He walked and considered what to do next, where to go. Again, when he looked back, this moment would represent another important shift in the nature of his search for Malory. For the first time he had formulated the question in terms of where he should go rather than where Malory had gone. It was not that the question of Malory’s whereabouts no longer mattered — but that question had been absorbed so totally into his own decision-making process that he no longer needed to ask it. It was as if the only way of duplicating Malory’s movements was to anticipate them. Inevitably he would make mistakes but these mistakes might lead him to the right track eventually. The right path might be, precisely, a culmination of mistakes, of detours. As soon as you recreated it on a map or set it down in a book, even the most idiosyncratic random movements acquired an internal logic; their purpose remained elusive but they formed a path, a route, led somewhere. With such a map he could find his way back.
In the morning he walked past a shop with a row of used bicycles chained up outside. The shop was run by an old man who claimed to have ridden in the Tour. Walker indicated a bike he liked and the old man unlocked the chain and extricated it from the row: ten-speed, dropped handlebars, light enough to be picked up easily with one hand. Walker rode it around the block and asked the old man what he wanted for it.
‘You’ve read those stories about a knight on his charger?’
‘Yes.’
‘You seen Westerns? The cowboy on his horse?’
Walker nodded.
‘Now it’s you on that bike. A clear line of descent. Seventy-five buys you the bike and the ancestors.’
‘What about just the bike?’ said Walker, but as far as the old man was concerned the deal was clinched already.
Walker paid up, lashed his bag to the rack and pedalled off.
‘So long, cowboy,’ called the man who had once ridden in the Tour, stuffing Walker’s money into his pocket.
The morning’s chill still clung to the air but after riding for fifteen minutes he felt fine. He headed out of town, the volume of cyclists diminishing steadily as he went. The road was flat and ran alongside a river with fields stretching away on the other side.
For lunch he bought bread, fruit and water and sat down to eat behind the goalpost of a deserted football pitch. A breeze rustled the bushes beyond the touchlines. The goal was smudged with dried mud where the ball had ricocheted off crossbar and posts. The goalmouth and centre circle were dry and bare, pock-marked by studs. Chewing and swallowing, he imagined some archaeologist of the future re-creating sequences of play and estimating the scores of games played here from the patterns of stud-marks on the pitch.
In the middle of the afternoon he came to a bridge, rising high and golden in the blue sky. As he drew closer he saw that what he had taken to be the ripple of hot air was actually the bridge itself rippling in the air. It undulated gently as if a wave were passing through it, as if its burnished girders were made not of steel but of some highly elastic material.
He stopped at the edge of the bridge, watching it rise and fall rhythmically, breathing. There was no traffic. A sign said BRIDGE CLOSED and a barrier blocked the carriageway. He manoeuvred his bike round the barrier and walked out on to the bridge. At first, although he could see the bridge undulating ahead of him, the cables growing taut and slack with strain, he hardly felt any movement. Then, as he moved out over the river, he felt the road shifting beneath his feet like a ship on calm seas. There was no sense of danger. He looked at the bridge’s flowing reflection in the river below. He dropped a stone over the edge and watched it fall and splash, vanish. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a bird swoop down and glide low over the river. After a few minutes he got on his bike and cycled over the shifting hills and dips. The sun strobed through the stanchions and cables rearing above him.
When he had crossed to the far side he looked back at the bridge rising and falling in the blue air.
That night he slept by the roadside and cycled on as soon as the sun shuddered clear of the horizon. Late in the afternoon, his legs wobbly after so long on the bike, he rode into a city where there were no people, only streets — narrow, cobbled, crossed by even narrower streets that led to rain-damp alleys and dead-ends. Torn posters advertised political meetings and sporting events. There were parked cars but no sign of the people who drove them. A few shops had their shutters pulled down but most were open for business as usual. As he opened the door of a pâtisserie a little bell rang like a wind-chime. The shelves were half-empty with bread and cakes. He took a croissant that tasted as if it had been fresh-baked that morning. Took two more and walked out of the shop, still chewing, flakes of pastry falling to the floor. The street was divided sharply into sunlight and a tide of shadow inching towards the opposite wall. Riding along the cobbled streets was so awkward that he left the bike where it was, propped against the shop window.
He came to a large square. In the middle was a water fountain, a statue of a dragoon or fusilier wading through it, sword raised above his head. He wore a cloak, armour breastplate and knee-length leather boots — under one of which was trapped a flapping fish: not a dragon or serpent but a playful and, apparently, undistressed fish. Despite the raised sword there was no suggestion that this aggressive posture indicated any ill-will towards the fish. He just happened to be brandishing a sword and treading on a fish which squirmed good-humouredly beneath his feet, as if it were being tickled rather than squashed.
Walker dunked his head in the bubbling water, his face level with the bemused eye of the fish. Fingered back his wet hair, feeling the cold drips on his neck and shoulders. The shadows cast by the buildings on one side of the street climbed the walls of those on the other. He hoped to come across some indication of what had happened here but apart from the absence of people everything was completely normal.
Halfway down a street of expensive shops he went into a place called Hombre. He flicked through rows of jackets and trousers and then stripped off and unwrapped a pair of underpants. Next he extricated a shirt from the pins, cardboard and cellophane and put that on, then a pair of cotton socks hanging on a rail. He tried on a suit jacket which fitted perfectly. The trousers were too big round the waist so he took a pair from the suit that was the next size down. He took his time choosing a tie, finally deciding on one that was a sober grey with light spots. In the basement he found a pair of suede shoes with thick soles — comfortable, easy to run in. Back upstairs he picked out another shirt, extra pairs of underpants and socks, a sweat-shirt and a pair of cotton trousers which he crammed into a bag. His old clothes seemed like sour-smelling rags now and he dumped them in a bin.
As he was leaving he noticed the till. He pressed a few buttons and the cash-drawer sprang open. He helped himself to a few notes and some change, pushed the till shut and stuffed the money into a pocket.
Outside the street was flooded with shadow. Only the third storeys and above were still in the sharp-angled sunlight. Newspapers and bags of garbage were piled up, awaiting collection on the sidewalk. Nearby, rustling in the breeze, were lengths of film that had obviously overflowed from a dustbin. The further he walked the more film there was, coiling round his feet, twitching like two-dimensional snakes. He picked up one of the strips and held it up to the light, the brown shine turning immediately to brilliant colour. The film showed a man walking down an old street. All the other strips were blank or damaged: nothing to be seen. He coiled the original strip loosely around his arm and walked on until he came to a bar. Just inside the door was a flashing pinball machine. He walked round the bar and took a beer from the fridge, helped himself to a sandwich from beneath a glass lid.