Kohn felt his ears going red. ‘Yeah, I guess she has a few words to say to me.’
‘Right,’ said Valery. ‘Go out, then through the door on the left to the garden, and in the first french window. I’ll be along in a few minutes.’ She smiled quizzically. ‘I imagine the worst should be over by then. After that we can discuss what you do next.’
‘I have a companion,’ Kohn said. ‘She’s out in the truck at the moment, and she’d have to be involved in any decisions.’
‘Of course.’
‘OK. See you,’ Kohn said.
He went out into the garden, through a glass door and into a kind of parlour full of overstuffed chairs and large vases. In one of the chairs a woman sat, head half-hidden by a bonnet, bowed over the lap of the huge spreading skirt of her dress. She was meticulously stitching small pieces of coloured fabric on to the back of a denim jacket. A circular pattern with lettering around it was already beginning to take shape. She looked up, slowly, eyelashes lifting modestly.
Cat had a very cat-like smile.
Moh grinned back. ‘Calamity Jane,’ he said.
Teeth white in the sunlight.
‘It’s all fixed?’ she asked.
‘Yup,’ Moh said. ‘You’re in good standing again. An honest-to-goddess accredited left-wing combatant.’
‘Back to the struggle. Good.’
The jacket slipped to the floor as she raised the pistol she had concealed underneath. She held it in her right hand and brought the left – the plastic cast becoming visible as the loose, lacy cone of her sleeve fell back – to give a steadying grip on the right wrist. Very cool, very professional.
‘Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch,’ said Catherin Duvalier.
Cat felt she had been waiting for this moment, this perfect revenge, for years rather than days. A glimpsed thought told her this was the case, that recriminations from their original break-up still echoed. The thought passed, leaving a steely memory of Moh stalking out of the hospital bay.
Her anger tensed the muscles of her damaged forearm, and hurt.
She’d had more visitors than anybody else in the secure ward. First Moh, then – in a virtual sense – Donovan. And later that evening the nurse who’d brought her dinner had put her head around the partition, smiled and said, ‘A friend of mine would like to meet you.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘She’s a teller at the Body Bank. She’s learned about your position and she’d like to help you.’
‘I don’t want to be a security guard, thanks.’
‘Oh, that’s not the idea at all. Nothing like that. That’s why she wants to see you. I think you’ll be interested.’
Catherin shrugged and agreed. A few minutes later the bank teller walked in, heels clicking, clothes whispering together. She poised herself on the chair beside the bed.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Annette. I understand you’re looking for a safe place to stay, out of the fights.’
It didn’t take Annette long to convince Catherin that the femininist community was a good place to go until her status as a combatant was restored. It would give her a retreat, a chance to plan.
‘But that’s all,’ Cat explained hastily. ‘I’m not saying I agree with your ideas or anything—’
‘Of course not,’ Annette said. ‘But don’t count on it. We’ve won over quite a few combatants who’ve got tired of the boys’ games.’
Cat smiled. It wouldn’t happen to her. ‘When can I go?’
‘First thing tomorrow morning?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good. That’s settled, then.’ As she stood up to leave, Annette picked up Catherin’s denims and looked at them with some disdain.
‘We’ll have to get you something decent to wear,’ she said, making to take the whole blue bundle.
‘No, no,’ Catherin said. ‘I want to keep these. I can do something with them.’
‘All right…Let me just get your measurements. Excuse me a moment.’ She took a scanner from her pocket and waved it from Cat’s neck to her ankles. ‘See you tomorrow, Catherin.’
She returned at an ungodly hour the next morning with long paper bags draped over her shoulder. The nurse pulled a screen across the bay. Catherin looked at the bags.
‘Modesty,’ she said. ‘Oh, Jesus!’
‘Go out in style, kid,’ Annette said.
They had to help her to dress. It wasn’t because of her broken arm in its shell, or her innocence of the intricate fastenings. There simply was no way to put on or take off these clothes independently. When they had finished they stepped back and smiled at her.
‘Oh. Oh,’ the nurse said. ‘You’re so beautiful.’
Annette took Catherin’s shoulders and turned her to face a wall mirror. She stared at this strange double, coiffed and corsetted, crinolined in blue satin and white lace. She stepped forward, then back, amazed at the sheer amount of stuff that moved with her, the trimmings that fluttered and swayed. She had to laugh, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. She plucked at the skirt in front of her with gloved fingers, let it drop.
‘I feel silly,’ she said. ‘Helpless.’
‘Not quite,’ Annette grinned. She reached over to give Catherin a small handbag. ‘In there, my dear, along with some make-up carefully chosen for your complexion, you’ll find a neat, ladylike little pistol.’
Catherin smiled, relaxing. This trace element of the kind of protection she had always counted on reassured her and enabled her to accept the kind on which she must now rely: a power that didn’t come out of the barrel of a gun. The shaping grip around her waist, the frame of fabric below her waist – they were not a prison but a castle.
‘OK, sisters,’ she said. ‘Let’s make an exit.’
She walked out of the ward with her head high, looking straight in front of her. She had once seen a royal wedding on television, so she knew how to get the effect.
Moh looked at her for a long second.
‘Look, Cat, I’m honestly sorry about what I did. What I didn’t do. But it’s settled, it’s squared—’
‘Not with me it bloody isn’t. That’s the point. Now I’m back in action I can take you prisoner.’ She grinned. ‘And I just have.’
‘On whose behalf?’ Moh said sourly, playing for time. ‘If it’s the Left Alliance we’ve already worked out what—’
‘Oh, no,’ said Cat. ‘On behalf of Donovan. I called him when I was logged on to sign the release, as soon as I was in the clear. The CLA are sending a couple of agents—’
‘You did what?’
The lady’s gun wasn’t much of a stopper, he thought; he could kill her before he died. For a moment he took comfort in that. Then he remembered there was a way out of the trap and out of the absurd feud that his offence against Cat had started, and which she seemed determined to finish. He eased back from tensing to spring, and waited, forcing a sickly smile.
‘Formally,’ Cat said, ‘they’re coming here to pay you the ransom for me, as they have every right to. And there’s nothing to stop me handing you over to them.’
Moh heard footsteps on the path outside. He stood where he was until Valery came in and stood beside him. Cat flicked a glance at her but the pistol didn’t waver.
‘Here’s something to stop you,’ Moh said. ‘Valery, Miss Duvalier has just claimed me as a prisoner on behalf of the CLA. Two of their fighters are due here – when?’
‘Any time now,’ Cat said. ‘Valery, this has nothing to do with you.’
‘Yes, it has,’ Valery said. ‘For one thing, you’re still inside our community. For another—’ She hesitated, looking uncertainly at Moh.
‘Just tell her, dammit,’ Moh said. ‘If I don’t move it this minute I’ll be—’ He stopped, fighting for breath, for words, against the pictures that his too efficient brain displayed. The thought of falling into the hands of the CLA and, worse, Stasis was turning his skin cold and the room dark.