by Jenny Colgan
Arthur could have wept with relief. ‘I’ll try and stay away from all heavy office equipment, sir.’
‘I’m going to put someone in place to watch out for you. In fact, my nephew is looking for a job. He can come and cast an eye over your figures, what?’
He looked rather dodgily at Gwyneth for a second, who effortlessly ignored him. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll send Rafe along to you. Heard he’s the best man for the job, what.’ He turned to his PA. ‘Right, right, next? And do hurry it along – it’s venison for lunch.’
‘Rafe? Who the hell is Rafe?’ said Arthur, once they’d got back to his office. ‘It sounds like Sir Eglamore’s helping out the local orphanage! Who asked him to interfere, anyway?’
Gwyneth shrugged. ‘No clue,’ she said. ‘Presumably one of Sir Bufton Tufton’s useless inbred Cyclops children.’
‘Yeah,’ said Arthur. ‘He’ll be a complete burden. And anyway …’ He knew this much from countless boring personnel conference evenings with Fay. ‘We can’t just take someone on. We have to advertise it and then interview all the one-legged people who apply or something.’
‘No, really? God, yeah. I forget this is a public service organization.’
‘That’s cos we hate serving the public and what we do is actually invisible.’
‘And what’s he going to do?’
Arthur scratched his head. ‘Well, now we’ve got our money back, I’m sure we’ll find something … yes?’
Marcus put his head round the crack in the door. ‘It’s here!’ he said excitedly.
‘What?’
‘What are we waiting for?’ said Gwyneth.
‘I don’t know – what’s up, Marcus? Have they just announced that they want all the accounting in base thirteen?’
‘No, no, look.’
He entered the room, and brought out from behind his back a long roll of paper. ‘The mighty scroll,’ he announced with some reverence and placed it in front of them on the table.
‘The what?’ said Arthur and Gwyneth, simultaneously.
Marcus looked around. ‘Um, I mean the official European application form.’ He looked slightly embarrassed. ‘It just came by fax. So I just thought it would be – you know, more fun – if I delivered it in the form of a mighty scroll.’
‘It’s okay.’ Arthur picked up the scroll and unrolled it flat. It covered the entire length of the table and dropped onto the floor. ‘We already know your job is boring.’
Gwyneth looked over his shoulder. ‘Good God, it’s immense.’
‘That’s because it’s in fifteen different languages.’
‘God, so it is. Look, it’s in Welsh! Who on earth thinks Swansea would be made European City of Culture?’
‘I’m from Wales,’ said Gwyneth.
‘Most beautiful countryside in the world, isn’t it?’ said Arthur hurriedly.
‘Wow, this goes to the European Parliament,’ said Marcus, reading the small print.
‘That’s the least exciting parliament ever, though,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s like the Saturday superstore of parliaments.’
‘This is going to take a lot of serious work, even just in English,’ said Gwyneth, looking worriedly at it.
‘I don’t think putting porn plugs in park benches is going to pass for the required “Three Major Cultural Events”, do you?’
‘Just the one,’ said Marcus.
‘No, none.’
Marcus looked at it again. ‘Ooh, look, we have to support and develop creative work, which is an essential element in any cultural policy. Like, Sven’s expenses.’
‘Is that someone taking our name in vain?’ asked Sven, walking in eating a hot dog with Sandwiches at his heels.
‘Can’t you knock?’ said Arthur, still sitting slumped in his chair.
‘Cool down, el power-crazed Nazio.’
Sandwiches, meanwhile, had scrambled in ungainly fashion onto the meeting table and was clacking across it, looking for custard cream traces.
‘You should get that dog’s toenails trimmed,’ observed Gwyneth.
‘What? What?’ Arthur turned round to look at her. ‘Is that really your first reaction? Maybe you should have been a vet. Why didn’t you say, you should get that dog out of the office – or, you shouldn’t let your dog onto other people’s tables …’
‘Or, you shouldn’t let your dog eat the mighty scroll,’ said Marcus in horror, staring at where Sandwiches was happily tearing away at the edges. Drool advanced down the paper.
‘Nooo!’ Arthur lunged for it, causing Sandwiches to slide backwards across the polished wood and disappear, ears last, over the end, giving an anguished yelp.
Sven rushed to his aid and Sandwiches – wounded only in pride – hid his head in Sven’s meaty armpit. Rather him than me, Arthur found himself thinking.
‘Don’t shout at Sandwiches,’ said Sven.
‘I’m sorry, but I reserve the right to shout at anyone who eats the proposal guidelines,’ said Arthur.
‘It was only that we have to “exploit the historic heritage, urban architecture and … something about life in the city”,’ said Gwyneth, unravelling the slobbery bundle. ‘And by the way, how come I’ve only been here a fortnight and I’ve already become an expert in dog kablooie?’
Marcus and Sven started an argument about expenses as Gwyneth and Arthur bickered over who was going to pick up the scroll, and it took them a while to notice the shadow in the doorway.
The man standing there nearly filled the doorway. Tall and fine-boned, with a mop of long, curly blond hair, he looked, as the light fell upon him, like a pre-Raphaelite painting caught in a frame.
It was as if a spell had been cast over the room. As Gwyneth stared at him, Sven and Marcus fell quiet. Sandwiches dropped like a rock out of Sven’s arms and went over to explore.
‘Hey,’ said the man, smiling suddenly. It lit up his features and broke the mood immediately. He dropped a long arm to scratch the dog. ‘Is this Festival City?’
‘That depends,’ said Gwyneth. ‘Who are you?’
He looked around the room. ‘You know, you’re all so lucky.’
‘We’re what?’
‘I mean,’ he gestured to the scroll, ‘you’ve got this blank canvas, right? And this town … Man, anything you do to this town is going to make it better, isn’t it? You could put up a picture of this dog taking a leak and it would be more attractive than ninety-five per cent of the town centre.’
‘I like you,’ said Sven, coming forward.
‘But you could make it – God, absolutely fantastic! And that’s your job description, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got so much potential. So much fun! Fairs and parties, and celebrations and flowers and …’ He stopped and collected himself for a moment. ‘Sorry. I’m getting carried away.’
‘No, go on,’ said Gwyneth, finding herself doing something uncharacteristic. Smiling.
‘Well, you can basically plan for anything – one town had a new tram network. One place made an entire square blue – the stones, the walls, everything. You take the money you have and find out what you can do, then Brussels puts up some more money, then lots of people come and bring money into the town and it all works brilliantly …’
Arthur turned round slowly from the window. ‘Sorry, but – who are you?’
‘Oh, sorry, hi – I’m Rafe.’
Arthur couldn’t sleep that night. Something felt wrong. Something wrong in the world … Of course all insomnia is melodramatic, he thought, staring at the flashing LED of his alarm clock. Three thirty-two a.m. Insomnia makes you feel you are the only person awake in the entire world. Of course, he could have got up and phoned his half-brother Kay, who lived in Australia and would be more than happy to hear from him in the middle of the afternoon … but no. He felt pinned to the bed, and even thinking nice thoughts about Gwyneth wouldn’t help him drift off.
Finally, in a fit of exasperation, he threw the covers off, got up and stared out of the window. All the windows in the execu
tive estate were dark, every single one. Somebody must be up, he thought. Somebody, anybody, doing something. No babies? No parties? Yet there was nothing but the sodium lights of the tall street-lamps, and the distant hum of the motorway. Nobody moved. Nobody stirred. Arthur looked up to the stars, and imagined the world this quiet a thousand years ago, with everyone asleep when it got dark and up with the sun.
He shivered in the early morning cold, but didn’t go back to bed – now he was up, he actually felt rather peaceful. He liked the idea of the world quiet; full of possibilities and opportunities. Everyone asleep, optimistic about tomorrow – or at least, optimistic enough to sleep. A thought struck him. This would be a good time to see the place, see the absolute raw material he was dealing with – what the streets looked like empty. If this was going to be his town he should go out, take a look around it, examine it from the beginning with no hordes of teenagers or gangs of lads getting in the way, and no cars to block the view across the road. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a good idea. Even if, he realized, somewhere not too far away, it sounded like something was howling.
Ten miles away in her mother’s house, Fay had felt pulled awake at the same time as Arthur. Her first day at work hadn’t gone so bad … well, Ross hadn’t groped her. As such. But this was all going to be worth it for the look on Arthur’s face when she and Ross won the bid and left him crying on the street. Yeah. Her face took on a grim satisfaction and she turned over again on the single bed and fell asleep.
The darkness was hinting at dawn. Arthur looked at his own reflection in the window. God, yeah. That really was something howling. It did it again. Arthur reminded himself that wolves no longer roamed the countryside.
Sounded bloody weird, though.
‘We’re all going out at what time in the morning?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No sodding way,’ said Sven.
‘Listen to me,’ said Arthur, then realized he was begging, and that he was trying to remember about this whole respect issue, and took a breath.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘This came to me last night. It’s a great idea. We’re going to go out into the city when there’s nobody else there, and take a good long look at it. See what we’ve got to work with. It’s the only time of day we can do it – after the drunks and before the milkman. Plus, it’ll be fun. Maybe. No, yes it will. It’ll be like an expedition.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Cathy.
‘Great, that’s great!’ said Arthur. ‘Well done.’
‘I usually get up at that time to start the boys’ breakfast. And do the ironing, you know.’
‘I can’t, anyway,’ said Sven. ‘It would interfere with Sandwiches’ digestion.’
‘Yeah – might make it work,’ retorted Arthur.
‘Couldn’t you come without your dog?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No. He sleeps right across me.’
As if to demonstrate, Sandwiches crawled up and lay in the most ungainly fashion across Sven’s lap, a forlorn stubby pair of legs and a single ear hanging down either side.
‘That’s disgusting,’ said Gwyneth, committed vet.
‘I think it would be nice to have something to cuddle at night,’ said Cathy. Then everyone – including her – remembered she was actually married and already shared a bed with her husband and she blushed.
‘Yes, well,’ said Arthur briskly, ‘we’re going to take a look at a blank canvas; imagine what we could do if we set our minds to it. Too late for the drunks and too early for the milkman,’ he repeated. ‘Do milkmen still exist?’
‘You’re thinking of the bogeyman,’ said Gwyneth practically. ‘Milk, yes, bogeys, no.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Sven, with one finger up his nose.
Just then Rafe walked in, the only fresh-looking person in the room. Gwyneth had invited him along for the day to ‘see how the department works’ and he, amazingly, still seemed quite enthusiastic in the moments he could join them between hurrying to the toilet to cope with Cathy’s near-endless coffee provision.
Cathy looked at Rafe with that strange mixture of lust and motherly devotion only women teetering on the brink of menopause can conjure up for fresh-faced young men. ‘Hello, Rafe. More coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine thanks, Mrs P. What’s up?’
‘He’s trying to make us go out in the cold and dark.’
‘Why?’
Sven explained, and Arthur hovered in a corner feeling stupid. He’d planned to get them all whipped up with his enthusiastic oratory. Sven was making it sound as if he was transporting them all to prison ships. Rafe listened closely, nodding his head. The whole room was watching them. Finally, he straightened up.
‘Well – that’s a brilliant idea!’ he said. There was something about his open handsome face that made it look permanently smiling, and it was infectious.
Sven wrinkled up his nose in confusion. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes, don’t you see? Arthur, you’re absolutely right – we can get an idea of how the whole place could be. It will be mystical, magical – the city will be dead, but we – we can bring it alive, through knowing what people miss every day, through the power of our free imaginations – don’t you see?’
Arthur was half pleased, half slightly grumpy. ‘Well, yes – that’s exactly what I was …’
‘Ooh, and I can make soup,’ said Cathy.
‘Not potato soup,’ said Sven. ‘That’s rank.’
‘How rank can a potato be?’ asked Marcus. ‘It’s a potato. That’s like calling bread offensive.’
Arthur stood at the back of the room, quite amazed. Gwyneth looked over to him.
‘They’re arguing about the soup,’ said Arthur quietly to Gwyneth. ‘I think Rafe’s won on points.’
‘Well, it was your idea,’ said Gwyneth. ‘But, incidentally, he didn’t convince me. I don’t want to clatter about on my own in the pitch dark to meet you lot.’
‘Oh, please come,’ said Arthur, realizing suddenly that he was gazing at her.
Marcus, Sven and Cathy had gathered round Rafe, who was pointing things out on a map.
‘I mean,’ he was saying, ‘have you ever looked at the top of the high street? I mean, really looked at it?’
‘I’m usually too busy trying to avoid the syringes,’ said Gwyneth.
‘I’ll pick you up if you like,’ said Arthur.
Gwyneth glanced sideways to avoid his eyes. ‘Um … yeah. Okay.’
‘I mean, just, you know, in my car. You know, just to take you to this work thing!’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’ And she sounded as anxious to correct the misunderstanding as he was.
It was freezing. Properly, unbelievably freezing. After his broken sleep the night before, Arthur found tearing himself from his bed before four a.m. was a near impossibility, managed only by the warming thought of Gwyneth in bed – possibly naked – right now. Groaning, he stumbled into the kitchen, boiled some hot water and fumbled around for something to put into it. Let’s see – Marmite, toadstools (growing, sadly, rather than handwrapped) or an old bottle of Grand Marnier. His stomach rumbled warningly and he decided instead just to brush his teeth fifteen times.
Gwyneth’s house was actually rather charming – set back from the road, it formed the top two floors of one of Coventry’s not terribly widespread Edwardian villas. Arthur was just debating how much he cared about waking up the whole street by sounding the horn, as opposed to stepping out of the car and losing all feeling in his extremities, when the front door opened and a slight figure slipped out.
Arthur had never seen her out of a strict, well-cut work suit before. She was wearing thick rolled up khaki trousers, walking boots, and a huge man’s jumper that made her look incredibly young and cute. A little red hat jammed on top of her blonde hair finished the effect.
‘It’s my lucky red hat,’ she said when she caught him staring.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. It’s not lucky – I live here after all. B
ut this is definitely a night which requires a hat.’
Arthur checked to see if the heating was turned all the way up and started the car.
‘There’s no way anyone else is even going to get out of bed for this,’ she said. ‘Nobody is stupid enough.’
Arthur found himself thinking this wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Maybe they could just keep warm in the car and … er, chat.
‘’Course they will. It’ll be fun.’
She stared straight ahead. ‘Getting out of this car is not going to be fun. It’s going to be like jumping off the Titanic.’
‘But think how nice it will be to get back to bed.’
Gwyneth grimaced. ‘Yes – two minutes later, I reckon. Nobody’s going to stand for this. If they’re here at all.’ But she stopped as Arthur swung onto Greyfriar’s Lane and both of them realized three things simultaneously: one, that it was amazing to drive at night and be able to cut through without a single piece of contending traffic; two, there were the others, and three, the two of them were about to step out of the same car in what, if you had a mind like Sven, might be construed as a mildly interesting way.
They both stopped talking normally. ‘Rightyho!’ said Arthur. ‘Here we are!’ like some children’s entertainer. ‘Uh huh!’ said Gwyneth. They sat for a second, then Gwyneth took a deep breath and opened the door.
Cathy was standing clutching a large bag to her chest and smiled helpfully when they walked over.
‘Hullo there! Isn’t it …’
‘HEEEEy!’ shouted Sven, who was unaccompanied for once. ‘What’s this, then?’
Gwyneth looked at him with her best haughty stare, which was very haughty indeed. ‘Oh, shut up, Sven.’
Arthur looked round the market square.
‘Ooh, there’s Rafe,’ said Cathy. ‘Now, who wants soup?’