Copyright © Robert and Vaunda Goddard 2008

The sky over Whitehall is doughy grey, the air chill and granular. It is a Monday morning in early February, yet winter has seemingly only just begun after a dank, extended autumn. The cold is almost a tonic for Richard Eusden as he emerges from the Churchill Café, mug of strong black coffee in hand, and sits down at one of the pavement tables. He drops his briefcase beside his chair, sinks his chin within the sheltering collar of his overcoat and lets the warmth of the coffee seep into his palm as he surveys the familiar scene.

The traffic is thinner than usual, but slow-moving nonetheless, thanks to the pelican crossing adjacent to the café. It beeps and blinks in service to the dark-suited men and women crossing in both directions who are bound for their desks and work places in the ministries either side of Whitehall. Many already have their security passes dangling round their necks, their identities surrendered and declared, their working weeks about to begin in variations on an institutionalized theme.

Richard Eusden’s security pass is still in his pocket. He will take it out only when he is most of the way down King Charles Street and turning into the Foreign Office staff entrance. The delay is a small assertion of his individuality, pitifully small in all conscience, but one of the few open to him. A civil servant closing fast on fifty with an index-linked pension no longer an unimaginably distant prospect cannot afford to cock a snook at the government machine he is undeniably part of. But there is no need to rush to take his place within it this morning. It is not yet 8.30. His train was neither late nor overcrowded. He is feeling less than usually travel-worn. He sips his coffee and tries to savour the moment. He knows he should put it to more obviously practical use, if only for the benefit of any of his colleagues who may pass by. There are file notes in his case he intended to study – but did not – in the course of the weekend. He could profitably cast an eye over them now. Staring into space is perhaps not the wisest image to project in the ever more image-conscious culture that has engulfed his profession. But still he goes on staring, through the plume of steam rising from his coffee.

The truth, he recognized long ago, was that he should never have become a civil servant. Deep within his soul he lacks the vital capacity to think the conventional thought – and to believe it. Having become one, he should have quit once he realized his mistake. He should have dropped out, travelled the world, searched for something else – anything else – to do with his life. But he had just married then and assumed he would have children, who would need the comfort and security his career could supply. And by the time that and a number of other assumptions about his marriage had been confounded, he had persuaded himself it was too late to make the break. More accurately, it was too easy to refrain from making the effort. Now it really is too late. Life, he is well aware, is what you make of it. And this is what he has made of his. He is smartly dressed and well-groomed. He is not losing his hair or running to fat. His blue eyes still glisten. His brain is still sharp. By most people’s standards, he leads an enviable existence. He tries to remind himself of this as he contemplates the predictable day and unsurprising week that lie ahead of him. He needs a change, but he does not expect to get it. He takes a deeper swallow of coffee and sets the mug down on the table.

His fingers are barely free of the mug handle when three short blasts on a car horn snap his attention to the other side of the street. A pea-green Mazda is cruising slowly through the pelican crossing as the light flashes amber. The driver’s window is opening and a face coming into view that Eusden senses he is on the brink of recognizing, only for a dirty red slab of bendy bus to cut off the view.

The bus slows for traffic ahead and merely crawls forward. It is an open question to Eusden whether he will see the Mazda again. It may already be past the Cenotaph and heading towards Trafalgar Square. He knows nobody who drives such a car. He has no concrete reason for supposing the horn was sounded for his benefit. The incident seems about to de-spool into the ebb and flow of the morning.

But it does not. The Mazda completes a fast and illegal U-turn into the bus lane as the blockage to Eusden’s view finally removes itself. The car jolts to a halt at the pavement’s edge, the driver waving through the windscreen to attract Eusden’s attention. He starts with astonishment. The driver is Gemma, his ex-wife. He has not seen or spoken to her for several years. They have, she memorably assured him the last time they met, nothing to say to each other. The clear implication of her manner on that occasion was that they never would have. Something has changed her mind – something urgent, to judge by her behaviour.

‘Richard,’ she shouts through the open window. ‘Get in.’

Eusden grabs his case, jumps up and strides across to the car, stooping to engage Gemma at eye-level. She looks, if anything, younger than he remembers. Her hair is shorter, her face slightly thinner, her skin clear, aglow with health. She is dressed in a black tracksuit and trainers. She appears what she is: fit, energetic, intent.

‘Get in,’ she repeats.

‘I’m on my way to the office,’ Eusden objects, though with little force. He already badly wants her not to drive away without him.

‘Sod the office. Will you please just get in the car?’ Her tone is impatient, but her gaze is pleading. She needs him. For once, she really does. ‘Please, Richard.’

A double-decker is bearing down on them along the bus lane. Something has to give. He hesitates, then opens the door and climbs into the car. Gemma accelerates away, tyres squealing.

‘Sorry,’ she says, though whether she is apologizing for her driving or her unannounced reappearance in his life is hard to tell.

‘What’s going on, Gemma?’ Eusden asks, buckling his seat belt as they swerve into Parliament Square.

‘I was looking for somewhere to park when I saw you. We have to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘Marty.’

Marty Hewitson. Eusden’s childhood friend. Gemma’s other ex-husband. Of all the subjects under the sun, Marty should be the last she wants to broach between them.

‘He’s asked me to do something for him.’ She keeps to the right, circling the square, looking ahead, avoiding any danger of meeting Eusden’s eyes. ‘I want you to do it instead.’

Surprise gives way to disbelief. ‘Why the hell should I?’ is Eusden’s instinctive response. But all he actually says is, ‘Really?’ Certainly he can imagine no reason why he would even consider helping either of them. Then Gemma supplies such a reason. By answering the question he has not asked.

‘He’s dying, Richard.’ She shoots a glance at him. ‘Marty’s dying.’