“Yes,” all that stuff you just said.’
‘You’ve not even seen them, for Godssake; apart from surreptitious glances when I’ve been wearing something clingy. And don’t tell me you didn’t look. Coz I know you did.’
‘No, Lucy, I didn’t.’
‘Yeah, right,’ she sneered, and crunched gears.
‘No, seriously, I didn’t.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
‘No. Really.’
‘Really?’
‘Breasts are too passive,’ he said. ‘All they do is hang there.’
‘What do you want them to do? Attack you?’
‘I’d just like them to do something. Nothing dramatic. Nothing clever. Just something. Anything.’
‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Because breasts are the best things ever and don’t need to do anything in order to be entertaining. Just sitting here my own chest’s a veritable fun fair. And no one can have too much of them.’
‘I suppose you want me to look at them now,’ he sighed.
‘You’d be the last person I’d show them to. Wait till I get my new ones. Try ignoring them, Mr I’m So Squeaky Clean I Don’t Even Look When They’re Shoved In My Face. Not that I’ll let you see them. I’ll probably wear a double thick overcoat every time I see you. And you’ll just have to dream about what you’re missing. Probably keep you awake at nights, craving.’
‘What about this Annette woman?’
‘They’re too small. She’ll never make an impact at parties; not with her, “Hey, boys, I’m a non-underwire-dependent cyberman,” malarkey. Size, that’s what gets you noticed. And you can tell her that from me.’
‘I meant, tell me about this home offer.’
‘She called me an hour ago, saying you could move in with her.’
‘But I don’t even know her.’
‘Who can figure it? Must be desperate. I don’t think she gets many callers, what with being flat chested.’
‘So, what’s the catch?’
She drove on, gaze fixed on the road ahead.
‘Lucy?’
She drove on.
‘Lucy?’
‘No catch.’
‘What’s the bond?’
A lump slid down her throat before she answered, still looking straight ahead. ‘No bond.’
‘References?’
‘No references.’
‘Rent?’
‘No rent.’
‘Terms? Conditions?’
‘No terms. No conditions. Simply be there. But, Danny, under no circumstances mention her embarrassingly small breasts. Between you and me, she attaches far too much importance to such things. I tried to avoid mentioning them on the phone when she called but somehow it slipped out.’
‘Is there anything about this place you’re not telling me?’ he asked. ‘It’s not in an earthquake zone or something?’
‘Believe me, this is the house to be. And, Danny?’
‘What?’
‘Imagine cracking those eggs.’
‘So where is it?’
‘666, Hellzapoppin Cul-de-sac, Nightmareville.’
‘What?’
‘Ha ha, only joking. It’s on Plescent Street, Wheatley 48, a really nice area, all manual lawnmowers and salad sandwiches. I’ve done loads of pickups there and never once got a tip – a sure sign of affluence. Do you know they have a residents’ committee? People round there talk to their neighbours, Dan. Can you believe that?’
‘And you’re sure about this?’
‘Positive. You’ve landed on your feet better than a cottonwool cat with eighteen legs and cast iron paws. Annette has a cat, by the way. It’s called Ribbons. Be nice to it, it bites.’
‘Lucy?’
‘Yup?’
‘Why are you helping me?’
‘I’m not helping you.’
‘You’re going out of your way to take me to a new home.’
‘I’m not helping you.’
‘Yes you are.’
With a screech of tyres the cab swerved to a halt, half climbing the kerb, Lucy scrunching on the handbrake.
Danny’s momentum flung him forward. His seat belt stopped him from melding with the windscreen.
She reached across and unlocked his door, letting it swing open. Upright again, one forearm on the wheel, the other on the back of her seat, she stared him in the eyes. ‘You want to get out?’
‘No.’
‘Then don’t say I’m helping you.’
‘But …’
‘You want to get out?’
He sighed, gazing at the ceiling, then reluctantly pulled the door shut. ‘You’re not helping me.’
‘Damn right I’m not.’ And she steered the cab away from the kerb.
‘Eyes up, shipmates. Plescent Street ahoy.’ Lucy turned her cab up a sloping avenue on Wheatley’s outmost outskirt.
He watched passing rows of neat trimmed housing. Whitewashed picket fencing contained hedges topiaried into trains, snowmen, castellations, airborne kites, friendly dinosaurs, friendly dinosaurs flying kites, kites on castles and snowmen on trains. Each bordered a perfectly square garden.
He’d once seen a documentary: in America, an identical street had built a Berlin Wall at each end then issued residents with ‘passports’ to keep the riff-raff out.
Danny was riff-raff; or he’d have known there were such places in Wheatley. ‘You’re sure this is the right place?’ he asked. ‘There’s not another part of town with the same name?’
‘Course I’m sure. What kind of cabbie do you take me for? I know this city like the back of my hand. Aargh! What’s that on the end of my wrist?’
‘Your hand,’ he said, as unamused as on the first three million occasions she’d cracked that joke.
‘Only joking.’
‘This is the place.’ Lucy scrunched on the handbrake, engine noise dying away.
He gazed out through the windscreen, puzzled, seeing only cherry blossom trees to either side and the crown of the road ahead. Straight backed, head raised to peer over the crown, he saw the green fields of open country beyond. His gaze flicked across that landscape. ‘Where?’
‘There.’
‘Where?’
‘There.’
He watched her, suspecting a practical joke. ‘Where?’
‘Straight ahead.’
Again he looked, still seeing nothing.
Then he grew excited. ‘You’re saying, all that countryside, as far as the eye can see, is my new home? The woman owns the countryside? Lucy, this is fantastic.’