drive me home. My eye’s sore and I feel nauseous. I’m in a hurry to get the car back. You said you knew someone in Sheppey …’
‘You.’
Ronny frowned. ‘What?’
‘You’re the person I know in Sheppey.’
‘But we only just met.’
The other Ronny cleared his throat. ‘Same people,’ he said, ‘different lives.’
Ronny smiled, but thinly. ‘I certainly hope that isn’t true.’
He meant it. He believed that each person could only lead one life. He sensed that nothing in him could be different from how it was. He was a closed book. His pages were permanently meshed together.
‘I live in a beach house,’ he said eventually. ‘I have extra blankets.’
The other Ronny stood and considered his offer.
‘I have no driver’s licence,’ he said finally.
‘Me neither.’ Ronny tried to appear indifferent, but suddenly this mattered to him so badly.
‘It’s a Volvo,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and they have big bumpers.’
The other Ronny still seemed uncertain.
‘There’s the beach,’ Ronny said, scrabbling for incentives, ‘and a natural wildlife reserve with owls and hunting birds …’
Still the other Ronny hesitated.
‘And rabbits … I mean unusual rabbits. Jet black ones. Wild. It’s a strange place, flat and empty like the surface of the moon.’
‘And the sea …?’ the other Ronny said, teetering.
‘Yes.’
The other Ronny scratched his right arm with his left hand. ‘Fine,’ he announced, ‘but here’s the hitch …’
Ronny nodded, ready for any eventuality.
‘You’ll have to change gear. I don’t use my right hand.’
‘OK.’
Ronny never yearned for anything. Not any more. Although at one stage in his life he’d discovered a worrying talent for persuasion. Persuasion had become a weakness with him. A sickness. Once he’d set his sights on something he seemed to yearn for it with an almost obscene fervour. Often things he hadn’t even known he’d wanted. Those were the worst.
He’d convinced himself that those times were pretty much behind him. This was a blip.
‘And the second thing …’ the other Ronny was eerily emphatic, ‘you’re Jim or I don’t come.’
‘Jim.’
‘That’s my gift.’
‘You call me Jim.’
‘No. You call yourself Jim and you mean it.’
‘Jim.’
Ronny felt a wave of euphoria, like he was lodged in a tiny dinghy and he’d just pushed himself adrift. He was floating. He could leave things behind him. Then it cut off. The euphoria. Just like that. He clambered over to the passenger side.
The other Ronny climbed in. He slammed the door shut, he felt for the pedals and then for the knob to adjust the position of his seat. He found it. He pushed himself back, but only slightly. He turned the ignition. The engine whinnied and then rumbled.
‘Get the gears, Jim.’
He carefully adjusted his rear-view mirror.
Jim said nothing. He wiped his eye, sniffed once, and then calmly stuck the gears into reverse.
6
Nathan told Margery before she’d even had the chance to sit down.
‘I saw James this morning.’
Margery hadn’t had an easy day. One of her clients was in court pleading guilty to a charge of fratricide. Another client, a child, had been taken into care after trying to burn down his grandmother’s house. And then she’d spent the remainder of her afternoon unsuccessfully trying to communicate with a young girl who’d become voluntarily mute after witnessing her sister’s death in a road traffic accident. It was grim.
‘James who?’
‘Jim. Jimmy.’
They were in Nathan’s flat in Stamford Hill. Above a bakery. Margery lived in Bethnal Green. Next to Tesco’s.
‘Jim?’ She turned to look at him. ‘So why didn’t you call me?’
Nathan scratched his head. ‘When I threatened to he ran off. There seemed no point once he’d gone.’
Margery had lit a cigarette. Nathan didn’t smoke. She inhaled and then pulled a smidgen of loose tobacco from the tip of her tongue.
‘So you simply didn’t bother ringing at all.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Margery grimaced. ‘To hell with being sorry, Nathan. Did he say where he was going? Did he say where he’d been?’
‘No.’
‘Then what was he after?’
‘He wanted a watch.’
Margery inspected Nathan’s wrist.
‘And you gave him yours.’
‘Yes.’
‘And he didn’t say where he was living?’
Nathan paused. ‘When I asked he said that he was going to Manchester.’
‘Manchester?’ Margery was bemused. ‘Why Manchester?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was just a whim.’
Margery threw herself down on to the sofa next to Nathan. ‘I wish to God you hadn’t given him your watch, Nathan.’
‘I know. I know.’
Nathan felt ashamed but he didn’t want a lecture.
‘I’m not being nasty,’ Margery continued, ‘but it’s a real weakness on your part.’
‘I realize that now. And I’m sorry. I just felt … I felt pity for him. He was very thin. I thought he might sell it in exchange for food or something.’
‘Please.’
Margery stubbed out her cigarette with a ferocious
