Chase the Morning

Forgetting all else, I bolted for it. But now, somehow, the wind was in my face, whirling up cinder dust to sting my eyes, buffeting me on the slippery cobbles; it felt like a hand holding me back, barring me from my refuge, my escape. A filthy rag of polythene hissed out of the gutter and tangled itself lovingly around my ankles; I kicked it free and trampled on it like some living menace. But I was there, my hand fell on the wing, its steel cold beneath the smooth paintwork. I fumbled for my keys, barely catching them as the wind sought to whisk them from my numbed fingers into the drain beneath, yanked the door open and plunged in.

It was slow to start; I almost flooded the carburettor in my impatience. I forced myself to sit still a moment while the wind buffeted the car, staring into my rear-view mirror at the darkness I’d come out of. Then I tried again, my foot light upon the pedal, and heard the blessed cough and rumble of the engine, felt its vibrations stronger than the wind. I slipped it into gear, twisted the wheel and all but threw the car out from the kerb, growling across the cobbles. Only once I looked back, but the street’s end was in deeper shadow still; anything or nothing might have been lurking there. Then I turned out into the main road, into Danube Street where there was lighting that worked, cold and orange though it was, and the prospect at least of the noise and colour and company, the safety of the city I knew. It came crazily into my head how for the ancient Romans the Danube was a barrier of civilization, holding barbarism at bay; but it was not a comforting thought, for at the end that barbarism had come rolling across the Danube in an overwhelming wave. I slowed, waited at the junction and turned, and there it all was. Noise, colour, company, safety – but all of it strange, all men about me strangers. Safe, but strangers. Suddenly the trade didn’t seem so good, the escape less of an escape. Had that light really been red? Or had I just been afraid to see it was amber? I couldn’t answer. I was tired, sore, and I hadn’t eaten.

I went home, and threw something into the microwave. Hard.

Chapter Two

The office next morning pulled me sharply back. Everything seemed solid and familiar, everything was bright and sunlit and unmysterious, from the squeak of the fake-mosaic tiles under my shoes to the sweet smile from Judy behind the switchboard. This morning, too, it was nicely flavoured with sympathy.

‘Hallo, Steve – how’s the arm?’

‘Oh, it’s okay, thanks. Settling down.’

There was nothing mysterious about these corridors, all light-flooding windows and cool daffodil-yellow walls, no dark corners, no strange atmospheres. After last night they felt businesslike, bracing, reassuring. The only smells in the conditioned air were fresh polish and coffee and the warm tang that surrounds VDUs and other office electronics, with an acetonal whiff of nail varnish and menthol cigarettes as I passed the typists’ room; clean and calm and predictable, all of it. Strange, perhaps, that so many exotic commodities should pass through these offices, in a manner of speaking, and yet leave never a trace behind. Cinnamon, manganese, copra, alligator pepper, sapphires; we handled them by the tonne as readily as sheet steel or crude oil. All the trade goods of the world, and yet none ever came within miles of this place; I’d only ever seen them on rare visits to docks and airports. Only their legal identities passed through my hands, in notes of shipment and bills of lading and Customs inventories that left nothing in the air but the faint dry taint of toner ink. When I opened the door of my own office I smelt it; but there was also Clare’s flowery perfume, and the girl herself shuffling little sheaves of documents on her immaculate desk.

‘Steve! Hallo! I wasn’t expecting you so soon! How’s your poor arm? It isn’t anything serious, is it? I mean, slipping in the rain like that? You might really have hurt yourself!’

I’d woken late, exhausted, with my arm swollen and stiff; I’d had to phone in with some sort of excuse. Yet now it seemed more like the truth; I could almost see it happening. A slip, a gash – far more likely than a knife in the hands of some weird dockland thug. Far easier to believe; I was close to believing it myself. ‘It’s not too bad, thanks. Bit stiff.’

‘You’re sure?’ I was a little startled. Her intense blue eyes were very wide and concerned. She half rose. ‘Look, just sit down a moment and I’ll get the First Aid box –’

I grinned, rather uneasily. All this concern, it wasn’t the sort of thing I was used to. ‘Give you half a chance and you’ll have me swathed up like King Tut!’ Of course, she’d been the office first-aider since that course last year. She must be itching to find some use for it; she’d had nothing better so far than Barry cutting his thumb on the cap of a whisky bottle. That would account for it. ‘No thanks, love, I, er, got it seen to. Any calls?’