bed, an old oak wardrobe in the French style, an armoire. A deliberate style of louche luxury.
Outside was noise, and traffic. Drunks singing in the pub on the corner spilled out onto the footpath in the warm night air, while trains thundered past at window height, the glass rattling, shaking, vibrating in spasms, the bridge looming from a corner of the quay.
Frank sank to his knees and groaned softly. I was taken by surprise. Heâd never done this before. He hitched my skirt up and I bent at the knees, he lifted his arms to push my top up over my breasts. A second train rumbled past the window, high up, on its track towards the bridge. I saw its red lights flicker through the slatted blinds, and I knew it was going to work, it was going to be one of the good nights in our life together; sublimely intimate, sublimely impersonal.
We arrived home at midnight, in a satiated trance. But it was a strategy, and a world, of diminishing returns, and each time the charge grew weaker. The second time, there were no rooms available at The Russell and I bit my lip in disappointment, like a child. Someone at work had suggested a small boutique hotel in Kings Cross. The room was large and painted in pale blue, pale apricot and a dull cream. There were blue floral curtains and a grey-white marble fireplace. Genteel.
I showered, a long, hot shower on the nape of my neck, which was aching from a day at my console writing a report. I forgot to put on the packaged shower cap in the basket on the bathroom ledge and soon my hair was wet. I wrapped the inevitable white hotel towel around me and climbed onto the bed, still in my tube of towel. Frank unwrapped me, turning me over on my stomach. I curled the white pillow up under my breasts. When we had subsided we began to talk again. He said how having time to talk like this was as big a luxury as our love-making. I was thinking how different it was from last time at The Russell â less urgent, less intense. There we had hardly spoken a word to one another all night. Here we were like old friends. Laid-back, conversational, affectionate. We dressed, and drove home.
The third time it was January, the height of the tourist season, and the only hotel we could get into at short notice was a new one behind the Rocks, in Ultimo, called The Lawson. It was a catalogue hotel designed for Malaysian and Hong Kong tourists. On the walls of our room were framed reproduction caricatures of the writer Henry Lawson. Here he was leaning on a walking cane and holding his pipe. Here was a black-and-white drawing of a drunken man splayed on the back of a frenzied galloping horse. Over the settee was a large print of the facsimile cover of On the Track with two bushmen humping their swags. Here they were, Kay and Frank, sitting up on the bed, fully clothed, except for their shoes, sipping bourbons and ice and discussing the absurd prints on the wall. It was cosy, it was anodyne, it was just like home. We decided it was only going to work at The Russell and if we couldnât get the room we wanted we wouldnât go at all.
The primate in his cage
On the morning of our conference at the zoo â this time, the real one â we all feel a bit skittish. Like kids on an outing. I have chartered a mini-bus to take us there and have my directions from the functions manager, Cecile. âYou canât miss the convention centre,â she said over the phone. âYou just follow the arrow marked Primates .â
The conference centre is, in fact, bang in the middle of the primates section and we are booked into the Flamingo Room, a huge hexagonal space with a vaulted ceiling like a church, and three whole walls of glass so that you can look out at the animals in their dense tropical garden, their rock pool and their high enclosure of wire netting. Among all this is a three-metre bamboo wall and a fretwork of ropes for the primates to swing from.
âWhat sort of primates have we got here?â
Outside was noise, and traffic. Drunks singing in the pub on the corner spilled out onto the footpath in the warm night air, while trains thundered past at window height, the glass rattling, shaking, vibrating in spasms, the bridge looming from a corner of the quay.
Frank sank to his knees and groaned softly. I was taken by surprise. Heâd never done this before. He hitched my skirt up and I bent at the knees, he lifted his arms to push my top up over my breasts. A second train rumbled past the window, high up, on its track towards the bridge. I saw its red lights flicker through the slatted blinds, and I knew it was going to work, it was going to be one of the good nights in our life together; sublimely intimate, sublimely impersonal.
We arrived home at midnight, in a satiated trance. But it was a strategy, and a world, of diminishing returns, and each time the charge grew weaker. The second time, there were no rooms available at The Russell and I bit my lip in disappointment, like a child. Someone at work had suggested a small boutique hotel in Kings Cross. The room was large and painted in pale blue, pale apricot and a dull cream. There were blue floral curtains and a grey-white marble fireplace. Genteel.
I showered, a long, hot shower on the nape of my neck, which was aching from a day at my console writing a report. I forgot to put on the packaged shower cap in the basket on the bathroom ledge and soon my hair was wet. I wrapped the inevitable white hotel towel around me and climbed onto the bed, still in my tube of towel. Frank unwrapped me, turning me over on my stomach. I curled the white pillow up under my breasts. When we had subsided we began to talk again. He said how having time to talk like this was as big a luxury as our love-making. I was thinking how different it was from last time at The Russell â less urgent, less intense. There we had hardly spoken a word to one another all night. Here we were like old friends. Laid-back, conversational, affectionate. We dressed, and drove home.
The third time it was January, the height of the tourist season, and the only hotel we could get into at short notice was a new one behind the Rocks, in Ultimo, called The Lawson. It was a catalogue hotel designed for Malaysian and Hong Kong tourists. On the walls of our room were framed reproduction caricatures of the writer Henry Lawson. Here he was leaning on a walking cane and holding his pipe. Here was a black-and-white drawing of a drunken man splayed on the back of a frenzied galloping horse. Over the settee was a large print of the facsimile cover of On the Track with two bushmen humping their swags. Here they were, Kay and Frank, sitting up on the bed, fully clothed, except for their shoes, sipping bourbons and ice and discussing the absurd prints on the wall. It was cosy, it was anodyne, it was just like home. We decided it was only going to work at The Russell and if we couldnât get the room we wanted we wouldnât go at all.
The primate in his cage
On the morning of our conference at the zoo â this time, the real one â we all feel a bit skittish. Like kids on an outing. I have chartered a mini-bus to take us there and have my directions from the functions manager, Cecile. âYou canât miss the convention centre,â she said over the phone. âYou just follow the arrow marked Primates .â
The conference centre is, in fact, bang in the middle of the primates section and we are booked into the Flamingo Room, a huge hexagonal space with a vaulted ceiling like a church, and three whole walls of glass so that you can look out at the animals in their dense tropical garden, their rock pool and their high enclosure of wire netting. Among all this is a three-metre bamboo wall and a fretwork of ropes for the primates to swing from.
âWhat sort of primates have we got here?â
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