KENNETH GRAHAME

The remainder of myLondon 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’.

Halkerstonlooked 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 aboutLondon while I made a final peace with my Creator and my Creditors, and the course of my errands took me within yearning distance ofCork 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 inCork 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.

‘Are you all right?’ I said, about a thousand years later.

It was just something to say. I don’t really know what I meant by it. Did I mean was she all right because I hadn’t hurt her, or was she all right because a lot of other people hadn’t hurt her?

Sarah looked at me as if she didn’t know either, but after a while I think we decided to go with the former.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

And then, as if they were arriving back from their lunch hour, the extras in our film began to move again, to make noise. Chattering, shuffling, coughing, dropping things. Sarah was gently wringing her hands. I turned to look at the bonnet of the Ford. She’d made an impression.

‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘I mean, you must have…’

‘Really, Thomas, I’m fine.’ There was a pause, which she spent straightening her dress, and I spent watching her do it. Then she looked up at me. ‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ I said. ‘I’m…’

Well, I mean to say. Where was I supposed to begin?

We went to a pub. The Duke Of Somewhereshire, tucked into the corner of a mews nearBerkeley Square.

Sarah sat down at a table and opened her handbag, and while she fiddled around inside it, doing that woman thing, I asked her if she wanted a drink. She said a large whisky. I couldn’t remember whether you’re supposed to give alcohol to people who’ve just had a shock, but I knew I wasn’t up to asking for hot, sweet tea in aLondon pub, so I made my way to the bar and ordered two double Macallans.

I watched her, the windows, and the door. They had to have been following her. Had to.

With the stakes as they were, it was inconceivable that they would let her wander round unattended. I was the lion, if you can believe that for a moment, and she was the tethered goat. It would have been madness to let her roam.

Unless.

Nobody came in, nobody peered in, nobody wandered past and sneaked a sideways look in. Nothing. I looked at Sarah.

She’d finished with her handbag, and now sat, looking towards the middle of the room, her face a complete blank. She was in a daze, thinking of nothing. Or she was in a jam, thinking of everything. I couldn’t tell. I was pretty sure that she knew I was looking at her, so the fact that she didn’t look back was odd. But then odd isn’t a crime.