Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [61]
—Top of the morning, she said.
He gave her a kiss.
—Did you sleep well?
—Like lead.
There was no tray on the bed or on the coffee table.
—Have you had breakfast? he asked.
She held up her cigarette.
—You must be starving!
He picked up the phone.
—I know how to call room service, sweetie.
He put the phone back in its cradle.
—Already out and about? she asked.
—I didn’t want to disturb you. I had breakfast downstairs and then went for a walk.
—What’d you buy?
He didn’t know what she was referring to.
She pointed.
He’d forgotten that he still had the bookseller’s bag in his hand.
—A Baedeker’s, he said. I thought we might see some of the sights later.
—I’m afraid the sights are going to have to get in line. I’m having my hair done at eleven. Nails at noon. And at four the hotel is sending up tea with an expert in royal etiquette!
Eve raised her eyebrows and gave a smile. A lesson in royal etiquette was just the sort of thing that appealed to her sense of humor. He must have looked like he was going to spoil the fun.
—You don’t have to stick around, she said. Why don’t you get a head start on the museums? Or better yet, why don’t you go get yourself those shoes that Bucky was talking about? Didn’t you say that if the meetings went well, you’d treat yourself to a pair?
It was true. He had said that to Bucky; and the meetings had gone well. After all, he had the whole concession and the world had no choice but to beat a path to his door.
As he rode the lift downstairs, he told himself that if the doorman didn’t know the address of the shop, he wouldn’t go. But, of course, the doorman knew exactly where the shop was; and in his tone he made it clear that for a Claridge’s guest there was really no other shoemaker’s address worth knowing.
The first time down St. James’s, he walked right past the shop. He still wasn’t accustomed to the British style of purveying. In New York, the Shoemaker to the King would have taken up a city block. It would have had a neon sign that blinked in three colors. Here, the shop was the width of a newspaper stand and cluttered. That was a mark in its favor.
But however humble the appearance, according to Bucky there was nothing more extravagant than a John Lobb shoe. The duke of Windsor got his shoes there. Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin got their shoes there. It was the very pinnacle of cobbling. The final say in the great winnowing of commerce. At John Lobb, they didn’t just make shoes. They actually stuck your foot in plaster and kept the cast in storage so that whenever you wanted, they could make you another perfect pair.
A plaster cast, he thought to himself as he stared through the window—just like they made of a dead poet’s face or of a dinosaur’s bones.
A tall Brit in a white suit came out of the shop and lit a cigarette. Well bred, well educated, well dressed, he too seemed the product of a great winnowing.
In an instant, the Brit had gone through a similar calculus and nodded to him as an equal.
—Lovely day, the Brit said.
—Yes, he agreed and lingered for a moment, knowing instinctively that if he did, the Brit was bound to offer him a cigarette.
In St. James’s Park, he sat on an old painted bench and savored the smoke. The tobacco was noticeably different from an American blend, a fact which was at once a disappointment and a pleasure.
While the park was sunlit and lovely, it was surprisingly empty. It must have been an in-between hour—in between the march to work and the break for lunch. He felt lucky to have happened there.
Across the lawn, a young mother chased her six-year-old out of a tulip row. Dozing on a neighboring bench, an old man was about to spill a bag of nuts on the ground as a council of squirrels gathered wisely at his feet. Over a cherry tree shedding the last of its blossoms