Charing Cross Mansions

"Woodlands Road ended, and so did any semblance of human centred-planning. The elegant feminine frontage of Woodlands Mansions gazed sadly towards the sad faced older baroque features of Charing Cross Mansions. His decrepit clock face overhanging like the face of a man with a walking stick, topped by the flat cap of the moss covered slate roofing. Pigeon sh-t added streaks of grey-white to his roof and the building title, lovingly picked out in capitals, sitting just below his clock face like an Edwardian moustache.

In the past they must have been lovers. Maybe he was in the navy, and she in a port. She fell for his his mature ways, he feel for her youth and free spirit, and they declared their love for each other on their fleeting diallances, but events overtook them, and they became separated by oceans and time."

- from The Do Gooders by M. P. James