‘You’re not goink?’ she enquired in hurt disbelief. It was obviously a routine line, but she seemed to mean it. Or was that the routine as well? But Jyp and Myrko were looking just as crestfallen.
‘Hey, c’mon,’ protested Jyp, creasing up his young-old face. ‘I was goin’ to give you a party – I owe you, remember? Can’t leave me feeling like an ungrateful louse, can you? And Katjka all limbering up for it, too! Sit down! Stay! You’re among friends!’
That almost got me, that last word. Among friends – I was, I felt it, as I hardly ever had all my life. I faltered. Ahead of me that light was changing again, and all of me longed to put my foot down and race through it – away, out, into that dreaming sunset, chasing some new dream of my own. Some kind of fulfilment I couldn’t imagine – something to fill up the shell …
But I felt the twinge in my arm as I drew on my shirt, and my own blood stuck it clammily against my skin. I stamped on the brake. No more rushing in, not tonight. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Another time, maybe, but – I’ve got to go. If I can find my car, that is. I parked it in Tampere Street, wherever that is from here.’
For a moment I was horribly afraid they would all ask what a car was. But Jyp, though he was obviously hurt and disappointed, said casually, ‘Okay, Steve. I understand. Another time it is. Suppose I should be getting back to the warehouse myself. Tampere, right, that’s back behind here, round the corner ahead, past the big old bonded store, first left then right, right again and straight down; at the end you’ll see it. Got that? I’ll come show you the way.’
‘If it’s that simple, I’ll manage, thanks. You get back to your work. I don’t want to make things hard for you. And thanks – thanks for the puncture repair, Katjka. And – and the drink, Myrko … Thanks, all of you –’ I was sounding like an idiot. I was nervous, I didn’t want to offend these weird, warm people. Myrko just grunted, but Katjka smiled.
‘All right, Stefan. Make it soon, hah?’
‘Yah,’ laughed Jyp, ‘while I’ve still got some dough!’
‘Whether he has or not,’ said Katjka calmly.
Jyp turned on her with his bony jaw dropping; she menaced him with her fist, and he turned back to me. He looked me up and down a moment, as if sizing me up anew. ‘Yah, you come back, you hear? One way or t’other I’ll bet you will. And hey, be you looking for me, you can’t find me, you ask for Jyp the Pilot, right? Just that. Jyp the Pilot. Ask anyone, they all know me. Anyone, right! Be seeing you, Steve.’ He leaped up and wrung my hand with startling strength. ‘And thanks, man; thanks!’
I stopped at the door, and looked back, reluctant. It seemed dark and cold out there, and I didn’t want to let this fragile shred of life and colour go so easily forever. What chance is there you’ll ever come back to a dream? Myrko had vanished into the shadows, Jyp had his head in Katjka’s lap, but it was me she was watching. She smiled, and inhaled slowly. I looked down, and lifted the latch. The door creaked twice, and I was exiled into the sea-wind, bitterly cold and heavy with harbour stenches and the last few drops of rain. Hastily I raised my collar, and it whipped the points about my ears in mockery. The cobbles glistened and glittered now under a newly clear moon, and I had no trouble seeing my way. I turned once to look back, but the wind dashed stinging salt into my eyes and hurried me on with invisible hands.
Jyp’s directions were straightforward enough. Which was just as well, for there was nobody else to ask; the streets still seemed to be deserted. I saw the bonded warehouse ahead the moment I rounded the corner, a louring mountain of a place that had once been imposing; now eyepatches of rusty corrugated iron filled its lower windows, and barbed wire crawled about the broken crenellations of its outer walls. First left was obvious enough, too, but it didn’t look – or smell – very prepossessing; even as alleys went this was the dregs. I hesitated, could he have forgotten this, and meant some broader way further on? But when I stepped back to look I saw there wasn’t one; the road curved around to the right. Holding my breath, I was just about to take the plunge when I heard a slight scrape, and a flicker of motion caught my eye, back at the corner I’d just turned. But when I looked around there was nothing, and I thought no more about it. The alley was as foul as I’d expected, the water that plashed around my hapless shoes awash with pale shapeless things half floating, its muddy shallows releasing a terrible stench as I disturbed them. Fortunately it wasn’t long. When the puddle ended I stopped for a moment to tip the foulness out of my shoes and scrape them clean. But as I leant one-handed against the grimy bricks I heard that sound again, echoing slightly down the alley. Forgetting my squishy feet, I turned and looked suddenly back almost frozen to the spot. There came just a whisper of movement, no more than a flicker; but it seemed as if for one moment some huge bulky shadow had filled the alley’s other end, blocking off the light. Though it was gone almost at once, there was no way I could deny it, search though I might for such a shadow among the broken cobbles. I swallowed. Somebody didn’t want me to see them. Why? Because they were following me, that was why; it had to be. But who? Jyp, maybe, seeing his guest safe – no, hardly. But I could find out easily enough. All I had to do walk right back around that corner and confront – him? Them? Or … what?
Except, fortunately, that I wasn’t quite that stupid. I thought of Wolves; but there was no scaffolding here, hardly even an unbroken brickbat, let alone Jyp with his sword. I turned and hurried as quietly as I could out of the other end of the alley. In the street beyond, turning right, I stopped a moment, listening for the splash of that inescapable puddle. There was nothing – which meant they either weren’t coming, or they were coming with greater stealth. I swallowed and strode on. Just as I reached the next corner, another right turn, I dared to glance back again. Nothing – except –
A sudden tremendous splashing erupted from the alley, as if something was charging headlong through that puddle, charging with heedless ferocity. Perhaps I yelled; certainly I fled. Down the street I pounded, noticing only that it was mercifully wide and short on shadows, and had smooth cinder pavements that scuffed muddily under my feet. My breath seemed to go shallow very suddenly, and bands of agony sprang up around my head; my injuries were beginning to tell. Where now? Where next? I couldn’t even remember. I stopped, bewildered, panting, and looked up at the skies. And what I saw there drove out all other thoughts, even of what might any moment round that corner behind me.
The moon was afloat, it seemed, sailing above a sea of cloud. By its light the clouds were transformed, spread out beneath it into a landscape of shimmering night-bound beauty, low hills and the sea beyond, the sea and islands. But that alone could not have held me, in the state I was. What bound me to the spot was the almost tangible shock of recognition. Beyond all possibility, yet equally beyond all doubt, it was the same landscape the sunset had shown me, at least three hours earlier. The same, yet – as you might expect – seen from a slightly different angle. I began to shake; had the blow affected my brain? Yet I’d never felt more sure of anything; both visions burned together in my brain, the seas of gold and silver. Bewildered, I looked down, and saw, above that landscape mirrored in a stagnant gutter, a sign on the grimy wall. Beneath the gutterings of spray paint it read, quite clearly, Tampere Street. I ran forward wildly, and there, not a hundred yards from the corner, was my car.