Fallout by Sadie Jones Page A

alternator.’
    He was hugely impressed by her casual use of the word alternator but did not show it. ‘Thanks.’
    He lit a cigarette, offered her one, and studied the map. The rain drummed on the car roof. Leigh flexed her chilled hands, smiling at the thrill of going into the unknown on bona fide theatrical business, but—
    ‘Seston? It’s the back of bloody beyond,’ said Paul, so Leigh kept her naïve delight to herself.
    ‘You should let me drive.’
    ‘It’s my car. And I hate being driven.’
    ‘I’m a good driver.’
    She glanced at his profile, outlined by the dim little bulb. She liked his shoulders, which were broad, the taciturn presence he had, and that he didn’t flirt with her. He seemed reliable. She liked reliable. She pressed her thighs more closely together and rolled down the window.
    ‘Don’t let the rain in,’ he said, not raising his eyes.
    ‘Don’t bloody smoke then!’ she retorted.
    He reached across her to flick the burning fag-end out of the car, his arm, shoulder, then his head and clean short hair, all inches from her face. She had never been that close to a man without him trying to kiss her before.
    He returned to his side of the car. ‘I think we missed the turn,’ he said. ‘The one you said. Three or four miles back.’
    ‘Oh.’ She smiled at him, forgiving. ‘We’re so late.’
    ‘Where did you get those cheekbones?’ he asked, almost before he’d thought it. ‘Your face is lovely.’
    ‘Woolworths,’ she said. ‘Special offer.’ And she started the car.
     
    They found Seston and drove round it and through it and back across it with increasing speed and irritation as the rain poured down, their squabbling increasing with their lateness and Leigh’s rising resentment following the cheekbones remark. Now she knew. The great Paul Driscoll had only asked her because he fancied her and needed a lift in her Mini Cooper. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men, she thought, with rage – as he popped Polos and argued with her – it was that she didn’t like being cajoled and persuaded, tricked as if she were a seven-year-old. However many papers she wrote, rallies she attended, opinions she formed, here she was again, chased down in the absurd game of How Will I Get Into Her Knickers. She gave a snort, and laughed.
    ‘Hello?’ he said, drily.
    ‘We should just ASK somebody!’
    ‘We’re fine.’
    ‘Fine. We’re fine. Fine .’
    ‘All right, we’re lost.’
    ‘Thank you!’
    ‘No bloody thanks to you.’
    ‘Me? I’m just the taxi driver! You’re the one who’s lost.’
    ‘Well, ask someone then!’
    She sped down the dark and narrow road, overtook a bus, violently, and through the driving rain saw the back of someone with a too-big greatcoat and no umbrella – walking.
    She slammed the brakes on in a two-pedal skid, and stopped, next to him, on the wrong side of the road.
    She wound down the window just an inch.
    She looked up and she saw Luke Kanowski.
    ‘Excuse me.’
    ‘Hiya,’ he said.
    I know you , she thought – except she almost didn’t think it, so small a thing was it, so delicate, that as soon as the words formed in her head they were gone. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger to her. His hair was dripping rain and he looked very alive, as if he were happily interrupted in the middle of something. She looked up at him through the gap in the window.
    ‘We’re completely bloody lost—’ shouted Paul.
    And Luke had got into the car behind her with a rush of cold air and the almost imperceptible fresh scent of another human being – the skin, flesh and bones of a new creature.
    They all introduced themselves. Leigh held her hand behind her and he took it. And it was then, when he was unseen and close to her – exactly then – that she would always remember.
    She drove on. Paul spoke and the boy, man – Luke – answered. Leigh, straining her eyes to see the road through the wet night ahead of her, had only the impression of