ĐĎࡱá>ţ˙ úüţ˙˙˙ôőö÷řů˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ěĄÁ` řżjbjbjć‡ć‡ 4Ś„í„íj˙˙˙˙˙˙¤dddddddx@´@´@´@´<|´”xćÝh¶pŚ¶Ś¶Ś¶Ś¶Ś¶Ś¶Ś¶eÝgÝgÝgÝgÝgÝgÝ$Nßh¶áţ‹Ýd÷ĐŚ¶Ś¶÷Đ÷Đ‹ÝddŚ¶Ś¶ ÝU×U×U×÷ĐFdŚ¶dŚ¶eÝU×÷ĐeÝU×U×ddU׌¶¶ °´±Rb Ĺ@´=ѶU×eݶÝ0ćÝU×´âóÖL´âU×´âdU׌¶( ´żŠU×>Ć<zË}Ś¶Ś¶Ś¶‹Ý‹Ý?׌¶Ś¶Ś¶ćÝ÷Đ÷Đ÷Đ÷Đxxxä«\±äxxx\±xxxdddddd˙˙˙˙   Straight to You This book is a work of fiction. The characters and situations in this story are imaginary. No resemblance is intended between these characters and any real persons, either living or dead. Condition of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ( David Moody 2005 First published electronically by David Moody in 2002. This edition 2005  HYPERLINK "http://www.djmoody.co.uk/"www.djmoody.co.uk  1s-5-0502-1 Prologue At a quarter past one on the morning of Tuesday, October the 2nd, our sun began to die. Like the inside of a body being slowly weakened and devoured by a cancer, and unseen by anyone and anything watching, the star began to writhe and to react within itself producing lethal levels of energy and radiation which it spewed out into the space surrounding. All around the rest of the universe, nothing seemed to have changed - the brilliant yellow mass continued to burn brightly and to warm the planets in orbit around it where life continued unabated and oblivious to the star’s inaudible dying screams. Eventually, within fifty hours of the sun’s first internal reaction, a change worked its way steadily through the vacuum which was noticed and which was, surprisingly, welcomed by the population of the earth - it began to get warmer. As the people on the planet’s surface talked of mild winters and of Indian summers, the temperature of the air that they breathed rose steadily until, by Monday the 15th, most areas were a good five degrees warmer than their record books and experts said that they should be. It was not the first time that such things had happened there and, for once, rather than complain, most people in England chose to relax and to make the most of their mini-heatwave. Steven Johnson. however, was far from impressed. At only twenty-six years of age, he had done well to get to where he sat today. It had taken him eight years to work his way up through the ranks of the company which employed him from a mere clerk to the heady heights of an office manager. Now, as he sat alone and uncomfortable in the stilling heat of his oak-panelled office and rested in his expensive leather swivel chair, he wondered if it had been worth all the effort it had taken. Steven looked out of the wide window next to his desk and down onto the busy high street below. With jealous eyes he watched people chatting, laughing, shopping and enjoying themselves and he cursed the concrete prison cell into which he locked himself for a minimum of seven hours every working day. Sometimes he wondered if he would have been better off without the burden of responsibility which had been hung on his shoulders at a relatively young age. Although not a lonely man by any stretch of the imagination, he would often listen to the laughter and jokes which drifted through the air from the main office and into his room, and curse the professional distance that his superiors insisted he maintain from the people who worked for him. He also found it difficult to relax and to cast aside the stresses that his job involved, and the heat of the last two weeks had only made matters worse. As a single man, Steven went home each night to an empty house where the only listening ear belonged to the cat and, while the animal did its best and listened to his problems, it was useless when it came to offering support and encouragement. Although he never made any admissions to his friends or family, he was desperately in need of someone to share his time, his money, his problems and his life with. Perhaps he was being naive, but he made no effort to go out and find such a person. He had been the victim of too many broken hearts and missed opportunities to spend his nights trudging around lonely bars and crowded clubs anymore. Brought up on a diet of other peoples sickly sweet love stories, Steven was sure that all he needed to do was wait patiently and then, one day, the girl of his dreams would come waltzing into his life. Even with the large window open, the heat in the office was sticky and close. He loosened the tie around his neck and undid the top button on his formal, pressed white shirt. He glanced up at the clock on the wall in front of him and sighed heavily as its hands quickly worked their way around towards two o’clock. Two o’clock on the afternoon of Monday the 15th had been a time and a date that he had not been looking forward to. It had been decided by those in the higher echelons of power that one of the junior members of the office staff had not been performing to the fullest of his abilities and, unfortunately, this was the time and date when it had fallen to Steven to deliver the company’s ultimatum to their struggling employee. As the second hand on the clock ticked mercilessly past the hour, he took a deep breath and picked up the phone. With the receiver held tightly in his hand, Steven swallowed hard and dialled out to his secretary at her desk. If he was honest, he didn’t believe that Ian Stanton (the member of staff that he was about to reprimand) had done anything to merit such action being taken but what troubled him more than being the hired mouthpiece of a man in a grey suit in an office on the other side of the country, was the fact that he was about to admonish one of the most popular members of staff. He felt sure that it would only serve to alienate him further from the rest of the people in the branch. Still, he thought, there was no avoiding it, it was what he was being paid to do. The thought of money depressed Steven and, as the phone rang in the outside office without answer, he could not help but think and be saddened by how much he had become a willing slave to cash. He was about to do something that he did not believe in and the only reason that he did it was to keep those few extra pounds flowing into his pockets at the end of each month. To stop them soiling their own hands, his superiors paid him a little more than the staff beneath him and expected that to be sufficient. The company that Steven worked for was part of the financial industry and he could see better than most just how the possession of money seemed to command more respect that it ever deserved. He would often spend the best part of a day running around on behalf of those people who either had cash or connections while the people who really needed his help had to wait in a poverty-stricken line at the bottom of a stinking heap. Even when he was able to assist such people, it was never without heavy cost to those least able to pay while the rich were never asked to put their hands in their pockets. It was a difficult fact to accept but it was an unavoidable part of his working life. It was also a huge bone of contention which lodged itself painfully in Steven’s neck. He knew that he had to find a new career before this one drove him to insanity. Someone finally picked up the telephone. ‘Hello,’ a chirpy, high-pitched voice answered. It was Carol, the office secretary. ‘Would you ask Ian to come inside please?’ Steven said abruptly. ‘Will do,’ Carol replied before quickly replacing the receiver. Steven put his phone down and took several deep, calming breaths. In the moments before Ian entered, he tried desperately to remember the standard lines from countless courses and numerous memos that his bosses had force-fed him with to deal with a situation such as this. He hoped that he would be able to keep up the act and deliver their ultimatum with the minimum of effort and resistance. The silhouette of a man appeared in the frosted glass of the window in the door to Steven’s office. The shadow paused for a moment (Ian was obviously as nervous and unsure about the interview as his manager was) before knocking on the door and coming inside. 1 There was a loud confident knock at the door and I stood up to let Ian into the office. He walked quietly past me, keeping his eyes directed firmly away from mine, and stood in front of my desk. ‘Sit down, Ian,’ I said and he pulled a chair across the room to sit opposite my chair. I watched him as he sat down and noticed that he looked considerably calmer and more composed than I felt. He had already been told the purpose of my calling him into the office today and I expected him to have prepared his responses to the company’s threats beforehand. A young man, only a couple of years my junior; he folded his arms, sat back on the hard, wooden chair and waited for me to sit down opposite him. I cleared my throat. It was difficult for me to hide my dislike at the situation and, although I didn’t look directly into his face, I could feel Ian staring across the table at me. I was sure that he saw me almost as the enemy and definitely as someone who could not be trusted. Although I knew that what I was about to say were the words of other people, I felt that he would hold every last syllable against me personally. ‘How are things?’ I asked, struggling to find a way of ending the stagnant silence and getting down to the matter at hand. ‘Fine,’ Ian replied abruptly. It was obvious from the tone of his voice and from the brevity of his reply that he had no intention of making this an easy caution for me to administer. ‘Look,’ I began, ‘I don’t like having to do this, and I’m sure that you don’t want to be sat here listening to me. . .’ I stopped mid-sentence. I remembered my teachers trying much the same line on me at school and I could not believe that I had just used it. I looked up to see Ian still staring at me. He turned away and began to fidget nervously and chew his fingers. I took another deep breath. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Ian. Your work has failed to meet the standards that the company expects from someone of your grade and experience. Unless you buck up your ideas and start pulling your weight, you could well find yourself out of a job.’ I felt myself relax and was sure that my relief was obvious to Ian. I had delivered the required ultimatum and he appeared to have taken it reasonably well. I had been worried that he might not be so calm and was surprised when the expression on his face slowly changed to one of genuine concern. ‘I understand what you’re saying,’ he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. ‘I really don’t want to lose my job.’ ‘I’ve got to be honest, Ian,’ I said, quickly slipping back into company mode, ‘you’re not giving me that impression at the moment.’ He was quiet again for a second and I could see that there was something that he wanted to say. He shuffled in his seat and looked away from me and out through the window before beginning to speak slowly and with some trepidation. ‘It’s just that…’ he began before stopping mid-sentence with uncertainty. ‘Just what?’ I asked, keen to find out what was on his mind. ‘It’s just that I can’t see any point in doing any more than I need to.’ Ian struggled to find the right words to express how he felt without, I presumed, sounding anti-company (which most, if not all of the staff in the office were). He fell silent again and I was about to speak when he interrupted. ‘You’ve told me before now that if I apply myself and work hard, then I could be sitting where you are and…’ ‘…and?’ ‘…and I’m not sure if I want to be.’ Ian relaxed when he had finished speaking and looked anxiously towards me for a response. He had caught me off guard and I struggled to find anything to say in reply. ‘As long as I get my money at the end of the month, I don’t care what happens,’ he added, emphasising his point. It was my turn to fidget in my seat as I tried to force myself to act as a responsible company employee and to do the job that I had been paid to do. I could not help agreeing with and admiring Ian’s views but I had to make the company’s position known. ‘I’ve been told to give you a month - after that we’ll review the situation,’ I said, hiding my doubts idly behind the threats of others. ‘That’s fair enough,’ Ian replied, seemingly relieved that I had not taken his words badly. ‘Believe me,’ he continued, ‘I really don’t want to lose my job I just think that there’s a lot more to life than slogging your guts out all day and getting home in such a state that you’re too tired to do anything else.’ Once more he looked cautiously towards me for a reaction before adding, ‘You can see what I mean, can’t you?’ Unfortunately, I could see all too well what Ian meant. I nodded and stood to let him out of the room. It was difficult to stop myself from telling him just to what extent I had agreed with his comments and so, to prevent any embarrassment, I decided to finish the meeting and avoid any further conversation. I could not help feeling deflated and somewhat depressed - I had let down the company and, much more importantly, I had let my own morals and ideals slip. ‘Please, Ian. Please just try and make a little more effort,’ I said as I led him across the room. ‘I’m not asking for one hundred percent dedication, just a little co-operation.’ Ian managed a relieved smile and left the office. I shut the door behind him and leant against the wall, glad that our meeting had passed without any real incident. Although I made no conscious attempt to eavesdrop on the conversations out in the main office, I stood quietly next to the door for a short while and could not help but listen to what the staff were saying to their reprimanded friend. Through the frosted glass I could see them gathering around Ian for shreds of gossip and information like gannets after the tiniest scraps of food. I hated being cast as the enemy and strained to try and hear what was being said above the noise of the office. Although most of the words were nothing more than garbled mumbles, I distinctly heard Ian’s voice telling the others that I had been a pushover. I walked back from the door and sat down at my desk again. I swivelled the chair around so that I could look outside, leant back and stared lazily into the deep and clear blue sky. Ian had been right, of course, I had been a pushover. But how could I be possibly be expected to argue against something that I knew was right and to criticise others when I agreed with their morals and actions? I decided there and then (as I did nearly every day at the same time) that a change of career was the only sensible solution to my problems. Five o’clock seemed to take an eternity to arrive. I spent three long hours alone in my office, ploughing through mundane paperwork and occasionally speaking to customers on the telephone. The heat made the time drag even more and I noticed from my records that it was on this date last year that we had fired up the boilers and switched on the office heating. Today I sat next to an open window with my tie hanging loosely around my neck and my shirtsleeves rolled up. A knock at the door disturbed the quiet and Robert, my assistant manager, poked his bald, sweaty head into the room. ‘All right if we all shoot off?’ he asked. ‘Everything’s finished.’ I nodded. ‘I’m just about to pack up myself,’ I said and I was about to ask him a question when his head disappeared again. The heavy clunking of feet followed as the staff collected their bags, newspapers and redundant overcoats and climbed down the stairs to leave the building. I gathered up my papers from the desk and shoved them into my briefcase, determined to catch up with more work at home later. As I leant across and closed the window, I looked down onto the busy street below and watched as people strolled through the early-evening gloom of October with their jackets hung casually over their shoulders and their shirt collars open. I slammed the window down and locked it shut. Keen to leave the branch quickly and be on my way home, I picked up my jacket and case and went out into the main office. Robert had just let the last of the rest of the staff out of the building and I waited for him to return. It was company regulations that no-one was ever left on the premises on their own to lock up at night and a strict, almost regimental check of the building needed to be made before we could leave. A discarded newspaper lay on a nearby desk and I picked it up. The paper was one of the national tabloids and, as I expected, carried little in the way of any real news. As is the norm for such papers, the first hint of unexpected sunshine meant full, front-page pictures of crowded beaches and of children in park paddling pools. The predictable headline yelled. ‘What a Scorcher!’ in inimitable Fleet Street style and another footnote at the bottom of the page continued the theme, saying, ‘…and there’s more to come!’ Try as I might, I could find nothing inside the paper to explain the heat or to even give the slightest idea of how long the conditions might last or how hot it could get. Robert returned from the front door with his round face glowing red and covered with a layer of sticky sweat. ‘This is too much for me,’ he wheezed. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do if it gets any warmer.’ As I spoke and tried to make polite conversation, Robert walked past me and collected his briefcase. Although I was sure that he was not trying to be deliberately rude or obstinate, I could tell that he had no interest in anything I had to say and that he just wanted to get away as quickly as possible. I hoped that it was the branch he was so eager to escape from and not me - the constant whispers and glances from my staff were beginning to make me paranoid. I followed Robert as he made the required checks around the building and switched off the computers. As we left the building I breathed a cool and relaxing sigh of relief and looked forward to a quiet evening at home. With a little luck, I thought, I would wake up in the morning and find that the office had burnt down and that it was a typically grey, cold and miserable October day outside. Somehow, I didn’t think that would be the case. 2 With the arrival of night, the autumn light had faded away as normal but there had been no noticeable respite in the suffocating heat. Although past their bright best, I was determined to take advantage of what remained of the conditions and so settled down on the patio in a deckchair to relax and to listen to the radio for a while. I had brought home plenty of work from the office which needed to be done but, as the pressures of the day had now reduced to an almost bearable level, I decided to leave it all locked safely away in my briefcase until morning. The company got more than enough out of me between nine and five o’clock each day - this was my time and my time alone. The patio was dark and quiet with the gloom only broken by the soft yellow electric light which spilled out of the house from the kitchen window. Although not brilliant by any means, the light provided just enough illumination to help me locate the cans of beer on the ground at the side of the chair. The metal frame and thin cloth covering of the deckchair proved to be deceptively comfortable and it did not take long for me to begin to slide away into a light sleep. The heat and drink combined to deadly effect to help me lose consciousness with the minimum of fuss. Occasionally a soft breeze drifted across the garden, but it was never strong enough to wake me for more than a couple of seconds. At around nine-thirty, an unexpected crackle of static from the radio woke me with a start. It had been playing quiet, tinny music all evening without interruption but had now begun to scream and hiss with distortion. Still half asleep, I struggled in the gloom to find the set with one outstretched arm. With fingers flailing, I grabbed the wire aerial and swung it around to try and relocate the station’s elusive signal. When the music was replaced totally by static and white noise, I sat up and picked the radio angrily off the ground. As I toyed with the controls, a heavy and hot wind blew across my face. The wind was gentle and somehow directionless and it seemed to fall onto me rather than be blown. I looked up into the night sky to try and find the source of the breeze and was amazed when the whole panorama of darkness above me began to change colour. At first deep black and punctuated only by the brilliance of individual, isolated stars, the sky changed initially to a ruddy brown before lightening and working its way from a deep red to a dull orange, almost as bright as the last glowing embers in a dying fire. I watched and rubbed my tired eyes, unsure if what I was seeing was really there or if it was just a trick of the night. Slowly, the colours reversed and the sky worked its way back to its original dull blackness. The radio in my hands crackled back into life and, as the warm wind subsided, the music began to blast out of the speakers once again. I put the machine back on the ground and relaxed again in the deckchair. I looked up at the heavens above and wondered about what I had just seen. Half of my mind seemed intent on finding a link between the hot conditions and the light and wind I had just experienced whilst the other half of me wanted nothing more than to ignore it and go back to sleep. The latter part of my brain was starting to win its battle with the other until, just as I was beginning to lose consciousness again, the telephone rang inside the house. Angry, tired and irritated. I jumped up out of my chair and knocked a half-finished can of beer over onto the patio. For a moment I watched as the liquid fizzed and frothed away in the pale light, before going into the house to answer the call. Still not quite awake, I picked up the telephone receiver and held it to my ear. ‘All right, Steve! Did you see that?’ asked an annoyingly cheerful voice at the other end of the line. I recognised its owner immediately as Mark Evans, an old close friend. ‘If you’ve just phoned me up to ask that, Mark, then our friendship could well be on its last legs,’ I said as I tried to stifle a tired yawn. He ignored my idle threats. ‘Did you see it?’ he asked again. ‘Wasn’t it incredible?’ ‘Mark,’ I said abruptly, becoming more and more irritated with each passing moment, ‘yes, I did see the sky change and yes, to be honest, it was very unusual and very impressive. If you don’t mind though, I was just about to go to sleep.’ ‘Boring bastard!’ he snapped. ‘Anyway, I didn’t just call to ask about that, I wanted to know if you’re still going out for a drink on Monday.’ At the mention of drinking and of going out, my tone changed and I actually managed to feign interest in the conversation. ‘Fine, mate. Shall I pick you up about eight?’ ‘Okay,’ Mark replied. ‘But only if you’re in a better mood. You’ve got to lighten up if you’re going out with me.’ ‘I will,’ I promised. ‘I’ve just had a bad day, that’s all.’ I was keen not to talk about work and swiftly switched the conversation to another topic. ‘Is Stuart still coming with us?’ I asked. Stuart was another close friend of Mark’s and of mine. We had known each other since our school days together and our Monday-night outings to the pub had become something of a tradition. ‘He can’t come,’ Mark said. ‘Says he’s too busy at work, but I doubt if that’s the real reason.’ Stuart’s attendance at our evenings out had become more erratic and irregular recently. Although we never dared say anything to him, we both presumed that it had more to do with his wife than with pressure of work. ‘It’s Susan,’ I commented. ‘Our Stuart’s becoming a bit hen-pecked these days.’ Mark agreed. For a moment I pictured Stuart trapped at home and could not help but feel jealous of the fact that he at least had someone to be trapped at home with. All that I had was a fat old tabby cat who, almost on cue, bounded heavily down the stairs and ran past me. ‘How are things at work?’ Mark asked, disturbing my train of thought. ‘Shit,’ I replied, bluntly and honestly. I knew my friend well enough not to waste any time in beating around the bush with him. ‘No change there then,’ he offered. Mark had heard me complain about the office on many occasions in the past. In fact, he had probably listened to me moan about the place every time that we’d spoken since I had started there. ‘You need to get yourself a real job!’ he joked. ‘What, like the one you’ve got?’ I replied, sarcastically. Mark was a lecturer at the city’s university and my sarcasm was really nothing more than thinly veiled jealousy. As well as earning a much better salary than me, he lectured in sports science and seemed to spend most of his time playing games and generally enjoying himself. ‘I have to work for my money,’ I added with a semi-intended bitterness in my voice. ‘I know you do,’ he replied. ‘But who’s having the best time?’ ‘All right, all right’ I wailed, admitting defeat. ‘How are things at your place, anyway?’ ‘Not too bad. There’s quite a buzz around the campus about the weather at the moment. The meteorological department are having a field day.’ ‘I bet they are. Has anybody got any idea what’s going on though?’ I asked. ‘Not really. They managed to predict that what happened tonight was going to happen. Some of them are saying that something similar will happen again before long.’ ‘All well and good but what exactly was it?’ ‘I don’t know All that I’ve heard is that it could have something to do with the sun.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And if you think about it that’s bloody obvious.’ I laughed. ‘It’s typical though,’ I said, ‘the rest of us are slogging our guts out to earn a living and you lot are just sitting around and talking about how hot it is outside.’ ‘Steve, you really have got to lighten up a little You’re getting far too bitter in your old age.’ Mark knew that I was joking and ignored my jealous jibes. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I bet that everything will be back to normal in a couple of days. You wait, we’ll go out next Monday and it’ll be wet, miserable and…’ ‘…you’ll be complaining about how cold it is, I know you. Anyway, I’ll see you next week.’ ‘Yes, I’ve got to go I’ve got a lot to get ready for tomorrow.’ ‘I’m sure you have, mate,’ I said laughing. ‘Got to blow up your balls and clean your boots. Christ, it must be tough.’ Mark sighed loudly. ‘There’s just no point talking to you when you’re in this kind of mood. I’ll see you on Monday.’ ‘Okay. Pick you up about eight. Have a good week.’ I listened as Mark put the phone down. I yawned, stretched and then replaced the receiver of my own set. The idea of heading back out onto the warm patio to the deckchair and to my remaining cans of beer was appealing and I walked towards the back door, tired and thirsty. No sooner than I had taken a couple of steps away from the phone, it began to ring again. Annoyed, I picked it up. ‘Hello,’ I snapped. ‘Steven, it’s your mother here.’ My heart sank as Mom began to speak. Although I enjoyed talking to her I knew that my beer would be flat by the time that she had finished gossiping. ‘How are you, Mom?’ I asked. ‘Oh, not too bad, love. I can’t get over this weather though.’ ‘I know what you mean, it’s a bit much, isn’t it?’ ‘Are you all right dear?’ she enquired in her gentle, high-pitched tone. ‘I tried calling a little earlier.’ ‘I was probably asleep. I had a bad day today.’ Although we had only been speaking for a matter of minutes and had done little but exchange pleasantries, I could already sense that all was not well with Mom. She habitually telephoned me with an irritating regularity to make sure that I was all right (she seemed to find it difficult to comprehend the fact that I was twenty-six and perfectly able to look after myself) and her calls usually took a familiar pattern. Mom would ask how I was, I would tell her and then ask the same question back. Nine times out of ten, she would reply by telling me exactly where she had been recently, who she had seen and what they’d been doing when she’d seen them. This vital information could take Mom anything up to half an hour to impart and, on the rare occasion when it was not forthcoming, I knew that something was wrong and that she had called me for another reason. ‘Is everything all right. Mom?’ She paused for a moment before speaking again. ‘It’s your father, Steven. He’s not too well.’ ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, concerned. Dad was a strong old man and was rarely ill. If he complained you knew that there was something seriously wrong with him. ‘I think it must be the heat,’ Mom replied. ‘He just can’t seem to settle.’ Although he was in his early sixties, it was difficult to accept that Dad was growing old. In the same way that they both thought of me as their little boy, my parents still seemed the same to me today as they had done when I was younger. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ ‘I don’t know. Would you come over one night soon? We’d both love to see you.’ ‘Of course I will. Mom. It’ll probably have to be next week, but I’ll definitely come across.’ My parents lived on the other side of town and it took a while for me to get over to see them. I knew that I would be busy for the rest of the coming week and for the weekend after that. I hoped that Mom wouldn’t mind if I left it that long to visit. ‘That’s fine, love. Your dad’ll be pleased to see you.’ Unusually, she did not seem in the mood to chat and I felt sure that she would have been happier had I made arrangements to visit them a little sooner. I apologised for not being able to and then said goodbye. I wished with all my heart that I could just abandon the office and go and see them first thing in the morning, but I knew that was impossible. Disappointed with myself and worried about my father, I walked away from the phone in the hall and into the living-room. I flicked on the television set just in time to catch the beginning of a news bulletin. There was nothing of any real interest in the main headlines, but it was becoming noticeable that the weather conditions had begun to work their way gradually up the programme’s running order. A few days ago they had been little more than a tacked-on postscript but now that it looked as if the heat would last for a while longer yet, they were fast becoming headline news. I switched off the set again and walked out through the open French windows into the garden. The air had become perfectly still again and the heat was dry, close and heavy. As the seconds ticked away towards ten-thirty, I drifted off and away into a sound, undisturbed sleep. Undisturbed, that was, until four o’clock the next morning when I woke in my deckchair and stumbled back into the house. 3 I was late getting into the office next morning. Once I had woken up on the patio and had gone back inside to bed I had found it difficult to get back to sleep. I had eventually managed to drift off again at around six and had then slept through my seven o’clock alarm. I could only have been ten or fifteen minutes later than usual but it did not matter - ten minutes or ten hours; once my daily routine had been disrupted it always seemed to take the best part of the whole working day to get it back into some semblance of order. Fortunately, the office was quiet all morning and it seemed that all of the people who were lucky enough to have the choice had stayed at home to make the most of the relatively tropical conditions outside. There had been no overnight respite in the weather and by midday the brilliant sun stood high and proud in the deep blue sky, burning everything that it touched with its powerful and undiminished rays. I spent the morning trapped in my sweat-box of an office catching up with the paperwork which I had taken home last night with the intention of completing there. A telephone call from a friend was a welcome interruption from monotonous sheets covered in endless lists of repetitive figures. ‘Sorry to bother you, Steve,’ Carol said as she poked her head around the door and into my room. ‘I’ve got a Rebecca Marsh on the phone for you, she says it’s a personal call.’ ‘Thanks, Carol,’ I said. ‘That’s fine. Could you shut the door on your way out please?’ My secretary obliged by slamming the door and almost pulling it from its hinges. I picked up the phone quickly to speak to Rebecca. ‘Hi Becky How are you?’ I had known Rebecca for the last four or five years I couldn’t remember how or where we had originally met, I just knew that she was the best friend I had ever - or would ever - have. One of the biggest regrets of my life was the fact that I had met her shortly after she had married. I knew that if she had still been single I would have found the perfect partner to share the rest of my time with. ‘I’m all right, Steve,’ she replied ‘How are things going with you today?’ I sighed. ‘They’re going, that’s all I can say.’ Rebecca laughed and I relaxed. It was good to hear her voice again as she had been out of town for a couple of weeks. One of the few advantages of the location of the branch which I managed was that it was only a couple of minutes’ walk from Rebecca’s office a little way down the high street. ‘Are you very busy?’ she asked. ‘Not particularly Do you fancy meeting for lunch?’ ‘I was just about to suggest that. Shall I meet you here at about one?’ ‘That’s fine,’ I replied, cheerfully. The thought of spending some time with Becky made the prospect of the rest of the day seem a little more palatable. ‘Great,’ she said ‘I’ve got to go now, I’ve got an appointment in a couple of minutes. I’ll see you later.’ ‘Okay, I’ll see you in a while.’ I put the down the phone. It was a source of continual amazement to me just how much better I always felt after speaking to Rebecca. I only needed to hear her voice for a moment and I was suddenly torn away from my depressing, humdrum career and thrust into a calmer, safer world. I got up from my seat and walked across to the open window. Looking down, I saw that the street below was momentarily quiet and I watched as crowds of children suddenly spilled out of the gates of a nearby school, heading en masse towards the nearest shops. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts, the children ran out into the sunlight as they would on any other summer’s day. I had to remind myself that it was the middle of October. The hour between Rebecca’s call and one o’clock dragged incredibly. A combination of the heat, the continual stream of work which arrived on my desk and the prospect of finally seeing my best friend again made the seconds feel like minutes and the minutes feel like hours. One o’clock eventually arrived and I quickly left the office. I met Rebecca outside the building where she worked as we had planned, and we discussed where to go. ‘It’s too hot to go for a drink,’ she said, ‘and anyway, I can’t really afford it.’ I knew exactly what she meant. It always seemed to be the same at the middle of the month - pay-day was still a couple of weeks away and my bank account was already beginning to slip heavily into the red. ‘We could go to the park,’ I suggested, searching for cheap alternatives for something to do. Rebecca nodded. ‘Good idea. You can hear yourself talk there.’ ‘And it’s free,’ I added quickly. We crossed the main road and followed the twisting path of a narrow side street which led to the park. As we walked, we caught up on the fortnight’s worth of gossip and developments which we had missed while Becky had been away. I could not stop myself from staring at my beautiful best friend and thinking what an incredibly lucky man her husband was. Now that she was happily married, however, we had come to share a close, symbiotic relationship whereby we both relied on each other for help and support. Over the years we had grown to be as close as brother and sister and I valued her companionship more than she ever could have imagined. I always meant to tell her just how much she meant to me, but could never find the right moment. When I had first suggested the park, visions of lush, cool grass and leafy trees had flooded into my mind. The reality, however came as something of a surprise to both of us. The park stood at the end of the little road which we followed and it usually offered an unexpected oasis of greenery contrasting sharply with the dense, cold grey of the city nearby. While it still provided a welcome escape from the plastic and concrete, we found it to be in a desperately sorry state. The grass was brittle and bleached of colour the soil hard cracked and dry. Although the temperature had only reached such extreme and unusual levels in the last few days, there had been little or no rain for the best part of a month and the lack of moisture was killing the park almost as we watched. Undeterred, we walked towards a huge, old oak tree to sit down in the little shade that it offered. It was only the layer of dead golden-brown leaves on the ground around the tree’s base and its savage, bare branches twisting into the sky above us which gave any indication of it being autumn at all. Rebecca brushed away handfuls of crisp crackling leaves before sitting down on the hard ground. I did the same and sat next to her. ‘This weather’s incredible,’ I said, loosening my tie. ‘Oh, don’t, Steve,’ she sighed. I looked at her, confused. ‘Don’t what?’ ‘Talk about the weather. Christ, it’s all I’ve heard this morning.’ She spread her legs out in front of her and leant back against the rough trunk of the tree. ‘Every single person that I’ve spoken to has mentioned it. “What a lovely day”, “Isn’t it hot for the time of year?” Honestly, there’s only so much that I can take.’ I could see how the continually inane conversations that Rebecca had been subjected to could soon wear a person down, but I could not help thinking that it would make a welcome change for me to actually become involved in a decent conversation at work rather than being ignored and locked away in my office in tiresome, continual isolation. It wouldn’t matter what the subject was, just to have a member of staff be pleasant and approachable for a while would be enough. ‘How’s Richard?’ I asked, changing the subject. Richard was Becky’s husband. ‘He’s fine,’ she replied as she began to search for something in her bag. We never talked much about him - if I was brutally honest, I didn’t really want to know anything and Becky seemed not to want to tell me much. As long as he was treating her well and was looking after her, I was happy. She emerged from her bag clutching a small, cellophane-wrapped packet of sandwiches and a can of lemonade. She opened the sandwiches and took a large bite out of one of them. After chewing for a moment she stopped and a look of utter disgust spread across her face. She forced herself to swallow. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. Rebecca wiped her mouth and grimaced. ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said as she looked down at the half-eaten food in her hand. She slowly peeled one slice of bread away from the other and I turned my nose up at the slimy concoction which had been spread between them. ‘What the bloody hell is that?’ I asked, pointing at the revolting food. ‘Tuna fish and salad cream,’ she replied. ‘It doesn’t look too good, does it?’ I shook my head. ‘You’ve got strange tastes,’ I joked. ‘It’d be all right normally, it just got a little bit warm in my bag.’ ‘I couldn’t even eat that cold,’ I said, ‘never mind toasted!’ Rebecca looked at me and wrinkled up her nose before gathering up what remained of the sandwiches, standing and throwing them into a nearby waste bin. She walked back towards me and wiped her greasy hands clean on her smart skirt. We sat and talked for about half an hour. Thirty minutes of forgettable and yet enjoyable conversation which inevitably worked its way towards the subject of my marital status and what we were going to do about it. Rebecca seemed to enjoy making plans for me and usually took a while to be convinced that my attitude (all good things come to those who wait) would ever find me a partner. I said, jokingly at first but then with some seriousness, that there was little point in trying to find the perfect woman when she was sat next to me and already married to someone else. Becky smiled but she did not reply and I wondered what she was thinking. ‘I’ve got to get back,’ she said at almost a quarter to two. ‘It can’t be that time already,’ I whined, desperate not to have to go back inside. ‘It is. Anyway, I’ve got to go to the supermarket before I go back so I’ll have to go now. Are you coming or are you going to stop here for a while?’ The thought of fighting my way through a building packed with hot, sweaty and angry shoppers did not appeal to me. ‘I’ll stop here a little longer. I’ll call you later.’ Becky smiled, collected up her things and walked away from me towards the park gates. When she was about a hundred yards away, she turned and waved and I wondered how my life might have changed if things between us had been different. As I watched my friend leave, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps crunching towards me through the layer of dead leaves on the ground. I turned to see who was coming and was blinded for a moment by the brilliant sunlight. I shielded my eyes and saw that a shuffling figure neared. Uninvited, the figure stopped next to me and I looked up to see a gasping, wheezing old man stood at my side. Before I was able to protest or move away, he sat down. ‘It’s too bloody hot!’ he coughed as he lowered himself to the ground. I was about to get up when he grabbed my arm with one outstretched hand. Despite the heat, I saw that the man still wore full winter clothes - thick trousers, boots, a heavy overcoat and even a hat and scarf. I looked across into his aged face and watched as a heavy bead of sweat ran down the creased and wrinkled skin of his forehead before trickling down the bridge of his nose and hanging precariously between his nostrils. As I stared, unable to look at anything other than the overbalancing drop, he wiped it away with the dirty sleeve of his coat and sniffed. ‘It is warm,’ I said meekly, eventually remembering to reply to his comment. ‘Do your know what I think?’ he whispered as he took off his cloth cap and ran a trembling hand through the yellowing strands of silver hair which clung greasily to his sweaty scalp. ‘What?’ I asked politely, forcing myself to prolong a conversation with a character who I was becoming more and more wary about with each passing second. The man leant towards me. ‘I think it’s the end.’ ‘The end of what?’ The old man paused for a moment and looked around to make sure that no-one else was listening. I tried to pull away from him as a dry smell, which seemed to be made up of equal parts of stale sweat and urine, wafted towards me. ‘The end of the world!’ he said in a hushed, secretive tone. I fought hard to control myself and not laugh out loud but could not prevent a broad smile from spreading across my face. While I hoped that the man would not take too much offence, I hoped that he would be able to understand and accept my disbelief and leave me alone. ‘It’s all right, son,’ he continued, unabated, ‘I can see you’ve got your doubts and I can’t blame you for that.’ I sat in a stunned silence at the man’s side, trying to work out how I could escape from him and becoming quickly convinced that the brilliant sun had tanned his brain as well as his weathered skin. ‘What makes you so sure then?’ I asked. I instantly regretted speaking and I knew full well that I tempted fate with every second that I stayed sat next to the old man. ‘I’ve got a feeling in my gut,’ he replied slowly. ‘Call it intuition if you like, but when you get to my age you can tell when things are about to change.’ I too had a gut reaction about our conversation - I was sure that it was senility rather than intuition which was proving to be the deciding factor in the man’s ideas and thoughts. I turned away from him and looked over towards the park gates, wishing that I could be walking through them and back to the office. I felt the man staring at the back of my head and, out of distrust, I turned back to face him. ‘When you’ve seen as much as I have,’ he continued with his throat hoarse and dry, ‘you just get to know things.’ He paused to wipe his sweaty brow with a weak, shaking hand. ‘It’s getting hotter by the day, son, and I don’t think it’s going to stop.’ ‘Don’t be stupid, it’s got to stop,’ I protested. The man looked at me with an expression which seemed to be asking me for evidence to support my comment. Obviously, I was unable to find any. I’m not sure whether it was my wariness of the old man or the things which he said to me that suddenly made me jump to my feet and start back to the office. There was no denying the fact that it was getting warmer with each passing day and although that in itself was not substantial evidence to suggest that the world was about to end, it was enough to start the first alarm bells ringing in my mind. The more that I thought about it, the more I began to read truth into the man’s words. There was something about his voice which was honest and believable in a terrifying kind of way and, as I walked away, he shouted after me. ‘Don’t go, son. I haven’t finished.’ I didn’t want to hear any more. ‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ I yelled over my shoulder. ‘It’s been nice talking to you.’ ‘Don’t waste your time there,’ he shouted with his voice ragged and tired. ‘There’s not long left, you should be enjoying yourself.’ As I walked away, I could not help but think how right the man was in one way. Even if the world wasn’t about to end and I was going to live for another seventy years, where was the logic in shutting myself away in the office each day and only managing to escape when I was too old to enjoy what was left? I thought back to yesterday and my conversation with Ian and realised how perceptive his comments had been. I nervously looked over my shoulder to make sure that the man was not following me back to the office. The thought that I might one day become like him terrified me more than the prospect of the end of the world. Was that all I had to look forward to? Would I finally escape from my terminal career only to spend the rest of my days harassing people in the local park, or would I be destined to wait out my days in some damp, dingy flat? I realised that the man was right. I should be out now, enjoying myself and living each day as it came along. And what about tomorrow? I’d only worry about that when it finally arrived. When I returned to the office, the quiet of the morning had been replaced by frantic activity. The trays of work on my desk were full to overflowing with forms to complete and papers to sign and not one single member of staff seemed able to solve even the simplest of problems without first referring them to me. I made a determined effort to clear my desk so that I could have an early night but throughout the afternoon I could not help dwelling on my lunchtime experience. The more I thought about the prison in which I worked, the more I came to realise that my cell was not the four walls within which I sat, but the whole system of civilisation which everyone was involuntarily and unavoidably trapped in. The more I thought about that, I became convinced that while the system could survive without me, I would find it difficult to survive without the system. My efforts to leave early proved fruitless and, having worked myself into a deep, dark depression, I finally left the office at a little after eight o’clock that evening. 4 I arrived for work on Wednesday morning in no better mood than the one in which I had left the previous evening. A deadly combination of the heat and a distinct want not to go back to the office had led to me tossing and turning for hours in the stifling shadows of the night. As I lay awake, I noticed that once again the temperature had remained as high in the darkness as it had been in the daylight - the disappearance of the sun had again failed to have the cooling effect on the world that it normally would have done. Once more the morning was strangely quiet. For a while I sat next to the open window and looked down onto the street below. As I rested on the windowsill and watched little figures meandering around below me, I wished that I was at home in my new-found favourite position - in my deckchair, on the patio with a cold can of beer in my hand. I thought that if I found myself with any spare cash to invest after pay-day then it would definitely be worth buying shares in one of the local breweries. They seemed to be doing double the business of anyone else in the heatwave. There wasn’t really that much that needed to be done at the office and I would have gone home had it not been for the fact that a customer had telephoned and had decided that they desperately needed to see me. I could not help but think that anyone who would rather come into my cramped office when they could stay outside on such a glorious day, needed treatment. Nevertheless, I knew that I could not avoid the meeting and hoped that the appointment would not last for long. Carol brought the customer’s file in to me at a little before eleven o’clock. The person who needed to see me so urgently was a Samantha Hill and, although I had met her once before, I could not remember very much about her. She was young, single and the niece of Mr Ronald Stanley, one of the wealthiest of the customers that I dealt with. Unlike most of the company’s richer clientele, Mr Stanley managed to be pleasant and obliging despite his riches and I hoped that Miss Hill would follow in her uncle’s footsteps. After the last couple of soul-destroying days, I wasn’t sure if I could cope with any awkward customers. On the stroke of the hour, with admirable punctuality, Carol entered the office and told me that Miss Hill had arrived, I stood up, moved my chair back behind the desk and made sure that I looked presentable. It was far too hot to wear my jacket, but at least I made an effort by rolling down the sleeves of my shirt and checking that my tie was straight. With the office and myself ready to receive company, I walked across to the door to let Miss Hill in. She was nothing like I had imagined her to be. She nervously entered the room and, as we shook hands, I could not stop myself staring into the most beautiful pair of deep blue eyes that I had ever seen. For a moment I was unable to look anywhere else and I became increasingly self conscious as I stared. My throat was dry and I had to clear it before I introduced myself. ‘Good morning,’ I said, feeling my face redden as I spoke. ‘I’m Steven Johnson, office manager.’ Miss Hill smiled warmly and I gestured towards the desk for her to sit down. I took her jacket from her and once more could not help myself staring as she moved across the room. She wore a short, pastel green skirt which clung tightly to her figure and a white, sleeveless blouse. Her long, straight blond hair was pulled gently away from her face and fell in a loose plait down the centre of her back. As I sat down opposite her she crossed her legs under the desk and folded her hands into her lap. ‘How are you?’ I asked politely. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she replied in a light, breathless voice. ‘And Mr Stanley?’ ‘He’s fine too.’ ‘He’s a good man. I get on well with him.’ Miss Hill nodded. ‘He speaks well of you too. He told me that if I ever needed any financial advice then you were the man to see.’ ‘And do you?’ I asked. ‘Do I what?’ she replied, puzzled. ‘Need financial advice?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, laughing. She leant down and took a large folder from her bag at the side of her chair. ‘I’m going into business. It was going to be a partnership but I’ve fallen out with my partner. Unfortunately, things have gone too far for me to pull out now and I wondered if your company might be able to help.’ ‘Would Mr Stanley be willing to...?’ She interrupted me. ‘Uncle Ronald’s already been far too kind to me. He helped me buy my property and has lent me some capital. I couldn’t possibly ask him for anything more.’ ‘What would you need from us?’ I asked. ‘What kind of business are you going into?’ Miss Hill took various documents from her folder and spread them out on the desk in front of me. They were professionally produced and were of such detail that I could see the exact position of the business as at today’s date. She intended to open a little shop in a quiet suburb of the city which would sell freshly made sandwiches and snacks. All that she needed from me was help so that she could finish equipping the shop and buy the first few weeks’ stock. The business plans and forecasts which Miss Hill showed me were impressive and showed that the venture had real promise. In addition, she held various relevant qualifications and I felt sure from talking to her that she would not enter into any commitment that she could not see her way to completely fulfilling. With the security of rich Uncle Ronald available to bail her out if it was ever required, it seemed that her proposition was a sound one. After having examined all the details, I explained my position clearly to her. ‘In principle,’ I began, ‘I can’t see that the company would have any objection to us assisting you.’ Miss Hill flashed me a relieved smile and nodded. ‘Of course, I’ll need to complete the regulatory forms with you and we’ll need to take up references.’ ‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ she said as she sorted through the papers on the desk to find the names and addresses of her referees for me. She handed them over. ‘Okay then, Miss Hill,’ I said before being interrupted. ‘Samantha, call me Samantha.’ ‘All right.’ I said and smiled at her as I searched through the uncoordinated confusion of my untidy desk drawers for the required forms. I watched her as she collected up her papers and put them back into her folder. She was a good-looking and instantly likeable girl. Intelligent and easygoing, she would make the perfect wife for some incredibly lucky man somewhere, I thought. And those eyes… I found the forms that I had been looking for. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘this shouldn’t take very long. We’ve just got these questions to complete.’ Samantha nodded and pulled her chair closer to the desk. As I opened up the form and took out my pen, she leant across and rested her elbows on the edge of the table. She sighed and looked up at me. Once more, I found myself unable to look away. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘It just looks like there’s a lot to get through.’ ‘Not really,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘It looks complicated but there’s not that much to do. It’ll only take us a few minutes.’ ‘You must be busy. Shall I take it away and do it at home?’ ‘There’s no need,’ I said quickly. I was suddenly aware that I did not want her to go. ‘Honestly, it won’t take that long.’ I thought for a moment before asking, ‘Why, do you need to go?’ Samantha shook her head. ‘You must have much more important things to do than sit here and fill out forms with me.’ ‘Not really. Besides, doing it now will mean that everything can be agreed that little bit quicker.’ As she watched, I filled in her name at the top of the form and asked her address. I looked up from the paper to see that she watched me intently and I felt myself redden involuntarily. She chewed her bottom lip and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘This isn’t fair, you know,’ she said, smiling broadly. I was puzzled. ‘What isn’t fair?’ I asked. ‘By the time we’ve finished this form, you’re going to know a lot more about me than I’ll know about you.’ ‘You don’t want to know about me,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing much to tell and it’s not that interesting.’ ‘It still isn’t fair,’ she insisted as she took a pair of round-framed, wire-rimmed spectacles from her bag and put them on. She turned the form around on the desk to look at the questions. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Whatever you tell me about you, I’ll tell you about me. Is that better?’ She laughed and turned the form back around so that it faced me again. The glasses which she wore complemented her already pretty face and she gently wiped her warm forehead. It was still hot in the office and, as I seemed to be getting even warmer with each passing minute, I checked the window to see if it was fully open. More relaxed, I loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves again before sitting back in my chair and beginning our question and answer session. ‘You know my address; where do you live?’ Samantha asked and I told her. She seemed surprised. ‘That’s only a couple of minutes away from my house,’ she said. ‘I know. I drive past the end of your road on the way to work.’ I cleared my throat before asking my next question. ‘What about your marital status? Are you married?’ ‘I’m single,’ she replied and I felt an unexpected wave of relief run through my body. ‘And what about the partner you’ve fallen out with?’ I asked. That was not a question on the form. ‘Julie. Oh, she was just a friend, not a partner in that sense of the word.’ I felt foolish and as if I had been prying but Samantha seemed not to mind. I told her that I was single too. We compared ages (she was three years younger than me), educational backgrounds and qualifications and I found myself becoming increasingly more and more relaxed in her company. Although I could never profess to being a good judge of character, and reading a purpose into other people’s signals and actions was something that I found annoyingly difficult, I felt sure that Samantha was as relaxed and as calm as I had become. I dared think for a moment that she could perhaps be the woman I had been dreaming about for all this time but I quickly tried to dispel such juvenile and unfounded ideas from my mind. I felt stupid and foolish at having entertained them for even a moment. Nevertheless, everything that I had told her had been the truth and I was sure that she had been just as honest with me. We eventually reached the end of the form and I looked up at the clock on the wall. To my surprise, it showed the time to be gone midday. We had been sitting together in the office for over an hour but it seemed as if only a fraction of that time had passed. Samantha noticed the expression on my face and her eyes followed mine up towards the clock. ‘Oh my god,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve taken up so much of your time. I’m so sorry’ Apologetically, she began to pack her documents and notes back into her bag. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing that can’t wait here.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ve been absolutely great, but I really must go.’ My heart sank as she got to her feet and took her jacket down from the hook on the wall. I helped her put it on before opening the door to let her leave. ‘I’ll get the papers up to head office today. I can’t see that they’ll have any problems with anything and so long as your references check out we’ll be in business.’ Samantha smiled broadly and held out her hand. I shook it gently. Her palm was warm and her fingers soft and gentle. ‘Thanks again, you really have been brilliant,’ she said and she stared at me, hypnotising me with her gaze. ‘As soon as I hear anything, I’ll be in touch.’ She left the room. Before I closed the door, she stopped and turned around to face me. ‘If you’re passing, why don’t you call in on your way home one night?’ she said. I tried to maintain my professional integrity and politely decline but it was impossible. ‘All right, I will,’ I replied, unable to look anywhere but straight into her beautiful face. ‘See you soon then,’ she said and I watched as she left the building, taking my heart with her. *** For the rest of the day, it was impossible for me to even try and concentrate on any of my work. All that I could think about was the young girl who had breezed into my office and blown me away. 5 On Friday night I finally managed to get out of the office at a reasonable hour. By four o’clock I was at home and, once there, I wasted no time in setting up the usual deckchair and refreshments outside. I had been booked to attend a dinner on behalf of the company but, thankfully, I had received a letter that morning telling me that the meal had been cancelled. I should have gone over to Mom and Dad’s house but I didn’t have either the energy or the inclination to move. It was my time now, and I was determined to relax. Preparations for a lazy evening were going well until I discovered that there was hardly anything left in the fridge - no food and, much more importantly, no beer. Begrudgingly, I decided to go out straight away and get in enough provisions to see me through the rest of the weekend. Fortunately, I lived close to a little street-corner supermarket which was hidden away in a quiet side-road from the rest of the sprawling city’s hungry population. I found everything that I needed there and loaded it in carrier bags and boxes into the back of my car. I drove home quickly and it was only when I was half way down a certain road that I realised I was in the street in which Samantha Hill lived. Since our meeting I had thought about her a lot. Had I been any younger, people might have thought that I had developed an adolescent crush on her but now, in my supposedly mature state, I managed to convince myself that I just admired Samantha for what she was doing and for the determined, persistent way in which she was going about it. In reality, however, I knew that I had found her incredibly attractive and I couldn’t wait to get her financial arrangements completed and agreed so that I had an honest excuse to see her again. As I drove along the street, I slowed the car down to a speed which allowed me to make out the numbers on the fronts of the dark buildings. I passed her home - number forty-seven - and carried on towards my house. As I turned into another street, I spotted an unmistakable figure walking along the pavement in the opposite direction to the way that I drove. Despite being piled high with bags of shopping, I could tell immediately that it was Samantha who struggled to reach her home. In the fading light, I stopped the car and hoped that she would recognise me. ‘Hello,’ I said chirpily as I wound down the window. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ She looked puzzled and unsure for a moment. She walked a little closer to the car and then recognised me. Her expression changed and she smiled broadly. ‘Hello again,’ she said. She put down the heavy bags that she carried and I got out of the car to give her a hand. ‘Would you mind dropping me back? I didn’t intend to be carrying all of this, my dad was supposed to be picking me up an hour ago.’ ‘Have you had far to come?’ I asked as I started to load the bags onto the back seat. ‘Only as far as the bus stop,’ she replied as I took the last bundle from her. ‘You took all of this on the bus?’ I said surprised. ‘I didn’t have much choice!’ she laughed as I walked around and opened the passenger door for her. I turned the car around in a nearby cul-de-sac and we drove back in the direction of her house. I asked how she’d been keeping and she told me that she was well. ‘Would you like to come in for a drink?’ she asked as we pulled up outside the house. I glanced at my watch. ‘I’d love to,’ I said and we got out of the car. Piled high with bags, we struggled towards the front door where Samantha’s mother appeared and helped us inside. ‘Mom, this is Steven Johnson,’ Samantha said, introducing me. ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said as I struggled to find a spare hand to stretch out from among the carrier bags. ‘Sam’s told me all about you. Honestly, she’s been working all the hours God sends on this shop.’ ‘I know. I’m really impressed ’ Samantha disappeared into the kitchen to put away the bags of shopping before quickly reappearing again. ‘Mom where was Dad?’ she asked. ‘He was supposed to pick me up.’ ‘You know what your father’s like. He tends to forget things now and then.’ ‘You mean he forgets things when he wants to. He’s getting to be a real pain.’ Mrs Hill walked into the kitchen and left me alone with Samantha. Although I was glad to be with her, I felt slightly awkward with her mother in the house and I could think of little to say. There was a brief flash of headlights in the window and a car pulled onto the drive. ‘Dad’s home,’ she shouted to her mother and, within a couple of minutes, he was inside the house. He walked straight past me and kissed his daughter on the cheek. ‘Sorry I didn’t get to you. Got stuck with something important,’ he mumbled. He turned to face me ‘Who’s this?’ he asked. ‘New boyfriend? It’s about time you got yourself sorted out with a bloke.’ Samantha blushed. ‘This is Steven…’ she began. Her mother reappeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘You know, the one she was telling us about,’ she interrupted. ‘Taking a special interest in my Samantha’s case are you son?’ he asked and, before I could reply, Mrs Hill took his arm and dragged him into another room. ‘I think I’d better go,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to you soon.’ Samantha seemed embarrassed by her parents. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ she said nodding her head in the direction in which they had just disappeared. ‘He’s harmless.’ I smiled and made my way towards the front door. She walked out with me to the car. ‘Thanks for the lift, anyway,’ she said, smiling. ‘Sorry about those two!’ ‘That’s all right. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’ I climbed into the car and drove away. I watched Samantha’s reflection in the rear view mirror until she disappeared out of sight and then I sped quickly home. I was disappointed that her parents had been allowed to spoil what could have been a very pleasant evening - I sensed that her father had taken an immediate dislike to me and hoped that it was nothing personal. I imagined that he would be the same with any man who showed an interest in his daughter and I could understand why entirely. Samantha was a very special girl - a fact that I was beginning to realise with every extra moment that I spent in her company. It was ethically incorrect, I knew, but I made up my mind on the way home to ask Sam out the next time we were together. If I was taking advantage of my position in the company to get to her then that was just too bad - I knew exactly what they could do with their job. I felt so relaxed and calm when Samantha was around that I could not stop myself from thinking about her and I was quietly confident that she felt the same. At least her father had done me a favour and confirmed that his daughter was single and unattached at present. I knew that I had nothing to lose (except my job - and that was becoming less important with each passing day) and I made a silent promise to myself to take her out. Could it be that my days as a single man were finally going to end? 6 The weekend flew by. Although I did little with my time - as usual - the two days that I had away from the office seemed to disappear within the blinking of an eye. It seemed that one minute it was Friday evening and the next it was Monday morning. The temperature had risen continually over the two days I had spent at home. I looked back in the morning papers and noticed that it had been increasing almost uniformly at the rate of one degree centigrade each day and on Monday it had climbed to a staggering twenty-six degrees. The only thing that kept me going through the first long day back at the office was the thought of going out for a cool, relaxing drink that night with Mark. Typically, however, things did not go according to plan and at half-past seven I was still rushing to get ready so that I could pick him up at eight. My lateness would have normally put me in a bad mood but today, unusually, it did not seem to matter - everything else was going well. Earlier in the day I had telephoned head office. The best part of a week had passed since I had interviewed Samantha and had sent her application up to be processed and I was growing tired of waiting for a decision. Once I had managed to locate the person who was dealing with Samantha’s case (and after they had left me hanging on the telephone line for almost a quarter of an hour) they assured me that everything had been agreed and that the agreements which needed to be signed would be waiting on my desk first thing in the morning. I hoped that a couple of drinks tonight would give me enough confidence and the Dutch courage that I would need to be able to ask her out. As I readied myself to leave, I could not help feeling like a lovesick adolescent about to ask his sweetheart to his first school dance. Since seeing Samantha the previous week, I had thought about her almost constantly and I was having difficulty in trying to keep my burgeoning feelings in perspective. Although I felt as if I knew her well, we had only spent a little time together and I knew that I had to try and stop my excited imagination from running away with itself. I looked in the wardrobe for something decent to wear and eventually settled on a light T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. Although they were far from fashionable, they were the best clothes I could find which would be comfortable in the searing heat outside. Outside of working hours, I had spent the last week wearing little more than a pair of worn, threadbare shorts and the incredible conditions were starting to become a real worry. It was difficult to believe that it would be November in just over a week’s time and I dared not imagine how hot it might be then. When I arrived at Mark’s house, he was sat in the shadows of a downstairs window, waiting impatiently for me. Although I was only fifteen minutes later than planned, he still took every available opportunity to criticise my lack of punctuality. The drive to our usual pub took only a couple of minutes but, as we approached, we saw that there were many more people there than was normal for a Monday night. I pulled onto the carpark and the light from my headlamps illuminated crowds of drinkers slumped against the walls of the old building. ‘Christ,’ Mark said. ‘We’re never going to get served if we stop here.’ I looked around and could not see a single space in the crowded carpark. ‘What do you want to do?’ I asked. ‘We could try somewhere else. I would say we could go back to my place but I really need a drink tonight.’ I reversed the car back onto the road and pointed it back in the direction from which we had just come. I drove back towards my house. ‘Want to try the Cheshire Cat?’ I asked. It was not our favourite pub but it would do. ‘All right,’ Mark replied. ‘It would have been quicker for you to have walked there!’ He was right - I could see the pub from the back of my house. We were there in a couple of minutes as there was little traffic of any note on the usually busy roads. Thankfully, as I was tired and suddenly very thirsty, there were spaces in the carpark. The pub’s beer garden (which was normally only used on the very hottest of summer days) was full of people. They sat huddled in groups on makeshift seats around improvised tables and basked in bright illumination from security lamps and from the dull electric light which spilled out through windows. I locked the car and we went inside. It was much quieter there and we were served quickly. ‘A pint of bitter and a pint of mild,’ I said to the barmaid as I dug deep into my pockets in search of money. I watched as the large, elderly woman shuffled from one end of the bar to the other in a search for empty pint glasses. She put one glass under the bitter pump in front of me and pulled the heavy handle towards her. For a moment thick brown beer surged from the faucet and into the glass before being replaced with spitting, gassy foam. The barmaid looked to the heavens and rested the half-filled glass on the bar. ‘Barrel’s empty,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, love. I’ll have to get it changed.’ She grabbed a passing member of staff by the arm and asked him to take care of the problem. She then moved along to her left and poured Mark’s mild from a second, working pump. As soon as his drink was ready and had settled, he took it from the bar and swallowed a large, thirsty gulp. He wiped his mouth dry and looked across at me. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Christ, I really needed that.’ ‘Had a hard week?’ I asked. ‘No, not really,’ Mark replied ‘What about you? Anything interesting happened in the last few days?’ I shrugged my shoulders, racking my brain and trying desperately to think of anything that might be of even the slightest interest to my friend. It was an impossible task - the week had, on the whole, been an utter waste of time. ‘Nothing really. Just your average week.’ I suddenly remembered the one part of the last seven days which had been worth going to work for and could not help letting a broad smile spread across my face. ‘I met an incredible girl though.’ ‘Oh yes,’ Mark said, his interest having quickly been aroused at the mention of the opposite sex. ‘She’s fantastic,’ I continued. ‘She’s about to go into business, came into the office after some help with her finances. Honestly, she’s amazing - young, single and really good looking.’ ‘And is financial assistance all she’s going to get from you?’ Mark asked, prompting me for a sexist answer. Before I could reply, there was a tap on my shoulder and I turned quickly around to see Samantha stood in front of me. I panicked and prayed that she had not heard me talking about her. ‘Hi, Steve. How are you?’ she asked. I picked up Mark’s pint and took a large gulp from it before I could answer. ‘I’m fine. You?’ ‘Oh, I’m not too bad. Can I get you a drink?’ ‘Let me get you one,’ I mumbled ‘I was in the middle of a round anyway.’ Samantha nodded and smiled. ‘Okay, I’ll have half a lager and lime please.’ I asked the barmaid for the extra drink and, as she was pouring it, a voice floated up from the bowels of the pub cellar which was unintelligible but which was obviously conveying the message that the barrel of bitter had been changed. My pint was finally poured. Samantha left us for a moment and I watched her as she walked across the room towards a quiet little table, around which sat two men and a woman, all of a similar age to her. My heart sank as I assumed the obvious (that she was with one of the men) and Mark looked at me with an expression on his face which seemed to be trying to say, ‘better luck next time’. Sam returned and took her drink from me. ‘Do you want to come and join us?’ she asked. With the fear that my heart was about to be broken growing more and more intense with each passing moment, I tried to politely decline her invitation. ‘We wouldn’t want to intrude,’ I said, meekly. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t,’ she replied. ‘It’s just my cousin and a couple of his university mates.’ I felt myself relax and I was sure that my sudden relief must have been clearly visible. ‘To be honest,’ Samantha continued, ‘I’ll be glad of a little company. All I’ve heard all night is what a great time they’re having at college and how I’ve missed out by not going. It’s starting to get tedious.’ ‘They’re right, you know. It is good,’ Mark said. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I interrupted, remembering that I had not introduced him to Samantha. ‘This is Mark, he lectures at the university so he would say that!’ ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Mark, this is Samantha, the one I’ve…’ ‘…the one you’ve been telling me about,’ he interrupted. I took an embarrassed sip from my pint and we followed Sam as she walked over to the table where her friends waited. They looked up as we approached. ‘This is Mark and Steve.’ she said to her companions. She turned to me and introduced them. ‘This is Claire, Daniel and Tom.’ We sat down. Mark sat in the place where Samantha had been sitting before we had arrived and that meant that I was left sitting opposite her at the far end of the table. Mark immediately struck up a conversation with his fellow academics and, to my delight, that left me free and alone to talk to Sam ‘Have you heard if everything’s been agreed?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m being pushy or anything, it’s just that I need to know so that I…’ ‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted. ‘Everything’s fine I spoke to head office this afternoon and they’ve assured me that all the forms will be waiting on my desk in the morning. Can you come up and sign them?’ ‘I can’t,’ she replied with a look of real disappointment on her face. ‘I’ve got workmen in the shop all day tomorrow and I’d rather not leave them there on their own.’ ‘That’s all right,’ I said, trying desperately to think of a solution to our problem. I had been counting on seeing Samantha again. I suddenly had an idea. ‘I could bring them over to you in my lunch hour, if that’s all right.’ ‘Could you?’ she wondered excitedly. ‘God, that would be brilliant.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Isn’t it a bit out of your way though?’ It was, but I could not let her know that. ‘Not really,’ I lied. ‘I’ll make something to eat, shall I? We can celebrate.’ I smiled and nodded approval and, as I looked once more into Samantha’s deep and mesmerising eyes, she reached out across the table and gently squeezed my hand. The evening progressed enjoyably. Mark was content to sit and talk to Samantha’s friends while I was more than happy to relax and talk to Sam herself. I was equally pleased that she seemed just as happy to spend her time with me. The table which we were gathered around was next to a little window, the lead-lined panes of which were open wide but offered virtually no respite from the suffocating heat. Occasionally, a light breeze fluttered into the room but, other than that, the night was still and humid. From my position at the end of the table I could see little outside other than the tops of the roofs of the buildings across the street and the moon burning brightly in the cloudless evening sky. We had talked for a good hour (which had seemed to have only taken a few minutes to pass) and both Samantha and I had learned a lot about each other. The questions had not needed to be asked directly, instead we had willingly volunteered information to each other. I felt as if I subconsciously wanted her to know everything about me. Sam had been telling me about her plans to get a mortgage and to buy a home of her own when we were interrupted. ‘…and then, once I’ve got the business really going,’ she said, ‘I’ll be looking to try and find a little…’ she stopped talking suddenly. Through the open window, a hot and heavy wind started to blow indoors. The people gathered around tables and those sitting outside in the carpark quickly became quiet, and a deathly hush settled on the whole building as the jukebox stopped playing. The lights flickered and dimmed. For a moment the air was choking and inescapably hot. I struggled to look through the tiny window and see what was happening outside but it was difficult from my awkward vantage point at the end of the table. I watched the sky above the pub and saw that it had slowly begun to change colour. As every pair of eyes in the crowded building strained to look skywards, we watched as the darkness of the sky melted away to become a muddy-red, an ember orange and then a yellow-white. Once the heavens had reached that colour, they worked their way back through the various shades until, moments later, they were back to their normal hue. The wind died, the lights brightened and then, after a second’s silence, the jukebox began to play its thumping music again. Apart from the music, no-one else dared make a sound. Mark was the first to speak ‘Shit,’ he said, simply. ‘It was just like last week,’ Sam’s cousin Daniel said. ‘Scary.’ The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun while we all paused to gather our thoughts and try and comprehend what we had just witnessed. Although I could not speak for any of the others, the heat and light had shaken me to the core and I was glad of the couple of drinks that I had had earlier to calm my nerves. It was not so much fright, it was more a sense of bewilderment and the lack of any warnings or explanations which had combined to unnerve me. ‘Someone at work said that might happen,’ Mark commented quietly. ‘He said there could be more as well.’ ‘What was it though?’ Daniel asked. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.’ He thought for a moment and ran his fingers nervously through his hair before speaking again. ‘There are a few people at the university who are starting to get worried about what’s been happening.’ I had been staring deep into the bottom of my glass and I looked up to see that all the faces around the table were fixed in Mark’s direction. He seemed uncomfortable and looked at each of us in turn as he continued to speak. ‘I’ve heard it said that things are going to get worse before they get any better.’ Mark swilled the dregs of his beer around in the bottom of his glass before drinking them down and wiping his mouth. I glanced anxiously across the table at Samantha and she returned my concerned expression. She shuffled to sit upright in her seat and, as she did, her foot rested against my leg. I was glad that she kept it there and did not move away - to feel her body next to mine was welcome and comforting. A bell rang out and the landlord of the pub yelled for last orders in a deep, gruff voice. In an instant, the bemused quiet which had been so very evident in the building was replaced with sudden, frenzied activity as people rushed towards the bar to buy one final, nerve-settling drink. Mark nudged my arm. ‘We’d better make a move, mate,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’ I nodded and stood to move away from the table. Samantha also got up and walked over to me. ‘See you about half past one tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘Is that all right?’ I replied rhetorically. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ ‘I’ll help take our minds off all of this,’ I said, gesturing outside. Sam smiled and I moved towards her and out of the way so that Mark could get past. Had we been alone, I would have kissed her goodnight but the presence of our friends managed to diminish the self-confidence that the little alcohol which I had consumed had built up within me. ‘It was nice to have met you all,’ Mark said to those who remained seated around the table. ‘We’ll have to do it again sometime, when it gets a little warmer perhaps!’ I shook my head in disbelief at my companion’s bizarre sense of humour as he walked past Samantha and myself towards the exit. I said goodbye to Sam’s friends before turning back to say goodnight to her. ‘See you tomorrow then,’ I said, not really wanting to leave. Mark and I walked out towards the carpark but, before we had even reached the door to leave the building, I could not stop myself from turning around and looking at Sam once more. I felt as if I was floating on air as we staggered back to the car. Ignorant of the muggy heat and of Mark’s tedious conversation, all that I could think of was the beautiful girl that I had just left. 7 As we had been forced to make an unexpected diversion earlier in the night, the drive back to Mark’s house took longer than usual. He was tired and although he tried to deny it, slightly drunk. With no cassettes in the car to listen to, I switched on the radio in a vain attempt to drown out the constant and uninteresting noise that he made. The radio crackled and spat static and the reception was so poor that it was difficult to find a signal of any strength. I eventually gave up trying to find something to listen to amongst the high-pitched hiss of the VHF and so switched to another waveband. The noise that the radio made was deeper and flatter but was still devoid of any human sounds until I finally managed to tune into the faint conversation of a late-night discussion programme. It sounded dull and boring but, as I moved my hand towards the set to switch it off. Mark stopped me. ‘I want to hear this,’ he said, slurring his words. He brushed my hand away and turned up the volume. ‘This could be important - we should listen to it.’ I decided not to spoil my drunken friend’s enjoyment of what sounded like a tedious debate. A panel of invited ‘experts’ was sat in a studio discussing the present conditions and hypothecating about what might one day happen if things did not change. As with all debates, there were two opposing sides. The difference here was that neither of them seemed to know anything about the subject which they argued over. They all knew what had already happened, but could only speculate and theorise as to what the future might hold in store. ‘Professor Cunningham,’ the host of the programme said from somewhere in the midst of the crackle and hiss of the radio waves, ‘you’ve been quoted in the media recently as saying that the phenomena we are currently experiencing will inevitably prove to be temporary. Have you any solid proof to suggest that normality will soon be restored?’ The professor cleared his throat and started to answer. ‘I believe that these effects that we are seeing will not last for much longer. There’s no evidence to suggest . . .’ ‘Professor, you’ve got no idea of what’s going to happen and neither have the rest of us,’ a third voice interrupted angrily. The venom, uncertainty and desperation in the third voice shocked and startled me for a moment. If this was the voice of someone who appeared to have some knowledge of what was happening and he sounded scared, perhaps there really was something to be worried about. ‘Doctor Smith, if you would just let me finish . . .‘ the professor protested. ‘Why, what’s the point? All that you or anyone else can do is bullshit your way around the truth and that truth is that it’s getting hotter by the hour. That’s the one and only fact that we’re all sure of.’ The flustered host’s wavering tones echoed through the warm night air once more as he tried to keep control of proceedings. ‘Doctor Smith, please allow Professor Cunningham to finish.’ ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Smith shouted. ‘He knows about as much as you do about what’s going on. You might as well go home and ask your mother about it rather than talk to him, me or anyone else. No-one knows what’s happening and whatever it is, there’s no way that any of us can stop it.’ Smith sounded hysterical and, although his was only a disjointed voice floating through interference-filled airwaves, I could tell that it was full of anger and intense frustration. ‘Things are getting worse,’ Smith continued, unabated, ‘and after tonight’s events I really can’t see what we’re going to achieve by sitting here and arguing about what might be about to happen. You must agree Cunningham.’ ‘Getting yourself and anyone else who’s listening scared witless won’t do any good either,’ the professor replied. ‘Stop dramatising things and get a grip for God’s sake.’ ‘Dramatising things!’ Smith yelled at the top of his hoarse and strained voice. ‘For fucking hell’s sake, we’re seeing phenomena here which could easily signal the death of the planet and you tell me to stop dramatising things!’ I leant across and switched off the radio. Until we had listened to that programme. I had never even stopped to consider what might happen if the temperature did continue to steadily increase. ‘What a load of crap,’ I snapped, nervously and instinctively. ‘Might not be,’ Mark mumbled. ‘Like the man said, no-one knows for sure.’ ‘Yes,’ I protested, ‘but there’s no point in looking at the worst possible outcome. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I don’t want to know anything about it when the end comes.’ I quickly stopped talking as the realisation dawned on me that we were discussing the end of the world. As I drove, I thought more about what I had heard and the fact that not a single person on the planet knew what was happening frightened me. In the past, there had always been someone available who could explain things which were out of the ordinary but today the only convincing arguments I had heard were from a paranoid man who seemed sure that our planet was dying. However, if the temperature did continue to increase at the same rate that it had been recently, in a few days’ time it would be reaching upwards of thirty degrees - the 1st of November would be the hottest day of the decade (until the 2nd of November). I thought about the countries where that level of heat was normal and tried to imagine what kind of conditions they might be enduring there. It suddenly seemed very plausible that the increasing heat and the pulses of light that we had seen in the night sky could be the beginning of something much more terrible than any of us had dared to imagine I forced myself to try and think of something else and, at once, calming memories of Samantha drifted gently back into my mind. The roads were quiet and we reached Mark’s house in no time at all. The heat and the alcohol which he had consumed combined to great effect and, by the time we reached his home, he had drifted off to sleep I gently woke him and he stumbled out of the car and into the street. I locked the car and watched as my friend staggered towards his front door and fought to get his key into the lock. The latch eventually clicked and he half walked, half fell into the house. I stood on the doorstep and waited for him to switch on the lights and to switch off the alarm. All around the city surrounding the house, there seemed to be a strange atmosphere in the air which reeked of doubt and unease. While I was sure that very few people really had considered that the end of the world could be approaching, I was positive that I could not have been the only one who felt an uncomfortable sense of worry. No-one could be sure that they were safe and it was this uncertainty which had caused the friction and panic so evident in the amateurish radio broadcast that we had just listened to. Mark yelled for me to come inside and shut the door and, as I waited on the doorstep, I listened to the muffled sounds of a fight taking place in the distance. As I waited I heard the far-off wail of a police-car siren and I could not help but wonder about what was going to happen. Inside the house, Mark appeared to have sobered up somewhat and had managed to fill the kettle I shut the front door and went into the kitchen as he waited for the water to boil and spooned coffee granules into two empty mugs ‘Not a bad night,’ he said as he worked. ‘It was all right, wasn’t it?’ I answered. I thought for a moment before speaking again. ‘What did you think of Samantha?’ I waited nervously for Mark’s answer. As a close friend, his opinion was of great value to me but, at the same time, I knew that if he didn’t like her then I would discount his views immediately. ‘She’s great,’ he said and a broad grin spread quickly across his face. ‘She’s got it bad for you, mate!’ ‘Do you really think so?’ I asked, desperate for confirmation despite the fact that I was sure I already knew the answer. Mark nodded his head and poured boiling water into the two mugs. ‘No question,’ he said through clouds of quickly rising steam. ‘I saw the way she was looking at you. Mind you,’ he added as he stirred our drinks, ‘I also saw the way that you were staring back.’ Embarrassed, I picked up one of the mugs, added a spoonful of sugar and took a large gulp from it. Although the drink was piping hot, it was still refreshing and it helped to quench a fierce thirst which had developed in my throat since we had left the pub. ‘Want anything to eat?’ Mark asked and I shook my head. ‘No thanks, it’s too hot.’ He went into the living-room and I followed. I sat down and Mark dug deep under a pile of discarded newspapers and magazines to find the remote control which operated the television set. He eventually found the little black box (under a cushion on the settee - nowhere near the pile of papers) and switched the set on. It was almost midnight and the choice of viewing offered to us was far from appealing. One side showed a darts championship, the second horse jumping, the third a documentary and the fourth a dire, imported detective series which looked about twenty years old and which I had already seen countless times before. Before hurling the remote control onto a nearby seat. Mark flicked the set back to the third channel. Once again, the theme of the programme was the extraordinary weather conditions and atmospheric effects which we had witnessed. The presenters, however, at least appeared to be a little calmer and more composed than their radio counterparts had been earlier. A doddering old gentleman, with a shock of brilliant-white hair, thick, horn rimmed glasses and an incredibly unfashionable suit, stood in front of a large diagram of the solar system. The sun was drawn at the far right of the picture and the nine planets which orbited around it were arranged in a line to its left. I settled down into my seat and listened as the presenter cleared his throat and began to talk. ‘The events of this evening, and of last week, can be illustrated with the help of this diagram,’ he began in a deep and gruff, well-educated voice. ‘What appears to have happened, is that a huge wave of energy has been issued from the sun and it was this wave spreading out across the solar system which caused the unusual atmospheric conditions which were so very evident earlier.’ As the presenter spoke, he moved his hand across the diagram from the sun and out towards cold Pluto to illustrate the direction which the energy waves had taken. ‘It is logical to assume, therefore,’ he continued, ‘that it is some undefined activity within the sun itself which has caused these events to happen. It would seem that this activity would also be the cause of the extraordinarily high temperatures which we have all endured over the last three weeks.’ I looked across at Mark who stared unblinkingly into the television screen. His drunkenness seemed to have worn completely away and he watched the old man with a genuine interest. ‘While we have seen events similar to this in the past,’ the presenter explained, ‘they have never been encountered with such force and magnitude before.’ ‘It’s frightening, isn’t, it?’ I said to Mark and he turned to look at me. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I mean, he’s just said that this has happened before. All right, it was nowhere near as intense then, but it stopped, didn’t it? The world hasn’t ended yet, has it?’ ‘I can’t argue with that,’ I said before returning my attention to the television screen. The old man still rambled on. ‘Our understanding of the sun’s internal mechanisms are still primitive and so we are unable to predict with any real accuracy what might happen in the immediate future. We hope, however, that as before, the activity will be short-lived and that normality will soon be restored.’ ‘I hope so too,’ Mark said. ‘I’ll ask around at work tomorrow and see if anyone knows what’s really going on. I get the feeling that this bloke’s only being allowed to tell half the story.’ ‘Do you really think so?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘No question. He wouldn’t be allowed to spread doom and gloom over the airwaves; he had to end on an optimistic note. You’d have everybody panicking, wouldn’t you?’ I finished my coffee, stood up and stretched as the television programme ended. ‘I’d better be off, I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’ A familiar, wicked smile spread quickly across Mark’s face. ‘I know you have!’ he said, grinning. ‘It’s half past one you’re meeting her, isn’t it?’ ‘To tell you the truth, I can’t bloody wait!’ I nodded. ‘I bet you can’t, I hope everything goes all right. It’s about time you got yourself sorted out.’ ‘Everything’ll be fine,’ I replied. ‘Just as long as the world doesn’t end before I get there.’ ‘That’d be just your luck,’ Mark joked. ‘You finally meet someone decent and you cop it before you can have any fun! Typical!’ We laughed together as we walked towards the front door. I did not dare say anything to my friend, but I had a nagging fear growing in the pit of my stomach which told me that all was not going to be well and it was becoming difficult to keep my feelings hidden. I was quietly sure, however, that I was not the only one who was worried. ‘I expect a phone call tomorrow night,’ Mark said. ‘As soon as you get back, I want every single juicy detail of your lunch. Leave nothing to the imagination.’ ‘Mark,’ I replied with a tone of false disapproval in my voice, ‘you are a very sick young man.’ He pushed me out of the door. ‘And you’re a letch,’ I added as I stumbled out into the street. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow!’ I unlocked the door and got inside the car. As I drove away, I waved to Mark, who stood in the light of his doorway, and I hoped that if I did call him he would be able to give me some reassuring news from his friends at work. It had to be good news, I thought, my life looked like it was finally about to sort itself out and I was determined not to let anything get in my way now. I drove quickly home in silence and I was, all things considered, quite relaxed and happy. Although there had been nothing but gloom and bad news on the radio and television all night, I cared little. All I needed to do was picture Samantha’s face in my mind and all of my fears and worries evaporated away into nothing. She filled me with a happiness that I had not felt for a very long time. 8 Once again the next morning at the office dragged unbearably. With still no respite from the incredible weather conditions, the city was again silent and stifling and the streets below were relatively empty. As I looked out of the office window, I wondered why I had bothered coming into work at all. Most people appeared to have simply chosen to stay at home and relax in the sunshine or, more probably, in the shade of their homes, watching the sun scorch and burn the world around them. Time seemed to run at a much slower rate than usual and I was sure that it had something to do with the way that I stared at the clock every five minutes, willing its hands to work their way quickly around to one o’clock. With sunrise that morning, the heat had increased further still until it was now like a heavy, suffocating blanket which lay all around, smothering everything and everybody with its exhausting, relentless and inescapable power. Every newspaper and magazine carried concocted, charlatan explanations of events and mixed them with a generous and unhealthy number of stories about old-aged pensioners dying of dehydration in their homes and of the water in lakes and reservoirs falling to new record-low levels. When one o’clock finally arrived, I gathered up the papers and forms that I needed Samantha to sign and, before leaving, called Robert into my room. He staggered in through the office door, looking flustered and exhausted. As he stood still and tried to compose himself, he wiped his fat, round and red face with an already damp handkerchief and leant against my desk. For a moment I stared at the picture of ill health that stood in front of me and I felt genuinely sorry for the man. ‘I’m going out to see Miss Hill now,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be back so could you look after things here for a while?’ Robert stood up straight and nodded. I noticed that his cotton shirt was drenched with sweat and that it clung tightly to his skin. ‘Will you be all right?’ I asked, worried about the exhausted condition that he was in. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he wheezed. ‘I’m just having a bit of trouble with this heat. It doesn’t agree with me.’ ‘Are you going to be okay to look after the office?’ ‘I said I’ll be all right!’ he snapped and he looked up at me with an angry expression on his flustered face. ‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ I said, attempting to reassure him and to disguise the fact that I intended to stay with Samantha for as long as I possibly could. ‘I’m not expecting any calls and I don’t think that there will anything that you can’t deal with. If you do need to contact me. Miss Hill’s number is in her file and that’s somewhere in my filing cabinet.’ Robert nodded and turned to walk out of the room. I felt sorry for him in some respects - he was much older than me and I was sure that he resented my seniority in the office. He was normally able to rise above such feelings but the extreme heat and its effects on his desperately unfit body did nothing to help ease the situation. I shoved the paperwork into my briefcase and grabbed my jacket before following Robert out of the office. I draped the jacket over my shoulder as it was far too hot to even think about wearing it. It was, in fact, far too hot to be wearing anything. I left the office as quickly as I could and with it I left a grumbling assistant manager complaining to the rest of the staff. Although I feigned deafness, I could hear him telling them all how he was the one that really ran the branch - I just picked up the manager’s salary at the end of every month. Regardless of his comments, I was in a good mood and was determined not to rise to the childish baiting of my staff. I walked ignorantly past them all and out of the building. Before getting into my car, I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine. I walked past a little florist’s shop and thought for a moment about getting some flowers for Samantha. Next to the florist’s was a sweet shop and I wondered if chocolates might be better. An irrational paranoiac fear grew in my mind as I imagined foolishly that such presents might give Samantha the wrong impression of me. Although I wanted to get much closer to her, I thought that our relationship was far too fresh and new for me to start buying sentimental gifts. Instead, I settled on the bottle of wine - a neutral gift which I could palm off as just an accompaniment to our lunch rather than a romantic gesture. The wine was chilled and the bottle cold in my hands. I wondered how cold it would be by the time I reached Samantha’s. The drive to the shop took only a little while. As I stopped the car and got out, I admired what I saw. Although it was only half-finished, the building’s frontage already looked professional and very inviting with an ornate sign being painted above the whitewashed windows. I could see movement through the partially obscured glass and I could not help but feel somewhat disappointed that I would not be on my own with Sam. Perhaps that was a good thing, I thought. I didn’t know if I would be able to control myself if we were left alone - she was so beautiful. I took the wine and my briefcase out of the back of the car and, as I locked and closed the boot, the front door of the shop burst open and Samantha came running out to meet me. She looked wonderful in a long summer dress which clung lovingly to every curve of her perfect figure and the sunlight made her free, flowing hair glow with life and colour. As she approached, I felt an unexpected nervousness in my stomach, and my legs weakened. I prayed that I would be able to keep myself and my emotions in order despite the fact that I wanted desperately to pick her up in my arms, to take her somewhere quiet and romantic and make slow, passionate love to her. I tried to cool myself down by remembering that I was there on official company business. ‘Hi, Steve! How are you?’ Sam asked as she approached. ‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘You look fantastic.’ She took my arm and led me towards the shop. ‘This is for you,’ I said, holding out the bottle of wine. ‘I thought we could celebrate.’ Sam stopped. For one terrible and irrational moment I thought that my worst fears had been realised and that she had taken offence at my gift. I knew that it was a foolish and unfounded thing to imagine but, in the heat of the moment, I was fighting to keep control of a brain, a heart and a body that did not want to be restrained. My fears were washed away in a second as Sam stood up on tiptoes and kissed me lightly on the cheek. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, looking straight at me with her gorgeous, almost hypnotic eyes. ‘You’re so sweet.’ I followed Samantha into the shop where, away from the relentless sunlight, it was slightly cooler and where I was able to think and to act sensibly once more. The main area of the shop was a hive of activity with workmen toiling in the heat to fix counters and shelves while others followed behind, decorating in their work mates’ footsteps. ‘You’ve done really well in here,’ I commented, looking around. ‘How long do you think it’ll be before you can open?’ ‘Just a few weeks,’ she replied. ‘Now that you’ve come through with my finance I’ll be able to sort out the stock and the rest of the fittings that I need.’ She paused to think for a moment and looked around at her shop ‘The only trouble is,’ she continued, ‘I don’t know whether to buy more microwave ovens for the hot, winter food or extra fridges for the ice cream!’ Samantha took my hand and pulled me through a door behind the main serving area. The door opened out onto a little corridor and, from there, various storerooms and kitchens could be accessed. To our left was an empty, spare room and she reached inside to switch on the light. The dull yellow glow of one, unprotected sixty-watt bulb illuminated a little table in the middle of the room which was covered with an appetising spread of sandwiches, salads and cakes. I felt guilty of the fact that I had little appetite but I resolved to try and eat something. Two seats were sat close to each other next to the table and Sam gestured for me to go inside and to sit down. ‘I hope you don’t mind eating in here,’ she said. ‘It’s far too hot to go outside.’ She disappeared for a moment to fetch two wine glasses from the kitchen ‘You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just for me,’ I said, shouting after her. ‘It’s no trouble,’ she replied as she came back into the room. ‘Besides, it gives me a chance to show you some of the types of things that I’ll be doing here.’ She sat down in the chair next to me which she had angled so that whilst we were not far apart, we were able to look straight into each other’s faces. My next words were spoken involuntarily - before I had even stopped to think, they were already floating through the air in Sam’s direction and I was unable to stop them. ‘The food’s a bonus,’ I said. ‘It’s enough for me just to see you.’ I was immediately embarrassed and looked away from Samantha and down to the floor. I slowly turned my head back to look in her direction to gauge her reaction and I felt incredible relief when I saw that she was smiling broadly. She reached out her hand, grabbed mine and squeezed it softly. I chanced upon the unopened bottle of wine sitting on the table and picked it up quickly - I needed a drink. ‘Have you got a corkscrew?’ I asked. Sam shook her head. ‘No,’ she laughed, ‘that’s one of the fittings that I still need to get.’ ‘Never mind,’ I said and I jumped up from my seat. I went out into the main area of the shop and, seeing that all of the workmen were busy at the far end of the room, I took the liberty of borrowing a screwdriver which had been left lying on a nearby stool. Returning to Samantha, I forced the cork down the neck of the bottle with the tool and poured the wine out into our glasses. ‘I hope you don’t mind the taste of a little cork in your wine,’ I joked. ‘I find that it often adds to the flavour and brings out the body of a good white!’ ‘Now you’re just talking crap!’ Sam said and she laughed as she took a sip from the glass that I passed to her. ‘I am,’ I replied. ‘You seem to have that effect on me.’ ‘You have quite an effect on me,’ she whispered quietly and I almost choked on the sandwich that I had just bitten into. I had dared to think that Samantha found me attractive and that she enjoyed my company, but to have it confirmed in such a blunt, definite and undeniable manner was beyond my wildest dreams. We ate for a few quiet minutes. Neither of us seemed to have very much of an appetite for our food but I made a concerted effort to avoid hurting Sam’s feelings. I cleared my plate and put it down on the table. ‘That was really good,’ I said, wiping my mouth with a serviette. ‘If that’s the kind of thing that you’re going to be selling here then I don’t think you’re going to have any problems.’ ‘Thanks, Steve. I’m glad you liked it.’ ‘What have you got left to do in here then?’ I asked, gesticulating at the rest of the building around us. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not that much,’ she said, quietly and simply. ‘Are you looking forward to opening up?’ ‘I suppose,’ ‘Do you want to talk about something else?’ I asked. Sam nodded and smiled. I had guessed from the brevity of her answers to my questions that she was not interested in talking business and I changed the subject. ‘What did you think of Mark?’ I asked, reminding her of our time together the previous evening. ‘He’s great,’ she said, suddenly springing back into life. ‘He’s got a brilliant sense of humour.’ ‘It’s not that good,’ I replied defensively. Before speaking again, I remembered the energy pulse that we had experienced last night. It had been the only negative aspect of an otherwise totally enjoyable evening and so I made a deliberate attempt to steer away from the topic of the weather and the relentless heat. ‘Why didn’t you go to university?’ I enquired, remembering our friends’ constant conversations last night. ‘You had the qualifications, you could have done anything.’ She thought for a moment before replying. ‘I know. I suppose I’d just had enough of learning by the time that it came to make the decision. I needed to start earning some money.’ Sam’s reasoning sounded vaguely familiar as it had been for much the same reason that I had gone straight into working for the company rather than continuing my education. It had been a move that my parents had not entirely approved of and it was good to have found someone else who agreed with my opinions and who thought along the same lines as I did. ‘Do you regret it?’ I asked. Samantha shook her head. ‘I’m happy with the way things have turned out,’ she said, draining the last drops of wine from the glass which she had emptied in record time. ‘And things are getting better every day.’ As she spoke, Sam looked up into my face and I felt my heart melt. I knew then that the girl who sat next to me could really prove to be as special and important as I had dared think she might be at the time of our first meeting. Although I had then dismissed my initial feelings as juvenile and trite, they seemed to have more and more truth and substance with each extra moment that I spent in her company. When I next looked at my watch, it was almost three o’clock I panicked and at once my mind was filled with thoughts of disaster and catastrophe at the office which I had left under the control of a deputy manager who seemed to be permanently on the point of collapse I knew full well that if anything happened in my absence, the blame would rest squarely at my feet ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,’ I said as I stood up to leave. ‘I didn’t see the time.’ Sam looked at her own watch and seemed as surprised as me to find that we had been talking for almost an hour and a half. ‘Do you really have to?’ she asked and I nodded sadly. ‘I’m afraid so I wish I could stop.’ I tucked my shirt into my trousers and rolled down my sleeves. I moved towards the door of the little room but stopped when I was close to Sam. I turned to look into her face and then, with equal amounts of inevitability and spontaneity, I leant down and kissed her lightly on the lips. She put her arms around me and I held her tightly before we kissed again. Long and passionate, our second kiss seemed to last for a blissful eternity and I found it difficult to tear myself away. ‘I wish I could stay here with you,’ I whispered into her ear. ‘I don’t want to let you go.’ ‘I never want you to let me go,’ she said quietly ‘Can you come back tonight?’ My heart sank as I remembered that tonight was the night that I had arranged to go across town and visit my parents. I would normally have telephoned them and cancelled using some weak and concocted excuse but today, as my father was ill, I felt duty-bound to go. I silently cursed myself for not having visited last Friday when my business dinner date had been cancelled. ‘I can’t. I wish I could but my dad’s ill and I’ve promised that I’ll go over and see him.’ I said. Samantha seemed to understand. ‘Can we go out tomorrow?’ It was Sam’s turn to bring bad news and she shook her head dejectedly. ‘I’ve got an appointment with my insurers tomorrow night. It’s too late to cancel now.’ ‘The day after then?’ I asked, hopefully. Samantha nodded and smiled. I painfully tore myself away from her. Despite the incredible heat all around and inside the building, my body felt cold where I had just held her and I longed to pull her close to me again. I walked towards the door of the shop, holding her hand tightly. She suddenly stopped walking and I turned back to see what was wrong. ‘I haven’t signed anything!’ she shouted, laughing. ‘You’ve forgotten what you came for!’ ‘Can you see what you’re doing to me?’ I asked jokingly as I took the forms and papers from out of my case. Sam signed where I indicated and I threw the documents back into the bag. ‘I’m losing all control. You’re turning me into a nervous wreck!’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she laughed with mock apology in her voice. ‘Don’t be,’ I whispered ‘I’m loving every second of it!’ Before leaving I held her tightly once more and we kissed again in full view of the assembled workmen. We received a sarcastic round of applause from the labourers and I left the shop feeling embarrassed but caring little. I promised that I would call Sam the next day and then climbed into the car. I drove back towards the office and watched her in the rear view mirror until I turned a corner and she disappeared from view. I had not needed to panic - Robert had survived the afternoon without incident and, more importantly, so had the office. I apologised to him for being away for so long and made up some lame, implausible excuse about being detained and having to explain the forms to Miss Hill. I could tell that he didn’t believe me but I didn’t care. Although less than two official working hours remained in the day, time still managed to run at a snail’s pace. I had often joked with friends about how time managed to slow down in the week and then double its speed at weekends or when I was enjoying myself. I decided that must have been the reason why the hour and a half I had spent with Samantha had felt like less than ten minutes. Once again, with a complete disregard for company regulations, I was deserted and left alone in the office at five o’clock sharp and I felt (out of guilt rather than company loyalty) that I should stop for a while and try to catch up on some of the paperwork that I had avoided doing that afternoon. By the time I was reasonably up to date, it was close to half past six. I decided to leave, to go home and change and then make my way to my parents’ house as arranged. Throughout the whole of the rest of the afternoon, I was unable to get Samantha out of my mind for even the briefest of moments. 9 As I had planned earlier, I arrived at my parents’ house washed, refreshed and feeling a little more relaxed than I had done earlier in the day. I parked the car and walked towards the little house which had been my home for many years. There were thousands of memories locked up in the tiny building and, as I approached, I prayed that the people close to me who still lived within its walls were safe and well. All the talk of energy waves and all of the confusion that I had witnessed over the last couple of days made me long to return to the security of the past and of my childhood. As I stood on the doorstep and opened the front door, a wave of tender sentimentality washed over me. One of the most unusual and unexpected aspects of the heat and of the recent bizarre conditions was the distorting effect that they had on my body clock. Although it felt like summer, it was dark by five o’clock and it stayed that way until late in the morning. It was difficult sometimes to convince myself that it really was late October and, although the darkness made it feel as if it should be much later, by the time I went into the house it had only just turned seven-thirty. Inside the building was dark and the living-room was illuminated only by the flickering blue light of the television set in the corner of the room and by a dull, yellow glow from the open kitchen doorway. When she heard the front door open. Mom came into the living-room and she smiled when she saw me. ‘Hello, love. How are you?’ she asked in her soothing, peaceful voice. ‘I’m fine, Mom,’ I replied as I walked across the room and followed her into the kitchen. ‘Tired, but fine.’ Finally hearing Mom speak again helped me to calm down and to forget the troubles of the day. She had a relaxing, gentle quality to her voice which immediately took me back to my childhood days. When we were younger, Mom’s incredible ability to remain restrained and rational had usually resulted in both my sister and myself ignoring her when she had needed to reprimand us (authority was always maintained by my father who, in such instances, always told us off with a well-aimed slap with the back of his hand). Today, however, Mom’s tone lifted me and managed to restore a little piece of normality to the increasingly crazy and hectic world that I found myself living in. ‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked as Mom filled the kettle from the tap. ‘He’s outside,’ she replied, nodding her head through the window and towards a barely discernible shape sitting out on the back lawn. ‘Poor thing,’ she continued. ‘This heat’s really knocked him for six.’ I walked quietly towards the back door and peered through the glass to look at my dad who sat bathed in the low yellow light which spilled out across the lawn from the kitchen window. When I had been living at home, my parents had never seemed to age. In my mind, they had looked the same on the day I left home as they had done in my earliest memories. It was only now that I was not seeing them on a daily basis that they seemed to be getting any older and today, sadly, Dad looked desperately frail, tired and ancient. As I watched my father sleeping in an old deckchair, a light wind blew across the garden and he shuffled uncomfortably. The breeze ruffled the delicate strands of white hair which lay across his head and the light from the house combined with the sparse silver rays of the moon to cast ghastly haggard shadows across his face. Dad’s glasses were perched precariously on the end of his wrinkled nose and the only movement he made was as his chin slowly shifted up and down as it rested on his heaving chest. ‘He doesn’t look too bad,’ I said to Mom. I was quite worried by Dad’s appearance but I did my best to try and allay any of the fears that my mother might have had. ‘He might look all right,’ she said, ‘but he’s not himself. You know your father, he’s not one to make a fuss when he’s under the weather but I can tell. I’ve been with him for long enough.’ I looked into Mom’s face as she toiled over the hot pots and pans on top of the kitchen stove. She looked tired and worn out and I could see the strain and worry that Dad’s condition was obviously causing her to feel. Although there was the best part of a ten-year age gap between my parents and she didn’t look anywhere near as aged as Dad did, Mom still seemed to be growing old at an alarming rate. ‘Steven,’ Mom said (she was the only person who called me that and not Steve). ‘We’re going to go up and visit your Uncle George for a little while.’ I was relieved to hear that. Uncle George lived on the Scottish coast and, when I was younger, whenever we had visited there as a family, Dad had spent most of our time there complaining that the North was far too cold for him. ‘That’s good news,’ I told Mom. ‘That should really do Dad a lot of good. It’s about time you had a rest as well.’ Mom nodded and smiled. She seemed pleased that I approved of their plans. ‘What about Michelle?’ I asked, wondering what my younger sister was going to do. ‘She’s coming with us. The poor love’s been having a rough time at college recently. I think it’ll do her as much good to get away for a while as it will your father.’ ‘When are you thinking of going?’ ‘Tomorrow. We’re going up by train. We leave at half past nine.’ The immediacy of their leaving shocked me. Dad was notoriously slow at making plans and decisions and Mom could see that I was genuinely surprised. ‘It’ll be for the best,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘We’ll stay up there for a while and come home when things get back to normal.’ Michelle came bounding down the stairs and burst energetically into the kitchen. ‘I thought I could smell something!’ she joked, cheekily. ‘Stevie’s here!’ I laughed sarcastically and walked over to greet her. We hugged for a moment and, once more, I realised just how much my conceptions of my family had changed since I had moved out. Before I had left, there had been days when Michelle and I could hardly bear to be in the same room as each other and yet we now hugged one another as if we had been apart for years. ‘How’s things?’ she asked. ‘Not too bad,’ I replied, giving little away. ‘What about you? Are you all right?’ Strangely subdued, she nodded her head slowly and sat down at the table. ‘Can you go and get your father for me?’ Mom asked, looking in my direction. ‘I’m about to serve up dinner.’ I went outside to fetch Dad and was surprised by the brittle crunching of the moisture-starved grass beneath my feet. I stood at Dad’s side and gently shook his shoulder. He began to come around. ‘Hello, son,’ he said in a voice that sounded tired, feeble and weak. ‘How are you?’ ‘I’m all right. Dad,’ I replied. ‘I’ve had enough of this heat though. It’s a bit hot, isn’t it?’ ‘Too bloody hot,’ he snapped bluntly as he pushed his aching frame up and out of the chair. I held his arm to help him but he brushed my hand away. ‘I’m all right,’ he grumbled. ‘Just a bit stiff, that’s all.’ Dad moved away from the support of the deckchair, turned and shuffled towards the open back door. I watched him sadly as he moved. Dad had always been such a fit and active man that to see him like this was heartbreaking. I knew that Mom was right and, although she hadn’t said as much, I could see that the incredible conditions were killing him. We sat around the kitchen table to eat our meal and, for a while, things were just like they had been before I had left home. Mom sat opposite Dad and I had the pleasure of sitting directly across the table from my little sister. Although Mom had struggled in the kitchen for a long time to prepare our meal, none of us seemed able to eat much. I toyed with the food on my plate while I thought of Samantha and I chewed a couple of hot, filling mouthfuls. I looked up to see that Michelle was staring at me and I was sure that she wanted to ask something. Her intuition seemed to have told her that I had begun seeing someone and then, with her usual disregard for tact and decorum, she began to pursue the issue with unavoidable and embarrassing questions. ‘So, Steve,’ she began, ‘am I imagining things or are you happier than usual tonight? Have you finally managed to find yourself a decent girlfriend?’ I almost choked on the mouthful of food that I was eating. ‘What makes you think that?’ I asked, keen not to give anything away without a struggle. ‘I know you too well,’ she replied. ‘You’re being nice to me and that’s a sure sign that something’s up.’ Michelle smiled sweetly, desperate for information and gossip. ‘That doesn’t mean that I’m going out with anyone, does it?’ I said with deliberate ambiguity. ‘Does anybody want another drink?’ I asked, trying unsuccessfully to change the subject. My love life was not something that I wanted to discuss in front of Mom and Dad. ‘I bet you are,’ she said, putting down her knife and fork. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I am,’ I said, shoving more food into my mouth. That was all that I wanted to say but Michelle, typically, had other ideas. ‘I knew, I could tell!’ she shouted. ‘What’s her name? Where did you meet her? Come on, I want to know everything.’ ‘Her name’s Samantha, and that’s all you’re going to get,’ I said with my mouth still half full of food. ‘Leave your brother alone,’ Mom interrupted. ‘He’s come over here for his tea, not to be questioned by you.’ She turned to face me. ‘I’m sure she’s a lovely girl and you’ll tell us all about her when you’re ready to.’ ‘It’s too bloody hot in here,’ Dad suddenly shouted angrily. The rest of the family around the table became silent as he threw down his knife and fork and stood up. After waiting for a couple of seconds to get his balance, Dad shuffled away from the table and disappeared into the dark living-room. Mom watched him go and I saw that her eyes had filled with tears. Michelle became quiet, fearing guiltily that she had angered our father with her excited behaviour. I pushed my plate away from me, unable to eat any more and watched as Mom stood silently and went into another room. Later that night, I sat in the living-room with Dad. The windows were all fully open and a gentle breeze fluttered into the room which gently lifted the lace nets and light curtains which hung around them. The only light came from a dull table lamp at Dad’s side and the only sound from Mom and Michelle talking in the kitchen. ‘How are you feeling now, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Oh, not too bad, son,’ he replied, calmly. ‘I’ll be glad when this heat finally eases off though.’ ‘Mom was telling me that you don’t like it. It’ll be better when you get up to Uncle George’s though, won’t it?’ ‘It won’t be the heat getting to me then, it’ll be that bloody wife of his,’ he snapped. ‘Still, your mother seems to think that it’ll do us all good to get away for a while.’ ‘She’s right you know They say it’s going to get worse before it gets any better.’ ‘And you’d know, would you?’ Dad snapped, uncharacteristically. He grumbled and took a large swig from a tumbler of whisky which he held in his tired hand. ‘It’d all be a lot simpler if they hadn’t been buggering around with the planet in the first place.’ ‘But, Dad,’ I protested foolishly, trying to explain what was actually happening, ‘it’s the sun that’s causing all of this. It’s got nothing to do with pollution, the ozone layer or anything else.’ Dad hauled himself upright in his seat and leant towards me until his face was only inches from mine. ‘Son, you can tell me that it’s the sun doing this. You can even tell me that it’s men from Mars. The truth is that none of it would be happening if it wasn’t for those bloody idiots who are supposed to be in charge of this planet.’ There was no point in arguing with Dad. I was sure that it was the heat and stress which were causing him to become irrational and I couldn’t see that