The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens & Naomi Alderman

Author:Francis Stevens & Naomi Alderman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

By the evening of that day the four castaways of Time had acquired a better knowledge of the city, its odd customs and odder laws, than had been theirs during Cleverest’s morning call. The Loveliest had kept her word and more than kept it. She had called for them in her car, amiably accepted their rather lame excuses for Bertram’s presence, and insisted on an immediate shopping expedition to supply their more pressing needs in the way of clothing and toilette necessities.

On leaving the hotel she bestowed upon each of her proteges a plain green button. These, she explained, denoted that the wearer was of the immediate family of a Superlative. She had arranged with “Virty” to stretch a point for convenience sake, and so protect her wards pro tempore. Connections of Penn Servants, it seemed, wore similar buttons, but purple in color. No wearer of a button of either hue, she assured them, would ever be troubled by the police unless at the direct command of a Servant. This seemed a sweeping assertion, but they assumed that it did not cover such a person in the commission of actual crime. Later they were not so sure.

The most curious impression which Drayton received upon this brief expedition was that of the intense, commonplace familiarity of everything he saw, complicated by a secret undercurrent of differences too deep to be more than guessed at. The stores—most of them—were the same. The streets were the same. The people were—not quite the same. Not only did both men and women appear to have undergone positive physical deterioration, but the look in their eyes was different.

These nameless, yellow-tagged Numbers who thronged the streets had a hangdog, spiritless appearance, as if caring little what their labor or their goings to and fro might bring them.

Everywhere the most profound, even slavish, respect was accorded to the Loveliest and her party. Evidently she was well known throughout the city.

Before entering the stores, she took them to luncheon and played the part of munificent hostess so well that all of them, save perhaps, Mr. Bertram, were more than half ashamed of their secret alliance with her jilted betrothed, the Cleverest.

One thing she did later, however, which cleared Viola’s conscience. At one of the larger department stores, she insisted on purchasing for the girl a great supply of gingham aprons and plain, practical house dresses.

“You will need them, my dear,” she assured affectionately. “Now, don’t object! If you are to keep up your position as Superlatively Domestic you will require at least four dozen of each!”

Viola, more amused than annoyed, let the woman have her way. “Just picture me,” she murmured aside to Drayton. “Picture poor little me cleaning the whole inside of City Hall! Isn’t she the dear, though?”

Everything was to be charged, they discovered, to that benevolent institution “Penn Service.” Trenmore, who made it a practice to carry a considerable amount of money about him, wished to pay. The woman scoffed at the notion.

“You’ll soon get over the idea of paying for anything,” she declared.

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