Go

29 February 2044.

Canary Wharf, East London.

In the dark, under the warmth of the duvet, in her ill-fitting borrowed pyjamas, Elizabeth waited. A bit of light came through the crack where Cass had left the bedroom door ajar, and a bit more came from the clock, which read “04:21.”

They had laid there, motionless, surprised, staring at each other, until the phone in Elizabeth’s bag stopped ringing. Elizabeth, frozen in fear, at the thought of who might be calling it. And Cass, staring at her, wondering why she’d lied about not having her phone.

Cass sidled into the room holding a glass of water. She climbed back into the bed, manoeuvring under the duvet, sitting up and holding the glass. They both shared a sip.

“I can explain,” Elizabeth finally said as she put the glass on the bedside table.

“I think you better.”

She talked through everything. How she’d slept all day. How Siobhan had been gone when she woke up, and her phone gone as well. Her search through the room. How she’d found the phone in the drawer with the passes. And how she knew it wasn’t Siobhan’s actual phone. When she finally finished, Cass put her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder and stroked it a few times.

“How’s your head?”

“It’s okay today,” Liz said. “Well, last night. And now, today, I suppose.” She choked up a bit. “It’s been bad lately. It’s been⁠—”

Cass leaned over and slid her arms around Elizabeth, nestling her head in the nape of her neck. “I remember you’d get them sometimes.”

“Never this bad. It’s nearly every day.”

“Have you been to your GP? To a specialist?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“And?”

A tear rolled down her cheek as she shook her head. She squeezed Cass back. “It’s not good.”

Cass nodded and kept hugging her, giving her a small kiss on the neck. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t anything Elizabeth could even focus on, the tension now oozing from her every pore, her mind fixated on Siobhan. On the explosion. Seeing it again and again in her mind, even though she hadn’t even seen it at all. Wondering if that was Siobhan just then, calling her own phone. Wondering if she was out looking. Wondering if she’d even gotten back to the hotel yet. Or if this was all a misunderstanding.

“I don’t know what to do,” Elizabeth said. “The election is next week, there’s so much planned already, and now, with all this.” She gestured toward her bag, now sat on top of the chest of drawers, the phone still inside it. It was barely visible in the darkness, a bit of stray light coming in through the door giving everything a yellow pallor. “What have I done?”

Cass slid down the bed, laying her head on the pillow. Elizabeth joined her. Their faces were an inch apart. “We could just go, Liz.”

“Go? To the hotel? Or the police?”

“Lizzie, we could go. Away from here. I’m already done. You could withdraw. We never have to think about any of this again.”

Elizabeth cracked a smile. “You called me Lizzie.”

Cass put her hand on Liz’s cheek, looking her in the eyes, glints of colour amongst the greyish-blue shapes in the dark. She touched the tip of her nose to the tip of Liz’s. “I’m not joking.”

“Cass, it would be easier if you were.” She reciprocated, putting her hand on Cass’s cheek. They shared a brief, tender kiss. “I can’t just go. This is what I’ve been working towards.”

“I don’t understand,” Cass whispered. “I don’t understand what it is. One seat in Parliament, from a fringe party? Even if you won, you’d have no power whatsoever. You have more now, writing books. I see someone with your book every day it seems. A year ago I’d only ever seen it on my bookshelf, Liz.”

Liz kissed her again, stroking her cheek, sliding her hand on her neck. “It’s sweet that you read my book. I think maybe you were the only one until recently.”

“Me and the little terrorist you’ve got back in your room,” Cass said a bit playfully as she kissed Liz’s nose.

“Don’t,” Liz said. “We don’t know. If the phone rings again, we should answer it.”

“If the phone rings again,” Cass replied, “we should bin it. After all, I heard on Telly that you’re dead.”

They fell asleep without meaning to, their hands still on each other’s cheeks, their noses still touching, their heads on one pillow. The blackout windows, combined with it being Saturday, meant they overslept. Liz woke first and immediately chuckled. She could hear Cass’s snoring had gotten louder over the years. A puddle of drool was on the pillow, but that really could’ve been either of them. She pawed at the bedside table until her hands found the controls, again unwilling to even entertain using the voice controls, if Cass even had them. What she’d hoped was the lamp was actually the window control, and the sun flooded in.

Cass jumped, a full-body jolt.

“Sorry,” Liz whispered, then collapsed back down onto her side of the bed.

“It’s fine, oh dear, what time is it?”

Liz squinted at the clock. “9:57.”

Cass snickered, a huge smile on her face. “I’ve not slept this late in years, years and years. You wore me out, Marsh.”

“We just laid here!”

“It’s exhausting to be around you, I suppose.”

They worked their way to Cass’s cosy lime-green bathroom, still half-asleep, still wiping the crust from the corners of their eyes. They could fit, only just, side-by-side in front of the mirror. Cass handed her a spare toothbrush from the drawer and they brushed together without saying a word. Elizabeth precariously balanced her new toothbrush on the side of the sink when she was done, but Cass picked it up and dropped it into the little pink-and-blue holder next to her own.

The smell of coffee had already started to work wonders before Cass even poured it. Liz felt a bit exposed, sat at the two-seater table in a pyjama top that barely closed and bottoms that were just about wide enough and not nearly long enough. But she appreciated the loan nevertheless, preferring it to the other offer of a dressing gown that she figured would come down to just below her waist.

Cass joined her at the table with a mug of tea. “Now I don’t have loads of storage here,” she said with a goofy grin, “but this is our pied-à-terre, obviously. We’ll mostly live at yours up in Cambridge.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Liz said with a shake of her head. “I obviously have to live in my constituency.”

“Going to win that election, are you? That would really set us back a few years. I’ll be so lonely in that big draughty house up there all alone with my knitting.” She took a sip, smiling at Liz over the top of the mug.

Elizabeth felt it again. Something was off. It was distracting her, leaving her unable to focus. Cass was making this so easy. And she could take one look at her, sat there in her oversized plaid pyjamas, her hands wrapped around a Christmas mug even though it was February, and know that it would stay this easy. They’d live together in a bubble made of Cass’s love and shut the world out forever.

“Cass,” she said with a note of severity. “I still thought about you, I still think about you, all the time.”

“We don’t need to look back.”

“I’m not looking back. That’s the point.” She set the mug down and pushed back from the table, standing up. “Have you seen it out there? Cassandra, it’s so grim. It’s so, so grim. The way people are living. Half of Central is a tent city.” There was a growing passion in her voice, her volume rising. “I was in this cab the other day,” she continued, “going down Oxford Street. I saw the old Apple Store, which is a bloody tip now of course, vandalised beyond recognition, people living inside it. I had such a strong memory, which is ridiculous I know, of queueing in front of that shop with an old boyfriend to buy a damn iPhone.”

Cass was smiling, clearly not sure where Liz was going with this, but captivated nevertheless. “That must’ve felt like a lifetime ago.”

“It did, it really did.” She was nodding, looking off to one side at the window, which was still fully blacked out. “And I tried to speak with Siobhan about it.”

“I can’t imagine she had any frame of reference for that.”

“No, no, she didn’t, you’re right,” Liz said. “She was focused on the human element. The people. Penniless, unhoused, hungry. And all I could do was think of how I used to buy my luxury phones there, and wished I still could.”

“You care about people, Lizzie. Remembering that one day doesn’t mean you only care about that.”

“It’s painful to think about. It was a painful memory. Seeing it all.” She threw her arms up in the air, exasperated, shouting. “We just let it all slip away, Cassie! We were the ones they fucking put there! To look after them, to stop this sort of thing from happening. They looked to us for answers!”

“‘And we had none.’” Cass nodded and looked down at her half-empty tea. “No need to quote yourself, I read your book. But you mustn’t blame yourself. You have to stop blaming yourself. There was nothing you could do. Nothing any of us could do. It was a sea change for society. And society is adapting.”

Elizabeth let out a deep sigh. She marched over to the window and pushed the button, letting the light come in. Outside in the morning fog you could only just make out the neighbouring tower, and nothing of the ground below.

“Ridiculous. We’re just hiding up here, Cassie,” she said, her voice calmer now, a finality to it. “Hiding inside our little lives. I can’t let this all get in the way again.”

Cass was still sat with her tea. “Elizabeth.” She cleared her throat. “It was me.”

“It was, what? You did what?”

“I don’t want you to keep blaming yourself. It was bigger than you, than me, than all of us. It was a sea change for society.”

“Cass, what did you do?”

“I’m the leaker. I leaked.”

Elizabeth leaned against the wall by the window, staring across the flat at Cass. It seemed like such a massive distance now.

“You what? I don’t understand.” Elizabeth was clutching her arm with the opposite hand, hugging herself anxiously.

“I’m the one who told The Guardian about your Magenta connection. I knew a reporter I trusted, through my…through an old friend. And I was angry at you, I was so angry. And I wasn’t certain you’d see it through. So I called her and I just told her.”

Elizabeth paced back and forth, staring down at her feet, her head shaking almost imperceptibly. Her arms were crossed so hard over her chest she thought she might break herself in half.

“And then,” Cass continued, “the party decided to put in for the urgent question, for the debate in the Commons. And I got blackmailed, Elizabeth. I got sent photos. Of us. They told me to put a stop to everything, or they’d release them.” Cass took a deep breath. “And I didn’t tell anybody.”

Elizabeth had stopped pacing, and now stood staring. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either. I needed you to go through with it. Even if it meant everything else exploding around me.”

Cass put her head in her hands. Elizabeth turned her back to the room and stared out the window. She put her hand on it, feeling the ice cold glass under her palm. “Cassandra, that was nearly sixteen years ago. How have you never told me?”

“It never came up.”

“Cass!”

“I was ashamed. And I was morbidly fascinated by what might happen if the photos came out. But that’s not why I did it. I really did want you to just get on with it. I wanted you to just bloody do what you went there to do.”

“It’s just.”

“And then the photos of us never came out. But those others, of me…with your ex-husband. I was completely blindsided, Liz. And I thought for sure you would’ve found out, that they would’ve gone through with it. And I made him, Liz. I made Mike promise to⁠—”

“—I need to go.” Elizabeth took her hand off the window and spun round, crossing her arms again. Her fingerprints were still visible as oily residue on the glass behind her. “I’m sorry, no. This is too much. I have to go. I’ve got to speak with Siobhan.”

She stepped quickly through the flat, disappearing down the hall toward the bedroom.

“Elizabeth, please!” Cass got to her feet just as the bedroom door slammed. Elizabeth hurriedly changed back into her clothes from the night before, which she’d hung to dry on the radiator. With any luck she’d catch Siobhan at the hotel, or if not, well then…she’d simply wait in the lobby.

Cass was waiting by the front door when Elizabeth came into the room. She had Liz’s bag, ready to hand her. Elizabeth reached out with a gloved hand and took it from her gingerly, peeked inside, then snapped it shut. It was all still there.

“I wish you’d stay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish it hadn’t happened the way it happened. I wish I’d told you sooner. But we’re here now. We have this, right now.”

Liz shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re both just doing whatever we feel we have to do.”

Cass nodded. “It’s not…I just, I…okay. I hope you believe everything you’re saying.”

“Oh, Cassie.” She frowned and put her arms around Cass, pulling her close. They stood there, embracing in silence.

“Do you love me?”

Elizabeth smiled and hugged Cass even tighter, her head resting on top of Cass’s. “O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound.”

Cass started to giggle. “What?”

“I, beyond all limit of what else in the world, do love, prize and honour you.”

Cass was laughing with her whole body, her eyes welling up, her smile shining brightly, though Elizabeth couldn’t see it. “I’m a fool to weep at what I’m glad of.” She pushed Elizabeth away and looked up at her, then nodded. “Go.”

The world beyond the huge glass doors on the bottom floor of Cass’s building looked to be solid grey, the fog was so thick. Elizabeth rested her hand on the handle, about to push her way out into morning, to head back to the tube station, back to reality. To her right she noticed a small steel bin, which gave her pause. She glanced around, noting that while the lobby had been designed to look sleek and modern, it was getting old. In need of a refit. The doorbell didn’t have a camera, and even more so, the lobby itself seemed to have no cameras in it either. A rarity.

Elizabeth reached into her purse and took the five credentials into her hand. She pulled them out, again looking around, cradling them protectively, brushing them clean with her leather gloves. In a swift motion she thrust her hand through the front of the bin, letting the credentials go, hearing them hit the bottom.

She pushed on the long steel bar, opened the door, and walked out into the fog.