Lord Rokeby’s Repast – 02

Sitting behind his desk the Editor stared out into space, palms flat against the blotter. He still looks stern, thought Ophelia, but at least he isn’t shouting. He had what looked remarkably like an Indian caste mark in the middle of his forehead, if one allowed for the fact that Indian caste marks in general didn’t tend to dribble.

She hadn’t previously been aware of the editor possessing a gun collection but this now appeared to be the case. Propped against the desk were several large and ugly rifly machine gun things and several bullet belts, the kind worn by action heroes and American governers.

Ophelia tried to picture the overweight and slightly balding editor running around wearing a bandanna and twin bullet belts but this image proved a little too incongruous to hold for very long.

The lunatic synthetic noise collage continued. An active participant in the console fitness wars he most definitely wasn’t, so Ophelia inched the door a gentle smidgen further.

Two men dressed in combat gear – well, not exactly two, to be precise, more like one and a half – stood with their backs to her, gyrating their hips in time to the pulsating (and frankly irritating, being the type that sticks in your head for weeks) theme tune, in sync with the pneumatic animatics gyrating on the screen in front of them. The big one, she noticed with a certain shimmering undercurrent of excitement, was tall and rather muscular, and were those scars running down his exposed and neatly tanned arms? It didn’t look like a bottle tan to her, at least until the arms disappeared into the sleeves of that tightly fitting camo t-shirt of his. Perhaps he was a Mercenary, she thought with a little thrill, or Private Soldier as she had heard they preferred to be called. You can be my Private Soldier any day of the week. Squad dismissed. (Oh okay, you lot can stick around too.)

The other one was considerably shorter and far less interesting, especially seeing how he appeared to be around ten or eleven years old. He was dressed in the same olive drab t-shirt and camouflage trousers as the larger chap, only several sizes smaller. Ophelia found herself wondering idly what kind of boutique military outfitters might be likely to provide matching adult and child ranges, but then remembered a long and very boring lecture she had once found herself on the receiving end of from one of the globetrotting investigative hacks (after a glib and lightly-meant comment she had made about the wisdom of airlifting Mothercare catalogues to Sierra Leone) and thought better of it.

Like a butterfly alighting on a dew-drenched leaf in some remote tropical rainforest, Ophelia’s thoughts now turned to the question of whether or not she should introduce herself to this pair. They seemed to be quite absorbed in their virtual aerobics session though, and it didn’t take her long to decide to leave them to it.

She let the door close gently, then turned and headed towards the entrance. She felt like having a drink and now seemed as good a time as any to call it a day and leave the office. Ophelia had long since learned that it was pointless to ignore ones urges, and the call to the bar is one of the strongest urges there is.

All thoughts of the office vanished as she crossed the foyer, let the heavy doors swing open and shut behind her, and slipped over the road for a drink.

TO BE CONTINUED…