“Golly, youwerebored. I’m so sorry.”
“Who’s that talking to Beaumont-Flattery?” I asked, pointing at the tall blond gentleman in his mid-fifties. Ludo looked around, locating his high school crush with instant, laser-like accuracy that was either adorable or cause for concern.
“That’s Dirk Windhoek. Carstairs’s husband. Do you want to meet him?”
I declined. I wasn’t ready to give up having Ludo all to myself tonight just yet.
“Golly, you haven’t even got a drink. What appalling hosts. I’m sorry. Let me?—”
Ludo’s arms were starting to move like a puppet’s. I grabbed his hand before he could run away from me and told him to stop apologising. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose, and anticipating the second half of his trademark twitch, I pulled him closer and pushed his hair behind his ear for him. It bounced back out. I tried again.
“It’s totally ungovernable, I’m afraid,” he said. “There’s a knack to it.” He showed me how it was done, twisting the curl and popping it behind his ear.
“See?” he said. It bounced back out again. I giggled.
“I see.” I reached for the unruly curl, twisted it, and brushed it behind his ear. It held firm. He grinned. I pecked him on the lips. He tasted like coffee and alcohol. I grabbed his hand and held it.
“Shall we get a drink and make small talk with some of these dormouse people?” I suggested. Ludo nodded, although I imagined we were both more enthusiastic about the first part of the plan than the second. By the time we found a waiter and had scored a couple of glasses of champagne, Ludo’s curls were on the loose again.
* * *
Half an hour later Ludo and I found ourselves chatting to a couple who lookedexactlylike the kind of people I’d expected to find at an event for an obscure endangered rodent. Where most of the crowd were suited and booted, Leaf and Karma were tie-dyed and flip-flopped. I had sort of gravitated towards them out of journalistic instinct. They were clearly the most interesting people in the room. As it turned out, I didn’t know the half of it. As it also turned out, they came from my neck of the woods.
“Do I detect a slight Leicester accent there, Sunny?” Leaf asked. He said my name the way my mum says my name, with two softo’s and anehon the end, and it made me warm to him immediately. I told him it was.
“Grew up on the Wickwar Estate,” I said, my childhood accent returning to soak my vowels and rinse away my practised way of speaking.
“We run a retreat just outside Melbourne,” Karma said.
“Australia?” Ludo asked, a little slow on the uptake.
“Derbyshire,” Leaf explained. “Just up the road from Leicester.” Ludo blushed. I lightly rubbed his back, letting him know it was OK. He leant back into my hand, so I held it there, pressed into him, the heat of his body against my fingers.
“We do reiki, spiritual healing, chakra balancing, qigong, pranic and crystal healing. You name it, really,” Karma continued.
“I do yoga, actually,” I said, chipping in what little relevant personal experience I had. (I didn’t volunteer that I did my yoga in a room of naked gay men. I felt that might give the wrong impression. Although, to be fair, that wrong impression was exactly why Jumaane and I had joined in the first place.) We chatted about the retreat for a while; then, like a moth drawn irresistibly to a flame, I asked Leaf and Karma what they made of the near miss with the nuclear power plant that had nearly been built less than ten miles down the road.
“What do you mean, near miss?” Karma said. “It’s still going ahead.”
Ludo and I exchanged glances.
“And it’s totally unnecessary,” Leaf added. “We don’t need it. We should be going renewable. Wind, small-scale hydro, heat pumps, solar. But the politicians will prioritise the big end of town, not the planet.”
“But the nuclear plant deal is off,” I said.
“Only the Belarusian deal,” Leaf said. “It’s still going ahead. Just with a different company.”
“You sound very certain,” Ludo said. “The government hasn’t even legislated for the committee that will approve the projects yet.”
“You think Carstairs is going to wait for some committee?” Leaf said. “No, this is a done deal.”
Ludo straightened up, and I let my hand fall from his back.
“Are you sure?” I said. My heart was racing. If Leaf and Karma were right, this was big news indeed. “Do you have any evidence?”
Leaf nodded. “The government is about to do a deal with a company called ZephEnergies Limited. Their website says they’re a renewables company, but that’s just greenwashing.”
ZephEnergies Limited. I’d seen that name in the file in Vladimir Popov’s constituency office. I cursed myself for not having read what the letter said. I’d been too panicked, too rushed. I looked at Ludo. His eyes were on (metaphorical) stalks. If what Leaf was saying was true, it was explosive—which is not a word to use lightly when you’re talking about nuclear power plants.
