Ten Word Game (27 page)

“No! By the compression process of
machine-emulsified
material,” she replied briskly. “You require the chemical composition of the glue, or the length of incorporated fibres?”

“Er, no, ta, Natasha.”

“This way, D4!” she shrieked, and we were off like another marathon start.

“She’s great,” I said. Too good, in fact. I noticed she kept acknowledging the stout ladies who invigilated in every doorway of the numbered rooms, and once I saw her slip a cell phone into her handbag. She also seemed occasionally to mutter into her umbrella’s handle, her eyes everywhere. Nobody would get lost on Natasha’s watch, that was for sure.

We emerged on a wide landing. The air stifled me. I had to go slower, Ivy hanging back to stay with me. I had another swig of water and felt no better.

“We ignore the two Leonardo paintings!” Natasha called over her shoulder, “beyond the Council Staircase. And the Michelangelo statue of
Crouching Boy
that is in glass-encased but repays intensive study
on another visit! Quickly, please!”

No wonder I felt definitely odd. My hands were clammy, my muscle masses aching, my breath rasping. I was drenched with sweat. Ivy got worried.

“Look, Lovejoy. I think we should try to find
somewhere
to sit a minute.”

“No.” I knew I wouldn’t be better until I was out of the place. Another guide, this time a man in uniform, tagged along in the rear, shepherding us after Natasha. “I’ll keep going, love.” I’d my job to do.

“The Hanging Gardens of the Little Hermitage
visible
through the windows!” cried our beautiful guide at ramming speed. “Across is Dutch works of art,
including
many Rembrandts! You can photograph if you have paid for special star on special ticket, $3.60 in American moneys! Using camcorders extra!”

The windows were easy. I couldn’t help noticing how simple they were, like the old Crittal designs. I know lads in East Anglian pubs who wouldn’t even break step as they strolled in through windows like that, any height. And a canal seemed to come off the wide River Neva at exact right-angles and run
underneath
the Hermitage. Unless they surrounded the entire place with tanks and a battalion or two, an
average
robber could have the Hermitage’s contents away before dawn, given enough transport. My sense of misgiving got much, much worse, the sicker I felt.

“Is it the antiques, Lovejoy?” Ivy whispered. “You’re sure it isn’t something you ate, or maybe the flu?”

“No, love. It’s always like this.” My chest griped, my shoulders creaking like rusty machinery.

“Across is Hall of St George!” Natasha trilled, her voice a bandsaw through my brain. “Here is
Hidden Treasures Revealed
exhibition! Enter in order! Fifteen minutes, please!” She added darkly, “I … am …
waiting
!”

The rooms were frankly badly lit. I tottered in, glad to lean on Ivy. She was only slight, but kept me propped up as vibes shot through me. I could hardly see. The paintings were brilliant.

It’s hard to realise how much our own famous works of art have changed even over so short a time as a century or even less. The paint alters, as the oil
vehicle
in which the pigments were applied become set over time. They grow less lustrous from pollution, from changing air temperature, barometric pressures, humidity, light. Worst of all, the exhaled breath of thousands upon thousands of visitors, the faint
shaking
of the human voice, and the microorganisms we carry about, does damage. The average human sheds a teaspoonful of skin scales a day, not to mention threads from our clothes, our hair – we lose sixty-three hairs on average a day, some scientist slogging to earn his money claimed.

These paintings, though, simply glowed. They had remained in unchanging conditions for half a century. Okay, I would have hung them differently, had more control over the light, kept visitors down to a few every hour, but the Russians had done a superb job conserving these. They were just as they left the artists’ hands. Ten out of ten for Russia.

I gaped at the Cézannes. Who’d have thought his
Mont Sainte-Victoire
actually shimmered in its original condition? Every other version I’d seen looks flat from a yard away, from deterioration of the surface. Or that Vincent’s
Landscape with House and Ploughman
was so clamorous to the eye that its colours almost yelled? I reeled from one canvas to another, Ivy apologising to passengers as I blundered through the press.

Minutes later I was propped on the wall by the great
staircase looking out at the Neva, shaking. Ivy spoke quietly to a Russian guardian lady, and I was given her chair. Ivy seemed to be explaining that I wasn’t drunk, just unwell. The woman didn’t believe her. I asked for tea, which seems understood in every language. We went downstairs, Ivy grunting and gasping a little unnecessarily I thought, but she got me into a small caff near the computer room. I got served mint tea. I hadn’t known mint tea tasted so good.

The vibes receded slightly once Ivy got me mobile and among the crowds. We seemed to be the only ones buying anything. Ivy was adept at making herself understood. Natasha’s gloomy trailing bloke followed us all the time, which I didn’t mind. He glowered when we failed to offer him some tea, so I beckoned him over and he accepted a glass of the stuff. Ivy ignored him, but he chattered a lot and seemed to be telling me about football. He was called Ilya. He looked a born killer, steady eyes, Slav chin and upturned nose, but hands that had strangled.

“The Golden Rooms, Lovejoy?” Ivy asked. She spoke to the man in Russian and notes changed hands. I tried counting the dollars in case I’d have to owe her, but gave up. Nobody absorbs notes slicker than a security man on the take.

“Ilya will let us in to the Golden Rooms, Lovejoy. Come. Can you stand? We have eleven minutes only.”

I made it, exhorted by Ivy. She proved a tower of strength. Like many women who looked puny, she had disproportionate power.

“Here. By the Secondary Entrance.” She opened her hands like a Palladium showman. “The Hermitage’s famous Special Collection!”

It cost. Ivy had to do the verbals, with Ilya along to lend baritone and subdue the stout female guardians. More dollars? I thought, God Almighty, I’d be paying
this free visit off until I was ninety, the way Ivy was spending. She’d already bought me four great tomes, each an arm and a leg. Once inside, over I went and came to myself on a stool being lectured to by a
security
lady in uniform and three stray ladies who’d come to see the gold – pure ancient gold – artefacts but found a dizzy male stranger much more interesting. Like all females, they delightedly seized the chance of ballocking a man for being ill in the first place, sternly admonishing Ivy in various languages for not living up to her woman’s job of keeping me fit. That gave them all the opportunity of bringing up ailments they
themselves
had suffered, to great satisfaction, then
recovered
from. That dealt with, they then argued different remedies. I suppose that’s all it was.

Meanwhile the rooms ramjam packed with gold from the Crimea, Ukraine, and the Caucasus,
shimmered
and blinded. I apologised, pretended to
recover
, got no further in than my stool by the door, thanked everybody profusely, and let Ivy lead me out of Special Collection Rooms 41 et seq.

“I’m sorry, Lovejoy,” she said from a great distance. “I thought it would bring you round.”

“Okay.” We went through the security check to escape, and I got a chance of a cool breath of
non-antique
air at the entrance.

Within minutes Natasha’s bandsaw voice pierced the halls of the Winter Palace and we were on the move. The security man Ilya sheepdogged us to the exit and wistfully waved us off as we disgorged by the Neva. It isn’t often streets look truly glamorous, but Russia manages it. Or maybe it was just that I was relieved to be feeling better? I think it was the
glamour
.

My muscles stopped aching, my hands dried
themselves
spontaneously, and my face no longer dripped
with sweat. I began to walk fairly upright like a
late-order
primate, getting as far as, say, Neanderthal.

“Sorry, Ivy,” I said in the cold fresh air of the
waterfront
. “It was stuffy in there.”

“Real, were they?”

“Well,” I began, then realised.

“I was joking, Lovejoy. Your collapse was too
convincing
. Is it always like that?”

“Yes. A headache will be along soon. It will be bad.”

“I’ll see to you.”

“Look, love, I’m spoiling your outing. There’s really no need.”

“I’m enjoying myself,” she said, sounding really honest. “Best morning I’ve had in years.”

“Shouldn’t we find your Billy?” I didn’t want to be accused of anything devious, him such a macho bloke.

“Don’t worry. I know exactly where he is.”

We moved to the coach the instant the driver came. A few Russian children pestered us, begging. I reached for some money. Ivy stayed my hand and bustled me away. She was cross.

“That was a bit harsh, love,” I remonstrated. “She was only eleven, and carrying an infant.”

“Lovejoy.” She was so exasperated she said my name like teachers did at school, making two
enormous
syllables – Love…
joy
– and rolling her eyes. “Didn’t you notice? Her hair was streaked and
tinted
. Do you know how much that costs? And she wore designer slacks and handmade London shoes. Have you no sense?”

She went on and on, how the girl had gold caps to two teeth, the infant wore two valuable jade necklets and the girl three gold bangles and a custom watch.

“Begging is an industry here,” she lectured me
quietly
on the coach as Natasha started up hope-you-
all-enjoyed
prattle. “You have to learn.”

From the coach window I watched the little girl, who nonchalantly took out a gold cigarette case. She extracted a cigarette and lit it with a gold lighter,
staring
insolently up at the coach as we drove off.

“You aren’t really streetwise, are you?” Ivy said.

This narked me, because nobody is more streetwise. I told her so, adding, “No need to keep on, just because you can yap a few words of their lingo.”

“I was born here, Lovejoy.” She affected not to notice as Billy and Kevin looked round at us, said something to each other and roared with laughter. “I really think it’s time I took you in hand, at least for the rest of your visit. What are you doing this
afternoon
?”

“Having a headache. You?” It was already starting, slamming down my right side and making my vision fizzle. No longer the flu feeling, just the cerebral
stunner
.

She smiled. “I’ll help, Lovejoy. Close your eyes and I’ll tell you about Russia.”

I slept for an hour in my cabin, crawled upright with a stunning migraine, went for a feeble nosh, then swam even more feebly in one of the ship’s pools. The
passengers
had mostly gone ashore on trips – all of them sounding exotic, this palace, that monastery. I felt
filleted
, climbed out of the pool and flopped onto the tiles. My head was splitting.

Ivy leant over from her promenade recliner and handed me a towel. No Billy the Kid.

“Any better?”

“I’m done for.”

“Can you be ready in ten minutes? A banya will cure you.”

“Not thirsty, love, but ta.”

She did the non-smile, making me feel idiotic. “It’s not a drink, darling. It will restore you.”

“What is it?” I asked with suspicion, remembering the women at the Hermitage and their competing remedies. “Something Russian?”

“Oh, yes, Lovejoy.” A real smile lit her features. She was lovely. “Very Russian. Everyone should visit the banya at least once. It never fails.”

“Honest?” I couldn’t go on like this. I’d once had a really bad divvy experience meeting a gold Ancient British torc found in East Anglia near Mildenhall, and fondly imagined my divvy-induced migraines couldn’t come any worse, but this one was ruinous and I had to report to Purser Mangot at six o’clock. I’d be lucky to reach his office in this state. “Okay, then.”

Uneasily, still mistrustful, I disembarked, making sure I didn’t let my thumping head whack me over into the water as I reached the quayside. I made sure the Ghurka knew I was leaving, had my plastic cards bleeped on their machines. I chatted determinedly to a
few other passengers, telling them I was going to a banya with Mrs Ivy Sands, just so they could tell our consul if I got abducted.

We got into a taxi, the driver voluble in Russian. He tried German, a bit of Swedish I think, then went back to Russian with Ivy, seeming amused. Twice his eyes lit on mine in the rear-view. He shook his head, chuckling, saying, “Banya.”

“I didn’t say so-long or ta to Natasha,” I
remembered
as the taxi swerved and hooted and accelerated.

“I did. We tip a small amount after each tour.”

The driver’s eyes lit up. He knew the word tip. Still he chuckled. And stopped outside a squarishly dull building. We were about two miles from the ship. He opened our door with a flourish, and even a stranger as raw as me knew this courtesy was an all-time first. He said something to me, grinning.

“In, Lovejoy,” Ivy said, paying him.

“Will you be here when I come out?” Translation: Was this the abduction and assassination I’d darkly imagined, finally here now I’d done my stint divvying the Exhibition?

“I’m coming with you, silly.”

She sounded exasperated, which was good. Exasperation was safe. I let her go first, ever
courteous
, in case there was a gunman behind the
transparent
glass doors, and slowly followed, ready to run. We went in to a changing room, after Ivy paid more fees to yet more guardians. Russia, I began to see, was composed of two kinds of people: uniformed security folk, and the rest. They came in more or less equal proportions. You pay one lot whenever they look expectant, and can safely ignore the latter.

“Men that way, Lovejoy. See you later.”

“Eh?”

The admissions lady said something to me, Ivy the
same thing. I nodded with a weak smile, and entered a changing room. Blokes, including Ilya I was surprised to see, were stripping off. I looked for what we were all to change into. Nothing? Everybody stripped down to their nip, like after a football match.

“Parilka,” Ilya said to me, nodding and smiling.

“Parilka,” I said, hoping it meant yes I’m fine. I could hardly see, my temples thudding. I couldn’t make out what he said after that, but it sounded the same thing the taxi driver, Ivy and the wardress had told me.

We entered a room so hot I felt my skin try to peel itself off. Everybody stood around, some doing
exercises
, others posing or patting themselves. Sweat
started
but evaporated as soon as it reached the torrid atmosphere. Breathing was actually painful. I could hear my breath rasping as it went into my lungs. I thought, this is madness, and they’re all off their blinking rails, quite barmy. What the hell is all this hot air for, for God’s sake? Ilya tapped my shoulder and beckoned. I followed, anything to get out of the
terrible
heat.

We entered a room so thick with steam I couldn’t see a damned thing. There were rocks. The heat was stifling. Breathing was like inhaling gravel, and my head thumped worse. Everybody was starkers. Some loon ladled water onto heaped rocks so we could be steamed worse. More steam hissed and filled the air. I scented eucalyptus. I thought my skin was coming off. It was unbelievably hot. Somebody said something in Russian. Others laughed. I heard swishing. Then Ilya, who looked hell of a sight more of a bruiser naked than when clothed, took up a bessom thing and shoved me onto a vacant plank.

Others were reclining, to be beaten by the twigs. The first swish drove the remaining breath from me.
That was the steady hiss-hiss sound I’d heard ever since we’d arrived. I heard women’s voices somewhere close. The broom slashed at my skin. I noticed others swapping places and lashing out. My skin felt raw. I felt I hadn’t breathed properly for a week.

Ilya finally stopped and I was given a switch of small branches. I lashed out at the blighter, thinking take that, you swine. Other blokes poured fresh water on the rocks to sizzle more steam. It was hellish.

A few minutes, with me spent and sagging, Ilya rose and beckoned. I followed out of that steamy hell into a freezing cold tiled room where an icy pool shimmered.

“Basseyni,” Ilya said proudly, and leapt into it. He shrieked, “Colt! Colt!”

Basin? Cold? Wincing, I tiptoed slowly down the small ladder into the freezing cold pool, gasping and puffing as the ice – there was actually floating frigging ice on the surface that some lunatic had put there, for Christ’s sake – as the ice rose up my legs. I shrivelled, the blokes splashing in the pool roaring laughing and trying to make waves so I would be engulfed. I made it, for the sake of national honour, and tried swimming about a bit, gasping and huffing.

Ilya, the sadistic swine, was already climbing out and beckoning.

“Parilka,” he said, guffawing.

I’d hated parilka last time and wanted to go back to the ship. He hauled me out and dragged me into the steam for a second go. I was definitely on the blink by then, my circulation having given up and my brain beeping its last goodbye synapse.

The steam slammed me almost moribund. I got
beaten
stuporous by different twigs, floppy fir bessoms this time, in hot clouds that were surely lethal. I was too weak to switch Ilya, who was killing himself laughing by this time and explaining to his mates I was a weak-kneed
visitor, which set them all roaring laughing.

The cold pool experience was almost natural by the time I followed dully for the re-run. Naked as a grape, I floundered in. My skin had given up trying to make sense of all the sensations. I couldn’t feel heat or cold.

Three goes, and I was shoved unceremoniously through a doorway into ordinary climate, where some bulky woman slapped a sheet at me. I was asked for money, but Ivy was already there, draped in a toga and seated on wooden slats. Women and men were arguing about something quite passionately. I wrapped myself in my sheet and flopped exhausted by Ivy.

“You rotten cow.”

“There, there, darling.” She was laughing. “Would you have come if I’d told you what it was?”

“Well, no.”

“And how’s the headache?”

I tried to feel something, anything, in my head or anywhere else. It felt light, things at a distance but no pain between my temples.

“Gone.” It was a guess.

“I can’t hear, darling,” she said, her pound of flesh.

I cleared my throat. “Gone.”

“There!” She waited. “Thank you, Ivy darling, would be super.”

“Ta,” I said ungraciously.

“Not at all, Lovejoy.”

She unscrewed the cap from a thermos flask and poured a little of the fluid for me to taste. It was
unbelievably
sweet.

“Tea, with mint, jam and honey and molasses sugar,” she said. “It’s traditional. Different parts of Russia people swear by various recipes. In Novgorod, where the banya started, they favour honey and a
distilled
juice they make from various berries.”

It was good. Feeling crept back into my shoulders.
I could actually sense a breeze on my face. Maybe I wasn’t dead after all. I returned her cup. She decanted some for herself. Cautiously I glanced round at the twenty or so people sitting round the room.

“How does your skin feel?”

“Smarting, like it’s sore.”

“That’s good. The toxins are leaving.”

“I haven’t got any toxins,” I said, narked.

“Not now.” She was all smiles. “We rid ourselves of impurities by coming to the banya. In the West,
people
don’t bother. This is more sensible, don’t you agree? And you get to like it.”

“Did they thrash you with those twig things?” I asked, curious.

“Of course. They don’t do it elsewhere. Southern Russians think it’s ludicrous. St Petersburg folk repeat the hot-steam-cold process twelve times in a fixed ritual, some saying favourite poems with each bath. Especially Pushkin. This banya doesn’t have a hot open-air pool, but many banyas do. Russians favour those. You can gaze at the moon while floating in the warmth, even in the snows. Luxury, with friends
drifting
along to argue politics and poetry! Could anything be more Russian, or more wonderful?”

She gave me some more of her strange tea. I liked it.

“Alternative to toxins, eh?”

“Much better, darling.” She smiled. “And you kept your key!” They’d given me a locker key on a string round my neck.

“Time to return to the
Melissa
?”

“In a few minutes. We can just listen to people.”

So we listened, doing nothing except sit there. I couldn’t understand a word. There wasn’t a toxin in sight. I thought, God Almighty, do I actually love this woman? I thought of her in my Ten Word Game, and lost.

The ship was quiet. We were the only ones returning, and the Atrium into which we stepped was tranquil. Apart from a couple or two seated round the lounges and a stewardess serving a lone bar-fly, there was nobody to listen to the tinkling piano. The three
balconies
soaring above showed people reading or talking. It was so peaceful.

“Do come, Lovejoy.”

“Look, love. Ta for the banya. How much do I owe you?”

“Not a thing. It was my pleasure.”

“Are you sure?”

We went to her cabin. I hesitated when she opened the door and invited me in.

“Er, is this all right with your Billy? Only, I
wouldn’t
want – ”

“For heaven’s sake!”

She pulled me and I entered. It was much larger than mine. Twin beds, a proper bathroom instead of just a shower, and a sitting alcove. Not quite on the scale of Lady Vee’s, but getting there.

“Would you like a drink?” She had a fridge, and took out some wine. I demurred, but accepted some water. I was thirsty. She had two armchairs and a desk. I sat when she ordered.

“Peter the Great used a banya near the river. He used to run along the riverbanks naked after a good steaming.” She laughed. “The phrase they all say, that you asked about, is ‘Hope your steaming goes easily.’ And afterwards they say, ‘Hope it was easy.’ It’s a
custom
.”

“Do you and Billy come back to Russia all the time?”

“This is the first. We’ve been married ten years.”

A silence started. I find that silences don’t just extend lengthwise, getting sort of longer. They
actually
spread out, covering everything you can see and touch. I was nervy for some reason. This was odd, because there’d been scores of mixed people in that banya place.

“Look,” I said, on edge, putting my glass down. “I’d best go. I’ve to see somebody later. I don’t want to be late.”

“Stay, Lovejoy,” she said, not looking. Her voice had almost extinguished itself.

“I’m in such a mess, love,” I heard myself say, sounding even more pathetic than usual. “I durstn’t make matters worse by – ”

“Please,” she said, and did a kind of brave smile. “And I’ll tell you more about Russia?”

I tried to say it was a deal, but could only croak.

We lay in the cramped single bed. I’d almost fallen off while we made smiles. She was lovely. I’d never seen any woman with such long hair, not since Norma from Swansea, only hers turned out to be a gruesome
hairpiece
she’d won in a raffle and couldn’t bear to part with. She’d woken me (Ivy, not Norma) because I was crushing her leg and she’d got pins and needles. I came to grudgingly, hoping she’d given me enough time to sail out of the small death. I felt around inside my brain. Peace was in there. I smiled.

“Wotcher.”

“Was I all right?”

See? Always that doubtful litany. I said she was
stupendous
, I’d been in paradise. I think poets should get their acts together and educate women to believe in
ecstasy, tell them there’s no need for doubt because making smiles is never anything less than superb. She squinted at me, probably wondering how many of her imaginary defects she could muster to convince me she was poor quality.

“I’m such a mouse, though. And I’m hardly a
stunning
looker.” This from a woman who’d given me sheer bliss.

“Do I seem unhappy?” Ball in her court.

“No.” She went shy. “You seemed … transported.”

“Possibly because I was.” There’s no way to
convince
them, though I always try. “Then we’re quits.”

“Once before, I fell for another man,” Ivy said softly.

“Did Billy see him off?”

“Billy?” She laughed a laugh with a snarl. “He wouldn’t know if I’d written it in letters a foot high. It was Potemkin, the Prince of Princes.”