Chapter Fifty-Eight
William is convinced that he can hear the bells tolling out his fate, even in the flaming lift.
He certainly can’t check the time, as his watch is most probably on its way back to whatever wretched dwelling the poor rosemary woman inhabits. Unless she has already sold it on. But he can certainly check out his appearance.
The mirror inside the still-stationary chamber reveals an image that, in other circumstances, he might have been only too thrilled to flaunt – stylish, tanned and expensively thatched.
Like a gent he now faintly recalls from a casino so long ago, a dapper man with a stunning and far younger woman on his arm.
He hears himself sigh like a Spaniard. Or, at least, like one Spaniard he used to know.
And then all the lights go off.
Before he can even gasp, the entire mechanism appears to shake and rattle in the suddenly terrifying darkness.
There’s an ugly grinding of machinery, far off yet deep inside his head, that sounds as ancient as the buildings all around him – making him think of some sort of medieval torture – just before the tiny, steel carriage begins to plummet at breathtaking speed.
Curiously, he is aware of a total absence of muzak, which he normally hates but would currently kill for.
William feels as if he, and his increasingly airless mode of transportation, are totally out of control, heading on the express route down to hell.
His body, which now appears mysteriously bereft of bones, flops helplessly against each solid wall in turn, at horrifying speed, as if he is in some sort of celestial blender.
He wonders if this is what dying is like, but nobody tells you.
For a moment he thinks he spies Pablo reflected in the mirrored wall. Which shows him just how dramatically his tormented mind is addling, as – for once – there is no Pablo and barely even a mirror.
Beneath his own helpless screams and the ear-splitting mechanics, he hears another sound. More familiar perhaps but no less disconcerting. Two people yelling together on the brink of unfettered ecstasy.
What the—?
As suddenly as it began, the lift ceases to clatter and slows to a juddering stop.
The lights blink on and William feels that the sweat from his body alone could cause an electrical accident.
Alongside other accidents he doesn’t care to imagine.
He turns to look at the mirror. What he sees makes him almost retch in astonishment.
And then smile in unabashed joy, as he finally greets an old friend.
“Yes! YES!! God, you’re beautiful!”
The plush hair has gone, along with the wood-stain tan. He won’t be missing either of them. Back are his trusty spectacles. Even more hearteningly, the elegant watch that Luisa bought for him so very long ago is once again strapped around his familiar, milky-white wrist.
And his back hurts.
The lift stops on a lower floor. The doors glide open. He holds his breath.
Marilyn and Shelby pour in.
“Hello, stranger,” says Marilyn, juggling bag, phone and guide books with large, multi-ringed fingers.
William just nods politely; he has too much to think about right now. Although he does wonder where they could possibly be heading after midnight.
“Where’ve you been all this time?” asks Shelby, who, by the intense look on her face and her warm, wide-open eyes, has been thinking of little else.
“And this is a concern of yours why?” he says, not unreasonably.
Marilyn appears to take umbrage. He senses this when she presses a button and stops the lift mid-floor. “Because we’ve been comforting your poor Luisa, that’s why, mister.”
“Poor—? Oh God, you’ve bonded.”
“Did you know that girl has Jewish blood from way back?” explains Shelby.
“I really don’t think—”
“Sephardi. Trust me.”
“That is a lovely lady, William,” declares Marilyn.
William softens for a moment, as the hostilities subside. And nods in agreement.
“Despite the affair,” says Shelby.
“She told you?” says William.
“A woman knows.”
“You don’t deserve a lady like that, William,” says Marilyn. “Does he, Shelby?”
“He doesn’t deserve shit. If you don’t mind my saying so, William.”
“What are friends for, Shelby? Would one of you mind restarting the lift, please? … The elevator?”
He can feel their eyes, kindly yet profoundly judgemental, locked onto his.
“I’ve lost her again, haven’t I?” They shrug non-committedly and in perfect unison.
“Where is she? Back in Richmond, packing up?” More shrugs.
They aren’t giving anything away. “No – she’s with him!
Bugger!” He thinks for a second. And nods.
“It’s what she wants – and, most probably, what I deserve. Who am I to—? Bugger!”
As soon as the doors open, the ladies shunt aside to allow him to rush out. It’s like squeezing a pill out of a blister pack but he’s hugely grateful as he bursts into the spacious lobby.
William has absolutely no idea where he is going or what he is doing. He knows simply that he has to keep moving. And, curiously, or perhaps not so much considering the events of this week, he is just beginning to trust in something beyond himself to tell him the answers.
It will come, whatever it is, good or bad. He is certain it will come.
Soon would be good.
Now?
He knows it surely won’t come from the gnarled old guy in the smart denims ambling cheerily across the lobby towards him, even though William finds himself strangely pleased to see him.
“Hola, Pablo,” he says amiably, as he rushes by.
“Watford Football Club – very nice strip. Yellow with a little black.”
William stops.
There could even be screech-marks on the wooden flooring, from the old untrendy trainers now firmly back on his feet, as he judders to a halt inches before the revolving doors. He is not quite certain if what he has just heard is what he just heard.
“Who supports Watford?” he cries into the air conditioning. “And when did you learn sodding English?”
He doesn’t have the time or the energy to delve deeper into the nodding retainer’s education. Let alone his arrant duplicity.
Because he knows exactly what the driver/porter/lift attendant/wily old sod is trying to tell him.