“No,” she said, “but I can play it.” She slipped a warm hand into his comfort zone.
1981: Hit Me
“I did my best to calm him down.” Didi Dee eased off her scarlet heels. They had rubbed a hole in her left stocking. She had been reluctant to visit Anuradhapura at this time in the evening. The shadows were making it all too grotesque. “Beast. I don’t think he was ever human and certainly not an archangel.” Of late, she had made a number of vague references to Milton.
Jerry mourned. Was the age of the great puritan to come again? He loathed what would follow. Was the 18th century really making a come back? The reactionaries now called themselves conservatives. The conservatives were liberals, and the liberals were what? Libertarians? What did that make easier? Not another sodding revolution, surely?
Professor Hira, sweating, came to sit down on his favourite fallen god. He got nostalgic on these occasions. “I don’t see how we’ve got all the way from Big Bang to M-theory without wondering, for a moment, if all our standard theories are delusional. The 20th century consisted of a series of escapist notions, transformed into gloriously impressive math. The fact is all the evidence has shown that--”
Significantly, Mo Collier checked and rechecked the action of his massive Banning. “Bloody hell! With that triple clip, you can hardly lift the bugger!”
“To be honest, it’s doing my head in.” Jerry looked for friendlier skies. He wanted the familiar sights of his childhood, but most of them were gone, replaced by chains and concessions. “I was thinking of getting a haircut.”
Mo hadn’t really been listening. “Sorry I’m late. Was there another storm? I had to work an extra dodgem shift at the Scrubs fair.” He shivered and held up his hand to see if it was raining. “What’s new?”
“Don’t ask me.” Jerry giggled into the sodden wind. “I just got up.”