Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(12)

Standing on the step, holding the door open behind him, he craned his neck left and right, but he could only see a few metres in either direction along the pavement before the world vanished into an impenetrable grey wall. It was as if he and his building were the only real, solid things on Earth. He thought about what the man who looked like him had said last night.

Thinking about that made him angry. He shook his head and stepped out onto the pavement, and as he did the building behind him calmly vanished.





1.





ONE MORNING IN November, Spencer experienced a moment when he didn’t know where he was.

He was on his way into town, changing trains at Euston Underground station, riding the escalator up from the Victoria Line platforms, and as he neared the top everything was suddenly unfamiliar. It was as if he had not only never been in this place before, but in this situation. What was this moving staircase? What were these tunnels? What did all these signs mean? Which language were they in? He felt a sense of fear so profound that he stopped at the top of the escalator and several people coming up behind him bumped into him and almost knocked him over.

The jostling was enough to snap him out of whatever had happened to him, but it didn’t happen all at once; understanding faded back in like something from a film. That was a sign for the Northern Line; this was an escalator vestibule; he was at Euston.

It only lasted a moment or so, but it was unnerving enough for him to turn and take the down escalator back to the Victoria Line, get a train to Victoria, and go to see his ex, Bethan.

Bethan lived in Peckham, just beyond the southern edge of the London Control Zone. To the north and west and east the Zone stretched out beyond the M25, but the River was a useful border, and the boroughs immediately to the south had always had a raw deal from whoever was making the big decisions for London and the country in general. From some streets in Peckham you could see the Shard and other buildings of the City, tantalisingly close but on the other side of several security checkpoints.

They went to a pub across the road from Rye Common and Spencer told Bethan what had happened at Euston, and Bethan shook her head sadly.

“Have you been taking your meds, Spence?” she asked.

“Of course I have,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

Well, of course, now he thought about it, Spencer wasn’t sure. He had an image in his mind of taking his tablet, but he couldn’t have sworn that it was from this morning. Or yesterday morning. Or the day before, for that matter. Yesterday and the day before were slippery concepts for Spencer, anyway, like tomorrow and the day after.

Bethan sighed again and took out a small plastic container. “Here,” she said, “take one of mine.”

“Are you sure?” asked Spencer.

She rattled the container. “I’ve got plenty.”

“But suppose I did take one this morning.”

“Suppose you didn’t. Do you want to have another episode on the way home?” Bethan popped the top off the container with her thumb, tipped a white tablet, not much larger than an artificial sweetener, into her palm, and held it out to him. “You can’t overdose on this stuff, anyway. It’ll plateau you out.”

Spencer took the tablet and put it in his mouth, where it dissolved into a gritty bitterness that he washed down with a mouthful of beer.

“There you go,” Bethan said approvingly. She was a tall woman with close-cropped red hair and a penchant for vintage T-shirts. Spencer had several powerfully erotic memories of their brief time together, but he couldn’t remember how they had met, or quite why they had split up. Dr Cragoe, his therapist, considered it a form of post-traumatic stress and had prescribed yet more medication and a monthly mindfulness session which Spencer, mixing the dates up, kept forgetting to attend.

“How’ve you been?” he asked, while he waited for the medication to come on.

She shrugged. “Up and down. Work’s been a sod lately.”

Bethan worked for one of the American news aggregators. Spencer tried to remember if something newsworthy had happened in the past few days, but came up blank. He said, “You need a holiday.”

She snorted. “Everybody needs a holiday. I need another job.”

Spencer thought things were starting to settle down; the vague sense of anxiety he’d been feeling since this morning was dissipating, objects around him were beginning to make sense. He said, “Me too.”

Bethan looked around the bar. There was a fashion, these days, to convert gastropubs back into old-style boozers, and this one was a dreary lino-floored space with uncomfortable wooden seats and dull mass-produced beer. The closest thing it had to food was pork scratchings. The clientele, which hadn’t changed, appeared as content with this as they had been when the pub had been serving quinoa salads, but Spencer hated places like this. All he really wanted was a cup of coffee, and the nearest cup of halfway decent coffee was a walk away in East Dulwich.

Bethan said, “Short of cash?”

He nodded. “A bit.”

“You’ve got the rent and the bills covered, though, right?”

He shrugged.

“Oh, Spence,” she sighed, and though he couldn’t quite remember the final days of their relationship, that falling, disappointed tone of voice was crushingly familiar. He felt himself shrivel inside.