Making Beds in Brothels

by Adam Brock

  I was walking away when I heard “Adaaaam…” an unmistakable eldritch screech that took me back years, straight to La Casa. Stopping dead, I turned to look back and realised it was Maxim, one half of the Lithuanian Menace. We stopped and spoke for a few moments; she was now called Maria and was living as a woman. Asking after Madonna, Maria shrugged, she had vanished years ago, friendships ‘on the game’ are often ephemeral. I hoped she was alive and well somewhere.

  Still I found seeing Maria very moving, and sad, and I was pleased to see her – really pleased. Sad because she hadn’t escaped, that here she still was, out of all of us, still barely surviving, eking out a living against the odds as she always had, long after all the rest of us had gone. Where had that time gone? It had flown. One day you blink, and twenty years have passed. As I left, hurrying back towards my hotel faster than I planned. I thanked God I was out of it, thinking There but for the grace of God go I.

  Even the Trebor has been given a lick of paint and is now a smart city hotel. It offers clean bright rooms at competitive prices, according to its website: its “elegant double rooms offer a delightful retreat after exploring all the capital has to offer”. I have no reason to disbelieved them.

  Veronica no longer works the reception; she wouldn’t fit in with the modern ambience anyway. Although I imagine if you stand in the right area, at the right time, you will still catch a wisp of her unique fragrance. In my mind Veronica will always remain at the Trebor. She was its Janus after all, the guardian of that place.

  Only the cemetery remains unchanged. A vast green oasis, a place of rest for both the living and the dead. And somewhere in that place, the wild asparagus still grows.

  The End