road outside was silent, an abandoned city. Apart from him, the house might be empty. The room was an Egyptian burial chamber plundered centuries before by tomb-robbers. The mummy of Neel-Mah-Teen was unknown to history, his offering of pain ignored by the Gods.
In underpants and a T-shirt, Neil walked across the carpet, shock-cold waking him, numb leg dragging. He made it to the alcove and the cupboard over the sink. There was a half-bottle of ketchup, a box of elderly tea-bags and a plastic container of wholegrain flour, along with the fifties utensils that came with the room. He found a pack of paracetamol, two still in the plastic-and-foil sheet. He dry-gulped them, experiencing no ad-style instant relief.
The fire had been left on when he collapsed last night (early this morning?) but the meter had run out. He had no fresh change but the coin-box had been broken into and not fixed, so he retrieved his much-used fifty-pence piece and fed it through again. He relished the tingy whirr that came from the fire as the current was restored, promising to settle the debt when Mr Azmi’s son came round to collect. He owed the tin box about five pounds.
The overhead bulb came on too; it must have been burning when he crashed.
Someone had helped him, he remembered. A kindly, exasperated woman. She guided him from the casualty ward and waited outside the house, in the first dingy light of dawn, as he got inside. Solicitous of his well-being, which was unusual. Molly? Sally? Sally. From the party. Olive Oyl. Some girl Dolar knew. Probably another incipient psychopath. Dolar introduced him to Tanya, and at first she’d been solicitous too, especially when he had some money and she hadn’t any. He wondered what Sally would look like with her hair down. She’d had good eyes and a thin, promising mouth.
He thought of venturing out to quest for groceries, then about boiling a saucepan of water for tea. His stomach wasn’t in the mood for food or drink and he doubted he could taste anything anyway. He’d have to clean a cup if he wanted tea and he’d been squeezing weak bubbles out of the washing-up liquid bottle for days.
He could think of no real reason not to go back to bed and sleep out 1993. But, after hovering a moment, he began to get dressed.
‘Never surrender,’ he told himself, unconvinced.
LEECH
CARDINAL WOLSEY, STREET, 1993
Darkness was about him like a cloak, taking the shape of a motor car. In the back of his Rolls, Leech sprawled on black leather like a vampire in a coffin. But he did not sleep. Green figures scrolled on one monitor. Another screen showed Cloud 9’s twenty-four-hour News. Business must be done. The fax whirred constantly, feeding documents into his hand. He memorised as he read, then slipped paper into the in-car shredder. A part of his mind was always available for the governance of his earthly dominion.
The car prowled through the docklands. He had been born not far from here. When he returned now, it was as an emperor. Through one-way glass, he looked at empty streets. He owned them; if not now, then soon. Many houses were derelict, windows replaced with sheets of corrugated iron, over-full skips parked outside. Some terraces, like geriatric jaws holding their last few teeth, housed one or two elderly sitting-tenants. Bus shelters were demolished, schools abandoned, post offices closed, pubs firebombed. All support had been withdrawn. There was no transport, no commerce, no policing. Street lighting was intermittent. Large properties, once factories or warehouses, were burned-out shells. The district was in its last stages of withering. Even the homeless, sensing with ratwhiskers the terminal sickness, had moved on to other sites.
When this place was dead, Leech would supervise the erection of a dark and shining city. His pyramid, already the dominant shape on the skyline, would be its beating heart. He could already see predictive outlines of the buildings, shadows gathering substance
In underpants and a T-shirt, Neil walked across the carpet, shock-cold waking him, numb leg dragging. He made it to the alcove and the cupboard over the sink. There was a half-bottle of ketchup, a box of elderly tea-bags and a plastic container of wholegrain flour, along with the fifties utensils that came with the room. He found a pack of paracetamol, two still in the plastic-and-foil sheet. He dry-gulped them, experiencing no ad-style instant relief.
The fire had been left on when he collapsed last night (early this morning?) but the meter had run out. He had no fresh change but the coin-box had been broken into and not fixed, so he retrieved his much-used fifty-pence piece and fed it through again. He relished the tingy whirr that came from the fire as the current was restored, promising to settle the debt when Mr Azmi’s son came round to collect. He owed the tin box about five pounds.
The overhead bulb came on too; it must have been burning when he crashed.
Someone had helped him, he remembered. A kindly, exasperated woman. She guided him from the casualty ward and waited outside the house, in the first dingy light of dawn, as he got inside. Solicitous of his well-being, which was unusual. Molly? Sally? Sally. From the party. Olive Oyl. Some girl Dolar knew. Probably another incipient psychopath. Dolar introduced him to Tanya, and at first she’d been solicitous too, especially when he had some money and she hadn’t any. He wondered what Sally would look like with her hair down. She’d had good eyes and a thin, promising mouth.
He thought of venturing out to quest for groceries, then about boiling a saucepan of water for tea. His stomach wasn’t in the mood for food or drink and he doubted he could taste anything anyway. He’d have to clean a cup if he wanted tea and he’d been squeezing weak bubbles out of the washing-up liquid bottle for days.
He could think of no real reason not to go back to bed and sleep out 1993. But, after hovering a moment, he began to get dressed.
‘Never surrender,’ he told himself, unconvinced.
LEECH
CARDINAL WOLSEY, STREET, 1993
Darkness was about him like a cloak, taking the shape of a motor car. In the back of his Rolls, Leech sprawled on black leather like a vampire in a coffin. But he did not sleep. Green figures scrolled on one monitor. Another screen showed Cloud 9’s twenty-four-hour News. Business must be done. The fax whirred constantly, feeding documents into his hand. He memorised as he read, then slipped paper into the in-car shredder. A part of his mind was always available for the governance of his earthly dominion.
The car prowled through the docklands. He had been born not far from here. When he returned now, it was as an emperor. Through one-way glass, he looked at empty streets. He owned them; if not now, then soon. Many houses were derelict, windows replaced with sheets of corrugated iron, over-full skips parked outside. Some terraces, like geriatric jaws holding their last few teeth, housed one or two elderly sitting-tenants. Bus shelters were demolished, schools abandoned, post offices closed, pubs firebombed. All support had been withdrawn. There was no transport, no commerce, no policing. Street lighting was intermittent. Large properties, once factories or warehouses, were burned-out shells. The district was in its last stages of withering. Even the homeless, sensing with ratwhiskers the terminal sickness, had moved on to other sites.
When this place was dead, Leech would supervise the erection of a dark and shining city. His pyramid, already the dominant shape on the skyline, would be its beating heart. He could already see predictive outlines of the buildings, shadows gathering substance
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