Neverwhere

There was a silence. "That's all," said Richard. He finished his tea.

Gary scratched his head. "Look," he said, at length. "Is this real? Not some kind of horrible joke? I mean, somebody with a camera isn't about to leap out from behind a screen or something and tell me I'm on Candid Camera?"

"I sincerely hope not," said Richard. "You . . . do you believe me?"

Gary looked at the bill on their table, counted out pound coins, and dropped them onto the Formica, where they sat beside a plastic tomato ketchup container in the shape of an oversized tomato, old ketchup caked black about its nozzle. "I believe that, well, something happened to you, obviously . . . Look, more to the point, do you believe it?"

Richard stared up at him. There were dark circles beneath Richard's eyes. "Do I believe it? I don't know anymore. I did. I was there. There was a part in there when you turned up, you know."

"You didn't mention that before."

"It was a pretty horrid part. You told me that I'd gone mad and I was just wandering around London hallucinating."

They walked out of the cafe and walked south, toward Piccadilly. "Well," said Gary, "you must admit, it sounds more likely than your magical London underneath, where the people who fall through the cracks go. I've passed the people who fall through the cracks, Richard: they sleep in shop doorways all down the Strand. They don't go to a special London. They freeze to death in the winter."

Richard said nothing.

Gary continued. "I think maybe you got some kind of blow on the head. Or maybe some kind of shock when Jessica chucked you. For a while you went a little crazy. Then you got better."

Richard shivered. "You know what scares me? I think you could be right."

"So life isn't exciting?" continued Gary. "Great. Give me boredom. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight. I'll still have a job on Monday. Yeah?" He turned and looked at Richard.

Richard nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah."

Gary looked at his watch. "Bloody hell," he exclaimed. "It's after two o'clock. Let's hope there are still a few taxis about." They walked into Brewer Street, at the Piccadilly end of Soho, wandering past the lights of the peep shows and the strip clubs. Gary was talking about taxis. He was not saying anything original, or even interesting. He was simply fulfilling his obligation as a Londoner to grumble about taxis. " . . . Had his light on and everything," he was saying, "I told him where I wanted to go, he said, sorry, I'm on my way home, I said, where do all you taxi drivers live anyway? And why don't any of you live near me? The trick is to get in first, then tell them you live south of the river, I mean, what was he trying to tell me? The way he was carrying on, Battersea might as well have been in bloody Katmandu . . . "

Richard had tuned him out. When they reached Windmill Street, Richard crossed the road and stared into the window of the Vintage Magazine Shop, examining the cartoonish models of forgotten film stars and the old posters and comics and magazines on display. It had been a glimpse into a world of adventure and imagination. And it was not true. He told himself that.

"So, what do you think?" Gary asked.

Richard jerked back to the present. "Of what?"

Gary realized Richard had not heard a word he had said. He said it again. "If there aren't any taxis we could get night buses."

"Yeah," said Richard. "Great. Fine."

Gary grimaced. "You worry me."

"Sorry."

They walked down Windmill Street, toward Piccadilly. Richard thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He looked puzzled for a moment, and pulled out a rather crumpled black crow's feather, with red thread tied around the quill.

"What's that?" asked Gary.

"It's a—" He stopped. "It's just a feather. You're right. It's only rubbish." He dropped the feather in the gutter at the curb, and did not look back.

Gary hesitated. Then he said, picking his words with care, "Have you thought about seeing somebody?"

"See somebody? Look, I'm not crazy, Gary."

"Are you sure about that?" A taxi came toward them, yellow for-hire light burning.

"No," said Richard, honestly. "Here's a taxi. You take it. I'll take the next one."

"Thanks." Gary waved down the taxi and climbed into the back before telling the driver that he wished to go to Battersea. He pulled down the window, and, as the taxi pulled out, he said, "Richard—this is reality. Get used to it. It's all there is. See you on Monday."

Richard waved at him and watched the taxi drive away. Then he turned around and walked slowly away from the lights of Piccadilly, back up toward Brewer Street. There was no longer a feather by the curb. Richard paused beside an old woman, fast asleep in a shop doorway. She was covered with a ripped old blanket, and her few possessions—two small junk-filled cardboard boxes and a dirty, once-white umbrella—were tied together with string beside her, and the string was tied around her wrist, to keep anyone from stealing them while she slept. She wore a wool hat, of no particular color.

He pulled out his wallet, found a ten-pound note, and bent down to slide the folded note into the woman's hand. Her eyes opened, and she jerked awake. She blinked at the money with old eyes. "What's this?" she said, sleepily, displeased at having been woken. "Keep it," said Richard.

She unfolded the money, then pushed it up her sleeve. "Whatchyouwant?" she asked Richard, suspiciously.

"Nothing," said Richard. "I really don't want anything. Nothing at all." And then he realized how true that was; and how dreadful a thing it had become. "Have you ever got everything you ever wanted? And then realized it wasn't what you wanted at all?"

"Can't say that I have," she said, picking the sleep from the corner of her eyes.

"I thought I wanted this," said Richard. "I thought I wanted a nice, normal life. I mean, maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe. But if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane. You know?" She shook her head. He reached into his inside pocket. "You see this?" he said. He held up the knife. "Hunter gave this to me as she died," he told her.

"Don't hurt me," said the old lady. "I ain't done nuffing."

He heard a strange intensity in his own voice. "I wiped her blood from the blade. A hunter looks after her weapons. The earl knighted me with it. He gave me the freedom of the Underside."

"I don't know anyfing about that," she said. "Please. Put it away. That's a good lad."

Richard hefted the knife. Then he lunged toward the brick wall, next to the doorway in which the woman had been sleeping. He slashed three rimes, once horizontally, twice vertically. "What you doin'?" asked the woman, warily.

"Making a door," he told her.

She sniffed. "You ought to put that thing away. If the police see you they'll run you in for offensive weapons."

Richard looked at the outline of a doorway he had scratched on the wall. He put his knife back into his pocket, and he began to hammer on the wall with his fists. "Hey! Is there anyone there? Can you hear me? It's me—Richard. Door? Someone?" He hurt his hands, but he kept banging and flailing at the brickwork.

And then the madness left him, and he stopped.

"Sorry," he said to the old lady.

She did not answer. She had either gone back to sleep or, more probably, pretended to go back to sleep. Elderly snores, real or feigned, came from the doorway. Richard sat down on the pavement, and wondered how someone could make such a mess of their life as he had made of his. Then he looked back at the doorway he had scratched on the wall.

There was a door-shaped hole in the wall, where he had scratched his outline. There was a man standing in the doorway, with his arms folded theatrically. He stood there until he was certain that Richard had seen him. And then he yawned hugely, covering his mouth with a dark hand.