The question hung in the air, cooled like uneaten food, and finally congealed. He continued staring ahead.
Isserley considered repeating the question, but felt oddly self-conscious about doing so. In fact, she felt self-conscious altogether. Without being aware of it, she was hunching over slightly, leaning her elbows forward, obscuring her breasts.
‘Nice pair of tits you’ve got there,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said. The atmosphere in the cabin instantly began to throb with agitated molecules.
‘They didn’t grow overnight,’ he sniggered.
‘No, they didn’t,’ she agreed.
Her real teats, budding naturally from her abdomen, had been surgically removed in a separate operation from the one that had grafted these puffy artificial ones onto her chest. The surgeons had used pictures from a magazine sent by Esswis as a guide.
‘Biggest I’ve seen for a long time,’ the hitcher added, evidently reluctant to leave off mining such a rich conversational seam.
‘Mm,’ said Isserley, taking note of a road sign and making some quick calculations. One day she would have to tell Esswis that never, in all her far-ranging travels outside his little domain of fields and fences, had she seen a female vodsel with breasts like the ones in his magazine.
‘Were you standing long?’ she asked, to change the subject.
‘Long enough,’ he grunted.
‘Where are you hoping to get to?’ She hoped that perhaps by now, the question might have penetrated his brain.
‘I’ll decide that when I get there,’ he said.
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m only going as far as Evanton,’ she said. ‘It’s a change of scene for you, anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ he sniffed. ‘No problem.’
Again the molecules writhed between them invisibly, in silence.
‘So what takes you out on the road today?’ she said brightly.
‘Things to do, that’s all.’
‘I didn’t mean to be nosy,’ she went on. ‘I’m just curious about people, that’s all.’
‘S’ alright. Man of few words, that’s me.’ He said this as if this were a special distinction conferred on him by birth, like wealth or good looks. Helplessly, Isserley thought of Amlis.
‘You’re a bit of a goer, aren’t you?’ challenged the hitcher.
‘I—I beg your pardon?’ she said, unfamiliar with the term.
‘Sex,’ he explained flatly, his big melon head blushing again. ‘On the brain. I can spot it a mile off. You love it, don’t you?’
Isserley shifted uneasily in her seat and checked the rearview mirror.
‘Actually, I’m always working too hard to think about it,’ she said, trying for a casual tone.
‘Bullshit,’ he retorted passionlessly. ‘You’re thinking about it right now.’
‘I’m thinking about… about problems at work, actually,’ she volunteered. She hoped he would ask her what her work was. She would be a plainclothes police officer, she’d decided.
‘A girl like you don’t need to think,’ he snorted.
It was about eight minutes’ drive to Evanton. She should have said Ballachraggan, which was half the distance, but he might have been annoyed to be taken for such a short ride.
‘I bet a good few guys have touched those, yeah?’ he suggested abruptly, as if kick-starting a conversation she’d been cack-handed enough to let stall.
‘Not very many,’ she declared. The precise tally was none, in truth.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, leaning back on the headrest, half closing his eyes.
‘Well… it’s true,’ sighed Isserley, disconsolately. According to the digital clock, only fifty seconds had passed.
However, the universe seemed at last to have heard her prayer. The hitcher’s eyes narrowed, then shut in what might have been slumber. His head sank a little into the grimy upturned collar of his overalls. Minutes went by, and little by little the purring of the engine and the rolling grey tide of the road reclaimed a reality they had lost. Evanton was only a couple of miles away by the time the baldhead spoke again.
‘You know what gets me?’ he said, slightly more animated now.
‘No, what gets you?’ Isserley was sagging in relief, gratefully feeling the air grow less dense, the molecules moving more calmly.
‘Them supermodels,’ he said.
Isserley thought first of sophisticated automobiles, then thought he must mean the animated drawings which flickered on television early in the mornings: stylized females flying through space wearing elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots. Just in time, as she opened her mouth to speak, she remembered the true meaning of the term: she’d glimpsed one of these extraordinary creatures on the news once.
‘You like them?’ she guessed.
‘Hate ’em.’
‘They earn a lot more than you or me, don’t they?’ she remarked, flailing, even now, to find some point of entry into his life.
‘For doing fuck all,’ he said.
‘Life can be unfair,’ she offered.
He frowned and pursed his lips, preparing perhaps for some arduous unburdening.
‘Some of them supermodels,’ he observed, ‘like Kate Moss and that black one, well… it mystifies me. Mystifies me.’
He spoke the word as if it were something very expensive he’d found lying in the street somewhere, which would ordinarily be far outside his purchasing power, but which he now intended to flaunt to everyone.
‘What mystifies you?’ said Isserley, quite lost.
‘Where’s the tits on ’em, that’s what I want to know!’ he exclaimed, cupping one huge hand in front of his own chest. ‘Supermodels, and they got no tits! How’s that work?’
‘I don’t know who decides these things,’ conceded Isserley miserably, as the atmosphere in the cabin swarmed once more.
‘Queers, I bet,’ he grunted. ‘What would they care about tits? That’s the answer, I reckon.’
‘Could be,’ said Isserley in a small voice, barely audible. She was wrung out. Evanton was very near now, and she would need all her remaining energy to ease him out of the car.
‘You’d make a fucking good model,’ he informed her, looking her up and down again. ‘Page three material.’
She sighed, trying to flash a wry grin.
‘Maybe I’d need smaller breasts, eh?’ she suggested. ‘Like them supermodels.’ Her awkward imitation of his uncouth phrasing sounded false and pitifully ingratiating; she’d lost her grip. God, what must he think!
‘Fuck them supermodels!’ he urged her, in a tone almost of gruff reassurance. ‘Your body’s way better. They’re not natural, them women. They must take stereoids. Like them Russian runners. Shrinks their tits and gives ‘em a deep voice and a must-ash. The things that go on in this fuckin’ world. There’s no limit. And nobody puts their foot down. Mystifies me.’
‘The world is a strange place,’ she agreed. Then: ‘We’re almost there.’
‘Where?’ he demanded suspiciously.
‘Evanton,’ she reminded him. ‘That’s as far as I’m going.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he responded, in a dull, almost inward tone. ‘You can go a bit further than that, I’m sure.’
Isserley’s heart began to beat harder.
‘No,’ she insisted, ‘Evanton is as far as I go.’
The hitcher reached inside his overalls and pulled out a large grey Stanley knife with its bright triangular blade already unsheathed.
‘Just keep going,’ he said softly.
Isserley clasped the steering wheel tight, struggling to keep her breathing under control.
‘You don’t want to do this,’ she said.
That got a laugh out of him at last.
‘Turn left just before the next road,’ he said.
‘It would be better… for both of us…’ she panted, ‘if we just stopped… and I let you out.’ Her left index finger was trembling above the icpathua toggle.