Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Author:Eleanor Catton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux


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Ever since the Queen’s Birthday Honours List had been announced, and the citations published, and all those honoured fêted by the press, the Autonomo publicity office had been receiving repeated calls from New Zealand media outlets seeking a comment on the alleged partnership with Darvish Pest Control. While none of them had singled out Lemoine specifically, or made any mention of Thorndike, or the landslide, or the farm – it would seem the Darvishes had abided by the letter, if not the spirit, of the non-disclosure agreement that they both had signed – with each importunate contact, Lemoine had felt his irritation grow. It was one of his precepts that anyone who tried to get one over on him should always be made to regret it, and when he’d learned that Darvish was planning to launch his conservation project with some fanfare – invitations; speeches; a spot on the six o’clock news – he’d briefly considered getting his revenge by showing up. He could arrive by helicopter, steal the spotlight, cause a stir; he could then regally refuse to be interviewed (‘No, no, this is Sir Owen’s day,’ he imagined saying airily, ‘this was his brainchild; I’m just here for the birds’) – whereupon the assembled journalists would inevitably turn to Darvish and ask him, mics hot, cameras rolling, how on earth the pair of them had come to meet. And why had Darvish failed to mention the billionaire’s personal involvement in the project? Was it a personal involvement? What did their relationship comprise exactly? Or more bluntly: what was in this for Lemoine? Was he angling for citizenship, perhaps? Had he ever spoken with Darvish about that? About buying property in New Zealand? Settling here? Investing here? Was there more to this apparent partnership than Darvish had hitherto disclosed? However Darvish answered, he would be sure to breach the NDA in one way or another, at which point Lemoine would then step in, terminate the whole arrangement, and sue the little fuck for everything that he was worth. It was an appealing fantasy – and one that Lemoine would never carry out; for although he would have liked nothing more than to see Owen Darvish hoisted with his own petard, the fact remained that, for the next few months at least, he needed him.

When Darvish had first proposed the sideline partnership between Autonomo and Darvish Pest Control as a condition of the sale of the acreage at Thorndike, Lemoine had been convinced for a good few minutes that the other man must have found out about his operation in the national park somehow, and was now proceeding to lay out the terms of a blackmail. In retrospect, Lemoine could see that he’d probably come on a little strong in talking up the farm’s defensible position, crediting the landslide with having gifted him with such an opportunity, describing the features of the bunker that he wished to build, and enjoying the role of the maniacal survivalist perhaps a



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