I stared through the window as the taxi glided away from the hotel. Bunting had gone up on many of the big canals. Blue pennants seemed to be popular, or sometimes I saw a lantern in the shape of a sea horse floating high above the water. All the decorations had a faded, slightly weather-beaten look, which led me to suspect that they were brought out year after year. Trelawney drove slowly, absent-mindedly, but I found I was in no hurry. We were travelling through a city that was entirely unfamiliar to me. Well, not entirely. Since I dealt with people from the other countries most days of the week — on my computer, usually, or by phone — and since phlegmatics were generally believed to be harmless, I had assumed, despite what Jasmine had told me, that I would adapt to the Blue Quarter without too much trouble. I couldn’t have been more wrong. During that short walk to the hotel, I had been overwhelmed by the strangeness of the place. It wasn’t just the architecture or the dialect; it was something much larger and more abstract, like the look on people’s faces, or the atmosphere itself. The citizens of Aquaville seemed to equate existence with peril. They spent most of their time and energy trying to protect themselves — against the present certainly, against the future too, and even, perhaps, against the past. Thoughts of this kind had never entered my head before, but now, as a result of having to negotiate the streets and breathe the air, I was absorbing a little of the local people’s trepidation, much as I had once absorbed well-being from Mr Page. I was even seeing figures move in paintings. Though, to some extent, it appeared to threaten or at least unsettle me, it was also proof of the theory I was going to expound in my talk on Wednesday, namely that the divided kingdom was self-perpetuating, and that the need for transfer and relocation would eventually die away. Each of the four quarters had already developed its own unique character and identity. In other words, although the idea of four types of people was fundamentally simplistic, there was a certain amount of self-fulfilling prophecy involved. Place someone in an environment for long enough and he starts to take on the attributes of that environment.
The taxi bumped against a row of car tyres, the engine noise subsided. We had stopped outside a tall stucco-fronted building that was set back from the canal. Wide steps led up to glass doors with vertical brass handles, and the words that featured on my flyer — THE BATHYSPHERE — were spelled out in black block capitals on the white neon strip above the entrance. If I hadn’t known the place was a club, I would have assumed it was a cinema, The Bathysphere being the title of the film that was showing. But there were no queues outside. I couldn’t see any doormen either. There was no one around at all, in fact.
‘Not much happening, is there?’ I said.
My driver surveyed the building. ‘What’s it supposed to be?’
I told him.
‘Maybe you’re early,’ he said.
Though I had my doubts about the club, I thought I should give it a try. After all, I had gone to the trouble of finding it.
‘Could you come back later on and pick me up?’ I said.
‘How long are you going to be?’
I looked at my watch. ‘Let’s say an hour.’
‘Fine by me.’
Once on the quay, I glanced behind me. In the boat’s cabin, Curthdale Trelawney was lighting a cigarette. When he exhaled, the smoke unfolded against the dark glass of the windshield like a flower that only blooms at night.
The air roared and trembled as a plane went over, its wheels already lowered for landing. I adjusted my coat collar and looked around. Most of the buildings that lined the canal had once been business premises — factories, offices, warehouses — but they had long since been vacated. Bleak sodium lights stooped over a deserted towpath. The whole area had a forlorn, abandoned feel to it. I checked the address again — a nervous reaction, obviously, since the club’s name was there above me in foot-high letters — then I climbed the steps and opened one of the glass doors.
The foyer was semicircular in shape. Its walls were red, with a gold picture-rail. The centre-light, housed in a black metal shade, cast a bright, unsteady circle on the carpet. In front of me stood an archway, sealed off by a velvet curtain. To my right, and built into the curve of the wall, was what appeared to be a ticket booth. A girl sat behind the perspex, reading a magazine. She had plucked her eyebrows into two perfect arcs, and her blonde hair shone. She glanced up as I walked over.
I took the card out of my pocket and showed it to her. ‘Have I come to the right place?’
‘Yes, you have. And that card means you get in free.’
‘And it’s a club?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m not too early?’
She smiled. ‘You haven’t missed a thing.’
‘Wonderful.’ I hesitated. ‘How long does it stay open?’
‘You can leave any time you want.’
I tilted my head at a slight angle. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I can’t hear any music,’ I said.
She smiled again, more winningly. ‘It’s not that kind of club.’
Her answers seemed precise and clear, and yet she consistently told me less than I wanted to know. It was vagueness in a most sophisticated form. Though it did occur to me that I might have been asking the wrong questions.
‘Which way do I go?’ I said.
‘Through the curtain, then round to the right.’
As I was turning away, one of the glass doors swung open, and I glanced over my shoulder, half hoping to see Walter Ming walk in. After all, there was a sense in which I needed him to justify my presence in this place. I could have bought him a drink. We might even have joked about the whole experience. But the couple who entered the foyer weren’t people I knew or recognised. The man had an equine face and bad teeth, and his muscular figure was wrapped in a long, tight-fitting pale-grey overcoat with a black velvet collar. His companion wore a wide-brimmed hat at such an extreme angle that I could only see the powdered whiteness of her neck and the scarlet of her mouth. Her high heels were sharp as ice-picks. Well, I thought, at least I won’t be the only person here.
I followed the directions the girl had given me and soon found myself in a narrow corridor that sloped gently downwards and to the left. Dim lights studded the walls at regular intervals, and there was the smell of warm trapped air. I had assumed the corridor would lead to a theatre of some kind, with rows of plush seating and a stage. I had been listening for the muted buzz of an expectant audience. Instead, I walked into a triangular room which had red walls and a black ceiling. In front of me were four doors, all painted pale-gold. To my right, on a simple wooden chair, sat a man in dark clothes. His hands rested on his lap, and his head was bowed, as if in prayer. For a moment I thought he might even be asleep.
‘Choose a door.’ His voice sounded automatic, almost prerecorded. Presumably he had to say the same words every time somebody came into the room.
‘What am I choosing between?’ I asked.
‘You’re choosing without knowing what you’re choosing. You’re taking a chance. You’re going into the unknown.’
‘The unknown?’ I said.
‘You’re free to leave at any time,’ the man said in the same bored monotone. His head was still bowed, his hands still folded in his lap.