Читать книгу King of the Badgers - Philip Hensher - Страница 15

The train was crowded and talkative. Kenyon and Caroline squashed into the same seat with their various bags piled up on their laps, facing forward. In a line, spread out along the aisle, seven teenagers called out. They were going to the Bear first—no, the Pincers; but one had told Carrie they would be in the Jolly Porters and they knew she’d lost her mobile, so what about that then, what were they going to do about that?

‘These people,’ Caroline said, shifting her bag of shopping further onto her knees. She meant to be heard. ‘I don’t know what they expect to see when they get to Hanmouth.’

‘The most extraordinary thing,’ Kenyon said. ‘As we were pulling out of Paddington, a young man got out a gun and started firing into the crowd.’

‘Oh, no,’ Caroline said. ‘On the train?’

‘No,’ Kenyon said. ‘On the concourse. I just glimpsed it as the train was pulling out of the station. I haven’t seen a newspaper and there weren’t any announcements, so I don’t know how serious it was.’

‘How dreadful,’ Caroline said. ‘That sort of thing seems to happen so much more often nowadays. What a lucky escape you had. I can’t imagine what these people are doing going down to Hanmouth. People just seem to go wherever they think there’ll be a crowd. Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve. People go there but they don’t know why. Safety in numbers, I suppose—numbers of idiots, anyway.’

Two girls in front of Kenyon and Caroline, one talking on her mobile phone with a hand pressed against her other ear, turned simultaneously, stared from a three-foot distance, and shrugged with as much direct offence as they could muster before turning back.

‘What are you reading tonight?’ Kenyon asked. ‘I remember now—Miranda told me to make myself scarce and not expect much in the way of supper.’

‘Don’t you get something at Paddington?’ Caroline said. Kenyon agreed that sometimes he did, holding back the recurrence of a scene as his mind reconstructed it. ‘They’re terribly good, those outlets nowadays—sushi on a conveyor-belt at Paddington, isn’t there?’

‘Waa-raa-argh,’ went the four teenagers in a scrum at the end of the carriage as the train leant into the St Martin’s bend. They fell against each other, then righted themselves hilariously.

‘No, I’ll wander down to the pub on the quay for a bite to eat,’ Kenyon said. ‘Once I’ve done my duty and greeted my wife.’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ Caroline said. ‘Everywhere’s been packed to the gills all week. Haven’t you heard? Trippers, journalists, film crews, all eating their heads off. And drinking, of course. It’s been precisely like a siege. Hasn’t Miranda said?’

‘She did,’ Kenyon said. ‘I thought she was exaggerating.’

‘Not in this case.’