There will be no school tomorrow, I promised her, if you give those stones to me.
Pearls, she said, they are pearls.
Pearls, I repeated, and managed to slide them from her wrist.
And there was no school, next morning. The computers were down, the electricity intermittent. The net had slowed to something less than a crawl. Maybe anything other than the most basic forms of communication were suspect. The riots had spread on the web and were multiplying, like a self-nurturing virus. We couldn’t print our boarding passes for the plane, and so drove into the city, taking Jenny with us. I had packed most of her things, and locked her violin under the full weight of her clothes. And there was a different kind of heat in the slow movement of traffic, something sultry in it, with a bank of cloud above the buildings that seemed as if it was waiting to burst.
London will be better, Sarah said from the back seat. Myrtle Drive, Wimbledon, and Granny Tilda.
Do I have to leave all of my friends? Jenny asked.
Only the imaginary ones, Sarah said.
That’s almost funny, I told her, and caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.
Why is it funny? Jenny asked.
Because, Sarah said. Just because.
Because I have no other kind, Jenny said, and Sarah’s thin smile vanished in the mirror.
Oh God, she said. Play some music. Some bad rock and roll.
So I found a station on the radio that played the kind of out-of-date rock they favoured there. Some strange time zone just after punk, around when the Wall fell. Milli Vanilli, the Fine Young Cannibals, Spandau Ballet, promising a future that seemed more past than the unmentionable baroque of Johann Sebastian Bach.
There were soldiers at street corners in full riot gear and I wondered what government departments could afford those knee-pads of Velcro, those stun grenades, those Heckler & Koch machine guns, those Kevlar vests.
I had the pearls in my pocket and played with them as I drove, like worry beads. And my main worry was that she would mention them to Sarah. But with that impeccable instinct of hers, all she talked of was the trip ahead of her.
I’ve been in planes before, she said, brightly.
Yes, said Sarah. Many times.
And we’re going in a plane now because—
She held up her fingers, as if she was about to count the reasons.
Because of the trouble, darling, Sarah said. Because some things aren’t safe here.
Because of my imaginary friends, she said.
Because your grandmother wants to see you.
Granny Tilda. Who lives in Myrtle Drive. In the house with the monkey-puzzle tree.
You remember it?
I remember the tree.
The bridge was blocked to traffic, so I parked the car on the east side. I looked back at the building behind me and saw a slash of yellow in the upper window. So I knew Gertrude was awake, probably drinking her wheatgrass smoothie. I walked them both across the bridge then, and Jenny held my hand tight, as if she was afraid to let go. There was a scattering of rubbish on the bridge: broken glass, a twisted bicycle tyre, and the remains of what looked like gas canisters. But some things never changed. Groups of forlorn tourists took pictures of themselves with the river as a backdrop, and I noticed police barges, churning up the brown water. On the other side, the traffic was flowing and the streets seemed to have assumed some semblance of normality.
I led them towards the half-finished mall that housed the travel agent’s and told them I would meet them by the corner there, in one hour’s time.
Come with us, Jenny said.
He can’t, darling. He has an office to close up.
You have a meeting, Daddy, Jenny said brightly.
Yes, I told her. I have a meeting.
Then Jenny suddenly, and unaccountably, smiled.
What’s so funny? I asked.
Look, Mummy.
Daddy’s trousers.
I was standing on a grating. There was a hot wind, blowing upwards from it, making balloons of my trouser-legs. I thought of the giant blow-dryer of the river god and stepped backwards, as if burnt.
An hour, said Sarah.
Don’t be late.