Her stomach twists in on itself.
She senses her spine grow rigid with fear. She is so scared for her child in this moment that the terror engulfs her, sticking to her like tar.
Her daughter.
Unmistakably Cosima.
Her child.
The one she has known the longest – or thought she has. The fear trickles through her, shape-shifting into anger. Because now Serena understands that she doesn’t know Cosima – not at all, not even a little bit – and that this not knowing is Cosima’s betrayal. It is Cosima’s lies. It is Cosima choosing to turn her back on her family and burn their certainties down. How dare she? Serena thinks. How dare she do this to us? The affront she feels is complicated. It has its roots in a muscle memory of order, of how things should be, of the structure and systems Serena has spent her life in service of. This chaotic protest, with its ugly self-importance and its naive belief that the world can be changed simply if one shouts loudly enough, stands in direct contradiction to everything she has been raised to believe. And hovering above Serena’s disgust like a mutating cloud of flies is a twisting, turning anger directed at Cosima for believing she knows better.
You have no idea, Serena wants to tell her. You have to play the game. You can’t just smash everything apart like this. It doesn’t work that way.
Because Cosima can’t be right. If she is, it means Serena is wrong. And then her whole existence is a sham. She won’t allow it.
Serena feels a hand grab her shoulder.
‘Come on,’ Ben is saying, pulling her roughly away.
‘It’sCosima,’ she tells him.
‘I know. It’s why we have to get the fuck out of here.’
‘She lied to us,’ Serena says. Her fury seeds itself as she speaks the words. ‘She must have lied to us so many times.’
‘Not now,’ Ben says.
‘She’s making a mockery of us. What are we going to do?’
‘We’ll sort it.’
She looks at him then, in the midst of the rush of people scrambling to make sense of what has happened, and she notices that although he is aggravated, there is a conspicuous absence of surprise.
‘Did you know?’ she asks. ‘Did you know she was doing this?’
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘I was briefed about it last week. We need to go, Serena! Before it sinks the entire campaign.’
‘But …’ She grasps for words that seem strangely elusive. ‘Ben. She could have been killed.’
He scoffs. ‘Hardly.’
Serena feels a febrile lightness in her body, as though she is falling through space. Ben knew about Cosima and didn’t tell her. The treachery stings. If the situation had been reversed, she knows she would have told him. Clearly they have some secret alliance and Serena isn’t trusted by either of them. Are they intent on laughing at her? What other secrets do they nurture? How many other lies have they told to keep her quiet? They must think she’s a fool. An untrustworthy, stupid fool who no longer deserves their intimacy or their respect, even after these long decades of effort, squeezing herself dry of maternal and wifely love. Serena has tried. She has tried to save face, and all they have done is throw it back in hers. Without beauty, without family, without the Fitzmaurice belonging that guards itself against the outside world, what, now, is the point of her? Do they even care?
Ben bundles her out of the museum. The reason he needs to leave is not some chivalrous desire to protect his wife but because he knows that if the press get hold of this, it will be the endgame. If people find out his daughter is an eco-activist who vandalises national treasures and causes upheaval and disruption for the everyday Brit, he’ll neverget to be prime minister. That is more important to him than anything else.
Fliss once told Serena that Ben’s childhood ambition was to become ‘emperor of the universe’. He’s probably been watching too muchStar Wars, Fliss had said, and at the time, Serena had laughed along with her. She had thought she was in on the joke, that she and Ben were a team. But now she sees it was never a joke, not really. Now she sees that he didn’t – doesn’t – consider her his confidante or his equal.
She follows Ben out onto the street, where he hails a cab and shoves her in it. She catches her ankle on the door. The cut starts to bleed, but he doesn’t notice.
‘Tufton Street please, mate,’ Ben says.
In the taxi, she scans through her recent memories of his half-truths and obfuscations. The affair with Violet. The row he had with Cosima at the funeral, which he told her point-blank she was imagining. The fact he hadn’t even informed her he was running for leader but had confided everything in Jarvis. The way he didn’t want her to look at his phone – what incriminating things would she find there? All her previous certainties collapse like dominoes. Whatever and whoever else he lied about and to, she had always laboured under the misapprehension that he never lied to her. Not about the important stuff. Not about their family. Because the Fitzmaurices stuck together, didn’t they?
She understands now the extent of her delusion. He doesn’t care about protecting her. He cares only about his own advancement. And she can never be Lilith. She is fated always to be Eve.
XIV.
Richard
