Read Online Plastic by Christopher Fowler - Free Book Online Page B

windows finished in curvilinear mosaics rose above me. Only a few were illuminated . The wall of the building folded back on itself in an undulating shape that provided its residents with panoramic postcard-London views. The smallest apartment sat in the lowest east corner and belonged to the building’s caretaker. It looked out into a dark box formed by the underside of the bridge and a mildewed stanchion of the roundabout; the views were reserved for those with purchasing power.
    The paved area in front of the entrance was pitted with deep holes. Drums of yellow cable lay on their sides like giant cottonreels. Although the block was unfinished, purple and silver graffiti tags at juvenile-delinquent height had already sprouted along the white base wall. I had once seen a photograph of the City Road Police Station taken in 1900, and there was graffiti all the way along the base of the building, so it was nothing new.
    In the brochure I later discovered (and presumably on the website virtual tour I didn’t take) the Ziggurat was helplessly described as modern gothic. Designed by Jean-Claude Corbeau – the man himself, not one of his international teams – it boasted a steep mansard roof, but in place of a mansard’s traditional attic windows were long balconies on sprung steel pivots. At the four corners stood bell turrets as grim as prison watchtowers, their peaks finished in titanium tiles to reflect the silver of the sky, lending the building a baroque, angular elegance that was described by one architectural critic as ‘a hypertense anorexic’s response to the Bilbao Guggenheim’, presumably intended as a compliment. Although doubtless admired in the rarified circles of building academics, the Ziggurat appeared to defy the rules of Feng Shui ; it seemed misplaced, caught uncomfortably on a dark reach of the river, forced into an angle that would benefit the residents’ sight of the city but not their spiritual well-being. It was too pleased with its self-importance. I thought of Shelley’s Ozymandias. What would be left of this arrogant structure in years to come? ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’ indeed. There’s a reason why so many architects of skyscrapers are men.
    I darted back to pay the cab against a timely roll of thunder. It sounded like a decelerated recording of cracking ice cubes, and shook the air.
    Julie was right; the keypad wasn’t working. I dragged my blue plastic valise up the steps into a wide parchment-coloured foyer containing a pair of gigantic red corduroy armchairs. The retro-future interior reminded me of the space-station in 2001 . My case left a sidewinding trail of cuprous mud slashes across the marble floor. The walls on either side were darkly mirrored, reflecting the hall in sepia infinities. A sense of intimidation overwhelmed me as the great blank space unfolded. In a city like London space is power, and only the wealthy can afford to reveal so little of themselves. I knew at once that I didn’t belong in a building that smelled of fresh-sawn hardwood and laundered money.
    My first task was to find the concierge’s office. Cupping my hands, I peered in through tall doors and saw a small olive-skinned woman with bleached hair and bulbous eyes, shouting into a telephone. She was wedged behind a glass table and seated just around a corner, where her untidy animation would not interfere with the decor. I knocked on the window. The glass panel released a lonely twang as I opened it.
    ‘You tell me you deliver today and you not deliver,’ the woman shrieked in a manner that would cause any delivery man to tear up the receipt. Her desk was covered in penguins of different sizes. Pinned on the wall behind her were dozens of penguin postcards and several calendars featuring the formal arctic birds diving, sliding and generally falling over one another. If you make the mistake of confiding in a friend that you admire birds of any breed, you’ll be given them every