Miriam had just been through two months under house arrest, preceded by three months in carefully cosseted isolation. Then she'd managed a fraught escape and then been imprisoned yet again, albeit for a matter of days. Walking the streets of New York again-even a strangely low-rise New York wrapped around the imperial palace and inner city of New London-felt like freedom. The sight of aircraft and streetcars and steam-powered automobiles and primitive flickering neon signs left her gaping at the sheer urban beauty of it all. As they moved closer to the center of the city the bustle of the crowds and the bright synthetic colors of the women's clothing caught her attention more than the gray-faced beggars in the suburbs.
Erasmus jerked slightly, then recovered. "Certainly. A copy of the
"Aye, sorr. An' here you is."
He passed her the rolled-up news sheet as they moved up the high street. "What bit you?" he asked quietly.
"I've been out of touch for a long time. I just need to-"
"You were out of touch? Did your family have you on a tight leash?"
She shuddered. "I had nothing to read but a grammar book for two months. And that wasn't the worst of it." Now that she had company to talk to she could feel a mass of words bubbling up, ideas seeking torrential release.
"You'll have to tell me about it later. I was told there was a public salon here-ah, that's it. Your hair, Miriam. You can see to it yourself?"
He'd stopped again, opposite a diamond-paned window. Through it she could just about make out the seats and basins of a hairdresser: some things seemed to evolve towards convergence, however distinct they'd been at the start. "I think I can just about manage that." She tried to smile, but the knot of tension had gotten a toehold back and wouldn't let go. "This will probably take a couple of hours. Then I need to buy clothes. Why don't you just tell me where the hotel is, and I'll meet you there at six o'clock? How does that sound?"
"That sounds fine." He nodded, then pulled out a pocket-book and scribbled an address in it. "Here. Take care."
She smiled at him, and he ducked his head briefly, then turned his back. Miriam took a deep breath. A bell rattled on a chain as she pushed the door open; at the desk behind the window, a young woman looked up in surprise from the hardcover she'd been reading. "Can I help you?"
"I hope so." Miriam forced a smile. "I need a new hairstyle, and I need it now."
Six hours later, footsore and exhausted from the constant bombardment of strangeness that the city kept hurling at her. Miriam clambered down from the back of a cab outside the Great Northern Hotel, clutching her parcels in both hands. The new shoes pinched at toe and heel, and she was sweating from the summer weather: but she was more presentable than she'd have been in the shabby out-fit they'd passed off on her at Hogarth Villas, and the footman leapt to open the doors for her. "Thank you!" She smiled tightly. "The front desk, I'm meeting my husband-" "This way, ma'am."
Miriam was halfway to the desk when a newspaper rattled behind her. She glanced round to see Burgeson unfolding himself from a heavily padded chair. "Miriam! My dear." He nodded. "Let me help you with those parcels." He deftly extricated her from the footman, guided her past the front desk towards an elevator, and relieved her of the most troublesome parcel. "I almost didn't recognize you," he said quietly. "You've done a good job."
"It feels really strange, being a blonde. People look at you differently. And it's so heavily lacquered it feels like my head's embedded in a wicker basket. It'll probably crack and fall off when I go to bed."
"Come on inside." He held the door for her, then dialed the sixth floor. As the door closed, he added: "That's a nice outfit. Almost too smart to be seen with the likes of me."
She pursed her lips. "Looking like a million dollars tends to get you treated better by the kind of people those million dollars hire." She'd ended up in something not unlike a department store, buying a conservatively cut black two-piece outfit. It was a lot less strange than some of the stuff she'd seen in the shops: New London's fashion, at least for those who still had money to spend, was more experimental than Boston's. The lift bell chimed. "Where are we staying?"
"This way." He led her along a corridor like any other hotel corridor back home (except for the flickering tungsten bulbs), then used an old-fashioned key to unlock a bedroom door.
