Anne Billson - Suckers

It was easier once we'd hit the North Circular, because most of the traffic was headed in the opposite direction. The driver relaxed, exchanged a few more words with H. P. Lovecraft, and fiddled with the radio dial until he was tuned into a music frequency. Presently he was whistling along to a disco version of the Anvil Chorus.

We were forced to take a minor detour through Palmers Green, but otherwise it was all plain sailing. I lit the last of Duncan's cigarettes and gazed through the tinted windows at the flickering light show in the skies to the south. It was Tottenham providing the fireworks now, but in a couple of hours it would be bonfire night all round town. And by then, I'd be swigging champagne at the Crillon.

As we swung south-east towards Wanstead, I felt the tiniest twinge of regret. But it soon passed. In a couple of months, Grauman had said, everything would be back to normal. Back to normal, if not quite the same as before. There would no longer be a train service during the day, he'd said. From now on, the trains would be running only at night.

But at least they'd be running on time.

THE END

Anne Billson is a film critic, novelist and photographer whose work has been widely published.

Her books include horror novels Suckers, Stiff Lips and The Ex , as well as monographs on the films John Carpenter's The Thing and Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In .

In 1993 she was named one of Granta's 'Best Young British Novelists'.

She has lived in London, Tokyo, Cambridge, Paris and Croydon, and currently lives in Brussels.

She has three blogs:

multiglom.com (the Billson blog)

catsonfilm.net (a blog about films that have cats in them)

lempiredeslumieres.com (a blog about Belgium)