‘I’m down at the beach. Wanna meet up tonight?’
‘I can’t. My father has grounded me until I finish all my fucking homework. Did you finish already?’
Cara was used to having far more homework than she was given here, and got through it easily. ‘Yeah. I can help you if you like. My folks have got some Russian guy over for dinner. I don’t want to be there. We could meet up later.’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Why, what are you doing?’
‘Just stuff. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’
‘Sure.’ She rang off, wondering if he was starting to lose interest in her. She should have kept more of a distance from him, showed less enthusiasm.
‘Hey, Cara.’ She turned to find Martin Tamworth heading her way, armed with his skateboard. Although he was older and almost absurdly muscular, Tamworth was in the year below the rest of them. He wasn’t too smart, and had been held back to retake his tests. The others avoided him because he had some kind of inner ear problem and shouted when he spoke.
‘Hey, you hear about Norah’s grandmother?’ he asked. ‘She fucking fried out in the desert.’
‘I heard,’ said Cara, still checking her phone. ‘She was my neighbour.’
‘She was like, a hundred years old or something, and got sunstroke. Right in the middle of the desert. Crazy old bitch.’
‘Hey, she was okay.’
‘I fried my pet rabbit back home, left it in the greenhouse during a heatwave. I wanted to cook it for dinner but my old man said that was gross.’
‘He was right, it is gross.’
Tamworth kicked the rock disconsolately. ‘I thought I’d see you guys at the mall last night but you didn’t show. You guys are never around anymore. You’re not avoiding me, are you?’ The amiable Californian worked in a GAP store in the evenings, and enjoyed it so much that everyone assumed he would probably end up working there full-time.
‘We’re not avoiding you, Martin, we just don’t want to spend our evenings hearing about what you saw in the changing rooms, okay?’
‘I get that. Listen, I got to get to the store or they’ll dock my pay. Later, babe.’
‘Later.’
Cara slid down from the rock, dusted her shorts and walked off across the empty road to the ice cream parlour, a glitzy art deco confection of rippled chrome and pastel neon. She could see Lauren, Norah and some of the others seated near the window. They locked fingers in greeting, and Cara slid into a red plastic bench-seat beside them.
‘We’re taking a break from schoolwork,’ said Norah, looking slyly at Lauren. ‘Wanna come with us?’
‘No, it’s okay,’ said Cara slowly. ‘I’ve got things to do tonight.’
‘Aw, come on, I already apologised, didn’t I?’ The pair had argued the day before.
‘Why, what are you going to do?’ asked Cara.
‘It’s gonna be fun.’
‘Tell me what first.’
‘Nah, anyway you’ll probably be seeing Dean anyway.’ Her voice was loaded with insinuation.
Cara bristled. ‘What do you mean?’
Norah exchanged a look with the others. ‘Come on, everyone knows you guys are doing it.’
‘Where did you hear that? Not from me.’
‘So it’s not true then?’
‘If you’ve been listening to Martin, you should know he talks shit.’
‘So you’re still a virgin.’
‘Fuck you, Norah.’
‘I’m just messin’ with you. We’re cool. Anyway, we need to be cool together, don’t we?’
‘Yeah, I guess we do,’ Cara said, and let the subject drop.
ALEXEI PETROVICH WAS not a man given to spontaneity. He studied his companions, remained alert to his surroundings, listened patiently before offering a lugubrious non-committal reply and got slowly, inexorably drunk.
The evening was a disaster. Cara had gone missing, the chicken had dried out, Roy was late and Petrovich was early. The Dream World supervisor was in his late forties, grey-templed, grey-suited and handsome in an out-of-shape, exhausted way. He looked like the manager of a failing provincial football team, but his immobile eyes betrayed a cold alertness. It was the first time the dining room table had been formally laid out since the family moved in. Seated at its head, the Russian drank iced oak vodka at a measured, constant rate. Roy had reminded his wife to buy the brand he liked.
Petrovich was the most senior building supervisor at the resort, and had no conversation except work. Lea struggled to find something to talk about while she prepared the chicken, and found herself matching her guest’s drinking pace with glasses of white wine. She had not eaten lunch, and by the time Roy turned up, was on her way to being drunk.
Petrovich lacked social grace but he liked facts, and recited statistics about the resort whenever the conversation failed. Finally Roy walked through the door, and Lea virtually dropped at his feet in gratitude.
‘Alexei was telling me all about the sterilisation units,’ she said, glaring at him in a signal that meant, For God’s sake take over.
Roy looked from his boss to his wife in obvious discomfort. He helped himself to vodka and toasted Petrovich, after which things became a little easier. But by the time Lea served dessert, the Russian was explaining company financial policies, and Lea found herself opening a fresh bottle.
At first she drank out of nervousness, but Petrovich’s determination to outline the resort’s technical achievements in relentless linearity annoyed her.
‘When we open, it will be the biggest party in the world,’ said Petrovich. ‘We are booking the cultural superstars of the West. The New York Philharmonic. Beyoncé. Richard Gere.’
‘I’m not sure Beyoncé and Richard Gere are superstars anymore,’ said Lea, just to be argumentative.
Petrovich ignored her. ‘Our team created the opening ceremony for your Olympics. They are staging a display of fireworks that will be televised in many countries.’ He pushed aside his chicken and concentrated on refilling his glass.
‘Aren’t you worried about terrorists at the resort?’ asked Lea.
‘There are no terrorists. Why would there be?’ Petrovich’s face clouded.
‘The bombs. I thought they raised the security levels all through Dream World.’
‘You must not concern yourself with this. We have already located the culprits and have full admissions of guilt.’
‘Is that right, Roy?’ Lea asked her husband.
‘I know the security guards made some arrests,’ said Roy.
‘And someone admitted planting a bomb?’
‘Certainly,’ said Petrovich. ‘Mr Hardy located the troublemaker for us.’
‘Of course, Mr Hardy,’ said Lea. Roy shot her a warning look.
‘I think you’ll find that our security services are more efficient than you give them credit for, Mrs Brook.’
‘So Dream World’s public park will be open to everyone?’
‘That is correct, with fountains and picnic lawns for families.’
‘How will the public get into the park? The resort is gated, yes?’
‘Obviously there is security.’
‘Then how will they get past the guards?’
‘They will need to show an identity card issued by the resort for which anyone may apply,’ said Petrovich.
‘So you can’t just show up,’ Lea insisted, waving Roy’s agonised warning glances aside. ‘It’s not a public park.’
‘We are not a public service industry, Mrs Brook. We are a private company seeking to maximise profits for our shareholders, and we decide who can use our facilities. But within that group, all will be free to come and go as they please. It is the capitalist system adopted by both East and West, but mostly denigrated by those who enjoy the comforts of it.’
‘So you’ve created a secure enclave. With its own private police and privately made laws. It’s a separate state where you can do whatever you like.’
‘We have designed civility and good
citizenship into the project, just as art and science were designed into the Parthenon.’
‘But hardly for the same reasons.’
‘Lea, I think you’re being extremely unreasonable,’ said Roy.
‘If someone has an accident in your park who is liable?’ Lea persisted.
Petrovich looked flustered. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t—’
‘There are so many accidents at Dream World. Employees go missing. Their daughters go missing.’
‘This is not my area of expertise.’ Petrovich looked to Roy for help.
‘I was just trying to make a point,’ Lea replied. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Petrovich, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
‘YOU HAD TO keep going, didn’t you?’ said Roy later.
They were in the kitchen, clearing up after Petrovich’s chauffeur had called to take him home. ‘Your old self appears out of nowhere with no thought about how difficult you might make life for me.’
‘He was completely pissed,’ said Lea, refusing to feel ashamed. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll remember anything in the morning.’
‘Well if he does, I’ll know who to blame. I know you, Lea, you’re upset about what happened to Rachel. You’re bored here and you’re looking for something to upset the applecart. Find a hobby. Join the damned cookery classes. Just don’t interfere with my job. And leave the clearing up to the maid, for fuck’s sake.’ He took the tray from her hands and set it down on the counter with a bang.
‘I thought we were in this together. I was just asking a few simple questions.’
‘If you were really in this with me, you wouldn’t ask questions. I had my promotion confirmed. I’m a full director now. I’m expected to behave with decorum. And so are you.’
Roy headed upstairs and closed the bedroom door behind him, something he never normally did. He seemed very different now from the man who had charmed her into bed on a second date.
She sat at the top of the stairs for a while, then went out in the garden for a secret smoke, but there was no Rachel on the other side of the fence, and it was no longer the same.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Important Stuff
SHE KNEW THE hotel was called the Desert Hideaway, and found it easily. From there, the trail grew more difficult to follow. Sand had closed the road Rachel had presumably taken, so she was forced to make a detour and enter the area from a connecting route on the far side. Even then, she wondered how she would ever be sure that she had found the right spot.
But there, straight ahead of her, beneath a double hump of ochre sand and bracken, a series of red and white striped plastic poles marked out the spot where Rachel’s 4X4 had been found.
She checked the temperature gauge and found that it was 42 degrees outside. She didn’t know what she expected to find here. It had been foolish to think of duplicating Rachel’s final journey, slipping out at dawn without telling her family, but she wanted to see for herself and put some errant feeling at rest.
Even though she was wearing desert boots and a long-sleeved shirt, she was reluctant to leave the safety of the vehicle. Heat was radiating up from the ground like the fan-assisted air from a convection oven. She pulled a raffia shopping bag from the back seat and slipped it over the corner of the car door so that it couldn‘t shut, then walked over to the arrangement of poles.
There was nothing to be found, of course. The sand had slipped across the road and the landscape had no doubt changed. The wind had written its signature onto these spines of rock, which history was relentlessly eroding and sifting away. If Rachel had left any mark of her existence in this barren region, it had been buried with the fossils of long-dead creatures beneath micrite and silt. Some bird tracks and a shed snake skin provided the only obvious proof of recent life.
She tossed the single red rose she had brought with her into the centre of the poles, and offered up a silent prayer. Talk to me, Rachel, tell me what happened. I need to know.
A bird cried in the sky, a terrible tearing shriek. Her cheeks were moist for a brief moment before the desert dried them.
As she arrived back at Dream Ranches she realised that Betty must have been watching out for her, because she came over moments after Lea left the Renault and entered the house.
‘I need to speak to you for a moment,’ she said, stepping onto the pristine front lawn with her arms defensively folded, clearly wishing not to be heard by anyone else.
Lea came down and joined her. ‘What’s the matter?’
A few minutes later, Lea returned indoors and went up to Cara’s room. It was Saturday and there was no school, but she knew Cara was in because her computer was chattering to itself. She entered without knocking. Cara was lying on her bed, working on her laptop.
‘You’re supposed to give me a warning before you come in,’ she complained. ‘We had a deal.’
‘The deal’s off.’
Cara sullenly closed her laptop and sat back, awaiting a lecture.
‘Do we need to have a conversation about contraception?’ Lea asked.
‘What? No.’ Cara looked grossed out.
‘You’re spending a lot of time with Dean.’
‘So?’ Never had two letters of the alphabet sounded more defensive.
‘His mother says—’
‘His mother doesn’t know anything.’
‘She found condoms in his room.’
‘You really have no idea what’s going on, do you?’ Cara replied hotly. ‘That’s the incredible part. Nothing breaks through to you. What we do doesn’t matter, Dean and I hang out together and let off steam, it’s not important. You never notice the important stuff.’
‘What important stuff?’
‘Dream World stuff.’
‘Oh, you know all about that?’
‘Ask your pal Hardy over at the resort how many workers he beat up yesterday. Ask that Russian thug you had over for dinner about his “special” security force and the deal he has going with the secret police. Ask yourself why they won’t block up the underpass. You have no idea what really goes on around here.’
‘You seem to know so much, why don’t you tell me about the underpass?’
‘They keep it open to give the workers somewhere to take their whores. It’s where they buy the drugs that keep them awake and working.’
‘How do you know? Is it because Dean told you?’
‘I know a lot more than you think.’
‘That has nothing to with the way you and your pals behave. I want you to think about what you do and be careful. You’re not even sixteen yet.’
‘You can’t choose my friends for me,’ said Cara, reopening her laptop to signify that their conversation was at an end. ‘I’m old enough to decide for myself who I want to hang out with.’
‘Not until you cease to be my responsibility, and that doesn’t happen until you’re eighteen. You get a very easy ride here, and you know it.’
‘I know right from wrong. But I have to experience things for myself, and then decide.’
‘You have to promise me you’ll be sensible and take control of your life. I really mean it. Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?’
But an email pinged in and Cara returned her attention to her laptop, pecking at the keyboard, indicating that the topic was closed.
CARA STAYED IN Lea’s thoughts throughout the day. She knew that Colette was just as worried about Norah’s behaviour. The kids spent a lot of their spare time on the internet together, creating material for Bubble Life, but what else were they getting up to? She wondered how her daughter had formed such strong ideas about Petrovich. You were exactly the same when you were that age, she remembered. You did some pretty crazy stuff and didn’t grow out of it until you met a boy at college.
Still restless, she drove to a deserted section of beach at the edge of the city and walked between the last of the shorefront cafés, down onto the scalding yellow sand. One sickly date palm had collapsed on itself, providing a small area of shaded reli
ef from the light.
In the distance, through a shimmering heat haze, she could see the silvered towers of the Atlantica and the Persiana, an as-yet uninhabited Xanadu available to the highest bidder. The “twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers girdled round” were an earthly vision of paradise unimaginable to Coleridge, and just as unaffordable. This is the world we are making, Lea thought, stripped back to its barest essence. The pleasures of the few, built on the burdens of the many.
Sweating, she headed for the new boulevard that had been constructed along the seafront. The grey concrete paving stones of its promenade petered out, as if marking the point where time ceased to matter. She found an empty coffee bar, a neutral zone where she could sit and think.
You’re trying to forget, she told herself. You don’t want to think about what happened to Milo and Rachel. If you cease to care, they’ll cease to exist. You have to do something before it’s too late.
But even if she discovered concrete proof of wrongdoing, she knew it would be ignored by the men. They had all the power here. Women were to be humoured and ignored. And as for sisterhood, that was just a forgotten term that belonged in one of Rachel’s yellowed student books.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Fire
A MEMORIAL SERVICE for Rachel Larvin was held two days later. The company gave families from the compound time off to attend the event. The blinding sunlight seemed profanely ill-suited to such an occasion. It threw black shadows around the mourners and set the little white concrete church in sharp relief, so that it resembled an insubstantial paper cut-out.
Colette and her daughters had elected to wear light colours in celebration of Rachel’s life, and it was obvious that some of the families did not approve of their choice.
‘I don’t think it’s in very good taste,’ said Betty Graham, emerging from the service. ‘Not in this place. It’s bad enough that everyone’s wearing sunglasses, as if they’re all going to lunch. You should be able to see the mourners’ eyes. It seems disrespectful. Colette said Rachel had once told them she should be buried in rainbow colours, but they’ve already cremated the body. That’s wrong, isn’t it?’
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