‘And where would you have me go, pray tell? My unit has been turned into some kind of electronic fraud investigation agency and I have been put out to pasture, sent off to the knacker’s yard to await execution.’
‘There’s no need to talk like that. What about your guided walking tours? I thought you were going to introduce a new one.’
‘I was planning to cover London’s forgotten burial grounds in a walk entitled “Whose Head Are You Standing On?,” but the response was so abysmal that I decided not to bother. You’d think people would be interested in what they’re walking over, but no, they’re too busy messing about on the interweb, indulging their infantile preoccupation with bosoms by perusing photographs of actresses falling out of nightclubs.’
‘Well, you could still go for a walk. I’ll get your hat and coat; just a half hour will do you the world of good.’
‘I am not creeping about Primrose Hill in the pouring rain, peering into shop windows and frightening small children. Or am I supposed to take myself off to the pictures and sit through some appalling Hollywood adventure about people who can turn themselves into giant ants?’
‘I just think a change of scenery—’
‘What are you up to?’ asked Bryant suspiciously. ‘And what have you got in your pocket? Not that one, the other one. Come on, I can see a letter poking out.’
‘You don’t want to hear about this right now,’ said Alma, suddenly solicitous. ‘It can wait until later.’
Bryant attempted to lever himself out of his cracked leather armchair, but had trouble getting upright. Since the PCU closed down and he had nothing to do anymore, he seemed to be ageing with undignified celerity. In the last few days he had even taken to staying in bed mornings, and Alma could do nothing to make him get up. She had heard of people who simply lost the will to live, and was beginning to fear for him. Mr Bryant had no faith with which to protect himself.
‘I’m not a child, Alma. If it’s bad news I might as well have it now. Come on, hand it over.’
‘I don’t know why you should want to read this particular letter,’ she huffed. ‘Look at that great pile of mail sitting over there. You haven’t opened anything in weeks. If I hadn’t fished out the electricity bill and paid it, you’d be sitting in complete darkness right now.’
‘Just give it to me.’
She knew he would worry at her until he had discovered the truth. Reluctantly, she pulled out the letter and passed it to him. ‘You won’t like it,’ she warned. ‘We’re going to be made homeless.’
Bryant extracted a pair of smeary reading glasses and found himself looking at a compulsory purchase order for their house. ‘Public meeting?’ he exclaimed. ‘What public meeting?’
‘It was last night, at the town hall. The letter only arrived this morning.’
‘The law says there has to be a notice posted on a public highway for at least a month. I didn’t see one.’
‘They stuck it on a section of pavement that’s been closed to pedestrians,’ Alma explained. ‘Nobody saw it. Besides, you haven’t been out the front door.’
‘Why, this is absurd.’ He read on. ‘New retail development, adequate compensation at market rates, a lot of old blather about shops and offices. Property developers, a bunch of sleazy sybarites with the morals of praying mantises—how dare they try to sell the ground from right under our feet?’
‘You put the property in my name, remember, so it’s my responsibility to sort it out. You’ll help me fight it, won’t you?’ Alma’s determined tone was a call to action, but the brief flare of energy was already fading from Bryant’s eyes.
‘Oh, I can try, but frankly what’s the use,’ he said, lowering himself back into his chair with a grimace. ‘First the unit, and now our home. Nowhere to go and nothing to live for. I’ve not got the energy to fight anymore. Let them do their worst. I’m sure they can find us a flat you hate just as much as this place.’
Alma had never expected to find herself living in a semi-derelict toothbrush factory at her time in life. The tumbledown building gave the rest of the neighbourhood a bad name. Last weekend several slates had come loose in high winds, and an upper corner of Alma’s bedroom now boasted a water feature, but neither she nor Bryant was in any fit state to get up a ladder and repair the damage. Perhaps a modern flat with easy access would be better after all.
With the ironing balanced in one broad hand, she took stock of her old friend. He looked smaller somehow, as if he had started shrinking on the day the unit closed down. His world was diminishing, too. She wanted to take his hand and softly stroke it, to tell him that everything would be all right, but found herself wondering if he had reached that part of his life beyond which there was no going back. Bryant had always been a noisy fidget, pulling down books, setting up experiments, fiddling and whistling and interfering with things that didn’t concern him, but this new placidity was the most disturbing change of all.