The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [43]
Phoebe’s exhaustion made things blur and run. She liked it. There was a clovery scent to the air, an intoxicating smell of flowering trees. It made her feel drunk.
The streets of Kensington curved; she had to keep checking her map. Phoebe did this furtively, not wanting to look like a tourist. In her dark sunglasses she felt incognito. She carried Faith’s postcards in her purse, along with her sister’s photograph, a small notebook in which to document her progress, her passport, more than twenty English pounds, a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks and the hit of LSD in its small white envelope. Tired though Phoebe was, a manic energy coursed through her as she walked. The taxicabs looked like limousines. Tiny oval-shaped parks were tucked in the middle of city blocks, encircled by locked gates. Peering through the brambles, she caught the glint of wet grass and long crimson branches. Once she heard the gentle thock of tennis balls and glimpsed someone’s white leg.
In Knightsbridge Phoebe stared through sparkling window-panes at silk handkerchiefs arranged into fans, neckties and smoked fish, old ladies still in their overcoats drinking tea, their hair faintly blue, like skim milk. It was all England. Everywhere she looked—England. Tabloid salesmen bellowed headlines around wet stubs of cigars, red double-decker buses sailed past. You could get on a plane and get off in England. It was miraculous.
What amazed Phoebe most, though, was the light. It seemed to pour from all directions at once, forming gleaming points on every window and leaf, heightening colors to surreal intensity. She felt she could see for the first time in months, as if the fog that engulfed San Francisco each night had enshrouded her mind, too, obscuring her thoughts, and now had burned off. What remained was this light, a mesmerizing clarity that made Phoebe feel she had arrived in a different land. It was just as she’d hoped.
Dear Mom, Phoebe and Barry, The first thing we did was we went to Harrod’s like you said Mom what a trippy place!! You re right those Food Halls are so intense. I bet they haven’t changed from the 50’s when you and Dad came. Wolf and I got some funny looks I can tell you that. People in London are pretty uptight they dont like jeans with patches but when I took off my poka dot jacket they were nicer. We ordered you a cake maybe you already got it. I hope it’s not stale they promised it would stay fresh. It has raisins. Love, Faith
Inside Harrods Phoebe found herself searching the crowds for a familiar face. She felt welcomed, expected, if not by a person, then by the city itself. Her own presence so rarely seemed momentous to Phoebe that the sensation electrified her. She felt almost high entering the Food Halls, lush columned rooms that gave the impression of being glass-rooved and flooded with sunlight. The walls were of glazed tile, orange, green, turquoise. Meats were displayed on marble slabs, stuffed with herbs, tied in string like precious bundles, huge gleaming livers and pale veals, lamb shanks, lamb legs, venison, crimson steaks, guinea fowl with loose velvety skins folded sumptuously around each breast and wing. The very food seemed to give off light. Men in straw hats stood behind each counter, holding long knives.
Phoebe wended her way to the bakery. Cakes big as hats, glazed, draped in shredded coconut or curls of chocolate, studded with fat raisins, cakes whose frostings gleamed like the shining white houses in Kensington. We ordered you a cake maybe you already got it. I hope it’s not stale they promised it would stay fresh … Here it was. Faith and Wolf had been in this very store eight years before, this very room, their sandaled feet had walked upon