of this, the last part of her journey home.
She turns left off the Kingâs Road and onto Old Church Street clutching them tightly in her hands as she walks. She strides purposefully up the street, making sure not to step on any cracks or drain covers for if she does she will have to go back to the top of the street and start again. But she manages to avoid them and a feeling of deep calm flutters across her chest as she walks past the upmarket charity shop where millionaire Chelsea housewives deposit their cashmere sweaters and silk scarves, past The Pigâs Ear pub where dressed-down bankers squish uncomfortably onto shabby-chic leather sofas and pretend to be lads. The road darkens as she walks across a narrow, dimly lit side street, ominously named Justice Walk, where the old courthouse that once held prisoners bound for the coloniesand is now a multi-million pound super-pad, peeks nervously out of the shadows as though hiding its murky history in the half-light.
This little corner of Chelsea that weaves its way down to the Embankment where the statue of Sir Thomas More sits in contemplation outside the church that gave the street its name, has been home to Kerstin for three years now, yet still she feels like a stranger.
She stops outside a thin, rather bland modern building: the apartment block where she rents a tiny one bedroom flat on the top floor for more money per month than she would pay for a three bedroom house in Cologne. But it suits her to live here; it is private, quiet and clean and, most of the time, she can carry out her routines and rituals without disturbance.
She walks up the path tentatively, wondering whether the communal hallway will be empty. As she approaches the glass outer door with its two neat potted bay trees she sees the light is on in the hall and hopes that Clarissa, the elderly, upper-class lady who lives in the ground-floor flat, is not on another of her nightly rounds. An interruption from Clarissa can wipe a good thirty minutes from Kerstinâs evening and set her and her rituals back hours.
Kerstin looks through the glass. Clarissaâs door is shut; there is no one about. Kerstin smiles with relief but there is still a strip of hallway to pass before she can get to the stairs and freedom. She turns the key in the lock cautiously and pushesthe door open, closing it behind her gently so it doesnât slam. Clarissa listens out for any comings and goings and at the slightest noise, she will materialise in the corridor asking questions; telling stories about her mother, Sybil, who was a suffragette with a beautiful soprano voice: âShe sang at Wigmore Hall in the twenties you know ⦠she even made a record ⦠and Dame Ethel Smyth said she had a voice like a nightingale.â; about her brother Lawrence who fled to LA to join a commune in 1972 and was never seen again: âI think he may have been queer you know and didnât want to tell us but it wouldnât have bothered me a jot. Mummy had tons of female lovers, one did back then because Edwardian men were so damned uptight and prudish. They wouldnât know a female orgasm if it leaped up and bit them on the bottom â¦â The stories go on and on, seaguing into another and another like a vast map of interconnected tributaries, taking in cul-de-sacs and sweeping avenues, motorways and dead ends like an out of-control car. Clarissa is Kerstinâs daily challenge; the obstacle she must overcome as she leaves for work in the morning and returns at night; like the troll under the bridge but with a sunnier demeanour.
Kerstin tiptoes across the hall to the foot of the stairs. She can hear a faint noise coming from behind Clarissaâs door: chamber music playing on a vinyl record then a high-pitched, mournful voice singing: âIf you were the only boy in the world and I was the only girl!â Sheâs listening to her mother singing,thinks Kerstin. She pictures the old lady
She turns left off the Kingâs Road and onto Old Church Street clutching them tightly in her hands as she walks. She strides purposefully up the street, making sure not to step on any cracks or drain covers for if she does she will have to go back to the top of the street and start again. But she manages to avoid them and a feeling of deep calm flutters across her chest as she walks past the upmarket charity shop where millionaire Chelsea housewives deposit their cashmere sweaters and silk scarves, past The Pigâs Ear pub where dressed-down bankers squish uncomfortably onto shabby-chic leather sofas and pretend to be lads. The road darkens as she walks across a narrow, dimly lit side street, ominously named Justice Walk, where the old courthouse that once held prisoners bound for the coloniesand is now a multi-million pound super-pad, peeks nervously out of the shadows as though hiding its murky history in the half-light.
This little corner of Chelsea that weaves its way down to the Embankment where the statue of Sir Thomas More sits in contemplation outside the church that gave the street its name, has been home to Kerstin for three years now, yet still she feels like a stranger.
She stops outside a thin, rather bland modern building: the apartment block where she rents a tiny one bedroom flat on the top floor for more money per month than she would pay for a three bedroom house in Cologne. But it suits her to live here; it is private, quiet and clean and, most of the time, she can carry out her routines and rituals without disturbance.
She walks up the path tentatively, wondering whether the communal hallway will be empty. As she approaches the glass outer door with its two neat potted bay trees she sees the light is on in the hall and hopes that Clarissa, the elderly, upper-class lady who lives in the ground-floor flat, is not on another of her nightly rounds. An interruption from Clarissa can wipe a good thirty minutes from Kerstinâs evening and set her and her rituals back hours.
Kerstin looks through the glass. Clarissaâs door is shut; there is no one about. Kerstin smiles with relief but there is still a strip of hallway to pass before she can get to the stairs and freedom. She turns the key in the lock cautiously and pushesthe door open, closing it behind her gently so it doesnât slam. Clarissa listens out for any comings and goings and at the slightest noise, she will materialise in the corridor asking questions; telling stories about her mother, Sybil, who was a suffragette with a beautiful soprano voice: âShe sang at Wigmore Hall in the twenties you know ⦠she even made a record ⦠and Dame Ethel Smyth said she had a voice like a nightingale.â; about her brother Lawrence who fled to LA to join a commune in 1972 and was never seen again: âI think he may have been queer you know and didnât want to tell us but it wouldnât have bothered me a jot. Mummy had tons of female lovers, one did back then because Edwardian men were so damned uptight and prudish. They wouldnât know a female orgasm if it leaped up and bit them on the bottom â¦â The stories go on and on, seaguing into another and another like a vast map of interconnected tributaries, taking in cul-de-sacs and sweeping avenues, motorways and dead ends like an out of-control car. Clarissa is Kerstinâs daily challenge; the obstacle she must overcome as she leaves for work in the morning and returns at night; like the troll under the bridge but with a sunnier demeanour.
Kerstin tiptoes across the hall to the foot of the stairs. She can hear a faint noise coming from behind Clarissaâs door: chamber music playing on a vinyl record then a high-pitched, mournful voice singing: âIf you were the only boy in the world and I was the only girl!â Sheâs listening to her mother singing,thinks Kerstin. She pictures the old lady
Similar Books
