Oligarchy, page 15
‘We have kept saying nothing happened with Dr Morgan,’ says Tiffanie.
‘This was not Natasha and Tiffanie’s fault,’ says Donya. ‘It’s true. They always said he was innocent.’
‘We didn’t even know he was dead until after the Christmas holidays,’ says Dani. ‘No one ever asked any of us what actually happened.’
‘But—’
‘We think someone’s trying to cover up Bianca’s murder,’ says Tash. ‘And maybe even that Dr Morgan was murdered too.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ says Mr Hendrix.
‘You taught us to question things, sir,’ says Dani. ‘And now we’re questioning them.’
Tash had filled in the others on the train and the walk here. Her suspicions about the headmaster. All the evidence. What Caleb wrote. And who Tippexed it out? Who even owns Tippex nowadays? And now Rachel getting thinner and thinner and going to the headmaster’s house more and more often, just like Bianca did. Tash has seen her there more than once now. Seen her upstairs. But what are they supposed to do about it? If they say something they’ll probably get expelled. But how can they not say something? When Tash told them about the black diamond Tiffanie sort of gasped and said ‘Mais non’ several times and then it turned out that Bianca had told her all about the black diamond as well. How much she needed it.
‘She told me that le diamant noir really exists,’ said Tiffanie. ‘That if you can hold it you can purify yourself. She said she was learning how to get it.’
‘What? How?’ said Tash.
‘From Dr Moone. He tell her all about it from a book.’
‘Oh my God. And now Rachel …’
Tash has not told the others that she has hacked the headmaster’s computer. That seems déclassé, somehow. Vulgar. And anyway, there wasn’t really anything super-interesting on his hard drive. Just some old admin about the business with Dr Morgan. Emails confirming with Amaryllis Archer that the case against him was now closed. Fobbing off the tabloids. The official version for the outside world: both suicides; Bianca because of her anorexia, and Dr Morgan because of general sadness maybe or maybe not related to his desire for young girls. The thing about Dr Morgan and the girls played down for the outside world but of course played up for the school. But why? The last remaining young male member of staff leaving the school at this difficult time. And the headmaster still there, with his fondness for seeing slender young girls on their own at his house late at night and reading them tenebrous poetry and giving them advice on their beauty.
‘We want you to help us,’ says Tash to Mr Hendrix.
But he just laughs. He laughs and downs the whole glass of vodka, and then goes and locks himself in his bathroom until they leave.
*
On the train back, Natasha notices that the fields are full of solar panels. One field has also maybe ten sheep, one of which looks dead, and then more solar panels. If you were wild in this landscape, what would you eat, once you’d eaten all the sheep? Humans can’t eat grass, or solar panels. It’s as if the world is gearing up for a long bout of anorexia, its citizens all big-eyed schoolgirls with their skirts rolled up too short. Can seven billion people live on electricity alone? You can cook all day and all night but there’s nothing to cook.
‘Do you think Mr Hendrix is right?’ says Donya.
‘About what?’
‘I don’t know. All his existentialist anti-capitalist stuff from before.’
‘Non,’ says Tiffanie. ‘He is a fuck-ange coward. He is not an existentialist.’
‘I don’t even know what existentialism is,’ says Dani.
‘C’est Sartre,’ says Tiffanie. ‘Et De Beauvoir. Avec les Gauloises á la Rive Gauche. Et Camus, et …’ She carries on mumbling in French as the guard approaches.
‘Right, girls,’ he says. ‘You do realise you’re sitting in first class?’
They look at him blankly.
‘Er, yes,’ says Tash.
‘Can I see your tickets? If they’re not first-class you’re going to have to move to another carriage and hope that I don’t decide to fine you.’
‘The ticket office was shut at Stevenage.’ Tash hands him her black Amex.
Tiffanie giggles. ‘Do you think he has a dib-dob?’ she asks.
The guard ignores this. ‘You want four first-class singles from Stevenage to …?’
‘Hitchin. Thanks.’
‘You know these seats are exactly the same as the other ones,’ he says.
‘Um …’
‘Come on, girls,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you just move to standard with everyone else? You’re getting off in a minute anyway.’
‘We want to stay here,’ says Tiffanie. ‘Do you have a buffet car?’ She pauses. ‘With dib-dobs?’
‘Now, girls, come on,’ he says. ‘There’s no need for this. Don’t be silly.’ He looks at Natasha’s black Amex. ‘Is this even a real credit card? I’m not sure you can use these in this country.’
‘It’s real,’ says Tash.
‘And you haven’t stolen it?’
‘Monsieur Dib-dob?’ says Tiffanie. ‘Are you a secret existentialist?’
He sighs. ‘Right, that’s it. I’ve had enough of you. It’s a good job you’re getting off at the next station or I’d have to throw you off.’
*
Madame Vincent has volunteered to wait by the school gates, not that anyone really needed to. Like, exactly where are the fugitives going to go? They can’t stay away forever, and when they get back … Well, when they get back, they are instantly suspended anyway. They’re sent to their dorms to pack, and they are not allowed to speak to each other, or any of the other girls. They are told that the headmaster is too angry even to see them.
As they walk up the grand staircase Becky with the bad hair is waiting for them.
‘Thanks a lot,’ she hisses as they go past. ‘You do know you’ve got the whole form into trouble? They’ve cancelled the end-of-year disco because of you.’
‘You should have kept your mouths shut,’ growls Tiffanie.
In Natasha’s cubby-hole there is another letter from Nico, which she adds to the others in a pile in her wardrobe. She does not take them with her. Why would she? If she did, she’d have to open them and she can’t. And the more of them there are, the more she can’t.
Aunt Sonja is in Moscow on business, so Natasha goes to Paris with Tiffanie. It’s not much of a punishment, to be honest, spending day after day in Beaubourg cafés and vintage shops and watching Les Enfants du Paradis on Tiffanie’s large television in her bedroom. They hang out in front of the Pompidou Centre, watching the jugglers and street artists and dreaming, not seriously, of poverty. They watch Flashdance. They talk about going clubbing, but in the end they don’t have the nerve, and they don’t know where to go.
On a mild Saturday morning they take the Eurostar to St Pancras and buy bad coffee from Kings Cross – just like Tash did on her first rainy night in England – and they take the train to Cambridge where they get a taxi to Lissa and Suze’s place for the party. Tiffanie and Tash are wearing white silk pussy-bow blouses with ripped 501s and cowboy boots, all from the vintage shops. They’ve put on a lot of expensive make-up. All these recent days walking around Paris looking at boys, but what are you supposed to say to them? At the party they will at least get to meet some boys properly. Boys that won’t be afraid of their diamond earrings, and their sass.
There are only two things bothering Tash. Well, three. She hasn’t heard from Aunt Sonja for a few days, which is odd. And at Gare du Nord station her black Amex was rejected. It didn’t really matter, as Tiffanie simply put the tickets on her debit card, but Natasha had a horrible feeling that the next time she tried it, it wouldn’t work again. Or the time after that. And indeed, it was rejected at Kings Cross, and Tiffanie didn’t care; she was happy to pay again because, after all, Natasha has always been so generous with her magic card. But what if the magic has run out? What then? And of course there’s Rachel, whom no one has seen or heard from for ages. The suspension was for a week, and now it’s Exeat again. She’s been at school all that time with only Lissa for company, but Lissa’s been so distracted thinking about the party. Anyway, Rachel will be there tonight. Natasha is going to ask her straight out what the headmaster is up to, although she thinks she knows. And then what? What do you do with the truth when you have it? But that’s phase two.
There are fairy lights draped around the door and the windows of the cottage. It’s possibly a fire hazard with the thatched roof, but Lissa and Suze’s mother and step-father are in New York and no one else cares. The conservatory has more fairy lights, and several ice buckets with vodka, gin, tequila and prosecco. No champagne, because Suze and Danny are paying for this themselves, because no one really approves of their engagement. Nothing that stains, because of Danny’s teeth. But everyone loves prosecco anyway, and this one was on special offer at Lidl. Suze doesn’t mind going in Lidl. Suze doesn’t really mind anything, if there’s a reason for it.
There’s a marquee. Don’t even ask who’s paying for that, or how fucking difficult it was to put up. And beyond the marquee, the ancient summer house with its peeling green paint and old tattered sofa bed with stained blankets that are more like rugs. Did a dog sleep here once? It is on this sofa bed that Teddy waits for Tash, with a packet of Marlboro and a bottle of Cointreau with two cheap tumblers from the kitchen because he couldn’t find any better glasses, and doesn’t care any more.
‘There’s like a guy here asking for you?’ says Lissa when Tash arrives. And, OK, yes, this is a bit embarrassing, but also kind of glamorous because Teddy has arrived in a chauffeur-driven car without an invitation but wearing a dinner jacket and black tie with a bottle of 1999 Bollinger as a gift.
‘Sit down,’ he says to her, when she enters the summer house.
She’s holding a flute of prosecco and her face is flushed with the journey from Paris, and the warm evening. Outside, an English bird sings lustily of berries and beauty and bounty and—
‘Our fathers are in prison,’ Teddy says. ‘Here.’ He passes her a glass of Cointreau.
‘What?’ says Natasha. She puts down the prosecco and takes the glass Teddy’s offering her instead. She sits next to him.
‘Do you want to have sex?’ he says. ‘I’ll probably never see you again after this.’
Tash sips the Cointreau. Lights a Marlboro.
‘It’s my father’s fault that your father’s in prison, actually,’ Teddy says. ‘He made a stupid mistake when he was moving some money around. He was probably drunk. It’s dark money, of course. Do you know what that means?’
‘Sort of? I read this book, but—’
‘They don’t cover any of this in Theology and Philosophy at Harrow,’ says Teddy. ‘Although you’d think they would. It would be bloody useful. What do you do when you find out that your father is so rich because he helps other men – men like your father – hide and spend the money they’ve made from drugs and prostitutes and sweatshops and fracking and illegal slaughterhouses and pesticides and pollutants and—’
‘That’s not what my father does.’
‘Really?’
‘He owns a phone company.’
‘Right.’ Teddy sips his Cointreau. ‘They’re going to extradite him. He’s going back to Moscow. To prison there. All his assets will be stripped.’ He reaches for one of Natasha’s breasts and holds onto it, while their breathing becomes audible and ragged. Tash puts down her drink and her cigarette and leans towards Teddy. His pale face. His breath smells of tobacco and orange peel. Their teeth clink as they kiss. His tongue is drier than she thought it would be. Teddy reaches under Natasha’s silk shirt and then beneath the stiff wire of her bra and his hand is sweaty but she wants to go with him into oblivion, into whatever this is. To share these last moments of whatever their lives have been. For Natasha this will surely mean going back to Russia, to her mother, to her one stained pillow. What’s worse, Teddy’s fate, or hers? But Teddy will be all right. He’s English, at least. He’ll do his A Levels and get a scholarship to Oxford, because his father still knows people, and anyway, he wasn’t really to blame. It was all just jolly bad luck and what happens when you get mixed up with the Russians, who—
How to stop these thoughts?
Natasha reaches for Teddy’s zip. Underneath, what should be mysterious to her, but is not. Those afternoons with Nico by the river, but they always stopped before—
Don’t think. Just do it. Before it’s too late.
‘Are you on the pill?’ says Teddy. ‘It’s just that I’m allergic to rubber, and, um, actually, can you stop doing that just for a minute because, in fact, oh dear, I’m going to—’ He convulses, briefly, the last moments of a fish dying on a slippery deck.
‘Oh.’
‘Do you have any tissues?’
‘No.’ Natasha lights another cigarette. She thinks of Aunt Sonja. Is she involved in this? What if she never sees her again?
‘Oh God,’ says Teddy. ‘What a mess.’
There’s an old blue cleaning cloth stuffed in the corner of one of the windows. He takes that and starts dabbing at his lap. You’d think that—
There’s a knock at the door. A sort of rattling. It’s probably Tiffanie or one of the others come to see where Tash is, because they’d been planning to dance, and drink lots of prosecco and meet boys, other boys … It starts to rain, a soft pitter-patter on the roof of the summer house like the tiny hooves of something running away.
Natasha gets up and opens the door. And it’s not Tiffanie, or one of the others.
It’s Nico.
Tash almost doesn’t recognise him at first, although his face is more familiar to her almost than her own. His hair has grown. He hasn’t shaved. He looks rugged. Maybe in fact it isn’t him? For a moment he blurs. But it is him. He smells clean.
‘Who’s this?’ is the first thing he says, in Russian, looking at Teddy.
‘This is Teddy Ross,’ says Natasha, in English. ‘His father is my father’s lawyer. Um, Teddy, this is Nico, a friend from home.’
Natasha hopes Nico doesn’t hold out his hand for Teddy to shake, not just because it would make him look stupid, but because Teddy’s hands are still damp. He’s also still holding the blue cloth. But it seems Nico has arrived from the sky like an angel, a real one, and real angels never look stupid even though they are holy and covered with feathers.
‘What are you doing here?’ she says to Nico, in Russian. He looks better than she remembered. It’s not just the wings and the halo. He’s taller, and tanned from the unexpectedly warm spring. His biceps blaze under his black t-shirt. Why exactly did she ever hate him? Without warning, her heart now fills with love. But it’s too late. He’s come for her, come all this way for her, flapping his heavy wings through the glair and the fluorescence, only to find her in the arms of a mortal man. Not even a man. A smug, coddled boy. And not even his arms: his hot fat sticky hands. Suddenly, Tash is breathing underwater, her lungs brimming with shame, soaking it all up and keeping it muffled and safe forever. The glory of it. The cold wet. Its teeth in her.
Her father. In prison. The money, gone.
Her boots are so cool but no one cares. She has no split ends. She wants to smoke a thousand cigarettes all at once, to die painfully and slowly. She should have said more prayers. Eaten more vegetables. Gone for walks in the countryside. She should have rolled down her school skirt and done her homework properly and once she’d done all that she should probably have read those letters.
Nico takes in the scene in the summer house for a few more moments and then leaves.
‘Fuck,’ says Tash.
‘Was that your Russian boyfriend?’ asks Teddy, as she heads for the door.
Tash follows Nico past the marquee and into the house. He takes his jacket from where he has hung it on a hook by the door and, without looking behind him, opens the door and walks through it. He doesn’t even slam it.
‘Wait,’ says Natasha, following him.
He doesn’t look back. He walks in the light rain up the uneven country road, past Teddy’s driver in the Merc, past a Cambridge taxi dropping off some of Danny’s friends. There’s a village pub by the river and he stops just beyond it, by the little hump-backed stone bridge. Water gurgles underneath like it’s being squeezed out of a sponge. All the last drops.
When Tash reaches Nico, she sees he is crying. Why do all these men cry? Could he not be bleeding like the sultan, riding away sated but worn on his steaming horse? She wants something else for their end, but it is this.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. She touches his arm, but he shakes her hand off.
‘Don’t,’ he says.
‘I—’
‘I can leave tomorrow. It’s not a problem. Just forget I was ever here.’
‘Nico.’
‘You never replied to my letters,’ he says. ‘And then the police came. I thought you needed my help … I wanted to come and see that you’re all right.’
‘Well, I’m not all right,’ says Tash. ‘My father’s in prison, so.’ She shrugs. ‘Why didn’t you just email me?’
‘We said we wouldn’t.’
‘You said that. I didn’t care. How did you even know where to find me?’
