The generosity of a tender heart…
A tender heart.
The generosity of a heart out for bloody tender, more likely.
I glanced up and ran a quick, practised eye over the figure reflected in the overly burnished faux-gold doors of the lift. The man was of average height, average build. Dressed neatly in a perfectly fitted, bespoke three-piece tweed suit of moss green—real stock-piled sheep’s wool mind, not the synthetic rubbish that had come in after the mass culling of the UK’s flocks. A dash of the free spirit around the neckline in the form of a white-spotted crimson cravat, which peaked out of the open collar of the crisp white shirt.
There was little about the facial map to write home about; a scattering of stubble across the jaw and a pair of calm, thoughtful grey eyes in an otherwise average countenance. Not ugly. Not strikingly handsome. Entirely forgettable.
Another quick shufti and I saw that, as robust as the man looked, there was a slight set to the shoulders that spoke of the old toad under the harrow. And the eyes were tired. Of a disillusioned caste.
‘Course, it was a simple thing to say all that bollocks when the chap you were scrutinising in the polished sheen of an elevator door was yourself.
A trio of middle-aged American men sauntered up and parked themselves practically on the heels of my brogue boots. My hand drifted casually to the button of my jacket. Paused. From the way they were bellowing enthusiastically into each other’s ear-holes, I assumed they were all suffering from sensorineural hearing loss.
“Hell, isn’t that what they used to call your ex-wife—the radio station?” one of the men said.
“Radio station?”
“You know, on account of any sumbitch being able to pick her up—’specially at night.”
There was some appreciative laughter at this. I saw one of the men slap one of the others on the back.
Sharing an elevator with those good old boys, whilst sure to be cosy, wasn’t going to be conducive to marshalling my thoughts.
There was a mellow, expensive bing-bong—a noise peculiar to all of London’s swankiest hotels, which simultaneously greeted and condescended. The lift doors slid smoothly open. I caught sight of my small smile before the retreating door erased it from view. It looked a bit pathetic, really. The smile of a chap who, after he’s done working, has nothing waiting for him at home except a bit of leftover saag paneer, a slightly overweight basset hound, and the penultimate series of some forgettable period drama on one of the countless, monotonous media reels that battered the population with entertainment on demand.
Still, it wasn’t as if the occasion called for smiling. I had a meeting after all. Professionalism must trump levity. It always did. It was an important consultation. Perhaps the most significant of the other party’s career.
I stepped into the lift and turned smartly about, causing the three American blokes to pull up short. They were uniformly rotund and perky, but with something that spoke of torment behind the eyes. Refugees, probably, but rich ones.
“I’m awfully sorry, do you mind just holding on a moment, gents?” I said, holding out a polite but authoritative hand. I pressed the button for the thirtieth floor.
The Americans halted obediently. They looked at me with vaguely puzzled smiles, as if they were waiting for me to give them the all clear to pile aboard.
“That’s it. Excellent. Thanks very much,” I said, as the doors slid shut on the suddenly comprehending men.
I hummed a theme song from a particularly catchy life insurance advert as the elevator began to ascend. I’d been humming the thing under my breath all bloody day. I looked down and carefully adjusted my cuffs. Wiped a smudge of dirt from the toe of one boot. I wondered if this was going to be a prolonged affair or a bit of an in-and-out jobby. It was hard to know sometimes. There were a few variables that could cause a meeting to run long but, as I’d already admitted to myself, I had bugger all to rush home for.
That’s when my commtab went off. I thumbed the button on the flesh-coloured bracelet on my wrist, which camouflaged against my skin with pigment perfect precision. A still image of my sister was projected onto my retinas by the augmentation floating around in my eyeball’s vitreous humor.
“Kaleigh,” I said.
“Archibald,” Kaleigh Nyx said.
Her voice came clear as a bell through my tooth-mic, the little device that most people had embedded in one of their back molars. The device was both microphone and speaker. Incoming sound was transmitted through the wearer’s bone matter in the jaw and skull to the auditory nerves.
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Kaleigh knew I disliked that. It was what our father had called me, even when everyone else had adopted Archie.
“I do wish you wouldn’t,” I said.
“Oh, I know, but what are big sisters for, hm?”
“An increasingly pertinent question as far as you’re concerned.”
“Someone’s in a mood,” Kaleigh replied.
“I’m not in a mood. Just busy working. I’m on my way to a meeting as we speak.”
“So you can purchase another obscenely-priced cruiser? You know, Len told me that tragic vehicle of yours cost one-hundred—”
“Yes, all right,” I said, cutting her off before she could build up a head of steam.
I heard Kaleigh take a breath. “What’s the meeting about?”
“It’s—” I began.
“God, that sounds dull.”
I snorted. “You’re a bloody pain in the neck,” I said.
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want another opinion.”
“All right,” I said, “your cooking could do with some attention too.”
Kaleigh barked a laugh. “Speaking of,” she said, “are we going to see you later?”
I frowned. Glanced at the elevator display. Saw that I’d just skimmed past floor twenty-two. “Later? Why?”
“It’s Molly’s birthday, Archie,” Kaleigh said. “I told you about it last week.”
Floor twenty-six.
“Yes. Right. No, I totally forgot, but I’ll head straight to your place after I’m done here.”
“You’re not even going to try and pretend like you have better things to do?” Kaleigh asked.
I pictured my corpulent basset hound, Chubbs, waiting, sprawled out on his back at home, like some tragic overdose victim who’s asphyxiated in the middle of a danger-wank.
“Would you believe me if I did?” I asked.
“Christ, no.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Seriously though, it’ll be nice to have you over so that you can spend some time with the freshest blooms on our family cactus.”
Kaleigh always referred to our family tree as the family cactus, due to it being mostly full of pricks. It took about five glasses of pinot gris before she’d explain that joke to anyone within earshot.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing the girls too,” I said.
“You can bring a date if you have the mind,” Kaleigh said, her words forming a lovely little noose in the air.
“Oh splendid, I’ll be popping over with Julia Roberts then. Make sure that Len doesn’t stare, will you?”
“Was that a Notting Hill reference?”
“It was, yes,” I said. I liked that old reel very much.
“You know, polite as you are, no woman is going to want to invest time with a man she suspects might bat for the other team.”
“Duly noted,” I said, in a voice so wooden that you could’ve carved a passable dining-room suite out of it. “Though I’m not sure you’re allowed to use that sort of euphemism these days.”
Kaleigh made a sound which must have resulted in her phone being drenched in saliva. “God, twenty-seventy-one can fuck right off, then.”
The doors bing-bonged again and opened.
“Look, I’ve got to dash. I’ll call you when I’m on my way,” I said.
“All right. Take care.”
“Always do.”
“Stay out of the shit.”
If the shit isn’t what I’m in right now, then it’ll do until the shit gets here.
“I’ll try my best.”
I hung up, the image of my sister flickering out.
I stepped out into the corridor and headed for the stairs. The carpet was plush and thick underfoot—the vaguely esoteric floral design the same as all hotels of a certain exorbitant price point—and my size nines made no sound whatsoever as I walked briskly down the hallway. Through the stairway door, up two flights, through another door and onto the thirty-second floor. The ambiguous art lining the walls was of a slightly higher quality here. The lighting softer. The doors were more widely spaced, hinting at larger, grander suites beyond.
My outward demeanour was sanguine, my jacket unbuttoned now. A hot little pocket of anticipation, alloyed with nerves, had bloomed somewhere in the region of my large intestine, as it was prone to do before a meeting. Absently, my mind replayed a snippet of the reel from the previous evening, and I wondered whether the cybernetic butler and the earl were going to be able to come to an agreement on the placement of that bloody war memorial.
I caught snatches of life from behind some of the closed doors I padded past; a media reel reporting the latest trials and tribulations of world economy-controlling Beijing stock exchange, the distant flush of a loo, the smell of a late brunch freshly delivered by room-service. Mundane. My stomach growled at the thought of a rasher or three stuck between a couple of slices of thick-cut multi-grain, spread generously with salted butter and good english mustard. A place like this would have real meat in store, not just the soy alternatives that most of the population could afford.
I stopped outside of Suite 134. Knocked and stepped to the side of the peep-hole camera. I touched the old cravat a little self-consciously. I was still unsure about this particular piece of gent’s neck-wear. Was it too natty for consultation work? Did it strike the right tone?
There was the scuff of feet on carpet from the other side of the door. An uneven tread indicating a slight limp.
“Christ, it’s about time, I ordered ‘alf an hour ago!” a voice rumbled, as the footsteps came nearer. “You can go to hell if you think you’ll be getting a damned tip out of me.”
Hell is empty, my subconscious quoted. All the devils are here.
I took a breath. Crushed out the lone butterfly that seemed to have taken up residence in my gut. I reached into the inside of my Harris tweed jacket.
The gene-lock disengaged. The door opened.