Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

watched him, tickled by his dignity during the performance of this near-ridiculous ritual.
“Very tasty,” he said at last.
“Mmm. Isn’t it?”
“Do you still want that story?”
For a moment, she thought he was accusing her of weakening his resistance with dope. Then she realized the question was in earnest. “Do you mean …?”
“The one about me. ‘Queen’s Officer Jumps Ship in Frisco.’ ”
She smiled. “I think I’d handle it a little more tastefully than that.”
He handed the joint back to her. “Do you want to?”
She hesitated. “Simon, I meant it when I said I wouldn’t do anything if …”
“I know that. You’ve been perfectly honorable.” He retrieved the joint and took another toke off it. “I’ve given this some thought, Mary Ann. Frankly … I don’t see what harm it would do. If you’re still game, that is.”
She said nothing, wondering about his motives.
“Is it what you want?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “Yes.”
He smiled. “Then it’s what I want.”
“Simon …”
“I reserve the right to edit content, of course. I don’t want to embarrass anyone.”
“Of course not.”
Another smile, a little warmer than the last. “Wonderful. It’s settled, then?”
“You bet.”
He returned the joint. “When shall we start?”
Brian materialized under the lych-gate, panting heavily in shorts and a tank top. Simon wasn’t facing the gate, but he detected the change in her expression and turned around. “Oh … hello there.”
“ ‘Lo,” said Brian, running in place.
“We’re trying out the new weed,” she offered cheerfully.
“I see.” He was shaking out his arms now, like a marionette in a high wind.
“Do you run regularly?” asked Simon.
“Fair amount,” Brian answered. He wasn’t wasting an ounce of energy on friendliness.
“You must show me where you do it,” said Simon. “I’ve been frightfully remiss in my own regimen.”
“Sure thing,” said Brian, loping past them into the house.
Simon turned to her with a rueful little smile.
“It isn’t you,” she said.
“I hope not.”
“He’s been … I don’t know … not himself lately.”
“Mmm.”
The joint had gone out, so she lit it again and offered it to Simon. He shook his head. She took a short drag and extinguished it. “So … you’re a runner, huh?”
He nodded. “Second generation.”
“Really?”
“My father and I both ran at Cambridge.”
“How Chariots of Fire, ” she said.
He laughed. “We weren’t quite that competitive. It was mostly to keep fit. Ill health was considered very poor form in the Bardill family.”
“Was?”
“Well.” His eyes were twinkling again. “There’s not that much left of the family, is there?”

44 Colville Crescent
T HE RAIN SEEMED TO FOLLOW MICHAEL TO LONDON. IT clattered like spilled gravel against the great vaulting roof of Victoria Station as he grabbed his suitcase and scrambled toward the first available black cab. His driver, a sixtyish man the color of corned beef, touched the bill of his cap.
“Where to, mate?”
“Uh … Nottingham Gate.”
“Eh?”
“Nottingham Gate.” He said it with more authority this time.
“Sorry, mate. No such place. Now, there’s a Notting Hill Gate….”
“The address is Forty-four Colville Crescent.”
The driver nodded. “That’s Notting Hill Gate.”
“Great,” said Michael, sinking down into burnished leather. “Thank God for that.”
The flight had been a living nightmare. Despite the effects of the Queen Mother dope and the ministrations of a chummy gay flight attendant, he had been completely unable to sleep. When he arrived at Gatwick Airport, cotton-mouthed and cranky, he was detained for almost two hours while customs officials ransacked the luggage of three hundred African nationals who had landed at the same time.
After losing another hour as he waited to change money, he had boarded a packed London-bound shuttle train, where he shared litter-strewn compartment with a brassy couple from Texarkana who insisted on talking about the Forty-Niners, despite his fearless display of indifference to the subject.
His driver glanced toward the back seat. “A Yank, eh?”
“Uh … right.”
“See what we done to them Argies?”
RGs? A soccer team, maybe? “Oh, yeah … that was somethin’.”
A wheezy chuckle. “And we did it without the help of your bloody President.”
It wasn’t sports, then. It was politics.
“Mind you, you Yanks always come in late on the big wars. You come