whistled.
Eleven a.m. brought us to the Cally Road swimming baths.
What Islington Council had thought would come of putting a swimming pool inside a corrugated-iron shed halfway between a railway terminal and a prison, I could not fathom. What mattered was that within these dark brown iron walls, besides the swimming pool inhabited by complaining children being forced through their weekly lesson by the bald, hook-nosed swimming master, there was a hot shower to be had for no more than £4.99 a throw.
We had thought heaven was some superficial construct of an ignorant humanity.
Standing in the shower, the stench of the litterbug being washed out of our skin, our hair, our bones, we realised this was not so. Heaven was on the Caledonian Road, smelt faintly of chlorine and was blasted out of a slightly grimy tap at 44 degrees Celsius under high pressure. We could have stayed there all day and all night, head turned into the water, but as always the driving fear of staying in one place too long, the memory of what might await me if I was found before I was ready, kept me moving.
By lunchtime, hair clinging damply to our face and new clothes pressed like the cloth of gold to our skin, I was ready. I went in search of some old friends.
My old friends could not be found.
I tried calling from phone boxes, picking numbers out of the haze of memory. I tried Awan first, a good, solid old man who’d always been kind to me in his dryly tolerant way. The number was disconnected. I moved on to Akute, with whom I had once shared a not very serious and rather drunken kiss on Waterloo Bridge, before discovering that she preferred blonds. An old lady answered the phone and informed me, no, sorry, never heard of her. A man shouted abuse at me from the number that should have been Patel’s; and because Pensley’s office was only a few minutes’ walk from the Caledonian Road, set back behind York Way, I went to find him in person, and found the place had been converted into a bathroom warehouse.
Uncertain, and getting desperate, I tried dialling Dana Mikeda’s house.
A man answered; not a good start.
“Yes?”
“I’m looking for Dana Mikeda.”
“Who’s calling?”
“I’m… an old friend.”
“What’s your name, please?”
“I need to speak to Dana Mikeda.”
“Who shall I tell her is calling?”
“I’m…” I bit back on the edge of saying my name, not safe, not yet, not until we knew for certain. “Please. It’s really important.”
“Where are you?” asked the man firmly, a posh, determined voice used to barrelling its way through all objection by shock and stubbornness. “Who is this?”
I slammed the phone down. My hand was shaking. The fear was back again, the terrible, biting certainty of eyes in the street, barely diminished by the bright merriness of the sun. There was one other number I could try, but the thought of it made my stomach turn and twist, threaded terror like a doctor’s wire through every vein and blocked the flow of hot blood.
There was only one place left to go.
In the heart of London, in the area defined by Wigmore Street to the north and Oxford Street to the south, there is a network of little weaving, half-hearted roads and tiny, crabbed alleyways, the remnants of a time when almost every street in the city snuggled up to its neighbours like fleas to skin, compressing the people between its walls into ever tighter and darker corners. Some of these streets had become gentrified over the years, offering a posher flavour of tea or a higher-cut boot than the discount bargain shops and the giant department chains that squatted on Oxford Street itself, like sullen hulking mounds looming over a river of wealth. Others had retained that darker edge of cut-price squalor that defined much of Oxford Street’s commercial goods – strange recycled computers, odd-tasting pizza with the fur left on, unusual lingerie shops for the woman who understands both work and play; suspicious acupuncture clinics and uncredited “Schools of English”, clustered in the shadows between the streets.
Amongst them, and I was pleased to see it hadn’t gone, was the “Cave of Wonders, Mysteries and Miracles”, advertised by a small wooden sign swinging above an open door through which the overwhelming smell of cheap incense and musty carpets hit the nose like it wanted a pillow fight. It lurked between a small bookshop and a pub with frosted windows and dark paintwork, looking embarrassed to be there. I felt embarrassed going into it. But I told myself it was for the best, took a deep breath of fresh air before entering, and began my descent.
What began as a bright stairwell with white walls was suddenly transformed. Beyond a hanging covered with mystic-esque symbols it became a dull stairwell of dark maroon walls and polished wooden floors, tormented by an eerie, nasal background droning from tiny speakers high up on the walls. The feel of the place changed too. The buzz of magic was stiller, quieter, an elusive black-silk touch across the senses rather than the shock of sensation I always used to associate with the Cave. Immediately, that made me suspicious.
The reception area had always been a makeshift affair, with plastic benches and tatty editions of last year’s
These quaintly unpleasant items had been replaced with black leather sofas and a silver cigarette tray containing stress balls. I walked up to the receptionist, a sour-faced man wearing tight leather trousers and not much besides, and said, “I’m here to see Khan.”
“Uh?” His attention was fixed on a magazine which seemed to be all about What Brad Did Next, and breasts.
I tried again. “I’m here to see Khan – what are the stress balls for?”
He had a tattoo across his bare, bronzed back of a Pegasus spreading its wings. Down one arm someone had inscribed in black and red ink: “
“Excuse me?” I repeated patiently. “Why do you have stress balls?”
His eyes didn’t leave an article dedicated to “How I Pulled Cheryl!!” as he replied, “Clear your aura for the reading.”
“Clear my what?”
“Your aura. You got an appointment?”
“No.”
“You’ll need to make an appointment.”
“I just want to see Khan – what do you mean ‘clear my aura’?”
“You gotta be in the zen to do a reading. Gotta have a clear head for the truth that’ll unfold, see?” he mumbled through his disdain.
I thought about it, and reached the only conclusion to be had from a lifetime of magical experience and several years of extracurricular mystic activity. “But… that’s bollocks,” I said, hoping he might be inclined to agree.
“Not my problem. Wanna make an appointment?”
“No, I want to see Khan.”
“No one here called Khan.”
“He owns this place.”
“Uh-uh. Sorry, mate, you’ll be wanting somewhere else. No Khan here.”
He still wasn’t paying us attention. We were not prepared to tolerate disrespect. We leant across the counter, grabbed him by the throat with one hand, pulled his face an inch from ours and hissed, “We want to see whoever is in charge
He made a wheezing noise and pawed at my wrist. We wanted to see his eyes bulge a little further from his face, but I relaxed my grip and pushed him back. I smiled, in a manner that I hoped was apologetic but firm.
