A white marble staircase curves like a seashell up to the floors above, up to a secretive quiet. Tidge went there, of course. It’s where his food came from, people leave uneaten food in hotel corridors, yes, but how did he get up?
A lift. Dead ahead. An old iron cage for a door that opens as if reading his thoughts. A uniformed lift-operator bows her head, all enquiring eyebrows and chuff. Your son nods in return with a wan grin not quite there on his face. The woman twinkles a smile and sweeps her hand across the showroom of her tiny space. And a lift-operator, good grief, it’s like seeing a video player or a cassette. Motl would love it so much. He’d settle on her velvet bench and travel up and down, up and down, all cackly with delight. Your son holds high his hand firmly in farewell. Shuts his door. So not good at this. He climbs the stairs and skips the first floor and opens the fire door with a 2 on it.
‘Lost?’ The lift lady chuckles, dead ahead.
‘No,’ Mouse grumps. Annoyed that he’s been second-guessed.
A stand-off. She’s not leaving. Her face has so much memory in it. And it’s been such a long time since Mouse has seen anyone elderly and he steps forward without realising, as if suddenly transfixed by the idea of her house, all those early childhood smells from visits to Granny, stillness and airless rooms and smothery, powdery cuddles and flannellette sheets.
‘Why are you wandering about all alone, young man? Are you lost? Can I help?’
‘What’s your name?’ he deflects.
‘Jude Pickering the Third,’ she announces with a smile. ‘And don’t you forget.’
He smiles and it’s like sun breaking through cloud. The woman closes the lift door with fingers as yellow and as worn as old newspapers and whispers that there’s an old service lift if he’d prefer, pointing with a blue-roped hand to a door down the corridor covered in wallpaper.
‘Hardly anyone uses it because it’s so slow. But you might just enjoy it, I think.’
Then she’s gone. Her knowing twinkle the last thing left.
And you are not afraid. She’s one of you, you’re sure of it. Perhaps, just perhaps, B is on track. And there are people looking out for them, and they’ll be all right.
Miss not the discourse of the elders.