Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

wide windowless hall was sunlit by uplighters. Reception todaywas the young guy known as MY or, in the parlance of the office, ‘Mum’sYoungest.’

Hechecked Carver’s ID carefully. Carver was still novel to him.

“Morning,Mr Carver. Nice weather.” He did not speak like a young man particularly, orhad been told not to.

“Sure,”said Carver, and took the lift to the fourth floor.

Hisroom, free outside, as some of the upper storeys were, of tarpaulin, and inaspect looking away from the river towards Holland Row, had the window-blinddown. He glanced out through the tiny hole. Everything seemed as expected, thebacks of tall houses, high walls, the small pub generally known as Long’ssquashed in between the parked cars, the occasional pedestrian. The sun heredescribed, he thought, a kind of barrenness. A cityscape of blank stone, withtoy people wandering about until their batteries ran down.

Hehad been in the room less than five minutes when the intercom buzzed him to goup. His appointment with Jack Stuart was for a quarter to eleven, but he wouldhave to wait, he knew; one always had to wait for Stuart, five minutes ortwenty-five.

Itmight have been a ploy. If it was, today Stuart did not resort to it. Insteadhis door stood half open.

“Comein, Carver.”

Stuart’sroom, unlike Carver’s, was quite large, with brown leather chairs and a brownpolished side table. Paper files and boxed discs were neatly stacked onshelves. The coffee-making machine gave off its eternally cheerful aroma, ascent that was more alluring than the subsequent taste.

“Havea seat,” said Stuart.

Carversat.

Thewindows here too had the blinds down. The blinds were always down. There hadbeen net curtains in the old days.

“How’slife?” Stuart asked. He was a slim man, warmly dark skinned and haired, withcooled grey eyes.

“Fine,thanks.”

“AndDonna?” Stuart always remembered their names, the current wife or partner, anyoffspring, or other remaining relatives.

“She’sfine, thanks.”

“Good,good.” And playfully: “Will she let you off this evening?”

“Yes,of course.”

“That’sgood. It’s just a five to eight-nine-ish. Avondale. OK?”

“Sure.”

“Good.Your piece on the switch was good, by the way. You received my memo?”

“Yes,Mr Stuart.”

“We’reall up to level then, Carver. Well, have a good day.”

“Thanks.You too, sir.”

WhenCarver got back to his room, the relevant brief and tab for the evening hadalready arrived. The table was booked and office credit card awaitingcollection. He would not bother to let Donna know, he had warned her of thepossibility he might be late. Even though getting out of London just after ten,which is what it would amount to, could be worse than later, since the post-theatretraffic would be starting to crawl in all directions. And Avondale was a bore.

Inthe lower corridor Silvia Dusa had passed Carver and flashed her black eyes athim in apparent hatred. She looked in a controlled yet flaming temper, as ever.Perhaps her problem was hormonal; a beautiful woman, yet she must be in herforties, a “dangerous time”, as Maggie put it, for “all women”. Maggie shouldknow. Donna’s mother was well past her forties by now, “over the hump but notover the hill”, as Maggie also would declare.

Carvershut the door of his room, and began to search for various necessary impedimenta.Not finding what he wanted, he went out again and taking the side stair now wentto the half-floor for supplies. The rest of the morning would pass in itsexpected dull and formulaic manner, then lunch in the canteen. He had to callin on Latham at 2.30, get the next piece of the latest office puzzle. And thenoff to Rattles with unlimited expenses to jolly up Avondale, before piling himinto a Mantik chauffeured car for the airport.

Theday ticked and trickled down its sun-gold drains. Autumn came much laterrecently. Twenty years ago, when Carver was a kid, already the leaves on thetrees would have been mostly orange, and yellow, or richbrown, as the table in Stuart’s office, the foliage thinned out, falling.Almost every leaf now was still thick green, only tarnished a little here andthere as if lightly scorched.

Carverreflected on this sparely. Thinking of hischildhood reminded him of things seldom pleasant, such as his father, adrunken bully. If Donna finally produced the child she said she was going tohave – if it really were a fact – what sort of father would Carver make? Wouldhe be any good at it? (‘Good’ seemed to have been Jack Stuart’s Word for theDay. Sometimes Stuart did that, used one particular word, on and on, over and over.And then that word was dispensed with and another used: perhaps ‘solid’, like last Friday, when so-and-sowas a solid guy and someonehad solid grounds for apremise of some sort. Was this an affectation of Stuart’s, did he choose thatday’s word before he set up shop in his room? Or was it some nervous or Asperger-typepeculiarity, a kind of vernacular stammer? Stuart however did seem to playtricks, did he not? For example, during the past five or six months, whencalled up to see him for either the most trifling or urgent matter, everybodyhad to wait in the reception area, which even had magazines littered about likea dentist’s. Then today, Stuart’s door was already open.)

Yes,it was better to consider the games or aberrations of Stuart. Not to go backtoo much to the autumns of childhood, the violence and silence, or the secretadventures, and their sequels, if they had ever been found out.

“You know,” saidAlex Avondale, after his second V and T, and once they were shown through totheir table at Rattles, “I miss it. Down here.”

Hissaid this with the lugubrious nostalgia of a demon redeemed into Heaven, butpining for the ‘old place’ below.

Hehad, apparently, a vast estate in Scotland, Highland country, where snowsculpted the spring and autumn peaks of mountains, and turned them toAntarctica in winter. But London was his homeland. With Avondale Scotland wasnot only a separate kingdom but another continent.

Carverhad really only to listen, be an appreciative audience. He was good (Stuart’s Wordfor the Day again) at that.

Ithad been his stock-in-trade, when he decided to apply it, from his early years,being able if he must to listen, and to offer, now and then, the correctresponse. He did not suppose he had learnt this from the bullying of hisfather, from