Maguire and Hackett did not stay out late. They had a lot to do the following day and they wanted to be on top of their game for it. They did not know what had happened to Ryan, but they knew it could be that he had fallen into the hand of the enemy. If so then the enemy could be watching out for them too, so they needed their wits about them. They did at least take the opportunity of walking the streets, planning their next move in a low voice, sure that they were far less likely to be the subject of surveillance while on the move than back in their hotel room.
"It's as good a plan as any", agreed Maguire.
"If it is the passport people, we'll need to move fast. Once they know we're onto them, they'll strike back. So we'll have to move before they know what hit them".
"Right. Anyway, I'm tired. Let's go back to bed".
Once back in the Hotel Moonlight, they returned to their room and quickly began to get ready for bed. But then they were distracted by the sound of a knock on the door. Hackett signalled to Maguire that she was going to open it; her colleague tensed, in case flight or fight would be required. But when the door was opened it revealed none other than the receptionist, who smiled at them ingratiatingly.
"Good evening ladies, I was just wondering if you wanted a turn down service, or if there was anything else – "
"No thanks!" said Hackett, slamming the door in his face.
Shunter sighed and trudged down the stairs. Back to Razzle, he thought.
The following morning Maguire and Hackett came down early to sample the hotel's breakfast. Shunter's place at the reception desk had been taken by an older woman who grinned at them as they came down the stairs. She greeted them with a cheery "Alright darlings! Sleep well?" followed by a bout of chuckles that may have been suggestive or threatening but perhaps just indicated that the morning receptionist was the kind of person who found everything funny.
Breakfast was uninspiring but not comedically awful. Maguire had the full English, while Hackett had scrambled eggs on toast. They did not linger and were out of the hotel well before nine. Consequently it was still not late when they arrived in Ealing and found themselves at Agaskayon's antiques shop. The shutter was still down.
"Mmmm", said Hackett.
"We could wait for him to come and open the shop", said Maguire. "But that would look a bit weird. If I was a shifty shopkeeper with secrets and I saw too strangers loitering outside my shop, well I would think it a bit suspicious".
"Yes", said Hackett. "Let's go away and come back. We can explore the sights of Ealing".
"There are sights of Ealing?"
"Oh yes. There is what was John Soane's country mansion, not in a park and open to the public".
"Oh… and who is John Soane?"
"He is some architect. He designed the Bank of England building. I think he collected stuff, and the stuff he collected is all still in the house".
"Oh well, I suppose it beats standing around here looking like we are… well I don't know what we would look like. Let's go".
So they spent an hour or two looking at the house of John Soane. Then they went to a café and had some tea and cake.
"That John Soane guy had a lot of crazy stuff", said Maguire in a somewhat superfluous stating-the-obvious kind of way.
"Indeed", answered Hackett.
Then they went back to Agaskayon's. It was still closed. They walked past it, trying not to give the impression that they were paying it any intention. When they were a safe distance away, Maguire said: "Still closed. Maybe the bird has flown".
"Or maybe he doesn't work Wednesdays. Could be a religious thing".
"Could be. Well I don't think we should stay loitering around here. How about we head into central London and see the sights there, and then come back again tomorrow later in the day?"
"That sounds like a great idea. We should stick together in London, though, just in case".
"Well", said Maguire, "you're welcome to join me while I go looking for shoes".
"Maybe we don't need to stick together. I'll meet you back at the hotel at six?"
"I don't want to go back there on my own. That receptionist might be there again, and I'm afraid of what I might do to him".
"Saucy".
"I mean it might cause us problems if I were to hospitalise him".
"OK, so let's meet at the entrance to the British Museum. Reckon you can find that?"
"I think so. What are you going to do?"
"The Tate Britain, I think. There is an exhibition of stuff by Schiele on".
"Schiele?"
"He was an Austrian painter", said Hackett. "A contemporary of Klimt. Mostly pre-First World War. His stuff is quite intense – often having this transgressively sexual quality".
"Mmmm, maybe you'll meet our friend there. Doesn't really sound like my kind of thing, I'm afraid. I will stick to my shoes".
When they met later, Maguire was laden down with shopping bags.
"I've bought loads of shoes!" she said. "On the company's money!"
"Mmmm", said Hackett.
"You don't sound impressed".
"Well I can't say I am. You're in one of the biggest and most exciting cities in the world and what do you do? You go shoe shopping".
"Well what's wrong with that?"
"It's just it's so clichéd. If this were a novel your shoe shopping would mark you out as stereotypical shallow female character".
"Just because I like nice shoes doesn't mean you can say I'm shallow. Anyway, you can't really talk about me being shallow".
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, listen to what you are saying. Do your words really mark you out as some kind of complex character?"
"I feel complex!"
"I'm sure you do, but do you act like you are? I mean, how really different are you and I? Apart from our hair colour and my fondness for shoes, well how would anyone tell which of us was which?"
"That's a bit much".
"Not at all. Just think, if this were a novel and someone was reading what we were saying without our names being attached, would they be able to tell which of us was saying what?"
"I don't accept that at all", answered Maguire. I mean, answered Hackett. It was definitely Hackett who said that. But she had to concede the point and was a bit perturbed by it.
"Come on", said Maguire, "let’s go back to the hotel. I want to dump off these shoes and then we should go out and get something to eat".
Back at the Hotel Moonlight, Norbert Shunter was roused from his copy of Full House by the arrival of the two sexy ladies from the night before. To some extent they were interchangeable objects of desire to him, but he did think of them as being different. For instance, one of them had red hair and the other brown. And he liked the red head's tits more, but thought the brunette had a nicer arse.
Still, individual or not, the two women looked a bit out of sorts. Maybe he could cheer them up.
"Evening ladies, how about –", he began, but they ignored him.
Now Shunter was annoyed. A few minutes later, the two of them came back again, still looking like they were not in the best of moods. Shunter reckoned he would be able to sort them out, if only they would stop and listen, but they breezed past him. So he went back to Full House. Although he was in some senses not a content person, he did at least lack any sense that it was only his obsessive interest in low-grade British pornography that gave him any individuality of character.
Hackett and Maguire went to a nearby Indian restaurant and ate, largely in silence, with Hackett rebuffing Maguire's attempts at conversation or responding monosyllabically. Eventually she said: "I really am a bit concerned about your thinking I lack a distinct personality".
"I didn't say that", said Maguire. "I've known you a couple of years now, I know you have your own individual identity. I was just saying that what we would seem like two very thinly drawn and largely interchangeable characters, if what we had been saying to each other had been written down and presented in a novel. It's like we were characters in, say Dr Who, where dialogue originally written for one assistant suddenly had to be farmed out among two or three because of the addition of largely superfluous extra characters".
"I feel like I have fallen into a world of dreadful postmodernism", said Hackett morosely.
"Oh well, let's talk about something else. How is your food? What is it you ordered again?"
"Vegetable dansak. It's very good".
"Vegetable dansak. Oh I remember. Are you a vegetarian?" asked Maguire, in that tiresome way that non-vegetarians insist on doing to people they see eating food that does not contain meat.
"I suppose I am", answered Hackett. But she was now worried that her vegetarianism stemmed not from any fundamental concern for the welfare of animals but was instead a weak attempt to make her somehow distinct from other people in general (and, right now, from Maguire in particular). "And yours?"
"Lamb korma", said Maguire. "It's good". She was no longer troubled by the kind of existential angst that seemed to be weighing down Hackett. If she lacked true individuality and real depth of character it was not something she was going to worry about.
"Lamb korma… of course", said Hackett.
"What do you mean, 'of course'?"
"Oh nothing, it's just that lamb korma was apparently Osama Bin Laden's favourite dish".
"You are mistaken, madam", said a waiter who happened to be passing at that moment. "Mutton korma was the favourite meal of that terrorist. As a mark of respect to those who died on eleven nine and to all victims of terrorism we have removed that dish from the menu". He went on to serve some other customers, leaving Maguire and Hackett so stare at each other and ponder the strangeness of the world in which they lived.
16/11/2011 – 17/11/2011
An inuit panda production
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