‘Time to turn,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to be at work in an hour.’
They turned. He tried to slow the pace but she wouldn’t be slowed. She wanted to push him, he felt that.
‘Holidays,’ she said. ‘Did you take holidays?’
He didn’t want to answer. He couldn’t remember. He remembered the artist who hit him, that was all. It was possible that he hadn’t taken other holidays. Then he remembered sailing with Kaskis in the Bahamas. That wasn’t really a holiday. Kaskis was doing something there, some story on money laundering and corruption. He rang, said come over and we’ll have a sail, I’ll hire a boat. They took the boat out the morning Anselm arrived. There was a strong wind to begin with. It got a lot stronger and it changed direction. His experience was on smaller boats and this one was a pig. They should have expected that, it was a cruising boat, not meant for heavy conditions. Kaskis didn’t want to make for harbour. He also didn’t want to take down the mainsail. He agreed only after they dug in and, for a few seconds, it seemed as if they would pitchpole. Taking down the mainsail, Anselm was almost knocked overboard, cut his head. Under power with just the jib up, the boat threatened to breach in the troughs. Getting home took a long time. Kaskis loved it, he lit up with pleasure. You could see how he’d made Special Forces in the army.
‘I took some holidays,’ said Anselm.
The knee was not good. It was sending signals up and down. He looked at her. She was looking at him.
‘What kind of holidays do you shrinks take?’ he said. ‘Or do you just stay at home and introspect? Keep in touch with your inner selves. Do some mental scoping.’
‘Scoping?’
‘You could scope your anima. Do an animascope. An animoscopy. That’s got a nice medical sound to it.’
‘So you didn’t take holidays?’
‘What is this about holidays? Since when were holidays the measure of people? Did Marie Curie take a lot of holidays?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Your memory loss. Has that been permanent?’
‘How did we get on to that? What’s permanent? Permanent is a retrospective term. I’m still alive. Just.’
More cyclists, no leanness or androgyny here, a group of overweight women, bikes wobbling, breasts alive, jostling inside tracksuits.
‘Precision,’ said Alex. ‘It is important. Do you still experience the loss of memory? Correction. The absence of some memory.’
‘Some. Yes. I’ve lost all the good bits, the holidays. I’m left with the crap.’
Both knees were hurting now. He would have to stop, walk the rest of the way. He did not want to do that.
They ran for another hundred metres.
‘I’m tiring,’ she said. ‘Can we slow?’
He felt relief, he’d outlasted her, he didn’t have to be humiliated. ‘It’s just a kilometre,’ he said. ‘I was thinking we should pick it up.’
The yellow glance, a shrug. ‘If you like.’
She went away from him without effort, no sign whatsoever of fatigue. He watched her backside and could make no effort to go after her. The path turned and she was gone.
Anselm stopped, walked. She had tried to be kind to him, to spare him embarrassment. She had pretended to a weakness she didn’t have.
His response, wired into his brain, was to go for her throat.
She was waiting at her car, grey tracksuit on, yellow glasses off, breathing normally.
‘I found a reserve of energy,’ she said.
‘I noticed.’
They didn’t speak until she stopped outside the office gates. She didn’t look at him.
‘Perhaps that is not a thing we should do together,’ she said. ‘It might not bring out our best natures.’
Anselm took his bag from the back seat. ‘I don’t have a best nature,’ he said. ‘Least worst, that’s my best.’
40
…LONDON…
The request from Lafarge to find a motorcycle was on his desk. He was tired, not just his knees hurt now, his left hip sent splinters of pain up and down. He summoned Inskip and explained.
‘It’s Mission Hopeless,’ he said, ‘but they’re paying. Carry on, Number Two. Or is that Number One? No, I would be Number One, surely?’
‘Number two,’ said Inskip, ‘is a crap in toddler talk.’
Anselm nodded. ‘I shouldn’t distrust my instinct for the language. Carry on, Number Two.’
In mid-morning, Inskip stood in the door, his egg head to one side. Anselm thought he saw a faint flush of blood in the pale skin. Also, Inskip was wearing a red T-shirt. He hadn’t noticed that earlier. Had fashion changed? Was red in the ascendant?
Inskip said, ‘Would you like to listen to something, Number One? Number One being a piss.’
Anselm nodded, rose and went to Inskip’s workstation, sat beside him.
‘I’ve found this person,’ said Inskip. ‘In a company that’s doing closed-circuit TV trials in London. Roads, stations, shopping malls. The football. A minion of the coming total surveillance state. I haven’t been entirely straightforward with him. Forgivable, is that?’
Anselm looked into the black eyes, looked away.
Inskip touched the key.
‘He thinks you are?’ said Anselm.
Inskip put a hand to his naked scalp, lay fingers on it. ‘MI6,’ he said.
‘You may go far in this line of work.’
‘And owe it all to my teachers.’
‘Give it to Lafarge.’
