THE DEAL: Novel (3 page)

Before bedtime she had a shower, and even after the long shower she continued to smell him in her body and it was so good, falling asleep while she could still smell him around her and she dreamed of him.

Like any other day

Today it had started like any other day.

Carolina lives in England which is famous for being always cloudy and cold, but today was a day of spring and the sun dawned joy and warmed the soul of those who lived and visited London. Decided to take a walk in the centre of London on her day off she just loved long walks along the river.

She moved from Estoril, a small town southwest Lisbon in Portugal to London three years ago with their two sons, considering herself a lucky woman to have managed to find in a busy city like London a job she loved. The company she worked in Portugal had closed because of the economic crises in Europe, but they had important partners in London who had an eye for long time in Carolina’s work and when the company in Portugal closed they invited Carolina immediately to work with them in London.

After the first year of work, she was recognized and therefore the Marketing Director chair was available for her. Now she was running successfully her own department developing marketing strategies for the company's new projects. This work was all that Carolina had aspired to achieve for herself, and got it with her own hard work.

Professionally she was an accomplished woman. Carolina’s sons were 18 and 20 years old. The youngest was Leo and he was shyer than his brother, proving to be more intellectual and introverted. While Alex was more social, he had always a very distinctive perspective on subjects who interested him and was very wise when it came to decisions, he always had a nice comment to do to any person with whom he spoke. Carolina knows he would make a good leader one day. Supporting her in all decisions she made in life, her sons are her best friends and she is very proud of them.  When Carolina decided to live in London, they never objected and adapt immediately to the London environment, although sometimes complaining that they missed the sun and the beach, but mostly about friends they had left behind, even speaking with them religiously every day via skype, whatsapp or on facebook sometimes was not enough, they needed to spend time together, and that’s what they did at any chance they had.

Carolina was 43 years old, she likes to exercising regularly to keep fit was a daily goal for her, to feel good with herself. She was medium height, fair complexion and her face already noticed some aging marks but nothing very clear, light brown almond eyes with a long eyelashes, and brown straight hair falling on her back. The outlined body still looked young, propositional breasts to her body stand out, small waist, elegant legs, and small hands with slender fingers. She looked better than many 20 years old girls.

She loved having always her nails in red colour, that’s why she had regularly manicure it with red gel lack, she loved the final effect of doing them professionally, lasting longer and brighter than normal. She was divorced for eight years and after the divorce her priority was always her kids. She had some relationships in the past, but nothing that made her think to marry again with another man. Since she had arrived in London she had only one boyfriend, he was Norwegian, seven years older, he worked in the fashion area and he owned clothing chain stores around UK. As a traditional Norwegian, he was tall, blonde, light blue eyes, with a beautiful smile and he was always very relaxed in his life, very polite to her and those around him.

Although Nils was already 50 years old, he had the aspect of a mature, elegant and stylish model just jumped out of a magazine. They had an excellent relationship while it last and they understood each other very well in all aspects, but there was no passion from Carolina’s side.

Almost a year later, Carolina still didn’t feel passionate about Nils, but he had fallen in love for her. He decided it was time to give one step forward, inviting Carolina to live with him. Carolina breaks up because she was not in love and she couldn’t live with a man without being in love. Two years passed by and she was still alone since then, although she tried to go out and have fun with friends whenever she was invited, but there was never more than a dinner, a drink in a bar or going to the cinema with some friends. There was never a special friend because she just didn’t give anyone the chance to move further.

As ridiculous as it could be in a city like London, there was no man who had stand out in Carolina’s eyes, to make her shake of desire for him to move to a relationship or have simple a short adventure. She was just looking for butterflies in her stomach, for uncontrolled desire and losing herself in him. Sometimes she finds herself thinking that she will never fall in love again making her feel empty of feelings, she thought that it was better starting focusing living just for their children and future grandchildren, seeing mentally her dedication helping raising one day her grandchildren.

The idea was not bad at all, but she wanted more, she wanted someone by her side. She misses closing her eyes being he the last person she sees in the evening and the next day he being the first person she will sees when she opens her eyes again. She still feels young and full of energy in her life, but time is fast and unforgiving, she feels that the time she is alone she is wasting years of life, she doesn’t enjoy life to the fullest alone. Other thoughts come through her mind, which she would end up more likely living alone with a cat instead of having someone by her side that could discover the world with her travelling, sharing activities they liked to do together or simply enjoy each other's staying at home.

What troubled Carolina was the idea of being alone, falling asleep and waking up alone.

Today is another day like any other day
- she thought stepping into her favourite snickers, the ones for long walks, she made a ponytail to prevent the hair fall over her face while she walks. She went down in the elevator from the tenth and last floor and out was she of the building. She couldn’t avoid stopping for a few seconds and contemplate the view that she has from the building entrance, she saw always the same MI6 building opposite the road.

There it was the majestic and solid building that for many people only thought existed in the James Bond movies, but the building is real. MI6 is known to have agents outside the country, Carolina was used to see the building on a daily basis and felt a shiver at the thought that most likely would have already crossed more than once with a secret agent, as secret and adventurous as James Bond in his movies.

The building was also known as "Lego Land" because of its unique appearance in a combination of reinforced concrete blocks and green tinted windows, looking blocks on top of each other due to their imposing appearance it didn’t passed unnoticed to anyone. Ironically a building of secret agents that should be discreet and secret, was the worst kept secret of England and the whole world knew where it was, including their enemies.

Tourists were no exception, they knew the building and they wanted to see the building with their own eyes while their stay in London, and a tour around the building to take pictures was their amusement, without realizing that it is forbidden taking photos of the building and often when the police approach the tourists, they were required to delete the photos.

When Carolina told people where she lived and the building beside her, everyone thought she was well protected, but the reality was very different, the building was under attack with some frequency. However, only a few attacks were made public.

The last time the building would have been on alert and a possible attack was made public was when a helicopter had crashed in the residential tower, called
The Tower
. A tower that was being under construction next to Carolina’s building, remaining Carolina’s building in between
The Tower
and the
MI6
. Weeks after that incident, the Vauxhall Bridge access road leading to central London was partially shut off by the police to place huge cranes on the road and make it to the top with giant parabolic to the MI6 building, so they could increasing vigilance and prevent with more efficacy future attacks.

Carolina likes where she lives, her building unlike the majority of the buildings in London was recent with huge windows with green glass. It looks almost the continuation of the MI6 building, but with shops and restaurants on the ground floor and green spaces overlooking the river, it was a perfect area only 10 minutes away from central London. Her apartment was a penthouse on the top floor with 3 en-suites, with stunning views over the city of London. She was able to see Big Ben tower and the London Eye, but the view was even more admirable at night with all the city lights. Carolina went out of her building while putting the headphones in her ears to listen her favourite music previously selected in the application from her iphone, beginning her walk along the Thames River, going through the tunnel that leads to the rear of the MI6 building in direction Westminster.

As she walked along the river she remembers that she always saw the river with the same brownish colour, it was so different from the blue sea that she was used to see at Estoril, in Portugal.  Sometimes she missed the blue sea and its smell, especially the bright and sunny days where the sea had that special smell around but couldn’t confess to anyone, because she really liked living in London. The Thames River had calm waters but was always very busy with boats up and down the river. The most frequent boats were the ones with tourists and they are big with two floors. Downstairs the boat is protected from the cold and rain with glasses all around for tourists to appreciate the view even in less nicer days. The top floor was in outdoors and with sunny days everyone wants to go in the best place to enjoy the landscape of buildings that exist on both bank sides.

London is also famous for its magnificent bridges, and tourists enjoyed everything with great admiration as they passed by them.  The most bizarre boat that Carolina had ever seen navigate those waters, were hybrids, also carrying tourists and were known as "London Duck Tours" they are much smaller, painted in yellow and shaped like a duck. These boats came by Vauxhall Bridge from central London as a normal vehicle, and entered the river on the side of the MI6 building becoming a boat, heading the river passing through Westminster into London Bridge direction. The tugs were also part of the maritime traffic of the river and carried behind 2 or 4 containers each time with unknown destination. 

The police was a constant in the river waters, always around in a preventive mission.

But there is a boat that is always in the same place, while she is doing her walk as she passes along the boat every time, it’s a riverside bar and restaurant boat, it's big, old, in need of being restored or at least painted. When the water of the river is in low tide, it is clear to see the fragility of the wooden brackets that supports the boat along its banks. But who's up there drinking a beer looks unfazed as this, they are more interested in drinking alcohol than worry about that, they don’t even care if the boat starts browsing at any time aimlessly.

Another few minutes walking along the river, Carolina passed wooden benches with backrest and armrests in wrought iron, they are arranged along the embankment with a cement base with two steps for people to sit on it and enjoy the magnificent view. Following the long hike Carolina is opposite Big Ben’s tower, the most famous clock in the world with a bell weighing over 13 tons, it is installed in the northern part of the Palace of Westminster which is also known as the Houses of Parliament. Carolina likes to enjoy looking at it while she is passing by, it’s so majestic and imposing respect anyone who sees it. The clock must be photographed thousands of times daily by the amount of tourists who walked by daily.

Since Carolina arrived in London, she noticed that the Houses of Parliament were in constant restoration works in some part of that huge and magnificent building, it is no wonder that needs to be repaired constantly since it is dated from the sixteenth century, having since then the aspect that it has today.  It is known that prior to this date there was already construction in place of the Houses of Parliament that served the royalty house and was expanded gradually and in several phases, in which led to the palace we can see today. The Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament have currently 1000 rooms, 100 staircases and 5km corridors.

While Carolina’s continues, crossing another tunnel under the road just to avoiding the frenetic traffic on the top, continuing her walk, passing by the London Aquarium best known for "Sea Life London Aquarium". The aquarium was one of the first places she visited with her children when they settled in London getting completely amazed by the huge variety of fishes and the inside is just wonderful with its 2 million litres of water. One of the famous attractions are the 40 sharks that can be seen in the "shark walk", that is, you walk over a glass floor with the sharks swimming underneath, it is terrifying and yet magnificent at the same time.

A few meters ahead on the left side already in the River Thames, is the London Eye, the famous wheel is an attraction for those who want to have a panoramic view of London, and the wheel is about 135 meters high. Likewise as the aquarium entrance, here is no exception and there are on daily basis long queues to enter. During the weekends it’s even worse and tourists need to have a holy patience to spend hours in the queue to enter the amenities. Tourists were very patients and spent their time queuing up buying food in the smalls kiosks nearby while they wait.

Carolina passed by them ending up in the street where street artists perform there but they are not always the same. Today was Mr. Bean’s double ganger to turn up, he is a famous character in England but also worldwide, this street performer played Mr. Bean almost to perfection and tourists took pictures with him usually giving him money as a thank you. There is a reserved area for street artists to do their usual show, after Mr. Bean turns up the human statue, it was an old lady covered with gold ink and immediately after, there was an African group with a prolonged show of dance and contortion to attract more tourists. Carolina goes her way on the street, avoiding uncoordinated tourists who remember stopping along the way to admire the place where they were, seeing curiously the artists, the London Eye, the river and taking pictures.