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  “No, stay outside! It’s easier if I do this on my own.”

  Emmanuel raises a glove in acknowledgement. “Doctor is god,” he jokes, and retreats to the car as the automatic doors open for us. To the right of Norman’s cubby-hole is a row of parked wheelchairs. I grab the first one and empty Edona into it just as a porter, not Norman, emerges from behind the desk.

  “Hey, it’s not self-service, you know,” he bawls. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “It’s OK, Norman Tait said I could use it.”

  “Norman Tait’s not on tonight.”

  “Thought not. He wouldn’t be letting that BMW park in the ambulance space.”

  “What BMW?” He hurries to the main entrance to investigate. As soon as his back is turned I wheel Edona round and sprint along the corridor under the sign marked Out-Patients Department.

  What is it about hospitals? Twice we take a wrong turning and have to track back. Fortunately the duty porter hasn’t caught up with us by the time I find my way to the out-patients’ entrance. I stand waving my arms at the sensor above the glass doors, but they remain firmly shut. At one side of the doors is a red square box housing a fire alarm. I lift my elbow and jab it through the Perspex cover. Edona jumps at the sound of the alarm, shockingly loud in the quiet of the empty corridor. I wave my hand at the sensor – halleluiah, the doors slide open.

  In the outpatients’ car park – almost full when I came a few hours ago – my Audi TT is now the only vehicle to be seen. A worrying thought occurs as I push Edona’s wheelchair along the path towards it. I paid for my ticket up to the stated closing time at six o’ clock, but suppose there’s no parking allowed after that? How come mine is the only car there? What if I’ve been clamped?

  There’s a tingle of relief when we roll up to the car. A quick check around confirms there is no clamp, not even a penalty notice on the windscreen. Nor have I lost my keys in the fight with Boris or our mad dash through the hospital. I open up and gently lift Edona into the passenger seat, leaving her my coat to cover herself.

  “Sorry, Norman, I know I should be returning this,” I say aloud as I abandon the wheelchair by the ticket machine and climb into the car next to Edona. She turns as I settle in the seat next to her and squeezes my arm gently with both hands, smiling.

  “Told you I’d get you out,” I say, with just a touch of self-congratulation. I lean across to fasten her seat belt securely before I do mine. The plan hasn’t yet developed to the point where I’ve worked out how I’m going to help Edona get some independence in this country, but first things first. We’re safe and home free.

  I switch on my headlights and drive along the narrow drag by the side of the main hospital building. Now the excitement is over I’ve suddenly realised that I’ve been so absorbed in creating the escape plan I’ve forgotten to buy groceries this weekend. There’s barely a crust in the flat between the two of us. The two of us. Distracted by these thoughts, I fail to notice the give way markings and drive straight across the path of a car coming down the main hospital road. I see it peripherally and we both jam on our brakes, missing a prang by inches. My fault. I acknowledge that, pointing two fingers to my temple and pulling an imaginary trigger as I turn to show the other driver apologetic eyebrows and a wry grin. The grin freezes on me. I find myself staring through the windscreen of a silver BMW. I don’t need to see through the tinted glass to know who’s behind the wheel.

  The Audi exhaust roars as I launch from a standing start, my back wheel mounting the kerb as I swing hard left to squeeze past the front end of the Beemer. Stefan is right up my arse as I speed down to the OUT gate. I’m about to ignore another give way sign, but deliberately this time – I just can’t afford to stop. I cringe, fully expecting a side-on collision as the car leaps out blindly into the main road. But I’m lucky, nothing coming. Not so lucky. Stefan gets away with it too, bar a blast on the horn from a taxi driver forced into an emergency stop.

  I’m travelling in exactly the opposite direction to the flat, but right now that’s the least of my worries. I step on the pedal, heading towards the city centre, but suddenly swing a right, hoping that Stefan will be forced to stop for the car that’s coming the other way. He does momentarily, but it’s only seconds before I’m seeing his headlights again in my rear-view mirror.

  I throttle through the next crossroads, still riding my luck, and continue along the street that I now recognise is descending towards the river. If we keep going this way I’ll soon be running out of options. At the next junction I pull a right so hard that Edona is thrown sideways into the door panel.

  “Sorry.”

  Edona briefly puts her hand over mine on the gear-stick – to bond with me or to steady herself – and as my eyes flick in response I catch her tracing the sign of the cross on her chest with her other hand.

  We’re on Drummond Road, boy racer territory. Chicanes have been added at regular intervals to break up the tempting long straight line of tarmac. My first reaction is to curse until I realise my compact TT is better-built for nipping around the obstacles than the Beemer. I start wriggling through as fast as I dare, bumping shoulders with Edona as we lurch from side to side. Another glance in the mirror reassures that I’m putting some distance between us and Stefan on this stretch. Big mistake. Distracted, I clip the next chicane hard and my front wheel lifts, slewing the car to the right.

  “Shit!”

  I fight with the steering wheel, trying to manage the skid as we’re swiped into the far gutter. Both tyres scrape the kerb helping to keep us on the road, and by the next chicane I have just enough control to negotiate the gap. I don’t look in my mirror again until I’m safely through the last of the obstacles.

  At the end of the straight the road curves round and up. For a moment I have lost the headlights behind. I notice a narrow lane to my left and on instinct hit the brake and make a hard left into the cut, hopefully out of vision from the chasing car. I soon discover that this short lane leads only to a warehouse with a loading bay and turning circle in front of it. If Stefan has spotted my tail-light disappearing he can block us off easy and we’re finished.

  I do a three-sixty in front of the warehouse, killing my lights before I complete the turn, and we sit facing the exit but out of sight from Drummond Road. It comes to me too late that I should have cut my engine as well to give me a better chance of hearing the Beemer go by. As it is I can’t hear a thing, nor can I see any lights from the road.

  We wait in silence for what seems like several minutes, though I suspect anxiety is playing havoc with my sense of time. If my tactic has worked they could be miles away by now, maybe given up the chase and gone back to Boris. On the other hand, once they realise we’re not in front of them they might double back, and we could be unlucky enough to bump into them when we set off again. Worst case scenario, they might have seen us cut up this narrow lane and they’re waiting to pounce, like a stoat watching quietly for a rabbit to pop out of its hole.

  I’m tempted to get out of the car and sneak down to Drummond Road in the shadows to check the lie of the land, but that would mean leaving Edona alone and vulnerable, quite apart from leaving me without the protection of metal over my head if they do happen to be waiting at the end of the lane. No, the only practical thing to do is to take our chance in the Audi. I turn to look at Edona, still pale with the make-up so I’m not sure if her degree of stress matches mine.

  “You might want to try that cross thing again.”

  “Pardon me?”

  I hold up my left hand and show her my crossed fingers. She smiles, reaches across to take my hand and uses it to touch her forehead, the space between her breasts, her left and right shoulder. Finally, she kisses the back of my hand and returns it gently to me. I could die happy.

  I leave the headlights off while I taxi slowly through the cut, guided by the street lamps at the opening to the lane. A yard or two from the exit I stop and roll down my window, straining to hear anything from the roa
d beyond, but the only sound I pick up is my own engine noise vibrating off the walls. I raise the window again, for protection, place both hands on the steering wheel and roar out of the cut onto Drummond Road. I just miss clipping my front wheels on the opposite kerb as I pull the car round left in an arc and accelerate to sixty on the straight before I switch on the headlights. Nobody in front. Nobody, thankfully, behind.

  From Drummond Road to my place is less than ten minutes even travelling at thirty, so I guess we make it in much less time, but it feels far longer with every nerve tingling and attention at snapping-point, on the lookout for a silver BMW. In fact we only see a couple of innocent vehicles, as you would expect at this time of a Monday night, and I reach my spot outside the flat with no more drama. I hesitate to leave the car in such a visible position on the road, but I really don’t have an alternative. I park up and come round to open the passenger door for Edona. I offer to carry her, saving her bare feet, but she declines sweetly.

  “OK to walk, is fine. Thank you, Marc, from my heart. I’m meaning for all.”

  “Well, not quite to plan, but we’re here.”

  Adjusting my coat round Edona’s shoulders, I leave my hands there as I guide her gently through the main door and up the stairs to the flat. I really wish I had remembered about the groceries. She tries to hide a shiver as she waits on the cold landing while I search for my key, and shakes her head with a smile when she sees me noticing. I turn the key and push open the door. In the interval between the door opening and my reaching for the light switch I sense a movement in the darkness of the room. I suddenly feel defenceless, my arm stretched out, a target. The light goes on. I blink once, adjusting to the brightness, peering into the room. Edona, half-naked, exposed by the pool of light, moves in to me, seeking cover. A figure rises from my bed at the far wall, and faces the two of us framed in the doorway. For a moment I’m speechless, then, vacuously, “Oh, hello, Sam. You’ve come back.”

  XI

  There’s something I need to say about why Sam left me last month. A confession, I’d have to call it, from the guilty party. It’s been easy so far, since I’m the one telling this story, to paint myself as pretty much the good guy. Even, like just now, the hero. I haven’t done this deliberately, I mean, I didn’t set out with that intention. Quite the opposite – I’ve tried to be frank and open, and if you look back at these notes you’ll see there’s quite a few occasions where I’ve held my hands up to being a bastard or a schmuck, such as the way I’ve treated Oliver at times, or where my motivation has been a bit iffy or, let’s be honest, where carnal desire has raised its ugly prick. Yes, well, it’s that last item I’m going to have to come back to now. There’s a thread I’ve left lying, a piece of information I haven’t supplied yet. Just because, quite frankly, I’m ashamed of it and I’d rather not talk about it. I deeply wish it hadn’t happened.

  It was New Year’s Eve. Or, strictly speaking in terms of the act, the early hours of New Year’s Day. It’s the one time in the year when people in the entertainment business can charge just about anything for their services because all the local impresarios are desperate to put on some sort of do for the revellers, but nobody wants to work. The station was on festive schedule which meant I was off for the week, and so was Sam. We’d been invited to see the New Year in and stay over at her big sister’s house. They were having quite a get-together, with their daughter home from university and various expat relatives back in the region for a couple of days. But somebody made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was the same guy that had arranged the Christmas show at the Arena who asked me to host the New Year party there, only at four times the normal fee, cash in hand. As I said to Sam, if we want to save up for a house we can’t afford to turn down that kind of opportunity. She wasn’t too chuffed though, even after I promised to join her at her sister’s as soon as my stint was over.

  This was one of very few gigs I’d ever done without Oliver hanging around my deck all night – thinking about it now, I guess he felt he ought to be at home with his mam to see the New Year in. There were plenty of others to take his place though, including a fair smattering of fit-looking girls, some with boyfriends but plenty without. To be candid, I found myself wondering whether Oliver’s presence had put some females off in the past; he looks so nerdish, even creepy in certain lights, if you don’t know how harmless he really is.

  Naturally, being New Year, the booze was flowing free (well, quite expensive actually, but another perk for me was not having to pay for a drink all night), plus uppers, ‘E’ etc which have never been my bag but the younger crowd seem to munch them like sweets even though a Marc Niven gig could hardly be classed as a rave. I was drinking fairly steadily, but not so I couldn’t do a professional job. I’m not normally one for those raunchy games on stage, but the occasion seemed to demand it so there were various smutty things done with balloons and squirty cream as we warmed up for midnight.

  One dark-haired beauty, Anji, who was wearing the skimpiest red-and-black spangly number, seemed to be up for everything, and when she wasn’t joining in one of the games she stuck very close to me at the side of the stage. She’d started out with a couple of girlfriends, but I saw less and less of them as the night wore on. Picked off, I suppose, by some of the guys looking for action. Anji had her share of offers – alluring would be a good word for her – but she didn’t seem interested other than taking part in the silliness on stage. In fact the only person she danced with all night was me. Every so often when I played a tune that got me moving she’d come up and briefly make it a twosome, not so much dancing as fluttering in and out as if I was a lamp attracting her. She kept getting me to sign things too – her ticket, at least two of my publicity shots and, towards the end of the night, her own bare shoulder. Quite an ego-booster, I’ll tell you, made me put a swagger on. After a while I started ordering a vodka and Coke for Anji every time a fresh lager was on its way for me.

  Time came for the countdown to midnight, and the guy with the follow spot homed right in. I could see nothing beyond the glare, but I remember Anji being so close as I marked off the seconds that the hard edge of the spot was broken by a band of glitter on her wrist. The crowd joined in on the final count.

  “Four, three, two, one… Happy New Year!”

  The follow spot left me and started to move over the heads of dancers belting out Auld Lang Syne and crushing towards each other in the middle of the floor. Out of the sudden darkness on stage came perfume, shimmer and the soft touch of fingers around the nape of my neck. Anji slunk into me with the litheness of a cat.

  “Happy New Year, Marc.”

  She kissed me, surprised me with her tongue reaching inside my mouth. I responded, tasting a lick of lipstick as I eased myself in. Anji pushed her body further into mine, playing her fingers down my back to nestle under the waistband of my jeans. Again I followed her lead, as if we were playing an adult version of Simon Says. Moving my hands down to rest on her bum-cheeks, feeling her panty-line under my fingers. As we kissed, she made a slow belly-dancer movement against my arousal, and when we stopped she ran a palm all the way down my front, lingering on the bump, shielding her hand between our bodies. She lifted her eyes to mine.

  “I’ll wait for you after then, eh?” she said, then undid a button of my shirt, kissed my chest once, and slipped away to the Ladies to fix her make-up while I moved strategically behind the desk, burying myself in the serious work of cueing the next track.

  Two hours later the crowd was reluctantly moving off, coaxed to the exits by the ever-subtle Arena Security, while Dave the roadie and I were winding cables and packing flight cases on stage. Anji was being Girl Friday, carefully tidying what was left of the publicity photos, removing dirty glasses from the tops of speakers and placing them on the floor for the cleaners to take away. Dave caught my eye as we both bent down, going for the same cable, and he lifted his eyebrows to me, with the slightest inclination of his chin towards Anji. I just said “Me Tarzan,” qui
etly, making Dave grin and shake his head.

  After we’d loaded Dave’s van at the back of the complex - Anji chafing her elbows against the cold as she propped open the emergency exit with her pert little backside - Dave touched my arm and said, “I’m away for a smoke, be about ten minutes or so, right?” and disappeared round the corner of the building. His expectation, as well as hers, was what tore away the last strip of my resistance against the temptation. It was almost as if I would be letting him down if I didn’t do it. I didn’t want him to see me retreating from my earlier bravado – it would be as bad as walking away from a fight. Even so I hesitated for a beat, nerves and conscience knocking, before I opened the passenger door of the van.

  “It’s a bit warmer in here,” I said to Anji, and she left her post smartly, letting the emergency door swing shut as she clipped across to me in her short stilettos. I helped her into the cabin with a hand under her bottom and she shuffled along the bench seat to make room for me.

  “Sorry, but we’ve not got long,” I said, unhooking her doll-size shoulder bag and placing it gently on the floor. She dropped the same shoulder, swivelled her hips and prised off her shoes so that by the time I turned back to her she was ready, supine, chin raised, for our second deep kiss of the night, and more.

  I know people do it all the time, have done all over the world since the invention of the internal combustion engine, but I’d never actually made love in a vehicle before. Whether Anji had, until that night, I’ve no idea, but she was responsive to every touch and turn, every shift in position we seemed to need to make it work in that cramped space. Our love-making was lustful and clumsy, clothes half-on, half-off, bodies turning in, around, behind, upside-down, kneeling on the floor, sprawling on the seat, half-jammed against the dashboard, randomly bumping against the gear-stick or the handbrake. It was awkward, chaotic, exciting. I didn’t use a condom – never carried one in hope as this sort of thing didn’t happen – and if Anji had one in her bag she never offered it to me or made any move to stop me as I entered her here and there and, finally, shaftingly, shaggingly, climaxed with protracted moans from both of us, Anji smearing lipstick on the seat, me stretching and straining my torso in ecstasy.