Disclaimer

20. EARLY SUMMER 2013

It’s morning. I have been up all night. I don’t feel like breakfast. It is 10 A.M. according to my laptop and I am stiff from sitting in my chair so long. I need to move. I suppose I have become a little “stir crazy.” Too much time in front of a screen. Not something that usually afflicts someone of my age. Three paces to the window and I open the curtains. It is a stunning day. I had no idea. It leaves me blinking, as if I have run out in front of a car in the dead of night. It is the right kind of day to leave the house.

I have had duplicates made of the photographs, sending off the same negatives Nancy had sent off all those years ago. I half-expected a nasty note to come back from the lab, but it didn’t, just a fresh set of glossy prints. I slip on my lightweight summer jacket, then pop the envelope with the prints into the pocket. Yes, this is the right kind of day to leave the house.

Whenever I step into one of London’s more beautiful squares, I regret that I haven’t made an effort to do it more often. It is so invigorating. And Berkeley Square is a gem. There’s nothing hidden about it, it is well aware of its value and shows it off shamelessly. This is where to come if you are in the market for a Rolls-Royce. Which of course I am not and neither, by the look of them, are the fellows sharing the square with me this lunchtime. I close my eyes and raise my face to the sun and for the briefest of moments feel glad to be alive. I am still here, alive and ready to kick. But first I finish my sandwich, enjoying being part of this alfresco lunching club. I feel a comradely spirit between myself and the other diners, a few of us on benches, others lying on the grass or sitting on jackets. None of us knowing one another, but relaxed nevertheless in one another’s company, privileged to be sharing this luscious green space along with the ancient plane trees, the only living things older than I, in this London square. I scrunch up the paper from my sandwich and drop it into a bin, appreciating its presence, appreciating the security that it is still there and hasn’t been removed for fear of a bomb being left in it. This is a safe place. As I cross the square I take the envelope from my pocket, checking the address again: number 54 Berkeley Square.

The front of number 54 has been partially torn out and replaced with glass, oversize slabs of glass, as if the building’s mouth has been forced open and these glinting tombstones shoved in to prevent it from ever closing again. A building permanently trying not to gag. It’s a humiliating expression for this once noble facade. I walk through its gaping orifice and present myself to a young woman behind the reception desk and hand her the envelope with a smile.