angels.”
“Oh, the irony.”
“Isn’t it just?”
“Did you think of that now, or was it a pre-planned kinda thing?”
“See you around, Matthew Swift,” she said in reply.
“You too, Oda. I’ll see you around.”
And she walked away.
Using Sinclair’s money, I bought a PO Box at Mount Pleasant Post Office, and kept the rest in a small metal box buried in Abney Park Cemetery, since I didn’t really know what else to do with it. A few days later, leafing through a copy of the Yellow Pages left on top of a bus shelter, I found under S the following entry:
“Swift, M. (sorcerer): PO Box 134B, Mount Pleasant, Rosebery Avenue, London, EC1R 2JA.”
Since I hadn’t put it there, I dismissed it as being down to damn mystical forces again, and tossed the fat yellow document back up on top of the shelter. I slung my bag over my shoulder, stretched my legs, patted down my pockets to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything and, not knowing where I was going, or how I was going to get there, started walking. In the distance, we could hear the rumble of buses, the honking of cars, the shriek of a scooter’s brakes, the tinging of the bicycle bells, the flapping of the pigeons, the scuttling of the rats, the shouting of the children, the mumbling of the old bag ladies, the cursing of the young men, the flirting of the pretty women, the slamming of windows, the venting of pipes, the dripping of taps, the hissing of televisions, the pinging of ovens and the ringing of the telephones, all around on every side, at every hour of every day, every day of every week, for ever, unending, an infinity of sound, sight, smell, life, light, wonder, a quiet endless mundane magical clamour that filled every corner of every street with the promise of adventure; a world too big for mortals, immortals and all the creatures in between.
We kept on walking.
Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out.
