Sequela (30 page)

'OK,' Kester said. 'Who's hungry?'

'Well, I am,' Betta said, 'but I notice that you don't seem to have a kitchen.'

John frowned and looked around.

'I don't.' Kester laughed. 'We've got a catering department that does special "home cooked" food as well as everyday stuff. I may not have cooked it but I decided what to ask somebody else to cook.'

'Even better,' Sienna said. 'I shouldn't have had that burger on the way over.'

'She's joking,' Betta said, too quickly.

'It's just you haven't hosted one of our parties for so bloody long that we thought you might have forgotten how to cook,' John said.

'I have forgotten.' Kester held his head high and then stooped in a long bow.

'He's worked very hard at it,' Alexis said.

She placed a hand on Kester's shoulder. It felt different to the usual Alexis power touch. He tried to give towards her hand, let her know what it meant to him.

They went through to Kester's office. Once they had stopped crowing about the view and mucking around pretending to fall through the windows, he called in the first course. Everyone sat ill at ease while the waiting staff appeared and served their scallop starter from a silver platter. Betta looked like she could barely contain her giggles. This was catering's idea of casual. Right.

'You've all heard of The Itch, I take it?' Alexis asked them collectively. Her relaxed manner brought the room back to life.

'Yes, I've got all their albums,' John said. 'The guitarist's hot.'

'Not my type.' Alexis wrinkled up her nose. 'That's great that you're a fan though – you'll get to see them at Kester's fashion show.'

Kester's eyes popped.

'What's wrong, darling?' Alexis asked.

'Nothing,' Kester said, not even noticing that she'd called him
darling
. 'But you're kidding, right?'

'Worried that it'll get out? I can tell your friends – they won't spill the beans, will they?' She looked around the table, puckering her lips. 'Will you?' As if blackmailing children with the prospect of sweets, she added, 'You won't get tickets if you do.'

'Tickets,' John said. 'Awesome.'

'You're serious?' Kester asked.

Betta and Sienna laughed in unison.

'I've been dying to see The Itch,' Sienna said. 'It'll be amazing!'

'And it'll be brilliant to actually see your viruses,' Betta said. 'There's a real buzz amongst the student wearers.'

'I saw this little punk the other day,' Sienna said. 'He was wearing tartan trousers with a see-though crotch. You could see all the sores on his thingy – it was disgusting.' She made a face and took a swig of wine.

'The Itch. Wow.' Kester said, daunted.

Alexis was starting to look disappointed at his reaction. Angry disappointed. She knew they were his favourite band. It must have been hard to get them. He should be leaping about, punching the air.

Kester pushed his plate away. 'Are you guys finished with your starters?'

He got up to a chorus of nods and walked through to the other room to call the caterers up with the mains. He leaned on the bar for a moment. He shouldn't have had a drink before they arrived. He already felt steaming.

'Any more drinks?' he heard Alexis saying.

She arrived in his living room just as he finished the call.

'The Itch?' he said, chucking his Book aside.

'We got them,' she said, skipping over, looking younger than ever, cheeks flushed from the wine. Her complexion was as clean and healthy-looking as he had ever seen it. 'I hope you're pleased. It's going to be incredible.'

'Yes, I know – I just can't imagine it,' Kester said. 'They're so…cool.'

'Look at yourself Kester,' Alexis said, staring straight into his eyes.
'You're
so cool. Everybody wants a piece of you. Have you forgotten what it was like in Paris, Milan, New York? Listen to your friends – they're chattering about it through there like teenagers – you're like a rock star. You've seen this, right?'

Alexis took out her Book and held it up to him. At first he thought he was looking at an album cover, or a film poster. Slowly it dawned on Kester that it was him, an image from his photoshoot. There he was, standing feet apart on the glass shelf, gazing out over the sunrise, a giant on top of the world, chilling out, not giving a shit. Looking cool. He looked cool.

'Tell me that doesn't make you feel good. Tell me you're not cool enough for The Itch to play at your show.'

Kester broke into a smile. She was so convincing. He picked her up and hugged her tightly. It felt strange. It felt friendly in a way their physical contact never had before. Their time together on tour had changed something. She slid back down out of his arms, laughing.

'You're right,' he said, 'it's going to be amazing. I love it. I'm sorry, I'm such a tool. I love it, I love you. You're too good to me.'

'I'm having a special catsuit made,' she said, pushing away from him, eyelids suddenly low; her predatory look. 'It has a panel down the front that I can take off to show Touché once the models have been on.' She traced a V with her fingertips, from her shoulders down to two inches below her belly button.

'Sounds good,' Kester said, reaching out for her hips and pulling her back towards him.

'Get a room,' John said, striding through the doors from Kester's office. 'Oh, sorry, this is your room. Well, get on the bed and at least pull the curtains will you?'

Alexis wiggled her way out of Kester's arms, smiling as coyly as was possible for her and reached under the bar. She picked up a bottle of red and one of white and rushed on tiptoe back through to the other room.

'Well, well,' John said.

'Well what?' Kester asked.

'She's not quite how I remember. The fire-breathing woman from the bar.'

'John, can you even remember the bar?'

'I remember arriving.'

'You see where I'm going with this?'

'I mean it in a good way. I like her. I like her sense of humour. I like her, eh –'

'Good.' Kester leaned back against the bar. 'I'm glad…I'm relieved.'

'And there's obviously a bit of, you know. I mean it's not just like, you know how you said everyone sleeps with everyone.'

'Who knows?'

'And frankly, who cares? She's getting The Itch to play for you at your own personal fashion show, man – that's so fucking cool I can't even tell you. You'd better get me tickets. I'll be getting myself a new chastity belt if I have to stand in a crowd of diseased City loons, but there's no way I'm missing your show. Now why did I come through?'

'Toilet?' Kester asked.

'Good call! That could have been unfortunate. Back in a mo.'

John walked across the room into the bathroom and started laughing to himself, presumably at the arse-height shelf.

-o-

Over the main course of venison, Kester sat back and let the conversation free-wheel without him. He watched Alexis. She looked natural, unaffected, a different Alexis to the business Alexis. Not Mrs Farrell and not Alexis the samurai-edged seductress, more like the little girl she became in the PlayPen. There was a soft-shouldered laugh that he had only ever seen before in that orange playsuit. He was drawn to her in a new way, a natural way. This was very unlike the push-and-pull of their usual relationship with its tricksy boundaries. Yes, she was Lex from the PlayPen, he decided. He couldn't handle there being four of her.

After the main course they rested,
leaning back in their chairs to make room for their bellies, relaxed by conversation and wine. While the catering staff cleared the table, they talked nonsense, planning out the different levels of the imagined
PlayPen Scientifica
, and offering Kester helpful ideas for new viruses.

'I think its main fault is that you'd have to buy a whole new set of shoes,' Betta said.

'But that's the whole point of YetiFoot!' John banged his hand on the table. 'You wouldn't have to wear shoes! You guys. You've got no vision. Am I right, Kester?'

'John, are you ever wrong?'

'OK. Forget it. What's for dessert?'

'I didn't think you'd want any,' Kester said.

Betta sat bolt upright and John looked like he'd been slapped.

'Just kidding,' Kester said. 'It's chocolate mousse though – nothing fancy.'

The chocolate mousses arrived. They were served in small heavy cut-crystal bowls, perched on the top of fluted silver stems the length of forearms. Each was decorated with chocolate filigree and gold leaf.

'I like it,' John said. 'Nice and simple, like you said.'

'I think I might have to stand up to eat this,' Betta said, peering over her bowl, which came almost up to the height of her eyes.

They picked up their spoons and began eating.

'Setting aside YetiFoot, how's your personal research going, Kester?' Sienna asked, picking some of the lacework off her mousse and biting into it. It fell to pieces.

'My…' Kester's face blanched.

'Yeah,' John said, too soon for Kester to intervene, 'your new screens – did you get them working? I think you were torso testing…' John looked up and stopped when he saw Kester's face.

Kester looked round at Alexis.

'Yes, Kester,' she said. A barrier had gone up around her. 'Do tell us how you are getting on.'

How to explain? Kester imagined himself battering against her shield like a bird against glass, desperate to reach her, injuring himself with each shambolic attempt. He had been meaning to tell her. He knew it would have to come out sometime, somehow, but his plan had been to stall until he decided what he was going to do with it.

'My research?' Kester decided to brazen it out. 'Yes. I don't think I've told you about my private research, have I, Lex?'

Alexis shook her head, a forced smile on her lips. Kester's friends glanced at one another, spoons still suspended halfway to bowls, halfway to mouths. The room was quiet. Kester realised that the music had stopped.

'I've been working on a new type of screen. One that doesn't rely on drugs to work. It's based almost purely on viral technology – soft nanotech rather than the sort of hard nanotech that the old one uses, though there's still a bit of that of course. It works with the body and you don't need to take drugs to use it.'

'I still think this is awesome,' Betta said. 'This is what you were made for. I mean don't get me wrong, the fashion stuff is cool, but this is what you'll be remembered for.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Kester could see the colour rising in Alexis' cheeks.

'It's in the torso testing stage now,' he said.

'You've got it working?' John asked. 'That's amazing – woohoo!'

Kester couldn't help but look excited by this. He looked straight at Alexis.

'I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Lex. I thought it was safer that you didn't know for now. I didn't want you to get in trouble with Chen. But the company could really –'

'This is a real thing?' Alexis asked. 'You've got it working?'

Kester nodded. She looked conflicted. Was she angry, impressed, what? She took a slow sip of wine, eyes focused somewhere out on the City skyline.

'We agreed I could work on my own projects in my own time.' Kester started to defend himself.

'John's right,' Alexis said, looking up at Kester. 'That is amazing.' She stood up. 'Come on, then – take me to the lab – show me. I'll call security and get these guys on a group tour pass – they're on the system anyway. It'll take seconds. You can show us all.'

Alexis started tapping on her Book.

'But…dinner…' Kester said. Was she serious? What was she going to do to him? He cast a distressed look at John.

'Watch out, Kester, she's going to steal it for the company!' John said and made a comic suspicious face at Alexis.

'Come on – it's mousse, it's cold, it'll keep – the lab is right here,' she said, walking towards the door. 'Don't you want to show us?'