I’m at the front door of Michael’s house, struggling to get the keys out of the key safe, when a man shouts to me from across the street.
‘You! Yes – YOU! I’m talking to YOU!’
I straighten up and turn to look as a man staggers across the road at a tangent, somehow avoiding the traffic, and ends up draped across the railings in front of the house, hugging them with both arms through the gaps, like he’s the only thing keeping the street from spinning out of control. After he’s got his breath he finds me in his sightline again, and gives me a lop-sided snarl, like the old MGM lion, but drunk. With no hair. Or teeth.

‘Oh – so NOW I’ve got your attention,’ he says.

He’s ragged, knuckle-headed. The kind of guy life rolled over and left furious in its wake.
‘Yah think yah so wunnerful,’ he says.
It’s a bright, blue day in April and I’m feeling optimistic, so I smile and say: ‘Hi! How are you?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Nothing. Just saying hello. Anyway – have a great day!’
And I give him the thumbs up.
‘Have a great day!’ he spits, like it wasn’t my thumb but a middle finger. ‘Have a great day! Ya know they wrote that on the side of the bomb when they dropped it?’
‘Did they?’
‘Yeah – they DID! So wha’ d’ya think o’THAT?’
‘I think that’s a bit… I don’t know… cynical?’
‘Are you takin’ the PISS, man? Are you havin’ a GO?’
‘Me? No. Just passing the time.’
‘Passin’ the time!’ he says. ‘Right! I’m comin’ over there…’
Jesus Christ but this key safe will not open. It’s an old one, some weird, masonic design, like it’s not a simple code I need so much as an incantation. I glance back at the guy. He’s managed to untangle himself from the railings, and is concentrating everything he has on hauling himself along, fist over fist, using the spikes like the rungs on a ladder. He’s almost at the gate – and me.
I turn back to the key safe.
By some miracle of panicked tapping and button flicking, the front panel suddenly loosens and flips open. I grab the keys – a bunch of them.
He’s on the threshold of the broken mosaic path now, only pausing to check the building’s the right way up before he carries on.
I flap around with the keys. Of course it HAS to be the last one on the bunch that opens the door. I snatch up my bag, dodge inside and slam it shut, just as he shuffles haphazardly up the steps. After a pause, I see a slack, liverish eye press against one of the stained glass panels, rolling around like a whale at the port of an Edwardian submarine. Then the eye pulls back, and he’s gone.
‘Michael?’ I call out into the silent house. ‘It’s Jim. From the hospital.’
And head up the stairs.