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

remainder of the sandwich. Finished the single coffee, and pushed themug a little away.

Theblack woman had produced a small notebook and pen from her shell-suit pocket.(No laptop then?) She was writing something down, tiny twitters of biro ink,unreadable. Was she making notes on him?

Carverspoke.

“Doany of you know why you are here?”

Theman called Van Sedden laughed. It was certainly one of the laughters Carver haddetected from upstairs. Sound must have been electronically passed into hisroom, if not smell.

“Noneof us know. Like life. None of us know, beyond thephysicalact, why we’re alive, and none of us know why we are here. So we inventpossible reasons. God caused us to be born. So then, did God decide we shouldbe brought here?”

Friendly,Ball said, “Shut up, Seddy.”

Carversaid, “What happens here?”

“Apartfrom breakfast, you mean?” asked Ball.

Carverwaited.

Ballshrugged. “Nothing much.”

Thewoman said, “People come and go, Carver.”

Carversaid, “You didn’t tell me your name.”

Herhead turned again to him, slowly, reminding him of a snake. Her faceappropriately had still no expression. And rather than speaking, she tore outof the notebook one page, and wrote carefully on it, then passing the paper tohim. Carver read the name: ANJEELA MERVILLE. (Anjeela seemed to him more Asian than Caribbeanor African. Or was it a fanciful take on Angela? And Mervi1le – did the blue eyes come fromthat side?) “Thank you.”

Butshe had gone back to her tiny notations.

Thechoked door behind the fridge was abruptly opened once more. A tall portly manin a suit eased an awkward if practiced entrance around the fridge-freezer, andstood smiling affably. “Morning, all. Ah, Mr Carver. Can you be ready in abouttwenty minutes? Mr Croft would like to see you in his section. Somebody willcome down to show you the way.”

Carversaid, “All right.”

Whatelse was there to say?

The upstairscorridor had led, on the eastern turn, to a locked double-doored cupboard. Thewestern end of the corridor went round its corner to a stairhead. The stairswere wide and quite shallow, and descended between the pale clean painted wallsto a square hall lit with sidelights, and with brown tiles. Off this to oneside opened a cloakroom, with a small high frosted window, a lavatory andwashbasin, a mirror, and hooks for coats – nothing hung there. (Everything waspristine, and newish, as everything else seemed to be.) The other room thatopened was a sort of storage area, lit from above by a neon strip, with(locked) cupboards. Beyond this, through a square open arch, the kitchen.

Tomeet with Mr Croft, nevertheless, they went out a different way, via the fridge-freezer-door,Carver getting by without much fuss, but the fat, very young man in shorts and aloose white T-shirt, making a bit of a scene of it. “Why that bloody door hasto be bunged up by that bloody fridge beats me!” he snapped red-faced. Thenresumed the smiling pleasantries he had begun with. He was the guide who was toconduct Carver “to Mr Croft’s section”.

“Hopeyou slept well?”

“Sure,”said Carver.

“Good,good. That’s good.” (Was ‘good’ his Word of the Day?) “Big old place, this.Have you seen the sea?”

“Yes.”

“Fabulousday. I mean to do a bit of cycling later. Wonderful weather for it. Do you cycle?”

“No.”

“Should,you know. Bloody good for you.”

Thefat health expert had by then got them down a long doorless corridor, windowlessand neoned, and hung with pretty photographed images of trees and mountains,and let them both into a steel lift. There were no markers as to the number offloors but, seamless and almost silent, they went up past six. This ‘place’ wastall then, or it was in parts.

Theyemerged next in a second doorless corridor with long windows to the left. Theview was vast and soaring – rock edges, sea, sky, wheeling gulls with sun-goldwings.

“Whereare we, here?” asked Carver quietly.

“Seventhfloor, old mate.”

“Imean, the area. The district. The sea.”

“Yes,”said the cyclist, enthused and beaming, ‘‘it’s fabulous, isn’t it? Beautifulweather too.”

“England,”said Carver. “Is it?”

Butthey were through the corridor and the cyclist-guide was pressing buttons by atall shut metal door. “Just a sec, old son.”

Andthe door slid open, and there was another person beam-beaming, a beaming girlin a summer dress and long fair hair.

“MrCarver! Please come in. Thanks, Charlie. Take care.”

“Pleasesit down, Carver. That chair is the one I’d recommend.”

He– Croft – sat against the blinded, lighted window, and was in silhouette. Anold trick, clichéd, out of date, filmic, foolish. Effective. A big shape, a bigman, tall and broad-bodied, from flesh, bone or muscle, conceivably all three.His voice put him at about forty, but of course that did not have to mean much.He could be in his sixties, seventies even, if he was strong and vocallytrained. His hair, against the brilliant blind, looked like a piece, an actor’swig, convincing only on a stage. But here the glare might deceive. After all,Carver found the sunlight irritated his vision, staring into it, or at the darkmound of the man titled Mr Croft.

Thechair was all right. Not designed to make the sitter either luxuriouslycomfortable or anything opposite. Another black mug of hot black coffee hadbeen set in front of Carver on the desk-like table, and a jug of water with iceand a lemon slice and a polished glass in reaching distance, before the happy,jolly girl had taken her leave.

Itwas doubtless of no use to ask any questions as yet, if ever.

“Well,”said Croft.

Notan inquiry. Just a statement.

Thesides of Carver’s tongue were electric with the urge to speak, to demand.

Hedid not. Only sat and stared at the actor against the light. And Carver’s eyespricked and began to water. Carver looked down.

Andthere was Croft again, printed white on a blur of floating darkness.Afterimage. Omnipresent.

Croftshifted. A profile appeared, a large hooked nose and shaven jaw, a heavy-liddedeye that glinted and then grew dark. By the description of the light, the wigwas iron.

“Today’sa sunny day,” said Croft, “rare in England.”

(Ishe telling me that we are not in England, where such sunny days arerare? Or that we are, and sothe rarity?) “They say the climate’s changing, of course they do. Bang on andon about it. Slightest unusual weather. Make us all worry, worry. Always allour fault. But I can remember rainy summers and autumns just the same. Andwaterlogged