Part 25 (1/2)

A lad in blue overalls and s.h.i.+ny hair and ears as big as a chimpanzee's heaved a packing case into the hallway. He saw me and his face said, 'Nice one Cyril.' 'Sign here please, Miss Miss Forbes.' Forbes.'

She signed and he was gone.

We looked at the packing case for a moment. 'Nice big present,' I commented. 'Is your birthday coming up?'

'It's not a present,' she said. 'It's already mine. Come and give me a hand, would you? In the cupboard under the sink there's a hammer and a cold chisel, in a box with some fuses...'

We prised open the lid, and the four sides fell away.

A Queen Anne chair.

Katy's thoughts wandered a long way away. 'Marco,' she said, 'thank you for making breakfast. It was really... But I think I'd like you to go now.' There was a tremor in her voice. 'You're not a bad man.'

'Okay,' I said. 'Could I just hop into your shower?'

'I'd like you to go now.'

The avenue was littered with autumn. The air was smoky with it. Not yet 10 a.m., it was crisp and sunny and foggy all at once. I'd try to get to Alfred's by late lunchtime, Tim Cavendish's by late afternoon, and back to my place by early evening in time to meet Gibreel. It wasn't really worth going back to my flat now. I'd just have to smell of s.e.x all day.

Katy Forbes wasn't the stablest of campers but at least she hadn't been a head-case like that vamp of Camden Town who'd tied me up to her bedstead with a leather belt and videoed herself releasing her pet tarantula on my torso. 'Stop screaming,' she'd screamed. 'Baggins has had his sacs removed...' It hadn't been Baggins's sacs that were at the forefront of my mind. Katy's intellect must have impressed me enough to go for the writer ident.i.ty, rather than the drummer. Even so. The Morning After Me was not overly impressed with the Night Before Me. I pa.s.s through many Mes in the course of the day, each one selfish with his time. The Lying in Bed Me, and the Enjoying the Hot Shower Me are particularly selfish. The Late Me loathes the pair of them.

I really am a drummer. My band's called The Music of Chance. I named it after a novel by that New York bloke. I describe us as a 'loose musical cooperative' there are about ten members, and whoever's around performs on whatever's happening. Plus, most of us are pretty loose. We play our own material mostly, though if I'm strapped for cash we'll play whatever will put b.u.ms on seats. We've been offered a recording contract, by the biggest record company in southern Belgium, but we thought we should hold out for something more EMI or Geffen-sized. The Music of Chance is pretty big in the Slovak Republic, too. We played a few gigs there last summer that went down very well.

I really am a writer, too. A ghostwriter. My first published project was the autobiography of a pace bowler called Dennis Mackeson who played for England a few times in the mid-eighties, when it rained a lot. The Twistlethwaite Tornado The Twistlethwaite Tornado got great reviews in the got great reviews in the Yorks.h.i.+re Post Yorks.h.i.+re Post 'Not in a million years would I have guessed it that Mr Mackeson could bowl 'em out with his nib as well as his yorkers! ”Owzat!”' On the strength of the first book I'm currently writing the life story of this old guy Alfred, who lives on the edge of Hampstead Heath with his younger though not by much boyfriend, Roy. I go, he reminisces about his younger days, I tape it, jot notes, and by next week I write it up into a narrative. Roy's the son of some Canadian steel tyc.o.o.n, and he pays me a weekly retainer fee. It helps pay the rent and the wine bars. 'Not in a million years would I have guessed it that Mr Mackeson could bowl 'em out with his nib as well as his yorkers! ”Owzat!”' On the strength of the first book I'm currently writing the life story of this old guy Alfred, who lives on the edge of Hampstead Heath with his younger though not by much boyfriend, Roy. I go, he reminisces about his younger days, I tape it, jot notes, and by next week I write it up into a narrative. Roy's the son of some Canadian steel tyc.o.o.n, and he pays me a weekly retainer fee. It helps pay the rent and the wine bars.

You could get lost in these north-east London streets. I was half-lost myself. They curve around themselves in cul-de-sacs and crescents and groves. A few months ago I spent the night bonking the Welsh Ladies Kickboxing Champion in a caravan somewhere beyond Hammersmith. She'd said that the whole of London seemed like one vast rat's maze to her. I'd said yes, but what if the rats happened to like being in the maze?

The leaves are covering up the cracks in the pavement. When I was a kid I could lose myself for hours kicking through fallen leaves, while avoiding dog t.u.r.ds and cracks. I used to be superst.i.tious, but I'm not any more. I used to be a Christian, but I'm not one of those any more either. Then I was a Marxist. I used to wait with my cadre leader outside Queensway Tube station and ask people what they thought about the Bosnian Question. Of course, most people shrug you off. 'I see, sir, no comment is it?' I cringe to think of it now.

I guess I'm not anything much these days, apart from older. A part-time Buddhist, maybe.

I remembered to worry about Poppy's period. A condom had burst on us, when was it? Ten days ago. Her period is due sometime at the end of next week... Give it another week, due to stress incurred by waiting for it... That's two weeks before panic starts knocking, and three weeks before I let it in. Oh well. India would love a little brother to play with. And when, in twenty years time, a professor of philosophy asks him 'Why do you exist?' he can toy with his nose-ring and answer, 'rugged l.u.s.t and ruptured rubber'. Weird. If I'd bought the pack behind on the condom shelf he wouldn't be/won't be sitting there. Unmix that conditional and smoke it.

Of course, I might be sterile. Now that really would be annoying. All that money wasted on unnecessary condoms. Well, there's been AIDS to worry about, I suppose. Highbury playing fields. I've almost escaped. I like the Victorian skyline, and I like the pigeons flying through the tunnels of trees. Teenagers smoking on the swings. Last time I was here was bonfire night, with Poppy and India. It was the first time India had seen fireworks. She took in the spectacle with royal dignity, but kept talking about them for days. She's a very cool kid, like her mother.

It'll be bonfire night again, soon. You can see your breath. When I was a kid I used to pretend I was a locomotive. What kid doesn't? Old men are walking their labradors across the muddy turf. There are young fathers on the pathways, teaching their kids how to ride their bikes without stabilisers. Some of these fathers are younger than me. I bet those are their BMWs. Me, I walk everywhere. That's Tony Blair's old house. A postman emptying a post-box. Walking past these old terraced houses is like browsing down a shelf of books. A student's pad, a graphic designer's studio, a family with their kitchen done out in primary colours and pictures from school fridge-magneted onto the fridge. An antiquarian's study. A bas.e.m.e.nt full of toys a helicopter going round and round and round. A huntin', shootin', b.u.g.g.e.rin' living room with paintings and fittings that clear their throats and say 'burgle this house!' to all the people trudging past to the a.r.s.enal and Finsbury Park Unemployment Centres. Offices of obscure support groups, watchdog headquarters and impotent trade unions. Three men in black suits stride past, turning down Calabria Road, one speaking into a cell phone, another carrying a briefcase. What are they doing here on a Sat.u.r.day? Must be estate agents. How come they end up with that life, and I end up with this one? I could have been a lawyer, or an accountant, or a whatever you have to be to afford a house around Highbury playing fields, too, if I had wanted to. I was adopted by middle-cla.s.s parents in Surrey, I went to a good school. I got a job in a city firm. I was twenty-two and I was taking Prozac for breakfast. I had my very own shrink. I wince to think of the money I paid him to tell me what the matter was. When I told him I'd been adopted his eyes lit up! He'd done his PhD in adopted kids. But I discovered the answer myself in the end. I had stopped taking plunges. I don't mean risks: I mean plunges, the uprooting and throwing of oneself into something entirely new.

Now I live like this, losing the battle against a battery of deadlines especially financial ones but at least they are deadlines of my own choosing, there because I've plunged myself into something again. It's not always an easy way to live. Independence and insecurity hobble along together in my three-legged race. Jim my foster dad tells me this is a choice I made, and that I shouldn't ask for sympathy. And that's true. But why did I make that choice? That's what I wonder about. Because I am me, is the answer. But that just postpones the question. Why am I me?

Chance, that's why. Because of the c.o.c.ktail of genetics and upbringing fixed for me by the blind barman Chance.

That Big Issue Big Issue vendor guy there, why is he selling his magazine next to a shop where people spend 250 on a bra.s.s-k.n.o.bbed antique bedstead and congratulate themselves on a bargain? Chance. Why is that guy a bus driver, and that woman a rushed-off-her-feet waitress in Pizza Hut? Chance. People say they choose, but it comes down to the same thing: why people choose what they choose is also down to chance. Why did that grey oily pigeon lose its leg, but that white and brown one didn't? Chance. Why did that curvaceous model get to model those particular jeans? Chance. Isn't all this obvious? That short woman in an orange anorak wandering across the road in front of that taxi, with the driver mentally stripping the leggy woman striding past with a flopsy dog why is she about to be mown down, and not me? vendor guy there, why is he selling his magazine next to a shop where people spend 250 on a bra.s.s-k.n.o.bbed antique bedstead and congratulate themselves on a bargain? Chance. Why is that guy a bus driver, and that woman a rushed-off-her-feet waitress in Pizza Hut? Chance. People say they choose, but it comes down to the same thing: why people choose what they choose is also down to chance. Why did that grey oily pigeon lose its leg, but that white and brown one didn't? Chance. Why did that curvaceous model get to model those particular jeans? Chance. Isn't all this obvious? That short woman in an orange anorak wandering across the road in front of that taxi, with the driver mentally stripping the leggy woman striding past with a flopsy dog why is she about to be mown down, and not me?

-f.u.c.k!

The second time this morning when I didn't know how I ended up lying next to an unknown female. This time was even more uncomfortable than the last. There was a pulsation in my left leg that hurt. hurt. There'd been a screech of brakes, and a sleeve ripping. Something flew through the air that would be me and the round Noddy eye of the taxi. This woman looked much more shocked than Katy Forbes had. She had a dead leaf and a lollipop stick sticking to her face. There'd been a screech of brakes, and a sleeve ripping. Something flew through the air that would be me and the round Noddy eye of the taxi. This woman looked much more shocked than Katy Forbes had. She had a dead leaf and a lollipop stick sticking to her face.

'Stone the crows,' she said. Irish. Middle aged. The lollipop stick dropped off.

The taxi driver was standing over us, a fat c.o.c.kney. Santa Claus without the beard or the love of humanity. I heard his engine, still running. He was deciding whether to be irate or compa.s.sionate. 'Ruddy Bleedin' Nora, love! Why didn't you look where you was going?'

'I-' Her eyes looked around like a puppet's. 'I wasn't looking where I was going.'

'Any bones broken?' The question was to both of us.

My leg was still complaining loudly, but I found I could stand and wiggle my toes. The woman picked herself up.

'I saw everything,' said the leggy woman with the flopsy dog and a Sloaney accent. 'He rugby tackled her out of the way of the taxi. And they tumbled over and over. I'm sure he saved her life, you know.' There was no one else to tell but the taxi driver who wasn't listening to her.

'I'm much obliged to you,' said the anorak woman, getting up and dusting herself down, as if I'd just handed her a cup of tea. Her eye socket was already reddening.

'You're welcome,' I said, in the same way. 'You're going to have a black eye.'

'The least of my troubles. Is your taxi free?' the anorak woman asked the taxi driver.

'You sure sure you're all right, love? No knocks on the head now?' you're all right, love? No knocks on the head now?'

'No, no, I'm quite all right. But can you give me a ride in your cab?'

'I give rides in my cab to anybody with the fare, love. But look 'ere-'

'I must look a pretty sight, but so would you if you'd... never mind. I'm sane, and solvent. Please take me to the airport.'

He was suspicious, but she was serious. 'Well, I suppose as long as you're inside my taxi, you can't try and kill yourself under it. Heathrow, Gatwick or London City?'

'Gatwick, please.'

The taxi driver looked at me. 'You all right, son?'

I looked around for somebody to tell me the answer but there was n.o.body. 'I guess so.'

The taxi driver looked back at the woman. 'Then climb in.'

They got in and drove off.

'Well,' said the leggy woman, 'how frightfully bizarre!'

I picked myself up and walked away from the little cl.u.s.ter of pa.s.sers-by that was threatening to gather. Weird. If that chair hadn't arrived when it did, and Katy hadn't flipped out and asked me to leave, then I wouldn't have been at that precise spot to stop that woman being flattened. I've never saved anyone's life before. It felt as ordinary as collecting photographs from Boots the Chemist. Slightly exciting beforehand, but basically a let-down. I walked past a phone box and thought about calling Poppy to tell her what had just happened. Nah. She might think I was boasting. I was already thinking about other things. I went over the zebra crossing outside Highbury and Islington Tube Station, the one by the roundabout, and was searching my coat for a fiver that I hoped I'd put there for emergencies when the same three men in black suits I'd seen earlier hustled me away from the ticket machine and around the corner, behind a newspaper kiosk. I was still shaken from my rugby tackle, so it took me a few moments to realise what was happening. People in the background were deliberately not noticing. b.l.o.o.d.y Islington.

I almost saw the funny side of it. 'If you want to mug me and take my money, you've really chosen the wrong-'

'WewannaAweewordAboo' tha' the' wurmansonny!'

Was I being mugged in Kurdish? 'I'm terribly sorry?'

He jabbed my sternum with an iron forefinger. 'About that woman-' Oh, a Scot. Which woman? Katy Forbes? Were these her boyfriends?

The next one drawled. 'That dame in the orange raincoat, boy.' A Texan? A Texan and a Scot. This was sounding like the first line of a joke. These people weren't joking, though. They looked like they had never joked since kindergarten. Debt collectors? 'The woman you just pulled from in front of that there taxi. There were witnesses.'