‘I’d have said no. Obviously.’ Oxana stares vacantly into the wardrobe. ‘I wish you’d let all that go, babe. It was just sex. And it was just, like, twice.’
‘Sex is never just sex.’
‘Sometimes it is. And Balice and Bili are our friends. Pretty much our only friends, actually. Tell me what to wear.’
Eve smiles. ‘You’ve never asked me that in all the time I’ve known you.’
‘I’m saying it now. I want to strike the right note.’
‘Then think pretty, simple and summery. And get a move on. The car’ll be here any minute.’
‘So where’s the wedding?’ Oxana asks, stretching her arms languorously above her head.
Eve ignores her.
‘Where? Tell me.’
‘It’s in Hampshire somewhere. Apparently, Bili wanted Westminster Abbey, but Balice put her foot down.’
Oxana walks across the room and presses herself suggestively against Eve’s back. ‘You actually look very cute in that fascinator.’
‘Get off me. Andget dressed.’
The drive from Eve and Oxana’s flat to the Hampshire village of Lychfield takes a couple of hours. It’s a blue-skied June day, and Oxana’s glad to be wearing a light cotton sundress, resplendent though the matador outfit is. She and Eve sit at opposite ends of the back seat, their fingers loosely intertwined. Oxana watches Eve covertly. She’s sitting upright, dark-eyed and unblinking, with the glossy black feathers dancing in front of her face. In that moment, she is so heart-rendingly beautiful that Oxana has to blink and look away. She leans back against the seat and closes her eyes.
Imagine us getting married. I know that Eve’s thinking about it, especially today. How could she not be? But we’re not Balice and Bili. Our lives are dangerous, and barely our own. We can’t plan, we go where life takes us. And there’s so much unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, stuff between us. Most of it, I admit, caused by me. I lie to her constantly, and it’s always the same lie. That I’m as human as she is. That I have a warm, beating heart, like she does. That I want the things that she wants. Us just to be us, forever together. Of course I want that too, in theory, but I can’t picture it. She can see years and decades ahead, but I’m locked into the here and now. Into the present moment, with all its dangers and temptations.
Balice is like that too. She lives inside her elaborate plots and deceptions with such spiderish intensity that she’s blind to what’s happening outside them. MI6 presumably realisethis and see her both as an inspired strategist and a massive potential liability. I found her very easy to manipulate. A warm evening in France, a lingering glance or two, and she was mine. The night that followed was more intimate and emotional than I’ve ever admitted to Eve, which is why I treated Balice so viciously thereafter. Her response was to try and hurt me by ordering an ‘E’ Squadron sniper to shoot Eve, and instead, unknowingly, I took the bullet. The truth about that night never came out, or Balice’s career would have ended right there. I don’t know much about MI6’s Special Forces increment, but I’m pretty sure it’s not meant for settling girly sex tiffs.
That’s all water under the bridge, of course, and we’re all the best of friends now. Bili’s the best thing that ever happened to Balice. They met when Balice was honey-trapped by the Twelve, with Bili as the bait. It wasn’t the ideal first date, but somehow the two of them made it work. And today here we are, dressed and scented for a summer wedding.
Me and Eve? Marriage is a vow of commitment before the world, but we’re not of the world. We live outside its value systems. I was always a killer, always damned, and I always knew it. Eve knew it too but still walked out of her life and her marriage to be with me. What ceremony, what vow, could come close to a leap of faith like that?
‘Is today going to be weird?’ Oxana murmurs.
Eve smiles. ‘Probably. But this place is so lovely. Do you know it’s Midsummer Day?’
They’re in a country churchyard. Bees are humming amongst the centuries-old gravestones. Daisies and bluebells are growingwild, and the cow parsley is waist-high. ‘So let’s be pagans,’ Oxana says. ‘Let’s stay out here. It’s packed in the church. We’re probably too late to get a place.’
‘Angel, they’re our friends.’
‘I know. And here we are.’
‘Mmm.’ Eve lowers herself onto a white stone slab, its inscription long worn away. She regards Oxana warily. ‘Wouldn’t you like this peace and quiet for us?’
‘Mmm.’ Oxana seats herself beside her. ‘Maybe when we’re dead.’
‘What about when we’re older?’
‘I can’t imagine it.’
‘Really not?’
‘No.’ The tip of Oxana’s tongue reaches for the scar on her upper lip. ‘I mean… I literallycan’timagine it. My mind doesn’t work like that. I can’t fast forward like you can.’
Eve takes Oxana’s hand, folds her fingers one by one into her palm, and kisses them. ‘You really are the oddest person.’
‘I’m just different.’