Carrion: A Story of Passion by Eden Night Read Free Book Online Page B

shop and I stop, pulling Alexander over to the window. The blue shop front is painted with the signs of the Zodiac in yellow. It's hardly inconspicuous, but strangely I've never noticed it before, despite having walked this way many times. There's a chalkboard outside with a tarot illustration and notice of a fifteen-pound special deal. I glance down at my watch and see that I really don't have time to act on the whim. The shop doorbell tinkles and a woman comes out in a waft of incense and mystical music. Alexander is already walking away, my arm stretched out behind him.
    “Come on, we’re cutting it late if we want to eat.”
    I skip after him. I'm only looking for someone to say that Alexander and I are meant to be. If she’d turned around and said the opposite, I would have felt sore about losing fifteen quid. ‘It’s only a five minute walk from the office anyway,’ I reason. ‘I could come one lunchtime. ’
    We are the first people in the Italian and the host is overly keen to make us welcome. He ushers us to one of the red and white checked tables, pulling out a seat for me. Alexander waves away the leatherette menu book and orders us two bowls of Whore’s Pasta and a bottle of Chianti, which comes quaintly wrapped in rattan. The pasta is on our table in less than ten minutes.
    "Is there any chance that you can book this Friday and Monday off?" he asks.
    I look up at him and grin. "Why?"
    "Answer my question first!" He's smiling in a way that tells me he is concocting wicked plans.
    "It's a bit late notice, but I don’t think it will be a problem. My targets are already met and Lucy is heading off to the States tomorrow, so the office is going to be on play mode."
    "Great."
    "Why?" I ask again.
    "Surprises."
    "I hate surprises!" I say.
    "No you don't."
    He's right, I don't hate surprises.
    We eat the rest of our dinner mostly in efficient silence. The wine is rough and Alexander grimaces his way through the first glass. By the second glass, the wine tastes considerably better. He doesn’t bother to ask for a bill, he drops fifty pound in notes onto the table and starts to put on his coat. The host hurries after us but we are already gone.
    We turn down a left alley and then down a right. There are a collection of small independent coffee shops, a few books shops and a gallery selling ethnic art and then, there at the end of the row, is 'The Olde Curiosity Shoppe’ , a perfect simulacrum of Dickens' imagination. It is painted black and overlaid with hand-painted signs and symbols, tendrils of flowers and skulls. The window is decorated with flowing script, denoting the types of wares; Juvenalia, Erotica, Naturalia, Fossils & Minerals, Taxidermy, Entomology, Skeletons.
    A bell tinkles above the door. The room is womb-red and lined with dark wooden and glass shop counters and display units. Everywhere you look, there is something to test the mind. The walls are covered in masks and framed butterfly specimens, along with a hundred other things. A flying sheepdog with leather waxed wings twirls on the warm eddies of the heating. In the cabinets are miniature dolls, and carved dildos, fossils and preserved animal specimens. There is a whole shelf of human skulls and jars and jars of pickled 'things'. A stuffed Leopard sits on guard by the counter. Someone has jauntily placed a Fez on its head.
    "Mr Hughes!" The man behind the counter steps out and takes Alexander by the hand, pumping a hard greeting whilst patting his shoulder with the other. Obviously Alexander is a well-known acquaintance.
    "This is Quentin," Alexander introduces.
    Quentin is probably in his mid twenties, not much older than us, but he looks like a gentleman of fifty with his full ginger beard, and tweed waistcoat, from which a pipe pokes out from the pocket. He is wearing britches and riding boots. Despite all the freakish curiosities surrounding us, it is me that feels wildly out of place in my black work suit. Quentin doesn't seem to notice