13

'This is madness,' said Ted.

'This,' said Israel, fingers thrumming on the steering wheel, 'is the "Road to Hell".'

'What?'

'"The Road to Hell", Chris Rea? It's a song, isn't it, about the M25?'

'I've never heard of it,' said Ted.

'Of course you have! "This ain't no…something something something,"' sang Israel, uncertainly, in his best unfiltered-cigarettes-and-alcohol kind of voice, '"This is the road to hell."'

'No, never heard of it,' said Ted, gazing out of the window. 'Doesn't sound like much of a song to me.'

'Well, it is.'

'Aye. Right. What do you call this road? The M5?'

'The M25,' said Israel. 'It's famous. Like Route 66.'

'Aye. Well, it might be famous where you come from, but I tell ye, word of it's not reached us boys in County Antrim.'

'I'll bet it was built by Irish navvies,' said Israel.

'Aye, and you'd know, would ye?'

'No, I'm just saying. A lot of roads in England were built by Irishmen, weren't they? They all lived in Kilburn?'

'Aye. And they all wore shamrocks in their hair and carried shillelaghs and played harps and rode in donkey carts.'

'No! Don't be silly, I didn't say that.'

'Ach, you and your blinkin' stereotypes.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you.'

'Me and my stereotypes? What about you and your homophobic-'

'I'm not getting into the whole homophonic thing again!' said Ted.

'Homophobic,' corrected Israel.

'Aye. I've got nothing against 'em. And anyway you're the one always going on about poster modern identity-'

'Postmodern, Ted. Postmodern! God!'

'Aye, right. Well, He's of the same opinion as me.'

'Who?'

'The Good Lord.' Ted shook his head. 'Homophonic! And you think all the Irish do is sit around playing bodhrans and building your English roads?'

'No.'

'You racist English b-'

'Ted! I'm just saying, it's a fact. A lot of English roads were built by Irishmen.'

'Aye, well,' said Ted, looking out of the window of the Mini at the solid traffic. The M25 was full; as far as Ted could tell, England was full. 'Fat lot of good it's done ye. Look at it. I don't know how you cope with all this.'

'Coffee, actually, mostly,' said Israel, taking a sip from his insulated vacuum cup, which he'd had the foresight to bring when they'd set off from his mum's in the Mini early that morning. 'Speaking of which, if it's all right with you, I thought, seeing as we're, you know, down this way, I might just pop in and see some of my old friends at work.'

Israel was determined to find someone left in England who might want to talk to him.

'Oh, no, no, no,' said Ted. 'We're not mucking around here, boy. We're going to get the van and go. Where is it, anyway, Ongger?'

'Ongar,' said Israel. 'It's in Essex. I looked it up.'

'Sounds African to me,' said Ted. 'Anyway, it's the van we're after here, not a trip down memory lane. You can do that on your own time.'

'It's not a trip down…Lakeside is sort of on the way.'

'What is Lakeside?'

'It's the shopping mall place where I used to work in the bookshop. I've told you about it loads of times.'

'I don't think so,' said Ted.

'Yes, I have. The Bargain Bookstore? Where I used to work? I thought I might just pop in and say hello to people.'

'Waste of time,' said Ted.

'It's not a waste of time,' said Israel. 'It's…Something I'd like to do. You know, reconnect with people.'

'Ach,' said Ted. 'Reconnect!'

'Yes. Meet up with some of my old colleagues. We had some great times there. Honestly.' Israel sighed, remembering when he had a life in England. 'There was once, right, when it was a Harry Potter night-I think it was The Goblet of Fire-and we were doing a late opening, and we'd all gone to the pub, and we did this prank call to our manager, Simon, pretending we were from the police? Saying that there'd been a riot in the shop! And someone had stolen our whole consignment of Potters! Oh, God, that was fun.'

Ted did not deign to comment.

'Just ten minutes'll do it,' pleaded Israel. 'Pop in, say hello, we'll be back on the road again before you know it.'

'It's a bad idea,' said Ted.

'Well, I'm driving,' said Israel.

'In a manner of speaking,' said Ted.

'So I'm making an executive decision,' said Israel.

'Ha!' said Ted.

Israel indicated off left.

The road off the M25 and into Lakeside was like a merry-go-round, traffic being sucked in and down into a vast, empty, busy place that wasn't really a place at all.

'Now this is like hell,' said Ted, as Israel parked the car in a car park that stretched for miles.

'This is Lakeside,' said Israel.

Hundreds of people were flooding towards the main building.

'Where are they all going?'

'They're going shopping,' said Israel.

'On a nice day like today?'

'Of course. Come on.'

'It's like they're hypnotised,' said Ted, as people trailed past them towards the main mall.

'I suppose it is, yes,' said Israel. 'Hypnotised by consumerism.'

'Aye. All right, Siglund Freud. Let's just get you down memory lane and then get out of here. Muhammad, guard the car!'

'It's Sigmund,' said Israel. 'And you,' he said to the dog, 'don't shit all over the seats.'

Inside the shopping mall there were all the usual shops, spread out as far as the eye could see.

'An Argos!' said Ted. 'Look. There's not much you can't get out of Argos, I tell you.'

'What?'

'Argos. Great wee shop. We have one in Rathkeltair. There's one here as well. I didn't realise it was all over.'

'Ted, Argos is like a huge national chain of shops.'

'Is it?' said Ted. 'I thought it was just a local.'

'No. No. It's-'

'Look! And a Clinton Cards,' said Ted. 'There's one of these in Ballymena. They're bringing all our shops over here.'

'Yeah, and in England we have Starbucks as well. And Hoovers. And Ford motor cars?' said Israel.

'Woolworths,' said Ted. 'This place has got everything.'

'Anyway…' said Israel. 'Moving on.'

They went up an escalator, passed something that was meant to be a sculpture and then they were outside the Bargain Bookstore.

'Oh,' said Israel.

The Bargain Bookstore was now called the Book Worm, the shiny new plastic shop fascia showing a huge fat yellow cartoon worm wearing a bib, with a knife and fork in its hands, tucking into a plateful of books and winking suggestively. The name might have changed but the window display looked pretty much the same as it did when Israel had worked there, showing discounted autobiographies and biographies by footballers, and models and sportsmen, and huge, useless cookbooks.

'This is it?' said Ted.

'Yes,' said Israel. 'They've changed the name.'

'The Book Worm?' said Ted. 'Appealin'.'

'Well. Anyway. This is it. The old firm.'

'You made it sound like the British blinkin' Library,' said Ted. 'There's a shop like this in Coleraine.'

'No, no. Similar maybe,' said Israel. 'But not the same. This was a special place to work. Honestly. A lot of very interesting people work here.'

'Aye,' said Ted. 'I'm sure.'

'No, really. Great camaraderie. Each year we used to go on a day trip to Alton Towers.'

'Sounds amazing,' said Ted. 'Whatever Alton Towers is.'

'It's a theme park,' said Israel. 'Where they have this great water-'

'Let's hurry up then, shall we?' said Ted, striding into the shop. 'I'd like to get the van back this year, if possible.'

Inside the shop, Israel approached a woman who was wearing a shapeless red T-shirt with the words, 'The Book Worm!' emblazoned across her chest, the hungry worm on her back. She was unpacking a box of books.