Death & the City Book Two (31 page)

"Same here." Elaine puts my skid-lid back down and picks up her coffee cup more daintily. "There's two options I like the sound of. Chinese all-inclusive lunch buffet in Lucky Palace restaurant, or tapas in Bar Celona with daytime cabaret. Everyone's saying it's the new karaoke. Martha's easy. What do you reckon?"

"Hmm, I had Chinese a day or so ago. Tapas and cabaret sounds like fun," I reply. "Sounds like you want to check out their style, from a professional viewpoint."

"Ah, you know her too well," Martha nods sagely, looking very Parisian in a red sequinned beret and fitted reefer coat, while Elaine is in a peach blouse, and trademark trouser suit over wedge-heeled knee boots, very Brit meets New York classic shopper. "I agree anyway, let's do that."

We finish our coffees and get up in unison, Drury moving her rucksack to let me past and smiling briefly in passing stranger-equivalent acknowledgement. As I leave I see Alice reach for her phone again out of the corner of my eye. Trying to get anything useful out of her, sounds like a full-time job already. I'd rather be the one trying to get information out of someone who doesn't talk - not who talks all the time. You'd never know what was important. Like Connor says, the boy who cried wolf all over again.

As we head out of Kissaten's, I wonder if Connor was called back on site to tick something off his To Do List, and get a momentary pang of some strange feeling. I hope he's all right.

I start to feel much more like myself back in the company of Elaine and Martha, as we stroll up the pedestrianised strip between mall and café district. Elaine is counting the number of promotional flyers on the ground in her proprietorial cleanliness critic mode, while Martha is pointing out the number of overweight women in tight leggings and sportswear, saying that dressing like you go to a gym is not the same as actually going to a gym. I just enjoy their banter, and am quite pleased when we pass Cobbler's Elvin Shoe Factory, and both suggest we go in for a peek after lunch if there's time.

Bar Celona occupies one of the city's Medieval Quarter buildings, nicely suited to the old stone glamour, enhanced with new mosaic and stained-glass inlaid doors and windows. Previously a cocktail bar called Wino's, it was bought for redevelopment by a Russian business syndicate after two drunks died falling over and hitting their heads on the stonework, meaning the Council closed Wino's down citing unsuitable image and location. The new owners do a good line in small boutique hotels and Euro-themed restaurants, and the local Chinese Triads love a bit of dinner-and-a-show so apparently a bit of mutual back-scratching went on between the two cultures to lose the old Wino laminate-floor, neon bar-back and chrome bar-stool image, and create something authentically more up-market and decadent.

"Apparently they stripped an old Spanish monastery for half of the interior," Elaine is saying in a stage whisper as we go inside. "And the fireplaces are from a Scottish castle. The toilets have all got Gaudi-style mosaic around the mirrors. If I could afford that kind of thing for my place I'd open a club in Cannes, not stick around here in Crypto, where the carpet's only claret so it doesn't show up the blood and red wine stains."

It is very attractive, and would stand up to most European city scrutiny, with beams and balustrades and wrought-iron chandeliers. Martha immediately takes stock of the Latin-inscribed stone tablets set into the walls either side of the fireplaces.

"Do you know, they've even managed to place those in the right order," she remarks. "Someone with a bit of intelligence did that."

"What are they?" Elaine asks. "The Ten Commandments?"

Martha laughs.

"Monastic lullabies, more like," she says, grinning. "I guess you would say - Medieval drinking songs. Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. And may your head not throb in the morning. Yeah, prayers of a sort, I guess."

"Like a providence that no-one else dies here, they hope," Elaine agrees.

I look at them thoughtfully. Latin seems to feature quite highly in certain people's superstitious self-protection. Whether it's to keep away vampires, call up demons, making seductive horror films, or just add a certain depth and ambience to a situation. To make people feel sombre and serious, like in court. As if the ancient Latin-speaking Romans weren't also a bunch of rampaging, murderous, drunken, drug-addled, bingeing egomaniacs.

Maybe a belief in the power of an ancient language is one of the things common to the modern human condition, I think to myself. That you only have to see or hear it, to feel you're in the presence of a greater power and knowledge, underlined by the indisputable history of the Roman Empire. Although now reduced to the pretentious also, by some bad B-movies and Ovid-style books on chat-ups for men to try out. Cleopatra would revolve in her tomb if she thought she'd been reduced to the level of impressionable Caesar WAG, seduced by a bit of
Eau de Brut
and Ovid by an old man past his best but with money to spend.
Hey you, bird with the nice pyramids - check out my big road it goes straight for a hundred miles
.

At least here it's kind of in place, I conclude. Alongside some old architecture, and some old brain poisons by which you can voluntarily confuse yourself. The Latin backdrop to the bar décor also has a subliminal intention, meaning you're vaguely aware of the hazards of drinking too much while in its presence, that if you're not careful the next Latin you hear might be from your barrister, or at your funeral. Russians and Chinese are both fairly inscrutable. Who knows what they consider rules moral conduct in Western cultures?

Otherwise why bother putting the tablets in the right order, I think.

"Do you want a Virgin Sangria?" Martha asks me, as we are shown to a table, and handed menus. "They do a nice mulled cranberry and orange juice. I could get a jug or two to share."

"Yes, I feel like being sensible too," Elaine puts in. "You should have seen me after those cocktails and aromatherapy massage the other day. I nearly pulled the entire Fire Brigade and it wasn't even 5:00 p.m."

"Yeah, how's things going with the Fire Brigade and stuff?" I ask, opening the menu and seeing very little, my mind entirely unfocused. "Last I heard you had given up on them, and gone dating with Ben."

"Oh, Ben's so nice. A bit too nice, under all the punk image. A bit of a square, in fact. I do like a naughty boy. Makes me feel needed."

"I give up on you," I say, grinning, as Martha chuckles, shaking her head. "You're just not used to being treated well by someone who likes you as you are, not when you're behaving as though you're his mum."

"I behave as though I'm Aaron's mum all the time," Martha agrees. "I just keep saying it's time he grew up and left home to look after himself."

"Now that is just mean," Elaine chides, as I laugh. "Now I know why you didn't take his surname when you married."

"No, that was because his surname is Turnipseed," Martha points out. "I couldn't go from being a Carter to a Turnipseed, could I? It'd be like going from a Ferrari to a Robin Reliant."

"How is your love-life going, Lara?" Elaine asks. "How's your police officer? Have you been on any more dates?"

"Yeah, fine," I admit, knowing I'm summing up a complete turmoil of feelings in a word I'm hoping covers it. "We're going out again on Sunday, I don't know where though."

"Ooh, two dates already. Do you think this might be serious?"

"Elaine, it's been like a week or something," I tell her, slightly concerned that even I'm not sure if it's been as long as that. "I've had longer job interviews in the past. It's way too early to tell you anything about that sort of thing yet."

"Yes, wait and see," Martha says, with a sly smirk. "Don't go spoiling it with speculation this early on. Oh, look. I fancy what they're having. Black pepper potato skins with balsamic vinaigrette. What else is there?"

"There better be olives on here," Elaine says, scrutinising the menu closely. "Yes. Lime and chilli mixed olives, they look good. And cheesy garlic bread. I've heard good things about their chicken dishes too, I think I'll try the shredded chicken with peppers and saffron rice as my mains. How about you?"

"I'm still looking," I say, trying to force my thoughts away from the subject of Connor, which are distancing me from my friends and the menu in front of me. "Some of this is all a bit Atkins Diet friendly, isn't it? Deep-fried cheese and salami platter type things."

"That's the good thing about tapas, you can mix and match whatever trendy diet you're on," Martha says. "You've just had cake, haven't you? They've got some lighter options. That's nice, I had it for breakfast once in the South of France."

Avocado, prawn and grapefruit salad. It does sound nice, and can be ordered as a starter, or a main with various options of toasted breads, potato wedges or rice to accompany, but I'm not feeling up to much starchy carbohydrate after cake just now, and Sparky's idea of breakfast earlier that I shared with Connor. So I choose the starter option, and an interesting-sounding hot spiced fruit salad with Parma ham, which I'm hoping isn't a misleadingly-worded ham Ploughman's with chutney. Martha says any side orders that turn up we can split between the three of us. She has the potato skins starter and stuffed aubergine mains with pumpkin seed, olive and sunflower bread, and orders the jug of Virgin Sangria, which is delivered quickly and slakes the thirst perpetrated by Kissaten's coffee.

It's a slightly different crowd in here, more lunch-dates and special occasion than passing trade, very few business types, who would probably get too distracted to conduct any business or meetings. Except for the ubiquitous Triads, who seem to favour the popular calamari and baby octopus-laden paella, with Martinis and Kamikazes by the jug.

I can see why, though. The burlesque singer is very good, and sings in several languages, also telling jokes and anecdotes with her backing pianist and Jazz band, who play on between her performances or outfit changes. It's very mini-Las Vegas, Bette Midler-style. You feel comfortable with it because she's comfortable, and very confident, as if writhing around in pin-curls and a red satin ball-gown on a grand piano at lunchtime on a weekday, is something that nobody should miss if it's going on. I know lots of guys from work who'd agree. Although they'd probably prefer it if she was naked. It's popular with older people, which I'd heard, especially the cruise visitors when ships are in port - probably because of the old glamour it projects, a bit Monroe, a bit Dietrich, a bit Garland. She even does a shadow striptease behind a screen on one of her outfit changes, to much polite applause from the Triads, and delighted giggling from the elderly couples.

"Would you do that as a job?" Elaine asks me.

"Only if I could sing," I reply.

"I can't sing," Martha shakes her head gloomily.

"I can sing, like a canary choking on toxic gas down a coalmine," Elaine empathises. "We could have a close harmony all-girls trio,
The Mining Canaries
."

"I'll do the bass," Martha grins. "I do a good Lemmy from
Motörhead
version of Britney Spears. We could sing
Toxic
."

"Yeah, and all dress like air hostesses," I suggest. "With life jackets and oxygen masks on. The close harmony female vocal equivalent of Slipknot."

"There's probably already one on ViewTube," Martha remarks.

"Yes, why do we always have these good ideas and never take each other up on it?" Elaine sighs. "Like when I had that idea for a porno cookery show.
Gordon Ram's Fuckarama
."

"Do you know what, I would burn anything I tried to cook if that was on," I say. "I'd be too busy pressing Pause and Rewind."

"Oh, is that what you call it?" Martha asks. "I'll have to teach Aaron about pressing Pause and Rewind more often. I wouldn't have had to buy one of these while he's away."

She opens her crocheted rainbow shopper and takes out an
Ann Summers
bag, tipping the box out onto the table. Packets of batteries follow.

"I think Aaron will be made redundant once he comes back, if you've been playing with that," Elaine remarks, as our starters arrive and the waiter smiles, and tries not to comment, rescuing one of the battery packs for her as it skitters off the table when knocked by the condiments tray. "My God, it might as well have handlebars on it. That's an exercise machine if ever there was one. Has it got a built-in MyTunes dock?"

"It lights up in different colours, and has all sparkly things in," Martha says proudly, as I pick up the box and turn it around curiously.

"Yeah, just make sure you don't get it mixed up with your lava lamp," I warn her. "That'd be some third-degree burns and embarrassing glass splinters to explain in Casualty."

Although Adam Grayson would enjoy it, I think to myself, and wonder how he's getting on as well. Probably the most likely of us runners to end up with Alice, on his To Do List. At the GUM clinic.