Authors: Jenny Colgan
Ten miles away in her mother’s house, Fay had felt pulled awake at the same time as Arthur. Her first day at work hadn’t gone so bad … well, Ross hadn’t groped her. As such. But this was all going to be worth it for the look on Arthur’s face when she and Ross won the bid and left him crying on the street. Yeah. Her face took on a grim satisfaction and she turned over again on the single bed and fell asleep.
The darkness was hinting at dawn. Arthur looked at his own reflection in the window. God, yeah. That really was something howling. It did it again. Arthur reminded himself that wolves no longer roamed the countryside.
Sounded bloody weird, though.
‘We’re all going out at
what
time in the morning?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No sodding way,’ said Sven.
‘Listen to me,’ said Arthur, then realized he was begging, and that he was trying to remember about this whole respect issue, and took a breath.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘This came to me last night. It’s a great idea. We’re going to go out into the city when there’s nobody else there, and take a good long look at it. See what we’ve got to work with. It’s the only time of day we can do it – after the drunks and before the milkman. Plus, it’ll be fun. Maybe. No, yes it will. It’ll be like an expedition.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Cathy.
‘Great, that’s great!’ said Arthur. ‘Well done.’
‘I usually get up at that time to start the boys’ breakfast. And do the ironing, you know.’
‘I can’t, anyway,’ said Sven. ‘It would interfere with Sandwiches’ digestion.’
‘Yeah – might make it work,’ retorted Arthur.
‘Couldn’t you come without your dog?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No. He sleeps right across me.’
As if to demonstrate, Sandwiches crawled up and lay in the most ungainly fashion across Sven’s lap, a forlorn stubby pair of legs and a single ear hanging down either side.
‘That’s
disgusting
,’ said Gwyneth, committed vet.
‘I think it would be nice to have something to cuddle at night,’ said Cathy. Then everyone – including her – remembered she was actually married and already shared a bed with her husband and she blushed.
‘Yes, well,’ said Arthur briskly, ‘we’re going to take a look at a blank canvas; imagine what we could do if we set our minds to it. Too late for the drunks and too early for the milkman,’ he repeated. ‘Do milkmen still exist?’
‘You’re thinking of the bogeyman,’ said Gwyneth practically. ‘Milk, yes, bogeys, no.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Sven, with one finger up his nose.
Just then Rafe walked in, the only fresh-looking person in the room. Gwyneth had invited him along for the day to ‘see how the department works’ and he, amazingly, still seemed quite enthusiastic in the moments he could join them between hurrying to the toilet to cope with Cathy’s near-endless coffee provision.
Cathy looked at Rafe with that strange mixture of lust and motherly devotion only women teetering on the brink of menopause can conjure up for fresh-faced young men. ‘Hello, Rafe. More coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine thanks, Mrs P. What’s up?’
‘He’s trying to make us go out in the cold and dark.’
‘Why?’
Sven explained, and Arthur hovered in a corner feeling stupid. He’d planned to get them all whipped up with his enthusiastic oratory. Sven was making it sound as if he was transporting them all to prison ships. Rafe listened closely, nodding his head. The whole room was watching them. Finally, he straightened up.
‘Well – that’s a brilliant idea!’ he said. There was something about his open handsome face that made it look permanently smiling, and it was infectious.
Sven wrinkled up his nose in confusion. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes, don’t you see? Arthur, you’re absolutely right – we can get an idea of how the whole place
could
be. It will be mystical, magical – the city will be dead, but we – we can bring it alive, through knowing what people miss every day, through the power of our free imaginations – don’t you see?’
Arthur was half pleased, half slightly grumpy. ‘Well, yes – that’s exactly what I was …’
‘Ooh, and I can make soup,’ said Cathy.
‘Not potato soup,’ said Sven. ‘That’s rank.’
‘How rank can a potato be?’ asked Marcus. ‘It’s a potato. That’s like calling bread offensive.’
Arthur stood at the back of the room, quite amazed. Gwyneth looked over to him.
‘They’re arguing about the soup,’ said Arthur quietly to Gwyneth. ‘I think Rafe’s won on points.’
‘Well, it was your idea,’ said Gwyneth. ‘But, incidentally, he didn’t convince me. I don’t want to clatter about on my own in the pitch dark to meet you lot.’
‘Oh, please come,’ said Arthur, realizing suddenly that he was gazing at her.
Marcus, Sven and Cathy had gathered round Rafe, who was pointing things out on a map.
‘I mean,’ he was saying, ‘have you ever looked at the top of the high street? I mean,
really
looked at it?’
‘I’m usually too busy trying to avoid the syringes,’ said Gwyneth.
‘I’ll pick you up if you like,’ said Arthur.
Gwyneth glanced sideways to avoid his eyes. ‘Um … yeah. Okay.’
‘I mean, just, you know, in my car. You know, just to take you to this work thing!’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’ And she sounded as anxious to correct the misunderstanding as he was.
It was freezing. Properly, unbelievably freezing. After his broken sleep the night before, Arthur found tearing himself from his bed before four a.m. was a near impossibility, managed only by the warming thought of Gwyneth in bed – possibly naked – right now. Groaning, he stumbled into the kitchen, boiled some hot water and fumbled around for something to put into it. Let’s see – Marmite, toadstools (growing, sadly, rather than handwrapped) or an old bottle of Grand Marnier. His stomach rumbled warningly and he decided instead just to brush his teeth fifteen times.
Gwyneth’s house was actually rather charming – set back from the road, it formed the top two floors of one of Coventry’s not terribly widespread Edwardian villas. Arthur was just debating how much he cared about waking up the whole street by sounding the horn, as opposed to stepping out of the car and losing all feeling in his extremities, when the front door opened and a slight figure slipped out.
Arthur had never seen her out of a strict, well-cut work suit before. She was wearing thick rolled up khaki trousers, walking boots, and a huge man’s jumper that made her look incredibly young and cute. A little red hat jammed on top of her blonde hair finished the effect.
‘It’s my lucky red hat,’ she said when she caught him staring.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. It’s not lucky – I live here after all. But this is definitely a night which requires a hat.’
Arthur checked to see if the heating was turned all the way up and started the car.
‘There’s no way anyone else is even going to get out of bed for this,’ she said. ‘Nobody is stupid enough.’
Arthur found himself thinking this wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Maybe they could just keep warm in the car and … er, chat.
‘’Course they will. It’ll be fun.’
She stared straight ahead. ‘Getting out of this car is not going to be fun. It’s going to be like jumping off the
Titanic
.’
‘But think how nice it will be to get back to bed.’
Gwyneth grimaced. ‘Yes – two minutes later, I reckon. Nobody’s going to stand for this. If they’re here at all.’ But she stopped as Arthur swung onto Greyfriar’s Lane and both of them realized three things simultaneously: one, that it was amazing to drive at night and be able to cut through without a single piece of contending traffic; two, there were the others, and three, the two of them were about to step out of the same car in what, if you had a mind like Sven, might be construed as a mildly interesting way.
They both stopped talking normally. ‘Rightyho!’ said Arthur. ‘Here we are!’ like some children’s entertainer. ‘Uh huh!’ said Gwyneth. They sat for a second, then Gwyneth took a deep breath and opened the door.
Cathy was standing clutching a large bag to her chest and smiled helpfully when they walked over.
‘Hullo there! Isn’t it …’
‘HEEEEy!’ shouted Sven, who was unaccompanied for once. ‘What’s this, then?’
Gwyneth looked at him with her best haughty stare, which was very haughty indeed. ‘Oh,
shut up
, Sven.’
Arthur looked round the market square.
‘Ooh, there’s Rafe,’ said Cathy. ‘Now, who wants soup?’
‘I think if I put out my hand to pick up the cup it might stick in the position forever,’ said Marcus, who was barely visible between three layers of scarf – only his eyes could be seen.
‘I’m glad that, as the most sophisticated planner in the country, I’m being pulled out of my bed in the middle of the night to watch people’s arms fall off,’ said Sven.
‘Isn’t this great!’ said Rafe, striding up, looking pink-cheeked, his curly hair also crammed under a hat. He should be less tall, Arthur found himself thinking.
‘So – what’s the plan?’ said Rafe. ‘Is that soup?’
Cathy poured him a cup, beaming.
‘Well,’ said Arthur vaguely, and indicated the area. ‘This is our city, our home. I want us all to see it from different angles, in a new way. We’re just going to walk through, observing and taking notes, and get as many ideas as possible. Then we just pick out all the good ideas and hey, we’re on the way.’
‘Sort of, “chip off everything that doesn’t look like a tiger”?’ said Gwyneth.
‘Exactly! Here.’ He doled out the little disposable cameras he’d bought for everyone. ‘Let’s go!’
And they set off towards Market Street, a funny little group, completely isolated, huddling together for warmth under the ever burning fierceness of the sodium lamps, and the ring road still thundering overhead.
At first they didn’t know what to say or what they were looking for, apart from Rafe, who immediately started snapping all over the place. But as they looked longer, they started to notice all sorts of things impossible to see during the day when trying to avoid the uncollected rubbish.
‘Do you get much wildlife round here?’ said Rafe, taking a picture of a spider’s web spanning a bypass.
‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur. ‘We get foxes, I suppose. Spiders, obviously. Um … has anyone ever heard of there being wolves?’
The others looked at him.
‘Perhaps a hundred years ago,’ said Gwyneth.
‘Or in a country that actually has wolves,’ said Sven. ‘Denmark has them. They’re cool.’
‘Well, just a rumour then, obviously,’ said Arthur, looking at his toes.
‘God, look at that,’ said Gwyneth, pointing to the ring road overhead. ‘When there’s no cars in the way … That cluster of lamp-posts looks like a forest.’
They wandered over to catch the best angle.
Cathy looked around on the other side. ‘How far have we come? I’ve completely lost my bearings. It’s weird at night, isn’t it?’
‘That’s all right,’ said Arthur. ‘Lose your bearings. We’re in the car park – there’s just no cars.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
They wandered through the bylanes behind the cathedral. ‘It’s like a maze round here,’ grunted Marcus.
‘Oh, I love mazes, I do,’ said Cathy. ‘Have you ever been to …’
‘A maze!’ said Gwyneth and Rafe at the same time.
‘That’d be
brilliant
,’ said Rafe.
‘Yes,’ said Arthur as they turned a cobbled corner.
‘People do like mazes, don’t they?’
‘You could do it the same shape as these back streets,’ said Marcus.
‘That’d be stupid, wouldn’t it?’ said Sven. ‘It’d be obvious and dead easy.’
‘Well, it’s not really obvious in the dark. Without names on the streets, I bet it’d be harder than you thought. I bet you couldn’t do it.’
‘I bet I could,’ said Sven, covering his eyes. He immediately walked into a wall. ‘Well,’ he said, going overboard to recover his dignity. ‘You’d need a flat surface for a start. And a
lot
of calculations of people flows and timing and stuff.’ He became thoughtful. ‘It’d be really hard sums.’
Arthur looked at Gwyneth and she half-smiled back at him. In fact, he’d found it hard to take his eyes off her in her red cap, and was trying to keep a safe distance behind her.
‘It would need the application of some kind of … superbrain …’ the Dane continued. Then he paused expectantly.
‘Oh, Sven,’ said Cathy. ‘Maybe
you
could do it.’
Sven looked thoughtful. ‘Do you reckon?’
‘Oh, it would require a
lot
of computer modelling, though – possibly on superfast equipment,’ said Gwyneth. ‘Maybe that’s not your kind of thing.’
Sven’s eyes were wide. ‘Uh, I, uh –’
‘Where would we put it?’ asked Rafe, walking in circles across the cobbles as if he were crossing a labyrinth. ‘It’s got to be huge, otherwise it’s rubbish and only fun for four-year-olds.’
‘Chapel Fields,’ said Arthur. ‘Or Hearsall Common.’