appalled.

  ‘What, alone—?’ said Sage, ‘You’ve been alone with him?’

  ‘Fiorinda, that’s got to stop—’

  ‘Ah, bother. I didn’t think. I should have broken it to you gently. It’s the way things turned out, and it’s working. Look, let’s start again. From the beginning.’

  After her mother died, Fiorinda moved back into the Pig’s hotel, voluntarily returning to the prison. Why did she do this? Ax and Sage were gone. She wanted to rejoin the Few, but she didn’t want to live in the Snake Eyes house. There was antagonism between Fiorinda and Rob Nelson. Nothing serious, but something she didn’t want to have to deal with every day. Also there was the issue of sexual independence. She didn’t want Dilip, or any other guy she might go to bed with once or twice, to get the feeling that he knew where he could easily lay his hand on her. No thanks. Anyway, she moved back. Allie and Fereshteh had already done the same, on the excuse that the refitting was making the Insanitude uninhabitable. They resumed the old arrangement: a room each, on the floor below the Family Suite.

  So there they were. The women in President Pig’s zenana, of their own choice. Everyone keeping up Ax’s Crisis Management plans: the community service shifts, the tv discussions, the hassling of rich sympathisers for money. The gigs, the personal appearences (but never away from London for more than a night). An infrastructure was forming: recruits to Allie’s administration, volunteers, other bands and artists joining the gigs and the social work. No new faces that Fiorinda yet distinguished from the crowd.

  The Chosen stayed in the West Country. The Heads took the opportunity to spend more time with their families. George Merrick had a wife who was a potter, in St Ives (however that worked, the odd few weekends together over the years; but it seemed it did). Bill Trevor had a dress designer girlfriend in Bristol. Whatever Peter (Cack) Stannen did when he wasn’t being a Head he went off and did that. But they were never away long. They had to keep making sure Fiorinda was okay. Because if you’re not, said George, we better move to another planet before the boss gets back.

  It turned out that she did most of the Pig-handling. The suits tended to address things—memos, e—mail, texts, personal approaches—to Fiorinda, either because of the accent, or because she was Ax’s squeeze; and none of the others wanted the job, not even Rob. She began to lose the horrible, constant, sexual fear of him, which she’d taken out in bitter anger against Ax when he came back from the Decnostruction Tour. She was still very scared. It was an ordeal to walk alone into the room where they met, the same conference room where Countercultural Cabinet meetings were held. An immense effort to stay calm and endure the Pig’s constant groping and scratching of himself, always convinced that big hand gun was about to reappear.

  He had few official duties. The new England was shaking down, no one really knew what the funky green President ought to be doing. It was just as well. Without Ax, the Pig as Ceremonial Head of State was way, way out of his depth. He was happiest on the tv, wearing a flak jacket and talking about ‘the war’. Then he became another person, the crude-but-honest noble savage Paul Javert had invented. But the war palled, and she could see panic growing in him, more dangerous than the most brutal confidence. Benny Prem kept wanting her to get him to sign things and agree to things. Now that the excitement had died down, Prem was tired of being bossed around by a coarse lump of wood. Do it yourself, she said. I’m not going to get my head blown off for your convenience.

  She hated the little inadequate-male grin. Those sickening white baby-teeth, like Peter Pan.

  Mostly she was buried in the problems of the Volunteer Initiative, Ax’s New Deal. She kept thinking, this is insane. I’m not a bureaucrat! I won’t quit while you’re away because that would be mean, but just wait ’til I get you home, Ax Preston… They were all working ridiculously hard. They would meet, the Few and friends, when they could, at that pub by Vauxhall Bridge where they used to gather when they were the Think Tank: drink like fish, laugh like hyenas, watch the news from Yorkshire.

  Then it was Yap Moss, and soon after that Ax had made peace.

  They were wondering what would happen when Ax and Sage came back. Pigsty didn’t seem bothered, he was proud of the peace and smug that he’d got his feminist agenda (his feminist agenda, in Pig’s mind) into the settlement. But everyone knew Ax would have to be really, really careful.

  Late one night Fiorinda was in her room, on her bed, softly playing guitar: crouching over to set down notes in black ink on manuscript paper. It was the way she had always written her music and probably always would: formally, by hand; and late at night and secretly.

  Ax had been right about the exposure. No Reason, the album she’d recorded with DARK, had been selling madly since it was reissued. Her solo debut Friction—recorded last year, amid all that stress and confusion—, was bizarrely getting hailed as a stunning achievement. Fiorinda had money, for the first time in her life. She could pay her hotel bill, if anyone ever asked. And she would go on making music, it seemed, although the world was over.

  Felt guilty about having told Ax that she would never write again: but it had seemed true, in the cold light of survival, with that madman babbling beside her, though you only had to look into his haggard, gaunt bewildered face to feel compassion, to know—

  Someone knocked on the door. Instant panic: why did I move back here? If the Pig wants he’ll come in, door is nothing, he can blow the lock out. The knock came again, in the pattern that meant Allie. She hid the music under her pillow and opened up. Allie came in and sat on the bed, biting her lip.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, Fiorinda, we need to talk to you.’

  ‘Who’s we? All right.’

  She went off and came back with Pigsty’s old lady, Fereshteh, Anne-Marie Wing; and her partner Smelly Hugh, second in command of the Organs. They all looked very glum. They perched on the hotel furniture, and stared at her s
o desperately she was plunged again into terror.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Allie quickly. ‘It’s not about Ax.’

  ‘Lola wants to talk to you,’ explained Smelly Hugh.

  The President’s wife was like her photographs, only older: a bottle blonde Mrs Leisurewear whose elaborate makeup and aerobic-toned body said sadly, I know I’m not really pretty. I know I have no style. She was dressed for outdoors in a mink lined trench coat, and clutching a big Harvey Nichols straw-look tote bag.

  ‘I don’t want to talk,’ she said. ‘I want you to come with me, somewhere.’

  ‘What, now?’ It was about one am.

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not answering any questions. You have to see for yourselves.’

  ‘Are we all going?’

  ‘No.’ Smelly Hugh appeared to be sober, for once in his life. It didn’t suit him, he was looking gruesome. ‘I’m staying. My kids are upstairs.’

  ‘I’m staying too,’ said Anne-Marie, giving her old man a look of contempt.

  Fereshteh wore a long, heavy, long-sleeved and high-necked embroidered shift, and the hejab, serious piece of headscarf, close round her cheeks, low over her eyes, showing not a millimetre of hair; but no burqa. Maybe she counted Smelly Hugh as a relative. Feresh, like Rob, could be hostile towards Fiorinda. Something like, you abuse your position as Ax’s squeeze, shameless infidel white girl. Only never spoken. There was no sign of that now.

  ‘I think we should go with her, do what she says.’

  ‘Oh, I think so too,’ said Allie, round-eyed. ‘Really.’

  Fiorinda could not take the Family Suite. Fereshteh and Allie were in and out of there, doing women-and-children stuff: not Fio. She’d barely spoken to Mrs Leisurewear, ever. That must be why she didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on, what kind of emergency this was.

  ‘The Pig’s out drinking,’ said Anne-Marie. ‘We’ve got all the kids. If he comes back, I’ll tell him they’re asleep and he’ll go away. I’ve done that before.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Fiorinda, slowly. ‘But if this is so serious I want to call Rob, and Dilip if he’s reachable, get them to come along. Does that make sense?’

  The others looked at Lola. She nodded, yes.

  So the women set off, the hippie nightwatchmen downstairs encouraging them with the usual tired comments (you on the pull again, Fiorinda? what’s it worth not to tell your boyfriend? etc); Fereshteh in her burqa. They took a black cab into the cold early-hours drizzle. It was a long ride, out of the centre, through Stepney and Stratford to Manor Park. Lola had the cab stop by Woodgrange Station and they walked through grid-straight dark streets: a town-planners’ dream from before words like organic or natural.

  The house was number 113 Ruskin Road. It was divided into two. Lola let them in to the hall, and through the front door of the ground floor flat. It was as cold inside as outside. The rooms were furnished and smelt occupied, but in some perfunctory way: an occasional retreat, an investment property between lets. In the front room there was a soft, bulbous three piece suite, terracotta to match the floor length curtains at the windows. Lola gave the housekeys to Fiorinda and sat on the sofa.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Have a look round.’

  ‘For what?’

  Lola stared, blank and horror in her eyes. ‘Take a good look in the cellar.’

  She turned her face away from the young women’s gaze.

  Feresh took off the burqa, stripping for action, and they searched the place. Furnished rooms, an empty bathroom, an empty kitchen. An unplugged fridge containing a half empty Corona bottle. A carton that had held cans of lager. Two mugs by the sink, a stained newspaper with a date six months old. The silence was eerie.

  ‘Thank God it’s not a brown—out night,’ said Allie. ‘I’d hate to be doing this by candlelight.’

  ‘Has anyone got a torch?’ asked Fio. ‘In case—?’

  They hadn’t. Shit. Not very well organised.

  ‘Do you two know what we’re supposed to be looking for?’

  ‘Something terrible,’ whispered Fereshteh.

  The upstairs flat showed more fugitive signs of habitation: a tube of toothpaste in the bathroom, a centrefold model from some Men’s magazine stuck to the living room wall; a jelly sandal belonging to a child. On a student desk in one of the bedrooms stood the remains of a roll of parcel tape, well used. They tried the lower flat again, and this time found the door to the cellar. One of the house keys opened it. They went down the stairs. It was a bigger room than you’d expect. It held a big black chest with deep drawers, a video recorder of ancient make, a bentwood chair, a camera tripod and lights. A painted satan face in trompe l’oeil detail covered most of one wall. There was nothing else unusual; the normal debris. Cardboard boxes full of rusting junk, old cans of car body filler. A row of dusty, empty glass demijohns. Paintbrushes stiff and rotting in a jamjar on a cobwebbed shelf.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ said Allie. ‘It’s like formaldehyde—’

  ‘Do we have the keys to that chest?’ wondered Fereshteh.

  They did. They opened the drawers, one by one. In the top drawer, a power drill, ancient make. In the second, a pair of scissors and a ball of twine. In the third a crumpled and grubby bundle of children’s clothes. They looked at these clothes without touching them: then at each other. They shut that drawer again.

  The deepest, bottom drawer was empty, but as Feresh pulled it open they heard something shift. Kneeling on the floor, they hauled the drawer right out. Fiorinda reached inside, and rapped.

  ‘It’s a false back, this is hollow. I can shift it.’

  The chest stood against the back wall of the cellar. Behind the panel there was a hole hacked through the brickwork and into earth beyond. Fiorinda and Allie together dragged out a large box: a roughly made box of black-stained wood composite. They used a blade of the scissors to pry off the lid, which had been lightly nailed down. A strong smell of formaldehyde rose, mixed with decay. In the box, wrapped in a blue bath towel, was the body of a little girl. She was on her side, naked, hands behind her back, knees bent and legs folded under her. Withered parcel tape was strapped across her mouth, and around her waist, binding together wrists and ankles. Her sunken eyes had been wide open when she died. Someone had soaked the body in preservative, before packing it away.

  Fereshteh gave a choking gasp, barely managed to push herself back from the box before she threw up. Allie just turned away, hands over her face.

  Fiorinda knelt looking down, feeling neither shock nor horror, but a dizziness that cleared almost to a sense of relief.

  Ah, so here it is, so this is it…

  Things came into her mind that she’d hardly thought about, for such a long time. How naive and ignorant she had been the day she arrived at Reading, convinced that Rufus O’Niall, ageing Irish megastar, was about to emerge as the leader of English Countercultural Politics. Barbecue fuel, bruised grass, the aural mulch of Festival noise, the mind of an angry, stupid, deluded little girl… How strange to revisit her grand obsession, how hard to believe that she had ever wanted to see her father again. Here in this cellar, the filthy cobwebbed relics, things you thought were of value, which you hardly recognise when you come across them again—

  Back in the present she put aside a rush of useless pity. She had to think about the man who had saved her life. What would this murdered child mean to Ax?

  She sat back on her heels, ‘You okay, Feresh?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m okay.’

  ‘When we were vetting the Pig,’ said Allie—forgetting to say Oh!—‘back when I was working for Paul, we found out that he likes kiddie porn. No one was too shocked. It isn’t uncommon, is it. I think Paul was actually pleased. It meant we had a hold on the guy. But someone,—it wasn’t me, I swear—, found a big hint of something worse, and I don’t know what but I know we buried it. We’d gone too far, we’d invested in Pigsty; and Pa
ul liked taking risks. He liked being right when everybody thought he was wrong, that was his self-image. I didn’t know a thing about gunmen at the reception. Not one thing. But all the time, ever since the Massacre, I had the idea that something like this might be what was buried. I couldn’t tell anyone, I had no proof, no evidence. It’s not something you can easily say, is it?’

  ‘We all knew,’ said Fiorinda. ‘We knew there was something. Why else did we go back to prison, except to wait for this to surface?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Fereshteh. ‘He was in power, I needed to be near him. That’s all.’ ‘Oh, I know about that,’ said Allie, wiping her eyes. ‘I have done that.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Fiorinda softly. ‘Me too.’

  They knelt around the dead little girl, in the stunned silence that tragedy exacts. Then Fiorinda stood up. ‘I suspect she’s not alone, but I don’t think we should search any further. Let’s go back upstairs, wait for Dilip and Rob.’

  They went back upstairs. When they came into the front room Lola gave them one look and burst into tears. She curled up in a foetal ball, face hidden in a cushion, hugging her tote bag. They waited in silence: long enough for Fiorinda to wish fervently that she still smoked cigarettes, and for Allie and Feresh to stub their way through most of a pack. At last the men turned up.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Rob, ‘Bomb at the Insanitude.’

  ‘God,’ Fiorinda had opened the door. ‘I thought the war was over. Scare or real?’

  ‘Real. Not the mainstream Islamics, they’re outraged. Some freelance bastard fools. No dead, thank God.’

  ‘Many hurt?’

  ‘None seriously,’ Dilip shrugged. Bomb boredom. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Pig’s old lady decided to tell us something. Brace yourselves. It is not good.’

  All five of them went down to the cellar. Rob and Dilip looked at the dead girl, touched nothing, said nothing much. They came back and stared at Lola. Fiorinda went and sat on the end of the sofa.

  ‘Lola, sit up and talk.’

  She sat up. Her expensive makeup had survived her tears. Frightened, desperate eyes looked out pathetically (if you accepted the pathos) from a geisha mask.