Greyglass by Tanith Lee (story read aloud .TXT) 📕

a flat,” said Jo abruptly. “I mean, when I start college. It would mean I was nearer to college, and save time in the long run.”

“Really? A flat?”

“Well, a room. But a good one in a respectable house. Clean. No people taking drugs, fixing.”

“You are lucky.” Susan did not know if she really thought this, but clearly congratulations and envy were expected. “Are you pleased?”

“Well, I will be. But the only thing is, Dad says I have to share with another girl. He says it’s not safe, me being there on my own. And if I shared, the expenses would be halved, of course.”

“Yes.”

“So, what do you think?”

Susan stared at Jo. “Me?”

“Dad says you’re steady. He likes your Mum – the Brave and Fair Anne, he calls her,” she added, too thick to be ashamed of him. “He said I should ask you. It would be handy for Silverguilds, too, because that’s near my secretarial college. We could travel on the same bus. And you’ll have your grant, same as I will, and there’ll be what Dad gives me, too.”

Susan thought about sharing a room with Jo. The prospect was rather unappealing. Jo was a stickler for all sorts of things – she liked rules, (knowing where she stood, as Jo put it.) She liked lots of little ornaments, and dusting them…

“Only,” Susan said, “my mother – we may be going to the U.S.A.”

“For a holiday?”

“Sort of. It’s a bit more than that.”

Jo’s unemotive face settled. “All right then. I’ll have to ask someone else.”

“Jo – I don’t want to go to the States – I’d hate it – she’s got this horrible man – he’s foul –”

Jo stared at Susan with a deep latent intriguement striving behind the dough of her cheeks. “Why?”

“He just is. I want to stay here.”

“Shall I speak to your mum,” said the deadly grown-up Jo, “about my flat?”

“No. I’ll talk to her. Tomorrow.”

“All right. But I need to know soon. I’m already having to start college from home, and that’s going to cost a lot and be a long journey.”

America seemed familiar because of TV. There were the same terracotta and brown brownstones, baking in hot, late summer light, the same sidewalks, playgrounds and lots, and, at the centre of the city of New York, the same incredible surrounding image of a metropolis of the far future coexisting here and now.

Coming in over the highways and bridges, darkness already down on the September air, (which smelled of cinders and gasoline) the lighted skyscrapers rose from the void, pinned by a million diamonds to the night. And then later, other floodlit buildings lifted twenty miles above the ends of Manhattan’s cobbles, like waterfalls of blue ice with ruby spires.

But wonder was prevented from spreading its wings. Because Wizz was there, in the car, and the aura of Wizz overlaid everything.

“What d’ya think?” he asked them, driving boldly on the ‘wrong’ side of the road in yet another vast flash car. As if he had invented the city, or discovered it, like a sort of belated Columbus. Did they have to thank him for building New York?

Downtown, Upstate, said the signs slung above the road.

They drove into Manhattan, to Wizz’s loft.

After all, Anne and Susan hadn’t flown to the States with Wizz, he had only picked them up at Kennedy International (JFK, said Wizz.)

At Heathrow, Anne took Susan straight into a bar. “Let’s pretend you’re eighteen, Susan. Then you can have a gin and tonic with me.” This by now sometimes happened at home. And Susan was so nervous she had been more than glad of the dizzy quick glow the gin gave her. By the time they walked down the claustrophobic area, (screened as if from horrors) on to the plane, everything seemed feasible, and all right.

The flight was uneventful, enervating due to the cramped seats. Wizz’s tickets had put them in Business Class, but Anne had seemed a little disappointed. At one time she had been speaking predictively of Concorde.

Sometimes, beyond the window, Susan saw clouds below her, wrapped over the blue surface of the world, as if she watched the earth from space. Coupled with the glass of wine she had had with the plane meal, this too seemed to put everything in perspective. The in-flight film was oddly dreamlike; she dozed. When she came to, they were nearly there. Susan now felt warm and sleepy and dirty. Apprehensive. Anne though was all alight, make-up redone, hair burnished, only the lines rather too deep at the sides of her eyes and mouth. “Wizz! Wizz darling!” she exclaimed, as they emerged from immigration – where arrest had seemed, to Susan, imminent.

“Baby!” sludged Wizz. He was more American, but also more East London. A confusing combination, if perhaps not for him. “Hi, Suey.”

The loft had been organised for him by the firm, he said. A huge open space, with other rooms leading off it. Only five floors up, it was reached by a cranky elevator Susan was afraid would stall, or fall. She was generally afraid of the elevators in New York. Of travelling up and down hundreds of floors, with the legacy of all the cable-snapped crashing elevator cars she had seen in thrillers.

The floor of the expensively furnished loft was of naked polished wood, with rugs strewn over. “See those patterns – Native American Indian.” Ranks of windows looked out over buildings which, in day’s sunlight, would burn rose-red and cobalt. There was a domed jukebox on one wall, which flickered lime green and played scratchy, ancient numbers for a dime – or was it a quarter? “Art Deco, see. Brilliant,” said Wizz.

Anne and Susan got ready in the big, brand-new, black and gold bathroom – there were two bathrooms – where there was a pair of black and gold washbasins, and also a pair of black and gold lavatories. “Anne – does that mean two people go to the loo – at the same time?”

“I guess so,” glittered Anne, Americanly. If she