34 | Robin
‘I’m meeting friends.’ Robin has learned from last night’s failure. She imitates the voices she’s heard coming in and out of the marina. A particular tone that expects never to be questioned. Always to be recognised and accommodated.
She moves a little closer.
‘I’m very late,’ she says, and fans herself with her hand.
She can feel cool air drifting out from the interior of the Temple. There are air-con units suspended from the undersides of the friezes, blasting downwards. There was a time when Gemma would have been incensed at the waste of energy, she thinks, while I’d be reeling at the aesthetic vandalism. If she’s in here now, she’s changed completely.
Yes, well, she was thirteen when she was an eco-warrior. All you have to do with teenage sanctimony is wait it out. Though you never know where they’ll go next.
Attached to the air-con units is a perfect temple. Was. She’s never seen one so intact. Row on row of white marble pillars, a frieze of chariots and gods and cornucopia running all the way around the top, unbroken. Where the roof used to be, tenting of thick white canvas protects the revellers below against rare moments of summer rain.
Bright white spots illuminate the columns. But inside is a mysterious haze of blue, punctuated by the glow of fire bowls. A high chain-link fence cuts the plain on which it stands off from the world.
‘Berlusconi,’ she says. The first name that comes into her head.
The greeter scans her list. ‘Not here yet, sinjora,’ she says.
‘Don’t tell me they’ve left already?’
She scans again. ‘No, sinjora, they’ve not arrived.’
‘Are you sure?’
The woman shrugs.
‘We’re a party, of course,’ she says. ‘Could they have come in under another name?’
‘It’s possible, sinjora. What was the name?’
She pretends to rack her brains.
‘I’ve no idea. Sylvia and … Conrad, I think. Can’t I just go in and find them?’
The woman’s getting tired of her. ‘Si, sinjora. The entrance fee is one hundred euros.’
Robin almost blows her camouflage by squawking the number out loud. Catches herself just in time. Reaches for her debit card and remembers that its dull green livery will be a sure giveaway.
‘Cash okay?’ she asks. She’ll work out how to pay the taxi later.
A how-could-you-question-our-service moue. ‘Naturally, sinjora.’
She looks in her wallet and is relieved to find a single hundred at the back of the notes compartment. If you’re rich enough, or they recognise you, entrance is, she’s sure, free. But even the people who pay have probably never done so with a fistful of crumpled fives. I’m getting smarter at this, she thinks.
She doesn’t bother with a tip. She won’t be coming back.
Oh, the world these people live in. This antiqued-leather, cut-crystal, Balinese-teak, always-cool world where even ancient tesserae have been lifted and relaid so they are even beneath the feet, and no one ever has to lift a bottle for themselves. Where orchids are always in flower and receptacles once used for collecting animal blood are crammed with roses. A sprung dance floor is half-filled with women who dance like houris and men who dance like satyrs. Elegant barmen shake cocktails behind a marble altar, and impossibly perfect people lounge on couches arranged in squares, the better to turn their backs on their fellow revellers.
Always in groups. Never couples. She has no idea how they do dating. And never women alone, as she is. If I were better dressed, she thinks, they would assume I was a prostitute. There are several draped seductively on those sofas. You can tell them because the other women’s shoulders are subtly turned to them, and their silver chainmail slip dresses barely conceal what they have for sale.
A waiter pauses, empty tray balanced on his forearm. ‘A drink, sinjora?’
‘Thank you, I—’ She’s about to refuse, then changes her mind. She’s conspicuous enough as it is. ‘A gin and tonic,’ she says.
‘Any preference for gin?’
Whatever’s cheapest, please. ‘What do you have?’