She is ready. She goes through the pool room, says goodbye to her botanical friends, gently brushes her hands against petals and leaves. She lifts herself out through the grate by which she entered and begins to march back through the tunnels. In the last six months, the only thing she has failed to count accurately are the days. When she descended, it was midsummer, the solstice, the longest day, the shortest night. The day she chooses to ascend, it is midwinter: the shortest day, the longest night. She descended as the earth’s tilt took the northern hemisphere away from the sun. She ascends as the light begins to return.
Oxbridge Escorts
Glenda and Bastian sit opposite each other on the train. Both look out the window. Glenda follows the scene outside as it rushes from behind. Bastian watches as it rushes from ahead. They speak very little. The soft skin around Glenda’s eyes is pink. Elsewhere, she is pale—even paler than when he found her the night before. Every now and then Bastian offers a smile. Sometimes she returns it. At other times, she just sits and watches her friend.
“Thank you, Bastian,” says Glenda. “I don’t want to get too sincere on you, but you’re a good mate for doing what you did.” She turns away from him towards the window again. They streak past fields and copses and outbuildings and beaten-up farm equipment.
There is no need for him to respond. He leans his head against the glass, creating a smudge with the natural grease of his hair. Then he rummages in his bag for a book.
It is still early. The train is full of business types heading to meetings in northern cities. They sit with teas and coffees and complex spreadsheets.
The night before, Bastian worked late, into the small hours. He has been put in charge of communications at Howards Holdings, and has been inundated with freedom-of-information requests and enquiries from news platforms. He had to put together a statement to send out in the morning.
He got a taxi home. When he arrived, he noticed from the street that the lights were on. It was 2 a.m. He entered the building, took the lift up to the fourth floor and let himself in.
Bastian placed his keys in the bowl by the front door. He dropped his messenger bag beneath the coat hooks and slipped off his shoes. He walked from the hall into the living room in his socks. Rebecca was sitting on their sofa with her arms and legs crossed.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
“I’ve been at work. Didn’t you get my text?”
“You expect me to believe that you were at work?”
This sounded to Bastian like a line from a soap opera and he couldn’t help but smile, although he did so while his head was turned away from Rebecca.
“Why wouldn’t you believe that?” he asked.
“Your little friend came round here this evening. Hammering on our door in the middle of the night.”
“Which little friend?”
“You’ve got more than one, have you?”
“Rebecca, I’m sorry, but I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t.”
Bastian chose not to respond to this. He was too tired and it was all too confusing. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water from the tap. He came back in and said to her, “I’ve obviously done something that’s upset you but I genuinely don’t know what it is.”
“Your friend Glenda.”
“Glenda came here?”
“Blind drunk. Stumbling all over the place. Crying and wailing. Cuts all over her hands. Hammering on the door. I mean, what the fuck?”
“Oh my god, is she okay?”
“How should I know? I didn’t let her in. She was in an awful state. She was asking for you. I should’ve known you were carrying on with that Laura again. You’ve been so shifty lately.”
“Where did she go?”
“My god, the way she was carrying on. What a mess.”
“Yes, but where is she now?”
“That’s what you’re worried about? God, do I mean so little to you that you’re not even going to try to salvage this relationship?”
“Rebecca, I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing, but to be honest that discussion can wait. Glenda’s vulnerable—she’s had a rough time lately and has been really struggling. And frankly, I can’t believe you didn’t let her in.”
“Why should I? I’m not about to let random drunk people into the flat.”
“But she’s not a random drunk person, is she? She was at our college. You may never have spoken to her but you know who she is.”
Bastian took his phone from his bag and called Glenda but her phone went straight to voicemail. He put his shoes back on and went out into the night in search of her, all the while Rebecca shouting and screaming that it was over, that if he went out that front door he could forget coming back in.
“I’m fucking my personal trainer,” she had yelled as a parting shot.
“Dave? Your friend’s husband?”
“That’s right. We’ve been fucking for months.”
Then she had slammed the door after him.
Bastian walked the streets around his flat, searched at the bus stops near the Tube station. He clambered over the fence of the park—now shut—and searched on the benches and by the pond. He walked all the way to the banks of the River Thames. Swans hid their heads beneath their wings. The water lapped the shore.
All the time, he thought: how can she care so little? Glenda’s a person who obviously needed her help; our help. And she turned her away.
Bastian found Glenda on the bridge between Embankment Tube station and the Royal Festival Hall, looking out over the Thames. She wasn’t wearing a coat and she was shivering. There were tears in her eyes.
He convinced her to go with him and they went to sit in the McDonald’s on the Strand which is open twenty-four hours a day. Bastian bought Glenda a cup of hot tea and a
