coxcombs. Conditions there were perfect for a heart attack or stroke.
Victor sat as deadened as his guests, not by the onslaught of the offices – he was used to that – but by the discomfort that he felt in company. He’d never had the conversation
or the animated face to make himself or the people round him feel at ease. He had no repartee, no party skills, no social affability. What kind of city man was he that did not relish the light and
phatic talk, the spoken oxygen of markets, offices, and streets? He did not care. He did not need to care. A boss can speak as little as he wishes, and stay away from markets, offices, and streets.
Truth to tell, he did not even relish the joshing and the drink-emboldened flattery that his guests – between their coughs and flushes – were exchanging at the table. He mistook their
talk for trivia. He took their wheezing and their creaking and the damp heat on their foreheads as the wages of their sinful lives, their drinking, smoking, family lives, their lack of gravitas. He
looked on them with less kindness, less forgiveness, less respect than he had looked upon the yellow aphids that he’d killed that day.
Victor’s own breathing – papery and shallow at the best of times – had become distressed by the cigarettes and the one pipe smoked with the brandy after lunch. His stomach too
was just a little restless from the fish.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he said, and stood, his brandy glass in hand. His guests stood, too, as promptly as they could, expecting toasts.
‘Fresh air,’ said Victor, his sentence shortened by a cough. ‘Let’s go to the roof.’
He led them in a halting, single file across the room to where his private lift waited for his summons. The three accordionists, instructed to ‘accompany’ proceedings until
instructed otherwise, tagged on, their instruments strapped on their chests like oxygen machines. The waitress with the brandy – dutiful, uncertain – followed on. And last of all, the
cats. They crowded in as best they could. The lift was meant for one. It shook a little on its hawsers as the old men and accordions wheezed in unison, and stumbled intimately against each other on
the ascent to the 28th. But when they had emerged beneath the arch of fessandras into the air and foliage of the rooftop garden, the greengrocers breathed deeply, swallowed mouthfuls of the dirty
but unfettered air, turned their faces to the sun and wind, and looked out across the city and the suburbs to the blue-green hills, the grey-green woods, beyond.
The Band Accord stood at the door, their mood transformed. The new note that they struck was sweet and sentimental. They played the sort of joyful harvest tunes that make you dance and weep,
their grace notes jesting with the melody. The weaving cheerfulness of the accordion could make a teacup dance and weep. It is the only instrument strapped to the player’s heart. Its pleated
bellows stretch and smile.
The guests spread out, at ease, delighted, cured all at once by the magic of the place, invigorated by the care and passion bestowed on every plant that grew on that rooftop. The centrepiece, so
different from the sculptured water in the mall, was a pond surrounded by a path of broken stone. There were no fish, but there were kingcups, hunter lilies, flags, and – hunched over, like a
heron – the shoulders of a dwarf willow, providing shade for paddling clumps of knotweed and orange rafts of bog lichen. There were shrubs all around, some in clay pots, some in amphoras
coloured thinly with a wash of yellow plaster, some in raised beds. A wooden pergola, heavy with climbing roses, honeysuckle, creepers, led towards the greenhouse. The traders followed Victor there
and rubbed the leaves of herbs and primped the seedlings like owners of the land.
The Band Accord was summoned to the greenhouse door. ‘Play on, play on.’ The waitress poured more brandy. The old men passed the glasses round like
Victor sat as deadened as his guests, not by the onslaught of the offices – he was used to that – but by the discomfort that he felt in company. He’d never had the conversation
or the animated face to make himself or the people round him feel at ease. He had no repartee, no party skills, no social affability. What kind of city man was he that did not relish the light and
phatic talk, the spoken oxygen of markets, offices, and streets? He did not care. He did not need to care. A boss can speak as little as he wishes, and stay away from markets, offices, and streets.
Truth to tell, he did not even relish the joshing and the drink-emboldened flattery that his guests – between their coughs and flushes – were exchanging at the table. He mistook their
talk for trivia. He took their wheezing and their creaking and the damp heat on their foreheads as the wages of their sinful lives, their drinking, smoking, family lives, their lack of gravitas. He
looked on them with less kindness, less forgiveness, less respect than he had looked upon the yellow aphids that he’d killed that day.
Victor’s own breathing – papery and shallow at the best of times – had become distressed by the cigarettes and the one pipe smoked with the brandy after lunch. His stomach too
was just a little restless from the fish.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he said, and stood, his brandy glass in hand. His guests stood, too, as promptly as they could, expecting toasts.
‘Fresh air,’ said Victor, his sentence shortened by a cough. ‘Let’s go to the roof.’
He led them in a halting, single file across the room to where his private lift waited for his summons. The three accordionists, instructed to ‘accompany’ proceedings until
instructed otherwise, tagged on, their instruments strapped on their chests like oxygen machines. The waitress with the brandy – dutiful, uncertain – followed on. And last of all, the
cats. They crowded in as best they could. The lift was meant for one. It shook a little on its hawsers as the old men and accordions wheezed in unison, and stumbled intimately against each other on
the ascent to the 28th. But when they had emerged beneath the arch of fessandras into the air and foliage of the rooftop garden, the greengrocers breathed deeply, swallowed mouthfuls of the dirty
but unfettered air, turned their faces to the sun and wind, and looked out across the city and the suburbs to the blue-green hills, the grey-green woods, beyond.
The Band Accord stood at the door, their mood transformed. The new note that they struck was sweet and sentimental. They played the sort of joyful harvest tunes that make you dance and weep,
their grace notes jesting with the melody. The weaving cheerfulness of the accordion could make a teacup dance and weep. It is the only instrument strapped to the player’s heart. Its pleated
bellows stretch and smile.
The guests spread out, at ease, delighted, cured all at once by the magic of the place, invigorated by the care and passion bestowed on every plant that grew on that rooftop. The centrepiece, so
different from the sculptured water in the mall, was a pond surrounded by a path of broken stone. There were no fish, but there were kingcups, hunter lilies, flags, and – hunched over, like a
heron – the shoulders of a dwarf willow, providing shade for paddling clumps of knotweed and orange rafts of bog lichen. There were shrubs all around, some in clay pots, some in amphoras
coloured thinly with a wash of yellow plaster, some in raised beds. A wooden pergola, heavy with climbing roses, honeysuckle, creepers, led towards the greenhouse. The traders followed Victor there
and rubbed the leaves of herbs and primped the seedlings like owners of the land.
The Band Accord was summoned to the greenhouse door. ‘Play on, play on.’ The waitress poured more brandy. The old men passed the glasses round like
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