Sequela (40 page)

'Do you think I'm being stupid, John?'

'Yes, mate. But I can't be any more specific about it than that.'

'Great. Thanks.'

'Just…make the most of it. When are you and Pera Pera making the naughty?'

'Tomorrow night, during her show.' Kester lifted his glass and looked through the beer at John.

'Tomorrow night?' John clapped his hands and rubbed them together. 'You should be at home scrubbing your sack. I want updates. Text me updates. And if you can get a picture of her –'

'John – I think she might have security with her.'

'What, in the room?'

'Well, you know…I don't know. Yule hasn't briefed me yet.'

'Hm,' John said, calming down a bit and sitting back. 'I can see why you're nervous.'

-o-

'Come on, Lex,' Kester said, 'just tell me who won the auction.'

Kester was due to arrive with his first client at ten. It was six o'clock and he had shaken off his lunchtime beers. Alexis had inspected him after his shower and had supervised as he got dressed. It had to be someone important. He was trying his best to take John's advice and get excited about it.

'Let's you and I not call it an auction, Kester,' Farrell said. 'You're making yourself sound like a slave.'

Kester raised an eyebrow at her.

'Why won't you tell me? It's a man isn't it?'

'No, it's not a man. Can you just –' Alexis bit her lip. 'Stop.'

Kester took in her expression. It was complicated, many expressions fighting one another, resulting in nothing understandable. He didn't like seeing it on Alexis' normally straightforward face, her lewd smirking beautiful face. It made her look weak. It didn't suit her.

'So is it a woman?' He would try to joke her out of it.

'What? No. I'm not telling you. Just calm down, Kester. You need to be a good boy.' Alexis narrowed her eyes. 'Shut up and put out. Keep Chen happy, remember?'

'Yes, Miss!' Kester said.

Keep Chen happy. Lex was really going to take the screens to Chen? She was? She was – why mention it like that when she didn't have to. Buoyed up, his excitement became real.

Kester acknowledged Gaunt's presence in the doorway. 'But just…if you were supposed to be sleeping with someone in an hour's time, wouldn't you want to know who it was?'

'Kester, she never knows who she'll be sleeping with in an hour's time – you know that,' Gaunt said. 'I'll give you a clue, young prince: your fairytale ascendency will be complete.'

Kester shook his head at Gaunt, drew a blank. Whoever it was, it sounded promising. He felt a little twinge of excitement.

'Come on boy, what would any fairytale be incomplete without?'

Alexis looked from Gaunt to Kester and gave a small sigh.

'I'll see you at the helipad in 30 minutes,' she said. 'We're taking the chopper.'

'We have a helipad?' Kester asked. Now he was excited.

'Just underneath that bloody great X on the roof where we did your photoshoot,' said Gaunt, nodding to Alexis as she left the room. 'Now come on, you didn't get it yet. What would a fairytale be incomplete without?'

Kester paused. What sort of a question was that? A dragon? He thought. A happy ending? Yes, that could be it. He looked at Gaunt, bemused.

'A happy ending?'

'Close enough.' Gaunt smirked. He handed Kester a set of dog tags. 'Keep these on. There's a panic button in the centre of each, just in case. Now, if you come up with me I'll introduce you to Terrence. He'll be your bodyguard for all external visits.'

-o-

Kester nodded off in the helicopter. When he woke they were landing on a stretch of baize-perfect grass. It was getting dark, but the grass was well lit. A football pitch? was his first thought. Could it be a footballer? A footballer's spouse? He lifted his head and looked out of one window then the other. He nearly choked.

'It's fucking Buckingham Palace!' he shouted to Alexis, who was sitting across from him, cold pride on her face. She snapped back to attention and smiled.

'Well spotted,' she said into her mouthpiece. 'You don't need to shout.'

'You knew we were coming here?'

'Of course. Why did you think I was coming along for the ride? It's not every day you get to come here on business.'

There were six internal security guards on the lawn to meet them. Four of them flanked Kester and two Alexis as they walked up the lawn towards the palace. Kester glanced over his shoulder anxiously every now and again, wishing the guards would let them walk together. Kester's bodyguard Terrence brought up the rear, a beast of a man, a bear crossed with a fridge, radio constantly to his chin, eyes darting back and forth.

Inside, they were taken up some back stairs to an exquisite waiting room. This was the real deal. Kester thought of his mock baroque bedroom. It was pathetic compared to this. Royalty would laugh if they could see his room – his half a room – if they knew how proud he was of it and how much it had made him feel like royalty until now. The guards seated Kester on a love seat with thick red and gold stripes woven into the fabric. Alexis and Terrence flanked him officially until the guards had left the room. They all heard the key turn in the lock.

Alexis sat down next to Kester on the love seat. She was about to start talking when a bell rang and the tall gold doors before them began to open with ostentatious reserve. Alexis shot back to her feet and retook her position at his left hand side. Kester smoothed the collar of his labcoat and planted a hand on each knee to stop himself from fidgeting. He felt ludicrous, as if he had turned up at a fancy dress party wearing the wrong theme, but Yule had assured him that the client would like it if he looked like he'd just walked out of the lab.

Two footmen, wigged and dressed in white, appeared from behind the doors. The doors had opened slowly because they were so heavy, Kester realised. This could be tolerable. The footmen stepped out in perfect time, stopped at the threshold of the door and nodded simultaneously to Kester, who found himself on his feet and walking towards them. This could be OK. They guided him into the room. This could even be good. He was at the top of a rollercoaster, about to tip over into gravity's clutches. He couldn't help the excitement.

'The Princess will be with you momentarily,' one of the footmen said. 'Please make ready.'

The footmen stepped out of the room in time, pulling the doors behind them, shutting out Alexis' face, skin pale, eyes burning.

The Princess. A rush of adrenaline sent a shudder up Kester's neck. He looked at the sweeping marks the doors had left on the thick-pile carpet.
Make ready
. He looked up and took in the room. It was a large bedroom, decorated like a Viennese music box in gold and scrollwork. The curtains were drawn and the room was lit by soft lamplight which
emphasised
the luxurious finishes of the rose
-coloured
textiles. Kester walked over to the bed and slid a hand up one of its barley-twist poles. He thought of his own four-poster and laughed. It would fit inside this one twice over. The bed was curtained with heavy silk which was gathered in a pleated canopy up at the level of the chandelier. The chandelier; it looked oddly understated.

Make ready
. The Princess wasn't one for messing about then. Kester looked around for somewhere to put his clothes, humming himself a dramatic theme. There was a chair by the bed, presumably for this purpose. He started to strip off, fingers jittering over buttons and zips. He didn't want to be still undressing when she came in. He piled his clothes on the chair and folded his labcoat on top. Or should he be wearing it? No, that would look too porno, he decided. His heart was racing now. Where should he be? Standing? Lying on the bed? He tittered. On the bed, under the covers – best to be demure.

Kester could hear someone coming. He leapt onto the bed and wrestled the hotel-tight covers loose enough to slip underneath. Their weight – the gold spun through them must be real. It would be disrespectful to look like he was lounging. He sat up, covers to the waist, and ruffled a hand through his hair. With each heartbeat his dog tags gave a small clink and he became more ready. The door was opening. This was it.

The Princess walked through the door between the bed and the window, just a few feet away. She continued across the room without looking over at Kester. She wore a tailored old-gold coloured lace jumpsuit, with elegantly flared legs – no logos. So, he would have the pleasure of undressing her himself. Her dark hair was straight and neat as a dressage mare's. It was rude to speak first; Kester waited to be addressed. The Princess turned.

Her expression was a punch in the stomach. Horror, disgust. Kester panicked. He had made a mistake. She wasn't expecting him to be in the bed.

'They said to ready myself,' he said. 'I'm Doctor Lowe.'

She stared at him open-mouthed. Of course this wasn't what they had meant. She started to back away towards the dressing table, her expression less of shock now than disbelief. Kester caught sight of his reflection in the dressing table mirror behind her – pale, scruffy-looking against the elegant backdrop of silk damask, an intruder. Then she snorted. She snorted as if she had come in and found a pig in her bed, and she began to laugh cruelly, covering her mouth with her manicured hand.

'I know who you are, Doctor Lowe. I bought you, after all.' Her face was harsh. She was talking to a staff member who had got out of line. 'But let's get one thing absolutely clear: I am not going to sleep with you.'

Kester felt naked in a bad way, naked in a recurring nightmare way.

'But you won the auction,' Kester said. There was no point in putting on airs and graces now. His words sounded small in the big room, his voice common. 'Your majesty,' he added.

'Of course I won it. I wanted to have your virus first.'

'But I'm here to infect you…that's what you bought at the auction…not the virus, you bought me.'

That cruel laugh again. This was not Alexis-style cruelty, this was centuries of inbreeding and class segregation cruelty, this was cruelty handed down through generations of royals; this was guillotine.

'You seriously think I would sleep with you? You think I would
pay
to sleep with you. I'm sorry, my darling. You may be a high-class shag to the other bidders, those…celebrities,' she said the word with distaste, 'but I just want the virus. I don't want to have to touch you, or anybody else for that matter.'

'But why…' Kester pulled the sheets higher up his chest. 'Why bring me here?'

'They need to think I've screwed you. I want them to think that I got what they couldn't afford. I may see that you're just V's jumped-up little rent boy, but the public will go all frog-prince over it, the celebrities will be jealous and I get a lovely slice of homepage headlines for the next week.

'But I don't need to explain myself to you. All you need to know is that you are to give no details of our appointment to the press. You will remain here for three hours and then you will return to V. You are permitted to exhibit a knowing and satisfied smile when questioned by the press, friends and colleagues, but I draw the line at smugness. I want to inject the virus myself. Send over a package for me as soon as you get back to V. And it needs to be fast-acting. I don't want that dog-woman showing up wearing her virus before me.'

Kester felt skinny, dirty, small. He wanted to say that the virus would present when it presented, he couldn't make it work any faster than normal, wanted to tell her that only royalty would be vain enough to think that nature would make an exception for them. He glanced over desperately at his clothes. The Princess was standing there staring at him, examining him. She looked simultaneously amused and nauseated by his presence. After what seemed like an age, she flicked her eyes away from him and strode back towards the door.

'I'd hoped to have this conversation in a
civilised
fashion,' she said as she walked, 'but it makes no difference. I trust you have embarrassed yourself enough never to speak of this.' It wasn't a question. 'That will be all, Doctor Lowe.'

She opened the door, a skill Kester was surprised she had mastered.

'Princess, I'm a scientist…' Kester began, but he couldn't think how to continue.

She ignored him and exited the room, closing the door behind her.