mismatched little group has almost made it to the exit across the room when a starstruck middle-aged woman spills a huge bag of dirty laundry straight onto Vladimir’s expensive shoes. We’re forced to stop as she gets down on her hands and knees infront of us, desperately trying to stuff an avalanche of wet towels back into the bag.
‘Jürgen!’ Vladimir snaps and the platinum-blond giant immediately scans the room for threats.
‘Didn’t I tell you you were bad luck?’ Gia murmurs out of the side of her mouth as Vladimir starts shouting at the woman in English to get out of our way.
‘Vladimir, dostatochno ,’ I caution. Enough.
He glowers at me, growling into the mic on his lapel, ‘There’s a delay.’ He kicks out at the soiled laundry nearest his feet as he listens to the reply.
I stamp my own feet in my towering, alien heels. It feels as if my legs are dying from the soles upwards.
Gia shoots me a warning look. ‘Don’t get involved!’ she hisses.
Vladimir insists loudly, ‘No, no, I’m handling it.’
What he isn’t handling is the dirty laundry, and I can feel the worker’s mounting distress. It hangs about her like a detectable odour, like a cloud, as she scrabbles desperately at our feet. I wonder how it is that people like Irina and Gia could become so divorced from ordinary life. I catch everyone by surprise when I dump Irina’s oversized croc-skin holdall against Jürgen’s knife-pleated trouser leg and crouch down, reaching for the nearest towel.
Jürgen kicks the handbag out of his way with unnecessary force and a gold-plated mobile phone falls out with a sharp clatter onto the ancient, stone-flagged floor.
‘Irina, nyet !’ Vladimir roars over my head.
The laundry worker lets out a wail and rips dirty towels out of my hands as fast as I can pick them up.
‘That’s a two hundred thousand dollar, one-of-a-kind bag,’ Gia says to Jürgen mildly as she bends down and gathers up Irina’s things. ‘But of course you’d know that.’
Workers begin darting over from everywhere to help the woman and me repack the laundry bag. Though I pretend not to notice, I feel their hands brush mine deliberately, feel their eyes raking my face. Everyone wants you, everyone loves you . It’s making me feel kind of queasy, all the attention.
Gia helps me to my feet and the people around me fall back reluctantly. ‘Don’t even get me started on your But I must have eeet little phone that you haven’t even learnt how to use properly yet, which is now probably broken thanks to Tyrannodon here …’ She hooks Irina’s bag back onto my shoulder, nodding at the crowd.
‘You’re attention-seeking again in some bizarre way I can’t fathom,’ she says. ‘I’ve never seen you lifta finger to help anyone if there wasn’t something in it for you. But now that you’ve picked up the germs of hundreds of past hotel guests, can we go ?’
Vladimir claps his hands dismissively and the crowd scatters. He extends a spotless handkerchief in my direction and I wipe my hands with it. He takes it from me with his thumb and index finger and drops it disdainfully on the floor beside him. We continue through the room, to a doorway on the other side that leads to an internal staircase, away from that sea of expectant, devouring eyes. As we move up the stairwell, it’s suddenly eerily quiet and our footsteps echo on the uneven stone stairs, worn down from centuries of use. We walk up in single file, past two landings, not a single, living soul around, until we reach a pair of heavy steel doors. Vladimir pushes down hard on the panic bar running along the inside of the door on the right, meeting with unexpected resistance. He turns and exchanges a look with Jürgen over our heads. Together, both men put their shoulders to the door and force it open, hissing with the effort.
We stagger out onto Via Victor Hugo, into the teeth of a building gale. Even as I watch, black clouds hurtle across the sky,
‘Jürgen!’ Vladimir snaps and the platinum-blond giant immediately scans the room for threats.
‘Didn’t I tell you you were bad luck?’ Gia murmurs out of the side of her mouth as Vladimir starts shouting at the woman in English to get out of our way.
‘Vladimir, dostatochno ,’ I caution. Enough.
He glowers at me, growling into the mic on his lapel, ‘There’s a delay.’ He kicks out at the soiled laundry nearest his feet as he listens to the reply.
I stamp my own feet in my towering, alien heels. It feels as if my legs are dying from the soles upwards.
Gia shoots me a warning look. ‘Don’t get involved!’ she hisses.
Vladimir insists loudly, ‘No, no, I’m handling it.’
What he isn’t handling is the dirty laundry, and I can feel the worker’s mounting distress. It hangs about her like a detectable odour, like a cloud, as she scrabbles desperately at our feet. I wonder how it is that people like Irina and Gia could become so divorced from ordinary life. I catch everyone by surprise when I dump Irina’s oversized croc-skin holdall against Jürgen’s knife-pleated trouser leg and crouch down, reaching for the nearest towel.
Jürgen kicks the handbag out of his way with unnecessary force and a gold-plated mobile phone falls out with a sharp clatter onto the ancient, stone-flagged floor.
‘Irina, nyet !’ Vladimir roars over my head.
The laundry worker lets out a wail and rips dirty towels out of my hands as fast as I can pick them up.
‘That’s a two hundred thousand dollar, one-of-a-kind bag,’ Gia says to Jürgen mildly as she bends down and gathers up Irina’s things. ‘But of course you’d know that.’
Workers begin darting over from everywhere to help the woman and me repack the laundry bag. Though I pretend not to notice, I feel their hands brush mine deliberately, feel their eyes raking my face. Everyone wants you, everyone loves you . It’s making me feel kind of queasy, all the attention.
Gia helps me to my feet and the people around me fall back reluctantly. ‘Don’t even get me started on your But I must have eeet little phone that you haven’t even learnt how to use properly yet, which is now probably broken thanks to Tyrannodon here …’ She hooks Irina’s bag back onto my shoulder, nodding at the crowd.
‘You’re attention-seeking again in some bizarre way I can’t fathom,’ she says. ‘I’ve never seen you lifta finger to help anyone if there wasn’t something in it for you. But now that you’ve picked up the germs of hundreds of past hotel guests, can we go ?’
Vladimir claps his hands dismissively and the crowd scatters. He extends a spotless handkerchief in my direction and I wipe my hands with it. He takes it from me with his thumb and index finger and drops it disdainfully on the floor beside him. We continue through the room, to a doorway on the other side that leads to an internal staircase, away from that sea of expectant, devouring eyes. As we move up the stairwell, it’s suddenly eerily quiet and our footsteps echo on the uneven stone stairs, worn down from centuries of use. We walk up in single file, past two landings, not a single, living soul around, until we reach a pair of heavy steel doors. Vladimir pushes down hard on the panic bar running along the inside of the door on the right, meeting with unexpected resistance. He turns and exchanges a look with Jürgen over our heads. Together, both men put their shoulders to the door and force it open, hissing with the effort.
We stagger out onto Via Victor Hugo, into the teeth of a building gale. Even as I watch, black clouds hurtle across the sky,
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