She had jumped to her own conclusions about me: my car had broken down and I’d had no choice but to abandon it. She glanced across at me. I nodded. It would be a miracle if it was still there when I got back, she said. The vandalism these days. Incredible. She shook her head. The diamonds she was wearing in her ears seemed to fence with the air, each glint of light as fine as the blade of a rapier. With crime so prevalent, I found it surprising she had offered me a lift, but perhaps I was part of a bargain she had made with fate that night. I was a risk she’d been required to take.
After a while she asked if I had the lighter handy. I held the flame up to her cigarette, and she inhaled. Smoke moved across the windscreen like ink in water. My eyes smarted, and I began to cough, but the woman next to me paid no attention. The city seemed endless, spreading out on all sides, in all directions. There was something careless about it. Something profligate. Her expensive car hurtled on into the dark, largely ignoring the white lines that divided one lane from another.
By seven in the morning I was standing outside a transport café on a country road. I had been lucky: I had covered a lot of ground and I hadn’t got into any trouble. The aristocratic woman — Annette — had dropped me at a suburban petrol station. From there, I had hitched a ride in a lorry going north. The driver swore constantly at other motorists, and sometimes I thought I could see the violence rising off him like steam off a horse at the end of a long race, but he only spoke to me once, after about an hour, and that was to announce that he was stopping in a lay-by for a nap. I continued on foot. Cars and trucks slammed by, not even slowing down, and I had almost given up hope of another lift when a transit van came to a halt ahead of me, WE OF THE NIGHT painted on the back in silver and framed by a sprinkling of stars. The words unnerved me at first, but the man behind the wheel, Tony Spillman, turned out to be the sales director of a firm that manufactured beds. ‘And I don’t mind telling you,’ he said before I’d even finished fastening my seat-belt, ‘in a business like mine, I get into some pretty interesting situations.’ With no encouragement from me at all, he embarked on a detailed account of his sexual exploits. I must have dozed off at some point, though, because the next time I looked at the clock on the dashboard it said a quarter to six and Spillman was telling me he’d have to let me out. ‘Got a little detour to make — a breakfast meeting, so to speak …’ and his head moved backwards on his neck, which gave him a temporary double chin, and his lower lip curved into a small plump shape, like a segment of tangerine.
I watched him drive away, the stars on the back of his van fading in the grainy light of dawn, then I turned and walked into the café. There were only two people in the place, both men. One huddled over a plate of bacon and sausage, the other was studying the sports pages of a tabloid newspaper. Not knowing when I’d have another chance to eat, I ordered a full breakfast. Neither of the men so much as looked at me. It was too early in the day for suspicion, or even curiosity.
Later, when I was paying my bill, I noticed a map of the region on the wall behind the cash-till and asked the waitress to show me where we were. She gave me a sharp look — maybe she thought I was trying to make a fool of her — then she put her finger on an area of pale-yellow. I murmured in disbelief. Despite the hours I had spent on the road, I was still no more than a hundred miles from Congreve. The lorry-driver had taken me north, I knew that much, but Spillman must have turned east while I was sleeping, and I’d ended up in a rural backwater, close to the border with the Green Quarter, which was no use to me whatsoever — though as I stood there staring at the map I began to see how it might work as a decoy. After all, who would suspect me of making for the Green Quarter? In short, my erratic route might actually throw people off the scent. From here, I could either continue north or double back. First, though, I would have to find a place to stay.
I asked the waitress if she knew of anywhere. There was a pub, she said. They might have rooms. She pointed to a small black box on a road that was even narrower than the one we were on. The junction looked about a mile away. I thanked her, then I buttoned my coat and left.
Outside, the sun had risen, but its rays were as colourless as panes of glass and I had to walk fast just to keep warm. I’d forgotten to give Annette her lighter back. I could feel its smooth shape at the bottom of my pocket.
As I approached the turning I saw a phone-box, and I had the sudden urge to call someone, so I could set a seal on what I’d done, so I didn’t feel quite so alone. I stepped inside and put the receiver to my ear. The line was dead. I stared out across the road, the tops of the trees in sunlight, their trunks still plunged in shade. Who would I have talked to anyway? Marie? It was early. She would be asleep. When she heard the ringing she would pick up the phone that sat on her bedside table, next to the photo taken on a yacht when she was twenty-three — Marie in a pink bikini, laughing. That’s me, happy, she had told me during my last visit.
Hello?
Marie? It’s Tom. Did I wake you?
It doesn’t matter. The sound of her turning in the bed, like surf. Where are you?
I can’t say exactly. It’s like you and Victor, though — what you did. It’s like that. A pause. I love you, Marie.
She would be facing the ceiling, one forearm draped over her eyes. A smile at the corner of her mouth.
I always loved you, right from the beginning. Another pause, my mind drifting back. I hated those people for making you feel bad.
That was a long time ago.
I know. But you were so much better than they were.
A car rushed past, steel-blue, into the future.
I’ll probably think I dreamt all this. I often have dreams about you, Tom.
I dream about you too.
Do you?
I couldn’t have spoken to Marie, of course, not even if the phone had been working. Communication between the four countries wasn’t possible unless you went through official channels. But then I remembered the time I found Victor weeping over the death of his wife, and I wondered if there was a chance Marie had felt something while I was talking to her in my head. She might have woken suddenly and sat upright in her bed. Thinking of me, not knowing why.
I followed the narrow road for what seemed like hours as it climbed between rough pastures and drystone walls. Behind me, I could just make out the red roof of the café where I had eaten breakfast, the main road running through the middle of the valley like the spine in a leaf. Since I had started my ascent, there hadn’t been a hint of any traffic, not unless you counted the wreck I’d seen, burned-out, windowless, abandoned in a ditch. The only signs of life were the fragile spires of smoke rising from chimneys in the valley’s western reaches and, once or twice, from somewhere high above, the drowsy humming of a plane.
It was after midday when I came out at the top of the pass. A wide, shallow basin lay in front of me, a kind of plateau ringed by hills. In the foreground were a number of grey-and-white houses, one larger than the rest. Could that be the pub the waitress had spoken of? I hoped so. Cloud was moving across the sky from the north, a solid shelf or ledge of it. Whatever meagre heat the sun had brought would soon be gone. My limbs were heavy, my eyelids too. I could almost have slept standing up.
I forced myself onwards, each footstep sending a jolt through my whole body. Though I longed to reach the pub, the distance between us seemed to remain the same. Then, when I had almost despaired of arriving, I rounded a bend and there it was, only yards away. The chipped gold letters above the entrance said THE AXE EDGE INN.