ON THE STREET OUTSIDE

I woke early and rolled over to wrap my arms around Nico. He responded by nuzzling up to me but his slow, rhythmic breathing indicated that he was still fast asleep.

We had left my apartment in the early hours and checked into the chic Soho House Hotel. The thought of all those bizarre, silent creatures appearing from nowhere was too much for me to stomach, I just had to get out.

Dressed only in a couple of silk robes, Nico and I must have appeared a little unusual as we hailed down our taxi.

Thank God for Soho, I knew no one would bat an eye there, no matter what we were wearing. We would fit right in with the butch leather queens, the transsexual prostitutes, the high-heeled divas and the tourists. A colourful, vibrant village within the centre of a huge cosmopolitan city, it welcomed all who flocked into it with open arms and a smile on its face….. I love it.

I lay there wide awake before untangling myself from Nico and wandering over to the window.

A bright Spring morning was already up and about outside and I smiled down at the street below. The last few party revellers were making their way home, still giddy from alcohol… or whatever their drug of choice was. Women with men, men with men….women with women.

As they exited stage right the players of the next scene arrived on stage. Young barristers, head to toe in black, drawing on European cigarettes and chatting away on cellphones.

Long haired and uniformed street cleaners ambling along, working at their own pace. Skinny young businesswomen striding along in their trainers, their Jimmy Choos carefully packed away in their shoulder bags.

As I had seen so many times before, life goes on, no matter how weird my own had become. When Emmanuel died and I was hounded by the Press, when my stepson-in-law tried to have me committed and of course now…..the world kept turning and the “poor players just keep on strutting and fretting” centre stage.

I was just about to turn away and curl up next to Nico when I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked down and my eye caught the gaze of a woman standing there. Small, elderly and Chinese, I didn’t recall where she had come from, yet I had just been looking at that self same spot.

She looked up at me and smiled before crossing the road and making her way into the hotel.