by Ben Elton
But despite herself Rosalie could not restrain a smile. He did look cute, she thought, lying there in bed, blinking behind his shades like a startled rabbit. The fact that she had so far escaped prison had rather softened Rosalie’s attitude to Max’s disastrous attempt to help her elude the Garda. He had tried, after all.
‘My God, the state of it,’ she continued. ‘Can it think? Can it talk?’
Max found her tone a little patronising and felt the need to assert himself.
‘Excuse me, but it takes more than eight pints of stout and eight Paddy’s Scotches to leave me without the use of my faculties.’
He had said the wrong thing. The process of European
Federation had quickened the already relentless pace of cultural conformity, and Rosalie was big on maintaining Irish icons.
‘Paddy’s is not a Scotch, you ignorant philistine. Paddy’s is an Irish. Scotch is Scotch and Irish is Irish, and if you can’t tell the difference then you should stick to whatever foul designer poisons they call drinks in Hollywood.’
‘Well, pardon me and six Hail Marys.’
Max lit a cigarette. One of the smaller ironies of the complete degradation of the environment had been the revival in the fortunes of the tobacco companies. It was extremely difficult for health experts to get over-concerned about the long-term prospect of lung cancer when the mere fact of breathing was giving people respiratory disorders. Besides which, lung cancer held few fears for anyone with even a modest income, since a new lung could be bought virtually for the price of installation. The development of ‘zipper surgery’ plus the fact of millions upon millions of people starving around the world had meant that the price of ‘dual organs’, i.e. those of which the body is supplied with two, had dropped to a pittance. Solo items had, of course, maintained their price. It is difficult to persuade even a desperate person to part with their heart. A human kidney, however, could often be obtained more cheaply than properly force-fed duck liver.
‘You’ve no idea how revolting that cigarette smells, mixed up with the foul fug you seem to produce naturally.’
‘Listen, it’s morning, I’ve been on the booze. If I smelt good it would be weird.’
Rosalie decided to let it go.
‘I asked you why you were here.’
‘Well, it’s partly social, you know? I thought we were starting to have fun.’
Rosalie let this go. ‘And the other part?’ she inquired.
‘It’s kind of connected with what we were talking about before,’ said Max.
‘I’ve told you,’ Rosalie snapped, ‘I wouldn’t get involved in your stupid pal’s stupid film script if you were to —‘
‘Nathan is dead,’ Max interrupted, rather expecting the drama of the situation to pull Rosalie up somewhat.
‘Who’s Nathan?’ Rosalie replied, putting paid to the drama.
‘He’s my stupid pal. The one who hid under the table at your granny’s place.’
‘Oh,’ said Rosalie. ‘Well, what’s that got to do with me?’
It was not that Rosalie was a callous person, but she had seen many things die and she could scarcely even remember what the film writer had looked like.
‘Just before he was killed, he pitched a screenplay concept to Plastic Tolstoy. I think Tolstoy had him killed because of what that concept was.’
‘I heard that films was a cut-throat business,’ said Rosalie drily.
‘Nathan was going to base his story on the idea that it is the Claustrosphere Corporation who secretly funds Mother Earth.’
During the previous few days, Max had often wondered how Rosalie would take this idea. He had feared that she would laugh right in his face. Had she done so, he had planned to take her through his reasoning, explaining how Nathan had died, how only Tolstoy could possibly have arranged it, how only Tolstoy had heard Nathan’s idea, how Tolstoy had been the object of the final, furious thoughts in Nathan’s life. But Rosalie was not laughing. She was thinking. A bell was ringing somewhere far away in her memory. A bell which she did not wish to answer.
‘Sounds awful stupid to me,’ she said, but hesitatingly. ‘I wouldn’t pay to see a thick film like that.’
Max could see that he had hit a nerve.
‘What’s so stupid, Rosalie? Nobody knows who backs you. It’s been thirty, even forty years. You’d think somebody would have taken credit by now, wouldn’t you?’
Pick up.
Rosalie was remembering a night five years previously. A night she had spent with Jurgen Thor.
She was twenty and had joined Natura two years before that, after failing to turn up for her first lecture at Trinity College. It was not long before her qualities of courage and intelligence were noticed, and she had been discreetly recruited into Mother Earth. There followed a gruelling eighteen months of training, towards the end of which she had met the great man.
She and fifteen other trainee combat activists were attending a secret political briefing at which Jurgen Thor was speaking and he picked her up, it was as simple as that. There were seven young women in the group. Thor had chosen her and she had let him. She hated to admit it, but her role in it had been that passive. The moment Thor entered the room he was clearly deciding which of the girls he was going to screw and he had picked her. All women know when they’re being eyed up and Jurgen Thor made virtually no attempt to cover it. As the world’s premier environmentalist he was often accused of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Anyone who had ever met him knew that it was another organ altogether.
Rosalie was rather irritated by this casual, arrogant sexuality and when, after the briefing, one of Thor’s aides told her that the boss would like to see her, every instinct said she should tell him to stuff it. But she didn’t. She was completely thrilled. Jurgen Thor was the Green God. The man to whom all environmentalists looked for leadership and inspiration. The one person with the authority to face down the world’s leaders and get things done. Ever since she was a girl Rosalie had admired Jurgen Thor above all people. She had also, like millions of other women, wondered what it would be like to make love to him. She still wondered. He was the strongest, most handsome man she had ever seen, and even though he came on like sleaze, he still had more sex going for him than a brothel on Watership Down. Rosalie did not normally fancy big men, but Jurgen Thor was not just big, he was magnificent.
And so, when her weekend leave came up, instead of going home to Ireland to see her grandparents as she ought to have done, Rosalie flew with Thor in a Natura helicopter to his magnificent home in the Swiss Alps. A home perched on a cliff so high it actually still had snow and ice upon it, despite the disappearance of such stuff elsewhere in the mountains.
Icy passion.
The stairway down from the rooftop heli-pad led straight into Jurgen Thor’s bedroom, where a bottle of schnapps was warming over a candle. Rosalie was utterly knocked out. It was a room of such splendid sexiness, just being in it could have dropped the knickers on a concrete nun. The room occupied the entire top floor of the house and every wall was glass. For 360 degrees all that could be seen was mountain range. The huge snowy white bed stood dead in the centre of the room, and from there it was possible to make love on top of the world.
‘I do not bring many women here, yes?’ Jurgen Thor had said. ‘This place is very special to me.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Rosalie had replied, looking about in awe.
Jurgen was an expert. He enfolded Rosalie in his arms and seemed almost to kiss her clothes off. At least, she could not remember him unbuttoning her blouse, taking off her shoes or undoing her trousers and yet there she was, lying on that huge bed in her underwear as Jurgen Thor knelt beside her, looking down and smiling. Even on his knees he towered above her.
‘Jurgen, you’ll take it easy, won’t you?… I’m new to this.’
‘It is perhaps … the first time?’ Jurgen inquired gently. Rosalie did not reply, and Jurgen knew that it was.
‘There is no need for the w
orrying, please,’ he assured her calmly. ‘For me there is only pleasure in the pleasure of the woman. I make love to make women happy. That is the only reason I do it.’
He meant it too. Nothing feeds a man’s soul the way a woman can feed his soul by telling him that he just made her eyes roll and her loins melt. Jurgen understood that the greatest thrills could be found, not in losing oneself, but in inducing abandon in another. To take a woman to the peak of pleasure, to see her forsake her control. To see her hovering between ecstasy and despair. To hear her plead. That was sex. Domination by breathless consent was what turned Jurgen on. To be the catalyst, whereby a strong woman or a nervous girl or indeed, as in Rosalie’s case, both, surrendered her body to his passionate manipulation. Here lay the route of his relentless sex drive. He was a sensual imperialist. Any fool could bend another to their will by force or payment, but to make a woman beg you to do as you please, to have her offer herself up that you might take her and keep her as long as you wished, now that was worth going to bed for.
Jurgen took especial care with Rosalie. A virgin’s sigh was tribute of the highest order. No better proof could be found of a man’s sexual and spiritual power. To overcome her pain and bring her to a celebration of her abandonment, that, truly, was a triumph of lasting splendour. For she would always remember that first sigh, and all other men would be measured against it. In a way, whoever could do that for a woman would own a part of her for life.
Such was the logic of love to a control freak. Jurgen tolerated no moment of abandon in himself. He could not bear for a woman to begin to work her wiles upon him. Should she start to stroke or touch his body beyond the simple return of his kiss, he would clasp her tight until again it was he who was charting the course of their passion.
At twenty years old, and dazzled by his power and glamour, this was all fine by Rosalie. Seldom can a woman have been deflowered under such splendid circumstances. Long before he actually entered her, Jurgen’s skills had induced a climax of an intensity that was new to Rosalie. His smooth, smooth face between her thighs (Jurgen always waxed his chin for special occasions such as this) made her back arch with joy, and when the time came to fully consummate the night, big though he was, Jurgen had made her ready.
Afterwards she lay exhausted on the bed for some time. Jurgen Thor got up and, taking his drink, sat naked on some cushions and watched as the sun dipped behind the glorious mountains outside the window, and turned his body to a silhouette. It was then that the full splendour of the situation enveloped Rosalie, and for a moment she almost swooned, an experience she had never had before or since. She did not swoon, however, because something was preventing her from fully glorying in the luxury of the situation. Something felt very strange, in fact, felt wrong.
‘Jurgen,’ she said.
‘My darling, you were wonderful,’ he said, still staring at the setting sun.
‘Thanks, but that wasn’t what I was going to ask.’
‘What, then?’
‘Who pays for all this?’
There was a tiny pause.
‘It’s not so very expensive.’
‘A house built on top of a mountain with a heli-pad. That’s quite expensive.’
Jurgen turned to her. For the first time, there was a touch of irritation in his manner.
‘We have friends who believe that what we do is of some worth. What I do is of worth.’
‘I know that, Jurgen.’ Rosalie pulled a sheet over herself. ‘I was just saying that this is pretty amazing, that’s all.’
‘I’m a world leader, you know that, don’t you? A world leader.’
‘Of course I know that, Jurgen.’
‘Natura fights elections in every democracy on Earth. Do you begrudge me some trappings of office? A house, a helicopter? Perhaps I should arrive at summit meetings by public transport.’
‘Well, maybe you should.’ Rosalie was now a little annoyed herself. ‘We all know what the private car is doing, if everybody in the world used public transport that alone would probably save the —‘
‘I know that, little Miss Idealist! I knew it before you were born, damn it all, man! But there are practical considerations for a man in my position. People try to kill me, you know! I am also a bit too busy to be waiting for buses!’ For a moment Jurgen Thor seemed almost hurt. ‘Oh, my sweet naïve little almost virgin, how I would love the luxury of your innocence. To be twenty and to judge every little thing by what is right. But I have to lead and it is the leaders who have to take the tough decisions, yes, and then live with themselves afterwards. You could not imagine the awful truth of some of the compromises I have taken in pursuit of what I believe. So be careful what you ask, tiny girl. You might get the answers which you don’t want to hear!’
Jurgen stopped, the fire in his eyes dying as suddenly as it had been kindled. He got up and, big and naked though he was, his expression was that of a little boy. He crossed back to the bed, his tone suddenly sad and conciliatory.
‘Forgive me, little funky beautiful babe. Sometimes even I get tired, you know? It’s a tough game you’re going to be playing. You must be careful that your dreams do not betray you. Idealism is a wonderful thing, it got you into this, but it is pragmatism that will keep you alive. There are many things we have to do that we don’t like. Compromises that must be made. When we let off a bomb, we do not like the damage it does, but we like even less the thing which we seek to destroy. Let’s not talk any more. I spend half my life talking.’
And he, of course, spent the other half fucking, which is what he proceeded to do until both he and Rosalie fell asleep.
Later though, and for some time afterwards, Rosalie thought about this conversation. He had seemed so moved, he had actually been hurt and angry. She could not escape the feeling that Jurgen Thor had been talking about more than his house and his helicopter.
Further adventures in cross-dressing.
‘Hey, you want to get a coffee or something?’
Max’s voice intruded upon Rosalie’s thoughts. Bringing her down off that mountain in Switzerland and back across the years. Jurgen’s bitter little speech had occasionally returned to her, tainting the memory of what had been a wonderful night. What had he meant about compromises? Why had he seemed so sad? So angry? Surely what Max was suggesting could not be true? Claustrosphere funding Mother Earth? The idea was insane. Then again, the fact that the human race was happily destroying the planet on which it lived was insane, eve thin was insane. But this? It was impossible.
‘Max, I have personally led teams that have destroyed four plants which make Claustrosphere components. We attack them all the time. They can’t possibly be funding us.’
‘All I know is what I’ve told you. Maybe it’s all bullshit, but Nathan definitely got knocked off after meeting Tolstoy, in a house hired by Tolstoy and it was a professional and clinical hit with no robbery involved. I can’t think of a single motive other than the one I’ve suggested.’
‘Maybe he had other enemies?’
‘Come on, he’d only ever spent two weeks in LA, in a hotel room. Who’s going to kill him for that? Besides, nobody but me, Tolstoy and his wife in England even knew where he was.’
‘It’s insane.
‘Well, maybe it is. I don’t know. Why don’t we go ask your pal Jurgen?’
Just then the beeper that Rosalie was wearing went off. She stepped to the window and looked out.
‘Garda… Oh dear.’
Down in the single street which was all the village consisted of, Rosalie’s lookout had been arrested. By an unhappy stroke of poor luck the local Garda were being particularly vigilant at that time, looking for Republicans from the North who were believed to be lying low in the area. Rosalie’s comrade, hanging about as she was, had been routinely DNA-scraped by a constable and immediately identified as a member of a Mother Earth unit known to be led by Rosalie. Instantly, the Garda had dropped all thoughts of boring old Republicans. Rosalie was an escapee, somebody who had s
eriously embarrassed the force. If she was in the village, she would make a grand catch indeed. This was why the Garda were now knocking on doors at both ends of the street and a helicopter was clattering above the houses.
‘They’re searching every house,’ Rosalie said from her vantage point at the window. ‘My God, why did you have to come back? They’ve got me now for sure.
Max was thrilled. Here was his chance to redeem himself. ‘Look,’ said Max, ‘I know I didn’t do too well last time but —‘
‘Don’t tell me you want to pretend to be me again. That story will have been all over the force — they’re hardly likely to fall for the same trick twice.’
‘Variations on a theme, man. Will you trust me? Ask the child inside.’
Rosalie had little choice; there were no avenues of escape remaining to her. As far as she was concerned, within ten minutes she would be under arrest.
‘What did you have in mind, then?’
‘On the dressing-table, there’s a moustache and some cosmetic putty — bring them over here.’
Rosalie nearly just gave herself up there and then. ‘I will not. If I’m to be arrested, I shall do it with dignity.’ ‘Rosalie! We’ve only moments left,’ said Max and, leaping out of bed, he grabbed his make-up bag. Rosalie would have protested further, but she found it difficult to speak because Max was sticking a false moustache to her upper lip.
‘This time you get to be a man,’ he said.
‘Max, you’re insane! I have a bosom.’
‘Not by Hollywood standards, you haven’t … You said you’d trust me, well, trust me! What do you have to lose?’
He pulled Rosalie’s hair back tight into a ponytail.
‘OK, you’ll have to strip, completely, I’m afraid. Come on, come on, we don’t have much time.’
‘Max, I’m a woman!’
‘I know that. Now strip!’
Scarcely knowing why, Rosalie stripped naked and Max instructed her to lie on the bed, her head propped against a pillow. He draped a crumpled sheet casually across her breasts, but left the rest of her body exposed.