we’re not,’ he said as a sort of vapidly handsome young man I recognised from a boy band came clumsily down some spiral stairs to our right. ‘Beg your pardon, Ken; offer suddenly and embarrassingly withdrawn. Hiya, Sammy,’ Sir Jamie said, grinning, and slapped the young man on the arm. He turned to me and nodded to the spiral stairs. ‘Ken; up there. Or there’s a lift, of course. Either way, follow your nose. Ha ha! See you later. Have fun.’ Then to the girls and the young man, ‘Right!’ And off they went.
I walked up the stairs then along a broad, deeply carpeted corridor lined with Art. Windows at the far end gave out onto a view east to the Millennium Dome, crowned with a circlet of red high-building lights. I couldn’t find any open doors, so I shrugged and chose, adventurously, the one double-set I could see. A suitably large bedroom the size of a tennis court presented itself and I crossed to where I guessed the en suite might be. It was a gym, but far away, on the other side of the room, was the bathroom. It really did have a little lidded ceramic pissoir fastened to the wall, as well as an ordinary loo, two sinks the size of small baths, a vast sunken bath studded with nozzles, lights and underwater speakers, a colossal shower cabinet with marginally more nozzles than the bath, and a sauna the size of a log cabin.
It felt slightly pathetic only to do a pee in this palace of evacuation, exfoliation and immersion, like using a McLaren F1 as a golf cart. I stood there looking around and realised that this was probably just Sir Jamie’s bathroom; there was no special facility to help a disabled person use the place. It was all immaculate save for a poorly wiped-clean area on a glass shelf where a few tiny white crystals lay scattered. I lifted some to my tongue with a fingertip and tasted cocaine. Moderately heavily cut, so surely not Sir Jamie’s. Probably Sammy, the clumsy boy bandee.
About to quit the bedroom, I saw the curtains that filled one wall move at the edge, and felt a hint of a draught brush my face. I hesitated, then tentatively pulled the curtains back.
The view was to the north-east over a terrace cut diagonally across the tower’s summit. Shrubs and small trees in giant pots swayed in the wind and the surfaces of ornamental pools ruffled as the gusts stroked and struck them. The sliding pane at this edge of the giant window had been left open a finger-width. I wondered if I ought to close it. If the wind changed … but so what? Sir Jamie probably had a butler or a major-domo or whatever the hell to do this sort of stuff. I was going to let the curtain fall back and just leave things as they were when I caught a glimpse of a figure in the shadows near one edge of the terrace where thin, straight railings segmented the view.
Lightning. Much later I thought it ought to have been lightning that lit the scene, that it had been that sort of storm and when I first saw her standing there it was courtesy of a flash of lightning, which lit up the Mysterious Figure in the Shadows. But it wasn’t. Just the lights of the storm-pressed city. Sometimes reality isn’t Gothic enough.
I could see it was a woman, standing about four metres away in the lee of the building under a roof projecting over part of the garden. The shelter was only partial; I could see her being buffeted by the swirling gusts. She looked thin and frail and dark. Her arms were crossed under her breasts. The wind tugged at the hem of her long dress and as my eyes adjusted I could see little strands of her hair whipping about her face and flickering up about her head like quick, attenuated flames.
I realised she was probably aware that somebody was watching her - a sliver of light had fallen across the paving stones at her feet when I’d pulled the curtains back - just as she turned her head to look straight at me. She stood like that for a moment, then her head tipped to one side. I recognised the woman in the narrow
I walked up the stairs then along a broad, deeply carpeted corridor lined with Art. Windows at the far end gave out onto a view east to the Millennium Dome, crowned with a circlet of red high-building lights. I couldn’t find any open doors, so I shrugged and chose, adventurously, the one double-set I could see. A suitably large bedroom the size of a tennis court presented itself and I crossed to where I guessed the en suite might be. It was a gym, but far away, on the other side of the room, was the bathroom. It really did have a little lidded ceramic pissoir fastened to the wall, as well as an ordinary loo, two sinks the size of small baths, a vast sunken bath studded with nozzles, lights and underwater speakers, a colossal shower cabinet with marginally more nozzles than the bath, and a sauna the size of a log cabin.
It felt slightly pathetic only to do a pee in this palace of evacuation, exfoliation and immersion, like using a McLaren F1 as a golf cart. I stood there looking around and realised that this was probably just Sir Jamie’s bathroom; there was no special facility to help a disabled person use the place. It was all immaculate save for a poorly wiped-clean area on a glass shelf where a few tiny white crystals lay scattered. I lifted some to my tongue with a fingertip and tasted cocaine. Moderately heavily cut, so surely not Sir Jamie’s. Probably Sammy, the clumsy boy bandee.
About to quit the bedroom, I saw the curtains that filled one wall move at the edge, and felt a hint of a draught brush my face. I hesitated, then tentatively pulled the curtains back.
The view was to the north-east over a terrace cut diagonally across the tower’s summit. Shrubs and small trees in giant pots swayed in the wind and the surfaces of ornamental pools ruffled as the gusts stroked and struck them. The sliding pane at this edge of the giant window had been left open a finger-width. I wondered if I ought to close it. If the wind changed … but so what? Sir Jamie probably had a butler or a major-domo or whatever the hell to do this sort of stuff. I was going to let the curtain fall back and just leave things as they were when I caught a glimpse of a figure in the shadows near one edge of the terrace where thin, straight railings segmented the view.
Lightning. Much later I thought it ought to have been lightning that lit the scene, that it had been that sort of storm and when I first saw her standing there it was courtesy of a flash of lightning, which lit up the Mysterious Figure in the Shadows. But it wasn’t. Just the lights of the storm-pressed city. Sometimes reality isn’t Gothic enough.
I could see it was a woman, standing about four metres away in the lee of the building under a roof projecting over part of the garden. The shelter was only partial; I could see her being buffeted by the swirling gusts. She looked thin and frail and dark. Her arms were crossed under her breasts. The wind tugged at the hem of her long dress and as my eyes adjusted I could see little strands of her hair whipping about her face and flickering up about her head like quick, attenuated flames.
I realised she was probably aware that somebody was watching her - a sliver of light had fallen across the paving stones at her feet when I’d pulled the curtains back - just as she turned her head to look straight at me. She stood like that for a moment, then her head tipped to one side. I recognised the woman in the narrow
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