by Adam Roberts
‘Had a good oggle, have you?’
‘A what?’ said Gordon. His head was buzzing gently. Blood was travelling vigorously all around his body. And it was blood with a purpose; blood with things to do and places to see, other than the usual listless daily round of lungs and liver and suchlike. It was perky blood.
‘Oggle,’ said the woman.
‘Ogle?’ hazarded Gordon. The woman looked crosser.
‘I am a person, you know,’ she said, fiercely. ‘Is it too much to ask that you treat me as one? To look at my face and not my thighs when you talk to me?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Gordon, genuinely mortified.
‘I am more than a pair of thighs in tight pants, you know,’ the woman continued. ‘I am a person.’
‘Of course you are. I know you are.’
‘If you can’t separate my thighs from my identity as a human being . . .’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Gordon burst out, in an agony of embarrassment, ‘I can, of course you’re right, I can separate your thighs. I promise I will separate your thighs.’ He stopped himself. The woman was looking even more cross. Panic flared in his breast. ‘What I mean to say, obviously,’ he gabbled, trying to salvage the situation, ‘I mean, obviously I’m not saying I want to separate your thighs in a, you know, grab-and-pull sense. Quite the reverse, on the contrary, I’d prefer to push them together, I mean, if that’s what you’d like. Squeeze them shut. Or not, I mean. I wouldn’t actually touch your thighs. Not with a bargepole. Not with any kind of, er, pole.’ His eyeballs felt hot. His lungs didn’t seem to be working properly. ‘Not that,’ he continued even more rapidly, ‘there’s anything wrong with your thighs. I’m not saying your thighs are in the least bit off-putting or anything, and I’m certainly not saying that I wouldn’t, given the chance, you know, they’re lovely thighs, you must be, er, very proud of them, it’s just that I’m not fixated on the notion of pushing your thighs apart, except in the sense of, you know, separating them from your – from your— ’ He dried completely. He made a sound like a cat with fur balls. ‘From,’ he rasped, ‘from your – what you said.’
There was a silence.
Gordon noticed that the other commuters in the carriage were looking at him. He was panting a little bit.
The woman said dolorously, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ and, pushing his tote bag to one side, sat down beside him.
Gordon felt the tickling sensation of sweat on his forehead. His Barbarian spray-on deodorant was losing its battle against his perspiration. Indeed, the combination of the sprayed-on chemicals and Gordon’s insistently oozing sweat was, far from working as a deodorant, actually becoming quite a powerful odorant. With lunatic irrelevance he found himself wondering why all the brand names of male spray-on deodorant had names like Barbarian and Savage and Lynx, none of which entities were especially renowned for being fresh smelling. A lynx was a large cat, wasn’t it? He didn’t know for sure what a giant cat smelled like, but he would have thought fur balls, gland secretions, catfood. Not mountain air, alpine dew, lavender ice. He realised, belatedly, that he had been grinning and blinking at the woman like a grinning and blinking idiot. ‘Sorry – I’m – look,’ he rasped. ‘I’m sorry, I think we may have got off on the wrong foot.’
‘You are Nemo?’
‘Nemo. Yes. Well, I mean to say, Gordon is my name. But Nemo is my ident on – hey, how do you know that?’ It occurred to Gordon, finally, that something odd was going on here. A beautiful woman had addressed him on the train with the hacker name that he kept secret from the world. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘How do you know that my hacker ident is Nemo? That’s not common knowledge. Wait a minute – I know what’s happening here.’
She nodded. ‘You’re starting to understand.’
‘I’m a not particularly attractive single man,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had a girlfriend in two years. An – if you’ll excuse me – extremely beautiful woman in let’s-admit-it wowee clothes comes up to me on the commuter train to work. And she knows my hacker ident.’
‘You’re working it out,’ said the woman.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Gordon, wiping the sweat from his forehead by pushing it back to his hairline with his whole hand. ‘Are you a stripper?’
It took only a demisecond for the woman’s outrage to register. ‘What?’
‘I mean to say,’ said Gordon in a gabble, his sweat starting to ooze again, ‘I gave my credit card details to OrderAStripper dot com, what, four months ago, and I haven’t heard a peep since. Their website said they’d shut down and relocated to Gdansk. I mean, I ordered the Tori Amos lookee-likee, but I wouldn’t complain about the substitution. You’re certainly as, er, comely as she is.’
‘No!’ said the woman.
‘Oh you are,’ said Gordon, misunderstanding. But he knew that wasn’t what she meant. He was conscious of a profound wretchedness inside him, and still some idiot part of his brain insisted on rushing the words out through his mouth. Shut up! he told himself. Stop talking now! This is a beautiful and sophisticated woman. She’s clearly interested in you, or at least interested enough to come over and speak to you. Just be normal. Engage her in conversation. But his brain seemed to be in some kind of self-destruct spasm. ‘They were only supposed to charge forty-five pounds,’ he burbled, ‘or fifty-five with a song, but then they transferred five hundred and twenty-two to an Albanian account and Barclaycard told me there was nothing they could do about it. They told me to cut up my card. They issued me with a new one. Oh God,’ he said, his voice sliding into despair. ‘What am I saying? What am I saying?’
‘That,’ said the woman, ‘is a good question.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. You’re not a stripogram, I can see that.’
‘Indeed,’ said the woman.
Gordon dropped his head and covered his face with both his hands. ‘I’m an idiot. I’m a gabbling idiot.’
‘This appears to be the case,’ said the woman.
The train trundled on.
[:<}
‘Nemo, has anything odd been happening to you of late?’
Gordon shrugged. ‘No, no. Nothing unusual. Nothing exciting ever happens in my life. That’s the length and breadth and, um, heighth of my existence. Nothing interesting. Nothing unusual. Except,’ he added, in an afterthought, ‘for the spam phone calls.’
‘Spam phone calls?’
‘I know. That is a bit odd, isn’t it?’
‘How do you mean, exactly?’
‘People ringing at odd hours, offering me penis – excuse me, sorry – um, you know, manly enlargements and so on. Enlargements of my manly – my man. My male. My male man. Thing. Isn’t it crazy?’
The woman gave him a knowing look. ‘Bizarre,’ she said.
‘Just that. Bizarre. Exactly that.’
‘It means it’s started,’ she said.
Gordon looked at her. ‘Oh, does it?’
She nodded. The planes and angles of her face were strikingly beautiful. He took a deep breath. His heart was performing the riverdance on his ribs, but he tried to get it under control. Maybe everything wasn’t lost. Maybe he could still talk to her, work the conversation suavely round to asking her out.
‘So,’ he said. ‘I didn’t catch your name?’
‘I didn’t tell you my name,’ she replied.
‘That would be why I didn’t catch it,’ he said.
‘That would be why,’ she agreed.
There was a pause.
‘Would you tell me your name?’
‘Will you catch it if I do?’
‘I’ll certainly try.’
‘Thinity.’
‘Thinity, what a pretty name,’ said Gordon reflexly. ‘Wait, wait,’ he added, realisation striking him, ‘you’re Thinity? The Thinity? With whom I’ve had e-contact? Christ, you’re hot. I mean, I’d sort of assumed that you were a bloke. But you’re not a bloke at all, are you? And I thought you were a guy! Fancy that. Although I su
ppose there is something guy-like about you, isn’t there, so I wasn’t too far off the mark. A kind of mannish something – or not mannish exactly, but.’ He could feel the rapidity of his speech increasing, like an inexperienced cyclist rolling down a hill towards a brick wall. ‘Obviously you’re not a bloke. Only an idiot would say you were a bloke. I mean, your clothes for instance – they’re very revealing. Did I say feminine? I meant revealing. Or, no, the other way. Did I say revealing? I meant feminine, very feminine, not at all blokeish, not with, uh, endowments like yours. I mean, maybe there’s a certain quality, a certain masculine quality about you, but in a good way, not in a facial hair or a willie sense, but in, you know – strong, determined, that sort of manliness.’ This speech wasn’t going at all well. ‘Not that you’re mannish,’ he qualified. ‘Not in the slightest. Very girlie. Very very girl-like. Girlie-girlie, very much so. Very nice clothes. It’s just a certain quality you have, if you see what I mean. Clearly not anything, um, I mean it’s obvious to anybody that you don’t have a hairy chest. Oh God.’ He tried a smile, but it made his face crinkle awkwardly and he stopped it. After further thought he added, ‘Um’ and ‘Right.’ He stopped.
Thinity was looking at Gordon with the sort of look a vegetarian in a restaurant might use on a veal-of-puppy compôte brought to her table by mistake.
‘So you always wear that sort of outfit?’ Gordon hazarded, groping for a conversational habit. ‘I mean, on commuter trains and stuff.’
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time to mess about. We don’t have time to mess about. You’ve been getting the spam phone calls. The system has identified you as a potential problem.’
‘I see,’ said Gordon. ‘Problem, system, yes.’
‘Which is why we’re interested in you.’
He perked up a little. ‘Interested in me?’ At the same time he wondered to whom she was referring with her ‘we’.
‘Nemo, you are in grave danger. The future of the world is in the balance. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Saying,’ repeated Gordon. ‘Understand. Balance, yes.’ But he wasn’t listening, because he was trying to summon all his courage without blushing or further perspiration. Despite the hash he had made of trying to talk to her, she had said that she was interested in him. What clearer signal did he need? Go for it! he told himself. Go on! He sucked in a lungful of air, and spoke on the out breath. ‘Are you doing anything tonight? I mean, after work? It’s fine if you are, I expect you are, actually, but, ha-ha, I thought I’d ask. Thought I’d have a punt, you know. You can’t blame a guy for asking, can you? I mean, um. Well, you can blame a guy if you like, I’m not, ha-ha, telling you what you can and can’t do. I’m only saying that it’s not unreasonable for a chap to – you know. So, tonight? Drinks, maybe? Or just one drink? Or many. I don’t mind. I’m not a teetotaller. I’m not a miser either, you can have as many drinks as you want. I’ll buy you as much booze as you can drink. Twice as much. Whatever you like. I don’t mind. I’ll buy you several bottles of wine if you like. Or a bottle of gin. Or a number of bottles – eight, say.’
‘Nemo,’ said Thinity. ‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Listening,’ said Gordon, nodding vigorously.
‘Oh no,’ said Thinity.
‘Oh no,’ echoed Gordon, his heart creaking inside him. She was going to reject him. He’d made a complete fool of himself. His viscera clenched in miserable anticipation.
But it wasn’t that. ‘Oh hell,’ Thinity said.
She was looking past him, towards the rear of the train.
Gordon followed her gaze. At the far end of the train compartment stood two men. They were dressed in black frock coats and were, bizarrely, wearing top hats. The fact that they were also wearing sunglasses gave them an especially odd countenance. There were two of them, and they were scanning the carriage, swivelling their heads from side to side with a machinic precision of movement like windscreen wipers.
‘Who are they?’ asked Gordon. ‘Do you know them? They’re dressed rather peculiarly, aren’t they?’
‘Let’s say,’ said Thinity, ‘that they’re enforcement officials.’
‘What, conductors? I never saw a train conductor in a top hat before.’ Gordon peered at the two men. ‘But you know what? It doesn’t really surprise me. The whole world seems to be going crazy. Bizarre, like you said.’
The two top-hatted individuals were now staring straight at Gordon and Thinity.
‘Oh dear,’ said Gordon, fumbling in his back pocket for his ticket. ‘Are they coming for you? Didn’t you buy a ticket?’
‘They’re not coming to check our tickets,’ said Thinity. ‘Nemo, listen carefully to me. You have to come with me now.’
Gordon was so surprised that he felt as if he had swallowed a sword. ‘You want me?’ he repeated. ‘To come with you? You? To come? Want?’
‘That’s right,’ she said, standing up. She kept her gaze directly on the two men in top hats. They, in turn, were staring directly at her.
‘Me?’ Gordon said. ‘You? Well – that’s fantastic. Fantastic! Let’s go! We can have coffee.’
‘There’s no time for that,’ said Thinity.
The two men in top hats were walking down the aisle towards them.
‘There’s a Starbucks not far from Waterloo . . .’ Gordon was saying.
‘We have to leave now,’ said Thinity, her body tensing. The fact that her body was tensing was enormously evident, on account of the sheer tightness (and, indeed, the tight sheerness) of her costume. The, as it were, naked obviousness of this physical fact distracted Gordon in the middle of his sentence.
‘Um . . . er . . .’ he said. ‘Leave, right. But we’re,’ he said, gathering his faculties, ‘we’re between stations.’
Thinity raised her arms, and hooked up one leg, as if modelling herself on the Karate Kid. Gordon could see her tautly compact arm and shoulder muscles moving in a molten fashion underneath the tightness of her clothes.
The top hats were almost upon them.
Suddenly Thinity leapt. Gordon gasped. Her left leg was curled under her, her right kinked at the knee and pointing away from her body like the spout of an impossibly chic designer teapot. She leapt into the air with her right hand positioned for a Miss Piggy chop. With her left she reached over her head and grasped the emergency cord that ran along the ceiling of the carriage.
For several jaw-dropped seconds, she simply hung there. The train was, at that precise moment, negotiating the Clapham Falcon Park bend, sweeping round in a one-eighty-degree arc. Gordon felt the universe lurch as the train moved, and stared in wonderment as Thinity’s pendant body rotated through half a circle.
Then her leg kicked out.
It connected with the chest of the first of the top-hatted men. He hurtled backwards. It looked, to Gordon’s startled eyes, as if an invisible rope, tied around his waist and trailing out through the length of the carriage, had been yanked hard by a dozen well-coordinated men in the next carriage down. His arms and legs twitched marionette-like as he flew backwards. He flew as if falling horizontally the complete length of the aisle.
He collided with the sliding door at the end of the carriage and clattered to the floor.
All the commuters stared at the fallen man. Then, with one motion, they turned their heads to look at Thinity and Gordon. The one remaining top-hatted man scowled.
Thinity had dropped once again to the floor. She and the man in the top hat were engaged in some sort of fist fight. Each of them was flapping their hands as rapidly as possible in front of their chests, as if doing a speeded-up illustration of the doggy-paddle. At the same time they were craning their heads away, and their faces wore the screwed-up worried expressions that people adopt if they are opening champagne bottles, afraid that the cork might fly and bop them in the eye. Occasionally Thinity’s hand connected with the top-hatted man’s hand, and a brisk slap was heard.
These hand gestures were of dazzling rapidity.
>
Gordon, in something of a daze, stood up, and staggered. The train’s brakes, engaged by the emergency cord, were catching, and the service was slowing to a stop.
The second top-hatted man was getting to his feet, and starting back towards the fray.
The train came to a complete stop.
‘When I say run,’ said Thinity through tight lips, ‘run.’
‘When you say run-run, what?’ asked Nemo.
Thinity, her hands still flapping with fantastic rapidity, flicked a glower in his direction.
‘Seriously,’ said Nemo, nerves trilling his voice. ‘What should I do when you say run-run?’
‘Run!’ cried Thinity, and leapt for the door. In a trice she was through it and springing up the grass embankment.
‘Wait!’ Gordon called after her. ‘I didn’t get your telephone number—’
He felt a firm hand grasping his shoulder and turned his head to see the two sunglass-wearing top-hatted individuals standing directly behind him. The one with his hand on Gordon spoke, his voice steel. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are under arrest.’
They handcuffed him there and then, with all the other commuters watching.
Chapter 3
Interrogation
The two Secret Servicemen (or that’s what Gordon assumed they were) took him, still handcuffed, off the train at Waterloo. The shame was considerable.
Outside the station they shoved him into a black car, and climbed in behind him, banging their top hats against the very low ceiling that is a car’s in the process. But the hats, oddly, were not knocked from their heads by this. Perhaps, Nemo wondered, they were attached with chinstraps.
They drove off, and were soon speeding round a succession of baffling short streets and sharp turns, like an electrical impulse zigzagging round a printed circuit. Gordon tried to get a mental grip on what was happening to him. This had been an unusually eventful day, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. He had met the most beautiful woman in the world; she had approached him. He was in love. It was futile to deny it. It was love at first sight. The brute fact of it left a sort of fizzing in his head, like a dissolvable vitamin C tablet in a glass of water. Falling in love. And then the fighting, the jumping from the train. And now he was in custody.