“But didn’t you see what actually happened?” the woman persisted. The man had slowed to a stop. He shook his head doubtfully. Other people passed by with curious stares.
“He’s already said he hasn’t,” I said.
“I’m not speaking to you, I’m speaking to him. Did you see him go through the red light? You must have done if you were walking past.”
The man shook his head and began to edge away. “No. No. Sorry.”
“Just a minute,” the woman called after him, but he had turned his back and increased his pace, giving one last shake of his head to exempt himself from further involvement. “Oh, bloody typical!” She faced me again. “All right, give me the name of your insurance company. I’m not going to stand here arguing with you. I’ll have your name and address, too. We’ll let them sort it.”
She flounced back to her car and rummaged in the dashboard. “Here.” She scribbled her details on a piece of paper and handed it to me. I did likewise. “I just hope you have the decency to admit it was your fault after all this.”
“I could say the same to I began, but she was not listening. The paper was snatched out of my hand.
“And on top of it all, now I’m bloody late,” she snapped, climbing back into her car and slamming the door. I stepped back as she quickly cut into the traffic, forcing another car to stop to let her in. She ignored his irate rebuke on the horn and in seconds had disappeared among the stream of vehicles.
I went back to my car to reassess the damage. It was obvious even to me that it was not going anywhere. Fuming, I left a note in the windscreen for the benefit of traffic wardens, and went to a telephone to arrange for my garage to pick it up. Then I went to the pavement edge to hail a taxi.
Typically, the only ones I saw were occupied. I waited ten minutes, my mood deteriorating with each second, until I finally turned away in disgust. A sign told me the underground was nearby. I headed towards it.
I had not taken the tube in years. I could remember it being busy, but I was not prepared for the mayhem that greeted me at the bottom of the escalators. I was pushed from behind and jostled from the front as I tried to guess which way to go. Everyone else seemed sure of themselves except me. I looked around for someone to ask, but could see only the countless moving heads of other commuters. The crowds parted and flowed around me as I stood indecisively. I saw a map on the wall and made my way over, finally deciphering that I needed to be on another line. I joined the flood of people heading in that direction and let myself be carried along a tiled, echoing tunnel to the sudden space of a concrete platform.
Compared with the tunnels, it was relatively empty. But it soon began to fill up. I had started near the front of the platform. Now I found myself squeezed steadily back until a press of people stood between me and the edge. I found myself wedged between a West Indian woman with a suitcase, and a tall, shaven-headed youth in a leather jacket.
A sudden rush of air preceded the appearance of the train. It pulled to a halt, and immediately its doors had opened the crowd on the platform began pushing against the people getting off. The mechanical instruction to “Mind the Gap” was chanted over the top of the chaos. I felt panic-stricken as I struggled towards the nearest door without seeming to make any progress. Then, just as I thought I would not make it in time, a sudden surge practically lifted me into the train. A moment later the doors hissed shut, stopped, opened, shut again, and then the train lurched forward and picked up speed.
I had been deposited in the walkway between the doors. I had thought the platform was crowded, but now strangers pressed against me from all sides, impassively intimate. The train gave a sudden jolt, and I was thrown against a young woman at my side. I stammered a low apology and quickly looked away from her cold stare. Bright light outside the windows announced that we had come to the next station on the line. The train halted and I was nearly pushed off as people rushed for the platform. The corresponding influx of new passengers forced me further inside until I was jammed into the middle of the compartment with no room to turn or breathe. The air was crammed with thick, unpleasant odours. Diesel, hair and sweat. I grabbed for a handhold as the train lurched into motion once again. The blackness of the tunnel had only just engulfed us when it slowed, chugged forward grudgingly, and stopped.
No one seemed to notice. The darkness outside the window was complete. Inside, people sat or stood indifferently. I tried to mimic them, but the situation was alien to me. I felt smothered and isolated. When the train jerked forward once more, my heart jerked with it. It eased slowly through the tunnel, slowing several times but mercifully not actually stopping again. Then there were lights and faces outside the windows. The doors opened, and without knowing which station it was I blundered my way out onto the platform.
I gulped in the cold, diesel-smelling air, hardly noticing the knocks from the people passing. Above me was a sign saying “Exit’, and I headed for it blindly, now moving with as much purpose as anyone else. I stumbled over a busker’s open guitar case, ignoring his shouted insult as I sighted the final escalator. I emerged into grey daylight and saw the line of taxi cabs waiting outside the station with vast relief. I climbed into one, gave my destination, and sank back into the seat. The interior was warm, quiet, and blessedly empty. I gazed out of the window at a world that was once more comfortably distanced. It seemed like the best drive of my life.
When I arrived Anna had already opened the gallery. “I was just starting to get worried,” she said as I walked in. I instantly felt that it had all been worth it. “I wondered where you were. Are you all right? You look shaky.”
Her concern was balm for the morning’s wounds. I lowered myself into a chair and closed my eyes. “I had a little accident on the way in,” I said, and told her what had happened. It sounded much better in the telling than it had seemed at the time, and my description of the idiot woman in the Range Rover actually had Anna laughing. I warmed to the story so much that I almost forgot what else I had to tell her.
“Oh, by the way,” I said, before she could walk away. “I’m having a cocktail party next Saturday. I hope you and Marty will be able to come.”
The party had been Zeppo’s idea. I had thought it was a good one, until I learned he meant I should hold it myself.
“But I’ve never had a party,” I had objected, appalled at the thought.
He had smiled. “Well, now’s your chance.”
The invasion began on Saturday afternoon with the arrival of the caterers. Cartons of cutlery, crockery and glasses littered the floor. My home was soon bustling with strangers. I fretted about breakages, stains, and theft, and tried to keep an eye on everything that was going on. By the time the first guests came my nerves were in shreds. I hated the thought of countless people trampling through my home, making it as public as any bar. But as more people began to appear, and the onus of conversation was taken from me, I began to calm down a little. When Anna and Marty arrived the entire downstairs was already quite full. Even more surprisingly, everyone seemed to be having a good time. As far as I could see, almost every person I had invited had come.
Except one.
My impatience turned to anxiety. If Zeppo failed to show up, then the entire exercise was a complete waste of time. My smile became increasingly strained. I could not even bear to talk with Anna and Marty for long. It was an effort not to constantly glance at my watch, and I had almost decided to telephone him when the doorbell rang.
I went to answer it, willing it to be him. It was.