When Aileen looked again, the youths had gone. At the next stop, the two girls got up and walked towards the platform with short rapid strides, hobbled at the knee by their tight acrylic skirts. As they passed Aileen they broke into suppressed giggles that turned into howls of laughter as soon as they were off the bus. From time to time the bus stopped and people got on or off. Eventually Aileen stood up.
‘Not this one,’ warned the conductor.
‘It’s all right,’ she replied. ‘I know my way.’
Once off the bus, however, the streets seemed unfamiliar. Still, if she kept walking she would get home sooner or later. Occasionally a dog barked in one of the houses as she passed, or she overheard music or the abrupt roar of recorded laughter, or saw lights left on in an empty room. Of course, all these phenomena could have been simulated by devices such as the one that Douglas had installed.
As it began to get dark, she found herself in a long avenue built on a slight curve. The houses had windows consisting of eight panes set in a curved bay, and whenever a car approached, its headlights caught the panes one after the other, making the windows flash like warning beacons. But a few hundred yards further on, everything became familiar again, and the only puzzle was how it could have previously looked so strange. Aileen supposed it was due to her having taken an unfamiliar route. Even a place you know well can look odd if approached from an unfamiliar direction. She didn’t think about it much, preoccupied with her enjoyment at having got home safely. In spite of all that had happened, she was looking forward immensely to getting inside and shutting the door behind her, to eating and drinking and watching TV. Life goes on, she told herself. That’s all it does. It goes on, until it stops.
As she approached the front door, searching through her handbag for her keys, the phone started ringing inside. It would probably be Douglas, ringing to say that he had arrived safely. How nice of him! She felt very warm about Douglas sometimes, particularly when he wasn’t there. Her hand blindly rooted about in the bag, turning up her purse and diary, various items of make-up, two letters and a packet of tissues, but no keys. The ringing broke off with a truncated blip. She imagined Douglas setting down the receiver and turning away, disappointed or angry or even worried. As for the keys, she’d left them in the door of the Mini, of course.
Driving with Raymond in the mountains north of Los Angeles, Aileen had noticed that almost every bend in the road was marked by a black sign with one or more death’s heads painted on it. Raymond had explained that each skull marked the scene of a fatal accident. But when her taxi reached the spot where Steven Bradley had died a few hours earlier, there was no sign that anything of any interest or importance had ever taken place there. Aileen paid the driver and walked around the corner to the place where she had left the Mini. It wasn’t there. With it had gone the keys to her house, whose address was marked on several of the letters and other documents she had left on the back seat. That meant it wouldn’t be safe to go home, but before the implications of this had sunk in she saw Steven. He came at her like a wolf, swooping across the street straight in front of a car that never swerved an inch to avoid him, just as though he wasn’t there. Aileen screamed at him again and again, trying to scare him off, until people appeared at the windows of the nearby houses to see what was the matter.
She was in luck: the taxi that had brought her to the corner was still there, parked at the kerb, the driver counting his takings. At first he said he was off duty, but when Aileen told him where she wanted to go he smirked and nodded her into the back. The taxi dropped her at the side of the main block, by the sign ‘WARNING HAZCHEM’. The night staff were very sympathetic about the loss of her car and keys. They provided tea and biscuits and said of course she could spend the night. In the morning, Aileen knew, everything would be all right again. But first there was the night to get through. Before going to bed she paid a visit to the dispensary and took some Valium. Mindful of what had happened last time, she restricted herself to the manufacturer’s suggested dose, even though her room was in the basement and the window had bars on it.
In other respects, the experience was not dissimilar. She awoke in broad daylight, in a hospital. No one mentioned miracles this time, but of course miracles only happen once. Most striking of all, she’d had the flying dream again, and this time it lingered tantalizingly on the fringes of her consciousness. The merest nudge, she felt, would be enough to bring it back into focus. But her waking consciousness was too gross and clumsy an instrument, and a few moments later it was impossible to believe that the experience hadn’t all been an illusion. She washed and dressed, drank several cups of tea, thanked the staff and set out to walk to the tube. It was a warm and sunny day, and her mood had changed too. In fact a miracle of sorts had occurred, after all, for she felt sane again. She knew that she had been in shock the evening before, and had acted pretty oddly. But all that was over now.
Her mood was briefly marred by the discovery, when she reached the tube station, that she had left her handbag behind at the hospital. Evidently some of the Valium must still be spicing her chemical soup, making her dopey and inattentive. For a moment she thought of going back to get it, but it was a long way through an unattractive part of West Kilburn. Besides, there was nothing of any value in the bag. Her money and credit cards were in her purse, which she had put in her coat pocket after paying the taxi driver the night before. The real problem was the loss of her keys. She would have to inform the police, then call a locksmith. It would take the whole day, just when she felt she needed a rest, peace and quiet.
It wasn’t until she reached Paddington that she understood what she was going to do. Coming up from the underground tunnels to change to the District line, she caught sight of a sign reading ‘Main Line Station’. Without a second thought, she followed the arrow, made her way to the booking office and bought a weekend return to Cheltenham. It was the perfect solution! She tried to phone her parents before boarding the train, but the phones were all in use or out of order. It didn’t matter, anyway. They would be only too pleased to see her, even though she turned up unannounced with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. They would understand, bless them. They always did. And from there she would phone the police, report the theft of her car keys and ask them to keep an eye on the house. It would be bliss to get out of London for a couple of days, to go home. It was just what she needed.
The train was scruffy, blisteringly hot and packed. Aileen put her coat on the overhead rack and squeezed into a corner seat, where she lay back and closed her eyes. When she awoke, they were already in the country. Bright sunlight fell on flat farmland with a roll of low hills in the distance. The carriage had emptied somewhat, although it was still quite crowded. On the seat opposite, a man with a smugly glum expression was leafing through a newspaper with the headline ‘LEAVE IT AHT, RON!’ Next to him, in the window seat, a relentlessly articulate middle-class father was talking the toddler on his knee through the scene outside, naming all the buildings and animals, explaining their functions and purpose, instructing his creation in the various amenities of a world that had been brought into being for his benefit.