Lost

Sally Shears against the patchwork backdrop of the city’s architecture, her glasses reflecting the London jumble, each period culled by economics, by fire, by war.

Kumiko, already confused by three rapid and apparently random train changes, let herself be hauled through a sequence of taxi rides. They’d jump out of one cab, march into the nearest large store, then take the first available exit to another street and another cab. “Harrods,” Sally said at one point, as they cut briskly through an ornate, tile-walled hall pillared in marble. Kumiko blinked at thick red roasts and shanks displayed on tiered marble counters, assuming they were made of plastic. And then out again, Sally hailing the next cab. “Covent Garden,” she said to the driver.

“Excuse me, Sally. What are we doing?”

“Getting lost.”

Sally drank hot brandy in a tiny cafe beneath the snow-streaked glass roof of the piazza. Kumiko drank chocolate.

“Are we lost, Sally?”

“Yeah. Hope so, anyway.” She looked older today, Kumiko thought; lines of tension or fatigue around her mouth.

***

Mona Lisa Overdrive ch 9