The Last Minute

by Eleanor Updale

  Over the road, Paul finally gets to his feet, handing the rescued change to Lotte, who is profuse in her thanks.

  The taxi driver decides to go ahead with his illegal manoeuvre into the petrol station. He’s sure his passenger will spot him there, and confident that he’ll make the effort to find the cab, since it contains his extensive, expensive-looking luggage. Up ahead, he can see that once he’s in the petrol station and in front of the digger, he’ll be able to turn right onto the main road beyond the obstruction. Then the chances are that he’ll have a clear run all the way to the airport. His passenger will be pleased with him for finding a way out of the jam. He might give a pretty good tip, too. He’s obviously got money. Just look at those leather suitcases. He doesn’t need to travel light. Maybe this run to the airport won’t turn out so badly after all. For the first time since the traffic stopped, the taxi driver smiles.

  The clash with the cyclist has interrupted the flow of the charity fundraiser’s patter, and now Mrs Wilkins is distracted from her shock by the sight of her neighbour, Gillie Dougall, wading into the traffic with a large white box. Mrs Wilkins wants to know what’s inside, and shuffles towards the road. She had intended to be feeding the ducks in the park by now, but one thing after another seems to be holding her up on her progress down the hill. Still, it doesn’t matter. She’s in no hurry.

  On the coach, Josh starts handing round the cans. Calum and Rahil are still hunched over the mobile phone. They’re watching a YouTube clip of a woman with her dress stuck in a car door. Calum is beginning to feel better. Before, all he could think about was what a prat he would look when he opened up the hopeless packed lunch his mum made him this morning: stale-bread Marmite sandwiches followed by stale-bread jam sandwiches with no butter, and no drink. It’s the sort of thing Gran would make herself in the middle of the night. Maybe she has. Maybe, when he opens his lunch box, it will smell of wee, like her.

  The workman takes no notice of Bernie, and carries on examining the pipe. In the newsagent’s, the backpack man is digging into his pocket for the money to pay for his battery. On the petrol station forecourt, the delivery man has still not noticed the leaky pipe. And on flight GX413, in seat 41D (in front and to the right of the kerfuffle), Daniel Donovan, a retired policeman who had intended to sleep on the flight, but was prevented by the noise from the family behind him – and the child’s regular kicks against his back – turns round to see what the fuss is about. He catches the moment when the look on the attendant’s face passes from politely suppressed annoyance to alarm, and his old professional juices start to run.

  TOCK

  38 seconds to go . . .

  AS NICK TRIES to keep Mrs Wilkins’ attention (‘Madam! Madam!’ he cries, though with her back turned she can’t hear him), the cyclist, mumbling self-righteously, wheels his bike a couple of metres further on, to lean it against the lamppost outside the pet shop. There, Kate is trying to find the end on her roll of tape so she can stick up another sign. The cyclist hadn’t intended to stop in Heathwick, but now that he has, he might as well check the bike over, and maybe pop into the newsagent’s to buy an energy drink and a paper.

  ‘Must dash,’ Gillie Dougall mouths at the old lady. She feels guilty that she doesn’t give more time to Mrs Wilkins, though she often does her shopping, drives her to the doctor’s, or drops in for a chat. She’s watched her decline over the past twenty years from a spry widow into a doddery pensioner, and can imagine how heartbreaking it must be to lose your friends and physical faculties as the years pass. But life is always so busy, even now that the children have moved out. Nevertheless, Gillie promises herself to take more care of her elderly neighbour after the party is over. She might even pop round this evening, if she can find the time, to apologize for any noise. Or maybe she should invite Mrs Wilkins to drop in? After all, the chances are that she won’t actually come. But suppose she does? A new seam of worry opens up. Gillie doesn’t want to upset her seating plan by adding to the numbers at such short notice. Her brow furrows as, holding her precious cake box tightly, she picks her way through the traffic towards the car park entrance.

  There, the row over the badly parked van is intensifying, with Gillie’s husband, Anthony, nagging Constable Lewis to do something, and the policeman urging Matey to stop talking so he can hear what Anthony is saying. The beggar’s still in Scottish mode, telling of Pete’s trip to the doctor: ‘He says, “I’ve got . . .”’

  Ritzi responds to Chloe’s wave with a lurch towards the buggy. She can smell the damp rusk that lies, forgotten, in the folds of the blanket across Chloe’s legs. Bernie is almost pulled off-balance by the sudden tug on the lead.

  Lucy instinctively speeds up her backwards progress towards the newsagent’s.

  On the coach, the first drinks can is opened with a loud hiss.

  The taxi driver looks in his mirror. He catches sight of the policeman, but can see that he’s preoccupied with the crowd around the white van, and probably won’t notice the cab mounting the pavement for a few metres.

  ‘ . . . and two . . .’ The women in the dance studio are stretching alternate arms towards the ceiling.

  TICK

  37 seconds to go . . .

  THE CYCLIST DEBATES for an instant whether to bother to lock his bike while he pops into the newsagent’s. He decides to be cautious – after all, it will only add a few more seconds to his journey, which has been interrupted anyway.

  ‘“ . . . a rare disease.”’ Matey rolls the ‘r’ on rare.

  Bernie, relieved to see Mrs Wilkins moving in his direction with her potentially useful walking stick, calls her name and raises his hand to wave at her, forgetting that he is holding a plastic bag heavy with dog mess.

  ‘Are you OK?’ the girl serving in the coffee shop asks Juliet, who has been standing silent for five seconds. The waitress can’t know the battle that is going on in Juliet’s head about whether to yield to the temptation of a few moments’ pleasure, or to keep her eye on the future, and say no to the offer of a cake.

  Over by the window, Max is squeaking ‘Beep! Beep!’ in time to the reversing signal from the digger. His mother is busy helping Polly, Lily and Nell stick the glitter onto their snowflakes and, without looking up, she shouts ‘Ma-ax!’ once again, unaware that her fellow customers are more annoyed by her constant, ineffective repetition of his name than by the child’s harmless enthusiasm. Max takes no notice, as usual.

  The flight attendant decides to tell the captain about her misgivings. She turns to walk back up the aisle towards the intercom.

  ‘ . . . and three . . .’ Maggie’s hands swoop to the floor.

  Charmaine and Chenelle, still singing, do their best to copy her in the limited space they have available.

  Calum and Rahil roar with laughter as the car in the YouTube clip starts to move, taking the woman’s dress with it, and leaving her standing in the road in her underwear. There’s another click, a hiss, and a spurt of foam flies across the aisle, hitting Kayleigh on the side of the face.

  TOCK

  36 seconds to go . . .

  MATEY HAS REACHED a key point in his joke, and tries to make eye contact with the little group around him. He almost whispers Pete’s shocking news: ‘“There’s no hope.”’

  Mrs Wilkins sees Bernie waving his bag of poo. Already smarting from Gillie’s apparent rebuff, she takes it as an insult, and gives Bernie an angry stare.

  Led by the carriage driver, who has put away his sugar cubes and reached up to grab one of the leather reins, Dime and Dollar start plodding their way up the alley, pulling the magnificent hearse. At the wheel in the little Mini behind the school coach, Sally Thorpe sees them coming, and realizes that even though she’s reversed to let the undertaker slip through, the gap is too narrow for the horses, who will need plenty of space to turn into the road. She looks in her mirror. There’s a long line of traffic behind her now. She can’t go backwards, not even by the few metres that would make room for the funeral process
ion to nose its way into the queue. Sally knows it’s not her fault that she’s blocking the coffin’s passage, but, like Kelly, she can’t help feeling guilty. Why won’t the traffic up ahead move forward? With the coach looming in front of her, she can’t see.

  Juliet smiles as she replies to the waitress. ‘Oh yes . . .’ she says, meaning that she’s OK. The waitress, misunderstanding her, reaches for a plate. It’s torture.

  ‘ . . . and four . . .’ For some of the women in Maggie’s class, the exercise is torture, too.

  The vicar bends to gather up the confetti. He feels a familiar twinge in his back.

  The cyclist takes a massive lock out of the pannier on the back of his bike. It looks almost as heavy and expensive as the cycle itself.

  As Kayleigh shouts ‘Miss!’ the boy who sprayed her with his drink lets out a huge burp.

  TICK

  35 seconds to go . . .

  ‘WHO WAS THAT?’ shouts Miss Hunter, as the children on the coach laugh, or do mock belches themselves. She knows she won’t get a response from the culprit. Rory Lennahan stares menacingly at Kayleigh as he munches his crisps.

  ‘ . . . and five . . .’

  Matey fixes on the undertaker with the next line of his joke, deepening Pete’s Scottish voice still further: ‘“I’ll die tomorrow!”’

  Bernie lets the beggar’s tale wash over him. Lowering his poo bag, he calls again to the old lady, hoping to sound more polite. ‘Excuse me, madam!’ he yells.

  Although there is hardly any space behind her, Sally Thorpe puts her gear lever into reverse, hoping that the white lights on the rear of her car will signal to the next driver that he should move back, and set off a chain reaction down the hill.

  The waitress in the coffee shop still thinks Juliet wants to eat. ‘What will it be?’ Juliet is staring at her laptop, hoping the sight of the dress will motivate her to turn down the offer of food. Only thirty-five seconds before she must place her bid.

  Lorraine, the runner, has passed the bus stop. The hill is getting steeper now. She can feel it in her ankles, calves, knees and thighs, but she concentrates on the thought of her hot chocolate reward, pumps her arms, and forces herself on. Scan-ner.

  In the plane, the passenger in seat 42A is still muttering. Dorothy Long in 42C thinks it might be some sort of religious chant. Her stomach tightens as her mind races across the possibilities. But what can she do?

  As the cyclist attaches his lock, he spots the sign on the lamppost. Kate has found the end of the tape, and is tearing off a strip with her teeth, ready to attach another to the pet-shop window. She’s thinking about her boyfriend, and how proud he will be when she tells him what she’s done. It was Jon who introduced her to the animal-rights movement, and he who has persuaded her to come here today. He explained to her why he couldn’t undertake the mission himself, and she agrees: it’s important for him to stay underground, coordinating the efforts of others. He’s too important to risk being caught on CCTV. Last year he was arrested at a protest near Cambridge that turned nasty, and he might be recognized. Jon reckons he’s being watched by the police or the security services (which Kate finds achingly glamorous), and the two of them have set up a system of code words to make their texts, emails and conversations sound purely romantic, and not about direct action at all. For Kate, at least, the romance and the action are inextricably linked. She’s proud of her warrior lover, though she has told only her closest friend the truth about the cause that’s at the heart of their relationship (and sworn her to secrecy about what they plan to do).

  Upstairs, Terry Potts looks at his watch, and shudders when he sees the time. He tries to find a gentle way of getting his friend to end the call, but only gets as far as a timid cough.

  TOCK

  34 seconds to go . . .

  KAYLEIGH PALMER SHOUTS out the name of the burper: ‘Dominic, Miss Hunter!’ As she speaks, something oblong flies over her head, and is caught by a boy facing backwards in the seat in front of her. Kayleigh thinks it might be a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘What’s all this?’ the cyclist calls out to the girl by the pet-shop window. Kate turns. The small circle of face exposed by her balaclava glows with defiance. She’s expecting – even hoping for – an argument. She’s got half an eye on the policeman down the road, and she intends to be well out of the way before he comes up this end of the street, but she can’t resist the chance to talk about how much animals mean to her.

  Kate hadn’t thought much about animal rights before the night in the pub when she’d first seen Jon, hunched, mean and moody, over his pint, wearing the very coat she’s got on today. Until she got to know him, she wouldn’t have imagined herself capable of taking a stand about anything. But he has completely convinced her of the rightness of his cause, and she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to stop vivisection and the commercial trade in innocent creatures. She wants to protect the animals, and she wants to protect Jon, too. And she doesn’t fear the consequences for herself, whatever they might be.

  Bernie’s dog, Ritzi, seems to be only too aware of her rights, and she thinks it’s time she was in the park. But Bernie wants to get his letter back. In a mixture of shouts and strange, one-armed sign language, he tries to explain to the distant Mrs Wilkins how he might fish it out of the trench with her stick. The old lady looks baffled.

  Matey continues his story, not sure who, if anyone, is listening, but changing his voice back to cockney, just in case someone is following what is going on: ‘Jack said, “Pete . . .”’

  The undertaker gives him a smile.

  The policeman looks across the road and sees the horses coming. He’ll need to help them find a way into the traffic stream. He steps away from Anthony Dougall and the white van.

  ‘ . . . and six . . .’

  The vicar, bent double like the women in the dance studio, collects up confetti from the church path.

  TICK

  33 seconds to go . . .

  ANTHONY DOUGALL, FURIOUS that Constable Lewis has lost interest in his plight, follows him into the road towards the horses, still shouting about the need to move the van.

  He doesn’t see his girlfriend, Sharon, walking across the car park towards the little motor scooter she uses to get about town. Her eyes are red with crying, but she has to get on with her day.

  Anthony’s wife, Gillie, now in the middle of the road with her cake, has still not spotted him, though he’s on her mind. She’s feeling sorry for poor Anthony, stuck in a boring airport lounge on his birthday, no doubt with a stack of paperwork to plough through. She flips in an instant through worries she’s nursed since the idea of a surprise party first came to her. Will he be angry? Too tired? Delayed? She’s done everything to make it easy for him when he gets home. She’s laid out a clean set of clothes, polished his shoes, bought smart new cufflinks as her birthday present to him. And yet so much could still go wrong . . .

  ‘Thank you, Kayleigh,’ says Miss Hunter, wishing she hadn’t asked about the burp. She knows that, though there’s no one sitting next to Kayleigh, someone in front, behind, or across the aisle from her will take revenge on Dominic’s behalf. Like everyone else, Miss Hunter finds it difficult to like the girl: not very bright, unattractive without being ugly enough to evoke sympathy, and with that interfering mother who’s a parent-governor now (since no one else wanted to do it). But Miss Hunter thinks she should protect Kayleigh Palmer, or at least be seen to try, and not just because Mrs Palmer is down in the street, monitoring the slow progress of the coach. For Miss Hunter has an inkling of what it feels like to be the most unpopular girl in the class. Indeed, one reason why Kayleigh makes her so uncomfortable is the constant reminder of scenes from more than twenty years ago, when girls held their noses as she approached, excluded her from their games at playtime, laughed whenever she did something wrong, and scoffed whenever she got something right.

  Mariam has connected the rubber hose to the bath taps. She’s ready to wash her hair. She wants to look good
when she visits the university later today. It will be her second meeting with a research fellow who specializes in the politics of her homeland. She was put in touch with him by a compatriot in the kitchen at the hotel, and instinctively feels that he is someone she can trust. She wants him to find out what’s happened to her family since she fled the country. She hasn’t dared make contact with them directly, for fear that they would be punished, or that she might be traced. But she can’t bear to live in ignorance, and so she’s taken a calculated risk. She’s had to reveal her real name for the first time since she entered the country. One casual slip by this new acquaintance, and there could be trouble. But it’s worth it. Perhaps, today, he’ll have good news at last. But even if the news is bad, any information will be better than not knowing. The morning is dragging. She can’t wait for two o’clock. She joins in the song again.

  Through the wall, Noel Gilliard curses, and accidentally deletes the four words that had made it onto the page in a brief moment of concentration.

  Carefully balancing her computer, Juliet puts up her free hand to fend off the offer of cake. ‘No. Thank you,’ she barks at the waitress with a smug inner smile, relieved that, despite temptation, she’s taken the long view, and is trading passing pleasure for lasting health and happiness.

  ‘ . . . and seven . . .’

  In the dance studio, several of the class are regretting their decision to do the same, and wishing they were in the café eating pastries, rather than forcing their muscles to bend and stretch against their will.