LITMIR.BIZ

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lunch and was going to a screening of a new film in the evening. It meant he would be home late, but that didn’t bother him; it was a film he wanted to see and an aspect of his work he’d always enjoyed.

      In fact, lunch with Ben took nearly an hour and a half out of his day, but he returned to the office thinking more positively about his job than he had in ages. Really, he thought, when he thought about Ben, he was very lucky. There was no one watching his every move. The working hours could be very intense and busy at times, but on the whole were fairly relaxed – compared to Ben’s at any rate; he met interesting people, even if egos sometimes got in the way, and he could wear whatever he liked. And he was paid to watch films he would have paid to go and see anyway.

      That afternoon he managed to secure a weekend magazine front cover for one of the films he was working on, spoke to Tiffany four times and made plans to visit Geordie in Wiltshire the following weekend. The film in the evening was even better than he’d hoped and, after loitering at the end for a few drinks with some journalists, he set off for home feeling even more cheerful and sanguine than he had that morning.

      He jumped on a bus at Piccadilly. Usually he cycled to work. He enjoyed cycling, although there was a more practical advantage to it too: it was the only way he felt he could get around London without being constantly late; but if he was going to be late getting home, or if the weather looked ominous, he was perfectly happy to allow a bit more time and take the bus. That way he avoided the Underground and could still see the streets of London as he travelled to work. Furthermore, the bus he took was one of the old-fashioned variety: an open step-on at the back, and seats facing each other towards the rear. This was important to Flin. He was tall and it meant he could sit there without feeling cramped, and see the faces of the people opposite, which he liked.

      By the time he reached Olympia, the weather had changed dramatically. Rain poured down, and he wasn’t wearing a coat. Cursing, he shoved his hands into his pockets, hunched up his shoulders and set off. The road between the exhibition halls and the railway was always well lit, but behind it, the way suddenly darkened. This had never bothered Flin. Ever since he’d moved to London, no one had so much as shouted at him. He’d never seen a mugging, a fight, or even a traffic accident. Nor had he ever been burgled. If that was just good luck on his part, he’d never bothered to think about it. Instead, a confidence in his own security steadily grew, so that he thought nothing of walking down dark ill-lit streets late at night or chaining his bicycle with nothing but a cursory shackle between frame and railing.

      He’d seen the four youths sheltering under a delivery bay to the rear of the halls, but had barely given them a thought. Had he been more alert to the possible dangers, he might have thought it odd that four people should be hanging about in such a place at such an hour on such a night, and briskly walked to the other side of the road. Or even run. But he didn’t. It wasn’t until he’d already passed them that he realized one of them had given a nod to another. And by then it was too late.

      Hands grabbed him from behind, while someone rushed to his front and punched him hard in the face and then the stomach. He heard the sound of his nose breaking, felt the blood pour in a warm stream over his lip and chin, and tasted the thick sweet-metallic taste on his mouth. It happened so quickly. A youth, spotty and with tufts of random stubble on his chin, pulled a knife from his pocket and held it to Flin’s neck, the point breaking the soft and vulnerable skin.

      Flin gurgled and gasped as another knife slashed off his bag and hands rifled through his pockets. Then another punch, this time from behind: hard, swift, and unbearably painful, into his kidney. He crumpled to the ground. Grazed skin on his face and hands stung as he hit the wet roadside. For a split second he wondered whether they would kill him. An enormous wallop hit him in the ribs, a kick at full strength, blasting the last bit of air from him. Then footsteps running off into the night. The attack had lasted no more than half a minute.

      For a few moments, Flin lay there, still clutching his eyes, the rain spattering his back, and the cold, dirty water from the pavement seeping through his jacket and shirt, cloying against his skin. He could only just see, his vision blurred by the rain and rapidly swelling eyes. His nose hurt like hell, while his ribs and back throbbed, and tiny specks of grit stuck to the sides of his grazed hands. Blood continued to stream down the side of his face. Still in shock, and in extreme pain, he put his hands out flat on the hard wet concrete and pushed himself up onto his knees, and then falteringly to his feet.

      Leaning against a wall, he felt for his handkerchief, his raw hands stinging as they met the edges of his pockets. Holding it out to the rain, he dabbed at his eyes as they swelled further with each passing moment. He groaned with a humiliation keener than the pain. He’d been literally fleeced by four youths, probably nearly half his age, and left sprawled out on a rain-soaked roadside. What had he been to them? Nothing. Just something to rob, a walking cash opportunity.

      He made it home staggering, although he was nearly run over as he crossed the road to his own street. A car turned a corner and he never saw it, never even heard it. The attack had dulled all his senses. At his front door, he pressed the buzzer; his own keys had been in his bag.

      ‘Tiff, it’s me. Can you let me in?’ His voice felt strange, not his own, as though his tongue had been stung repeatedly.

      ‘Oh my God, Flin, what happened?’ cried Tiffany as she opened the door. His jacket was torn, and, soaked, bloodied and squinting, he was barely able to stand.

      ‘Mugged,’ he stammered, ‘punched. I think they broke my nose. Oh, Tiff, it was horrible. So frightening.’

      Tiffany grabbed his arm and led him to the bathroom. There she gently undressed him, washed his wounds and rinsed his eyes.

      ‘I’m going to take you to hospital,’ she told him. ‘You need someone to look at you.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ said Flin. But he knew he wasn’t. He gently massaged his neck, unable to forget the sensation of a knife-point digging into him. His body began to shake all over, uncontrollably, as Tiffany dabbed at his wounded face. She insisted they go to Casualty, and Flin felt unable to resist. So, an hour later, he sat in a hospital cubicle, exposed and humiliated for the second time that night, as a doctor began to stitch up his broken face.

      ‘You’ll be fine,’ the doctor told him matter-of-factly. ‘Wear dark glasses for a couple of days and you should soon be OK. The swelling will go down and, although it might hurt for a bit, I think your nose will look its old self soon enough.’

      Flin also had a broken rib, although there was nothing to be done about that. He would just have to be patient, not exert himself and wait for it to mend.

      He said nothing as Tiffany drove him back to their tiny flat, just gazed distractedly out of the window. He wanted to be in bed, safe and warm, holding his beloved Tiffany, far away from a world of dark menace and violence.

      

      As the doctor predicted, Flin made a swift physical recovery. His side was sore for quite some time, but after watching his face turn a myriad of different colours, the swelling and bruising gradually diminished. After a couple of weeks, only a scar across the bridge of his nose remained as physical evidence of his attack. But his confidence in London as a fun and vibrant place to live altered dramatically. The plan to move out suddenly returned as an urgent priority.

      ‘Do you mind, Tiff?’ asked Flin as they drove off for another weekend in the country. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t stay here now. Those youths were obviously sent to give me a kick up the arse. Must have been. You know, Tiff, I don’t want to live in this kind of world any more. I don’t want to feel crowded, obsessed with work, and constantly worn down by the stress of living in a city of eleven million people. I just want to be with you, on our own in some rural haven. I want to live in a place where we can shut everything else out if we want, batten down the hatches and create our own little existence untroubled by modern life. The real world’s too dark, too sinister. I don’t want our kids growing up in a place where they could be set upon at any moment. They should have open fields to run about in, and woods for making dens, where they’re not threatened by a constant stream of cars and lorries hurtling past them. And nor do I want

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