Page 21 of Never

He went on: ‘Something tells me things may get better here at the lake.’

They were going to drop out, Kiah realized with dismay.

‘For the money it will cost to go to Europe, I could buy a fine flock of sheep.’

And watch them all die, Kiah thought, just like the last lot; but she remained silent.

He read her mind. ‘There are risks both ways, of course. But I understand sheep. Whereas I know nothing about Europe.’

Kiah felt let down, and wanted to scorn his cowardice, but she held back. ‘You’re not sure,’ she said.

‘I am sure. I have decided not to go at this time.’

Azra had made the decision, Kiah guessed. Azra had never been keen on migrating and she had talked Yusuf out of it.

And she was left high and dry.

‘I can’t go without you,’ she said.

Yusuf replied: ‘Then we will all stay here, and somehow we will get by.’

Dumb optimism was not going to save anybody. Kiah was about to say so but held back again. It was not a good idea to challenge a man when he pronounced judgement in that formal way.

She was silent for a long moment. Then, for the sake of good relations with her cousin, she said: ‘Well, then, so be it.’

She stood up. ‘Come, Naji,’ she said. ‘Time to go home.’ To carry him the mile or so to their village suddenly seemed awfully hard. ‘Thank you for taking care of him,’ she said to Azra.

She took her leave. Trudging along the shore, shifting Naji from one aching hip to the other, she looked ahead to the time when all the boat money was spent. No matter how frugal she was, she could not make it last more than two or three years. Her only chance had just melted away.

Suddenly it was all too much. She put Naji down, then slumped down herself and sat on the sand, staring out over the shallow water to the muddy islets. Wherever she looked she saw no hope.

She put her head in her hands and said: ‘What am I going to do?’

CHAPTER 3

Vice-President Milton Lapierre came into the Oval Office wearing a dark-blue cashmere blazer that looked British. The drape of the double-breasted jacket did much to hide the gravid swell of his belly. Tall and slow-moving, he was a contrast with petite President Green, who had been a champion gymnast at the University of Chicago and was still slim and fit.

They were as different as President Kennedy, the classy Boston intellectual, had been from Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, the rough diamond from Texas. Pauline was a moderate Republican, conservative but flexible; Milt was a white man from Georgia who was impatient with compromise. Pauline did not like Milt, but he was useful. He told her what the far-right wing of the party was thinking, warned her when she was about to do something that would get them all in a lather, and defended her in the media.

Now he said: ‘James Moore has a new idea.’

Next year was election year, and Senator Moore was threatening to challenge Pauline for the Republican nomination. The crucial New Hampshire primary was five months away. A challenge from the sitting president’s own party was unusual but not unknown: Ronald Reagan had done it to Gerald Ford in 1976 and failed; Pat Buchanan had challenged George H. W. Bush in 1991 and failed; but Eugene McCarthy had done so well against Lyndon Johnson in 1968 that Johnson had dropped out of the race.

Moore had a chance. Pauline had won the last presidential election in a backlash against incompetence and racism. ‘Common-sense conservatism’ had been her slogan: no extremes, no abuse, no prejudice. She stood for low-risk foreign policy, low-key policing, and low-tax government. But millions of voters still hankered after a big-talking macho leader, and Moore was winning their support.

Pauline was sitting behind the famous Resolute desk, a gift from Queen Victoria, but she had a twenty-first-century computer in front of her. She looked up at Milt. ‘What now?’

‘He wants to ban pop songs with obscene lyrics from being listed in the Billboard Hot Hundred.’

There was a burst of laughter from the other side of the room. Chief of Staff Jacqueline Brody was amused. A long-time friend and ally of Pauline’s, she was an attractive forty-five-year-old with a brisk manner. She said: ‘If it wasn’t for Moore, there’d be days when I wouldn’t smile from breakfast to bedtime.’

Milt sat down in the chair in front of the desk. ‘Jacqueline may think it’s funny,’ he said grumpily, ‘but a lot of people are going to like this idea.’

‘I know, I know,’ Pauline conceded. ‘Nothing is too ridiculous for modern politics.’

‘What are you going to say about it?’

‘Nothing, if I can avoid comment.’