‘What’s this drink called again?’ I said. ‘A daktari?’
‘A daiquiri. Strawberry daiquiri,’ said Monica rolling the icy glass across her forehead.
Earlier in the day I’d bought a blender from a stall in the market for three quid – the guy let me have it cheap because he couldn’t guarantee it would work. I picked up a bottle of rum and an assortment of fruit and when Monica came over we mixed up a jugful of cocktails with crushed ice and lots of strawberries. Monica did the mixing and I cleared up the mess – there was a lot of mess.
The drinks gleamed pinkly in the bright sun. The sky was as blue and still as paint in a pot. Monica was wearing her favourite T-shirt. We were sitting against the low wall of the roof and listening to ‘Sketches of Spain’.
‘Nice?’ asked Monica.
‘It’s giving me a throbbing pain behind my left eye like ice-cream used to when I was a kid. I love it.’ I upended my glass, poured another for myself and topped up Monica’s. We were both wearing the same cheap sunglasses. Monica took off her plimsolls.
‘Sorry, I bet my feet stink.’ She bent forward, grasped a foot with both hands, pulled it easily towards her nose and sniffed. ‘Oh, that’s not so bad,’ she said, rocking backwards slightly. I saw the muscles in her legs straining faintly until she released her foot. It was a supple gesture.
I read a few lines of my book but even with sunglasses the glare of the pages was too bright. The trumpet dissolved in the air.
‘Given a completely free choice,’ I said after we had smoked a small grass joint. ‘What event would you most like to see enacted in the sky in the next half hour?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think.’
‘You suggest things to me and I’ll pick one,’ Monica said.
‘OK. Wait a second. OK: An airliner, a 747, exploding in mid-air and sending a shower of wreckage and people all over Stockwell while leaving Brixton completely untouched.’
‘No.’
‘No problem. What about a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt 109 from a nearby air display staging a mock dogfight directly overhead, climaxing with the German pilot bailing out of his damaged plane and eventually landing here on this roof where we torment him with pitchforks until the arrival of the home guard?’
Monica shook her head.
‘I can see you’re after something really spectacular. A fleet of Flying Fortresses flying overhead in dense formation to execute a daring daylight raid on industrial targets in the Rühr Valley.’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Oh come on . . . What’s wrong with you? That would bring a shiver to anyone’s spine. OK. See that air balloon over there advertising Goodyear tyres? What about that exploding in a ball of flame and then slowly floating in tatters to earth while a dense cloud of black . . .’
‘Nope.’
‘How about me making a spectacular escape from this roof by a rope-ladder dangled from a helicopter which hovered dangerously close to the TV aerials?’
Monica yawned.
‘Come on then. Think of one of your own.’
‘OK.’ Monica thought for a moment. She had a slight smile on her face like someone doing a jigsaw who sees the puzzle is complete but still holds one more piece, uncertainly, in her hand. After a while her smile broadened.
‘I know what I’d like to see,’ she said. ‘A rare and beautiful bird – a heron, a flamingo or a golden eagle – gliding overhead on warm thermals, dawdling, circling the roof on its long and lonely flight south.’