Her daughter goes in. The mother takes a last look at her.

59

Mick and Fred are sitting on steaming hot wooden benches, wearing skimpy towels to preserve their modesty. They are sweating like pigs and look as if they could expire at any moment.

Not saying a word, exhausted by the monstrous temperature of the sauna, a sudden apparition brings them sharply back to life.

A statuesque woman in a dressing gown has entered the sauna. She takes off her robe.

She is naked underneath.

She is beautiful, perfect, the very definition of sensational. This living creature, for that is what she is, moves with flawless elegance and femininity as she spreads a towel on one of the benches and stretches herself out, oblivious of her own nudity and the two elderly gentlemen present. She closes her eyes and settles down.

Not only is this woman completely at ease, but seemingly born to create unease in others.

Fred and Mick, appropriately ill at ease, stare at her as you would stare at something paranormal – that is, something inexplicable. They take an unreasonable amount of time to make contact with reality again. They start to whisper so as not to be heard by this vision of perfection.

“Who is she?”

“What d’you mean: who is she? It’s Miss Universe.”

“She looks totally different. Unrecognisable.”

“It’s that passion for Transformers movies. It’s transformed her.”

Fred does not laugh. He cannot manage it. He has to look at Miss Universe through the clouds of steam. Her beauty is exhausting.

“You know something, Fred? We talk so much about peeing, we’ve forgotten that our masculine organs also possess another function.”

“Don’t delude yourself, Mick.”

“Delude myself? Listen, there are certain pills today . . .”

“Yes, but that’s pushing at the reality of certain things.”

“So? I’m a filmmaker. What else have I done my whole life?”

Miss Universe gently moves her legs a few centimetres, just a little, but delivers yet another blow to her observers.

“But she’s not interested, Mick. She’s interested in a body that’ll match hers. Sex is like music. It wants harmony. And that’s only right. And we’re not capable of giving harmony anymore, Mick.”

They could both have cried at this point, if a member of the staff had not entered and approached them.

“There’s a visitor for you, Mr Boyle.”

Mick snorts. “Can’t you see we’re enjoying the last great illusion of our lives here? Anyway, who’s the nuisance?”

“Brenda Morel.”

60

Brenda Morel, once that most mysterious of femmes fatales, is sitting, impeccably dressed, bolt upright in an armchair. She is well over eighty and has had numerous face-lifts. A small diamond necklace glittering in a light of its own sits comfortably around a wrinkled neck that has endured too much plastic surgery. The mane of blonde hair invites suspicion that it might be a wig.

She is waiting and, as she does so, passes her tongue expertly over her teeth to check if any trace of lipstick is ruining the look of her perfect dentures.