Soft by Rupert Thomson

with an unearthly peach-coloured light. In medieval times, he thought, this would have heralded some terrible event – the murder of a king, for instance, or an outbreak of the plague. Death of one kind or another. He paused at the end of the street, wondering if the man in the dark-green anorak believed in omens. Then he turned left, making for the nearest phone-box, which was on Tooley Street.
    The sky faded as he walked and by the time he reached the phone-box it was almost dark. He put some coins on the shelf in front of him, then lifted the receiver and dialled his mother’s number. Bella Dodds lived in a tower-block in Mount Wise. He used to be able to see her bathroom window from the walkway outside his flat. She had moved in fifteen years ago, after Frank died, and nothing had changed since then, her two imitation-leather armchairs in the lounge, her collection of china Alsatians, and the wind howling and moaning, eight floors up. At this time of day she would be drinking tea with a dash of Captain Morgan in it, or else a glass of Bols. There’d be a plate of Digestive biscuits on the table. She’d always liked her biscuits.
    She picked up the phone on the seventh ring. ‘Yes?’
    â€˜How are you, Ma?’
    â€˜Oh, it’s you.’ Her voice sounded gravelly and rough, as if she had been sleeping. Perhaps it was simply that she hadn’t talked to anyone all day.
    He asked her again. ‘How are you?’
    â€˜Not so good, son. Not so good.’
    It was the angina. She had chest pains and she was often short of breath. Sometimes the lift broke down and then she couldn’t get to the shops. None of the neighbours helped her, of course. They weren’t the type. Single mothers, petty thieves. Kids doing speed and glue. She had to live on what she’d put by in the kitchen cupboard: tins of Irish stew, cream crackers, Smash.
    â€˜How’re Jim and Gary?’
    â€˜Jim’s all right. Talked to him Wednesday. Gary’s not so good. That girl he was seeing, Janice. She left him.’ She paused and he could hear her lungs creak and whistle as she breathed in. ‘I don’t blame her,’ she went on. ‘He wasn’t nice to her.’
    Barker thought of Jill sitting on the floor of his old flat, her legs folded beneath her, her bra-strap showing through the rip in her blouse.
    â€˜I got a job,’ he said. ‘I’m cutting hair.’
    â€˜Just like your father,’ she said, but it was just a statement of fact, and there was no nostalgia in it.
    â€˜I got a flat too.’
    â€˜You eating, are you?’
    Barker didn’t answer.
    â€˜I went to London once,’ she said. ‘We saw the soldiers parading up and down, those black hats on, all furry. What’s it called, when they do that?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Anyway.’ She sighed and then said something he didn’t catch.
    â€˜What’s that, Ma?’
    â€˜You coming home for Easter?’
    A sudden burst of laughter startled him until he realised it must have been the television. He glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty-five. He should have known she’d be watching TV. The soap operas, the shows. Des O’Connor was her favourite. A lovely man. Bob Monkhouse, she liked him too.
    Not long afterwards his coins ran out. He told her he would call again soon, but he was cut off before he could say goodbye. He put the receiver back on its hook, then stepped out of the phone-box and stood on the pavement, watching cars hurtle through the orange gloom towards Jamaica Road.

Thank You, Ray
    Across the bridge and down on to Tooley Street, bleak and gleaming in the rain. Barker walked quickly, eager to be home. Just before he reached the entrance to The London Dungeon he turned right, into a tunnel that burrowed under the railway. Clinging to the curving walls were vents and cages fouled with grime and oil and dust. A steel roll-door lifted to