Sam Leith - The Coincidence Engine

‘All right, bumface?’

‘All right, Saul.’

‘I would like you to know,’ said Saul, in a voice of some seriousness, ‘that I have now owned every last level in Peggle .’

‘Saul, I have literally no idea what you’re talking about. Is this one of your computer games?’

‘Not just any computer game, my friend. I’m talking Ultra Extreme Fever , Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” , Magic Hats … Compared to this, Plants Versus Zombies sucks balls.’

‘ Plants Versus Zombies ? Was that the one with the -’

‘…Plants and the… zombies? Yes. And the sucked balls. I knew that hoity-toity Oxbridge education wasn’t lost on you. Now I’m insis-’

‘Never mind that. Saul: I’m in America…’

There was a pause. The forward progress of Saul’s onslaught had been impeded, momentarily, by this new piece of information. The phone was on the end of the breakfast bar in Saul’s flat, and he imagined Saul’s whole-body gesture of surprise and interest catching Tim’s peripheral vision. Tim’s Evening Standard would go down and he would make a silent question mark with his face.

‘Alex. He’s in America!’ Saul would be mouthing to his boyfriend, his eyes wide. The image was so clear to him Alex felt homesickness lurch in his stomach.

Saul started to sing ‘I wanna be in Ameh-ri-cah’ but Alex cut him off with ‘Saul -’, and his voice changed, became more serious. ‘Skidoop, what are you doing in America? Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, Saul. I just had a thing where – I wanted to get away. It’s not a big deal…’

A thought occurred to Saul.

‘Are you with the girl?’

Alex said nothing for a moment and Saul ran, in triumph, with the silence. ‘My God ! Tim! This is so exciting. This is more exciting than anything that’s ever happened. Alex has eloped with the American girl! He’s going to go live on a farm in Iowa and make sweet love to livestock and breed a dor able little one-eyed children in dungarees…’

‘I haven’t eloped,’ Alex said. ‘Saul, I’m not with Carey. Look, I haven’t got long – I’m calling on my mobile phone. I didn’t tell anyone I was going, and I’m fine, but I don’t want people to worry about me or call the police or anything.’

‘Where are you? Where in America?’

Alex looked out of the window.

‘Atlanta,’ he said.

‘ Atlanta? ’

He ignored the question. ‘Can you call Mum and tell her – I don’t know what you tell her, actually. Don’t tell her I’m here, though. Please. Tell her I’m staying with you if you have to. Make something up.’

‘What happened, little brother? Are you a lone ?’

‘Nobody’s here. I’m fine,’ Alex said. ‘I’m going to go and see Carey, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen.’

Saul seemed to digest this.

‘You’re not going to go all Thelma and Louise on us, are you?’

‘No,’ Alex said. ‘I’m not going to go all Thelma and Louise . I promise.’

‘Well, you have a fabulous holiday, then. And seriously: take care.’

‘Thanks. See you soon, Saul.’

‘Laters, bumface,’ said Saul. And he rang off.

Alex put the phone in his hip bag. He had a plan in mind. On the road, he’d be able to think. He opened the door of the room and stepped onto the balcony. The man who had been there last night was nowhere. He walked down the stairs and across the car park to check out.

The clerk said the nearest Hertz office was back out by the airport. Alex crossed the highway and waited for the bus. The bus shelters here didn’t have benches, like in the UK. This one didn’t even have a shelter. Alex dropped his rucksack between his feet and leaned back on a concrete post. A tramp with a piled shopping cart was approaching from the direction Alex was watching for the bus. He was the only other person Alex could see, and wore a grey felt hat of shapeless design, filthy brown trousers hanging low on his waist, and some sort of twist of webbing slung round his bare chest. He was barking like a seal. ‘Raup! Arrp!’ he said. ‘Aaarrp!’

Alex could hear it from some way away. With each exclamation, the shopping trolley, with its cargo of stuffed 7-Eleven bags, would take a jolting bunny-hop forward and its owner would whip his head round to the left. It looked like a nervous tic, or like he was anxious that something unwelcome was on the point of arriving unannounced on his left shoulder. Alex couldn’t think of why exactly anything would want to go near the man’s left shoulder.

‘Aarrp! Raaup!’ Alex looked at his feet. There was no sign of a bus.

The tramp made slow progress up the road. The barking sounds he emitted sounded more and more like dry heaves with each moment that passed. And from what Alex could see out of the corner of his eye, what he was expecting to arrive on his shoulder wasn’t welcome. His eyes were rolling like those of a terrified horse.

When he got level with Alex, whose existence he had not appeared to notice, he suddenly whipped his head the other way, so his face was pointing straight into Alex’s, and shouted: ‘BOO!’

Alex’s stomach flipped and he jumped back in fright. He stumbled over the rucksack at his feet and landed with a painful thump on his coccyx. He scrambled to get his feet under him.

Leaning against his shopping trolley, the tramp was wheezing with laughter.

‘Faggin’ aaaRRGH! Gotcha. Faggin’ liberal!’

Alex’s face flushed with blood but, fearing violence, he snatched up his rucksack and took a step back. The tramp scissored into another burst of mirth, then apparently took fright again, and his head jerked back round to look over his shoulder.

‘Arrrp!’ he exclaimed, then looked piercingly at Alex.

‘Spare sssigarette?’ he said, sending a hot gale of rotting pilchards in Alex’s direction. There was a furze of white stubble on the bulb of his chin and his cheeks were sunken. His lips moved and ticced, flashing teeth the colour of toffee. His right hand probed under the webbing round his chest and scratched absently at his left nipple.

‘Hnuh? Eh?’

Alex shook his head.

‘Asshole,’ said the tramp genially, and stood, left arm on the trolley, laughter passed, sizing Alex up. Alex coughed officiously and looked distractedly past the tramp down the road. There was still no sign of the bus.

‘Sorry,’ he said. The tramp shrugged, and barked again. Alex looked at his feet. It occurred to him to whistle a thin tune, but his mouth felt dry. And then, as they stood there with Alex looking at his feet, the tramp grabbed Alex by a twist of shirt and walked in until the hot physicality of him, sour stink of skin, dried sweat, rancid mouth smell, enveloped the younger man.

Alex’s eyes flicked up. And the everyday madness in the man’s face had been replaced by something different. He looked as if he was having a seizure. The muscles on his neck were standing up, and a coil of vein went across one.

‘Nobody’s here,’ he hissed. You could hear the wet breath whistling against his wrecked teeth. ‘Trust nobody. Nobody can help you. Bring them together. Bring them back. Forgive.’

The tramp was breathing very hard now, and he had Alex clenched to his chest. But whatever he was doing wasn’t directed at Alex, apparently. His eyes were milky, absent, staring into Alex’s face as if seeing someone else there, or as if seeing someone through him. He opened and closed his jaw wordlessly. A creamy crust of foam moved where his lips met.

Alex grabbed him by the shoulders – his skin was like dry rubber to the touch – and pushed him off. The tramp’s hand released the hank of T-shirt, leaving a smudge of dark grime.