He lowered it down to her. She had to jump to take it from him. “Now,” she whispered. “Come on.” He edged nervously forward, climbed over the edge, hung for a moment, then let go. He landed on his hands and feet in soft, wet mud. He wiped the mud off his hands onto his sweater. A few feet forward, and Anaesthesia was opening another door. They went through it, and she pulled it closed behind them. “We can talk now,” she said. “Not loud. But we can. If you want to.”
“Oh. Thanks,” said Richard. He couldn’t think of anything to say. “So. Um. You’re a rat, are you?” he said.
She giggled, like a Japanese girl, covering her hand with her face as she laughed. Then she shook her head, and said, “I should be so lucky. I wish. No, I’m a rat-speaker. We talk to rats.”
“What, just chat to them?”
“Oh no. We do stuff for them. I mean,” and her tone of voice implied that this was something that might never have occurred to Richard unassisted, “there are some things rats can’t do, you know. I mean, not having fingers, and thumbs, an’ things. Hang on—” She pressed him against the wall, suddenly, and clamped a filthy hand over his mouth. Then she blew out the candle.
Nothing happened.
Then he heard distant voices. They waited, in the darkness and the cold. Richard shivered.
People walked past them, talking in low tones. When all sounds had died away, Anaesthesia took her hand from Richard’s mouth, relit the candle, and they walked on. “Who were they?” asked Richard.
She shrugged. “It dun’t matter,” she said.
“Then what makes you think that they wouldn’t have been pleased to see us?”
She looked at him rather sadly, like a mother trying to explain to an infant that, yes this flame was hot, too. All flames were hot. Trust her, please. “Come on,” she said. “I know a shortcut. We can nip through London Above for a bit.” They went up some stone steps, and the girl pushed open a door. They stepped through, and the door shut behind them.
Richard looked around, puzzled. They were standing on the Embankment, the miles-long walkway that the Victorians had built along the north shore of the Thames, covering the drainage system and the newly created District Line of the Underground, and replacing the stinking mudflats that had festered along the banks of the Thames for the previous five hundred years. It was still night—or perhaps it was night once more. He was unsure how long they had been walking through the underplaces and the dark.
There was no moon, but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too, and lights on buildings and on bridges, which looked like earthbound stars, and they glimmered, repeated, as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the Thames. It’s fairyland, thought Richard.
Anaesthesia blew out her candle. And Richard said, “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“Yes,” she said. “Pretty sure.”
They were approaching a wooden bench, and the moment he set eyes on it, it seemed to Richard that that bench was one of the most desirable objects he had ever seen. “Can we sit down?” he asked. “Just for a minute.”
She shrugged. They sat down at opposite ends of the bench. “On Friday,” said Richard, “I was with one of the finest investment analyst firms in London.”
“What’s a investment an’ a thing?”
“It was my job.”
She nodded, satisfied. “Right. And . . . ?”
“Just reminding myself, really. Yesterday . . . it was like I didn’t exist anymore, to anybody up here.”
“That’s ‘cos you don’t,” explained Anaesthesia. A late-night couple, who had been slowly walking along the Embankment toward them, holding hands, sat down in the middle of the bench, between Richard and Anaesthesia, and commenced to kiss each other, passionately. “Excuse me,” said Richard to them. The man had his hand inside the woman’s sweater and was moving it around enthusiastically, a lone traveler discovering an unexplored continent. “I want my life back,” Richard told the couple.
“I love you,” said the man to the woman.
“But your wife—” she said, licking the side of his face.
“Fuck her,” said the man.
“Don’ wanna fuck her,” said the woman, and she giggled, drunkenly. “Wanna fuck you . . . ” She put a hand on his crotch and giggled some more.
“Come on,” said Richard to Anaesthesia, feeling that the bench had started to become a less desirable neighborhood. They got up and walked away. Anaesthesia peered back, curiously, at the couple on the bench, who were gradually becoming more horizontal.