Behind them were only storefronts; the lane was gone. It was warmer in the square, too. The trees boasted leaves of vibrant red and marigold and pumpkin. People wore light jackets and shawls. There was no snow. Maggie removed her scarf and gloves. Badger seemed untroubled, nose quivering at the scent of roasting chickens, chestnuts and cheeses, his eyes almost closed in sensual bliss. Maggie rubbed his ears. He must be hungry, she thought, and walked to a man selling roast chickens. She reached for her money pouch, wondering whether they’d take Canadian currency. Nothing. Where had her money gone? Something on the edge of her mind … Trickster, his hand in her pocket …
“No need for that, Miss,” said the red-crest man, as though reading her mind. “If you’ll just follow me. Lots to eat for everyone inside, even your dog. Oh, yes, Miss Tilden’s very fond of dogs and so forth. Nice big marrowy bone waiting, I shouldn’t doubt.”
Badger trotted forward as though he understood every word. At the other side of the square Maggie found herself mounting wide marble steps that led to four enormous polished bronze doors, intricately engraved with peacocks. In front of each door stood a man very similar to the red-crest man and his younger image. They were mustachioed, wearing the same brass-buttoned coats and black boots, although both the coats and boots seemed a bit too warm for the decidedly autumnal air. As they approached, the middle set of men opened the middle set of doors and bowed to let them pass, saying in unison, “Welcome to the Tilden Hotel. Enjoy your stay.”
The lobby was a vast space of pink marble and gold. The floors were inlaid with jade and lapis lazuli flowers. Corinthian columns rose to a vaulted ceiling festooned with gilt garlands, cherubim and seraphim. From the centre of the ceiling dozens of candles burned in a chandelier composed of life-sized naked figures. At each corner of the lobby, harpists played in perfect unison. Enormous vases, taller than Maggie, stood along the walls, filled with equally enormous palm fronds, birds of paradise, ostrich feathers and strange fleshy flowers she couldn’t identify. The room smelled of jasmine and sandalwood and musk. Badger sneezed.
Maggie tapped the young man on the shoulder. “Excuse me. This is all very nice, but I can’t stay here. I have no money.”
“Pay? Oh, Miss, you’d only insult Miss Tilden if you tried to pay. You’re invited.”
“Am I?”
“Oh, certainly.”
They advanced through an archway. Chaise longues were scattered throughout the room. On these, men and women reclined, some having what seemed to be quite intimate conversations involving hands and fingers searching beneath garments. Others did no talking at all, but kissed or embraced. The clothes they wore, regardless of sex, revealed more than they covered.
Maggie flushed and looked at the floor. If this Tilden person thought she’d be doing any of that, she had another thought coming.
A young man with the same ginger hair as the others, although clean-shaven, wearing a sparkling white uniform, rushed forward and said, “Your luggage has been taken up. I’ll escort you to your rooms.”
“I don’t have luggage,” said Maggie.
“Everyone has luggage here. Yours is in your rooms. Miss Tilden’s orders,” said the young man, bowing and gesturing for them to follow. “You must hurry and dress, for Miss Tilden requests the pleasure of your company.”
“Does she now?” Maggie watched two women, one raven-haired, the other with hair the colour of cream. The raven-haired woman nuzzled the neck of her companion and both were clad in no more than the palest of pink chiffon sarongs, which were tied around their shoulders and clung so it appeared the air around their naked bodies was blurred (not very effectively) for modesty’s sake. “I’m not wearing anything like that, so you can just tell Miss Tilden no thanks,” said Maggie. She couldn’t help it, she felt like a prude, like an offended schoolgirl.
“Of course, Miss,” said the young man. “Miss Tilden only wants her guests to be comfortable. Rest assured.”
“I’m not sure I want to be Miss Tilden’s guest.”
The young man blanched. “Oh, I wouldn’t tell her that, Miss. No, I wouldn’t. Will you come now, please?”
It was clear from the way he twitched and wrung his hands that the thought of a waiting Miss Tilden made him very nervous, which did nothing to soothe Maggie’s frayed nerves.
The couples (and at least two sets of triads) she passed on the chaises ignored her completely, so rapt were they in their activities. Badger walked past with his nose in the air, as though he were a wolf who cared little for the opinion of sheep. Maggie thought this a little odd, since even she could smell, well … the sex coming off them. It floated around the enormous room like trailing ribbons. Even if he was a sophisticated dog of incontestable good manners, she thought it would have demanded just the slightest bit of interest. Perhaps Badger understood the way things worked here in a way she did not.
The uniformed man led her to an elevator where his apparent twin waited. Once inside the elevator operator worked a lever like a ship’s telegraph, although instead of words such as ahead and astern, full and half on one side it read, up a little, quite a lot, just about and couldn’t ask for more. On the other side were down a smidge, mind the drop, not quite there and that’s all there is. The man pushed the lever all the way to the top, to off we go and then over to couldn’t ask for more. The elevator jigged and jostled, as though shaking itself out of a deep sleep, and up it went.
As they passed different floors – and there were far more of these than the words on the brass controls accounted for – Maggie glimpsed long, dimly lit hallways, with shadowy figures flitting and floating along them. Badger’s ears perked up. At last, with the gentlest of taps, they stopped at a floor and the elevator operator said, “Here we are then, couldn’t ask for more. Enjoy your stay.” He smiled so broadly it was impossible to resist smiling back.
“Thank you,” said Maggie.
“Oh, it’s my pleasure, really it is.”
She followed the bellboy along a hall that differed from the others only in the quality of the light. This floor was brightly lit, and the walls shone with gold paper. The white carpet underfoot was so thick Maggie sank into it slightly – an unsettling sensation, as though the floor wasn’t quite solid. At the far end of the hall double brass doors, similar to the ones at the front of the hotel, were decorated with the same peacocks. They passed other simpler doors at regular intervals, although these, too, were graced with golden peacocks. Again, Maggie had the strange impression the hall was lengthening in response to their walking and she closed her eyes for a step or two to banish the feeling. When she opened them, she saw several shadows on the wall and turned to see who was following them. Even Badger tracked one of the figures. There was no one at all behind them.
“Excuse me, but what is that?” she asked.
One of the shadows danced along the wall. It made Maggie want to turn in circles, sure someone, or something, was sneaking up. Badger sniffed and cocked his head. He ran a few paces, following what appeared to be the shadow of a small horse, but it disappeared when it came to a door. Badger whined.
“What’s what, Miss?” asked the bellboy.
“The shadows without bodies.”
“Oh, don’t mind them.”
A shadow-band of what looked to be hunters ran by.
“I’m afraid I do mind them,” said Maggie.
“But they’re just dreams, Miss.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dreams, Miss. Everyone who stays at the Tilden can order up the dreams they’d like and what we don’t have in-store we order in.”
“You order in.” Maggie raised an eyebrow as the silhouette of a woman in a canoe paddled along the wall.
“Will you come this way, please?”
They walked to the door closest to the great double doors at the end of the hall. The bellboy notice
d her staring at those and said, “Oh, yes, Miss. You’re very lucky indeed, for your rooms are right next to Miss Tilden’s. She holds you in the highest regard.” He ushered her inside.
The door opened onto a small oval foyer, painted a peacock blue, with white marble on the floor and a mural on the ceiling. It was this last that nearly made Maggie stumble. The mural was identical to the one on the door through which she’d come to this strange place. A huge tree, all swirls and symbols – circles and crowns and eyes – with a pair of ravens in the branches. The eyes of the ravens glimmered.
From this foyer, three doors – these undecorated and open – led into three different rooms. Badger trotted into the one directly in front and Maggie followed. It was a sitting room, with a fireplace, a lamp behind a comfortable-looking brown leather chair, a fully set tea table and a plush burgundy-coloured carpet into which was woven golden peacocks. Badger sniffed around, tail wagging. Maggie shrugged out of her coat and pack and laid them on the chair, but no sooner had they hit the leather than the bellboy plucked them up and took them, via a connecting door, into what looked to be a bedroom.
“When you’re ready, refreshed and so forth, perhaps you’d be so kind as to dress for dinner – Miss Tilden has left appropriate attire in your bedroom – then ring the bell,” he indicated a velvet cord by the fireplace, “and someone will come to escort you.” He cleared his throat gently. “Miss Tilden is waiting and I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“I’ll be along.”
“Very good, Miss. I’ll just make sure you have everything you need. Say, an hour?”
“Say what you like,” she said, and then, when the bellboy gasped, added, “Yes, fine then, an hour.”
“Oh, very good, Miss. Thank you, Miss.” He scurried away.
Bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes covered one wall. All the literary classics were there, as well as novels by Jane Gardam, Linda Hogan, Hans Fallada, Magda Szabó and James Baldwin, her favourite authors. There were books about dream interpretation, histories and several books on the care, feeding and amusement of dogs. In short, they seemed chosen especially for her.
Maggie crossed the room to the French doors, bordered by large casement windows. Outside a terrace led to a rolling meadow dotted with sleeping sheep. Neat split-rail fences marked off the pastures and a little stream sparkled in the moonlight. The grass on the meadows was verdant, one could tell that even in the moonlight, and the trees were in full leaf. A perfect late spring evening, from the looks of it. Winter in the lane. Autumn in the market square, spring out there. What was this? Another dream? Not to mention they were on the fifth or sixth floor, but outside was a ground-floor terrace. She was getting a headache. No matter how she tried to keep her mind on the purpose of her journey, so far everything seemed a digression intended to keep her from finding Kyle.
Badger followed his nose to a tray set on the floor between the sitting room and the bedroom. On it was a bowl of water and another of minced meat and vegetables. He began gulping it down, tail wagging. She poured herself a cup of bergamot-scented tea from the pot on the small table. She sipped. Deliciously refreshing.
Maggie’s thoughts swirled. Part of her wanted to rush out the door and down the hall and into the elevator and out of this dream-riddled building, but to where, since back was apparently impossible? Badger, finished his meal, placed his head on her knee and burped with gusto. “Oh, very well mannered,” she said, and couldn’t help but smile.
“Come on. Let’s see what this luggage business is about.”
In the bedroom she found clothes, including silk and linen undergarments, laid out on the bed. A black silk gown encrusted at the neck with sparkling crystals. They couldn’t be diamonds, could they? Surely not. Shoes, too, in the same silk as the dress, with matching crystal buckles. She decided she needed a bath, for she still felt a bit cherry-pie-sticky.
The third room was, as she expected, a bath, although she had not anticipated the tub to be already filled with steaming water. The whole room smelled of gardenias and three blossoms floated on the water. Fluffy white towels hung from a rack heated by the nearby copper boiler.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAGGIE LOLLED IN THE BATH, her mind slipping back to Alvin. The weird sensuality of Miss Tilden’s hotel sent visions of Alvin’s body, his collarbone, the long stretch of his legs, his two tattoos: a nautical star on his right shoulder so he’d always find his way home and the Vegvisir on his left, the Icelandic compass said to ensure he would never lose his way. She thought of that particular crease at his hip, the inguinal crease she’d learned it was called. It pointed a V down his body to the root of him, the place she so loved, the velvet-iron feel, the smell, the taste … and so she drifted and dreamed and … then surfaced from delight and dressed and breathed deeply and kept her smile to herself.
Maggie followed the bellboy, whose name was Jacob (Maggie had at last thought to ask and he had blushed furiously when he told her), to their hostess’s door. Maggie tried not to mind the pinching caused by the hard bone stays of the black gown’s built-in corset. If Miss Tilden wanted her guests to be comfortable, this was an odd definition of comfort. Badger had gone outside onto the meadow for a brief after-dinner constitutional, returned and promptly fallen asleep on the bed, lying on his back with his legs in the air, possibly dreaming of chasing rabbits, and seemed quite content to be left behind.
Jacob rapped gently upon the great peacock-decorated doors. Almost instantly the doors flew open. The walls of the room were shades of aqua and turquoise, cream and gold, in such swirls and ripples that they gave the impression of being under sunlit water. Candlelight glowed from tapers in flower-shaped wall sconces. Maggie looked down, for a moment overtaken with vertigo. The floor was glass and under the glass goldfish swam in pools and candles floated on lily pads. In the centre of the room stood an enormous pillar, like the trunk of a golden tree. The leaves, made from jade, emerald, peridot and tourmaline, formed the ceiling, and more candles flickered from leaves. Two beds, designed to resemble monstrous lilies, one white and one red, hung from the branches on thick golden stems. In the white one, on plush cushions and thick white pelts, reclined a woman with translucently pale skin. Her eyes were the colour of the walls – now blue, now green, and shot through with gold – shifting and changing as she moved her head. Her hair was as pale as her skin, pale as the petals of the bed on which she lay. It was straight and fine and rippled about her shoulders. Her full mouth was the colour of roses, as was the blush on her cheeks. It was difficult to tell her age – older than Maggie, certainly, but by ten years or twenty was impossible to say. There was a kind of sheen around her, as though she was viewed through gauze. Her gown, fashioned from an opalescent material, flowed with subtle varieties of pink, yellow, green and blue. The diadem on her brow boasted a large opal. She held a glass in her hand.
“Maggie, I am Wallis Tilden and I am so pleased you’ve found your way here.” Her voice sounded like water playing over pebbles.
“Since the road led only one way, you weren’t hard to find,” said Maggie, and then, fearing she sounded ungracious, “It’s very kind of you to extend your hospitality.”
Wallis Tilden said, “I know your friend Mr. Mustby well.”
Maggie’s stomach fluttered. “He never mentioned you.”
The radiant woman smiled and revealed teeth as white and dainty as pearls. “You must call me Wallis, since I know we will be great friends.” She picked up a green grape from a bowl resting on a little tray attached to her bed and tossed it into the red-lily bed that hung several feet lower than her own. “Jimmy, wake up. We have guests.”
The body in the red-lily bed stirred and made small noises of protest. Wallis Tilden threw another grape, this time more forcefully. “I said, wake up. You have the manners of a rodent.”
A rather mussed head of curly black hair rose above the lip of the be
d. Its owner ran his hands through it and yawned. For the briefest of moments, Maggie’s heart did a little double dutch, for the hair looked like Kyle’s before he shaved his head. The young man was shirtless. His oiled skin made his already-impressive musculature more pronounced. He spotted Maggie and smiled. Slanted green eyes, high cheekbones and ears that were, if not pointed, quite prominent; the face of a mischievous elf. Yes, there was a resemblance to Kyle, save that Kyle’s eyes were blue. Maggie couldn’t help but wonder if Wallis Tilden had a soft spot for young men such as this, and if so, had Kyle once slept in that very bed?
“Hiya,” said Jimmy, stretching. “What did I miss? Anything good?”
“He has, I am afraid, the wit of a wheel of cheese, but he’s such a pretty thing. Down,” she said, to no one in particular, although someone, or something, must have heard because the beds began a slow descent until they arrived at the floor. Jimmy hopped out of his – Maggie was relieved to see he wore loose-fitting trousers – and extended his hand to Wallis, so that she stepped from the bed as one might from a boat.
Wallis was taller than Maggie expected, and she towered over Jimmy. The gown she wore, although it technically revealed nothing save for her arms and one shoulder, managed to draw attention to every curve, slope, hill and valley of her body’s landscape in a way that made Maggie feel as sexless as a lump of suet. She must have worn bells around her ankles, or else they were sewn invisibly into her dress, for when Wallis walked – as she now did toward Maggie – a tinkling silver sound came with her. Her scent was of roses.
“I was quite worried about you when you fell under old Mother Ratigan’s spell. Dreadful woman. She hijacks more of my guests than I like to admit. Thank heaven for that dog of yours.” She took Maggie by the hand. Her skin was as soft and cool as satin. “But come, you must be famished.”
She led Maggie to an alcove behind a black lacquer screen where a table was laden with fish and fowl, meats and salads, steaming green beans and peas with melting butter, sweet potatoes, rice with raisins, sugared plums and apricots, dates stuffed with rich cheese and flaky baklava oozing honey. Decanters of red and white wine and a silver tea service stood on a side table. Candlelight and fine linen. Plates and cutlery of gold. Maggie bit her lip. She realized she was indeed hungry, but more importantly, she wanted to ask about Kyle. As soon as they were seated, waiters appeared from out of the shadows and set to filling the wineglasses.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 12