The Big Frog Theory - 6
The weekly serialisation of my Magic Realism novel.
ELEVEN
When Neville awoke, he found himself lying on his bed. Judging by the light filtering through the faded curtains, it was morning. Moving, he discovered not only was he laying above the bedcovers, but that he was fully dressed — and in clothes he had not been wearing when he went out the previous day.
Unsure whether his head ached or not, he sat up slightly, leaning on his elbows. At the foot of the bed his two bags sat neatly side by side. In the far corner of the room, one of the doors of the wardrobe was open, revealing emptiness inside. Apparently his luggage had already been packed.
‘Bon jour, Monsieur!’
Neville’s jacket was lying across the back of a chair, and Pierre had been in prime position to watch his first stirrings.
‘Your last day in Paris, and you must not be late!’
‘Late?’ Neville was now sitting on the edge of the bed, looking for his shoes. ‘Late for what?’
‘For la Tour Eiffel, of course! You are leaving around mid-day, n’est-ce pas? So you do not have so much time.’
Having found his shoes neatly placed beneath the bedside table, Neville was pulling them on as Pierre spoke. The noon deadline was news to him, but presumably all part of the plan. He remembered that he would be seeing Samuel again, and then — this time with a sudden chill which physically shook him — came a recall of his experience of the previous day.
‘Pierre; did you say that this was my last day?’
‘Oui, Monsieur.’
‘Don’t I have one more day to go — to visit the museums?’
‘Again?!’ Pierre gave a short laugh. ‘Was yesterday not enough for you?’
Even though Neville could remember only the first part of his previous day’s excursion, he decided not to press Pierre for a breakdown on the remainder. Somehow he felt better not knowing what had happened — and was encouraged that Pierre seemed up-beat about the coming day.
‘Of course, yes.’ He stood up and went to the window.
Looking out, the view was much the same as it had been the previous two mornings; Paris awakening. It seemed slightly busier, and the clock on the wall confirmed he was some half an hour later stirring than before.
There was a knock at the door which Neville answered without moving from his position. Only when he heard the door open did he look over his shoulder. The doorman filled the door frame.
‘My bags?’ Neville surmised out loud. The doorman nodded, and walked into the room. Turning away from the window, Neville went to pick up his jacket, but then decided that prudence demand he use the bathroom first.
Unzipping his trouser fly, he heard a familiar hiss from the bath.
‘Leaving us then?’ The shower head’s observation sounded more like accusation than anything else.
‘Apparently so.’ Neville stared down into the toilet, and when he pulled the cistern chain, water began to swirl into the bowl and then away.
‘Had fun?’
Considering the shower head had actually tried to be helpful, he had difficulty in deciding the true nature of this particular character. Was he misanthropic or philanthropic?
Neville pulled the bathroom door closed a little further.
‘What you said, the other day. What did you mean?’
‘What I said?’ The shower head uncoiled itself and slid into the base of the bath. ‘What do you mean, “what I said”?’
‘About Pierre. The pierrot.’
‘Ah.’
‘You warned me about him.’
‘Did I?’ The tone of the reply was slippery in the extreme. ‘I wouldn’t say I warned you about him. Perhaps simply to be cautious; observant even. But not a warning. Why should I?’ A pause. ‘Did I need to?’
From outside, Neville heard a call of ‘Monsieur!’ and a reminder about the time. He looked back into the bath. The shower head was motionless, and its hissing had stopped. Neville decided he didn’t like deliberately ambiguous characters; they thought they were so clever, but were nothing more than cowards.
‘We must go!’ Pierre said when Neville reappeared in the room. ‘The taxi is waiting.’
‘No breakfast?’
‘Perhaps later.’
As he descended in the lift, watching the first floor creak past through the trellis-work gate, Neville wondered if he shouldn’t be a little more authoritative; perhaps he should put his foot down, send the taxi away, insist on breakfast. Under other circumstances he may well have done so, but this particular morning found him more like a boxer the day after a fight rather than one feeling bullish the day before.
As he walked through the hotel entrance, he saw the doorman putting his two bags in the back of a taxi parked half on the pavement. The rear passenger door was open, and he was greeted again by the unusual aroma of the taxi’s interior. The toad was leaning across the back of his seat as Neville got in.
‘Leaving us then?’ And the toad gave his croaky laugh. ‘Had fun?’
‘Not so fast today, please,’ was all Neville could offer.
‘Fast? Man, you English got no balls!’ And with that, the toad crunched the taxi into gear and pulled off the pavement with a leap.
Pierre was slightly more talkative this morning; excited even. Perhaps he was making a special effort because it was Neville’s last day. He pointed out minor things as the toad’s amazing lane-changing antics threw them from side to side. It suddenly occurring to him that the small porcelain figure could never leave Paris, Neville wondered what would happen to Pierre when he departed.
He would have asked the question but for their screeching arrival at the Eiffel tower. The toad hit the curb with a bang and the doors — all four of them — sprang open with the impact. Neville paid and made to get out.
‘Come back soon — and don’t forget me!’ And with that, the toad slammed the taxi into gear with such force that Neville’s bags bounced out of the boot and onto the pavement of their own accord. A dust trail followed the toad as he sped off into the city hubbub.
‘What do I do with those?’ Neville asked, looking at his bags.
‘There is a small office. They will take them.’
‘Good.’ And with that, Neville picked up his two bags and made for the ticket booth.
As he walked beneath the tower, he looked up through its centre, standing square between the four legs. All he could see was a pattern of steel repeated at each corner like some hypnotic mirror image. Above — and how high was that? — the first platform blotted out any residual image of the sky, and along one leg he could see a small lift making its way upward.
He walked on. It seemed that once again he was early, and because of this the queue was quite short. When he reached the booth he asked for a ticket.
‘To which level?’ came the rather short reply.
Neville glanced down to his lapel.
‘Well?’
‘Two,’ said Pierre, ‘there will be a long wait to get to the top.’
‘Is two high enough? As I’m here...’
‘Two,’ said Pierre, adamantly. ‘That should be fine.’
From behind the grille, the same question.
‘Sorry. Second level, please,’ Neville offered.
‘Deuxième étage,’ said the attendant.
‘And can I leave my bags?’
‘Of course, Monsieur. Please leave them at the door.’
Neville left his bags where he had been told and made his way to the lift. After ten yards or so, he glanced back to find the bags gone; efficiency was, to be honest, the last thing he had expected.
There was also a short queue — some twenty people or so — waiting for the lift. He looked up the nearest leg of the tower to see the cage on its way down, slowly descending towards them. From behind he heard the excited chatter of some Japanese tourists as well as the equally exited chatter from their cameras, the latter busily exchanging advice and tips on aperture sizes, filters, and exposure speeds. He remembered that he had wanted to buy a camera. He would ask Samuel about that.
Turning his attention to the front of the queue, he noticed a figure that seemed familiar to him, a woman he could only see in part-profile. She was wearing a white coat with a large grey collar, all of which contrasted with the darkness of her hair which was a mass of curls falling about her shoulders.
The sudden sound of a bell diverted his attention to the lift now upon them. It hit the ground with a small thump and immediately opened its doors on the far side, disgorging its passengers onto terra firma. Those arriving back seemed in good spirits, laughing and joking. He noticed one or two couples holding hands and talking half-secretively to one and other.
A nudge in the back prompted him to move forwards with the rest of the queue, and within a few strides he found himself on one side of the lift, pressed against its metal side by some of the Japanese visitors. Immediately to his left, the camera of one — slung casually across its owner’s shoulder — gave him a conspiratorial wink.
‘Guess what?’
‘What?’ Neville replied in a whisper akin to that in which the question was offered.
‘She’s forgotten to load any film!’ And the camera winked again, and chuckled to itself. This was obviously a tremendous joke, as a number of the other cameras nearby joined in with the merriment.
Neville thought the camera was a bit mean, but refrained from saying anything. This was partly due to his general reserve and decorum, but more because he had now noticed that the woman in the white coat was none other than his vision from the Rue St. Dennis. She stood, here and now, no more than eight feet away from him, half-turned, her profile set against the Paris skyline as the lift moved upwards. Eight feet — yet completely out of Neville’s reach as there were two Japanese, three Germans, and a Spaniard between them.
For two somewhat torturous minutes, the lift rose slowly towards the first level, all the while Neville trying not to stare at the woman — yet also trying to stare at her. The exit doors would open on the far side of the lift, and as they came to a halt, it occurred to him that she might get out here. If she did, he decided that he would follow. There was little else he could do.
In the event only two people got out, but a few more crammed in. The eight feet between them became squashed to around seven, and Neville faced the crawl to the second stage with the same dilemma of staring and not staring. The woman seemed to not be aware of him; at no point on their journey upwards did she look his way.
As they climbed, he allowed himself the occasional brief glance upwards to check on their progress — and outwards, in a faux show of interest — but there was really only one thing on his mind. Pierre had said nothing since they had stepped in the lift.
‘Pierre?’
‘Monsieur?’
But Neville’s potential interrogation was halted by the stutter of them arriving at their destination.
The doors opened and the lift began to empty. The woman was out quite quickly and it took Neville about twenty seconds longer to exit. Once outside he went to the rail and looked about. He could not see her. The platform was not that large, so she had to be there somewhere.
Neville gave a cursory glance to the city. He could pick out Notre Dame from where he stood, and made a stab at a building which might have been the Musée d’Orsay; but these were now minor considerations. Far from the original intent of the tower providing him with a memorable panorama of the city, it had apparently become the climax of some obscure quest. Pierre had known what he was doing when he suggested that Neville leave it to last.
Moving away from where he stood, he slowly walked anti-clockwise around the edge of the platform. His searching took him in towards the centre of the tower rather than away to admire the skyline as was the norm, and his visage was wreathed in a frown rather than the smiles so abundant on the faces of others.
He had nearly completed a circuit when he turned the final corner and came across her standing immediately in front him, a slight smile on her face. It was as if she had been waiting.
He stopped instantly.
‘Bon jour, Monsieur.’
She was, without question, the most captivating woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Her greeting seemed to drop from her lips with such elegant seduction that his ears felt unworthy to receive her words. Her eyes shone with a clarity that even the purest gem stones would have envied. And her beauty, would have defied the gods themselves.
From Pierre there came a slight whistle.
‘You have been looking for me, yes?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Pathetic.
‘I saw you the other day. I think you have perhaps been searching.’
Neville was now standing within two feet of her. His tongue felt glued to his mouth — and his brain hundreds of feet below, grovelling amongst the flower beds of the nearby park.
‘Yes,’ then, ‘no.’
She smiled.
‘I mean; I recognised you. From the street, the other evening.’
‘And the café, perhaps?’ she suggested.
So.
‘And what do you want of me?’
Still the smile; but this was the sort of question Neville had never expected to face in any normal life, let alone now.
‘Want?’ He could think of nothing — and everything. ‘Who are you?’
‘Who am I? You mean, what is my name, perhaps? Can you guess?’
Neville, for a moment lost, realised that there could be only one answer.
‘Mirelle?’
‘Bien sûr.’
But she didn’t look like Mirelle; she surpassed Mirelle in every way.
‘I’m sorry,’ he faltered, ‘but I don’t think I understand.’
He moved a step forwards. Her response was to lose the smile and to take a step away.
‘Careful, Monsieur.’
‘But, who are you?’
‘I am,’ she paused, ‘I am all you desire. I am the embodiment of your dreams. I am all you would have me to be.’ And as she spoke the smile returned to her lips, and a gleam came to her eyes. ‘But I am not yours. I am mine.’
Again Neville moved forwards, this time his hands a little outstretched. Again she moved away, maintaining the distance between them. She was now more than the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; she had become something intangible, something for which he had been searching, chasing; that elusive thing to which he could not give a name. Possession was what he desired. But he could see that she was not one to be possessed. Yet if this was indeed the case then he decided he would have to touch her, for even the briefest contact suddenly seemed to represent some kind of achievement.
After a moment’s silence he lunged forwards. It was step into the abyss. He was leaving behind so much that he knew, and throwing himself at the mercy of the woman that stood before him now.
As fast as he moved, so she retreated. In an instant, she was standing on the railing, suddenly towering above him. And as he looked up, his hands grasping nothing, she changed into a beautiful seagull. With one magnificent flap of her wings, she leant forwards and plucked Pierre from his lapel with her beak. Then, falling back, she was away from the tower and out into the air, sailing off into the city.
‘A bientôt, Monsieur’ came the feint cry from Pierre as he dropped out of sight.
It was only when he felt the hand on his waist that Neville realised he too was standing on the railing, preparing to throw himself into oblivion.
TWELVE
He had just missed him at the ticket office Samuel explained a few minutes later as they were descending in the lift. He had seen him arrive, buy his ticket, then deposit his bags by the office.
‘If I hadn’t grabbed them, who knows what might have happened to them!’
Neville was a little calmer now, though he had said nothing since his encounter with “Mirelle”.
‘You must have been very close. I mean; I turned around and saw the bags were gone.’
‘I decided to put them in the bus and then come back for you. Unfortunately I was just too late.’
‘You would have stopped me going up there?’
Samuel smiled. The lift had reached the ground with a bump and the doors rattled open.
‘I think I might have come up with you, Sir. I don’t think I could or should have stopped you.’
They walked past the refreshed queue — more Japanese, more winking cameras — and away from the tower. Neville took one last look up. He could make out one or two birds circling high above; the second level of the tower seemed a universe away.
‘I’m glad you weren’t too late.’ He tried to smile, but it proved a little difficult. Samuel squeezed his arm and offered a silent nod of understanding.
The old bus sat waiting for them in a small lay-by just off the main road. It looked a little less battered, and now sported a bright red coat of paint. Samuel intercepted Neville’s gaze.
‘Thought I’d give the old girl a little treat. Well, she deserves it really.’
Neville offered nothing; he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Instead, he let Samuel reach the bus first and open the door. Inside, his two bags were in their previous position, and his own seat — the one at the front alongside Samuel’s — had been recovered in new fabric and accessorised with a large soft cushion. There was a small table beside it too, and on this a fresh mug of tea steamed.
‘Tea,’ Neville said in a rhetorical manner. ‘Is that significant? I mean, it’s not coffee.’
‘I thought you might be just a little tired of coffee, Sir’, Samuel said, and he turned the key and started the engine as if to add weight to his words.
Neville raised the cup and took a sip.
‘Where to Sir?’
Samuel had that slight mischievous smile again as he glanced back at his passenger, then, without waiting for a reply, rolled the bus gently out into the traffic.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Neville said. ‘Perhaps we should just leave the city first, then decide. Is that OK?’
‘That’s fine, Sir,’ said Samuel. ‘How’s the tea?’
The bus rumbled slowly on — once more at twenty seven miles per hour (the coat of paint had done nothing to improve the speed) — twisting through the streets of the city. Neville sipped his tea, expecting at any moment to feel the beginning of the long drag up the incline from which they had first approached three days before. But there was no hill; instead Samuel kept steering along flat and uninspiring roads. Eventually Neville realised that, without ceremony, Paris had simply slipped away behind them.
He wondered if one last look might have been in order. Thwarted by events at the Eiffel Tower, the promised panoramic view had been partially denied him. Perhaps that was just as well. Samuel seemed, as ever, fully in control of the situation, and was pressing on to their next destination — as much he could ever give an impression of “pressing on”.
‘Samuel.’
‘Sir.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Going? Well, that’s up to you Sir, of course.’
‘You appear to be going somewhere though.’
Samuel gave him a brief glance.
‘Not quite. We are going away from somewhere. If you don’t mind me saying, Sir, you have to do that before you can go to anywhere else. Especially if you don’t know where it is you are going.’
‘That’s just semantics. They are, of course, both one and the same thing — simultaneously.’
‘Perhaps.’
Neville, without the appetite to pursue Samuel’s philosophical theory, drained the last of his tea and realised how much he had missed its unique flavour. He wondered what other things he had missed; days of croissants had presumably taken the place of something else too. The last time he drank tea had been in his office — perhaps just minutes before he became a “redundant” individual. It had only been a short while, but Neville already knew that his most recent job was one thing he was never going to miss. Perhaps Brian, Colin and David were managing things a little better than he had done; but quite frankly, he didn’t give a shit.
After a while, Samuel slowed the bus and indicated that he was going to pull over. Ahead was a small lay-by, vacant apart from a solitary, simple vending unit. As they crawled to a halt alongside it (and in the process allowing the stream of traffic that had been growing behind them to race away) Neville saw it was a fruit stall.
‘Fruit, Sir?’ Samuel enquired, and then continuing in a rush, ‘I hope you don’t mind me stopping but I’ve something of a fad for bananas, and the urge has just taken me.’
The sentence trailed away into hopefulness as Samuel, the bus now stopped, turned to look at his passenger.
‘Not at all.’
‘May I get you anything?’
‘Perhaps an apple.’
‘French?’
‘Whatever.’
As he watched Samuel descend and walk round the front of the bus, Neville marked the use of his word “French”. He looked on the awnings of the cabin, and craned his neck to see inside, but could find no evidence of signage of any kind. The countryside had lost some of its Gallic charm and seemed to possess a kind of nondescript uniformity: the gently rolling hills; the hedges; the odd stone wall. The sky — blue but peppered with puffy while clouds — gave nothing away. Neville sniffed the air. Nothing. The fields were empty, and there was no music in the background.
‘Samuel’ —who was half way up the steps when Neville next addressed him — ‘where are we? And don’t say “between here and there”.’
Samuel laughed, presuming a joke.
‘Very good, Sir; very good!’ And with that, he handed Neville a green apple.
Neville rubbed it on his jacket — force of habit — then took a bite. It was crisp and juicy.
‘Well?’
Samuel was peeling his banana. He looked up.
‘You weren’t joking, Sir? About being between here and there?’ Neville’s silence confirmed as much. ‘Oh, sorry. Pity.’
For a few seconds there was a kind of silence as the two of them chomped through their respective fruits. Samuel, finishing first, consigned his banana skin to the brown paper bag from which it had been produced.
‘We are, of course, between here and there. It’s a shame when you didn’t mean what you said, Sir, because you are absolutely correct. In our present context, “here” was Paris, and “there” is wherever you wish to go next. Of course, the saying should be “between there and there”, because we are most definitely here — but that doesn’t sound so well, does it?’ He waited for some kind of response. Neville took another bite from his apple. ‘We could, of course, talk about Paris if you wanted to? I mean, if I can help with any outstanding questions? Historical clarification, perhaps?’
Neville lobbed his apple core forward, and Samuel caught it deftly in the brown bag. He looked at little disappointed at being called upon to perform such a facile trick. The look lasted but a moment.
‘Paris? Clarification, yes; but not so much the historical.’
Samuel nodded, smiled, placed the brown bag down by his feet, and waited. Neville weighted his words.
‘What actually happened?’
A small laugh escaped from Samuel — somewhat involuntarily, Neville guessed — even though his face showed nothing but considered respect.
‘I don’t think I could manage anything quite so challenging, Sir. Could you be a little more specific?’
‘For a start, how about what happened on the Tower. Can you explain that to me?’
Samuel frowned.
‘To be honest Sir, I was hoping you might do me the honour there.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I arrived to find you standing on the edge about to throw yourself off! If I were more demanding, perhaps I should ask for an explanation of that circumstance.’
‘You didn’t see Mirelle?’
‘Your wife?!’
‘No, another Mirelle. Or at least, she said she was.’ He paused, looking for a subject that might be a little less contentious. ‘Or Pierre, the Pierrot.’
Samuel offered an “old boy” shake of the head, suggesting a degree of bewildered confusion.
‘I’m sorry, Sir. Perhaps if you would like to explain...’
Neville considered Samuel’s offer for a split second. Either he was dissembling and knew exactly what had happened, or he was genuinely in the dark. In each case any explanation from him would probably be in adequate.
‘Forget it.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. Neville picked over the images of his visit, thinking of morsels he might offer Samuel.
‘The Musée d’Orsay. Can you explain what happened to me in there?’
‘What was that, Sir?’
‘Samuel!’
Neville thumped the small table in frustration. Even if Samuel was in a position to shed some light on things, would he be able to understand what was said, or would there be more phoney here-there mumbo jumbo to confuse him? And if Samuel could explain nothing, was it because he wasn’t aware of what had transpired or because, for some reason, he was prevented from providing illumination? Neville knew he could resolve none of this.
‘Have you checked your watch, Sir?’
‘My watch? Do you need the time or something?’
‘I was thinking of the additional information.’
For once Samuel’s message was understood, and Neville remembered the display of his financial “balance”. He looked down. The number 16738 greeted him. He tried to remember the initial figure.
‘A little over nineteen thousand’, Samuel offered.
‘But that means I’ve spent a fortune!’
‘Nearly two and a half thousand by my calculation.’
‘We said Paris would cost a few hundred; a thousand at most! This can’t be right, Samuel.’
Samuel’s countenance became a degree more stern, verging on the school-masterly.
‘Correction, Sir; you said you anticipated such a sum, not I. You must remember the cost of the hotel, and the travel.’
‘Travel? But I only took a few taxis.’
‘I’m afraid I must include myself in your budget, Sir. The old bus may not be particularly quick, but I’m afraid she is a little expensive to run — especially given her particular talents.’
The last work hung ambiguously in the air, demanding definition; but Neville missed it, and pressed on.
‘And I bought nothing.’
‘There is the portrait I collected with your bags, Sir. And the Pierrot, you mentioned...?’
‘But surely...’ Neville lost his argument. He could not reconcile his brief visit with such vast expenditure.
Samuel waited for anything further. When nothing came, he continued.
‘Do you remember the General? The gentleman who purchased your car.’
‘Of course.’
‘He paid what you considered to be a ridiculous amount of money for it, did he not? But he had his reasons, as I explained. I also explained that what we were dealing with there was the concept of worth, rather than value. The General paid a sum matching the car’s worth to him, not one in accord with its value.’
‘Are you suggesting that, somehow, my visit to Paris was “worth” nearly two and a half thousand pounds to me?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘How come? Explain it, Samuel; I don’t understand!’
Samuel offered a smile of sympathy.
‘I don’t think I can, Sir. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s simply that I fear it is impossible. It is a lesson to be learned perhaps; nothing more nor less.’
Neville checked his watch again. Sixteen thousand. Was that how much his life was now “worth”? And based on the last three days, how could he possibly know how quickly he was spending it, or when one thing might cost him more than another?
‘I’m afraid you must trust us, Sir. We are, after all, on your side. I will help you all I can, but these are the rules we are playing with.’
‘Option 3?’
‘Indeed.’
Unable to comprehend exactly how things now stood, Neville looked out of Samuel’s side of the bus at the fruit stall. The boxes of fruit which had stood in neat racks had now vanished, and the stall was decorated like a Punch and Judy show with brightly coloured curtains adorning the sides of what was — to all intents and purposes — now a stage.
From within the stall (there was no-one visible) came a brief drum roll, which was followed by the appearance of a banana peeping nervously round the curtain. With a sudden lunge — as if pushed from behind — it flew out and came to a sliding halt centre stage. It bowed low. From somewhere Neville heard a small ripple of applause. The banana bowed lower, and the applause was louder.
With this second ovation, two apples — one red, one green — rolled onto the stage from the opposite direction. They appeared to be in conversation, though how Neville could actually know this was vaguely mystifying. They stopped suddenly on seeing the banana. The red apple moved round the banana to its other side, so that the apples now flanked it. The banana tried as best it could to straighten itself. Neville sensed some tension. An orange appeared from one side of the stage, paused, then rolled quickly across and out of sight on the other side.
The apples sidled up to the banana, squeezing it between them. The banana tried to bow and failed. From either side of the stage various other fruits, evidently attracted by the drama, made their appearance; spectators rather than participants. By this time the banana was looking even more uncomfortable as the apples, both redder with their efforts, pushed against it. Neville could only watch, mesmerised by the strange show.
Gradually the banana peeled back its skin, and, as it did so, the apples backed slightly away. The audience in the wings also moved back slightly. Then, without warning, the banana spun viciously round, whipping the apples with its flailing skin as it did so, sending them flying from the stage and onto the ground. With that the curtain closed.
Neville looked at Samuel, intending to ask him for some interpretation of these events, but he appeared to be asleep.
‘Samuel!’
The driver woke with a slight grunt, straightening himself in his chair in embarrassment.
‘Sorry, Sir. Must have just dropped off; apologies.’
‘Samuel,’ Neville paused. ‘Never mind. I think I’d like to go home.’
‘Home, Sir?’
Neville sensed another discourse coming on; something he wanted to avoid at present.
‘Birmingham. Let’s go back to Birmingham; I need cheering up. Perhaps that meal.’
‘And the tuxedo?’ Samuel offered with a smile.
‘The tux? Why not!’
As the bus crunched into gear, Neville felt a sudden chill breezing through his open window, and noticed that the sky had turned an angry grey. He sensed England might not be that far away, after all.