Zero History

the color of dirty parchment.
Robert managed to push a button. They started up, the lift complaining audibly at the
weight.
“Fucking thing’s going to kill us all,” said Heidi, as if finding the idea not entirely
unattractive.
“What room is Heidi in?” Hollis asked him.
“Next to yours.”
“Good,” said Hollis, with more enthusiasm than she felt. That would be the one with
the yellow silk chaise longue. She’d never understood the theme. Not that she understood
the theme of her own, but she sensed it had one. The room with the yellow chaise longue
seemed to be about spies, sad ones, in some very British sense, and seedy political
scandal. And reflexology.
Hollis opened the gate, when the lift finally reached their floor, then held the various
fire doors for Heidi and the heavily burdened Robert. Heidi seethed her way through the
windowless green mini-hallways, body language conveying a universal dissatisfaction.
Hollis saw that Robert had Heidi’s room key tucked for safekeeping between two fingers.
She took it from him, its tassels moss green.
“You’re right next to me,” she said to Heidi, unlocking and opening the door. She
shooed Heidi in, thinking of bulls, china shops. “Just put everything down,” she said to
Robert, quietly. “I’ll take care of the rest.” She relieved him of two amazingly heavy
cardboard cartons, each about the size required to contain a human head. He began
immediately to unsling Heidi’s various luggage. She slipped him a five-pound note.
“Thank you, Miss Henry.”
“Thank you, Robert.” She closed the door in his relieved face.
“What,” demanded Heidi, “the fuck is this?”
“Your room,” said Hollis, who was arranging the luggage along a wall. “It’s a private
club that Inchmale joined.”
“A club for what? What’s that?” Indicating a large framed silkscreen that Hollis herself
found one of the least peculiar articles of decor.
“A Warhol. I think.” Had Warhol covered the Profumo scandal?
“I should have fucking known Inchmale would come up with something like this.
Where is he?”
“Not here,” Hollis said. “He rented a house in Hampstead, when Angelina and the baby
came from Argentina.”
Heidi hefted a wide-based crystal decanter, unstoppered it, sniffed. “Whiskey,” she
said.
“The clear one’s gin,” Hollis advised, “not water.”
Heidi splashed three fingers of Cabinet Scotch into a highball glass, drank it off at a go,
shuddered, set the decanter down and flicked the crystal stopper back into its neck with a
dangerously sharp click. She had a spooky gift for aiming things; had never lost a game