Part 2 (1/2)

'In the long run what?'

'In the long run it's not the people on the ground making the big decisions. Can I get anybody more wine?'

'So you're coming down pretty firmly on the fence, then?'

The Trophy Wife spoke for the first time in a while. 'I'd like some more wine.' Mark tried hard not to beam in grat.i.tude, and disappeared to the kitchen to find another bottle.

Sarah turned to Gerard. 'What's your stake in it, anyway?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I don't know what you do, other than it involves supplying commodities to a variety of customers. I mean, you don't actually make anything, do you?'

'I make money, my dear. A great deal, actually.'

She'd walked into that one. 'And that's what you'll be doing if there's a war, is it? Making profits out of the dead?'

'You make it sound as if I go grubbing round battlefields picking the pockets of corpses.'

'Well, you might as well, mightn't you?'

He looked at her. 'No, in fact. My ”stake” in it is the same as yours, actually. In that I'll be a member of an involved nation. Other than that, I've no direct interest. But unlike you, I gather, I'll actually be supporting the troops sent out in my name. Because the fewer of them die, the happier I'll be. Is that what you were getting at?'

Sarah bit her tongue. Slippery b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Gerard looked at Rufus. 'So much for world events. What is it you do?' He put a slight stress on do, as if the notion of Rufus in action, hard as it was to swallow, had to be faced up to sometime.

'I, er, freelance.'

'Freebase? That's some kind of drugs thing, isn't it?'

Rufus coughed. 'Freelance.'

'Oh, freelance. At what? Quant.i.ty surveying? Window cleaning?'

Mark came back with an open bottle and began waving it vaguely, as if expecting a queue to form in front of him.

'I teach,' Rufus said. 'Adult literacy,' he added.

'How fascinating,' Gerard breathed.

Sarah had had enough. Much more of this, and Gerard Inchon would be wearing her cutlery in his back.

'Wine, er, anyone?' Mark said at last.

'I'll go and make the coffee,' Sarah said.

But the explosion, when it happened, drew a line under the conversation. It seemed to come in two distinct stages, though afterwards Sarah could never recall in which order they occurred. The room shook, not violently, but more than was usual during the average dinner party; the prints on the walls rattled in their frames, and the light-fitting spiralled, sending shadows swinging from their corners. And then, or possibly slightly beforehand, there was a dull thump followed by a sliding noise, as if a geological event were taking place at an unexpected venue. Wigwam dropped her empty winegla.s.s; the Trophy Wife's eyes grew round in alarm. Mark rose to his feet, looking automatically to Gerard for enlightenment, as if having more money than anybody else made Gerard the expert on everything. To her fury Sarah found she'd done the same herself. Gerard put his gla.s.s down very carefully and turned to look at the curtained window, then nodded to himself, as if an earlier suspicion had been confirmed, and turned back to Sarah. 'That was a bomb,' he said.

'A bomb?'

'Unmistakable. A gas explosion would '

Rufus brushed past him on his way to the front door.

There was a moment's confusion, as if n.o.body were sure whether to follow Rufus or listen to Gerard; then a general exodus in the former's wake. Probably the only time Rufus could expect to upstage Inchon, but Sarah only managed this thought later. At the time, her mind was locked in that off-kilter clarity in which all perceptions are heightened, and everything happens in slow motion, but nothing is capable of articulation. She wished afterwards she'd savoured the look on Gerard's face, but had to make do with imagining it.

It had come, the explosion, from several hundred yards up the road, maybe as far as the river itself, and even against the night sky inky black smoke was visible, clouding the air the way a squid might stain the lower depths. But there was little flame, and if it weren't for the crowd already gathering under streetlights, Sarah would not have known which way to look. The noise that remained was the sound of aftermath: a kind of muted roar still echoing off the houses. Sarah bit her lip, tasted blood tinged with mint, and half of her wanted to understand what had happened, and the rest didn't want to know. They stood in a group, with only Rufus apart; a few yards closer to the destroyed house, as if that slight edge gave him a different perspective. And under the roar she could hear the muttering of the crowd ahead; the appreciative undertone you get at a bonfire. For there was a fire. If you looked closely you could see a glow from an upper window, as if a dragon breathed against the pane.

'Must be a gas main,' Rufus said.

'What can we do? We can't just stand here!'

Mark put an arm round her. 'There's nothing we can do. Just wait for the professionals, that's all.'

'But whose house is it?' asked Wigwam. 'Is it somebody we know?'

As if this made all the difference, thought Sarah. Or any difference at all.

'I can hear sirens,' the Trophy Wife said. Sarah wished she could remember her stupid name. 'There!'

They could all hear them: a high-pitched keening, curling over the rooftops and echoing down the street.

Gerard lit his cigar. The flame from his lighter threw a devilish cast across his round face, stressing his widow's peak. 'Bit more excitement to wind up on,' he said. 'You lay this on especially, Mark?'

'Oh, shut up,' Sarah said.

She did not know whose house it was, but it lay hard by the river. The crowd was keeping a distance; no amateur heroics this time of night. Maybe it was empty, after all. But Sarah wished somebody would do something, if only to absolve the rest of them from the crippling sin of being useless in a crisis. She took a step away from Mark, whose arm dropped from her shoulder. And now fire engines came cras.h.i.+ng round the corner, still blaring their sirens to underline the nature of emergency. Nothing serious ever happened quietly. Not while men were driving, anyway.

'There's nothing to see,' Mark said, in unconscious parody of a policeman in move-along mode. 'No sense rubbernecking.'

'Isn't there an ambulance?' asked Wigwam.

'It's coming.'

It tailed after the fire engines, its blue light scooping in and out of the gaps between houses. Because there was an ambulance did not mean anyone was hurt, Sarah thought. But it was pointless reaching these rational little conclusions. The house could be stuffed full of infants for all she knew. The fire engines pulled up near the house, and all sorts of efficient things happened. Hoses snaked from the backs of trucks, while men in yellow helmets shouted instructions to each other. The crowd moved back in awe or obedience while two men in white pulled stretchers from the ambulance. At this remove, it all had an air of unreality, as if she were watching a not-quite accurate account of a small disaster. She heard gla.s.s breaking, then a hose whooshed on, trained on what was left of the upper storey. At this angle she could not be sure, but the house had a lopsided appearance, as if part of it had been swallowed by night and shadow, or something with an altogether larger appet.i.te. It was the house on the corner, she decided. So any part of it that had collapsed had probably fallen into the river.

'Shall we go closer?' fretted Wigwam. 'I can't see whose house it is.'

'We'll only be in the way,' Mark snapped.

Rufus reached out and caught Wigwam's sleeve, whether in comfort or prohibition, Sarah had no idea. There was another rupture from the emergency scene, and uniformed men danced back from sliding rubble.

'I can't bear this,' she said.

'Let's go inside.'

They straggled back in, Gerard alone reluctant. Perhaps he got a kick out of other people's tragedies; more likely he wanted to finish his cigar. Sarah found two inches of it squashed upright on the gatepost next morning, like the offering of a particularly acrobatic poodle.

All were subdued, and at least two of them deeply upset by what had happened. So Mark approached the matter in best masculine fas.h.i.+on, producing the brandy he held back for private emergencies; he and Gerard made the most of this one, though everybody else declined. Rufus never touched spirits. Gerard wasn't surprised. Other than that, an armistice had been declared, which lasted until the dinner guests called it a night. It had gone twelve, to Sarah's surprise. She thought she'd been excruciatingly aware of every minute, but the last hour had pa.s.sed her by entirely.