45 292
Not Near London
45
and
literally
crying, with
tears all down his face.’
Love. Or maybe just work.
Suzie drifts off because she
is so indescribably tired
she is almost at the end of
her physical functionality
with about two hours
sleep inside her from
last night and the train is
rocking her away and then
she’s dragged back after
months or maybe two
minutes because the voice
is carrying on, needling
her into consciousness.
‘She said she thought I
looked like her acoustic
cousin? Yeah, acoustic.
Her cousin’s autistical, OK?
And then I said, where do
you live in London, and she
said: near the Thames?
Yeah, like she was
so
not
intelligent. These trains
aren’t as mental as she is,
righ’? What? Nah, hun, we
are
so
not near London it
ain’t bloody true.’
Jasper can’t see her, but
he is listening, like his ears
are growing points. The girl
sounds a proper Londoner,
not a fake Cockney. Sarf
Lunnen. Brixton, maybe. A
husky voice, very strong,
like an actress’s or an
ageing soul singer’s – not
the voice you’d expect.
Suzie, whose own voice
is thin and weedy and
Linconshire-lite in her own
opinion, catches Jasper’s
eye.
‘Whassup?’
‘Nothing,’ says Jasper.
‘Looking like you’re having
your hair washed by
angels.’
‘What?’
She squeezes his arm, rubs
her cheek against his jaw-
line of soft beard that goes
up in a point under his
lower lip. Then she nibbles
his ear, tasting its stud as a