Weeks in Naviras (29 page)

‘That I doubt,’ Gavin grimaced as we turned away and walked into the house. ‘Thanks guys, I won’t be needing you for a while,’ he gestured to his two assistants who were following behind us.

‘Anushka, could you?’ I said, and she nodded, gestured for the two men to follow her. ‘You’ve given me a pleasant surprise,’ I said quietly as we continued down the short hallway, lined with ancient artworks.

‘Do you know why I needed to see you?’ Even though we were alone, he kept his voice very low.

‘Needed to? No.’ I wondered how much of my angst he’d been made aware of. ‘Things have been difficult this past fortnight, though. Perhaps you’ve been feeling the same.’

‘Can we go outside?’

‘Of course.’ I led him through the Great Hall, past the table where brunch had been served for us. We left the house through a side door and were shortly on the terrace outside. ‘So, what’s been happening?’

‘Further away from the building, if that’s okay?’

‘Sure,’ I was perplexed, but was happy enough to guide him to the east lawn, where we stood in the sunshine. In its full rays it became obvious how haggard he’d become. ‘I was worried this place had been bugged,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, it almost certainly has,’ I replied.

‘I was going to head to Geneva to meet Morgan, but when I heard you’d left London I thought I’d make a quick stopover.’

‘How did you know about that?’

‘I saw it on a blog. I’ve been monitoring things, waiting for a good moment.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s difficult. They insist our searches in the private residence aren’t recorded, but I don’t believe them. They tried to make up a tonne of reasons why I couldn’t stop in London, but I’ve still got some power, I guess. And of course you gave me a good pretext.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and produced my engagement ring. ‘Very clever of you.’ He handed it to me.

‘I wasn’t even sure why I did that,’ I said. ‘I wanted to give you a signal, more than anything. Everything that happened in DC after the attack just put me on edge, I didn’t quite know how to convey that.’

‘Did he notice?’

‘Not about the ring? No.’ I smiled to myself.

He exhaled, breathed in again. ‘They’re watching me, Ellie, I know they are. They say it’s enhanced security, but we’ve been through some high alerts before and it was never like this.’ He pressed his finger to the space between his eyes. ‘It’s Morgan. Something’s happened to her and I don’t know how, or why.’

I said nothing, disturbed by the fear in his face. There was a breeze getting up, whipping my hair around me. ‘This all since the attack,’ I said.

Gavin nodded once. ‘She told me last week that the end of days was coming, that there had to be war in Israel before the Second Coming.’

‘Oh God,’ I said, in disbelief. ‘That’s not her talking, even I know that.’

‘She wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming her head off. Sometimes she won’t stop yelling, even when I try to shake her. Then the next morning she’s completely unaware that it’s happened. Can we sit? I’m feeling jetlagged.’

We sat down on the lawn, Gavin with his knees raised, picking at blades of grass and twirling them around in his hand.

I took off my shoes, enjoying the feel of the soft lawn on my feet. ‘Does anyone else know about Morgan’s behaviour?’

‘They must do, they’ve been trying to limit her appearances ever since the attack but she won’t stop. It’s like she’s pushing herself, even though she’s exhausted. And you’re right, this isn’t her. Nothing like her.’

After a minute’s silence I told Gavin about my own sleep problems, along with the disaster in Parliament earlier in the week and the strange thoughts I’d had about Rav. Then we sat in silence for a minute or two, from somewhere in the woods behind us I think I hear the croak of a crow.

Gavin cleared his throat. ‘That’s not the main reason why I came to see you though. What you said to me in Washington, about skiing. It’s stuck in my mind.’

‘How so?’

‘I’ve been having bad dreams too. You’re in them, lately.’

‘Oh?’ I felt uncomfortable.

‘Each time I’m skiing, down a black run. But then I go for a jump and I lose control. Then I fall, go tumbling and sliding and I can’t stop. I wind up on the edge of a cliff, dangling off the edge, just hanging on with my hands.’

He looked over at me, his face paler. ‘Then you’re there. You reach down to me and try to pull me back up, but I can’t grab hold of you and I fall over the edge. I fall and I fall, then just before I hit the floor I always wake up.’ He swallowed. ‘At first it was just a hand, but then after a couple times it started being you. Yet it’s odd, because you’re wearing the wrong clothes. It’s like you’re dressed like, you should be..’

‘On a beach,’ I blurted, not looking at him. ‘I’m wearing a bikini.’

‘Yes,’ He grabbed hold of my hand, forced me to look at him. ‘You’ve had the same dream.’

‘Not quite, but similar,’ I said. ‘Also, I’ve been experiencing memories, and they don’t feel like they’re mine, they just come. They’re not connected to anything else, they’re not part of a timeline.’

I told Gavin about Luis, the whole story. It took longer than I’d expected, concluding with the strange thoughts about his death I’d experienced just the day before. Gavin took it all in without much surprise, nodding almost consensually when I told him about my on-off affair with Luis.

‘I honestly
remember
him telling me,’ I said. ‘In Naviras, but that’s impossible of course.’

Gavin pulled a daisy from the lawn. ‘Morgan’s always slept soundly until this, as far as I know.’

I wondered how far to pry. ‘You two still share a bed?’

‘Oh God, no, we have twin beds in the same room, even then neither of us like it, much.’ Gavin seemed uncomfortable. ‘But word would get out, if one of us moved across the hall.’

‘Rav’s also having problems sleeping, but James doesn’t seem to be,’ I was trying to piece it all together in my head. ‘And James isn’t showing any of the behaviour you’ve described in Morgan.’

‘That’s what I came here to ask, partly.’ Gavin was concentrating on pulling the petals off a daisy. ‘I was kinda hoping you’d say something was wrong with James, too.’ He looked up at me. ‘That’s pretty selfish of me, I guess.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I noticed the side-door of Chequers had opened, the First Gentleman’s two advisers appeared alongside Anushka. All three were looking at us. ‘I know what it’s like, to feel alone in situations,’ I gestured to the building. ‘Look, I think you’re about to be corralled.’

‘Yeah, they want me in Geneva by mid-afternoon,’ Gavin stood up slowly, then offered me his hand to pull me up. There’s something I have to show you before I go, Ellie. I was only going to, if you sort-of backed up these feelings I’ve had,’ he rummaged in the pocket of his trousers, pulling out a piece of paper which he unfolded and showed to me. It was a blurry photo; a young dark-haired woman in a trouser-suit and blue blouse, looking away down a plush corridor, wearing tall heels. ‘Look familiar?’

‘Yeah,’ I stared at the image. It made me think the woman was wearing the wrong shoes. ‘I do remember her, from somewhere. Who is she?’

‘Her name’s Isabel. That I saw from her badge. Two days ago I walked past her in the main part of the White House and she seemed familiar. I just did a double take, because I had this feeling that I’d met her before.’ He folded up the photo again and handed it to me. ‘That’s not unusual in itself, I guess, but she seemed a little uncomfortable seeing me. Later on, I got this feeling I’d met her with you. I saw her again a few days later, that’s when I took this.’

I scrunched up my eyes. ‘Sorry, it’s a blank. Maybe it’ll come to me.’

‘That’s why I wanted to come give you a copy,’ he grinned.

‘How can we stay in contact without anyone else knowing?’

‘Let me have a think about it,’ Gavin started walking down the gentle slope of the lawn towards the house and I followed. ‘You’re on good terms with James’s chief of staff, maybe you could have a word?’

‘With Rav? Yeah, I could try. Would you mind me telling him about Morgan?’

Gavin stopped and briefly looked up to the sky, then back at me. ‘If you think he can be trusted?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I’m quite good at treading carefully. What do you think Morgan will do next?’

He frowned again. ‘She’s not fit to be president at the moment, but the Veep would be even worse.’

‘I know.’ We were almost at the house, any closer and there was a risk someone would hear us.

He smiled. ‘I’m appreciate you being so honest with me about things. There’s very little either of us can do,’ he concluded. ‘But I’ll find a way of contacting you. It might take a while, though.’

‘Okay. I was going to say there’s no rush, but really there is,’ I said as we continued walking towards the house.

Anushka didn’t ask me anything about what had been discussed. ‘It seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders,’ was her only remark.

It was difficult to say much in front of the kids. Bobby absorbed everything and was liable to repeat things at the worst possible moment. But later that afternoon he went outside to play swingball with Sadie, although she didn’t really provide much competition for him. Anushka and I sat at the table on the patio, watching them. ‘There’s something wrong with the President,’ I said. ‘She’s behaving strangely, and Gavin wanted to know whether anyone here was acting similarly.’

‘Are they?’ It was an oddly direct question from Anushka.

‘Not in quite the same way,’ I was feeling tired, my eyelids kept drooping. ‘But I’m not sleeping properly. It could be that Gavin gets in touch with me, unofficially, would you have a problem helping out with that?’

‘I work for you, Ellie,’ she said simply. ‘Not the government.’

I trusted her; mostly because although she’d never said so, I knew she didn’t like James or Rosie. I knew from the faces she pulled whenever Rosie was around that Anushka didn’t trust her, and that she sympathised with my predicament with James. Pity’s a very difficult expression to hide.

At lunchtime we watched the news; it appeared the talks in Geneva would break up without agreement. James vented his frustration to a reporter outside the conference centre. ‘What’s important now is that the framework for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians can be agreed,’ he said.

‘So they’re not really having talks, just talks about talks,’ I almost laughed.

James made his way to Chequers as soon as his plane landed back in London, bringing Rav with him but not Rosie. After dinner that night, when James was having some rare time with the kids, I asked Rav about Rosie’s absences.

‘She’s been working all hours, and then trying to see her husband,’ he said, a bit defensively. ‘None of this has been easy on her, either. Actually, she’s on the verge of resigning. She wants to have kids before it’s too late. She’s forty next year, after all.’

‘Does James know?’ I found the prospect of Rosie disappearing from Downing Street baffling. On some level I didn’t want her to leave; it felt good to have someone to define myself against.

‘Oh, James knows,’ Rav was saying. ‘The announcement might come as early as Monday, depending on a few things. He managed to persuade her to stay on until the Israel crisis passes, but obviously that’s looking interminable at the moment.’

‘How are you sleeping now, Rav?’

‘Better.’ The old grin was back. ‘Anyway, if Rosie’s off then I can’t really leave James in the lurch as well, can I?’

‘You can do whatever you want, Rav.’

He changed the subject. ‘What did Gavin Cross have to say for himself earlier?’

‘Oh, not much, just wanted to see how I was. Is he still in Geneva?’

‘He’s flying back to DC with the president on Air Force One right now,’ Rav was looking at me intently. ‘It was unusual for him to come here like that, without warning.’

I paused for a moment. ‘Gavin told me the President’s not sleeping properly. Actually, she’s having nightmares.’ I knew I had his attention, related Gavin’s concerns about Morgan’s mental health, her odd new beliefs.

‘Maybe that’s what happens when you have a close shave with death,’ he offered. ‘I think everyone’s nerves are still a bit frayed.’

‘Yours don’t seem to be, in fact you and James seem totally unaffected.’

‘That’s to say that you’re affected, too?’

I didn’t feel that Rav was on my side, perhaps he thought I was delusional, unhinged. Still I didn’t care. ‘When I felt unwell in Parliament, it was because I was looking at you and James. The two of you were in the wrong place, Rav.’ I paused. ‘You should have been at the despatch box, not him. You should be the prime minister. And I think we both know that, Rav.’

If I’d wanted to shock him, it had worked. For the first time in the decade I’d known him, Rav was speechless. I turned away from him and went to re-join James and the kids.

On Saturday the foreign secretary visited Chequers and I was lumped with looking after his wife for most of the day. A nice enough woman, but I was pre-occupied and struggled to keep up light conversation. My memories seemed cross-hatched, I’d turn a corner in my past and find something unexpected there, a monster of a thought lurking. One minute I’d be thinking about Lottie and then she’d turn into Morgan, laughter morphing into screams. I resolved that weekend to see the doctor first thing on Monday, to get some sleeping pills. He was happy enough to prescribe half a dozen but warned me they weren’t a long-term solution. At first they lengthened the amount of time I could go without waking, but not by much. I still found myself waking at least three times a night, sometimes only really becoming conscious when I was already in the living room.