Jack kept talking. He knew she could hear him.
“I want to see you, Polly. Are you there, Polly? I think you’re there. Pick up the phone, Polly. Please pick up the phone.”
Across the street Jack could see that the man he had noticed earlier was walking slowly towards the phonebox. In his hand was what looked like it might be the hilt of a knife, but there seemed to be no blade. The man walked right up to within a yard or so of the phonebox and then stood and stared. Perhaps he wanted to use the phone. Perhaps he wanted to use the phonebox as a lavatory. Perhaps he did not know what he wanted. Whatever was going on, it did not take the instincts of a soldier to work out that this man meant Jack no good.
Their eyes met through the cloudy plastic of the window. Peter and Jack, two men from opposite sides of the world, connected by a woman whom they had both wronged, with whom by rights neither should have been having anything to do at all.
Jack kept his eyes fixed on Peter’s. Matching him stare for stare. Meanwhile, he spoke again into the phone. Delivering his voice back into Polly’s life.
“I think you’re there Polly. Are you there? Pick up the phone, Polly.”
He imagined her standing in her flat, staring at the machine. Its red light blinked back at her.
“Are you there? Pick up the phone, Polly.”
Suddenly Polly did as she was bid and snatched up the phone, fearful that in her hesitation the voice would disappear again, back into the locked vault of her memory, where it had resided for so many years. Clunk. Whirr. Clunk. The answerphone announced its disengagement.
“Jack? Is it really you, Jack?”
Down in the street, outside the phonebox, there was a glint, a flash of orange streetlamp light reflected on shining metal. Peter had pressed the button on his flick-knife and its wicked blade had leapt out into the night, thrusting itself forward from within the hilt, from within Peter’s clenched fist. It glowed orange in the night like a straight, frozen flame.
“Yes, Polly, it’s me,” said Jack. “Listen, can you hold the line for just one second?”
It was not what Polly had expected to hear, and it was not, of course, what Jack had expected to say. You do not, after all, return from the dead, wake someone up in the middle of the night, give them the shock of their life and then put them on hold. Circumstances, however, had forced Jack’s hand. At this supreme moment in his plans, in his life, fate had suddenly dealt Jack a wild card. A mugger had clearly blundered into his life and the situation would have to be dealt with.
Jack kicked open the door of the phonebox. It was a good kick, firm and accurate. A confident kick, which connected with the frame of the door rather than the windows and sent the whole thing swinging outwards at speed and into the man who stood outside. Peter had been in the process of reaching for the door at the time and the force hit him first in the hand and then in the face, surprising him considerably and making him drop his knife.
As Peter leant down to pick up the knife the door swung closed and Jack kicked it again. This time the door hit the top of Peter’s head and he went over into the gutter. Jack left the phone hanging, stepped outside and with one final bit of confident footwork sent Peter’s knife down a convenient drain.
“If you want to make a call you wait, OK?” said Jack to Peter. “I thought the British were supposed to be good at standing in line. If you disturb my call again you’ll regret it.”
With that, Jack returned to the box and picked up the phone.
“Sorry, Polly, some guy thought he owned the call-box.”
Peter decided not to wait. He got up and ran. He was unbalanced and inadequate in any number of ways but his instincts of self-preservation were entirely healthy. He hadn’t wanted a fight anyway and he had not intended to use the knife, he had just wanted to scare the fellow off. Since that was now clearly out of the question Peter decided to get himself away and consider his position.
Perhaps he would not telephone Polly tonight after all. His hand stung and his head hurt and he felt in no shape to begin the delicate task of restarting their relationship. What is more, he had promised his mother faithfully that he had no current plans to call her. She had made him promise again only that night. He had been trying to sneak out of the house quietly, but she had heard him and had come running from her room in her nightie. Peter hated seeing his mother in her nightie; she seemed so much older and more shapeless.
“It’s gone midnight, Peter. Where are you going? You’re not going to phone that bitch, are you?”
“I’m going for a walk, and don’t call her a bitch. She’s all right.”
“I’ll call her what I like, lad, and as long as you live in my house you’ll leave her alone.”
Peter had shrugged and headed for the door but she’d grabbed him by the ear.
One day she would do that one too many times.
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, Mum, I promise.”
In fact, Peter’s promises to his mother were pretty worthless. He had also promised that he would not obtain Polly’s new ex-directory telephone number. Computer hacking was something that the law took more seriously than swearing at people over their intercoms. Peter’s mother was worried that if Peter did it again he would be put away. He had done it again, though, and Polly’s number had been burning holes in his thoughts for weeks now.
But he would not phone her tonight. The tough American in his phonebox had spoilt it. He would just walk up the street, round the corner and past the building in which Polly lived. Peter liked to stand there in the emptiness of the night and stare up at her window. Imagining her alone in her bed. Imagining himself beside her.
Polly was not in bed. She was standing, phone in hand, shaking with shock.
“It can’t be you, Jack. That’s insane,” said Polly. “What, now? You want to visit now?”
“Yeah, I’m in town.”
“In town!”
He had said it like it explained everything.
“This is insane.”
“Don’t keep saying it’s insane, Polly. Why is it insane?”
There were so many reasons why it was insane that Polly couldn’t begin to answer that question adequately. It would have taken her all night, all week, the rest of her life.
“I’m coming round,” said Jack.
“No! Where are you? How long will you be? How long is not long? Jack! Jack!”
But the line had gone dead.
Polly put down the receiver and slumped into her office chair, which was actually one of her kitchen chairs. Polly only had four upright chairs, one of which was kept permanently by her desk, except on the rare occasions when it was required for a dinner party. If Polly ever entertained more than three people at the same time someone had to bring their own chair.
Polly’s insides were doing somersaults. What could be going on? Why had Jack come back? Where had he come from? What could he possibly want with her now?
Such were the larger questions that tormented Polly as she sat there, shaking, in the shadowy half-light of her room, but they would have to wait. There were practical considerations to be dealt with and she must pull herself together. First and foremost she was in her night attire, if night attire was not too grand a term to describe the slightly ratty, threadbare old man’s shirt she was wearing. She must get dressed and quickly. No matter how weird the situation, Polly had standards. She did not receive visitors dressed only in a shirt.
Rushing to her knickers drawer she grabbed a vaguely current-looking pair and put them on. The jeans she had worn on the previous day were still con-certinaed on the floor where she had stepped out of them a few hours earlier. She stepped back into them and began hurriedly to pull them up. Then she had second thoughts. With her jeans already lodged halfway up her legs, she waddled across her flat and, flinging open a cupboard, began pulling out dresses. She held one up to herself in the mirror and, finding it unsatisfactory, tried another. Then a third and a fourth. Finally she chose the shortest and most flattering of the selection. She told herself that it was simply the smartest and most practical choice, but actually it was the sexiest.
