Part 11 (1/2)

”Shut up, both of you!” the oldest told them.

The middling one looked down. His face flushed red with hurt. The youngest one swaggered triumphantly beside him in his suit. The oldest boy carried the tyre into the shop. I followed him. The middling boy slouched in behind me but stayed in the doorway, keeping the youngest out. There was no one else in the shop.

”Where are the real people?” I asked.

”I'm real,” the oldest boy said. He looked offended.

”You know...the...the owners,” I said.

”Off to lunch,” he answered.

”Cafe next door,” added the middling one.

”Well, I could come back when...” I began-but stopped because the oldest boy had dunked my tyre into a tub of water and was slowly turning it round. He seemed to know what he was doing. He stared into the murky water, his eyes taut with concentration. I stared too: it was absorbing, watching the tyre's bottom edge entering the water and slowly revolving. After a few seconds the boy stopped turning it and pointed: ”There's your puncture,” he said.

I followed his finger with my eye. Bubbles of air were rising from a silvery slit on the rubber's surface. It was like mineral water, only dirty.

”Will they be able to fix it?” I asked. ”When they come back, I mean.”

”I can fix it,” said the boy.

He hoisted the tyre out of the water and carried it over to a kind of lathe. The tyre was pretty big in proportion to him: he had to half-support it with his knee. Black grime was rubbing off it onto his clothes, which were already smeared with grime all over. He sat down at the lathe and pressed a pedal with his foot, which made a series of clamps tighten round the tyre. Then his foot pressed another pedal and the tyre deflated with a bang. He started daubing glue on from a tin. His hand moved quickly as he did this, dipping and daubing, flas.h.i.+ng the brush one way then another. The exaggerated manner he'd had when he sauntered over to the car was gone, eclipsed now by his earnest concentration, his artisa.n.a.l skill. The middling boy watched him from a few feet away. The youngest boy watched too. The eyes of both of them were full of admiration-longing, almost-as they watched him flick the brush.

He pressed a pedal with his foot; the lathe revolved a quarter-turn between his hands, and he brushed an adjoining spot with glue. He pressed another pedal, and the wheel turned back for him to brush the spot on the other side of the puncture. When he'd brushed all he wanted, he dipped his hand into the tub again, scooped up some water and patted this on the tyre while the three of us stood still, reverent as a congregation at a christening, watching him at his font.

Effortlessly the boy's hand rose and flipped a lever at the lathe's side. The lathe hissed as its clamps released my wheel and glided back. The same hand reached up to beside his shoulder to take hold of a blue tube. The tube was hanging just beyond his field of vision, but the hand didn't need help: it knew just where it was. Its fingers jabbed the tube into my tyre and its thumb depressed a catch; air started flowing into it. A minute later the tyre was mended, inflated and rolling across the tarmac back towards my car. He took it to the boot again and lifted it back in.

”Shouldn't we put it back on?” I asked. ”Drive on it, I mean?”

”No. Keep it as a spare,” he said. ”You should rotate them.”

”Rotate, yes,” I said. ”Okay.”

He could have told me anything and I'd have said ”Okay”. I stood there looking at him for a while longer. We all did. A truce seemed to exist now between the other two boys. After a while I asked him: ”Shall I pay you, then, or...”

”Yes. Pay me,” he said. ”Ten pounds.”

I paid him ten pounds. I remembered that my windscreen washer reservoir was empty and I asked him for some fill-up. He glanced at the middling boy and slightly raised his chin; the middling boy ran into the shop and came out with a litre of blue liquid which he and the youngest boy poured into the windscreen washer reservoir for me, operating in sync together now, the youngest one holding the lid off while the middling one poured, then pa.s.sing the lid over for the middling one to screw on while he, the youngest one, carried the empty bottle over to a bin. They closed the bonnet for me and I got back into my car.

Before I drove off I pushed the windscreen spurter b.u.t.ton to make sure it worked. Liquid should have squirted out onto the gla.s.s, but nothing happened. I pushed it some more. Still nothing. I got out, opened the bonnet again and checked the reservoir. It was empty.

”It's all gone!” I said.

The boys peered in. The oldest one got down on his knees and looked under the car.

”There's no patch,” he said. ”It hasn't leaked. It should be there.” He turned to the middling boy and said: ”Go get another bottle.”

Another bottle was brought out and poured into the reservoir. Once more I climbed inside the car and pressed the spurter b.u.t.ton. Once more nothing happened-and once more, when we looked inside the reservoir, we found it empty.

”Two litres!” I said. ”Where has it all gone?”

They'd vaporized, evaporated. And do you know what? It felt wonderful. Don't ask me why: it just did. It was as though I'd just witnessed a miracle: matter-these two litres of liquid-becoming un-matter-not surplus matter, mess or clutter, but pure, bodiless blueness. Transubstantiated. I looked up at the sky: it was blue and endless. I looked back at the boy. His overalls and face were covered in smears. He'd taken on these smears so that the miracle could happen, like a Christian martyr being flagellated, crucified, scrawled over with stigmata. I felt elated-elated and inspired.

”If only...” I started, but paused.

”What?” he asked.

”If only everything could...”

I trailed off again. I knew what I meant. I stood there looking at his grubby face and told him: ”Thank you.”

Then I got into the car and turned the ignition key in its slot. The engine caught-and as it did, a torrent of blue liquid burst out of the dashboard and cascaded down. It gushed from the radio, the heating panel, the hazard-lights switch and the speedometer and mileage counter. It gushed all over me: my s.h.i.+rt, my legs, my groin.

10.

I SHOULD HAVE JUMPED out of the car as fast as I could, but I sat there instead, letting the blue liquid gush all over me. When it had finished gus.h.i.+ng it trickled, then dribbled, then dripped. I sat impa.s.sive while it ran itself out. It took a long time: even when it seemed to have dripped itself dry it still managed to grind out another half-drip a few seconds later, and another half-half-drip a few seconds after that.

Slowly, tentatively, the three boys edged over to the car and peered in. The youngest one gasped when he saw my trousers soaked in the sticky blue liquid. The other two said nothing: they just stared. I stared too: we all stared at the dashboard and my legs. We stayed there, static like that, for a long while. Then I drove back to my building.

When I got there, I took off my wet clothes and had a bath. I lay in my bath looking at the crack and thinking about what had happened. It was something very sad-not in the normal sense but on a grander scale, the scale that really big events are measured in, like centuries of history or the death of stars: very, very sad. A miracle seemed to have taken place, a miracle of transubstantiation-in contravention of the very laws of physics, laws that make swings stop swinging and fridge doors catch and large, unsuspended objects fall out of the sky. This miracle, this triumph over matter, seemed to have occurred, then turned out not to have done at all-to have failed utterly, spectacularly, its watery debris cras.h.i.+ng down to earth, turning the scene of a triumphant launch into the scene of a disaster, a catastrophe. Yes, it was very sad.

I lay there in my bath replaying the event in my mind, scouring its surfaces. There'd been the garish model tin and piled-up tyres, the spinning sign, the swaying tyre-suit of the youngest boy, the lathe with its clamps and pedals and the blue tube full of air. I remembered how the boy had carried the tyre from my car boot to the shop, how grime had rubbed onto his s.h.i.+rt; then how his hands had whipped around it daubing glue on, re-inflating it. I lay for so long remembering that the bath turned cold and my skin wrinkled. After an age I got out and phoned Naz.

”I'd like you to facilitate another project I'm considering,” I said.

”Certainly,” Naz replied. ”Tell me about it.”

”I should like a certain area,” I said, ”to be reproduced exactly.”

”A small section of the building?” he asked.

”No,” I said. ”Another place. A tyre repair shop.”

”That shouldn't be a problem,” Naz said. ”If you tell me where it is, I'll give Roger a call right now and get him to knock you up another model.”

”It's not a model I require,” I told Naz. ”It's a full-scale reproduction. I should like Roger to reproduce this tyre shop exactly, down to the last detail. Furthermore, I shall require re-enactors to run through a certain event which I'll outline later. These re-enactors must be children: three of them, aged fifteen, thirteen and eleven. Plus one man of my age. Four people in all, plus back-up. I shall require them to run through this event constantly, round the clock.”

There was a pause at Naz's end. I pictured his office in the blue-and-white building, how the desks were laid out, the telescope by the window. After a while he said: ”How can they do that?”

This was a good question, but I had the answer: ”We'll have several teams,” I told him, ”relieving one another, in relay.”

”In relay?” he said.

”Yes,” I answered. ”We rotate them.”

There was another pause at Naz's end. I concentrated on his office again, clasping the phone. Eventually he answered: ”Fine.”