The Last Minute

  Noel’s elderly cat, Vita, is snuggled up in one of her favourite places: an old towel on the chunky radiator under the windowsill. She’s nearly twenty, and sleeps almost all the time, but her honey-coloured fur is still long and lustrous, and when they are open, her eyes tell of mystery, wisdom and uncanny understanding, or so Noel believes. Since he discovered how to order cat litter and food on the net, Noel doesn’t have much need to go out. Vita is the only living being he has touched for several days.

  For the past half-hour, a young man in an ill-fitting suit has been sitting on a bench in the churchyard, checking and rechecking his wristwatch as it creeps towards half-past nine. He is Stuart Penton, unemployed since leaving the rather undistinguished local university more than a year ago, but now, at last, called for a job interview. He’s uncomfortable. He hasn’t dressed smartly since his graduation ceremony, and his relationship with the waistband of his trousers has been profoundly damaged by months of junk food and Internet gaming. He’s nervous. He wants the job, even though it’s only junior clerical work at the offices of the local free newspaper (which, he has been dismayed to discover, are above the run-down bakery next to the petrol station over the road). Stuart is desperate to stop living off (and with) his parents, who find it increasingly difficult to disguise their irritation at the poor return they’ve had on years of school fees.

  This morning he had to get away from the atmosphere in the house, even though it means he’s got to hang around in the cold now, because he doesn’t want to look too keen by turning up early for his appointment. Over breakfast, his mother wouldn’t shut up about how he must demand decent pay and conditions, and mustn’t be fobbed off with unpaid work experience disguised by the label ‘internship’. ‘The New Slavery’, she called it, in a speech he’d heard a thousand times before. His father was just as bad, warning him to be ready for tricky questions about big international news stories, quizzing him over his cereal about Arab leaders from countries he’d never heard of. Cruising the news websites and Wikipedia on his mobile phone, Stuart is using the last few minutes before his 9.30 appointment to mug up on the recent cabinet changes, and the progress of international economic deals. Nevertheless, he suspects that the editor will want to hear more about what’s going on in Heathwick, and on that subject his mind (and the Internet) is blank. Nothing ever happens here, he thinks to himself.

  But, though Stuart doesn’t know it, a tiny drama is in progress across the road. A woman is hurrying out of the bakery. She’s elderly, but elegant, the thinning hair beneath her felt and feather hat tinted a vibrant orangy-blonde. Her winter coat has luxurious fur cuffs, which are getting in her way as, struggling with two carrier bags, she tries to stuff her change into her purse. This is Lotte Rabane, once a star of the (long defunct) local repertory theatre, and still respected by people who can remember those days (though she’s a little dotty now, and sometimes forgets her way home). She’d normally have stayed in the warmth of the baker’s for a chat (and her usual joke about bloomers) but this morning she couldn’t get out fast enough. It was too embarrassing: another customer was almost in tears. It didn’t seem polite to stay and watch, though Lotte was intrigued by the scene, and there was a time when it would have provided her with professional material.

  A thin, smart woman, probably about forty-five, was shaking like a child, obviously in the early stages of a panic attack, as a magnificent cake, lusciously decorated with shards of dark chocolate and glistening cherries, was being eased into a gigantic box. The baker was trying to persuade Gillie Dougall (for whom today is the culmination of months of planning for her husband’s surprise birthday party) that the cake will easily feed seventy guests. He’s right, but Gillie is picturing the scene if it’s finished before everyone has been served. In her mind, the possibility has now become an inevitability – the worst catastrophe of her life. This is what Gillie does. She panics. When her anxiety engine is firing, there is nothing she can do to stop it, and today it’s going to be powering a waterwheel of worry. She’s in no doubt now. She’s ordered an inadequate cake, and so Anthony’s party is going to be a disaster. His political career will be irrevocably damaged. And it’s all her fault.

  Lotte Rabane has recognized Gillie. She knows she idolizes her husband. But she also knows, because she lives next door to a young woman called Sharon Carter, that Gillie’s faith in him is misplaced. There was nothing for it: Lotte had to leave the shop before she said something she might regret.

  TOCK

  50 seconds to go . . .

  ‘ . . . SIX, AND . . .’ MAGGIE Tate is getting into her stride.

  Matey continues his joke: ‘ . . . two old friends called . . .’

  ‘ . . . how wa wardur . . .’ sings Polly, rubbing a handful of glitter onto her face.

  ‘Ma-ax!’

  Through the wall next to his desk, Noel Gilliard can hear Mariam, a recent arrival from the Middle East who rents a cheap room over the dance studio. She is running a bath. As ever, the hot water is coming out in noisy air-locked burps from the old-fashioned boiler in the shared bathroom. Noel blames her burst of activity for killing his creativity this morning. That, and the racket from the roadworks outside. Cursing the drills, he clicks again – this time on the link to a chat site where authors complain to each other about publishers, agents and booksellers, while lavishing insincere flattery on each other’s work.

  Downhill from the funeral parlour alley, in the launderette opposite the newsagent’s, Marco Lorenzo is oblivious to the upheaval in the street outside. There is a problem with his dry-cleaning machine, an old self-service model, installed by one of his predecessors in the 1970s. It’s hard to get spare parts for it now, and the volatile fluid on which it depends has been leaking through an ancient valve. Marco has been trying to fix it for over an hour, and the fumes are giving him a headache. He calls to his son, Stefano, hoping he’ll lend a hand, but Stefano has just left, to buy some cigarettes at the newsagent’s over the road.

  On the coach, Calum and Rahil duck down so that Miss Hunter can’t see them. The headmaster has banned all mobiles and music players, but Rahil has smuggled his big sister’s smartphone on board, and the two boys are sharing the headphones – one ear each. They’re laughing at her dubious taste in Bollywood musicals and looking up rude things on the Internet at the same time. Calum’s hoping Rahil will ask him back to his house after the trip. He loves it there. Not just because of the garden, the pets, and the seemingly constant supply of home-cooked food, but because of the size of the family – still intact, unlike his own – and replete with brothers and uncles for football, cricket, and fun. They even have a basketball net in the garden – a garden! And the biggest television set in town. The Nandis’ home is a wonderful refuge from his own – with his batty granny and his harassed mother, and the overpowering embarrassment of living a life funded (extremely inadequately) by selling flowers.

  Outside the bakery, Lotte Rabane, flustered, and hampered by her cream leather gloves, drops the money she is trying to put in her purse. Coins roll in all directions across the pavement.

  Nearby, at the service station, a petrol tanker is beginning a routine delivery. The driver was held up in the traffic on his way here, and he’s running behind schedule. He attached the pipe as quickly as he could. Now, as the counter races round, clocking up how much fuel has been pumped into the underground tanks, his eyes are on Matthew Larkin painting his sign in the churchyard. He hasn’t seen the tiny hole in the tube, or the growing puddle of petrol on the forecourt.

  TICK

  49 seconds to go . . .

  IN THE CAFÉ, Polly, the little girl with the glittery cheek, continues her incomprehensible carol: ‘ . . . washu ar.’ Max’s mother exchanges a loving smile with the twins’ mum across the table.

  Paul Broadbrook, reaching the kerb after finding a pathway through the traffic, stoops to pick up the coins for Lotte, whom he’s seen around Heathwick many times over the years. Though the two have nodded the occasi
onal greeting, they’ve never spoken. From the other end of the street, his girlfriend, Deanna Fletcher, sees his head bob out of view, and wonders what has happened.

  Matey bashes on: ‘ . . . Jack and Pete who . . .’

  Bernie is amused to see Anthony Dougall getting ever more agitated and the florist shuffling from foot to foot, struggling to communicate with the funeral director without looking frivolous. Bernie’s resigned to staying put until he has thought of a way to get his envelope out of the trench. Ritzi, however, still has other ideas. Her mind is on the park. The lead is growing tighter. She barks.

  Across the street, Lenny Gibbon is trying to pull his mother out of the shoe shop. He wishes he was on the coach with his classmates, even though he spent hours last night moaning about the stupid theatre trip. He’s seen the coach stuck in the road, and is wondering whether Miss Hunter would let him get on. She’d be angry, of course. She’d want an explanation for why he didn’t turn up in the first place, but he could blame his mother for keeping him off school, even though the reality was that he’d refused to go. Anything would be better than this shopping.

  Upstairs from the Gibbons, Noel Gilliard has entered another password (Proust), and is clicking again. He’s thinking of starting a new discussion thread about sources of inspiration, even though he’s rather short of them at the moment.

  Through the wall, Mariam unzips her wash bag to look for a tiny bottle of shampoo she picked up when cleaning a hotel bathroom. It’s one of the few perks of her job as a chambermaid, though most of the customers, especially the rich ones, take all the free toiletries home with them when they leave. She’s only allowed to keep containers that have already been opened, but there’s often enough in them for a hair wash or bubble bath, and they can be mixed together to make more. This morning Mariam plans a long soak. Last week she swapped shifts with a friend who was after a free weekend, and this is her first break for ages. She’d never have imagined, back in her homeland a year ago, that she would leave her laboratory and find herself living alone, and cleaning toilets, so far away. But who could have known that politics could move so fast, and that her family would become targets of the new regime in her country? Her bedsit might be dreary, and her work long and hard, but at least she feels safe here. And not just that. Today there is some hope. She’s got an appointment with someone who might have news about her family. There’s a chance she’ll find out at last whether her father and brother are dead or alive.

  In front of the school coach, a taxi driver is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, as upset as anyone by the hold-up, even though his meter is still running. There’s a bank to his left, and his passenger has asked him to unlock the door so he can get out to use the cash machine. The temporary traffic lights controlling the contraflow are pointless now. His line of traffic was let through just as the digger got in the way, and now the lights behind them are changing ineffectively: red – green – red – while he, the coach, and a handful of cars block the only lane. With the digger still manoeuvring slowly in the middle of the road, and at least three cars in front of him, the taxi driver is pretty sure he won’t have a chance to move far before the man gets back. The passenger – who speaks little intelligible English – seems rather jumpy, but that’s not surprising, since he’s stuck in a traffic jam on his way to the airport. With all the time it takes to get through airport security these days, the poor bloke must be worrying about being late.

  Kayleigh has noticed her mother, though Mrs Palmer is still looking into the dance studio.

  ‘ . . . STRETCH, seven . . .’

  Kayleigh taps on the window of the coach and shouts, ‘Mummy!’

  Her mother grimaces as, for what seems like the hundredth time that morning, a mechanical voice comes from the digger: ‘Attention, this vehicle . . .’

  TOCK

  48 seconds to go . . .

  ‘ . . . IS REVERSING!’

  The boys in the seats around Kayleigh imitate her prissy voice, making it sound more stuck up and plummy than it actually is: ‘Mummeh! Euh, Mummeh!’

  The taxi driver releases the lock on the back door of his cab, confident that his passenger will get to the cash machine and back before the cab has moved more than a few metres.

  Bernie has noticed the gas foreman down in the trench, just a few metres from where he is standing. He calls out to him, speaking over the next line of Matey’s joke (‘ . . . ran into each other . . .’), in the hope of persuading the workman to come along and pick up his envelope. But the man is preoccupied. Though clearly in pain from his twisted ankle, he is closely examining one of the pipes.

  Constable Lewis steps gingerly between Ritzi and the edge of the roadworks, trying to work out why Anthony Dougall is shouting and pointing at the white van. Behind Anthony’s own car, which is stuck in the exit from the car park with its front door wide open, a line of vehicles has built up. They are honking their horns.

  Janine, the florist, has at last caught the funeral director’s eye. He signals to her, with a wave of his ebony cane, that he will find a way across to collect the wreath. It’s too late to incorporate it in the display of flowers on top of the coffin. He’s already decided to carry it himself, as he walks ahead of the cortège, in traditional style.

  Back down the alley, the carriage driver stubs out his cigarette and rummages in his pocket for a paper bag full of sugar cubes for Dime and Dollar. The two horses read his mind, and nuzzle his neck. He pats them tenderly. He wants to keep them calm. The turn into the main road and those first few metres along the narrow stretch of tarmac by the roadworks are going to be a challenge for the beasts. He hopes the undertaker will be able to negotiate with the gas men to stop their drilling long enough for the hearse to get past.

  ‘ . . . and eight.’ Maggie’s voice is full of joy. It’s not just a way of encouraging her less enthusiastic clients. She really is happy today. When her classes are over she’s going to collect the tickets for her holiday: ten days in Thailand while the dance studio is closed over Christmas. It’s her first reward for the hard work she’s put into building up her fitness business.

  Up near the junction, a couple of doors down from the pub, alongside the noisy digger and opposite the bakery, Doreen Talbot is locking her door, even though her wedding-dress shop (Doreen’s Dreams) has been open for less than half an hour. She’s angry with herself and with the world. Yesterday, she popped across to the shoe-shop sale just for a moment, and the mail came when she was out. The postman couldn’t leave an important package without getting a signature. Now she will have to go to the sorting office to collect it. She can’t be bothered to rewrite her BACK IN 5 MINUTES sign, even though she knows she’s bound to be away for longer.

  Doreen’s upstairs tenant, Terry Potts, an art teacher at the adult education college in a nearby town, is at his window, craning his neck to see what is going on below him. Terry has been on the phone off and on since the small hours, trying to pull his oldest friend out of a trough of despair that’s verging on the suicidal. He’s a good listener, but he’s tired, and he’s running late. His friend was slow to open up, but now his flow can’t be stopped, and Terry is letting him ramble on about his problems, in the hope that talking will make him feel better.

  Looking down, Terry recognizes Doreen’s back-combed hair bobbing about as she turns the key in the lock, and notices that she’s thinning a bit on top. To think that he quite fancied her when he first moved in! Now he’s more interested in the florist next door. She doesn’t seem to have a man in her life. But he’s keeping his distance. He’s learned a lot about her through the wall that divides their two flats. Her overweight son can be a bit of a pain, and her mother shrieks and howls at all hours, trapped in some unknown misery from long ago. Terry should be on his way to work. If the phone hadn’t rung he would have had a good night’s sleep and be well away from Heathwick by now, but he knows it’s more important to help his friend – even though today there’s a meeting with the management about c
uts at the college, and turning up late won’t help his case for staying on.

  Across the road, Paul Broadbrook, trying to help collect Lotte Rabane’s dropped coins, steps on the end of his own long scarf, and topples to the ground.

  In the café, Polly’s twin sister, Nell, and her little friend, Lily, have joined in the song. ‘Wow I wugner . . .’

  ‘Beats this rubbish,’ says the girl behind the counter, laughing as she turns down the canned Christmas music that she’s been forced to play since October.

  TICK

  47 seconds to go . . .

  MISS HUNTER FLICKS her hair behind her ears and lets loose another doomed disciplinary call: ‘Guuuurrrrrr 8C!’

  Outside the launderette, Deanna is wondering what’s happened to Paul. Did she really see him in the distance, or is her mind playing tricks on her? She crosses the undertaker’s alley towards the dance studio.

  ‘REACH! One . . .’

  The undertaker steps off the kerb, holding up his cane to stop the traffic, even though there is little prospect of it moving.

  Mariam, looking down from her bathroom window above the dance studio, smiles at his extravagant gesture. She recognizes the song booming from the dance class downstairs and joins in, further annoying Noel next door. He is reading a message from a fellow author who, Noel thinks, is trying to make his colleagues feel small by complaining about the burden of having to answer fan mail.

  The taxi passenger gets out.

  Terry Potts makes sympathetic noises as his friend continues his tale of woe. He can’t hear everything that’s said because of the noise of the diggers and drills and the tolling funeral bell. As he listens, he catches sight of an odd-looking girl. Her face is almost completely obscured by a balaclava. She’s wearing thick tights and sensible shoes, with the strap of a bulky canvas bag slung diagonally across a hooded jacket that’s ridiculously large. It looks almost as if she has been padded out to disguise her real shape, like a slim actress playing a fat woman in a play. She is taping a sign to the lamppost outside the pet shop next door, before the bank. Because of the angle, Potts has to press himself right up against the window to see what she is doing. He doesn’t know it, but he is an ageing mirror-image of three-year-old Max across the road in the café. The butter left on Terry’s hands by the toast he rustled up with the phone pressed into his shoulder even makes similar finger marks on the glass.