I turned to Jasper. “Will he be OK?”
“Steerforth doesn’t know the meaning of fear.” I couldn’t detect whether it was admiration, envy or sarcasm I heard in Jasper’s voice — and I wonder now if it might have been something else entirely.
Five or six intolerably long minutes passed before Steerforth re-emerged, a handkerchief knotted around his face, his forehead smeared with dust and grime, holding something cradled in his arms. To raucous applause from the assembled bystanders, he jogged over to us just as a fire engine and two police cars sped into Temple Drive.
“You’ve got it?” Jasper hissed.
“The book burned.”
“What?” Jasper’s eyes seemed to swell with exaggerated despair.
“But I did save this little fella.”
Steerforth passed me a small gray bundle of fur. Clumsily, I held it in my arms, and as he looked up at me, I could have sworn that Granddad’s cat was smiling.
Steerforth suggested that we go for a pint. Various medics and police-people were fussing over us but Jasper had only to mention one word — “Directorate” — for them to dissolve obediently into the night.
Most upsettingly, the cat had done the same, squirming free of my arms and running into the darkness before I could do anything to stop him. I searched frantically but Steerforth, apparently dying for a packet of pork scratchings, told me to give it up and manhandled me in the direction of the Rose and Crown.
The others went in, despite the fact that it seemed to be hosting some sort of school disco, whilst I hung back outside to make a phone call.
It took a long time for the connection to go through, then: “Mum?”
“Darling?”
Inside, a whoop of delight as “Come on Eileen” arrived on the sound system and the volume swelled.
“Where on earth are you?”
“It’s a long story. Listen, I don’t know how to tell you this, but… Someone’s blown up Granddad’s house.”
Mum sounded bored. “Really?”
“It’s been completely gutted.”
“Oh.” I could hear someone talking to her. “Henry again,” she said.
“I was inside when it happened.” I was starting to feel rather put out by her lack of concern.
“Sounds thrilling. You’ll have to tell me all about it when I get back.” She giggled. “Gordy says big kiss, by the way. Big kiss from Gordy.”
“Hello, Gordy,” I said flatly.
“Look, I’d better go. This must be costing us a fortune. Bye-bye, darling.”
Not bothering to say goodbye, I jabbed angrily at the off button.
As I walked into the pub, “Livin’ la Vida Loca” had started up and Steerforth was drumming his fingers on the table in time with the music. When the chorus lurched into view, he began to make weird, bird-like motions with his head as Mr. Jasper, sipping his Baileys, looked on, appalled.
The pub itself was practically deserted. All the real action seemed to be going on in the function room next door, where dozens of teenagers were busy doing one or more of the following: dancing, drinking, snogging, smoking, passing out. The smell of hormones, the heady scent of adolescence, was almost tangible in the air.
Steerforth shoved a glass in front of me. “Lager OK? Nice pint of wife beater?”
“This is a black day,” Jasper muttered Eeyoreishly.
Ignoring the signs, prominently displayed, which exhorted us not to smoke, Steerforth pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered them in my direction.
I shook my head. Jasper looked repulsed and mumbled something which might have been “dirty.”
Steerforth peeled the cellophane from the packet. “The house was our last roll of the dice. You know what we’ve got to do now.”
“Not that.” Jasper’s voice was shaky and uncertain. “Not them.”
“There’s no other choice,” Steerforth said as he produced a lighter from his pocket and applied it to the tip of his cigarette. I noticed that he had great difficulty lighting the thing since, despite his tone of brusque insouciance, his hands were shaking almost uncontrollably.
Suddenly, Jasper’s head jerked upward, as though he’d been goosed by a ghost. “Good evening, sir,” he said. “We were just discussing-” He paused. “Are you quite sure, sir? Is there no other way?” A wince. “You know my opinion on that, sir.” A chewing of the upper lip, then a reluctant nod. “Very well. We’ll tell Henry.”
“What was that all about?” I asked once Jasper had wrapped up his conversation with the invisible man and returned his attention to us. “What have you got to tell me?”
Mr. Jasper looked like he was about to cry. His glass of Baileys was stuck to the wooden table by the glutinous remnants of spilt beer. “This place is filthy,” he said. “Filthy.” A febrile kind of urgency infected his voice. “You were expected, Henry. Did you know that? They told us you’d be coming.”
“Who told you? What are you talking about?”
Jasper grimaced, as though every word was causing him pain, each syllable costing him dear. “Somewhere not very far from here, deep underground in their own private dungeon, sit two prisoners of war. They have the blood of hundreds on their hands. They’ll never be released alive.”
Behind us, the Day-Glo tom-tom of Europop.
“In the course of their sentence, these prisoners have never spoken to a soul. Not one solitary word. And yet, last week, quite casually, they told their guard two things. They gave him a name. And they gave us a warning…”
“What’s this got to do with me?” I asked.
“They told us about your grandfather before it happened. Then they told us who you are.”
“Who are these people? How do they know anything about me?”
“I can’t say. But God forgive me — we have no choice but to introduce you.”
Steerforth wiped his lips on the back of his hand, making a slurpy smacking noise. “Tomorrow’s truth time, Henry. If I were you, I’d drink up. Enjoy your last night of freedom.” He took a drag on his cigarette before exhaling a thin gray stream of smoke. He was the kind of man, I strongly suspected, who smoked not because he particularly liked the taste but because he still thought it was cool. He winked at someone over by the bar — a skinny girl in tight black jeans. “’Scuse me, gents.” He got to his feet and swaggered over. “A-level totty.”
Jasper muttered something bitter under his breath, although I noticed that he never took his eyes off Steerforth.
Suddenly I remembered and glanced down at my watch. “Damn.”
“What’s the matter?”
“You mean apart from my grandfather’s house burning down?”
Jasper nodded distractedly like this was the kind of thing which happened to him all the time.
I bundled up my coat. “I’m late.”
“For what?”
“For a date.” It was the first time all day I’d felt like smiling.
Before I could leave, Jasper grabbed my arm and held it tight. “Come to the Eye first thing tomorrow. The war hangs in the balance.” He sank back in his seat and took a sip of his Baileys. “You’d better go. You don’t want to keep Abbey waiting.”
I dashed for the door and ran into the train station, grateful to be free. Only later did it occur to me to wonder precisely how it was that Jasper knew her name.
She was waiting for me in Clapham, a part of the city whose facade of well-monied gentility only barely papered over its dirt and degradation. When I emerged from the tube, a homeless man blundered past me, smelling strongly of feces.
Abbey stood outside the Picturehouse, traces of irritation marring her beautiful face. I must have looked a real state, as when she saw me her expression changed immediately to one of sympathy and concern. She fussed over me, smoothing my hair, brushing down my jacket, picking charred flakes from my lapels. “What’s happened to you? You stink of smoke.”
I wasn’t sure how much it was safe to tell her. “I was at Granddad’s house. There was an accident… a fire.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” She kissed me chastely on my forehead. “You have been in the wars.”