The Third Person

Well, this was nice: the study, undeniably, was an elegant room, furnished entirely in browns, dark purples and greens, and was edged by several towering bookcases, which, with the shelves crammed from one side to the other, gave the room an impression of pleasing closeness. Of course, in this day and age, there was no guarantee that Hughes had collected the titles himself, but I was actually willing to bet that he had. The only other items in the room were two massive, swollen-hard leather couches, and a flat wooden table, which had a delicate-looking antiquated map pressed like a butterfly beneath the glass surface. On top of this there was a silver platter, with tumblers huddling around a crystal decanter full of what appeared to be whisky or brandy. Beyond, a dozen small windows looked out over a side lawn, and in what little wall space remained there were more of the odd pictures from the hallway. Except these ones were larger – the smallest was a5 – and they seemed to contain a lot more than just one sentence.

‘Mr Hughes will be with you in a moment.’

The bodyguard left.

While I was waiting for Mr Hughes to arrive, I wandered over to have a closer look at one of the pictures.

I was standing outside the Colosseum in Rome, and it had taken me a while to find. It’s not a small thing, of course, and there were occasional streetmaps posted on signs that made it seem easy: a snail shell of rock, curled under the heart of the city like trapped wind. How could you miss it? But I’d wandered the tall streets for what felt like hours without success, and then finally succumbed to the heat, unfolding a curl of Euros to buy a ham cheese panini and a can of Coke. The can had looked out of place: as red as sunburn against the drained, dirty tones of the buildings. Those two things together cost the equivalent of eight pounds. I mean, fuck this city.

Dull traffic lights blinked yes and no as I walked, attempting to regulate the cars and mopeds whooshing past. My rucksack was stuck to my back with sweat, and I ate and drank as I wandered, my head held down over the backpacker’s shuffle. Finally, after an age of walking, the city had unfolded itself like a flower and I’d seen it.

It wasn’t as big as I’d expected. It seemed tall and wide – as though it was something tired that had lain down there rather than been built – but still: not as big as you’d think. For one thing, only half of it was actually complete, with white plaster patches giving only a general illusion of the original form. At the base, shops had been structured into its circumference. There was a McDonald’s, a Disney and a few others I didn’t recognise. They seemed to detract from the size and scale of it. Just another shopping centre. A man in a yellow boiler suit was trawling the sunny square in front of it, picking up litter with electronic clippers.

I watched from above, where the Colosseum seemed very still, like a painting, or maybe a mountain in the distance. There were small people moving around it: tubby tourists in garish outfits, wearing cameras like bulky black medallions; stick-thin, burnt-brown locals swinging around on high-stepping pedal-bikes; couples, merging at the arm; old men, their walnut-textured skin cooking slowly in the sun. The sounds all reached me late, and seemed to come from nowhere: noises abstracted from their source. Behind me, the nasal buzz of a scooter was more located and real.

I tapped my way down the steps and crossed the square.

Closer to, the Colosseum became physically more impressive, but also seemed more brow-beaten and weathered. The shops looked even more out of place, like stalls set up around a beached, dying whale, but they had become integral to its structure. Red and purple graffiti tags looped across the remaining stone of the surface. In fact, almost every spare inch, to a height of around seven feet, was filled with names and pictures. Above the graffiti, the Colosseum began properly: brown and crumbly as tilled soil. It looked like a breeze would damage it; as though a heavy wind might redistribute two thousand years of history as dust across the old city around it.