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degree of dignity, and not feel as if the rest of society was disappearing over the horizon in a
Butlins charabanc. I felt like writing a stiff letter to somebody. And then tearing it up and
throwing the bits on to the lawn below.
The glass-panelled door of number fourteen swung open, and a woman stood there.
Hello, I said. My name is Thomas Lang. I m here to see Mr Rayner.
Bob Rayner fed goldfish while I told him what I wanted. This time, he wore glasses and a
yellow golfing sweater, which I suppose hard men are allowed to do on their days off, and he
got his wife to bring me tea and biscuits. We had an awkward ten minutes while I enquired
after his head, and he told me that he still got the odd headache, and I said I was sorry about
that, and he said not to worry, because he used to get them before I hit him.
And that seemed to be that. Water under the bridge. Bob was a professional, you see.
Do you think you can get it? I asked.
He tapped on the side of the aquarium, which didn t seem to impress the fish in the
slightest.
Cost you, he said, after a while. That s fine, I said.
Which it was. Because Murdah would be paying.
Twenty-two
The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed
But they none o f them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr Toad.
KENNETH GRAHAME
The remainder of my London excursion was taken up with preparations of one sort or another.
I typed a long and incomprehensible statement, describing only those parts of my
adventure in which I had behaved like a good and clever man, and deposited it with Mr
Halkerston at the National Westminster Bank in Swiss Cottage. It was long because I didn t
have time to do a short one, and incomprehensible because my typewriter has no letter d .
Halkerston looked worried; whether by me, or by the fat brown envelope I gave him, I
couldn t tell. He asked if I had any special instructions as to the circumstances under which it
should be opened, and when I told him to use his judgement, he quickly put the envelope
down and asked someone else to come and take it to the strong room.
I also converted the balance of Woolf s original payment to me into traveller s cheques.
Feeling flush, I then went back to Blitz Electronics on Tottenham Court Road, where I
spent an hour with a very nice man in a turban, talking about radio frequencies. He assured me
that the Sennheiser Mikroport SK 2012 was absolutely the thing, and that I should accept no
substitutes, so I didn t.
I then headed east to Islington to see my solicitor, who pumped my hand and spent fifteen
minutes telling me that we must play golf again. I told him that was a splendid idea, but,
strictly speaking, we would need to play golf before we d be able to play it again, at which he
blushed and said he must have been thinking of a Robert Lang. I said yes, he must have been,
and proceeded to dictate and sign a will, in which I bequeathed all my estate and chattels to
The Save The Children Fund.
And then, with only forty-eight hours to go before I was due back in the trenches, I ran
into Sarah Woolf.
When I say ran into her, I do actually mean I ran into her.
I d hired a Ford Fiesta for a couple of days, to take me about London while I made a final
peace with my Creator and my Creditors, and the course of my errands took me within
yearning distance of Cork Street. So, for no reason that I m prepared to own up to, I took a
left, and a right, and a left again, and found myself tooling past the mostly shuttered galleries,
thinking of happier days. Of course, they hadn t really been happier at all. But they d been
days, and they d had Sarah in them, and that was near enough.
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 in Cork 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.
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