When Dan and Jemma arrived in Los Angeles it was raining. Not drizzling, or even pouring, but streaming down outside the glass doors of the arrivals lounge in thick, grey sideways slices. Water sluiced along the airport roads, tumbling in the gutters, spinning in the wheels of the taxis that splashed up to collect the lucky people at the head of the queue. ‘Blimey,’ they said, almost in unison, and Dan put his hand up to his mouth and laughed.
‘I’m cold,’ Honey shivered in her T-shirt, and Dan knelt down to rifle through their bulging bags, removing as he did so, numerous insubstantial outfits which they’d packed with the expectation of the six of them lifted out of a grey London winter into an endless bright blue Californian afternoon.
Dan and Jemma had rented a house in the hills. The house had been recommended by a friend of Dan’s, although at the last minute his wife had interjected: ‘They can’t stay up there! They’ve got to be by the ocean. In Santa Monica.’
‘But Santa Monica’s extortionate, and you don’t even get a pool,’ Dan’s friend told her, ‘and what’s the point of LA if there’s no pool?’
Jemma and Dan had listened nervously. They’d already said yes to the house in the hills, paid their deposit, filled in numerous forms for the insurance, the gas, the electrics and the telephone, and so neither of them mentioned Santa Monica or the ocean again. Instead, they talked about the pool. ‘The pool, the pool,’ they repeated like a charm, and Honey and Ben tugged on their swimming costumes, blew up their armbands, and ran shrieking up and down the draughty, carpeted stairs of their north London home.
The higher they drove the more heavily it rained. It clattered on the roof of the taxi and washed in sheets over the windscreen, and when the driver stopped to call the number that they gave him for directions they could see the water rushing downhill over the cobbled streets. ‘Got it, got it,’ he assured their landlord, who was waiting with the key, but then almost immediately they’d become lost again, roaring up and down the narrow roads, catching glimpses of lit-up Spanish villas and rain-soaked ferns and the same few street names over and over again.
By the time they finally found the house, in a tiny cul-de-sac obscured by darkness and a large half-fallen bush, Ben and the twins were asleep, although Honey was still up, staring out intently at the night. ‘Careful,’ the driver warned as Dan stepped into a foot of gushing water, and the landlord opened the yard door and stood watching them from underneath a white umbrella as they struggled with their luggage and the warm weights of their children, unloading them into the chilled hush of the hall.
It had been Jemma’s idea to come. ‘Dan!’ he’d heard her calling from the bathroom, and although she hated it when the children shouted to her from the top of the house, she was doing it herself now.
Slowly Dan walked upstairs and put his head round the door. ‘What is it?’ He waited. She was lying stretched out in the bath, her face flushed, her hair a straggle of damp curls, her breasts blue-veined and swollen from feeding the twins. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking. We could rent this house out, say for six months, put all our things in storage, and then before the children get too big, we could go to America and give it a chance. While your series is still on.’
Dan sat down on the toilet seat. ‘Are you serious? With four kids?’
‘Why not? We could get good money for this house, and we could use that money to rent somewhere out there.’
Dan looked at his feet. ‘I suppose, in theory, we could.’
Jemma was busy calculating. ‘I’ll phone the estate agent first thing on Monday and see what they say. And we could look into the right time to go. If there’s a good time, a good season . . .’
‘I don’t think they have seasons.’
‘Don’t they have pilot season?’
‘Well, yes . . .’
Honey was shouting from the kitchen. A door slammed and Ben gave an almighty scream. Dan imagined fingers caught in the hinges, small creased digits sliced right off. He flew down the stairs. ‘What are you doing?’ Honey and Ben looked round at him. They’d climbed on to the worktop to get at some biscuits and for a second they froze. ‘No,’ he snatched the biscuits away. ‘It’s lunch soon,’ he told them, and then thinking that actually, with Jemma still in the bath and the babies sleeping, lunch may not be for at least an hour, he peeled back the shiny plastic wrapping and gave them a biscuit each.
‘Just one,’ he said, to impress on them this new unshakeable rule.
‘Oh please, just two,’ Honey made her eyes as round as coins, and giving up any pretence he was in charge Dan slid out two more and shoved them into their hot hands.
‘Dan!’ Jemma was shouting to him again and he ran back upstairs. ‘What?’
‘Shall we do it?’ Her eyes were bright.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’ she challenged, and instead of telling her why not – so that he could blame her for ever for holding him back, for having four children when he only needed one, for making it impossible to realise his dreams when they all relied on him, all five of them, to be at home, he changed the inflection and shrugged. ‘Why not?’
They looked at each other and Dan attempted a smile. ‘I mean, the worst thing that can happen is they hate me, and then we can come home.’
‘Well, not if we’ve rented the house.’
‘True.’ He bit his lip. ‘Well, they’ll just have to love me.’
‘They do love you. Of course they love you. Didn’t Finola say the show was getting great reviews?’ and showering him with tiny flicks of water she levered herself out.
The house was immaculately furnished, with fragile lamps and highly polished surfaces, and although it had a den, a dressing room and a study, it seemed to only have one bedroom. ‘But it does have a pool,’ Jemma said brightly, and they pressed their noses against the black panes of glass and stared out into its choppy, rectangular depth.
All night it rained. Dan could hear it crashing against the glass windows of their cold white room while Lola and Grace kicked and snuffled in the bed between them and Ben and Honey shifted uneasily on lilos that they’d laid down in the dressing room next door. At three Grace woke and began to gurgle happily as if it were late morning, which of course it was, for her, and Dan turned on his side and pretended to be oblivious. Jemma fed her and shushed her and even pleaded a little with her to be quiet and then, when Lola woke, she sighed, got up and took them both away. Not long after, he heard Ben begging to be allowed to go in the pool, and then Honey screaming that she was mean, mean, mean for not letting them even try it. ‘It’s dark,’ Jemma protested, remarkably cheerfully, and some time later, although it was still dark, he heard the garden door creak open and the sounds of the three of them, Jemma, Honey and Ben, squealing as they ran out into the rain to dip their feet into the water. ‘It’s freezing!’ Honey complained. ‘You said it would be warm!’ And he heard the slam of the door as they hurtled back in. Eventually, when he really was asleep, Jemma slid in beside him. Her body was chilled and she pressed herself against his back for warmth. ‘The twins are having a nap and the others are watching Sponge Bob,’ she whispered, and Dan tried to remember where he was. Oh God, it all came back to him, what if they don’t like me? What if I can’t get a single audition, let alone a job, and then by the time I get back to London they’ve all forgotten who I am? He felt so sick and weary that when the first baby woke, forty minutes later, Jemma had to kick him in the shins to rouse him.
But once Dan was in the kitchen with Grace under one arm, he was cheered by the sheer Americanness of everything. The size of the fridge, inside which was a two-litre carton of fresh orange juice and a giant bag of bagels, the size of the cooker with its industrial grey hob, and the width of the wide-screen television before which his children sat like puppies, their eyes round, their mouths open. He peered out at the pool. It filled every available space of garden and could be reached from French doors in the den. Once it stops raining, Dan told himself, I’ll swim in that pool every day, one hundred lengths, until my body is hard and lean and irresistible.
But it didn’t stop raining. ‘Is this normal?’ they asked the landlord, who appeared shortly after nine to tell them how to work the washing machine and the dryer, how to sweep out the gas-fuelled log fire and adjust the temperature in the pool when – if ever – that became applicable.
‘Not normal at all.’ He shook his head and he flicked on the television news to show them how some of the neighbouring houses, clinging to the hill by steps and stilts, were beginning to slide down the mountain. ‘Four people already lost their lives,’ he said. ‘And this rain still ain’t letting up.’
He lent them his umbrella and offered to drive Dan to a car-hire centre.
‘I won’t be long.’ Dan turned to Jemma, who’d been mentioning since seven that it would be great to get out, somewhere, anywhere, for breakfast, or lunch, or whatever meal they were on now.
‘Dan . . .’ she hissed, widening her eyes at him, but he pretended not to notice and quickly turned away. ‘I’ll be half an hour at the most.’
The car-hire centre was clean and spacious. There were gleaming saloons and magnificent four-by-fours. ‘I need a family car, with two baby seats, and a booster seat . . . and . . . Do I get a discount if I take it for . . .’ he swallowed, ‘six months?’
‘You sure do.’ The man smiled at him, his teeth were so highly polished they were translucent. And by the time he’d chosen and filled in all the forms the car salesman, whose name was Duane, wished him not just a Nice Day, but a Fantastic Day, with such genuine enthusiasm that Dan felt quite uplifted. Once behind the wheel, he couldn’t resist it, he took the car for a quick spin, and then finding himself driving past a supermarket he decided to stop and buy provisions. The supermarket was enormous, a whole aisle for sliced cheese, and after filling his basket with fruit and vegetables he became distracted by the hardware section where he bought cheap raincoats, a pack of cards and a bumper bag of teething rings for the twins. Then on the way back he forgot the street sign was hidden by the fallen bush and drove fast past it at least five times. When he finally arrived home it was after twelve.
‘How is everyone?’ He rushed in through the rain, shaking himself and stamping in the hall.
Jemma’s face was stony. ‘Fine.’ She handed over Lola and slammed out of the room.
‘What’s up with Mummy?’ he asked in a conspiratorial way, and Honey hung her head and said Mummy was cross because she’d taken Lola into the garden. ‘I only dipped her feet in the pool up to her toes. I wanted to see if she’d like it.’
‘And did she like it?’ Dan laid the baby along the length of his knees and kissed the dense pads of her feet in their stripy skin-tight socks.
‘Not really. I think it’s too cold for her. She screamed and screamed and cried.’
‘Right.’ Jemma was back, with Grace in a cagoule. She looked as if she’d been crying too. ‘Let’s go. We need to get out of this house. Now.’
‘For God’s sake.’ Jemma frowned when she saw the car. A great black seven-seater SUV that all four children had to be lifted into.
Dan raised his hands to show the decision had been beyond him. ‘It’s all they had,’ he told her. ‘And if it goes on raining we’ll need something powerful to get up and down this goddamn hill . . .’
‘Sure, sure . . .’ Jemma threw him a disbelieving look and climbed into the front.
‘Honestly.’
The inside of the car smelt so new, so sleek and shiny that it made Dan smile. The windscreen wipers whipped back and forth, the lights on the dashboard twinkled. ‘Hang on,’ he said and he ran back into the house and returned with a CD which he slipped into the player. Green Day swelled and roared above the weather. The children squealed and even Jemma couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Where to?’ he asked, as if everything, from now on, were up to her.
‘Let’s drive around and find somewhere nice to eat.’
There was a map in the glove compartment and Jemma stretched it over her lap. ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ she read.
‘Really?’ Dan peered out.
‘No. I just had to say it.’ She took a breath. ‘Venice Beach.’
‘You’re confusing me.’ Dan sped through a junction.
‘Beverly Hills. West Hollywood.’
‘Look, we’re on Santa Monica Boulevard.’ Dan pointed. ‘Shall I keep going?’
Jemma stared at the map. ‘It leads right to the sea. That would be fun. What do you think, kids? The ocean!’
An hour later they were still on Santa Monica Boulevard. The traffic stopped and started, grinding slowly forward in the rain. Dan kept his eyes open for a restaurant. Burger bars and fast-food chains lined the deserted streets. ‘I thought everyone was meant to be so healthy out here.’ Jemma squinted.
‘Not everyone. Just Brad Pitt. Everyone else is fat as fuck.’
‘Daddy!’
‘Fat as a duck, I said.’
‘How about there?’ Jemma pointed, but it wasn’t a restaurant at all, just an antique shop with a table laid for supper, rosebud crockery and a bowl of glass grapes. They drove on, the windscreen wipers working powerfully, Green Day playing over again.
The children were unusually quiet, stunned by the time change, the rain and the music. ‘If we don’t stop soon, they’ll go to sleep,’ Jemma worried. ‘And we’ll all be up again tomorrow at three a.m. Or some of us will.’
Dan turned off Santa Monica Boulevard and sped along smaller streets, crossing junctions and searching left and right until with a screech of brakes he pulled up at a sign for pizza.
But it was too late. All four were fast asleep. Dan and Jemma looked over at their children. Honey with her halo of gold curls, her black lashes lying like a fan against her skin, Ben, his thick mouse tufts unbrushed for several days, one ear bright red where it had folded back against the seat, and the twins in their own row, still bald, their faces unformed, a silver line of dribble hanging from each chin.
‘Shall we go back to the house?’ Dan said quietly. ‘I bought some food. We could make lunch there and then wake them up.’
They glanced at the pizza restaurant. A row of men in beige security uniforms sat at the window on stainless steel stools. ‘Or not wake them?’
Jemma slid her hand on to his knee. ‘Or not immediately. We could recline these seats and have a quick sleep first.’
‘Mmm, lovely.’ And more slowly, with the music lower, they drove home.
It was a week before Dan had his first casting. His American manager, Finola, called to say that things were Great. They were going Really Well. A lot of people had seen his series on BBC America – a dark and chilly drama about police corruption at the highest level – and she’d been sending out his show reel, talking him up, and now, finally, he had a meeting with a casting woman from CBS. ‘But how are you managing?’ she asked, concerned, ‘with your little ones, and all this rain?’
‘Fine, fine,’ Dan told her. ‘We’re used to it.’
But it wasn’t true.
‘What’s the point of this place if it isn’t sunny?’ Jemma shook her head, and Dan overheard her telling Grace, ‘If it rains one more day, we’re going home.’ He didn’t ask her how she planned to break the news to the Dutch osteopath and his family who’d rented their house for half a year, or to Finola, who swore she was working round the clock to get him seen. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fucking pool. The children never let up for a moment, whining and pleading to be allowed to swim.’
‘Just let them then,’ Dan muttered, but he had to agree that it was freezing, the surface of the water awash with debris, palm fronds and the dried brown tendrils of a plant that looked like spiders.
The day of the casting Dan woke early. At first he imagined it must be nerves, but then he realised that it was silence that had woken him. The downpour had stopped and the window was filled with a thick grey rainless light. Miraculously, the children were still sleeping, Grace and Lola in newly assembled cots at the end of their bed, the others in the room next door. Very carefully, he tiptoed into the kitchen. He took a breath. It was the first time in a week, the first time since the car-hire centre, that he’d been alone. He opened the French doors and stepped out into the garden. The air smelled good. Musty and foreign. He knelt down and dipped his fingers in the pool. The water was still cold, but hopeful and intoxicating and above him hung one tall palm, its leaves a far-off flower.
Dan was startled by a shriek. ‘We’re going in!’ There were Ben and Honey, tugging off their pyjamas, screaming and hopping with joy.
‘Hang on, you two, it’s only 6.45!’ But Dan didn’t have the heart to stop them.
‘Don’t move,’ he said instead and he ran in and grabbed Ben’s armbands, unpacked and waiting since the first day. As fast as he could he blew them up. Honey was in first. ‘It’s not cold!’ she said defiantly, although her teeth were chattering. Ben screamed as he jumped, and then screamed louder and longer as he hit the water. ‘It’s not cold either,’ he promised once he’d recovered from the shock. Dan pulled a chair outside and watched them, ducking and fighting and flicking water at each other until their lips were blue.
Jemma made porridge, although like everything, it tasted different – finer, softer, further removed from the original oat. Her face was creased and heavy with a rare night of unbroken sleep. ‘I think we’re over the worst,’ she rubbed the children’s towelled bodies to bring back blood and she smiled hopefully at Dan.
After breakfast Dan tried on his suit. Did men wear suits in California? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t help admire himself in the charcoal cut of it. He moved back and forth before the mirror, sucking in his cheekbones, sticking out his chest, checking the imperfect creases of his trousers. ‘No hands! No hands!’ he warded off the children as they rushed towards him, and he heard Jemma cluck disapprovingly.
‘I thought the meeting wasn’t till 12.’
‘Yes. But I need to find it first. It’s somewhere in West Hollywood and I thought I’d go for a coffee before . . . get my bearings. Take stock.’
Jemma handed him a muslin and then Lola, both of which he took reluctantly. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get a shower.’
As soon as she was back she dressed the children and then began to pack a bag. Rice cakes, water, tangerines, bananas.
‘Where are you going?’ Dan asked, holding both twins now, hardly daring to take his eye from them in case they threw up, one over each shoulder.
‘I thought we’d come with you. We can find a Starbucks or something and wait.’
Dan was appalled. ‘No . . . really.’ He imagined running from the flock of his children, scattering rice cakes and baby milk, muslins and frappuccino, arriving red-faced and dishevelled at the marble steps of CBS.
‘We can’t stay here all day.’ Jemma didn’t meet his eye. She didn’t want an argument and they both knew she’d waver if she saw the fury in his face.
‘Jem, it’s why we came. For me to get work! It’s what we decided.’
‘I know. I know.’ She bustled at the sink, putting the porridge pan on to soak, wiping down the surfaces. ‘But I can’t spend another day in this house . . .’ she swallowed. ‘No school. No nursery.’
Dan put both girls on the floor, where they sometimes could and sometimes couldn’t stay upright on their own. Grace sat for a second and then fell forward, her face squashing into a rubber mat. ‘Sweetheart.’ He took hold of Jemma’s shoulders. ‘I won’t be gone all day. It’s stopped raining now. You can take them for a walk or something.’
‘Dan,’ she looked at him and her face was white. ‘What’s more important to you? An episode of Entourage or finding your wife and children lying at the bottom of that pool?’
‘For God’s sake! The drama! Why did you give up acting again?’ and he picked up Grace, who had found an ancient Oreo and was forcing it into her mouth.
‘Because I was thrown out of drama school. Remember?’ Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘And in case you’ve forgotten they kept you on for one more year, to try and convince you you were gay.’
Grace spat the Oreo out down the front of Dan’s suit. ‘Bugger!’ He put her down again and she began to cry. He wet the muslin and began to dab at the cloth, and then, accepting defeat, he walked into the den and shouted at the others to switch off Cartoon Network, NOW, and get into the car.
The Starbucks on Wilshire was huge. Dan sat in an armchair, the stain still visible on his left lapel, and read the International Guardian while Jemma slumped on a sofa, eating a biscotti, and breastfeeding Grace, who had a scattering of crumbs over her ear. The children ran riot at the other end, climbing on to and then jumping off a horseshoe of chairs which were luckily deserted. Occasionally Dan looked up from his paper to check that the staff weren’t calling the LAPD for reinforcements, but the noise was conveniently drowned out by the sound of the cappuccino machine whirring and buzzing for the line of takeaway orders. How did this happen? he thought to himself, but it was hard not to smile.
‘Right.’ It was 11.30. ‘I’ll be off.’
‘See you back here then,’ Jemma looked up at him. ‘Give me a call when you’re on your way. And sweetheart . . .’
He waited.
‘Good luck.’
Dan walked twice round the block to shake all thoughts of his family off. Was it possible to be a great actor, and still be loyal to your wife? He searched round for examples and couldn’t think of any. And then, to his relief, he remembered that Paul Newman had been married to Joanne Woodward for almost fifty years. They had three daughters and lived on a ranch in Connecticut where, as well as directing and starring in numerous films, he marketed his own brand of salad dressing and donated the proceeds to charity. And he’d still managed to win an Oscar. In celebration Dan walked round the block again. ‘Hey there! Great to meet you.’ He had five more minutes in which to practise his American accent. ‘Fantastic day.’ But when he finally came face to face with Pammy, the casting woman at CBS, he put out his hand and his greeting was as mild and British as an advert for Marmite. ‘So nice to meet you.’
‘And you,’ she told him. ‘Come. Sit down.’
Pammy had seen his show reel and was full of praise. ‘I really think we could use you out here,’ she nodded, and she began to outline for him a new series that was coming up. ‘How’s your American accent?’
‘Good. Pretty good.’ Dan knew if he had any guts he’d break into one right there and then. ‘I was in Streetcar. I played Stanley Kowalski . . . in Sheffield . . .’ he tailed off.
‘That’s just great!’ Pammy beamed. ‘So you’re out here with your family, I hear.’
‘Yes.’ Dan nodded. ‘My wife and . . . we’ve got four kids, Honey, who’s six, sweet as anything but a bit of a handful.’ He pulled out his phone and showed her a photo – Honey, fresh, from her swim, grinning into the camera, her face a dazzle of delight. ‘And Ben, who’s two . . .’ Just in time he noticed her eye flicker towards the clock. He slipped his phone away.
‘Well, I expect Finola explained this is a general meeting. As soon as there’s something more concrete we’ll have you right back in.’ She paused as if remembering something. ‘If only you’d been out here last month.’
‘Really?’
‘Well. Not to worry.’ Pammy was standing up, brightening. ‘We’ll see you again soon.’
‘All right. Bye then.’
‘Have a great day.’
‘And you. Have a . . .’ he coughed, ‘great day too.’
Dan stood out on the street. He took a deep breath and steadied himself, just for a minute. Maybe this is it, he thought, a lifetime of general meetings, one after another, and he imagined himself having endless great days, in his increasingly stained and filthy suit. Before calling Jemma he dialled Finola’s number.
‘How’d it go?’
‘Fine. Pretty good. She talked about something called Flamingos.’
‘Oh that.’ Finola sounded disappointed. ‘That’s not ever going to happen. And if it does it’s got Declan McCloud attached. But did she like you?’
‘Umm. She seemed to. Yes. It was great.’
‘Great!!!’ Finola sounded reassured. ‘Well, I’ll call you as soon as there’s more news.’
Dan walked slowly towards Starbucks. They could just about manage, he calculated, for three months, and then if nothing happened, they could always fly home, and . . . and stay with his mother in Epping. A car beeped and he spun round. He felt self-conscious, the only person walking, and he was sure that cars slowed a little to stare at him as they passed by. The day was warming up, the sun visible finally through the breaking clouds. I’ll make it work, he told himself. From now on I’ll swim a hundred lengths each morning and spend an hour a day with my language tapes working on my accent. And then behind him a car screeched to a stop. Dan’s heart leapt into his mouth. His knees turned weak. So this is it? Murdered at the end of my first week in LA, and he imagined the news stretching back to London, the shock, the laughter (he was walking!), the quiet satisfaction of a handful of actors whose work he always took. ‘Hey!’ There was a shout, and he imagined Jemma waiting for him with the children, still there at three in the morning when Starbucks forced her out. ‘Stop, you gotta stop!’ and rather than be shot in the back, Dan turned slowly round. A young man was striding towards him, unshaven, arms spread wide. ‘Hey,’ he was squinting. ‘It is you! It’s You.’ The boy looked almost tearful. ‘You’re the guy from Rainstorm. Doody. You was my inspiration, man, when I was a kid.’
What do you mean? Dan felt all fear receding, you’re still a kid? But he allowed the boy to clasp him by the shoulders. ‘That show. That meant the world to me. My Mom, she ran off too . . . and my Dad . . .’ For a moment he looked as if he might be going to cry, but he pulled back and looked Dan in the eye. ‘I thought it was you. I drove round the block and had to stop. Hey,’ he shouted towards the car in which sat a surly troupe of his friends. ‘It’s him. It’s Doody!’
‘Cool,’ one of them shouted. And someone beeped the horn.
‘They know nothing. They never saw it. Hey man . . . that scene when you broke into the house.’ He laughed, remembering. ‘They can’t understand. It was you that kept me going.’
‘Right,’ Dan made a vague gesture. ‘That’s great. I’m glad. I’d better be getting on. Take care of yourself. And . . . you know what, mate . . . thanks.’
‘It’s OK.’ He was still smiling, wide as his whole face. ‘What a day!’ And shaking his head he backed towards the car.
By the time Dan reached Starbucks Jemma was on the pavement, overseeing running races between Ben and Honey as if they were in a 1950s slice of black-and-white film.
‘How’d it go?’ she said.
‘You know what,’ he bent down to greet the twins who were strapped companionably into their double buggy, ‘I’ve no idea how it went. Apparently CBS can really use me. But the chances are I’ll never hear from them again.’
Just then Dan’s phone rang in his pocket. ‘Or maybe not.’ It was Finola and he grinned at Jemma, his spirits soaring as he clicked it on.
‘Hey listen, Pammy’s just called. Apparently you mentioned you had a real cute six-year-old daughter, well, they’re looking for a little British girl for the lead in this new thing, it’s a mixture between Running with Wolves, and you remember that Amish film? Well, she just thought . . . would Honey be available for a casting later today?’
‘Let me think . . .’ Dan swallowed. ‘Actually, Finola, I’ll have to get back to you about that. I’m just not sure. OK? I’ll call you back.’
‘What was that about?’ Jemma was looking at him.
‘Nothing.’ Dan began to laugh. ‘The land of opportunity and adventure, eh.’ He put his arm around her. ‘Right,’ he shouted to the children who were squatting, professional as sprinters, on the pavement. ‘Ready, steady, GO,’ and he watched them charge towards him, their feet pounding, their arms outstretched, each wanting to be the first to grasp at the charcoal lapels of his good suit.