Corduroy Mansions Page 0,24

You know, the one who was shot in his long winter coat when people rose up against him.”

“What about prisons? Don’t they express … well, cruelty?”

“I’m trying to think of famous prisons,” said James. “I suppose, by their very nature, prisons will look unfriendly and hard. They have very small windows, you see, and that makes a building look threatening. The Bastille? San Quentin?”

“Yes. Those are certainly cruel buildings.”

James sighed. “But look at modern fortress architecture. Schools with tiny windows and large swathes of concrete. Look at the Hayward Gallery, in all its brutality. How could they do it, Caroline? How could anybody make a thing like that?” He sighed again. “And here’s this lovely building, your Corduroy Mansions. Crumpled—if a building can be crumpled. Utterly friendly and human. A building that says, ‘Come in, love.’ That’s what it says: it calls us ‘love,’ like a tea lady. A building that one would like to sit down and have tea with. That sort of building.”

They both looked up at the comfortable brickwork.

“Those are our windows up there,” said Caroline.

James smiled. “Lovely. Lovely windows.”

Caroline looked at him appreciatively. What other man would compliment one’s windows? As her younger sister would say—with the elongated teenage vowel that signified utter approbation—he’s sooooo sympathetic.

Was there a possibility? That business about stages—was there any truth in it? she wondered.

No, she must put all of that out of her mind. James was here to bake biscuits. Nothing more.

18. On the Sofa

JAMES ENTHUSED FURTHER about the building, on the staircase and on the landing. “Original doors,” he said. “Worth their weight in … well, not quite gold, but very nice anyway. And look, your fittings, Caroline. The handle. To die for!”

Caroline thought this a little exaggerated, but said nothing. She had never inspected their door handle, and now, viewing it through James’s aesthetically keener eyes, she realised that it was rather attractive. Vaguely Art Nouveau, she thought.

They went inside. “Not much to get excited about in here,” she said. “Our furniture is pretty ordinary. A bit run-down, in fact.”

James looked about him. “I see what you mean. It could certainly do with a makeover. However, that sofa looks tempting.” He lowered himself onto the sofa, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I could be very comfortable living here.”

Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Well, there’s no room, I’m afraid. Four people is about as many as this flat can hold.”

“Four girls,” mused James. “Four girls living together in Corduroy Mansions. Tell me about them. I know all about you, of course, so you can skip that bit, but what about the others?”

“We all get on well enough,” said Caroline. “I’m the most recent arrival. I’ve been here for six months—the others have all been here for a couple of years. Jenny found the flat. She knows the person who owns it. In fact, the owner is some sort of distant cousin of Jenny’s father, a woman who lives down in Dorset. She’s let this place ever since she inherited it from a friend. Wouldn’t you like a friend to leave you a flat? Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise?”

“Very,” agreed James. “And also very unlikely. But who’s this Jenny person? Tell me about her.”

Caroline slipped off her shoes and settled herself on the threadbare chintz sofa beside James. “She’s a few years older than me. Twenty-seven, I think. Everybody’s older than me in this flat. I’m the baby.”

James laughed. “You’re twenty-three, aren’t you? Same as me.”

Caroline did not think of James as being twenty-three. He looked young enough, of course—he was often asked for ID in the off-licence—but he talked as if he were much older. He knew so much, that was why. He was one of those people, she thought, who just seemed to know a great deal. And he spoke so wisely, as if he had thought for hours about everything he said.

“Jenny works as a PA,” she went on, “for an MP. A man called Snark. Oedipus Snark.”

James frowned. “I think I’ve read about him,” he said. “Something in the Evening Standard. There was a picture of him and they said something like, ‘If you think Liberal Democrat MPs are nice, meet Oedipus Snark.’ Something like that. I had to laugh. Poor Lib Dems—they really are nice. As are the others, come to think of it. I’ve got nothing against the Tories or Labour. They’re all rather sweet, don’t you think?”

“Jenny hates him,” Caroline said. “She’d agree with the Standard.”

“Then why does she work