"Joe Lane & Chris Morgan - Feels Like Underground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lane Joel & Morgan)

JOEL LANE and CHRIS MORGAN

FEELS LIKE UNDERGROUND

IT WAS THE COLDEST MORNING so far this winter. The clouds had blurred into a
whitish gauze, through which the sunlight glittered like patches of frost. At
first, he'd thought the car would never start. Then he'd lost an hour queuing
behind lorries and buses on the Warwick Road, where the open-plan traffic system
seemed to induce a kind of collective paranoia. It wasn't until he got past
Solihull, and the landscape opened out into soft fields and perspiring woodland,
that Mark began to think about the conference ahead. Two days of market-speak,
management-speak, the voice of the corporate sphincter. Two days of
spreadsheets, SWOT analyses, performance indicators, e-mail numbers, acetates
and acronyms. Two days of Brian's cigars and Gareth's nervous jokes. Two nights
with Cathy.

The hotel was near a village called Wormleighton, out in the extensively
franchised wilds of rural Warwickshire. It was called the Pines. According to
Gareth, who'd stayed there for a similar conference in 1993, it had a kind of
Swiss/Austrian feel. "Sort of a Black Forest chateau." In his conference folder,
Mark had a leaflet about the hotel. It showed a murky, faux-Gothic building,
surrounded by fir trees. There was a small lake to one side, probably
artificial. The leaflet concluded with the message: You'll be pining to return.
Cathy had said it reminded her of a Leadbelly song about jealousy, about a
murdered husband. Mark hadn't known what to say to that.

Cathy was the human resources manager at the Bromsgrove site. Mark was a
production manager at the Knowle site of the same company. They'd met at a sales
conference the previous year, and again at the Christmas party. Which was where
the affair had started, really, though they hadn't slept together until a
hastily arranged night just before the New Year. It wasn't just the need for
discretion that made him cautious. Mark didn't want to get in so deep he
couldn't get out again. Cathy understood. Her marriage was a lot shakier than
his; but even so, she wasn't the kind to take risks. It had to be kept on ice,
like a bottle of vodka you were saving for a special occasion. Still, he'd been
looking forward to this weekend in an increasingly obsessional manner over the
last couple of weeks. Whatever the room arrangements were, they'd find a way to
be together. She'd promised that, in an almost tearful mid-evening call from her
office to his. A call that had ended with them listening to each other's breath,
as if they were falling asleep in the same bed.

The sketch map in the conference folder showed a narrow road going through
Wormleighton, then uphill to the small forest around the hotel. Mark saw a gray
stone tower, then a partly ruined manor house. He glanced at the fields, seeing
horses, cattle and, unexpectedly, a chestnut-coated stag. Jackdaws circled in
pairs above the trees. The roadway was smeared with frost. He slowed down,
unsure of the route. A flash of sunlight melted the windscreen, dazzling him.
The image of Cathy floated behind his vision. Her short auburn hair, cut in a
high fringe at the back. Her upturned nose. Her beautiful smile, the teeth just
a little too strong. Her dark, painful eyes. Mark shook his head, banishing the
image. The road was lined with trees now: firs, cedars, pines. Almost the only
green things left in January. Winter felt like an absence, not a season at all.

Suddenly, the view to one side fell away. A small lake was set in the hillside.
Almost circular, frozen. It must be far colder here than in the city. The ice
was gray with blotches of white. Two kids were skating on it. Mark slowed down
to watch them. A boy and a girl, about fifteen, similarly dressed in ski jackets
and black jeans. Their linked hands were ungloved. It was like the slow dance at
the end of a disco. He felt like a voyeur; but it was hard to look away. The car
stopped, braked, stalled. The couple moved together, spiraling outward in a
shared arc. They kissed. Mark was suddenly aware of the frozen mass that held
them up. The coldness that freed them to move and touch. He turned the key in
the ignition and drove on.

Half a mile further, the road widened into a car park. The hotel was there:
dark, angular, unexpectedly small. Most of its windows were shuttered. There
were traces of snow on the surrounding trees, though he'd not seen any driving
up here. As he got out of the car, the sunlight flared like burning plastic.
Cold air scratched at his face. As he pulled his suitcase out of the boot, he
realized he was crying. Quickly, he wiped his eyes, hoping no one had seen him.
Red eyes wouldn't look good at the conference; they'd think he'd been drinking.
Around the car park, various familiar suits were getting out of burnished
company cars. Without greeting any of them, Mark straightened his tie and walked
into the hotel.

The interior was lit entirely by candles, high up in multi-armed candlesticks
around the lobby and the staircase. Red velvet awnings and black furniture gave
it a vaguely Gothic feel, like the set of a Roger Corman film. However, the
lettering on the message board was wholly conventional. He gathered that the
first seminar was in the Hoist Room, followed by lunch in the Beethoven Suite.
Mark's room was on the second floor. He decided to use the staircase, which
looked like marble: a pearly white veined with crimson. The steps were a bit too
large, and slightly damp; when he grasped the handrail, its surface was greasy
with polish. The effort of climbing made him worry about his fitness. Too much
driving, not enough exercise. On the first-floor landing, he glanced upward: a
tight coil around darkness, like a fossil of some primitive organism.

Reception had warned him about the electricity in his room. You had to use the
door key to connect it -- unlocking the light, so to speak, before pressing the
switch. The wavering candlelight from the corridor hardly diluted the shadows in
the room. He fumbled inside the door, smelling dust and wax polish. Then the
light sprang on: two yellow lamps in wall brackets, neither more than forty
watts. If he needed to work in here, he'd complain. There was a low but
comfortable-looking bed, With a red velvet bedspread and two black pillows. He
lay back on it, suddenly aroused by the-thought of Cathy. Would she be at the
seminar? Forcing himself to think about work, he sat up and blinked at the wall.
There was a picture of a forest, black distorted trees against a murky sunset.
Or was it a fire?

Unpacking only what he needed for the seminar, Mark hurried back down the
precarious steps to the ground floor. The Hoist Room was probably as close to a
normal conference room as a place like this got. Long, curved tables formed
shells around a space at the back, where an OHP had been set up next to an
old-fashioned lectern. The first few rows were full already. Mark nodded and
smiled at a few colleagues; then he sat at the back, looking out for Cathy. No
sign. During the next two hours, while the three Sales Directors droned on about
marketing strategies and the audience laughed politely in what seemed the right
places, Mark's imagination kept returning to the black-sheeted bed. He took
notes dutifully, sketching cats and spiders in the wide margins. At least this
room had electric lights, not candles. The final question-and-answer session
dragged, sales colleagues asking for information they already had just to show
off how well-researched the department was.

The Beethoven Suite was at the end of a long corridor whose walls were paneled
in mahogany. The light from stainless steel candelabras glittered on crystal
glasses and etiolated cutlery. Subdued music, probably that of the nominated
composer, drifted from speakers in the ceiling. There was a buffet and carvery
on the far side of the room. Just inside the door, a grand piano stood in
dust-free silence. Mark couldn't help wondering if it might be an
injection-molded replica. As he joined the queue, a hand brushed his arm. "Hi
there!" It was Cathy.

For a moment, he almost reached out to hold her. The candles flickered, sending
out a ripple of darkness. Then he recovered. "Cathy! How long have you been
here?" It was getting harder to cover up in front of colleagues.

"About an hour," she said. "Some motorway trouble. An accident just in front of
me. They took down my name and address, as a witness. One driver had to go to
hospital. Then I got here ... and got stuck in the lift. My room's on the fifth
floor." Mark felt an involuntary twinge of disappointment. "Must have pressed
the wrong button coming back down. The lift door opened, and there was just this
wall. Brick and plaster. No light, outside the lift. I could hear something.
Like ... wax. Dripping. It was a corridor." She looked away. "I kept pressing
buttons, but nothing happened. It was cold down there. I thought ... then
something connected and the lift shot back up to this floor. By the time I'd
recovered and finished complaining to Reception, the seminar was due to finish."

Cathy was shivering. Mark squeezed her arm gently. "I'm okay," she said. Her
smile made him feel breathless. Be careful, he thought. This is dangerous. For a
moment, absurdly, he couldn't remember his wife's name.

The afternoon was slightly less dull than the morning. One of Cathy's colleagues
from the bright lights of Bromsgrove led an imaginative (if slightly insincere)
discussion on risk-taking in business management. Later, Mark gave a report on
production control methods in the Glass Suite, a sparsely furnished room
decorated with repetitive abstract motifs on tiny pieces of acetate. His small
audience was too busy taking notes to appreciate any of the sarcastic asides --
in particular, a reference to Volume 13, Issue 49. of Which Mobile Phone? fell
absolutely flat. Worse, an older colleague came up to him afterward to ask
whether the magazine was available from W.H. Smith's.

Then there was a break, during which he and Cathy slipped out for a quiet walk.
It was unexpectedly cold; neither of them had an overcoat. Darkness was
gathering in the trees, filtering down from the burnt sky. No one was skating on
the lake; deep cracks ran across the ice, though not deep enough to expose the
water. Near the edge, some black unfrozen pockets showed through. After checking
that they were alone, Mark put his arms around Cathy and kissed her deeply. They
rocked together, listening to the silence. Cathy's jacket rode up as she
embraced him, the shoulder-pads trembling like vestigial wings. Without
speaking, they returned to the hotel.

The final session before dinner was a report on ways the company was developing
its use of IT resources. There were four speakers, including Cathy. She talked
about ways the company could use the Internet for research and communication.
"Of course, it's no more private than a noticeboard. But like our noticeboard,
it's so crowded with stuff that no one knows what to look for or where. So
information is only confidential if it's information that no one wants. For
secrets, use the phone. For real secrets..." Cathy bent down and whispered
something into Brian's ear. Mark felt an irrational surge of jealousy. It was a
joke, he thought. Lighten up. Cathy glanced at him and smiled; he didn't manage
to smile back.

Feeling angry with himself, and uneasy at the way things seemed to be changing,
Mark went up to his room to unpack before dinner. This time he took the lift,
and almost went flying when he stepped out into a corridor whose floor was about
six inches below the lift floor. He limped to his room, unlocked the door and
the light, and wondered whether the smell of wax came from the furniture polish
or the candles in the hallway. There was a small chest of drawers by the bed;
the top drawer at first refused to budge, then shot clean out from its runners,
banging Mark's knuckles and almost hitting his legs. Reciting a list of obscure
sexual practices, he replaced the drawer and put some underwear in it. Then he
hung up his jacket in a wardrobe tall enough for suicide.

Familiar with hotel showers, Mark adjusted the temperature control before
turning on the water. The resulting blast made him think of steam trains. Biting
his lip, he turned down the temperature until it changed abruptly to lukewarm.
There was no reduction in the force of the spray. The floor of the shower
cubicle was smooth, not unlike the stairs, and became dangerous when coated with
soapy water. When he stepped out of the cubicle, rubbing at his eyes, Mark
discovered that the shower had sprayed copiously over the bathroom floor. He
dried his feet while sitting on the bed. It was tempting just to lie down and
think about Cathy. But that could wait. He wouldn't have to dream later. And
he'd better get his feelings under control before rejoining the others.

Almost as an afterthought, he phoned Linda at home. The connection was faulty;
as she talked about their son, Mark heard snow falling through the line into his
head. "Those computer games we had to get him for Christmas -- he hasn't touched
them all week. Whenever he gets excited about something new, he thinks it's
going to be important for the rest of his life. He's got to have it immediately
... and then, a few weeks later, it's completely forgotten. He outgrows things,
but he doesn't seem to outgrow ... the mentality." Or the need, Mark thought
with an irrational sense of bitterness. He said something noncommittal about
Dominic having time to change. He was only nine.

"That's the problem," Linda said. "These advertisers, they're destroying time.
They're franchising childhood. It's not a process anymore, it's a market
resource." As usual, Mark found himself both agreeing with her viewpoint and
concerned about her state of mind. There was no sense in being an outsider.
Linda's anger helped to give him a sense of purpose; but he still had to fit in,
had to get along with the system. Did that make him a hypocrite? One more thing
to feel guilty about.

There was a draught in the stairwell; Mark shivered as he negotiated the whitish
steps. Gareth was standing in the foyer, wearing a horrible mauve tie. "Mark!
Come and join the party. You need to join something." Mark followed him into the
Brahms Suite, which turned out to be the bar. What a surprise. He downed a quick
vodka and orange, trying to identify Cathy among the gleaming men and
power-dressed women. Someone leaned back into the outer corner of a dado rail
and cried out. "God! What's that doing there?" Tall candles flickered in brass
rosettes. "There's something dangerous about this place..." You don't know the
half of it, Mark thought. He shut his eyes and saw drifting squares of light
crossing a blue surface: the Windows screen saver.

"Are you okay?" It was Brian, wearing a crimson silk shirt and looking
concerned. Mark nodded and swallowed the last of his drink. The vodka felt
colder inside him than the ice-cubes. He made for the Gents sign at the corner
of the bar. It was dim and quiet in there; the piped music, presumably Brahms or
perhaps Liszt, was more clearly audible. He splashed water over his face and
blinked repeatedly. The window-images wouldn't go away. Like flaws in a sheet of
ice. He wondered exactly what Gareth had meant about joining something. It could
have been a coded reference to the staff Christmas party, when Mark had spent
the whole evening talking with Cathy and ignored the various bonding rituals
going on within his department. Or it could have had something to do with Mark's
lack of political alignment, his occasional jibes at the major parties. The
politics of his colleagues repelled him: both the knee-jerk Conservatism of the
directors and the shallow attitudes of those managers who'd switched their
allegiance from the ghost of Thatcher to the hologram of Blair. As if all that
mattered was identifying and following the highest achiever.

His reverie was broken by the coughing of an elderly military-looking man in a
yellow jacket. "They ought to change the mirrors in this place," the stranger
muttered. "Whenever I look at one, I don't like what I see." Mark smiled in what
he hoped was a supportive fashion. It hadn't occurred to him that there might be
permanent residents in this hotel. He went back to the bar, where Cathy was
waiting in a turquoise blouse and skirt that made the candlelight back off in
astonishment. "Is your room comfortable?" she asked him, smiling, Her eyes were
serious, almost frightened.

They ate in a different function room from lunch. Mark didn't see the name, but
assumed it to be the Wagner Suite from the decor, which included plaster
mountain-peaks molded onto the walls and a glittering silvery waterfall running
into a trench at one end of the room. The ceiling was painted with a fluorescent
Aurora Borealis. Large red candles melted over the wall surface, turning
mountains to volcanoes and burning small mahogany villages. They drank some
heavy Australian red wine and ate a mixture of game that included rabbit and
venison. The music periodically drowned out conversation. Which, given that the
conversation on both sides of Mark seemed to revolve around current trends in
the business-related software market, was no great loss. Cathy was sitting
nearly opposite him, too far away for their legs to touch. Their eyes brushed
across each other every few minutes, caressing without holding. She rarely wore
makeup, but tonight her lips were very slightly reddened. Or maybe it was just
the wine and the flickering light.

Later, the gathering divided itself between several rooms. Most of the older
staff settled in the Brahms Suite for a quiet drinking session. Mark decided to
remain as sober as possible. Once he got past a certain point with wine or
spirits, he lost the ability to stop. At one level, he wanted to drink until the
conflicting voices of lust and fear dissolved into a bright silence. At another
level, he knew that would be a criminal waste. He joined Cathy in the
Saint-Saens Room, where a fairly retrogressive disco was in progress. The sight
of young executives reliving their teens, strutting and weaving to the sound of
Donna Summer and Blondie, made him feel uneasy. You could play the same records
all your life, but it was frightening how soon you forgot the moves. The room
was oppressively dark and warm, with red velvet curtains and a black tiled
floor.

After a quick trip back to the bar, Mark and Cathy went on to the Zann Room,
where the younger staff seemed to have gathered. The music here was louder and
distinctly atonal, a blend of techno and trip-hop that shuddered with confusion.
Nobody was dancing very much. The walls were blue-gray, pricked with thousands
of tiny lights like strange drifting constellations. Mark recognized Gary and
Sue from the IT department; they were kissing slowly, their faces blurred by the
moving lights. Sue waved at him and said something, but he couldn't hear her
voice. He felt Cathy's hand on his arm, turned to see her mouth framing silent
words. He reached up and touched her hair. They stood like that for a moment.
Then Cathy smiled, tugged at his sleeve and led him out into the corridor.

They would have gone up the stairs together, but someone was lurking in the
stairwell, watching the entrance. It was Brian. "Hi," he said a little
drunkenly. "Feel a bit woozy. Too much red wine. Thought I might get an early
night." He leaned on the banister, still gazing at the main doorway. Brian
wasn't a drinker, Mark remembered. Maybe he'd broken his own rules. Cathy and
Mark wandered awkwardly back into the Saint-Saens Room, which was becoming
crowded. On little tables around the floor, glasses jittered to the pedestrian
beat of "Life in the Fast Lane." The smells of perfume, burnt wax and spilt wine
stiffened the air. When it happened, it seemed like the room had been waiting
for it. One of the heavier executives slipped on the tiled floor, staggered and
fell. A woman grabbed at his arm, but missed and fell over him, her feet trapped
under his jacket. Her pale wrist snapped with a sound like breaking ice. There
was a brief silence. Then her shocked face released a thin cry, as if she wanted
to scream but couldn't. Her right hand flopped like a glove until she gripped
and straightened it.

The man on the floor sat up, breathless but apparently uninjured. One by one,
the other dancers stopped moving. Another woman knelt by the casualty, spoke to
her and helped her to her feet. Before the record had finished playing, two
uniformed hotel employees came through a side door and led the injured woman
away in a slow procession. Obviously someone would take her to the hospital --
which might be as far away as Leamington. Mark didn't know who she was.

"They should have stopped the music," Cathy said. They were climbing the stairs
together, Brian having disappeared. It was nearly midnight. "No one was moving,
the DJ must have known there'd been an accident even if he didn't see it. Why
didn't he turn the record off?" Mark didn't answer. Every step of the staircase
felt like a hurdle between himself and Cathy. The lift would have been quicker
and more discreet; but after Cathy's experience this morning, it didn't seem
worth the risk. On the second floor, they paused. "Your room okay?" Mark nodded.
He was glad of the alcohol, which was taking the edge off his panic. Under the
soft fleshy glow of the wine, he felt like he'd been stuffed with darkness. The
link between himself and his life outside was nothing more than a telephone
line. He'd lost the code.

They were alone. Mark unlocked his door and reached for the light-switch before
remembering to use his key. Cathy stood while he fastened the door and hung up
his jacket. In the dim light, he could only see broad patches of color: the red
bedspread, blue-green wallpaper, yellow lamps. The only sound in the room was
their breathing. He put his arms around Cathy's waist and drew her against him.
Her tongue was thin and soft, dancing in his mouth. He stroked her hair, running
his fingers down to the back of her neck. You're beautiful, he whispered to her.
Cathy's eyes clouded. Don't say anything, she whispered back. Not now. She was
unbuttoning his shirt, her fingernails pricking his chest. He kissed her neck,
feeling the pulse just under the white skin.

Half-naked, they pulled back the bedspread and climbed onto the taut black
sheet, then folded themselves around each other. In the poor light Cathy's eyes
were opaque, somehow lifeless. But her teeth glistened, and he could see the
faint blush on her throat and collarbone. He reached between her legs and
touched what seemed like a skinless muscle. The air was chilly, but they were
both sweating. The surface of the bed was firm. Cathy gripped his penis and
guided him into her, closing tight around him. Her fingernails drew tracks
across his shoulderblades. After a few minutes, she pulled back and twisted over
so that he could enter her from behind. Mark pressed the palms of his hands
against her nipples and kissed the thin curve of her right ear. Somehow they
were facing into the room by now, the pillows forgotten. A flicker of light on
the wall made him look up. It was the forest painting. The sunset was moving
through the trees, setting them on fire. The blue-green wallpaper seemed to
ripple and flow like a tidal sea. The twin lamps stuttered their dirty
brightness. Below him, Cathy shuddered as her cry broke into gasps. The wall was
coming. The room was coming. He thrust deep and then held still, feeling the
darkness inside him melt and escape.

It was only then that he realized he wasn't wearing a condom. Those risks
weren't part of the plan. What was wrong with him? They disengaged and lay still
for a while, in an uneasy silence. Mark wondered if the blind violence of their
lovemaking was somehow a distorted expression of their growing depth of feeling.
If so, it was a sign that things were getting out of control. As their bodies
cooled, a chill seemed to rise through the mattress and make them embrace. Half
covered by the velvet bedspread, they caressed and murmured tenderly until they
were ready to make love again. This time, it was gentler and more human; they
cried each other's name as their bodies crumpled together. Afterward, Mark lay
awake in the darkness, wondering why the first time had been so much better.
Maybe love needed some coldness to protect it. Fire and ice. You're pissed, he
thought with some bitterness. Cathy had set the alarm for eight.

During the night, the fire alarm went off. Naked and shivering, Mark walked down
a flight of concrete steps and along a whitewashed corridor. The fire escape
presumably led out the back of the hotel, but he couldn't see where it ended. He
was alone, but there were voices all around him. Everyone must have gathered
down here. Cathy had gone ahead of him. After a while, he came to an open
doorway through which pale lights flickered. There was an intense smell of
melting wax. The voices were crying out, but not in pain. He stepped through the
doorway and was suddenly trapped in folds of dark cloth.

The digital alarm clock ticked softly, as quiet as a dripping candle. It was
nearly four o'clock. Mark was painfully aroused; but he'd have to wait until
morning. Cathy was stretched beside him, her breathing only just audible.
Suddenly his mind lit up with images of the basement. Ringed by the remains of
candles, the dozens of writhing bodies. Scraps of underwear crumpled on hands
and faces. Reddened skin, glistening with circles of wax and semen. A little
furtively, he gripped his cock; but the images faded at once, leaving him
confused and hollow. The dream reminded him of something he'd always imagined at
company meetings: that wherever you got to in the hierarchy, there was some kind
of inner circle you couldn't reach. The real party was one you were not invited
to. The air in the bedroom was cool and smelt only of furniture polish, as if
cleaners had come in the night and erased the residues of lovemaking. Mark tried
to replay their desperate coupling of a few hours before; but it seemed facile,
staged, like glossy soft-porn. He closed his eyes against the darkness and tried
to float back into sleep.

It didn't work. A couple of hours later, his curiosity got the better of him.
Moving as quietly as possible, he switched on the bedside lamp and put his
clothes on, apart from his shoes and jacket. He closed the door carefully behind
him and padded along the half-lit corridor to where he'd dreamt the fire escape
to be. It was there; he must have seen it earlier. The door opened on a spring
and closed silently when he released it. There was a long flight of concrete
steps, going down into the heart of the building. The chill numbed his feet and
made walking difficult. Some faint light, presumably moonlight, filtered through
from above. The air was damp and still, like some rotten fabric he had to tear
through to reach his destination.

At the foot of the stairs was an unlit corridor. He could feel paint on one of
the side walls. The texture was soft and crumbly. There were no side doors. He
thought the floor was damp, though there was hardly any sensation in his feet.
Near the opening at the end of the corridor, he paused. There was no sound. He
walked through, conscious of a growing sexual excitement. Another staircase,
completely invisible. He thought the steps were metal and not entirely solid.
Another corridor, less than three feet wide. He could hear the very faint sound
of dripping, as regular as a clock. The corridor ended in a brick wall. Unless
he'd missed it, there was no side exit. The fire escape was a dead end. He
pressed his hands to the moist stone, bewildered by its refusal to yield.
Suddenly all he wanted was to be asleep in bed.

It took him a while to get back, climbing stairs that felt uneven as well as
steep. The sound of dripping faded above the basement level, and the silence
frightened him. Eventually he stumbled through the doorway onto the second
floor. It was daylight. His feet and the palms of his hands were black with
dust. As he turned toward the corridor, a swing door opened. It was Brian and a
teenage boy he'd not seen before. Feeling vaguely reassured, Mark crept back to
his room and let himself in. The heavy curtains kept in the night. He undressed
quietly and got into bed beside Cathy, who was still asleep. As his head touched
the pillow, the alarm clock went off.

Breakfast was edgy and subdued. From the number of blank faces and
dropped-shadow eyes at the table in the Stravinsky Suite, Mark suspected he'd
not been the only one to have trouble sleeping. The unnatural dawn chorus of
stringed instruments jarred his nerves. Too lively for winter. He learned that
Tara from marketing, who'd broken her arm the night before, had stayed in
hospital overnight and was going home today. That hadn't been the only accident:
Gavin the Accounts Manager was limping after a fall in the shower. The left side
of his face was bruised gray, like a school playground after rain.

The opening session was a workshop on time management. It overran by half an
hour. Then two seminars ran concurrently: Gareth on what the company could learn
from Japanese corporate strategies, and Cathy on managing human resources. For
professional reasons, Mark had to attend the former. It dragged, like a haiku
extended into fifty-five cantos. Cathy's sleeping face drifted across his field
of vision, as perfect and expressionless as a mask. It scared him, to feel so
deeply about something that would never be complete. It was trapped deep inside
him: not guilt and not joy, but something in between. Her fluid movements
tracked fire across the inside of his skull; the way she fucked was no more and
no less beautiful than the way she drank coffee or sent a fax.

Just before lunch, they slipped away together and went back to the frozen lake.
Mark thought he could see a pattern of circular skate-tracks, like the groove in
a record. White vinyl. Yesterday's cracks were no longer visible. They held
hands, listening to the minimalist percussion of bare twigs in the wind and the
random cries of seagulls that were circling above the lake. Cathy was worried
about her seminar. "You talk about managing human resources, it's like you've
crossed a line between relating to people and using them. It's a science. I know
the theory, every decision I make could be predicted by a computer. They don't
want me, just a machine with my voice. Otherwise they'd have to admit that these
human resources are actually people."

Mark wanted to say something, to reassure her; but he was thinking about his own
managerial routines, the way he used staff appraisals and one-on-one scheduling
meetings to control the members of his department. The same rationale: this
isn't me, it's the company. This is how things are done. No wonder he felt
cheated. They kissed slowly, their fear sheathed by the cold. The ice shimmered
like quartz below them.

The whole afternoon was taken up by a company progress report, with several
American directors in attendance. The air was thick with virtual dollar signs.
Despite the company's record-breaking profits, every other word was about
cost-cutting. Mark had been working to a shoestring budget for so long, it took
events like this remind him how much money the company actually had. The
Managing Director, a man only ever referred to by his initials, laid heavy
emphasis on the significance of budgetary control. "The key to successful
expansion is effective downsizing. We need to be in control of the culture and
the working groups in our various departments. Our culture, not someone else's.
We're all working hard to phase out union recognition throughout all branches of
the company. I don't need to tell you how important that is, with the prospect
of a new British government letting in socialist legislation from Europe. The
unions will be desperately keen to help ministers interfere in the way we run
our business. Your jobs depend on keeping a tight ship."

Afterward, Mark stood at the foot of the staircase, gazing up into the cold
white spiral and its missing heart. A rush of vertigo made him shiver. He felt
like he'd been at a political rally. But it was only business. For a moment, he
wanted to be free of everything. He'd wait until tomorrow before phoning Linda.
His head was full of corporate rhetoric and pornographic images. It wasn't stuff
he wanted to share.

That evening was quieter than the previous one had been. Perhaps the weighty
presence of the MD and some of the directors, who'd turned up for the afternoon,
was creating an atmosphere of restraint. People like that wouldn't risk denting
the premiums on their health insurance policies. Whatever the reason, there was
no disco. A long-drawn-out meal involving smoked sausage, veal pastries and
chocolate cake was followed by an hour or so of obligatory and forgettable
networking, then a quiet drinking session in a number of smoke-blurred rooms.
Mark and Brian --who'd got over his embarrassment about the dawn incident when
he'd realized that Mark didn't give a fuck about it -- explored the ground
floor, a labyrinth of tacky function rooms connected by dark-red corridors. Some
of them were showing clear signs of neglect. The Elgar Suite, right at the back
of the hotel, was an enclave of British Empire memorabilia where the hotel's
older residents gathered to get quietly paralytic; visitors were not welcome.
The Rachmaninov Suite was locked; dust furred the inside of the glass-paned
door. From the dark interior, the restless sound of piano chords was just
audible. The Cage Room was another bar, silent and empty apart from an effigy
tipping an empty glass above its mouth.

Toward midnight, as the remaining drinkers were painting their inner landscapes
with stars, Mark left Brian half-asleep in the Tchaikovsky Suite and went up to
his room. There was a small plastic kettle and some sachets of instant coffee;
he made a cup and drank it black, trying to sober up before Cathy arrived. He'd
not seen her since dinner, when they'd made this assignation. After last night,
the room seemed gloomy and impersonal, the forest picture unconvincing. Maybe
none of it worked when you were alone. That was why he'd been unable to find the
cellar. He was still thinking about that when he heard a light, rapid series of
knocks at his door. He let her in, flicking the catch on the door as it snapped
shut.

They sat together on the bed, holding each other as if any movement would risk
separation. His hands moved slowly over her back and shoulders. Mark felt hollow
with need. He suspected that if tonight didn't work out, they might finish. But
talking about the future would only depress them both, strangling desire and
isolating them in their separate rooms of guilt. It seemed like the only way
forward was to fuck each other into an oblivion where anything could be said. To
burn down the forest. You're beautiful, he whispered again. Cathy smiled. Her
eyes widened, then closed as their mouths clasped together. He caressed her
through her dress, trying to draw the naked Cathy out of the clothed one.

When they were naked on the velvet bedspread, she used her arms and legs to lift
him clear above her, then slowly let him fall until his penis touched the smooth
skin of her belly. He came within seconds of entering her, but carried on until
she gasped and dug her nails into his sides. Once again, he realized, they
hadn't taken precautions. The images of his dream returned; he lifted above her
and let her stroke him until his semen was tracked across her pale skin. Then he
pressed his face between her legs and probed with his tongue, pushing her knees
up over his tense shoulders. They went on like this for some considerable time,
until they were dry and narcotized with ecstasy and the sheets were a crumpled
mess. Then they pulled the duvet over themselves and slept back to back, not
touching.

It was still dark when the fire alarm woke him. He sat up and listened to its
echoes dying in his head. The room was chilly and almost silent: the clock
ticking on one side of him, Cathy breathing softly on the other. The truth was
lodged in his head, as clear as ice. How it all fitted together: the company,
Cathy, the hotel. None of it worked when you were alone. With Cathy, he could
get into the basement. What happened there would enable him to keep her. He
listened to her breathing. It was too shallow and uneven for sleep. "Cathy."

"Yes? Mark?" There must be a trace of moonlight in the room, since he could just
make out the blurred shape of her head rising from the pillow. "What is it?"

"The fire escape," he said. "You must come with me. Please? You know what I'm
asking. The party. The real party. You know."

There was a pause. Then she said: "All fight." She reached out and touched his
face. They kissed, invisible like ghosts. Leaving the door unlocked, they walked
naked along the corridor to the whitewashed door opposite the lift shaft. The
stone steps were clammy and roughened by flakes of paint. Cathy put her arm
around Mark's waist as they walked on into the total darkness of the corridor,
and down the flight of braided metal steps. At the bottom, Mark paused. The
floor was slippery with dried wax. There was a dim light at the end of the
passage, flickering. As they walked on, he could hear the sounds from the room
beyond. He slipped a hand across Cathy's breasts. The nipples were hard; she
turned to kiss him. They walked together through the stone-framed doorway. There
was no door.

It was a long, shallow room, roughly oval in shape, like one of the conference
rooms upstairs. The center of the room was full of candles. More candles, in
various tones of off-white and pink, hung on crude wire chandeliers from the low
ceiling. Their wax had formed into the shapes of many interlinked bodies, some
more complete than others. Hundreds of tiny flames winked and smoldered in the
gloom; but there was no heat. The room was so cold that Cathy's breath clouded
in front of her face. She stepped away from Mark, toward the edge of the
many-limbed composite statue. Part of it reached up and gripped her ankle. She
knelt and let the pale, waxy hand move slowly up her thigh.

Mark glanced around helplessly. More wax figures were clustered around the edge
of the room, embedded in the wall or each other. He could still hear the sounds
of rhythmical kissing and slapping, the grunts and moans of bodies locked in
passion. But the only movement he could see was far too slow; and the only faces
were blank glistening screens, their eyes and mouths stopped with wax. Cathy was
half-sitting now, her back curved, hands and feet dug into a mound of rippling
flesh. A thick white candle was pressing between her thighs. Her eyes opened
momentarily and she saw Mark. "Join us. Don't be a stranger." Then she twisted
away and shuddered through the build-up of a violent climax. Mark watched,
unable to react, as her legs kicked in the air and her right ankle broke like
the stem of a glass.

He tried to reach her, but she was near the focus of the party and there were
too many bodies in the way. Soon it ceased to matter, as hands and mouths
fastened upon him and he was no longer alone. At last he realized, not only that
the candles were people, but that the people were candles. The closer he got to
them, the more human they were and the brighter they shone. However cold it
might be, the party would go on. And it was freezing: he could see icicles in
the dark ceiling, feel the crystals of ice on the tender faces. A weight of
flesh on his arm tore the muscle, but he felt no pain. A drifting membrane
brought him to climax and he ejaculated without pleasure, watching his semen
freeze in the air. Someone cried out, and the rest imitated. Mark heard his own
voice among them. The image of order and repetition grew in his mind. Like a
spreadsheet. A spread sheet. Living in the ice, while the dance continued
overhead.






JOEL LANE and CHRIS MORGAN

FEELS LIKE UNDERGROUND

IT WAS THE COLDEST MORNING so far this winter. The clouds had blurred into a
whitish gauze, through which the sunlight glittered like patches of frost. At
first, he'd thought the car would never start. Then he'd lost an hour queuing
behind lorries and buses on the Warwick Road, where the open-plan traffic system
seemed to induce a kind of collective paranoia. It wasn't until he got past
Solihull, and the landscape opened out into soft fields and perspiring woodland,
that Mark began to think about the conference ahead. Two days of market-speak,
management-speak, the voice of the corporate sphincter. Two days of
spreadsheets, SWOT analyses, performance indicators, e-mail numbers, acetates
and acronyms. Two days of Brian's cigars and Gareth's nervous jokes. Two nights
with Cathy.

The hotel was near a village called Wormleighton, out in the extensively
franchised wilds of rural Warwickshire. It was called the Pines. According to
Gareth, who'd stayed there for a similar conference in 1993, it had a kind of
Swiss/Austrian feel. "Sort of a Black Forest chateau." In his conference folder,
Mark had a leaflet about the hotel. It showed a murky, faux-Gothic building,
surrounded by fir trees. There was a small lake to one side, probably
artificial. The leaflet concluded with the message: You'll be pining to return.
Cathy had said it reminded her of a Leadbelly song about jealousy, about a
murdered husband. Mark hadn't known what to say to that.

Cathy was the human resources manager at the Bromsgrove site. Mark was a
production manager at the Knowle site of the same company. They'd met at a sales
conference the previous year, and again at the Christmas party. Which was where
the affair had started, really, though they hadn't slept together until a
hastily arranged night just before the New Year. It wasn't just the need for
discretion that made him cautious. Mark didn't want to get in so deep he
couldn't get out again. Cathy understood. Her marriage was a lot shakier than
his; but even so, she wasn't the kind to take risks. It had to be kept on ice,
like a bottle of vodka you were saving for a special occasion. Still, he'd been
looking forward to this weekend in an increasingly obsessional manner over the
last couple of weeks. Whatever the room arrangements were, they'd find a way to
be together. She'd promised that, in an almost tearful mid-evening call from her
office to his. A call that had ended with them listening to each other's breath,
as if they were falling asleep in the same bed.

The sketch map in the conference folder showed a narrow road going through
Wormleighton, then uphill to the small forest around the hotel. Mark saw a gray
stone tower, then a partly ruined manor house. He glanced at the fields, seeing
horses, cattle and, unexpectedly, a chestnut-coated stag. Jackdaws circled in
pairs above the trees. The roadway was smeared with frost. He slowed down,
unsure of the route. A flash of sunlight melted the windscreen, dazzling him.
The image of Cathy floated behind his vision. Her short auburn hair, cut in a
high fringe at the back. Her upturned nose. Her beautiful smile, the teeth just
a little too strong. Her dark, painful eyes. Mark shook his head, banishing the
image. The road was lined with trees now: firs, cedars, pines. Almost the only
green things left in January. Winter felt like an absence, not a season at all.

Suddenly, the view to one side fell away. A small lake was set in the hillside.
Almost circular, frozen. It must be far colder here than in the city. The ice
was gray with blotches of white. Two kids were skating on it. Mark slowed down
to watch them. A boy and a girl, about fifteen, similarly dressed in ski jackets
and black jeans. Their linked hands were ungloved. It was like the slow dance at
the end of a disco. He felt like a voyeur; but it was hard to look away. The car
stopped, braked, stalled. The couple moved together, spiraling outward in a
shared arc. They kissed. Mark was suddenly aware of the frozen mass that held
them up. The coldness that freed them to move and touch. He turned the key in
the ignition and drove on.

Half a mile further, the road widened into a car park. The hotel was there:
dark, angular, unexpectedly small. Most of its windows were shuttered. There
were traces of snow on the surrounding trees, though he'd not seen any driving
up here. As he got out of the car, the sunlight flared like burning plastic.
Cold air scratched at his face. As he pulled his suitcase out of the boot, he
realized he was crying. Quickly, he wiped his eyes, hoping no one had seen him.
Red eyes wouldn't look good at the conference; they'd think he'd been drinking.
Around the car park, various familiar suits were getting out of burnished
company cars. Without greeting any of them, Mark straightened his tie and walked
into the hotel.

The interior was lit entirely by candles, high up in multi-armed candlesticks
around the lobby and the staircase. Red velvet awnings and black furniture gave
it a vaguely Gothic feel, like the set of a Roger Corman film. However, the
lettering on the message board was wholly conventional. He gathered that the
first seminar was in the Hoist Room, followed by lunch in the Beethoven Suite.
Mark's room was on the second floor. He decided to use the staircase, which
looked like marble: a pearly white veined with crimson. The steps were a bit too
large, and slightly damp; when he grasped the handrail, its surface was greasy
with polish. The effort of climbing made him worry about his fitness. Too much
driving, not enough exercise. On the first-floor landing, he glanced upward: a
tight coil around darkness, like a fossil of some primitive organism.

Reception had warned him about the electricity in his room. You had to use the
door key to connect it -- unlocking the light, so to speak, before pressing the
switch. The wavering candlelight from the corridor hardly diluted the shadows in
the room. He fumbled inside the door, smelling dust and wax polish. Then the
light sprang on: two yellow lamps in wall brackets, neither more than forty
watts. If he needed to work in here, he'd complain. There was a low but
comfortable-looking bed, With a red velvet bedspread and two black pillows. He
lay back on it, suddenly aroused by the-thought of Cathy. Would she be at the
seminar? Forcing himself to think about work, he sat up and blinked at the wall.
There was a picture of a forest, black distorted trees against a murky sunset.
Or was it a fire?

Unpacking only what he needed for the seminar, Mark hurried back down the
precarious steps to the ground floor. The Hoist Room was probably as close to a
normal conference room as a place like this got. Long, curved tables formed
shells around a space at the back, where an OHP had been set up next to an
old-fashioned lectern. The first few rows were full already. Mark nodded and
smiled at a few colleagues; then he sat at the back, looking out for Cathy. No
sign. During the next two hours, while the three Sales Directors droned on about
marketing strategies and the audience laughed politely in what seemed the right
places, Mark's imagination kept returning to the black-sheeted bed. He took
notes dutifully, sketching cats and spiders in the wide margins. At least this
room had electric lights, not candles. The final question-and-answer session
dragged, sales colleagues asking for information they already had just to show
off how well-researched the department was.

The Beethoven Suite was at the end of a long corridor whose walls were paneled
in mahogany. The light from stainless steel candelabras glittered on crystal
glasses and etiolated cutlery. Subdued music, probably that of the nominated
composer, drifted from speakers in the ceiling. There was a buffet and carvery
on the far side of the room. Just inside the door, a grand piano stood in
dust-free silence. Mark couldn't help wondering if it might be an
injection-molded replica. As he joined the queue, a hand brushed his arm. "Hi
there!" It was Cathy.

For a moment, he almost reached out to hold her. The candles flickered, sending
out a ripple of darkness. Then he recovered. "Cathy! How long have you been
here?" It was getting harder to cover up in front of colleagues.

"About an hour," she said. "Some motorway trouble. An accident just in front of
me. They took down my name and address, as a witness. One driver had to go to
hospital. Then I got here ... and got stuck in the lift. My room's on the fifth
floor." Mark felt an involuntary twinge of disappointment. "Must have pressed
the wrong button coming back down. The lift door opened, and there was just this
wall. Brick and plaster. No light, outside the lift. I could hear something.
Like ... wax. Dripping. It was a corridor." She looked away. "I kept pressing
buttons, but nothing happened. It was cold down there. I thought ... then
something connected and the lift shot back up to this floor. By the time I'd
recovered and finished complaining to Reception, the seminar was due to finish."

Cathy was shivering. Mark squeezed her arm gently. "I'm okay," she said. Her
smile made him feel breathless. Be careful, he thought. This is dangerous. For a
moment, absurdly, he couldn't remember his wife's name.

The afternoon was slightly less dull than the morning. One of Cathy's colleagues
from the bright lights of Bromsgrove led an imaginative (if slightly insincere)
discussion on risk-taking in business management. Later, Mark gave a report on
production control methods in the Glass Suite, a sparsely furnished room
decorated with repetitive abstract motifs on tiny pieces of acetate. His small
audience was too busy taking notes to appreciate any of the sarcastic asides --
in particular, a reference to Volume 13, Issue 49. of Which Mobile Phone? fell
absolutely flat. Worse, an older colleague came up to him afterward to ask
whether the magazine was available from W.H. Smith's.

Then there was a break, during which he and Cathy slipped out for a quiet walk.
It was unexpectedly cold; neither of them had an overcoat. Darkness was
gathering in the trees, filtering down from the burnt sky. No one was skating on
the lake; deep cracks ran across the ice, though not deep enough to expose the
water. Near the edge, some black unfrozen pockets showed through. After checking
that they were alone, Mark put his arms around Cathy and kissed her deeply. They
rocked together, listening to the silence. Cathy's jacket rode up as she
embraced him, the shoulder-pads trembling like vestigial wings. Without
speaking, they returned to the hotel.

The final session before dinner was a report on ways the company was developing
its use of IT resources. There were four speakers, including Cathy. She talked
about ways the company could use the Internet for research and communication.
"Of course, it's no more private than a noticeboard. But like our noticeboard,
it's so crowded with stuff that no one knows what to look for or where. So
information is only confidential if it's information that no one wants. For
secrets, use the phone. For real secrets..." Cathy bent down and whispered
something into Brian's ear. Mark felt an irrational surge of jealousy. It was a
joke, he thought. Lighten up. Cathy glanced at him and smiled; he didn't manage
to smile back.

Feeling angry with himself, and uneasy at the way things seemed to be changing,
Mark went up to his room to unpack before dinner. This time he took the lift,
and almost went flying when he stepped out into a corridor whose floor was about
six inches below the lift floor. He limped to his room, unlocked the door and
the light, and wondered whether the smell of wax came from the furniture polish
or the candles in the hallway. There was a small chest of drawers by the bed;
the top drawer at first refused to budge, then shot clean out from its runners,
banging Mark's knuckles and almost hitting his legs. Reciting a list of obscure
sexual practices, he replaced the drawer and put some underwear in it. Then he
hung up his jacket in a wardrobe tall enough for suicide.

Familiar with hotel showers, Mark adjusted the temperature control before
turning on the water. The resulting blast made him think of steam trains. Biting
his lip, he turned down the temperature until it changed abruptly to lukewarm.
There was no reduction in the force of the spray. The floor of the shower
cubicle was smooth, not unlike the stairs, and became dangerous when coated with
soapy water. When he stepped out of the cubicle, rubbing at his eyes, Mark
discovered that the shower had sprayed copiously over the bathroom floor. He
dried his feet while sitting on the bed. It was tempting just to lie down and
think about Cathy. But that could wait. He wouldn't have to dream later. And
he'd better get his feelings under control before rejoining the others.

Almost as an afterthought, he phoned Linda at home. The connection was faulty;
as she talked about their son, Mark heard snow falling through the line into his
head. "Those computer games we had to get him for Christmas -- he hasn't touched
them all week. Whenever he gets excited about something new, he thinks it's
going to be important for the rest of his life. He's got to have it immediately
... and then, a few weeks later, it's completely forgotten. He outgrows things,
but he doesn't seem to outgrow ... the mentality." Or the need, Mark thought
with an irrational sense of bitterness. He said something noncommittal about
Dominic having time to change. He was only nine.

"That's the problem," Linda said. "These advertisers, they're destroying time.
They're franchising childhood. It's not a process anymore, it's a market
resource." As usual, Mark found himself both agreeing with her viewpoint and
concerned about her state of mind. There was no sense in being an outsider.
Linda's anger helped to give him a sense of purpose; but he still had to fit in,
had to get along with the system. Did that make him a hypocrite? One more thing
to feel guilty about.

There was a draught in the stairwell; Mark shivered as he negotiated the whitish
steps. Gareth was standing in the foyer, wearing a horrible mauve tie. "Mark!
Come and join the party. You need to join something." Mark followed him into the
Brahms Suite, which turned out to be the bar. What a surprise. He downed a quick
vodka and orange, trying to identify Cathy among the gleaming men and
power-dressed women. Someone leaned back into the outer corner of a dado rail
and cried out. "God! What's that doing there?" Tall candles flickered in brass
rosettes. "There's something dangerous about this place..." You don't know the
half of it, Mark thought. He shut his eyes and saw drifting squares of light
crossing a blue surface: the Windows screen saver.

"Are you okay?" It was Brian, wearing a crimson silk shirt and looking
concerned. Mark nodded and swallowed the last of his drink. The vodka felt
colder inside him than the ice-cubes. He made for the Gents sign at the corner
of the bar. It was dim and quiet in there; the piped music, presumably Brahms or
perhaps Liszt, was more clearly audible. He splashed water over his face and
blinked repeatedly. The window-images wouldn't go away. Like flaws in a sheet of
ice. He wondered exactly what Gareth had meant about joining something. It could
have been a coded reference to the staff Christmas party, when Mark had spent
the whole evening talking with Cathy and ignored the various bonding rituals
going on within his department. Or it could have had something to do with Mark's
lack of political alignment, his occasional jibes at the major parties. The
politics of his colleagues repelled him: both the knee-jerk Conservatism of the
directors and the shallow attitudes of those managers who'd switched their
allegiance from the ghost of Thatcher to the hologram of Blair. As if all that
mattered was identifying and following the highest achiever.

His reverie was broken by the coughing of an elderly military-looking man in a
yellow jacket. "They ought to change the mirrors in this place," the stranger
muttered. "Whenever I look at one, I don't like what I see." Mark smiled in what
he hoped was a supportive fashion. It hadn't occurred to him that there might be
permanent residents in this hotel. He went back to the bar, where Cathy was
waiting in a turquoise blouse and skirt that made the candlelight back off in
astonishment. "Is your room comfortable?" she asked him, smiling, Her eyes were
serious, almost frightened.

They ate in a different function room from lunch. Mark didn't see the name, but
assumed it to be the Wagner Suite from the decor, which included plaster
mountain-peaks molded onto the walls and a glittering silvery waterfall running
into a trench at one end of the room. The ceiling was painted with a fluorescent
Aurora Borealis. Large red candles melted over the wall surface, turning
mountains to volcanoes and burning small mahogany villages. They drank some
heavy Australian red wine and ate a mixture of game that included rabbit and
venison. The music periodically drowned out conversation. Which, given that the
conversation on both sides of Mark seemed to revolve around current trends in
the business-related software market, was no great loss. Cathy was sitting
nearly opposite him, too far away for their legs to touch. Their eyes brushed
across each other every few minutes, caressing without holding. She rarely wore
makeup, but tonight her lips were very slightly reddened. Or maybe it was just
the wine and the flickering light.

Later, the gathering divided itself between several rooms. Most of the older
staff settled in the Brahms Suite for a quiet drinking session. Mark decided to
remain as sober as possible. Once he got past a certain point with wine or
spirits, he lost the ability to stop. At one level, he wanted to drink until the
conflicting voices of lust and fear dissolved into a bright silence. At another
level, he knew that would be a criminal waste. He joined Cathy in the
Saint-Saens Room, where a fairly retrogressive disco was in progress. The sight
of young executives reliving their teens, strutting and weaving to the sound of
Donna Summer and Blondie, made him feel uneasy. You could play the same records
all your life, but it was frightening how soon you forgot the moves. The room
was oppressively dark and warm, with red velvet curtains and a black tiled
floor.

After a quick trip back to the bar, Mark and Cathy went on to the Zann Room,
where the younger staff seemed to have gathered. The music here was louder and
distinctly atonal, a blend of techno and trip-hop that shuddered with confusion.
Nobody was dancing very much. The walls were blue-gray, pricked with thousands
of tiny lights like strange drifting constellations. Mark recognized Gary and
Sue from the IT department; they were kissing slowly, their faces blurred by the
moving lights. Sue waved at him and said something, but he couldn't hear her
voice. He felt Cathy's hand on his arm, turned to see her mouth framing silent
words. He reached up and touched her hair. They stood like that for a moment.
Then Cathy smiled, tugged at his sleeve and led him out into the corridor.

They would have gone up the stairs together, but someone was lurking in the
stairwell, watching the entrance. It was Brian. "Hi," he said a little
drunkenly. "Feel a bit woozy. Too much red wine. Thought I might get an early
night." He leaned on the banister, still gazing at the main doorway. Brian
wasn't a drinker, Mark remembered. Maybe he'd broken his own rules. Cathy and
Mark wandered awkwardly back into the Saint-Saens Room, which was becoming
crowded. On little tables around the floor, glasses jittered to the pedestrian
beat of "Life in the Fast Lane." The smells of perfume, burnt wax and spilt wine
stiffened the air. When it happened, it seemed like the room had been waiting
for it. One of the heavier executives slipped on the tiled floor, staggered and
fell. A woman grabbed at his arm, but missed and fell over him, her feet trapped
under his jacket. Her pale wrist snapped with a sound like breaking ice. There
was a brief silence. Then her shocked face released a thin cry, as if she wanted
to scream but couldn't. Her right hand flopped like a glove until she gripped
and straightened it.

The man on the floor sat up, breathless but apparently uninjured. One by one,
the other dancers stopped moving. Another woman knelt by the casualty, spoke to
her and helped her to her feet. Before the record had finished playing, two
uniformed hotel employees came through a side door and led the injured woman
away in a slow procession. Obviously someone would take her to the hospital --
which might be as far away as Leamington. Mark didn't know who she was.

"They should have stopped the music," Cathy said. They were climbing the stairs
together, Brian having disappeared. It was nearly midnight. "No one was moving,
the DJ must have known there'd been an accident even if he didn't see it. Why
didn't he turn the record off?" Mark didn't answer. Every step of the staircase
felt like a hurdle between himself and Cathy. The lift would have been quicker
and more discreet; but after Cathy's experience this morning, it didn't seem
worth the risk. On the second floor, they paused. "Your room okay?" Mark nodded.
He was glad of the alcohol, which was taking the edge off his panic. Under the
soft fleshy glow of the wine, he felt like he'd been stuffed with darkness. The
link between himself and his life outside was nothing more than a telephone
line. He'd lost the code.

They were alone. Mark unlocked his door and reached for the light-switch before
remembering to use his key. Cathy stood while he fastened the door and hung up
his jacket. In the dim light, he could only see broad patches of color: the red
bedspread, blue-green wallpaper, yellow lamps. The only sound in the room was
their breathing. He put his arms around Cathy's waist and drew her against him.
Her tongue was thin and soft, dancing in his mouth. He stroked her hair, running
his fingers down to the back of her neck. You're beautiful, he whispered to her.
Cathy's eyes clouded. Don't say anything, she whispered back. Not now. She was
unbuttoning his shirt, her fingernails pricking his chest. He kissed her neck,
feeling the pulse just under the white skin.

Half-naked, they pulled back the bedspread and climbed onto the taut black
sheet, then folded themselves around each other. In the poor light Cathy's eyes
were opaque, somehow lifeless. But her teeth glistened, and he could see the
faint blush on her throat and collarbone. He reached between her legs and
touched what seemed like a skinless muscle. The air was chilly, but they were
both sweating. The surface of the bed was firm. Cathy gripped his penis and
guided him into her, closing tight around him. Her fingernails drew tracks
across his shoulderblades. After a few minutes, she pulled back and twisted over
so that he could enter her from behind. Mark pressed the palms of his hands
against her nipples and kissed the thin curve of her right ear. Somehow they
were facing into the room by now, the pillows forgotten. A flicker of light on
the wall made him look up. It was the forest painting. The sunset was moving
through the trees, setting them on fire. The blue-green wallpaper seemed to
ripple and flow like a tidal sea. The twin lamps stuttered their dirty
brightness. Below him, Cathy shuddered as her cry broke into gasps. The wall was
coming. The room was coming. He thrust deep and then held still, feeling the
darkness inside him melt and escape.

It was only then that he realized he wasn't wearing a condom. Those risks
weren't part of the plan. What was wrong with him? They disengaged and lay still
for a while, in an uneasy silence. Mark wondered if the blind violence of their
lovemaking was somehow a distorted expression of their growing depth of feeling.
If so, it was a sign that things were getting out of control. As their bodies
cooled, a chill seemed to rise through the mattress and make them embrace. Half
covered by the velvet bedspread, they caressed and murmured tenderly until they
were ready to make love again. This time, it was gentler and more human; they
cried each other's name as their bodies crumpled together. Afterward, Mark lay
awake in the darkness, wondering why the first time had been so much better.
Maybe love needed some coldness to protect it. Fire and ice. You're pissed, he
thought with some bitterness. Cathy had set the alarm for eight.

During the night, the fire alarm went off. Naked and shivering, Mark walked down
a flight of concrete steps and along a whitewashed corridor. The fire escape
presumably led out the back of the hotel, but he couldn't see where it ended. He
was alone, but there were voices all around him. Everyone must have gathered
down here. Cathy had gone ahead of him. After a while, he came to an open
doorway through which pale lights flickered. There was an intense smell of
melting wax. The voices were crying out, but not in pain. He stepped through the
doorway and was suddenly trapped in folds of dark cloth.

The digital alarm clock ticked softly, as quiet as a dripping candle. It was
nearly four o'clock. Mark was painfully aroused; but he'd have to wait until
morning. Cathy was stretched beside him, her breathing only just audible.
Suddenly his mind lit up with images of the basement. Ringed by the remains of
candles, the dozens of writhing bodies. Scraps of underwear crumpled on hands
and faces. Reddened skin, glistening with circles of wax and semen. A little
furtively, he gripped his cock; but the images faded at once, leaving him
confused and hollow. The dream reminded him of something he'd always imagined at
company meetings: that wherever you got to in the hierarchy, there was some kind
of inner circle you couldn't reach. The real party was one you were not invited
to. The air in the bedroom was cool and smelt only of furniture polish, as if
cleaners had come in the night and erased the residues of lovemaking. Mark tried
to replay their desperate coupling of a few hours before; but it seemed facile,
staged, like glossy soft-porn. He closed his eyes against the darkness and tried
to float back into sleep.

It didn't work. A couple of hours later, his curiosity got the better of him.
Moving as quietly as possible, he switched on the bedside lamp and put his
clothes on, apart from his shoes and jacket. He closed the door carefully behind
him and padded along the half-lit corridor to where he'd dreamt the fire escape
to be. It was there; he must have seen it earlier. The door opened on a spring
and closed silently when he released it. There was a long flight of concrete
steps, going down into the heart of the building. The chill numbed his feet and
made walking difficult. Some faint light, presumably moonlight, filtered through
from above. The air was damp and still, like some rotten fabric he had to tear
through to reach his destination.

At the foot of the stairs was an unlit corridor. He could feel paint on one of
the side walls. The texture was soft and crumbly. There were no side doors. He
thought the floor was damp, though there was hardly any sensation in his feet.
Near the opening at the end of the corridor, he paused. There was no sound. He
walked through, conscious of a growing sexual excitement. Another staircase,
completely invisible. He thought the steps were metal and not entirely solid.
Another corridor, less than three feet wide. He could hear the very faint sound
of dripping, as regular as a clock. The corridor ended in a brick wall. Unless
he'd missed it, there was no side exit. The fire escape was a dead end. He
pressed his hands to the moist stone, bewildered by its refusal to yield.
Suddenly all he wanted was to be asleep in bed.

It took him a while to get back, climbing stairs that felt uneven as well as
steep. The sound of dripping faded above the basement level, and the silence
frightened him. Eventually he stumbled through the doorway onto the second
floor. It was daylight. His feet and the palms of his hands were black with
dust. As he turned toward the corridor, a swing door opened. It was Brian and a
teenage boy he'd not seen before. Feeling vaguely reassured, Mark crept back to
his room and let himself in. The heavy curtains kept in the night. He undressed
quietly and got into bed beside Cathy, who was still asleep. As his head touched
the pillow, the alarm clock went off.

Breakfast was edgy and subdued. From the number of blank faces and
dropped-shadow eyes at the table in the Stravinsky Suite, Mark suspected he'd
not been the only one to have trouble sleeping. The unnatural dawn chorus of
stringed instruments jarred his nerves. Too lively for winter. He learned that
Tara from marketing, who'd broken her arm the night before, had stayed in
hospital overnight and was going home today. That hadn't been the only accident:
Gavin the Accounts Manager was limping after a fall in the shower. The left side
of his face was bruised gray, like a school playground after rain.

The opening session was a workshop on time management. It overran by half an
hour. Then two seminars ran concurrently: Gareth on what the company could learn
from Japanese corporate strategies, and Cathy on managing human resources. For
professional reasons, Mark had to attend the former. It dragged, like a haiku
extended into fifty-five cantos. Cathy's sleeping face drifted across his field
of vision, as perfect and expressionless as a mask. It scared him, to feel so
deeply about something that would never be complete. It was trapped deep inside
him: not guilt and not joy, but something in between. Her fluid movements
tracked fire across the inside of his skull; the way she fucked was no more and
no less beautiful than the way she drank coffee or sent a fax.

Just before lunch, they slipped away together and went back to the frozen lake.
Mark thought he could see a pattern of circular skate-tracks, like the groove in
a record. White vinyl. Yesterday's cracks were no longer visible. They held
hands, listening to the minimalist percussion of bare twigs in the wind and the
random cries of seagulls that were circling above the lake. Cathy was worried
about her seminar. "You talk about managing human resources, it's like you've
crossed a line between relating to people and using them. It's a science. I know
the theory, every decision I make could be predicted by a computer. They don't
want me, just a machine with my voice. Otherwise they'd have to admit that these
human resources are actually people."

Mark wanted to say something, to reassure her; but he was thinking about his own
managerial routines, the way he used staff appraisals and one-on-one scheduling
meetings to control the members of his department. The same rationale: this
isn't me, it's the company. This is how things are done. No wonder he felt
cheated. They kissed slowly, their fear sheathed by the cold. The ice shimmered
like quartz below them.

The whole afternoon was taken up by a company progress report, with several
American directors in attendance. The air was thick with virtual dollar signs.
Despite the company's record-breaking profits, every other word was about
cost-cutting. Mark had been working to a shoestring budget for so long, it took
events like this remind him how much money the company actually had. The
Managing Director, a man only ever referred to by his initials, laid heavy
emphasis on the significance of budgetary control. "The key to successful
expansion is effective downsizing. We need to be in control of the culture and
the working groups in our various departments. Our culture, not someone else's.
We're all working hard to phase out union recognition throughout all branches of
the company. I don't need to tell you how important that is, with the prospect
of a new British government letting in socialist legislation from Europe. The
unions will be desperately keen to help ministers interfere in the way we run
our business. Your jobs depend on keeping a tight ship."

Afterward, Mark stood at the foot of the staircase, gazing up into the cold
white spiral and its missing heart. A rush of vertigo made him shiver. He felt
like he'd been at a political rally. But it was only business. For a moment, he
wanted to be free of everything. He'd wait until tomorrow before phoning Linda.
His head was full of corporate rhetoric and pornographic images. It wasn't stuff
he wanted to share.

That evening was quieter than the previous one had been. Perhaps the weighty
presence of the MD and some of the directors, who'd turned up for the afternoon,
was creating an atmosphere of restraint. People like that wouldn't risk denting
the premiums on their health insurance policies. Whatever the reason, there was
no disco. A long-drawn-out meal involving smoked sausage, veal pastries and
chocolate cake was followed by an hour or so of obligatory and forgettable
networking, then a quiet drinking session in a number of smoke-blurred rooms.
Mark and Brian --who'd got over his embarrassment about the dawn incident when
he'd realized that Mark didn't give a fuck about it -- explored the ground
floor, a labyrinth of tacky function rooms connected by dark-red corridors. Some
of them were showing clear signs of neglect. The Elgar Suite, right at the back
of the hotel, was an enclave of British Empire memorabilia where the hotel's
older residents gathered to get quietly paralytic; visitors were not welcome.
The Rachmaninov Suite was locked; dust furred the inside of the glass-paned
door. From the dark interior, the restless sound of piano chords was just
audible. The Cage Room was another bar, silent and empty apart from an effigy
tipping an empty glass above its mouth.

Toward midnight, as the remaining drinkers were painting their inner landscapes
with stars, Mark left Brian half-asleep in the Tchaikovsky Suite and went up to
his room. There was a small plastic kettle and some sachets of instant coffee;
he made a cup and drank it black, trying to sober up before Cathy arrived. He'd
not seen her since dinner, when they'd made this assignation. After last night,
the room seemed gloomy and impersonal, the forest picture unconvincing. Maybe
none of it worked when you were alone. That was why he'd been unable to find the
cellar. He was still thinking about that when he heard a light, rapid series of
knocks at his door. He let her in, flicking the catch on the door as it snapped
shut.

They sat together on the bed, holding each other as if any movement would risk
separation. His hands moved slowly over her back and shoulders. Mark felt hollow
with need. He suspected that if tonight didn't work out, they might finish. But
talking about the future would only depress them both, strangling desire and
isolating them in their separate rooms of guilt. It seemed like the only way
forward was to fuck each other into an oblivion where anything could be said. To
burn down the forest. You're beautiful, he whispered again. Cathy smiled. Her
eyes widened, then closed as their mouths clasped together. He caressed her
through her dress, trying to draw the naked Cathy out of the clothed one.

When they were naked on the velvet bedspread, she used her arms and legs to lift
him clear above her, then slowly let him fall until his penis touched the smooth
skin of her belly. He came within seconds of entering her, but carried on until
she gasped and dug her nails into his sides. Once again, he realized, they
hadn't taken precautions. The images of his dream returned; he lifted above her
and let her stroke him until his semen was tracked across her pale skin. Then he
pressed his face between her legs and probed with his tongue, pushing her knees
up over his tense shoulders. They went on like this for some considerable time,
until they were dry and narcotized with ecstasy and the sheets were a crumpled
mess. Then they pulled the duvet over themselves and slept back to back, not
touching.

It was still dark when the fire alarm woke him. He sat up and listened to its
echoes dying in his head. The room was chilly and almost silent: the clock
ticking on one side of him, Cathy breathing softly on the other. The truth was
lodged in his head, as clear as ice. How it all fitted together: the company,
Cathy, the hotel. None of it worked when you were alone. With Cathy, he could
get into the basement. What happened there would enable him to keep her. He
listened to her breathing. It was too shallow and uneven for sleep. "Cathy."

"Yes? Mark?" There must be a trace of moonlight in the room, since he could just
make out the blurred shape of her head rising from the pillow. "What is it?"

"The fire escape," he said. "You must come with me. Please? You know what I'm
asking. The party. The real party. You know."

There was a pause. Then she said: "All fight." She reached out and touched his
face. They kissed, invisible like ghosts. Leaving the door unlocked, they walked
naked along the corridor to the whitewashed door opposite the lift shaft. The
stone steps were clammy and roughened by flakes of paint. Cathy put her arm
around Mark's waist as they walked on into the total darkness of the corridor,
and down the flight of braided metal steps. At the bottom, Mark paused. The
floor was slippery with dried wax. There was a dim light at the end of the
passage, flickering. As they walked on, he could hear the sounds from the room
beyond. He slipped a hand across Cathy's breasts. The nipples were hard; she
turned to kiss him. They walked together through the stone-framed doorway. There
was no door.

It was a long, shallow room, roughly oval in shape, like one of the conference
rooms upstairs. The center of the room was full of candles. More candles, in
various tones of off-white and pink, hung on crude wire chandeliers from the low
ceiling. Their wax had formed into the shapes of many interlinked bodies, some
more complete than others. Hundreds of tiny flames winked and smoldered in the
gloom; but there was no heat. The room was so cold that Cathy's breath clouded
in front of her face. She stepped away from Mark, toward the edge of the
many-limbed composite statue. Part of it reached up and gripped her ankle. She
knelt and let the pale, waxy hand move slowly up her thigh.

Mark glanced around helplessly. More wax figures were clustered around the edge
of the room, embedded in the wall or each other. He could still hear the sounds
of rhythmical kissing and slapping, the grunts and moans of bodies locked in
passion. But the only movement he could see was far too slow; and the only faces
were blank glistening screens, their eyes and mouths stopped with wax. Cathy was
half-sitting now, her back curved, hands and feet dug into a mound of rippling
flesh. A thick white candle was pressing between her thighs. Her eyes opened
momentarily and she saw Mark. "Join us. Don't be a stranger." Then she twisted
away and shuddered through the build-up of a violent climax. Mark watched,
unable to react, as her legs kicked in the air and her right ankle broke like
the stem of a glass.

He tried to reach her, but she was near the focus of the party and there were
too many bodies in the way. Soon it ceased to matter, as hands and mouths
fastened upon him and he was no longer alone. At last he realized, not only that
the candles were people, but that the people were candles. The closer he got to
them, the more human they were and the brighter they shone. However cold it
might be, the party would go on. And it was freezing: he could see icicles in
the dark ceiling, feel the crystals of ice on the tender faces. A weight of
flesh on his arm tore the muscle, but he felt no pain. A drifting membrane
brought him to climax and he ejaculated without pleasure, watching his semen
freeze in the air. Someone cried out, and the rest imitated. Mark heard his own
voice among them. The image of order and repetition grew in his mind. Like a
spreadsheet. A spread sheet. Living in the ice, while the dance continued
overhead.