Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind me. I looked round just in time to see a uniformed maid come to a halt before Hobbes and curtsy respectfully. Damn, the servants moved quietly around here. She bobbed a quick curtsy to me, too, as an afterthought.
“Pardon me, Mr. Hobbes, sir,” said the maid, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “But the Mistress said to tell you she wants a word with Mr. Taylor before he leaves.”
Hobbes looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh please teach me how to do that,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to be able to raise a single eyebrow like that.”
The maid got the giggles and had to turn away. Hobbes just looked at me.
“Oh what the hell,” I said. “Might as well talk to the Mistress. She might know something.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it, sir,” said Hobbes.
The maid hurried off on business of her own, and Hobbes led me all the way back up the corridor to Mariah Griffin’s room. I was curious as to why she would want to see me and what she might be prepared to tell me about her grand-daughter that Jeremiah wouldn’t, or couldn’t. Women often share secrets within a family that the men know nothing about. We finally came to a stop before another anonymous door.
“Mariah Griffin’s room, sir,” said Hobbes.
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Not Jeremiah and Mariah’s room? They have separate bedrooms?”
“Indeed, sir.”
I didn’t ask. He wouldn’t have told me anyway.
I nodded to him, and he knocked very politely on the door. A loud female voice said Enter! and Hobbes pushed the door open and stepped back so I could enter first. I sauntered in as though I was thinking of renting the place, then trashing it. Even though it was what passed for midafternoon in the Nightside, Mariah Griffin was still in bed. She was sitting up in a filmy white silk nightdress, propped up and supported by a whole bunch of puffy pink pillows. The walls were pink, too. In fact, the whole oversized room had a kind of pink ambience, like walking into a nursery. The bed was big enough for several people, if they were of a friendly inclination, and Mariah Griffin was surrounded by a small army of maids, advisors, and social secretaries. Some of them grudgingly made way as I took up a position at the foot of the bed.
The elaborate and no doubt very expensive counterpane was covered with the remains of several half-eaten meals, even more half-consumed boxes of chocolates, and dozens of scattered glossy gossip magazines. An open bottle of champagne stood chilling in an ice bucket, conveniently near at hand. Mariah conspicuously ignored me, apparently intent on all the people milling around her bed, competing noisily for her attention. So I stood at the foot of the bed and studied her openly.
Mariah Griffin was on the plump side of pretty, pleasantly rounded if not actually voluptuous, from the old school of beauty. The hair piled up thickly on top of her head was so pale a yellow as to be almost colourless, but her face made up for that with bright gaudy makeup. Scarlet bee-stung lips, rouged cheeks, dark purple eye-shadow, and eyelashes so thick it was a wonder she could see past them. Mariah looked to be in her early thirties, and had done for many centuries. Her strong bone structure gave her face what character it had, undermined by a vague manner and a pettishness in the voice. She looked more like an indulged mistress than a wife of long standing.
Various maids and flunkies clustered around her, attending to her every need almost before she could think of them; plumping up her pillows, offering her a new box of chocolates or freshening her glass of champagne, as necessary. Mariah ignored them all, giving her entire attention to the day’s correspondence and the updating of her social diary. It soon became clear that her default expression was a pout, and whenever events seemed to conspire against her, she would lash out feebly with a plump hand at whoever happened to be closest at that moment. The maids and flunkies took the blows without flinching. The fashion and social advisors were all careful to stay just out of arm’s reach, without being seen to do so. Those nearest to me studied me carefully out of the corners of their eyes, and after a few moments to raise their courage, began making pointed little remarks to each other, loud enough for me to hear.
“Well, well, look who it isn’t—the famous John Taylor.”
“Infamous, I would have said. I always thought he’d be taller. You know, more butch.”
“And that trench coat is so last year…I could run him up something really daring in mauve.”
“Ask for his measurements!”
“Oh, I don’t like to!”
There’s definitely something about the Nightside that brings out the stereotypical behavior in some people. Emboldened that I hadn’t taken offence, a large gentleman in chin-to-toe black leather glared at me openly.
“Well, lo and behold—the Nightside’s very own private dick…always trying to slip in where he isn’t wanted.”
“Lo and behold?” I said. “I can behold all you want, but if loing is required, someone’s going to have to coach me. I’ve never been too clear on what loing actually involves…There ought to be an instructional booklet; Loing for Beginners, or A Bluffer’s Guide to Loing.”
“You start anything with me, John Taylor, and I’ll summon security, see if I don’t. And then there’ll be trouble!”
“Will there be loing as well?” I said hopefully.
“Why is this woman still writing to me?” Mariah Griffin said loudly, waving a letter in one plump hand to draw everyone’s attention back to her. “She knows very well I’m not talking to her! My rules are very clear: miss two of my parties, and you’re Out. I don’t care if her children had leprosy…”
She was looking at everyone in the room except me, but the whole performance was for my benefit. She carried on complaining about this and that to her various advisors, who all gave her their full attention if not their interest. Mariah desperately wanted to come across as regal, but she lacked the necessary concentration. She’d start off on one subject, switch to another, get sidetracked, then forget where she’d started. She fluttered from one topic to another like a butterfly, always attracted by something else that promised to be a little bit more interesting or colourful. I got bored waiting, so I started wandering round the room, looking at things, picking them up and putting them down in a deliberately careless way.
If that didn’t work, I’d start tossing them out the windows.
There were luxurious items as far as the eye could see, delicate china figures, antique dolls, glass animals, and porcelain so fragile it looked like it would shatter if you breathed on it too heavily. All carefully laid out and presented on antique furnishings of the highest order. Some deep-seated anarchist part of me longed to run amok with a sledgehammer, or perhaps a length of steel chain…I eased my inner barbarian by helping myself to chocolates from the opened boxes. All the soft centres were gone, but I made do.
Judging by the pile of still-unopened letters cascading across Mariah’s bedside table, she got a lot of correspondence. E-mail never really caught on in the Nightside—far too easy to hack or intercept. And there was always the problem of computers developing sentience, or getting possessed by forces from the outer dark…and techno-exorcists don’t come cheap. Handwritten letters are the done thing these days, especially in what some people like to think of as the Highest Circles. The immortal Griffins are the closest thing the Nightside has to its own aristocracy, which meant every social climber in the place was desperate to get close to them, in the hope that some of the Griffins’ standing and glamour would rub off on the more favoured supplicants. Snobbery is a terrible vice, as easy to get hooked on as heroin and as devastating to give up when you’re no longer In, and going through withdrawal symptoms.
Even royalty came to sit at the feet of the Griffins and beg discreetly for boons and favours. We get them all in the Nightside—kings and queens in exile, princes of This and lairds of That, and every rank and station you can think of. They arrive via Timeslips from other worlds and times and dimensions, cut off forever from their own people, power, and riches. Some buckle down and make something new of themselves. Most don’t. Because they don’t know how. They still expect to be treated as royalty just because they once were, and get really upset when the Nightside makes it clear it doesn’t give a damn. Mostly they hole up together in private little members-only clubs, where they can all address each other by their proper titles and spend most of their time angling for invitations to the Griffins’ latest ball or soiree. Because acceptance by the Griffins validates their special nature in the eyes of all. Unfortunately, there are so many aristos running around that the Griffins can pick and choose. And they do. You get one chance to prove yourself interesting or amusing, and then you’re Out. Zog, King of the Pixies, was notorious for continually trying to crash the Griffins’ parties, even after it was made clear to him that he was not welcome, and never would be, no matter with whom he arrived.