"So this is the truth, is it?" he said, still with a sort of half-laugh in his voice as his finger picked at the table.
"Don't you believe me?" she said, clearing her throat awkwardly on the first word.
"I believe you. I suppose. Why shouldn't I? Why should you tell me any of this if it wasn't true?"
She didn't answer. He smiled emptily as he watched the finger, still trying to lift the stuck-down wisp of dried white paint from the black surface of the table.
Back at the bike, the black figure twisted the throttle, trying to gun the motor, but it stuttered, rasped then coughed, almost died. It ran more smoothly, but still not perfectly for a few seconds, then hesitated once more, missing beats. The man kicked the bike, then straddled it, revving the motor. He looked behind him for an opening in the traffic. He let the clutch in on first gear and the bike jerked forward, then the engine failed, dying again. The bike trickled forward as horns sounded from the cars and trucks behind; the bike revved, moved forward, but each time the engine tried to take the load it stuttered and the bike slowed.
"Fuck it!" the man shouted into his helmet. "Oh, God." He used his feet to trundle the bike back in to the kerb again. He got off quickly. Should he walk, or run, up to Half Moon Crescent?
"Well then, be there," she had said. He'd laughed. They had been planning just how they would remove Graham from their private equation. "I'll be there," he'd assured her, "no problem." She'd said, kissing him: "If you are not on time I might resort to Plan B." He had asked her what that was. "I give him what he wants," she'd said, "then tell him to disappear..." Whereon he had laughed - he now thought - a little too heartily.
He got down quickly to his knees, took off his gloves and threw them to the pavement, opened one of the panniers at the back of the bike and snatched the toolkit out. "Come on. Stock," he said to himself, "you can do it, son...' He took the small screwdriver out. Damn bike. Of all the times to let him down!
He had been concerned, mostly for her sake, that she wasn't too hard on Graham before he got there; she was only supposed to tell him she had decided to stay with Stock, not hurt the kid too much - dangerously much - with the truth about the way they'd used him. "Let him down gently, won't you?" he'd said. She'd looked at him calmly for some time, then said evenly, "I'll let him down."
He looked over the top of the bike at a young man with fair hair walking up the far pavement. For one heart-thumping second he thought it was Graham Park, then saw it wasn't. As his gaze dropped to the bike again, he caught sight of something odd on the top of the black-polished petrol tank. He looked back again, more closely. There were fresh scratches on the paint round the chrome petrol filler cap, and clusters of small white grains. When he tried the cap it lifted easily, and would not lock. The small white grains felt sticky. "Oh shit," he breathed.
"Poor Graham," Sara ffitch said, smiling jerkily at him, letting her head tip slightly to one side, as though she was trying to get him to look at her.
"Why me?" Graham said (and wanted to laugh in spite of it all, at the sheer absurdity of what he was saying, the falsity of the entire situation, the way that, because it was like a game and the sort of scene they had doubtless both seen portrayed in this popular culture a thousand times, there were only certain things he could say, certain viable responses he could make).
"Why not?" Sara said. "I heard about you through... Slater. You sounded like the sort of guy I might be able to charm, you know?"
He nodded. "I know," he said. A small piece of white paint came away from the surface of the black table, lodging under his fingernail.
"I didn't think you would actually fall in love with me, but it did make things easier in a way, I suppose. I'm sorry for you, though. I mean, I don't think we can go on after this, do you?"
"No. No, I think you're right. Of course." He nodded again, still not looking at her.
"You don't seem... very concerned."
"No," he shrugged, then shook his head. The last piece of paint stuck on the table's surface would not come off. He took his hand away, glanced at her, then sat forward in the seat, folding his arms, crossing his feet at the ankles, as though suddenly cold. "You just acted it all, then?" he asked.
"Not really, Graham," she said. He thought he could just make out, from the tops of his eyes, as he stared at the table, her shaking her head. "I didn't act very much at all. I told a few lies, but I didn't promise very much, I didn't have to pretend very much. I did like you. I certainly didn't love you, but you're quite nice, quite... sweet."
He laughed, briefly, quietly, at that last word, such faint praise indeed. And that "certainly'; did she have to put that in, as though trying through every single word and nuance to find a way to hurt him? How much damage would she be content with? What sort of reaction was she trying to get from him?
"And I loved you, I thought you were so..." he could not finish. If he went on, he knew, he would break down and cry. He shook his head and angled his gaze so that she would not see his eyes glisten.
"Yes, I know," Sara said, sighing artificially, "it was pretty dirty, I know. Terribly unfair. But then who gets what they deserve, hmm?"
"You bitch," he said to her, looking up and into her eyes through a film of tears, "you fucking cow."
Something changed in her face, as though the game had become more interesting at last; her eyebrows might have risen fraction- ally or her tiny smile, that twisted look at the side of her mouth, have reappeared, but whatever it was it struck him with almost physical force. He was not proud of the words, he knew what they sounded like, what the whole setting and implication of them was, but he could not help them; they were all he had to throw at her.
"Well," she said slowly, "this is a bit more like it..."
He stood up, his breath forced in and out of him in spasms, his eyes drying again but smarting, staring at her. She sat there and looked up at him, quizzically, some sudden quickness of interest, even fear illuminating the until then cool, quiet features. "What the hell did I ever do to you?" he said, staring at her. "What gave you the right to do this to me?" His heart pounded, he felt sick, he stood there quivering with rage, but still, still, remaining unaffected, a small part of him saw this unusual, unaccustomed anger within him, heard the words he spoke, with an amusement, a sort of critical appreciation, not unlike what he saw in her eyes and read on her face.
She shrugged, swallowed, still looking up at him. "You did nothing to me," she said slowly, "or to... Stock. We had no right, of course. But what difference does that make? Does it really make you feel worse?" She looked at him as though she really was asking a serious question, something she could not find the answer to in herself, something she had to look to him or somebody like him to answer.
"What do you care?" he said, shaking his head, leaning towards her across the table. His eyes were bright, he could look at her now. She gazed back, something like fear quickening her, widening the hooded eyes. He saw the small pulse by the side of her neck again, he became aware of the shallow rising and falling of her T-shirt inside the olive dungarees. He could smell the oil she had put on herself after her bath, the clean fresh smell of her. She shrugged again, shoulders jerking.