Eat or Be Eaten

[Xirnium]

Like most important decisions in the Bright Republic, their meeting had been scheduled sometime after ten o’clock. Over a lavish dinner, a ripe and deeply gouged Roquerfort, and a second bottle of Bénédictine.

In the opinion of Félix Uureuil, who was sitting in one of the buttoned leather armchairs which surrounded the snooker tables in the back room of the the Motor Yacht Club, it was a repulsive custom. Conversation across the cold and cooling, sour and souring ruins of a meal. But Félix was not an ordinary Xirniumite.

‘Sorry for that,’ said Alberich Alântar, a tall and angular sixty-five year old man in a traditionally-cut suit, as he finished sending a text message to his daughter and returned his smartphone to his suit jacket pocket. And with insufficient polite regret, Félix thought sourly.

But what he said was: ‘Not at all, Chief Whip.’ He also allowed himself a wintry smile.

‘Brynhild has her first midterm exam this week,’ Alberich said by way of explanation. He examined his drink in a wineglass only slightly smaller than his skull.

‘I’m sure she’ll do well,’ said Félix without any hint of impatience. He looked at the man benignly, keeping his thin smile on his lips.

‘I hope so,’ said Alberich. He allowed silence to punctuate their conversation, inviting Félix to change the subject and hinting he could do so without the risk of looking uninterested. Then he thought better of letting the silence do his job for him and said: ‘Well.’

‘Yes,’ said Félix. He tugged at his trouser knee and put his fingertips together. ‘Well, Chief Whip, what I really wanted to ask you,’ he said with an unfamiliar bluntness, ‘is whether you think the Prime Minister will promote me to the Cabinet this term.’

There. That could not have been unexpected, but now he would be committed.

Félix Uureuil was a Junior Minister (one of the lower Ministerial levels below Cabinet), the Minister for Administrative Affairs. Having just celebrated his fiftieth birthday, Félix had often watched with disgust as men ten and twenty years younger (and usually less gifted) were promoted ahead of him, and so far at least he had stomached every humiliation with a convincing facsimile of congenial good sportsmanship. But though bitter experience had tempered his unspoken ambitions, now surely it was his time.

Alberich took an extra breath to consider his response. ‘I don’t think so, no,’ he said without ceremony, having decided that the best approach to take with his wounded Junior Minister was to just wrench the damned barb out. Quickly deciding some excuse was needed, he said: ‘I’m afraid the Fox, Martin Bank & Trust collapse didn’t do you any favours.’

Félix’s mouth twisted in the rictus of a smile. ‘I see,’ he said in a voice as bloodless and dry as red herring, not trusting himself, in that moment, to say anything more. His blue grey eyes, which had grown colder with every bitter Närväryn winter, were stricken with surprise, disappointment and betrayal. Later that evening, over brandy, he would realise that this was the worst moment of his life.

Alberich affected one of his carefully rationed looks of sympathy. ‘Félix, my dear friend, don’t misunderstand me. The Prime Minister doesn’t blame you personally for that.’

And well she shouldn’t!, Félix snarled inside his skull.

‘You are an excellent frontbencher,’ Alberich continued in his sepulchral tone. ‘You have devoted yourself to the Party. You are tireless, intelligent, hard-working and loyal. The Prime Minister needs you where you are. She is going to rely on your continuing understanding and support.’

His eyes betrayed nothing. ‘It seems you,’ by which of course Félix meant the Prime Minister and her Chief Whip, ‘have made up your mind.’ It was an accusation, perhaps, though concealed carefully within a statement of fact.

‘We have,’ replied Alberich evenly. ‘Look, Félix,’ he said in his most reassuring manner. ‘I am only saying that it will be difficult this time around. This term. But we’re half way through. Just two years from the next election, really. We’re only asking you to wait until then. And if you want a job in Cabinet, then we shall find you one. We will work as a team, just you and I. I will help you build your profile, not only within the Parliamentary Party but also with the public. Your time will come.’

Others might have been moved to fury, but Félix felt only a chilling emptiness. This time his smile died before it reached his eyes.

[Xirnium]

When he got home about midnight, Félix spent a very long while considering resignation. You were supposed to resign, traditionally, when you no longer had confidence in your Parliamentary Party leader.

Not that there was not plenty of mischief which you could cause from the backbenches.

The study of Félix Uureuil’s Närväryn home, a fashionable tall town house on the Vogàret just ten minutes from the Houses of Parliament, was modest in size but distinctively masculine in ambience. All cracked green leather and dark oak pannelling, with tall glass-fronted bookcases and oil painting still lifes. The study’s lighting was subdued. Félix had not changed out of his shirt with its pearl-white cuffs like cards, but he had replaced his Elvelyn & za Vyttsà mohair suit jacket with a semi-military smoking jacket. The smoking jacket was claret coloured with a black velvet collar. On the arm of his wing chair regarding the coal fire in the white marble fireplace, Félix had open a heavy book from his library, spinebroken and warped by dampness, titled Sylphidae.

From the front of the house he heard the heavy street door open and close, and then the click of high heels on wood panel floors. ‘Are you home, Felix?’ Victoria Uureuil still spoke Middle Närvärynese with a faint trace of her original Caldan accent.

‘In here,’ Félix called from his study. While he had been lost in thought, neither reading nor drinking, Félix’s cigar had gone out. Picking up the matchbox beside his dried prune brandy, he lit another strike-anywhere match, then waved its flame to and fro across the tip, sucking gently until he had got the cigar going again to his satisfaction. Félix smoking was an uncommon sight.

Victoria stepped into the study. She smelt the cigar before she saw it but the only sign she gave was the raising of one eyebrow. She strode across the study to retrieve a glass before sitting down next to him and pouring herself a brandy. ‘I take it Alântar put you off again?’ she asked.

He marked his place with a faded Polaroid. ‘That old bastard has never gone out on a limb by himself, Victoria.’ Félix’s voice was laced with contempt. ‘It’s either the Prime Minister or the Party Chairman who’s behind this. Alântar just sniffed out who the jackals were after.’ He held out his cigar to her.

She took a deep puff on the cigar, savouring it before exhaling. She handed it back to her husband. ‘I hope you’re not going to give me cancer,’ she said with a slightly wry grin. It made him smile. ‘All of them take you for granted. If you wait until they’re willing to reward you for all you’ve done for them, and they all owe you their careers, you’ll be waiting forever.’

‘I certainly don’t have forever,’ Félix agreed. ‘I’ve already waited a term too long.’ He filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his cigar. ‘I’m not sure what disgusts me more. The ingratitude. All the hard work that I’ve done for this Government. On national service. Workfare. The idea of toiling patiently until next election. By then some will want to retire me to bring in new blood. No, if I’m honest with you, and with myself, I’m most outraged at the thought that the Prime Minister is going to promote some cretinous halfwit to a portfolio that should have been mine. I hate, hate feeling so jealous. I’m better than that.’

‘The Prime Minister isn’t some fount of justice who rewards loyalty in kind,’ Victoria said archly. ‘She never has been. She’s thinking of her career and there’s no shame in you doing the same. You don’t owe her a thing. She owes you more than anyone could count. Besides, she hasn’t really helped Xirnium’s standing in the world, has she? Xirniumites were angry when she came to power and they had reason to be but it’s past time to be building bridges with the rest of the world again and she just keeps sinking deeper into isolationism.’

Félix smiled, sipped. ‘The Front Bench is too cowardly to stand up to her. They have no ambition. No spirit. Why rock the boat. Steady as she sinks. But on the backbenches…’ He swirled his brandy thoughtfully. ‘There are no shortages of motivated men there. The issue is finding someone who will be helpful to me.’ He laughed darkly. ‘I’d like to reward the Prime Minister’s loyalty in kind. Her, the Chief Whip, the Party Chairman, the Cabinet. None are blameless.’

[Xirnium]

When Victoria first saw him the next morning, Félix was in the kitchen, with his back to her making breakfast. He had already showered and shaved, and wore a white cotton-piqué shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, calfskin braces fastened to a pair of blue windowpane-checked wool suit trousers, and brogue-detailed leather monk-strap shoes. Around his waist, Félix had wrapped tightly a white linen kitchen apron. He was noisily sautéing calf’s liver and chopped tongue over a high flame, and the wine, which he was pouring in the pan from a glass bottle encased in wicker-work, had caught fire.

Victoria came into the kitchen. She was already dressed in a smart but functional calf-length black skirt which accentuated her hips, a long-sleeve button-down white blouse, a thick black leather belt, and a pair of high-heeled leather boots which rose to nearly the hem of her dress. Her long, night black hair fell naturally past her shoulders and she offered her husband a soft, ruby-lipped smile as she strode into the kitchen. ‘Big breakfast?’

‘I woke up this morning ravenous with hunger,’ said Félix, cracking open an egg on the edge of a stainless steel turner.

‘Nothing wrong with a healthy appetite,’ Victoria noted with a playful smile as she sat down at the kitchen table. Her nostrils flared briefly as she took in the scents of breakfast. ‘It smells delicious.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ agreed Félix. The eggs had been freshly laid; the organs obtained from an ethical butcher Félix employed. He had no taste for animal suffering. ‘Where to this morning?’ He served his wife her portion and then handed her a fork as though he were handing a surgeon a scalpel.

Victoria took the fork and smiled, cutting into the liver and having the first taste. ‘That is divine! Félix, your talent in the kitchen has never ceased to amaze me. I think we should arrange some excuse or other to bring it to the attention of the voters. It’s… relatable.’

‘It’s not the voters who have kept me from Cabinet,’ Félix said as he untied his apron. Then he smiled at his wife and savoured a glass of elderberry wine. ‘On the other hand, I never really needed them before, did I.’ In suburban Vedânta, where Félix’s electoral division was located, the electors came from what the Party’s internal pollsters labelled the A and B social classes. They were the types of families with Silverflyte SUVs in their high-sloping driveways and passports in their sideboard drawers. Canvassing in those neighbourhood had always almost been vulgar.

‘Exactly,’ Victoria said with a knowing smile. ‘Your colleagues want to win and many voters cast their ballots based on whom they want to see as Prime Minister. Building support is largely a matter of convincing them that you can keep the party in power.’ She shrugged. ‘Even those colleagues who need more… personal inducements will only believe you can deliver if they can see voters supporting your Government.’

‘Yes,’ said Félix. So far as he had any public profile at all, at least with the ordinary person, it was as the unfortunate subject of meme gif, recording a memorable moment when he had tried just a little to hard to shake the Prime Minister’s hand at some function or gathering, and instead managed to get in the way. Occasionally, the scene was cut so that Félix pushing forward alternated rapidly with his apologetic retreat, in time to a bit of dubstep. It was a profile that could use improvement. ‘Maybe I should go on that ridiculous show. What is it called. Salami Tactics, or something.’


‘Are you sure that’s the best strategy?’ Victoria said in a tone that was really just another way of saying she didn’t think it was. ‘You don’t want to seem like you’re putting yourself out there. You want to let other people mention you. Become reliable. The adult in the room. The strong, steady man who gets things done without ever asking to be thanked.’

‘It’s no great achievement being the adult in the party room, Victoria, let me tell you.’ Félix gave one of the brief smiles that lit up his eyes more than his mouth. He was already thinking about how to make her vision, which was an attractive one, reality. ‘What are your plans for today?’ he asked, while he thought.

‘I have brunch with Honorine,’ Victoria answered. ‘I’m sure she’ll have a lovely lecture on her latest moral fad. Then I was going to spend the afternoon at the gym.’

‘The afternoon?’ asked Félix. ‘Now you’re making me feel guilty about last night’s cigar.’