head I wrote my mobile number on the margin of a Sunday newspaper.
Then I stepped out of No. 19 Lorna Terrace and walked unhurriedly along the street pondering two odd unanswered questions.
First, how did Victor happen to come to Martinâs attention ?
Second, why had neither mother nor son asked my name?
Â
Â
Lorna Terrace curved sharply to the left, taking No. 19 out of sight behind me.
I paused there, wondering whether or not to go back. I was conscious of not having done very well. Iâd set off expecting to unearth the mysteries of the videotape, if not with ease, then actually without extreme trouble. Instead I seemed to have screwed up even what Iâd thought I understood.
Irresolutely I wasted time and missed the train Iâd thought of catching. I might be OK at glass, but not excellent at Sherlock Holmes. Dim Doctor Watson, that was me. It grew dark and it took me a long time to reach Broadway. Luckily, I found a willing neighbor on the train to give me a lift from the station.
Without Martin, I reflected with depression, I was either going to spend a fortune on cabs or thumb a thousand lifts. There were still eighty-one days before I could apply to get my license-to-speed out of the freezer.
I thanked my generous companion with a wave as he drove away, and fishing out a small bunch of keys, I plodded towards the gallery door. Sunday evening. No one about. Brilliant lights shining from Logan Glass.
I hadnât learned yet to beware of shadows. Figures in black materialized from the deep entrance to the antique bookshop next door and from the dark line of the trash bins put out ready for collection on Monday morning.
I suppose there were four of them leaping about in the dark; an impression, not an accurate count. Four was profligate, anyway. Three, two, maybe only one could have done the job. I guessed theyâd been waiting there for a long time and it hadnât improved their temper.
I hadnât expected another physical attack. The memory of the orange cylinder of cyclopropane had faded. The cylinder, I soon found, had delivered a less painful message than the one on my doorstep. This one consisted of multiple bashes and bangs and of being slammed two or three times against the lumpy bit of Cotswold stone wall that joined the bookshop to my own place.
Disorientated by the attack itself, I heard demands as if from a distance that I should disclose information that I knew I didnât have. I tried to tell them. They didnât listen.
All that was annoying enough, but it was their additional aim that lit my own inner protection furnace and put power into half-forgotten techniques of kickboxing left over from my teens.
It seemed that a straightforward pulping was only half their purpose, as a sharp excited voice specifically instructed over and over again, âBreak his wrists. Go on. Break his wrists....â And later, out of the dark, the same voice exulting, âThat got him.â
No, it bloody didnât. Pain screeched up my arm. My thoughts were blasphemy. Strong, whole and flexible wrists were as essential to a glassblower as to a gymnast on the Olympic high rings.
Two of the black-clad agile figures waved baseball bats. One with heavily developed shoulders was recognizably Norman Osprey. Looking back later from a huddled sort of collapse on the sidewalk, I saw that only one of those two had the bright idea of holding my fingers tightly together in a bunch against the wall before getting his colleague to aim just below them with the bat.
I had too much to lose and I hadnât been aware of how desperately one could fight when it was the real thing. My wrists didnât get broken but my watch stopped in pieces from a direct hit. There were lumps and bruised areas all over everywhere. A few cuts. Torn skin. Enough. But my fingers worked, and that was all that mattered.
Maybe the fracas would have ended with me taking a fresh hole in the ground beside
Then I stepped out of No. 19 Lorna Terrace and walked unhurriedly along the street pondering two odd unanswered questions.
First, how did Victor happen to come to Martinâs attention ?
Second, why had neither mother nor son asked my name?
Â
Â
Lorna Terrace curved sharply to the left, taking No. 19 out of sight behind me.
I paused there, wondering whether or not to go back. I was conscious of not having done very well. Iâd set off expecting to unearth the mysteries of the videotape, if not with ease, then actually without extreme trouble. Instead I seemed to have screwed up even what Iâd thought I understood.
Irresolutely I wasted time and missed the train Iâd thought of catching. I might be OK at glass, but not excellent at Sherlock Holmes. Dim Doctor Watson, that was me. It grew dark and it took me a long time to reach Broadway. Luckily, I found a willing neighbor on the train to give me a lift from the station.
Without Martin, I reflected with depression, I was either going to spend a fortune on cabs or thumb a thousand lifts. There were still eighty-one days before I could apply to get my license-to-speed out of the freezer.
I thanked my generous companion with a wave as he drove away, and fishing out a small bunch of keys, I plodded towards the gallery door. Sunday evening. No one about. Brilliant lights shining from Logan Glass.
I hadnât learned yet to beware of shadows. Figures in black materialized from the deep entrance to the antique bookshop next door and from the dark line of the trash bins put out ready for collection on Monday morning.
I suppose there were four of them leaping about in the dark; an impression, not an accurate count. Four was profligate, anyway. Three, two, maybe only one could have done the job. I guessed theyâd been waiting there for a long time and it hadnât improved their temper.
I hadnât expected another physical attack. The memory of the orange cylinder of cyclopropane had faded. The cylinder, I soon found, had delivered a less painful message than the one on my doorstep. This one consisted of multiple bashes and bangs and of being slammed two or three times against the lumpy bit of Cotswold stone wall that joined the bookshop to my own place.
Disorientated by the attack itself, I heard demands as if from a distance that I should disclose information that I knew I didnât have. I tried to tell them. They didnât listen.
All that was annoying enough, but it was their additional aim that lit my own inner protection furnace and put power into half-forgotten techniques of kickboxing left over from my teens.
It seemed that a straightforward pulping was only half their purpose, as a sharp excited voice specifically instructed over and over again, âBreak his wrists. Go on. Break his wrists....â And later, out of the dark, the same voice exulting, âThat got him.â
No, it bloody didnât. Pain screeched up my arm. My thoughts were blasphemy. Strong, whole and flexible wrists were as essential to a glassblower as to a gymnast on the Olympic high rings.
Two of the black-clad agile figures waved baseball bats. One with heavily developed shoulders was recognizably Norman Osprey. Looking back later from a huddled sort of collapse on the sidewalk, I saw that only one of those two had the bright idea of holding my fingers tightly together in a bunch against the wall before getting his colleague to aim just below them with the bat.
I had too much to lose and I hadnât been aware of how desperately one could fight when it was the real thing. My wrists didnât get broken but my watch stopped in pieces from a direct hit. There were lumps and bruised areas all over everywhere. A few cuts. Torn skin. Enough. But my fingers worked, and that was all that mattered.
Maybe the fracas would have ended with me taking a fresh hole in the ground beside
Similar Books
![Of Being Yours[another way 2]](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/458893/thumbs/152x264/of-being-yoursanother-way-2.jpg)
