High-Rise Read Online Free PDF Page B

made no attempt to restrain their offspring, in effect urging them to make as much noise as possible. Within half an hour, fuelled by a constant flow of alcohol, the parents took over from their children. Charlotte laughed openly as soft drinks were poured on to the cars below, drenching the windscreens and roofs of the expensive limousines and sports saloons in the front ranks.
    These lively proceedings were watched by hundreds of residents who had come out on to their balconies. Playing up to their audience, the parents egged on their children. The party was soon out of control. Drunken children tottered about helplessly. High above them, on the 37th floor, a woman barrister began to shout angrily, outraged by the damage to her open-topped sports-car, whose black leather seats were covered with melting ice-cream.
    A pleasant carnival atmosphere reigned. At least it made a change, Laing felt, from the formal behaviour of the high-rise. Despite themselves, he and Charlotte joined in the laughter and applause as if they were spectators at an impromptu amateur circus.
    A remarkable number of parties were being held that evening. Usually, few parties took place other than at weekends, but on this Wednesday evening everyone was involved in one revel or another. Telephones rang continuously, and Charlotte and Laing were invited to no less than six separate parties.
    "I ought to get my hair done." Charlotte took his arm happily, almost embracing Laing. "What exactly are we celebrating?"
    The question surprised Laing. He held Charlotte's shoulder, as if protecting her. "God only knows-nothing to do with fun and games."
    One of the invitations had come from Richard Wilder. Instantly, both he and Charlotte declined.
    "Why did we refuse?" Charlotte asked, her hand still on the receiver. "He was expecting us to say no."
    "The Wilders live on the and floor," Laing explained. "Things are rather rowdy down there..."
    "Robert, that's a rationalization."
    Behind Charlotte, as she spoke, her television set was showing the newsreel of an attempted prison break-out. The sound had been turned down, and the silent images of crouching warders and police, and the tiers of barricaded cells, nickered between her legs. Everyone in the high-rise, Laing reflected, watched television with the sound down. The same images glowed through his neighbours' doorways when he returned to his apartment. For the first time,people were leaving their front doors ajar and moving casually in and out of each other's apartments.
    However, these intimacies did not extend beyond each resident's immediate floor. Elsewhere the polarization of the building proceeded apace. Finding that he had run out of liquor, Laing took the elevator down to the loth-floor concourse. As he expected, there was a heavy run on alcohol, and long lines of impatient residents stood outside the liquor store. Seeing his sister Alice near the counter, Laing tried to enlist her help. Without hesitating, she turned him down, and promptly launched into a vigorous denunciation of the tomfoolery that afternoon. In some way she clearly associated Laing with the lower-floor tenants responsible, identifying him with Richard Wilder and his rowdies.
    As Laing waited to be served, what resembled a punitive expedition from the upper floors caused a fracas in the swimming-pool. A party of residents from the top three floors arrived in a belligerent mood. Among them was the actress whose Afghan hound had drowned in the pool. She and her companions began by fooling about in the water, drinking champagne on a rubber raft against the swimming-pool rules and splashing people leaving the changing cubicles. After a futile attempt to intercede, the elderly attendant gave up and retreated to his booth behind the diving-boards.
    The elevators were full of aggressive pushing and heaving. The signal buttons behaved erratically, and the elevator shafts drummed as people pounded impatiently on the doors. On their way to a party