What to do about Katrina, Ep. I, Act I, sc. 41
Enter Jonas, and meet the Queen Mother
Welcome if you have just joined us to What to do about Katrina! We are quite a way into it by now, so if you would rather go right back to the beginning then you can start here with My Intro, or there is the Prelude & Scene One, which you can find there.
Alternatively, you can skip those fifty thousand words and cheat by reading the story so far in the Intermission, which happens after scene 36.
For the previously on Katrina, which is Scene 40, click there. That was the scene in which you first meet Sarah Bishop, who is a nefarious character if ever there was one. Mind you so is Peter.
And so is a certain person by the name of Jonas who was briefly mentioned in that scene, who you are about to meet here.
In terms of serialisation, we really are, with this scene and the last one, at a kind of point of no return. That is to say up until the previous scene the ‘truth’ could’ve gone a variety of ways. But I settled on this one. You still won’t know what that truth is for quite some time, though, so don’t you worry yourself on that account, my dearest reader.
You are now also about to meet someone else, and this is going to confuse you. If, however, you knew what was going to happen and what’s really going on about Katrina then this scene would make perfect sense. But if I told you that, then it would spoil it all. And I hate spoilers. I could give you a suggestive teaser trailer, though, if you’d like to read Fragment forty-nine, which is a scene you will be meeting soon. Ironically, the scene you are about to read is fragment forty-eight in my fragments folder. I often write like this, by the way. Because I know the characters and the plot and all the rest of it so if something pops into my head I can just write it and then fit it into the narrative later, knowing it will work.
And I really do love this scene. It is touching, whilst still mysterious and delightfully cryptic. Like I say, if this were a book which you were re-reading, then you would understand this scene perfectly the second time and I think you would love it. And I did so want to write a story that can be re-read.
Anyway, this is scene forty-one, in which the mystery deepens. And there is so much love in all this. So I shall now introduce you to Jonas, and to Katyusha, the Queen Mother.
Just don’t ask too many questions…
Katyusha’s eyes flash open, immediately awake and finding the alarm clock. Ten minutes past twelve.
She throws back the bed covers and strides over to the cupboard, quickly removing and dressing in the thick black cotton slacks with matching thermal-lined undershirt and hooded jumper that fits her figure perfectly. She retrieves the far-more-than-standard-issue watch which Peter had also conveniently slipped into the zip-pocket of the jogging bottoms and fastens it to her wrist.
00:10:22.
She slips on the trainers Katrina chose and is at the window in two long strides. Then she stops, closes her eyes for a full-sensory moment. There is nothing. After Peter’s preparations the sash window doesn’t make a sound when she raises it. A quick glance up and down the alleyway also reveals emptiness.
Firmly gripping the sill with both hands she inhales deeply then in one, fluid feline movement she swings herself out one-eighty degrees into a tuck, then without stopping her momentum propels herself to her right, effortlessly catching the drainpipe with both hands then rests there for a moment in a crouching position.
00:10:40.
It takes her approximately five seconds to shimmy down the three storeys. She jumps the last two metres, landing softly and gracefully on all fours, closing her eyes and sniffing the cold air, before raising herself up straight and checking the watch. She waits until the minute clicks to eleven before she starts sprinting.
It is approximately one hundred metres until the third abrupt turning to the right. That takes her 13.2 seconds. Then it is another fifty metres perhaps until a shallow curve leftwards, pleasingly the same gradient as a lane seven on the outdoor track. 00:11:22. At the end of that thirty metre turn there is another narrow alleyway to the right, a ninety-degree turn for which she again has to brake herself to an almost stop, like in the Great Court Run at Trinity, then it’s another twenty metres to the junction opening out into the wider road.
She brakes herself just before the end. 00:11:38. That allows her a smile.
“Was hast du erlangt?”
“Achtunddreißig.” Katyusha glances to her right, unconcerned.
“Seven seconds to spare. That’ll do. But what would you have done if I had suddenly lunged at you with a knife? Or worse still, prepared to shoot you?”
“You notice I am only two metres from you. I alter my trajectory when I see you. I could do roundhouse and kick the knife or the gun out of your hand. Then one-two in your face, sing-spring style. Maybe Biu jee if I wanna kill you.”
“What if I’d already put a bullet in the chamber and switched off the safety catch?”
Katyusha smiled and told Jonas he wouldn’t ever do that sort of thing to her.
He chuckled, and embraced her in a warm, fatherly hug. The kind that used to make her feel safe. That kind where she snuggled her little face into his neck and took in his scent and dissociated everything away.
They stayed that way for more than a few seconds because she needed that memory again. She was always grateful for the fact that when she became fully grown earlier in the year, Jonas was still twenty-five years’ older and enough inches taller for her to still do that snuggling. She looked up into his kind, handsome face, with the same depth as her and the same dark eyes as hers, all the sharpness and the resolve no longer required at this hour.
But he could turn into the wolf when he needed to. Just like she could. And that made her feel just as safe.
“Why did you switch to English?” she suddenly asked him with genuine curiosity. “And with your silly posh English voice?”
He chuckled. “I could ask you the same, young lady. Why do you persist in that thick Kievan accent of yours?”
“Because it makes me feel like a child again. And because that’s who I am and that’s where I was born. It’s my identity. That’s why.”
“Despite the fact that none of you need do that anymore? Because it’s all locked away in that Memory Palace of yours?”
“Despite this, yes. Maybe because of it too, you know? We can be children without the pain.”
He nodded gently then took in a deep breath of that cold air. “I’ll show you where I positioned the car. Come on.”
They sauntered side by side about twenty metres up the road to their right to where a decidedly unremarkable little red Renault hatchback was parked slightly onto the pavement, facing in the direction of traffic. Jonas retrieved the keys and handed them to her. She clicked the remote, at which the car gave a cute little chirrup and unlocked itself. It made her giggle.
“I don’t like it.”
“Quite. No one would pay attention to it. You can unlock it with the watch as well. Press these two buttons twice in alternation. Starting with that one. Then reverse to lock.”
She tried it out. “Can’t drive it with a watch, though, or can I?”
“Actually, you can with this model. It may look inconspicuous and a little unwashed, just to deter any interest, but it has all the usual features.”
She smiled at him. This sort of thing also brought out the child in her. “What should I do with the key? I can’t take it back to the safehouse.”
“Ah. Here.” When she passed them back to him he crouched down in front of the rear wheel. “You can’t see it from there, Katya.”
She bent down beside him, still curious. He pointed to a catch on the underside, a little less than half a centimetre, with a seam she had to squint to make out. “Click it twice. Like so.”
It slid back to reveal a little compartment matching the shape of the key perfectly. He placed it inside and closed it back up, as if it had never been.
“This is very neat,” she said unnecessarily. She locked it with the watch. “Maybe I will grow to like the car.”
He laughed. “Well, don’t like it too much. You’ll hardly be needing it. But just in case, as always.”
“Of course. And should I use this car when the time comes or do I just keep running?”
There was more than a double meaning in that, he knew. “You won’t need to keep running anymore soon enough, Katya. Whichever way things turn out.”
“Part of me, you know, well, lots of parts, we want it to fail so we can come home and not have to be out in the world anymore.”
He gave her the soft fatherly look again. “I know. But you all know you’ll be home sooner than you think, don’t you?”
“Really?”
“Really. Because I know how you feel, and Stefan too. I decided to change the timeline so you’ll be able to meet him earlier. Mid-February.”
She caught her breath and felt a spark of another’s joy shoot through her. “Why did you change it?”
“Because I love you both, that’s why. And because you love each other and neither he nor Ana can stay behind that amnesia wall for much longer. The System will crack.”
“Thank you. I was going to say, it’s got harder to hold System together. Now Catriona is here, I mean.”
He nodded an understanding.
“She is so much more, I don’t know, emotional and complex and energetic and full and I don’t know what the right words are in English.”
“You mean she’s difficult to contain?”
“Yes. I won’t be able to do it. She really does have a whole life inside her. Like forty-eight years. Not like my forty-eight. I never did all the things she did. My life was simple. You know?”
“I get you, sure.”
That made her chuckle. “Why you stop being posh accent?”
“Because I wanted to make you laugh and relax a little, Katyusha.”
“Well, it work. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, young lady.” He glanced at his watch. “Well, I’d say we can spare a good hour or more. I think you need it. Can’t go for a walk, though. The CCTV resumes at either end of this street. Car’s over there.”
She followed his eyes and quickly located his black Audi, which although she’d always adored, struck her as far too ostentatious for this sort of subterfuge.
The road was deserted at this hour and in this pandemic. They crossed and climbed in. She was grateful for the warmth.
Before he started it up he said, “I do have a few bits of news for you, though. We’ll get that out the way first.”
“Should I be worried?”
He shook his head. “No. But NIMZO tells me VX will be sending someone from counter-intelligence tomorrow perhaps. Unfortunately, we don’t know what time tomorrow. Nor do we know who. So you will have to be prepared for them to attack Katrina straight away.”
“That would be stupid of them.”
“Yes, but arrogance often makes people stupid. Especially if it’s Guy Melville.”
“I thought Peter was going to suggest they take advantage of our bleeding on Friday?”
“Yes, but given the famous ‘we know best’ attitude of the typical VX officer, we can’t ignore the possibility altogether. So you will need to remember the contingency.”
“Which is using the car, right?”
“Right. There is a change of clothes and appearance in the trunk, although you will need to drive to point 2, which will take?”
“Three minutes. Approximately. Depending on traffic.”
“Exactly. If they decide to interrogate Katrina during the rush hour then you can turn that three into fifteen or twenty.”
“Hmm. This is still ok. The traffic gets them too, doesn’t it?”
“That’s a fair point, Katya,” he smiled.
“I’m just as good as Diana at this kind of thing.”
“My turn to say hmm.” He waggled a finger at her. “I think you’re just channelling her.”
“Nope.”
They both laughed.
“Well,” he said, “just so as you know. Point 2 should be fine for the change. Then from there, proceed to point 3, where you change again.”
“I do know this. It’s like counting.”
“It’s called reinforcement.”
“I know this too.”
He couldn’t help her making him laugh. It was the child he remembered. She did it deliberately sometimes. And he never stopped her.
“Ok, smarty pants. What if it all happens on the Friday?”
“Then it’s point 5 then point 6 and then point 7. Two changes and then I get to have lunch with you.”
“You left out Diana.”
“Oh. Ok. So it’s Diana to point 5 and 6 and 7 and then she takes me to meet you for lunch. Is that ok?”
He couldn’t help chuckling again. “Stop being so mischievous.”
“I am just so happy to see you. You know. Except…”
He turned serious. “Except what?”
“Catriona desperately wants to go home. She is a real person and her world is real and she loves her family and her world and everything and it’s too much. She tries to control it but it’s going to be too much.”
“But you can send her back to the Palace, can’t you? Whenever you want? And especially, because it’s what she would want?”
She sighed. “Yeah. I guess so. But she’s supposed to stay here. But I don’t think she can.”
“Dissociate the worry, Katyusha. Everything will be fine.”
“Whatever happens?”
“Whatever happens.”
“Ok. I trust you.” She shrugged and smiled.
“Good girl.” He leaned over and brushed her hair back around the ear, and gave her the loving smile he knew she remembered from when she was very young. It was a trigger, of course. It always worked.
“Was there anything else?”
“Well, NIMZO says Peter is getting jittery. But she thinks she calmed him down.”
“Why is Peter jittery?”
“Because Katrina scares the shit out of him. That’s why.”
Katyusha burst out laughing. “This I can understand.”
“Quite,” he smirked, and started up the car.
Katyusha looked out the windscreen all the way up the road and further, to La Basilique du Sacré-Cœur way up there in the distance, subtly lit up for the night, a monument to a scolded age anciently watching over all those dreaming denizens of Le Montmartre, and sighed deeply, but happily.
Even just the next one hour would be enough. Respite for now, at least.
Then back to sleep. Back to beauty sleep for the Queen Mother…
Next instalment coming soon…
Oh - and as always, if you fancy buying me a coffee, that would be lovely!