Morningstar Manor

Darkness.

It was Vision's favorite flavor.

He slid his tongue across his teeth, already tasting what was to come. And what was that? A knock on his door? A discreet murmur from Mary, that lovely spirit who served him so well?

"Send them in," Vision said, and waited.

The appointment had been easier to get than Fin had anticipated - perhaps telling Temminck's secretary part of the truth had been a good idea.

Said secretary, a real thoroughbred, uncrossed her legs in a slither of silk, answered her phone and smiled at him. "Mr Temminck apologises for keeping you waiting," she said, "and he can see you now."

"Thanks," Fin said and ambled across to the office door, which the lovely young thing had just opened for him.

Ted had come home for a few days - dental appointment, parties with friends, the obligatory dinner at home and debriefing at the office.

Dad was disgustingly fit and his mental acuity didn't seem to have dulled in the slightest, which was infuriating on one level but comforting on another. No worries about Alzheimers or senile decay for loyal servants of Ouroubos.

Mum tried to be reasonable, in fact couldn't have been sweeter or more attentive. But he kept overhearing her on the phone to friends gushing over her grand-daughter and his perverted brother and his - Christ on a bike - husband and that made Ted gag.

After three days of seeing her flush as she noticed him and end the call and turn a sweet but low wattage smile in his direction he had had enough and decided to call someone he rather admired for having freed himself of both father and competing sibling.

"Mr Temminck please. Oh - Ted Fanshawe," he said and snarled as he was put on hold.

The room was full of women, and Manny sat in a corner and wondered at how his life had exploded and come down in another pattern, in the last two to three years.

His mother was going over some lists on the phone while Corazon was sitting at the kitchen table, lovingly polishing the silver for Thursday. Morgan was putting potatoes from one basket into another and back again, and Sasha ---

Where was Sasha?

They had been to some function, quite formal, with speeches and some flawlessly boring meal; but now, Manny and Sasha merely wanted their kid and their own couch and a little bit of family time before it was bed-time, and the new week started again.

They were very elegant as they came down the steps to the crèche, where despite the day and the time, several children were playing in perfect harmony, pushing little wooden cars on little wooden slats representing streets and making brrwm-brrwm noises with it. Morgan's car was red.

The operator had connected him quite quickly this time and Ted leaned back in his seat on the balcony of the hotel, looked out over the arid countryside and smiled as he heard the voice on the other end.

"Manny," he said. "have I got news for you?"

A whole year! Sasha couldn't quite believe that it had been so long since Morgan had been born. The time had flown past. She was a married woman with an adorable child - it almost didn't seem real.

Luckikly, there were the Temmincks, who were much more practical at times. Maude had prepared an enormous birthday breakfast -- why wait until teatime? -- and Manny had splurged on a few colourfully wrapped boxes for mother and daughter, so when they woke up and came from their rooms, they'd get horribly spoiled.

( Birthday breakfast with happy Temmincks )

Saturday at 11 am, and the Mocha was really busy. Among them were:

• Andras, who had visitors. One of them was his brother Lajos, in the City again for lawyerly business, even though he no longer kept a flat here; the other was a bloke he brought along to sleep on the sofa, some researcher from Cambridge whose cousin apparently was Ilona's best and most high-strung graphics designer, here to briefly consult something arcane that was kept at Rutherford. Andras had no hope of even understanding what it was, except that it was Historical; so the bloke was most likely a historian, right? Funnily, though, he was from the same area of Old Blighty originally where Charlie had that farm Andras visited once; so there was something to talk about, at least.
• Charlotte James, who had just been to an early morning visit to the new spa, and was discussing the relative merits of that versus the Michael's Brothers spa with Maude Temminck (whose character had much improved, Charlotte thought, since she was widowed, dried out, and had a grandkid) while her son Manny was sitting peacefully by, as if the chatter of women was no more meaningful than the waves of the ocean, and just as calming. On his lap, little Morgan Temminck was fast asleep. Theoretically, he was waiting for his wife, but Charlotte got the impression that he was content to just sit there.
• Cindy was sitting a few tables on (having said hello to Charlotte and her lot, but still uneasy about the Temmincks, so she hadn't joined them), talking to the Indian woman, Chandika, and her adorable kid whose dog Hanu was most likely the illegitimate son of Axminster, but nobody minded any more, not even the owner of the mother, because Hanu was such a great dog, and while not pedigree, still an indubitable lurcher. They were talking about spas as well -- in particular, the one where Chandika worked. Cindy was very cautiously trying to work out whether it would be all right for her to go there, and Chandika was doing her best to gently reassure her that of course it was. The dogs were both under the table in classic Axminster pose, fast asleep.
  
• Ricky had his earbuds in, surfing MySpace on his netbook; he was sharing his table with some tall stranger with lanky hair and a large nose who was also working away at his notebook -- a rather larger and posher one. They were both drinking chai latte, and any attentive observer might have realised that they were each drinking distractedly from both cups and totally not noticing. Unless one of them had the swine flu, it probably didn't matter.
• By the door to the conservatory, two ghosts were lurking, mostly unseen by the rest of the Mocha. "Just listen to them!" Marek was saying. "They're totally superficial! All they ever talk about are spas." Manny shrugged. "I've spent my life talking about business; spas are a nice break. And I don't like women for their conversation, you know. More for their curves." Marek laughed.

[[OOC: Brief visit of Lajos Toth and Edgar Cobham to justify the icon and make sure that all twelve are really there!]]

Ted was waiting in the lobby for his guest, feeling a little less frazzled than he had when he had arrived, but still somewhat red around the eyes.

He leafed through one of the local papers but half his attention was on the entrance and when he saw Manny Temminck he got up and went to meet him.

"Manny," he greeted. "Looking prosperous!"

There was a lot of noise on the line, some of which might or might not be wire taps. Ted didn't know and wasn't prepared to take chances.

As soon as it was answered he said, "Hello, I'm ringing long distance from Angola. Would be most grateful for a quick word with Mr Temminck."

It was Saturday morning, and around the ground floor and basement, people were busy:

• Chandika was looking around the place that was going to be the creche, admiring the colours and furniture, trailing the smell of coffee, from the cappuccino in her hand;
• Ricky was in the conservatory, drinking tea, but still smelling slightly of last night's hemp smoke;
• Manny was in the lobby, home from his morning run with a bright, sportsy push-pram, still hopping as he waited by the elevators, a faint smell of used diapers coming from the pram if you bent over little Morgan, who was fast asleep in there;
• Charlotte was just entering by the grand doors, having been shopping already, the scent of mixed perfume testers coming from the small but exquisite Michaels Brothers bag dangling from her hand;
• Cindy was in the first elevator that stopped and opened, with her dog and in a marathon-class racing wheelchair, leaving a scent of citrus shampoo as she cheerfully left for her morning run;
• Marek was in the ballroom, going through classical exercises at furious speed, smelling of nothing but the dust motes moving through him, undisturbed;
• and Ashley was in the library, looking at art books and loving the scent of old books in the morning.

The Temmincks had a laundry service, but Sasha still couldn't quite get her head around sending out things like socks and boxers and scuzzy t-shirts - that sort of thing, she did herself. It was usually quiet (well, as quiet as it could be, with the machines running) down in the laundry room, and warm and cosy. Which was nicer in the winter, admittedly, than in the middle of summer, but it was still a good place to relax.

Today though, Manny was with her - he was off on a business trip later that afternoon, and was being very sweet and attentive in the meantime. Se was crouching in front of the dryer, pulling things out and handing them to him to fold. She still had to stifle an urge to giggle at the important business man taking such care in pairing socks.

There was a muffled noise of confusion from with in the drum of the dryer, and she pulled out holding something.

"What on earth...?" She asked, holding up a ragged, age-worn garment that had once been a corset of some kind, but now was little more than a collection of whale-bone strips, held together with frayed fabric.

Nick strolled along the path, litter pickers in hand, whistling quietly to himself. Working Saturdays wasn't too bad when one had a job like this to do and the weather was reasonable.

He stooped to pick a discarded candy bar wrapper and put it in his garbage sack then walked on.

[ooc: we numbered our pups and choose them using this handy little item. Other than that the rules are fairly elastic]

Coat collar turned up, Ted arrived at the coffee bar at the appointed time and looked around for his partner in - not crime exactly - more seeing an opportunity and not letting tiny inconsequential legal quibbles stand in their way.

He spotted him and waved.

Hi, Thomas, bloody airline fucked up my booking. I've just landed. Will meet you for lunch at - oh God - wherever. Um - there's this French place - Cloche D'Or - of Clef D'Or. I'll see if I can get a booking. If I can't there's always Subway I suppose.

See you about one thirty.

---

Manny, Ted here. Bloody fucking airline got me in around four ay em. Long stop over at Heathrow and I haven't got half my luggage dammit. Ae you free this evening? I've got a lunch date but can meet you any time from - oh - three onwards? Lemme know huh? Leave a voicemail. I'm going to try and get a couple of hours sleep.

Subject Line: Investments

Hi,

There has been a development in the matter we discussed and I would like to have a meeting with you. I will be in the City by Monday afternoon and will call you then to establish mutually convenient times to meet.

Reply ONLY to this email address if you wish to do so. In any case I will call you when I reach the City.

Regards

Ted Fanshawe,
Overseas Investment Manager
Fanshawe, Barstow and Peirson.

The next afternoon, Sasha and Manny anxiously awaited the results of the tests. Manny, of course, was convinced that nothing was wrong. Sasha was not so sure - she wanted their baby to be perfectly fine - but something (she knew all too well what) told her that was not to be.

Manny was chatting, talking about people, and how happy his mother was, utterly denying the possibility that anything could be wrong, when the door opened, and a nurse pushed in the baby. Dr. Sandberg followed, with a clipboard, and the nurse left.

"Good afternoon," the doctor said, apprehension in her voice.

( and so it begins. . . )

It was a little daughter, and it was all over finally, and life was promising to be perfect. Maude had been and gone, and smiled when they told her the little one would be Nastasia -- no more M. Temminck!

( Read more... )

Coming to the City for a Sunday morning meeting was no real problem because Ted had been in Chicago anyway. Of course it had meant flying over night to be there at the set time of eight am, and there fore no sleep, but Ted could catch up again on the long haul flight home.

The meeting had been most satisfactory. Lunch had been adequate. But the bar here had forty year old malt from a distillery in the Islands that had long ago bee subsumed by their parent company and Ted saw no reason why he shouldn't make a dent in it.

"Another for you Manny?" he asked, the bottle poised over his glass.

Sasha and her bump were draped across the sofa in the Temminck living room, grumpily reading a magazine. The large mirror above the fireplace was draped - tastefully, it almost looked like a statement of some kind, but draped nonetheless - in dark gold velvet. Every now and then, she'd look up at the mirror and frown. For all her talents, she'd been unable to figure anything out about what was up with the mirrors, and it bothered her.