‘Sorry – what was that?’ Cressida yelled, leaning forward. ‘It’s Esma, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, breathing heavily but attempting a smile. ‘Thank you.’ She held her face close to Cressida’s ear. ‘I don’t suppose you’d walk in front of me, would you, just so I can grab you as I fall past?’
‘Of course,’ Cressida laughed. As conga twins the two of them inched forward, Esma’s thin fingers spiking Cress’s shoulders and Cress holding onto the railing for support. When they reached the bouncing torchlights of security on the ground floor, both fell against the wall to catch their breath. There was a hand towel in Cress’s gym bag somewhere, and with relief she found it and dabbed carefully at her sweat-glossed face, wondering at the same time why she was bothering – her mascara would already be resembling an ageing English rocker’s. But she could hardly meet Felipe looking like a drowned rat.
‘How will you get home?’ Cressida asked Esma, fishing around in her bag for a hand mirror before she realised it would be too dark to see anything by – she’d have to fix herself up at the Westin; hopefully there’d be enough time before Felipe got there.
‘Driving, I thought,’ she said, looking with some alarm out the plate-glass window onto the street. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m at the Westin tonight actually,’ Cress replied. ‘Minibreak.’
‘Oh gosh. I remember those,’ Esma laughed, mopping her face with a handkerchief. ‘Well – go on then, don’t let me hold you up!’
Cressida laughed, digging her shoes out of her bag and putting them on.
‘Thanks. Alright then. See you.’
They waved and Cressida rejoined the crowd heading towards the double doors onto the street, astonished by the number of people still coming down the stairs. It was amazing to think that she worked a few metres from these people every day, and aside from the Tax crew had never met any of them. Outside the revolving doors the heat of the day still soaked the air; thank God the Westin was only a two-minute walk. How good it would be to get underneath one of those hot, ludicrously plentiful showers in their suite. Except – oh shit. The suite. Tiffany Delux. She had booked her as a special treat for Felipe: three hours, full service. Oh God. The rate was five hundred dollars an hour, and bang, whoops, she didn’t have the promise of a coming partnership salary to pay for it now. What was she going to do – call her and cancel? God, it had taken enough courage – plus two glasses of white – to book her in the first place. And they probably had a massive cancellation fee. She stood on the kerb, wondering what to do. There was nothing for it. She’d have to phone and hope to get out of it with just an hour or something. But what on earth was the name of the place again? The web search page was blank though – Safari cannot open the page ... And when she dialled there was nothing but a loud beeping noise, and a screen that said Emergency calls only. Plus a missed call from Richard. Scato.
A man arrived in front of her, holding out a five-dollar note. His tie was loose and the front of his shirt was soaked with sweat.
‘Sorry, ’scuse me. Do you have any change?’ he said. ‘I’m trying to ring my wife.’
‘Oh,’ said Cressida, dropping the phone and going red. Relax, he can’t tell you’re dialling a brothel, she thought. ‘What, is your building blacked out too?’ she said, busying herself picking up the phone and fumbling for her wallet.
‘Are you kidding?’ The man frowned, nodding down the hill. ‘The whole city’s out. Why do you think there’s fifty people at the bus stop?’
‘Oh,’ Cressida said, looking. That’s right. The whole North Shore too. The bus queue stretched down the block, mingling with the line at the taxi rank next to it. A fire truck was inching through the traffic. Shit. What was the point of going to the Westin then? But that would mean Felipe would be waiting on the street. She quickly dug some change from her wallet and handed it to him, waving away the note. ‘Is your mobile not working either?’
At the bus stop people groaned at the sight of one full bus then another trundling past. On a third, two people hung off the back, and the groan turned to a cheer. He shook his head. ‘Can’t get through.’
‘Radio said they were prioritising Emergency calls. Access Overload Control,’ a man in the queue said, knowledgeably. In a strobe of flashing blue lights the fire truck lumbered up the kerb and four men swung down.
‘Do you know – are the phone towers out?’ the man at the bus stop called out to them. ‘What’s going on, anyway? I thought this new mob were supposed to be better at running the show.’ He looked around at the others in the queue for agreement.
‘Yeah, not sure at the moment, mate,’ the firefighter said, reaching for what looked like an enormous crowbar from the back of the truck. ‘Most have battery backup so they’ll work for a bit. Your phone’s probably working, just jammed with everyone trying to make calls. I’d keep trying.’ He turned and jogged towards the Hannes Swartling building after the other two, and as they watched they entered by a side door.
Cressida stepped to the edge of the road, craning round it to check the traffic.
‘Terrorist attack is what I heard,’ the man at the bus stop was saying.
‘What? I doubt it. More likely a power surge. I know one thing, I wouldn’t want to be them in all that clobber. In this heat?’ said another man.
‘Sorry, gotta go,’ said Cress, ducking behind a car and dodging others to the other side. Weaving through the crowd she hurried along the footpath, looking for Felipe’s characteristic figure. He would tower over everyone in his usual non-surgical-days uniform of Momotaro denim and a tight Calvin Klein Slim Fit black t-shirt (bought in a three pack), the pecs and shoulders of daily ocean swims notable underneath. But when she got to the Westin, the doors to the hotel were closed and the foyer was dark, with no sign of Felipe. She perched on an aluminium bench seat and speed-dialled his number, not remembering until the high-pitched beep that the phone wasn’t working. Where was he? She untied her ponytail, shaking it out to loosen some of the sweat, and looked up at the exact second the space above was sheared by lightning. Momentarily the masses in the square below were visible, and it was like finding herself in a giant nightclub; in the returning dark, people’s faces were unreadable, black bobbing heads converging. Yells and crashes sounded from the murky dark down closer to the harbour. She was thirsty, and a headache was beginning to flower behind her left temple. Suddenly she felt small, and surrounded, fear coiling in her stomach. Whether Felipe turned up or not, how on earth was she going to get home? Then her phone rang.
‘Pip,’ she said, collapsing into the bench seat at the sound of a friendly voice. Pip Buchanan, her office-mate for the first two years of her time at Hannes Swartling.
‘Cressida, I heard. How awful!’
‘I know. It’s total bedlam here. Fifty people at the bus stop and no-one’s going anywhere.’
‘I’m talking about the partnership vote, silly.’
‘What? Oh. Yes. I know. Malakas,’ she said, using her father’s favourite expletive. ‘How did you hear?’
‘Um.’ There was a pause and a rustle on the handset, then Pip continued, ‘Brian Prendergast told me actually. Where are you?’
‘Outside the Westin. What about you?’
‘In a water taxi. We were at Aria – the bloody lights went out right in the middle of the spanner crab. Anyway, they couldn’t take cards without any power, could they, so we didn’t have to pay. Is it still going where you are?’
‘Yep,’