Jam (33 page)

‘Where have you been?' said Dave. ‘It's all been properly kicking off here. Properly kicking off.'

‘We've been in the thick of it,' said Stevie.

Natalie did not speak.

‘I'm telling you,' said Stevie. ‘There was a proper fight. A stabbing, it looked like. Look, the police are still there. And the ambulances. People were going down all over the place and shit. It was mental. Where were you?'

Still Natalie did not respond.

‘What's wrong with you?' said Stevie. ‘Get in the car.'

‘No,' she said quietly.

‘What?'

‘I said no. I'm not getting in that car. Open the boot.'

‘What?'

‘Open the boot.'

‘What for?'

‘Just open the boot.'

Dave shrugged, reached down and heaved up the lever that released the boot. Natalie walked around the car and they could
hear her scrabbling at the back. Then the boot slammed and she reappeared, her rucksack on her back.

‘What are you doing?' said Stevie.

‘Going home,' said Natalie.

‘Home? What? Who with?'

‘Never you mind.'

‘What about the traffic?'

‘When it moves. Whatever.'

‘She's crazy,' Stevie said. ‘She's finally fucking gone crazy.'

‘No, I haven't,' said Natalie. Something in her voice made Dave and Stevie look up. ‘And I'm not . . . I'm not, like, a piece of meat.'

Stevie laughed nervously. Then he fell silent. Then he laughed again.

‘I'm not a piece of meat, and I'm not stupid,' said Natalie.

‘I never said you were.'

‘You treat me like I am.'

‘Look, Natalie, take it easy.'

‘I'm not a piece of meat.'

‘We were only joking, OK? It was a joke.'

‘It wasn't funny.'

‘I can't help it if you've got a sense of humour failure.'

‘I'm not a piece of meat.'

‘OK, OK. I get it.'

‘It's you. You're, like, like, really mean.'

‘Mean?' said Stevie, laughing again. ‘Who the hell says “mean”?'

‘You've been really mean to me all weekend. You know what I'm talking about.'

‘I haven't got to listen to this,' said Stevie. ‘If you want to fuck off with some freak you've met by the side of the road, be my fucking guest. In fact, you know what? I don't want you back in this car. You can just fuck right off.'

‘It's not your car,' said Natalie. ‘It's Dave's.'

‘OK, whatever.'

‘No,' said Natalie, looking surprised at her own words. ‘You can fuck right off.'

‘What did you just say?' said Stevie.

‘I said you can fuck right off, Stevie. You told me to fuck right off. I'm saying no, it's you that should fuck right off.'

‘What are you on about?'

‘You know what your problem is? You've never, like, had a girlfriend because you're a scrawny fucking runt. I should've seen it coming. But that's all over now. I can totally, like, see you for the mean little fucking creep you are.'

‘Someone's put you up to say this. You couldn't've thought of this yourself.'

‘I'm not stupid. I'm not a piece of meat.'

‘You're a broken fucking record, that's what you are.'

‘I'm not. And you, Dave, you're . . . I don't know, you're weak. You're both, like, weak, actually. Cowards.'

Dave tried to respond but found he had nothing to say.

‘Well, then,' said Natalie. ‘See you around.'

She began to walk away. She could see Jim sitting at the wheel of his van, watching her. In a burst of courage, she turned back. ‘One more thing,' she said. ‘You both have really small cocks. And I'm not, like, even joking now. Proper tiny!'

Dave swung the door closed and sat in silence. Finally he stole a glance at Stevie who was sitting hunched in his seat, his fingers pressed over his eyes.‘Fuck her,' said Stevie. ‘Fuck her.'

The move

The traffic began to move. Popper turned the key in the ignition, and the Golf sprung immediately to life. With a vast growl and turning-on of lights, the motorway awakened. Popper's Golf moved, and the camper van moved, and the Smart car moved, and the Prius, and the Ford estate, and all the other cars. Around him surged a wave of emotion of which he was oblivious, and in the distance a flurry of exultant honking caught on, then died away.

The line of traffic moved for a few seconds in formation, a human settlement migrating, and then, as if newly awakened to their autonomy, the cars began to go at their different speeds, and weave into different lanes.

People's minds turned once again to the future, near, middling, and far. Shauna was driving slowly now, slower than she could ever remember, talking to Monty as if they were old friends. Hsiao May, alone in her Prius, overtook her easily and gradually faded from sight. Harold, for a while, chuntering along in his camper, sat behind Shauna and Monty; but within a few minutes he had fallen way behind. The footballers, now, were in custody, being taken to the nearest police station; Rhys and Chris were arriving at hospital, accompanied by the police. Natalie, in the front of Jim's van, was cruising at a high yet constant speed in the fast lane, rushing smoothly into the future as she opened another packet of Oreos. Stevie and Dave, still cursing under their breath, worried that their car was about to break down. Max, in the ambulance with his family, slipped in and out of consciousness. And Popper made headway in the
middle lane, driving his car consistently, moving neither to the left nor the right.

Once again anonymity reigned. Once again cars, and the people in them, moved too quickly for colours and patterns; once again this was a world of glimpses, grime, and the relentless roar of machines, capped by a sky that was moving from pink to grey to yellow to blue. Another day.

Acknowledgements

Thanks as ever to my agent, Andrew Gordon, David del Monté and my friend Danny Angel, who read the book more than once and gave me invaluable feedback. Thanks to James Jeffrey and Musa Okwonga, both of whom offered some very helpful thoughts on the character of Popper. Thanks to all at Polygon. And with much love to Isobel, Libi, Isaac, Imogen and the rest of my family.

Two sources were fascinating and helpful in equal measure when writing this novel. The first was a small but excellent book called
M25: Travelling Clockwise
by the late Roy Phippen, a cabbie with a passion for the London Orbital. The second was an article written by the brilliant Dana Goodyear for the
New Yorker
magazine in August 2011 entitled ‘Grub: Eating bugs to save the planet'.