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12:I[5500,["/_next/static/chunks/2fkis9t5zs13j.js","/_next/static/chunks/2wy1f87iyex6h.js"],"Image"] 13:I[5517,["/_next/static/chunks/2fkis9t5zs13j.js","/_next/static/chunks/2wy1f87iyex6h.js"],"default"] c:C 14:Te03,The breeze woke her. Then the wind rose and the cold snuck through the patio door left open last evening when Corina sat to watch the light fade. She turned, waited for the noise of the day to creep in. But there was silence except for the low hum of the waves rising then breaking softly against the rocks at Fallmore. Corina slept on without intending to and when she woke again it was to the soft knocking of Ana, her PA. Ana unlocked the bedroom door and let herself in. She was a small lean woman with soft brown hair and calculating eyes. Her feet hardly made a dint as she crossed the deep pile carpet in Corina’s suite. Outside, on the patio that separated Corina’s room from the shore, Tony, her bodyguard, moved into view. He stepped inside, his wide shoulders swinging round to survey the room. He nodded to Ana but did not turn to where Corina had begun to rise from beneath the bedsheet. And by the time Corina reached the sliding door, Tony had stepped back onto the patio with its garden seats and green luxuriant plants that framed her view of the sea. Corina stood in the door and watched his back, allowing the rain that has started up quickly to catch on her shoulders and dribble down between her breasts. ‘This door should be closed, Mam,’ Ana said, appearing by her side and shutting it tight. George had insisted on Mam for her, Sir when addressing him; one of the many affectations of his forties, now part of their political lives. As if the thought summoned him, along the hallway leading to her suite boomed George’s voice. ‘In here?’ Corina moved away from the door and into the lounge where a breakfast table has been set with fine China, a miniature vase of roses at its centre. She took a seat and thought of the heat from Tony’s skin, the swell of their bodies. Through the window, she watched as two more bodyguards moved into view, their black sunglasses and baseball caps giving them the appearance of oversized beetles on the pale sand. A waiter appeared by her side and Corina nodded as a croissant was set down gently on her breakfast plate. Coffee was poured, the waiter’s eyes dutifully averted from Corina’s bare shoulders. ‘Something to wear, Man,’ Ana said, laying a blue silk robe across her shoulders, trusting the belt into Corina’s lap as the door to her suite was pushed open and George stepped inside. ‘Ah, the first lady awaits,’ he said, smiling broadly to the room. ‘Hardly,’ Corina tied the robe around her waist, arranged her limbs beneath the breakfast table for maximum privacy. George inclined his head slightly, conceding in that one small movement that this might not yet be true. ‘Coffee?’ Corina said, raising her cup politely, knowing as she did that, she must play to the audience, the milieu of campaign staff ever present. But George had already turned away, was surveying the room with military efficiency. Looking for the satchel, Corina thought, glancing to the head of her bed where it lay on the carpet next to her purse. George’s eyes followed hers, his face relaxing, his head starting to move in a series of appreciative nods as he stepped closer to the breakfast table. ‘All is in order then?’ Corina nodded, knowing he referred to the papers concealed in the satchel and entrusted to her care last evening: his original birth certificate, obtained finally from the orphanage and amended to erase his past.15:Tf9b,This is what George said when he launched the political campaign last month. ‘We must be strong, defend our borders. We must work together, keep the threat at bay. As we sit here tonight, thousands of migrants - Polygogs and Hexagogs, young and old - make their way west, progressing toward the border. And they will not come alone. They will bring their families: wives and children, the infirm and defective, filth and disease. They will expect us good people to pay for their keep. And they will stop at nothing to gain entry, to access our land of freedom and opportunity. Our land of wealth....’ George had looked confidently into the audience, to the political leaders and campaign followers amassed for the occasion. He had sought Corina’s face amongst the crowd, his blonde head nodding, Corina thought, like an aged labrador toward a loyal friend. Corina had looked down at her hand, to the sparkle of her five-carat diamond ring and felt the weight of its commitment on her slender finger, the memory of when they first got together late one night in Manhattan. Corina’s middle eastern heritage had been a talking point then, something they shared until the campaign and scrutiny of lineage that followed, and the party demanded a thorough unpacking of the facts. Her history was unusual: two quarters white, one Hispanic, one Iranian. A polygog defective on two sides with offending blood on her mother’s side; the side that helped to raise Corina while her mother worked two jobs to pay the rent. George had offered Corina up like bait, and the party allowed themselves to be reeled in. An imposter revealed at the State House, the politician’s wife. Amendments were made, as they can be. Her surname was shortened, and westernised. The white half of her ancestry framed in gold-leaf. Last year, a Times editorial ran a piece about her family values and white European lineage. Her father’s people were flown over and photographed with Corina in the state gardens. Corina watched George taste the hot coffee, his blue eyes looking past her now and toward the sea. He has aged well, she thought, his dyed blonde hair receding only at the front, worn tight at the sides. He has a runner’s body still, and an energy that did not abate despite his age. And this morning, even with the pomp and ceremony of his office, she sensed the boy in him still, the migrant who would like nothing better than to leave the confines of his job and run barefoot across the sand. But when George turned back to Corina his eyes were cold. ‘You have your little garden party this morning, correct?’ he said. ‘If you mean my visit to the Youth Mental Health Centre at Belware Gardens, then yes... I have a garden party,’ Corina said. George sniggered, the corners of his mouth turning down, denying a smile that played on his lips. ‘And this afternoon?’ He dropped a sugar cube into his coffee, stirred the liquid then slowly rested his spoon on the side of his saucer before looking her way. ‘The Children’s Hospital,’ Corina said, ‘followed by a visit to the local school. They are to perform a traditional dance for me.’ ‘Ah, delightful! George threw his hands in the air, looked around at the staff as if a joke had been shared. ‘In the meantime, I will do business with the Prime Minister!’ Corina did not look up. The questions, she knows, were part of her circumstance; something to be tolerated in the same way, she believed, all marriages have things to be tolerated after a time. But after a moment, she spoke again. ‘George, you do know the Prime Minister is a gay man?’ ‘Yes...so I am informed,’ George said, shifting in his chair, crossing his legs so that his beige slacks rose to reveal golfers’ socks beneath the hem. ‘You will try not to offend?’ she asked of him then. ‘He is well thought of here.’16:Teae,The day before, having flown across Europe, they travelled north to visit Boyle Abbey. The first Corina heard about their visit was on the plane, Ana relaying the itinerary in granular detail before they saw land. It hadn’t made sense at first: the long flight west, followed by a two-hour drive to look at crumbling ruins. But Corina had quickly warmed to the place - to Ireland - and the fanfare of music and dance that greeted them off the plane, the arc of children surrounding the steps, some baring gifts. A slow Irish tune had filled the air. It reminded Corina of her grandfather’s oud playing softly late into the evening. Corina had thought to tell George about this when they sat into the awaiting car. She had wanted to tell him that people from different lands can have more in common than not, but there had been more of the itinerary to go over and after a while the words in Corina’s head started to sound mawkish and sad, and she resolved to sit back with her own thoughts, to look out at the passing green fields and small dwellings, some hidden behind trees and ditches oddly shaped by the wind. At the Abbey, Corina stood at George’s side, looking east, over the tops of the dark hedges and windswept hills, transfixed by the light, the other worldliness of it all as it shone through the high stone naves. ‘Much of the Abbey was mutilated during the 17th and 18th century when it was used to accommodate a military garrison,’ the guide had said, leading them through the ruin. She wore grey mannish shoes, making her several inches shorter than them both. Corina had leaned in, struggling to understand her accent, but George had nodded appreciatively and turned on his heel to assess the remaining stone structure, the bare vertebra of the original build, exposed now, and vulnerable to the elements. It was then that Corina saw the bird lying on the stone floor at the foot of one of the naves. She had walked over, drawn to its’ tiny shape, the futile flapping of its’ broken wing as it tried to rise off the ground and take flight. A solider came to Corina’s side: tall with broad shoulders and dark brown eyes. They and shared the briefest of glances, a look of understanding Corina had thought, before he looked down at the bird. ‘Apologies, Mam,’ he said, ‘most likely it she was blinded by the sun and missed the opening to the nave.’ Corina had bent down, moved by the bird’s suffering, the twisting of its’ muscles, the exoskeleton so powerful in flight, redundant now on the cold stone floor. But George had hooked Corina under the arm and led her away before she could make a fuss. And Corina had been forced to look back to know what had happened to the bird. ‘This way, Mam,’ the guide said, as Corina turned her head left then right, navigating the crowd of dignitaries that followed her every step until she found the broad green shoulders and military cap of the solider rear back then step deliberately down on the bird’s head. Corina did not look up again until they were outside the Abbey wall where, with averted eyes, she noticed a brass plate swinging from two short chains on the entrance gate. ***Restricted Access for People with Disabilities***, it said and Corina’s mind ran wild then, imagining a queue of disabled bodies trying to get in, dragging their torpid limbs across the boundary and onto the cruciform floor of the ruin. She considered then that, perhaps, they had all got it wrong; that perhaps, access had more to do with who has permission to enter rather than who could physically get across the line.17:T690,George flipped his breakfast knife over and picked it up, running his hand over the tip of the blade, inspecting its silver markings, bringing the implement close to his face. It concealed his eyes then, the intense blue of them that had been the first, and now the last thing to hold Corina’s affections. ‘We leave at 1600 hours,’ he said, not moving the knife away from his face but twisting it over and back with ceremonial grace, as if preparing for battle. In the reflection on the blade, Corina could see the blue of the sea, clear and virgin bright now that the rain has moved off. At first, it is just a band of blue across the silver blade but as George twisted the knife, he pulled it closer to his eyes, broadening the reflection until Corina could see the sand along the shoreline then the sharp glint of sunlight rising above the water at Fallmore. ‘Yes,’ Corina said, ‘Ana has been very thorough when relaying the itinerary.’ George glanced quickly over his shoulder, looking past Ana at the leather satchel. ‘And you will...am, keep the item close?’ he asked. ‘It will remain in my possession throughout the day,’ she said. George nodded then set the butter knife back down on the table and stood to leave. Corina lifted her croissant, broke a bite off one end and chewed it slowly. In the corner of her eye, she could see Tony enter the room through the patio door then dutifully follow George back out of her suite, Ana closing the bedroom door behind them both. 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