LITMIR.BIZ

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like verges and roundabouts and plant stuff – bulbs, vegetables, even trees.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Reclaim the streets for nature, yo!’

      ‘Lizzy, I did not know that about you!’ I accused my friend. ‘You rebel.’ I’d known she was into the Green Party but hadn’t realised she’d taken things further.

      ‘I like to keep my secrets secret. It’s Drew, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yeah. Can I buy you a drink?’

      ‘We’re getting drinks in for our whole table, but thanks.’ Lizzy saw her chance. ‘Hey, can I order, please?’

      Her attention now on the bartender, I was left to make conversation with the guerrilla gardener. I gave him a quick study. Medium height, edgy looks, he might look a bit too alternative for most of the women in this posh bar. I couldn’t see him coming here as his first choice.

      ‘So, um, what brings you here? A couple of neglected hanging baskets that need filling on the sly?’

      He laughed. ‘No. I was abandoned by a disappointed date.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

      ‘Don’t be. It happens a lot. Once they reach the “what do you do?” part of the conversation, my profession puts a lot of people off.’

      Lizzy picked up the first three drinks. ‘Can you bring the rest over when they’re ready, Jessica?’

      I didn’t want to leave the conversation with Drew at this intriguing juncture. ‘Of course. No problem.’

      ‘Nice to see you again, Drew. Catch up another time, hey? I’d better get back to my friends,’ said Lizzy.

      His eyes followed her, another in the disappointed Lizzy fan club.

      ‘She doesn’t date much,’ I told him.

      ‘Oh.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘How do you know her?’

      ‘Not gardening club. Same street. Known her a few years now. We live really close, in and out of each other’s houses, you know the kind of thing: watering plants when we go away, feeding each other’s pets.’ Hauling the broken fragments of a friend to the bar to cheer her up. ‘But you can’t leave me guessing. What profession is it that sends your dates running for the hills? Paid assassin? No? Uh-oh, not a…’ I whispered as if it was a shameful secret, ‘… a tax collector?’

      ‘Undertaker.’ He wiped condensation off his Corona and lime. ‘Someone’s got to do it.’

      He wasn’t my idea of an undertaker, too young and wild for that with a range of piercings. I suspected tattoos up his sleeve. To find him doing something so unexpected ticked my boxes. ‘You don’t need to apologise. What are you called? Dead Guys R Us?’

      He snorted at my stupid joke, which was lovely.

      ‘No, Payne and Bullock, almost as bad. I’ll suggest yours to Dad as the new company motto.’

      ‘Frankly, Drew, your date was an idiot. You’re doing a necessary job. Interesting. All walks of life and so on.’ The bartender put the last of the drinks in front of me. ‘Not walking obviously – at least I hope not. I mean, corpses rising off the slab: cool in a horror flick, not cool in real life.’ Enough, Jessica. Don’t say any more. I glanced over my shoulder but Lizzy’s friends were happily chatting now I wasn’t there. ‘Um, so how did your family get into it?’

      His eyes sparkle. ‘There were all these dead bodies, see? And no one to bury them.’

      I was wondering now if I’d got him wrong about his gaze following Lizzy. Was his vibe a bit on the gay side? He certainly seemed at ease with me. ‘Ah, one of civilisation’s oldest problems.’

      My table waited a long while for their drinks. I only returned once I’d persuaded Drew to come with me. I’d assured him that the girls’ night rule only existed to be broken. And if later Lizzy happened to mention to Michael how well I’d got on with her guerrilla gardening friend, then that would be all to the good. I was hoping that Michael would be a tiny bit jealous as I feared we’d already entered the ‘I couldn’t care less what you do as long as you stop dragging me down’ phase in our relationship.

      So it’s to Drew’s house I am fleeing now. Watching for pursuit by Khan’s men on the mean streets of Clapham, I take the train to Feltham.

       Chapter 5

       Emma, 21st February 2011

      Michael took me to Venice for a surprise weekend to make up for the bad news. I love that man more and more each day. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him in my life just when I need him most. The doctor was expecting more progress. She thinks we should try a different treatment but I shudder at the prospect of yet more chemo. But there’s no choice really. It’s either that or give up now. The months ahead look grim, but I’ve got to keep believing I can beat this.

      Yet sometimes you can get one over on life, lick up a dollop of happiness before it slides from the cone. That was our little weekend break. I don’t know how Michael managed it during carnival – I’m imagining he offered all sorts of interesting and illegal sexual favours to the travel agent – but he booked us into a quiet hotel near the La Fenice opera house, which is the Italian for ‘phoenix’. The theatre, I was pleased to see, has risen again after burning to the ground some years back. Did they foresee its future when they named it, I wonder? I’m not a high-culture fan but I can appreciate history as long as you don’t make me sit through a performance. Me, I’m more likely to go to a Lady Gaga gig than Madam Butterfly.

      The hotel is on its own little canal which is not wide enough for much boat traffic. The water there is a strange slate blue, unexpectedly teeming with black fish right up to the front doorsteps. I wonder if people cast lines from their windows? I forgot to ask the hotelier. The walls have a weathered look, like stippled old-lady skin. I imagine that if anyone does repaint they are immediately instructed by the city authorities to mess up the finish so nothing stands out too strongly. The place is so crowded you get important buildings stuck down what in any other city would be back alleys. I loved the limp flags hanging from the official buildings, washed-out colours and little or no wind to make them flap. You get the sense that the whole of Venice is like that, just hanging and hoping nothing blows her away. The cruise ships have a good go, ugly white blocks dwarfing the city as they churn along the lagoon, the backwash doing plenty of damage. It’s like Manhattan trying to invade a medieval city – or one of those alien invasion films where a huge flying saucer drops out of space, reminding Earthlings how insignificant we are.

      Have you noticed how Hollywood sci-fi does superpower invasions with heroes who always end up in a punch-up despite having laser blasters, whereas the UK does Doctor Who and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Odd bloke in a telephone box and another hitching a lift in a dressing gown. I listened to Hitchhiker’s on perpetual loop as a teenager, my way of combating exam stress. Something about the bemused outrage of Arthur Dent before the absurdity of the universe just hit the spot for me. Still does. The alien constructor fleet destroys the Earth to make way for a bypass. That sums up the British sense of humour and I think is closer to the shitstorm that is the universe than Hollywood’s grandiose ideas that anyone could be bothered to invade us. Stuff just happens – a meteorite arrives and kickstarts life, then another takes out the dinosaurs, and maybe yet another will bring down the curtain on this human experiment we’re running not very successfully. It would help if I could take comfort from this big-picture perspective but it’s hard when it’s your life, your cancerous meteorite.

      Enough.

      But back to the cruise ships. If I were in charge of the city, my first directive would be to keep them well away – make the tourists transfer by smaller vessels. It’s not as if Venice is short of visitors. They are killing the thing they love.

      That’s

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