“Never do this again,” she orders him.

57

Turned out in mountain-trekking gear – caps, sunglasses, trendy little rucksacks, close-fitting synthetic orange T-shirts, Bermuda hiking shorts, coloured Salomon trekking shoes and walking poles – Fred and Mick are sitting next to each other in a cable car rising up into the blue to a height of three thousand metres. They look up above them, at the sharp summit of a vertiginous rock face, and proceed in silence.

“I spoke to Lena a little this morning. She’s worried about you,” Mick says after a while.

Fred looks at the peak, no expression on his face. Mick waits, but his friend says nothing.

“It’s years since you went to visit Melanie. Why don’t you go? Venice is very close.”

Fred remains silent. The other man turns to observe him, but Fred only stares at the mountain. Mick tries again. “Lena told me about this business with the Queen. You never told me. You know, it could be a good thing, don’t you think? I’d be very happy to hear ‘Simple Song, Number 3’ one last time in concert.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You don’t want to betray Melanie’s memory, but sometimes in order to remain faithful you need to have the courage to betray. Don’t you agree?”

After a moment, contemplating the mountain, Fred replies, “Mick, there’s one thing that keeps buzzing around in my brain.”

“What’s that?”

“I wonder what it would have been like to go to bed with Gilda Black!”

Mick is embarrassed. “Yeah, I wonder what it would have been like too!”

Fred turns to study him. He has no faith in Mick’s statement. Half serious, half facetious, he whispers, “Liar!”

Mick avoids his gaze.

58

At three thousand metres the silence and the Alps are full of beauty. The only sound at that high altitude is the wind.

Fred and Mick are sitting in an Alpine meadow that slopes down to a far distant valley. There is no-one else around. Only the two of them and nature. And the silence. Fred unwraps a sweet and pops it in his mouth.

After a considerable silence, Fred breaks the gentle soughing of the mountain wind.

“Mick?”

“Eh?”

“Why are we dressed up like this?”

Mick smirks.

In the vast silence, Fred starts to rub the sweet wrapper at musical intervals. The other man looks furtively at his friend’s fingers as they play.

“That’s not very good!”

“What?”

“The piece you’re composing with the sweet wrapper. You’ve done better in your career.”

Now it is Fred’s turn to smirk for a moment. Then, with a start, he becomes serious.

*

In the dark, the escort girl’s diminutive mother is holding the hand of her chubby, awkward daughter as they walk along the garden’s covered pathway. The fluorescent letters of the word HOTEL stand out above their heads.

They come to the hotel lobby. As usual, the mother gives her daughter a kiss and says to her, “Now do a good job in there.”