Transference of the soul

Chapter Two

IT WAS her, my hostess! She had written the dammed book. No wonder she was banging on about transference of the soul and all that bull.

Poking at the air towards the book my boss said, "Read it my boy. Tear it off a strip."

'I'd like to tear you off a strip', I thought, smiling and nodding and holding up the book as if it were a great discovery.

Then with a barely suppressed yawn, Hillary Conduce said, "I think it's time we boarded the bus to Bedfordshire, my dear."

My boss reached out for her and, grinning at me, said, "Yes, time to transport to other places." He winked at me and I likewise replied, although I think I overdid my wink, sycophant that I am.

Nevertheless, no man was happier than I to hear a door shut behind him. My comfort was grim, but I would have felt grimmer had I known the fate that lay before me.

I now looked at the bare fields. A thin frost covering the earth, the hedgerows sparkled, reflecting the icy moonlight, and the leafless trees hooked their branches at the cold, clear sky.

A chill wind smacked my face as I opened the boot. My heart sunk. The spare wheel rack was empty! I cursed and, as if to taunt me, a shower of ice particles strafed my body.

I slammed the boot shut and made quickly back to the interior of the car. The welcome was minimal for the cold had lodged itself, but at least I was protected from the biting wind.

What a predicament! I guessed I was miles from the nearest town.' Trust silly bollocks to take that short cut' I thought, blaming myself. Some short cut. Some intuition!

I should have stuck to the route that I came by. I looked round at the back seat. Probably freeze if I spent the night there.

Then I thought, 'I can drive with a flat tyre - if I take it slow. Back to my boss' place? Why not? He wouldn't mind. Would he?' I turned the ignition key.

The engine wheezed like a sixty cigarettes-a-day pensioner. I tried again. The wheeze became a death rattle as the car shook a little, then died. The naked click of the ignition key turning struck gloom in my heart.

I waited a bit then against hope I tried again. The engine rolled heavily. I felt like a man trying to roll a boulder out of a hole with a twig.

The car rocked as the wind battered around it. A draft blew down my neck. I turned to check where it was coming from.

I saw the book. I had slung it on the back shelf of the rear window.

"Lot of bloody use you are!" I said turning to have another go at the ignition. The boulder was firmly in its hole. I slumped onto the steering wheel, my breath now dense vapour. My despair rose and I sat as immobilised as my car.

Suddenly something crashed against the windscreen. I snapped up. My heart locked. A tangled branch shook against the windscreen like some demented beast. It scratched up and down the glass as if struggling to attack me. I cowered. It seemed alive!

Then it scraped along the side of the car, until the wind whipped it over the roof and it rolled away twisting and jerking like a witch drowning.

I burst out laughing. What a relief!

Fancy letting a stupid branch scare me like that. My amusement, hollow though it was, did lighten the grimness of my situation. And it was in that moment of brief relaxation that my memory thawed and I remembered the bus stop.

I pulled the collar of my jacket tighter around my neck and looked back at the white shape of my car some four hundred yards off.

Despite the cold I felt a little better at the prospect of getting a bus. I hoped that the bus stop that I'd passed was no further than I'd estimated. I felt sure it was just around that bend ahead.

If only it wasn't so cold. No matter how firmly I drew my jacket around myself the wind managed to corkscrew itself inside.

For all the protection my suit gave me I might as well have been wearing a wet sheet. A constant shiver ran up and down my spine. I could not walk straight, because no matter how I tried, the wind was so strong it sent me zig zagging about like a drunk.