crossed the Thames, remembering the cold of that night we’d taken the boat together from Greenwich, feeling it deeper now in my bones than just memory could recreate. Still no answer. At Putney I got out and beeped my way through the gate onto the mainline platform, leaping down the steps two at a time. The next train was in four minutes.
I pressed the phone between my palms, half closing my eyes, and forced my breath to slow. I slowed my thoughts, slowed my heart, forced the tension out of my arms, and opened my hands again to hold the phone between them like a lotus flower in the palms of a priest. Her number was already on the screen; I thumbed it, let it dial, and as it dialled, turned slowly on the spot, turning the phone to point south, west, north, and finally east. As it reached east it began to ring, loudly, a high tinkling coming from the little speaker. I swung south-east and the ringing faded down, lower; swung north-east and it rang louder. It wasn’t a perfect tracking system, but it would do.
I took the train, heading east towards Waterloo.
At Clapham Junction the phone still rang towards the north-east. I stuck on the train for Waterloo as we pulled out past commuters crowding onto the platforms, headed to such strange, surely promising places as Winnersh Triangle, Epsom Downs or Carshalton Beeches. If Clapham had the largest number of trains going through it of any station in Britain, it was merely where people changed, rather than a place prized for its own qualities. Waterloo, however, was a destination, teeming day and night with crowds impossible to navigate at any speed higher than the platform-hunter’s waltz. A swelling sea of commuters ebbed and flowed, from south London and the Home Counties, with the relentless quality of tidal drift. I wove past shops selling sausage pies, silk ties, mobile phones and novels about shopping and love recommended by people from the TV, and still my phone was ringing towards the north-east.
I dared not go underground and lose the signal, so struck out for the buses across the river. I caught one on the bridge itself, opposite the brightly lit walls of the National Theatre, whose flat grey shapes only came alive at night, under great washes of colour. As my bus headed up Kingsway, between grand buildings made from 1930s pride and Portland stone, my phone started ringing towards the east; I changed at Holborn and headed towards Chancery Lane and St Paul’s. It had been over half an hour since Meera had called. I spent a small surge of strength on turning any red traffic light green as we approached the old city boundary and, when we crossed into the Golden Mile, once encircled by the London Wall and whose symbol was still the dragon holding a shield of twin red crosses, I felt it like a jolt of pure caffeine straight into theheart. My scarred right hand buzzed: here, of anywhere in London, I was at home. My phone kept ringing towards the east, and I wondered how much further I would have to go: Bishopsgate? Aldgate? Shadwell?
On Cheapside the signal turned south. I jumped off the bus at a stop near the blank stone walls of the Bank of England, and the Merchant Exchange’s temple-like pillars. Tarmac gave way to cobbled stone and a church left over from the age of dark stone walls and low grassy graves peeked out between the glass towers of the city. My signal swung suddenly round and I followed, the sound of ringing accompanying me down an almost empty street. A sushi bar on the right was full of men and women in suits, never less than four to a table, eating expertly with chopsticks; on the left a small dry-cleaner’s offered a forty-minute service for the harried executive. I could feel all the shadows here, taste the power in the streets, deep and dark and waiting, feel it move beneath my feet, a well of time and magic that had no bottom, waiting to be tapped. The old stone city walls may have been mostly demolished centuries ago, but there were other
I pressed the phone between my palms, half closing my eyes, and forced my breath to slow. I slowed my thoughts, slowed my heart, forced the tension out of my arms, and opened my hands again to hold the phone between them like a lotus flower in the palms of a priest. Her number was already on the screen; I thumbed it, let it dial, and as it dialled, turned slowly on the spot, turning the phone to point south, west, north, and finally east. As it reached east it began to ring, loudly, a high tinkling coming from the little speaker. I swung south-east and the ringing faded down, lower; swung north-east and it rang louder. It wasn’t a perfect tracking system, but it would do.
I took the train, heading east towards Waterloo.
At Clapham Junction the phone still rang towards the north-east. I stuck on the train for Waterloo as we pulled out past commuters crowding onto the platforms, headed to such strange, surely promising places as Winnersh Triangle, Epsom Downs or Carshalton Beeches. If Clapham had the largest number of trains going through it of any station in Britain, it was merely where people changed, rather than a place prized for its own qualities. Waterloo, however, was a destination, teeming day and night with crowds impossible to navigate at any speed higher than the platform-hunter’s waltz. A swelling sea of commuters ebbed and flowed, from south London and the Home Counties, with the relentless quality of tidal drift. I wove past shops selling sausage pies, silk ties, mobile phones and novels about shopping and love recommended by people from the TV, and still my phone was ringing towards the north-east.
I dared not go underground and lose the signal, so struck out for the buses across the river. I caught one on the bridge itself, opposite the brightly lit walls of the National Theatre, whose flat grey shapes only came alive at night, under great washes of colour. As my bus headed up Kingsway, between grand buildings made from 1930s pride and Portland stone, my phone started ringing towards the east; I changed at Holborn and headed towards Chancery Lane and St Paul’s. It had been over half an hour since Meera had called. I spent a small surge of strength on turning any red traffic light green as we approached the old city boundary and, when we crossed into the Golden Mile, once encircled by the London Wall and whose symbol was still the dragon holding a shield of twin red crosses, I felt it like a jolt of pure caffeine straight into theheart. My scarred right hand buzzed: here, of anywhere in London, I was at home. My phone kept ringing towards the east, and I wondered how much further I would have to go: Bishopsgate? Aldgate? Shadwell?
On Cheapside the signal turned south. I jumped off the bus at a stop near the blank stone walls of the Bank of England, and the Merchant Exchange’s temple-like pillars. Tarmac gave way to cobbled stone and a church left over from the age of dark stone walls and low grassy graves peeked out between the glass towers of the city. My signal swung suddenly round and I followed, the sound of ringing accompanying me down an almost empty street. A sushi bar on the right was full of men and women in suits, never less than four to a table, eating expertly with chopsticks; on the left a small dry-cleaner’s offered a forty-minute service for the harried executive. I could feel all the shadows here, taste the power in the streets, deep and dark and waiting, feel it move beneath my feet, a well of time and magic that had no bottom, waiting to be tapped. The old stone city walls may have been mostly demolished centuries ago, but there were other
Similar Books
