The Beijing conspiracy

CHAPTER 61

C urtis had reserved an outdoor table at ‘Waterfront’, a restaurant in the converted wool stores that had been built by convicts on the foreshores of The Rocks. A replica of the Bounty rode the gentle swells of Campbell’s Cove. Beyond the historic ship, Sydney’s green and gold ferries travelled past the sails of the Opera House on their way to and from Circular Quay.

A young waiter seated Kate and Curtis at a table with a view of one of the world’s greatest harbours. He was about to pass the wine list to Curtis when Kate intercepted it. ‘You’re in my country now,’ Kate said, looking at the list.

Curtis rolled his eyes and turned to the young waiter. ‘Are you married?’ he asked.

‘No Sir.’

‘Fiancee?’

‘Yes,’ the waiter replied, his face breaking into a broad smile. ‘We’re getting married next March.’

‘Take my advice young man, don’t!’ Curtis said with a wicked grin. ‘We’ve only been married a week and she’s already taking charge. I shudder to think what she’s going to be like in ten years time.’

‘Oh stop it, Curtis! Don’t believe a word he says,’ Kate said to the waiter. ‘We’ll have the Affleck Cabernet Sauvignon, thanks.’

‘You’re incorrigible!’ Kate chided when the young waiter had left, looking more than a little confused. ‘I was married once, and that was quite enough, I can assure you.’

Curtis was quick to see the momentary shadow reflected in Kate’s eyes. He could have kicked himself. He was about to apologise when the waiter returned with the wine.

‘Shall I pour or would one of you like to taste it?’ the waiter asked, unsure of who should be offered the wine.

Curtis smiled and gallantly waved his hand to indicate that he was deferring to Kate.

‘That’s outstanding,’ Curtis said. ‘How do you say it here – good health?’

‘Not bad is it!’ Kate enthused, pleased that the wine from the cool climate vines near Lake George had met with Curtis’ approval. ‘Affleck’s one of my favourite vineyards so I’m glad you like it.’

‘It’s superb, and I’m sorry if I raised any uncomfortable memories a moment ago,’ Curtis offered. ‘Sometimes my sense of humour gets me into trouble.’

Kate grinned. After the intensity of Malcolm, Curtis’ sense of humour was one of the things she found so attractive about him.

‘Don’t be sorry. The memories are ghastly, but I guess we learn these lessons the hard way. Essentially I married my bloody father,’ she said, remembering her strict upbringing at the hands of her puritanical father. ‘Steak and three veg every night, Christ’s the head of his church, I’m the head of the house, and my word is final.’

‘You want to expand on that?’ Curtis asked gently.

Kate decided that it was time Curtis knew a little more about her.

‘Malcolm is a member of the New South Wales Liberal Party, the equivalent of your Republican party, but he’s also a born-again Christian and here in New South Wales and in Canberra the Christian Right is doing its best to take over politics.’

‘Sounds a bit like 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,’ Curtis quipped. ‘Do the Christians have much say in politics in this country?’

‘More than people realise. A mega church was opened by the Prime Minister, and the Christian lobby groups are not only gaining a lot of power in the parliament in Canberra but here in Sydney as well.’

‘Move over Jerry Buffett!’

‘Got it in one,’ Kate said. ‘It all went to hell and back in a hand-basket on our third wedding anniversary. I’d been out and bought a lovely bottle of Chateau Latour and two prime fillets of beef. Malcolm arrived home with two of his political cronies in tow and they proceeded to have a bloody prayer meeting in my living room, and then they drank the wine! After the prayer meeting the three of them moved onto pre-selections. Anyone who was divorced, pro a woman’s right to choose, wasn’t married or – horror of horrors – supported gay rights, didn’t get a look in.’

‘As you’ve probably noticed it’s pretty much the same with a lot of the Republicans back home. Was politics the only reason?’

‘Not really,’ Kate confided. ‘About two years into the marriage, Malcolm started nagging me to have children. Said it would be good for his image.’

‘Not a great reason to start a family,’ Curtis sympathised gently.

‘Exactly, so after he cut off conjugal rights, I went off to Yale.’

‘Has he remarried?’

‘About a month after the divorce came through, to another politician,’ Kate said with a wry smile. ‘They’re welcome to each other. I felt like I’d won a “get out of jail card”.’ Kate reached for her wine. ‘What about you, mystery man?’

‘Marriage?’ Curtis shook his head. ‘I’ve been close a couple of times and sometimes I think it would be nice to come home to someone, but it would take a special kind of woman to team up with someone in my line of work.’

‘Afraid you’re going to talk in your sleep?’ Kate teased.

Curtis grinned. ‘We take a vow to be silent, even in our sleep, but from what you’ve told me being married to a politician couldn’t have been easy either.’

Kate looked thoughtful. ‘You know, I don’t think it was just the politics, although I was never cut out to be a politician’s wife. It was more the mixture of politics and religion and the belief that theirs is the only tram to be on that really started to turn me away. They’re such hypocrites.’

‘It can be quite an extraordinary force, this religion thing,’ Curtis observed. ‘The problem with religions is that they’re all based on faith rather than logic. You can no more argue with a Muslim terrorist who’s convinced he or she is going to heaven for blowing up a bus stop on behalf of Allah than you can with a president or prime minister who is convinced he or she is being guided by God.’

‘Yet as a species we’ve always needed something greater than ourselves to believe in,’ Kate replied. ‘Look at the bloody Greeks and Romans, they had a raft of Gods to go to war for – Apollo, Mercury, Zeus – and heaven help you if you offended them, yet who believes in them now?’

‘I’m not sure we’re any more enlightened,’ Curtis responded. ‘The Muslims think the Christians are wrong and the Christians think the Muslims are on the wrong trolley bus, although I’ve often wondered what the women suicide bombers are going to do with seventy vestal virgins,’ he added with a grin.

After dinner, as they walked back to the Park Hyatt, Curtis put his arm around Kate’s slender waist and she found herself thinking seriously about getting to know him a lot better.

At Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport, al-Falid was boarding the last flight to Melbourne. In the morning, he would link up with Cathay Pacific’s direct service to Beijing.