The sun was low and bright, and I think ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’ was dribbling from the radio as I turned my head, for the tiniest of instants, towards the Glass building. I turned back, just as a flash of blue darted out in front of me from behind a van.
Darted, at least, is the word I’d have used on the claim form. But I suppose stepped, strolled, ambled, even walked - any of those would have been nearer the truth.
I stamped on the brake pedal, far too late, and watched in stiff-armed horror as the blue flash first backed away from me, then held its ground, then slammed its fists down on to the bonnet of the Fiesta as the front bumper slid towards its shins.
There was nothing to spare. Absolutely nothing. If the bumper had been dirty, I would have touched her. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t, which allowed me to become immediately furious. I’d thrown open the door and got half-way out of the car, meaning to say what the fuck’s the matter with you, when I realised that the legs I’d nearly broken were familiar. I looked up and saw that the blue flash had a face, and the sort of startling grey eyes that make men talk gibberish, and excellent teeth, quite a few of which were showing now.
‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Sarah.’
She stared at me, white-faced. Half in shock, and the other half in shock.
‘Thomas?’
We looked at each other.
And as we looked at each other, standing there inCork Street,London,England, in bright sunshine, with Stevie Wonder being sentimental in the car, things around us seemed to change somehow.
I don’t know how it happened, but in those few seconds, all the shoppers, and businessmen, and builders, and tourists, and traffic wardens, with all their shoes and shirts and trousers and dresses and socks and bags and watches and houses and cars and mortgages and marriages and appetites and ambitions… they all just faded away.
Leaving Sarah and me, standing there, in a very quiet world.
‘Are you all right?’ I said, about a thousand years later.
It was just something to say. I don’t really know what I meant by it. Did I mean was she all right because I hadn’t hurt her, or was she all right because a lot of other people hadn’t hurt her?
Sarah looked at me as if she didn’t know either, but after a while I think we decided to go with the former.
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
And then, as if they were arriving back from their lunch hour, the extras in our film began to move again, to make noise. Chattering, shuffling, coughing, dropping things. Sarah was gently wringing her hands. I turned to look at the bonnet of the Ford. She’d made an impression.
‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘I mean, you must have…’
‘Really, Thomas, I’m fine.’ There was a pause, which she spent straightening her dress, and I spent watching her do it. Then she looked up at me. ‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ I said. ‘I’m…’
Well, I mean to say. Where was I supposed to begin?
We went to a pub. The Duke Of Somewhereshire, tucked into the corner of a mews nearBerkeley Square.
Sarah sat down at a table and opened her handbag, and while she fiddled around inside it, doing that woman thing, I asked her if she wanted a drink. She said a large whisky. I couldn’t remember whether you’re supposed to give alcohol to people who’ve just had a shock, but I knew I wasn’t up to asking for hot, sweet tea in aLondon pub, so I made my way to the bar and ordered two double Macallans.
I watched her, the windows, and the door. They had to have been following her. Had to.
With the stakes as they were, it was inconceivable that they would let her wander round unattended. I was the lion, if you can believe that for a moment, and she was the tethered goat. It would have been madness to let her roam.
Unless.
Nobody came in, nobody peered in, nobody wandered past and sneaked a sideways look in. Nothing. I looked at Sarah.
She’d finished with her handbag, and now sat, looking towards the middle of the room, her face a complete blank. She was in a daze, thinking of nothing. Or she was in a jam, thinking of everything. I couldn’t tell. I was pretty sure that she knew I was looking at her, so the fact that she didn’t look back was odd. But then odd isn’t a crime.
I collected the drinks and made my way back towards her table.
‘Thanks,’ she said, taking the glass from me and throwing its contents down her throat in one go.
‘Steady,’ I said.
She looked at me for a moment with real aggression, as if I was just one more person at the end of a long line, getting in her way, telling her what to do. And then she remembered who I was - or remembered to pretend to remember who I was - and smiled. I smiled back.
‘Twelve years ageing in a sherry cask,’ I said cheerfully, ‘stuck out on aHighland hillside, waiting for its big moment ‘- and then bang, doesn’t even get to touch the sides. Who’d be a single malt whisky?’
I was wittering, obviously. But under the circumstances, I felt entitled to do a bit of that. I had been shot, beaten, knocked off my bike, imprisoned, lied to, threatened, slept with, patronised, and made to shoot at people I’d never met. I had risked my life for months, and was hours away from having to risk it again, along with a lot of other lives, some of which belonged to people I quite liked.
And the reason for it all - the prize at the end of this Japanese quiz show I’d been living in for as long as I could remember - was sitting in front of me now, in a safe, warm,London pub, having a drink. While outside, people strolled up and down, buying cuff-links and remarking on the uncommonly fine weather.
I think you’d have wittered too.
We got back into the Ford, and I drove us around.
Sarah still hadn’t really said much, except that she was sure there was nobody following her, and I’d said good, that’s a relief, and hadn’t believed it for a second. So I drove around, and watched the rear-view mirror. I took us down narrow one-way streets, up leafy, car-free avenues, jinked from lane to lane on the Westway, and saw nothing. I thought hang the expense, and drove into, and straight out of, two multi-storey car-parks, which is always a nightmare for the following vehicle. Nothing.
I left Sarah in the car while I got out and checked for a magnetic transmitter, running my fingers under the bumpers and wheel arches for fifteen minutes until I was sure. I even pulled over a couple of times, and scanned the skies above for a clattering police helicopter.
Nothing.
If I’d been a betting man, and I’d had something to bet with, I’d have put it all on us being clean, untailed, and unwatched.
Alone in a quiet world.
People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it’s never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we’ve ever read a book, that day doesn’t fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.
In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over.