The Age of Zeus

1. THE CHICAGOAN

There were two of them waiting on the quay: Sam and the man she had first encountered a couple of hours ago on the train, the man who'd been carrying an invitation like hers. She had spotted him in the buffet car as she was returning to her carriage from a trip to the toilet. He was ordering a cheese sandwich and a "club soda." African-American. Tall. Well put together. Nice, firm buttocks. Standing straight-spined, so much so that everyone around him seemed to slouch by comparison. Chicago accent? Yes, Chicago. Chewy on the syllables. He was very handsome; in particular she'd liked his nose. His nostrils were naturally flared, a sign of self-assurance and the right kind of pride. And while he waited for the woman behind the counter to fetch his food and pour his drink, he'd taken the invitation out of his pocket to inspect it, doubtless not for the first time. Identical to the one Sam had in her handbag, printed on snowdrift-smooth card in an elegant formal font, the kind of thing you might expect to receive from the host of a truly classy party. The Chicagoan had frowned at it, shaken his head, then tucked it away again. In the time he'd spent studying the invitation Sam could have gone up to him, produced her own, said something like "Snap" or "You've shown me yours, now I'll show you mine," something coy and wry like that, and introduced herself. But she hadn't. She'd just slipped past the man and gone on to her seat, and the train had continued rumbling on its way, towards the terminus from where she was to catch a taxi to the coast, to this stony little port town, this quay.

The Chicagoan was now sitting on a mooring post. He had his mackintosh collar turned up all the way to his chin and was huddled in on himself, looking miserable in the damp, bitter wind that was gusting onshore. It was a freezing early-January day. Sea and sky appeared to be in competition as to which was murkier and more tormented. Gulls plodded along the slick stones of the harbour wall, beaks to breasts, feathers ruffled.

Sam stood off at a distance from the man, sheltering in the doorway of a fish and chip shop which according to the sign hanging in its door was open but looked very firmly closed. She knew the Chicagoan had clocked her and had identified that she was there was for the same reason he was — both of them answering the same oblique, enigmatic summons. The small suitcase at her feet gave the game away. He had an item of luggage too, an overnight bag with wheels and an extendable handle. But he seemed to respect the fact that she didn't want to strike up a conversation with him, at least not just yet.

Out of the corner of her eye Sam spied a group of people approaching along the main harbourside street. More invitees? No, a young couple with two kids, one of them in a pushchair. Winter holidaymakers. The adults were bent forward against the wind, and the face of the older child, a boy of eight or nine, was one big scowl — angrily baffled as to why his parents had insisted on dragging him outside in such foul weather when he could be warm indoors with the TV and his Nintendo. The baby, by contrast, was snugly bundled up and blissfully asleep.

They passed by Sam on their way to the tip of the quay. She nodded to the parents and deliberately didn't look at either of the children. Especially not the baby. The family returned soon afterwards, and with grim jollity the father remarked to her, "Bracing!" She nodded again, and this time couldn't prevent her gaze straying to the sleeping infant.

Just a child. Just somebody else's child.

But so small. So serene in slumber. So chubbily perfect.

Sam's throat caught. Her gut knotted. She felt as if she were plummeting in an express elevator.

Her counsellor had told her there would always be moments like this. However much time went by, the feelings would never fully go away and would sometimes catch her unawares. She simply had to bear it, work through it. The moment, like all moments, would pass.

She focused on the coldness of the air, the salt tang of the wind, the rank smell of fish and cooking fat that emanated from behind her, sensations from the present, her immediate surroundings, reality, now.

The past belonged to the past.

Gradually her breathing returned to normal, the dizziness abated, her stomach unclenched. She was herself again.

A small wooden-hulled fishing smack came chugging into the harbour. It drew up alongside the quay, and the captain stepped up to the gunwales and called out, "Bleaney Island. Any here for Bleaney Island?"

Both Sam and the Chicagoan went over to the boat, and the captain helped them aboard.

"You'll be the last two then," he said. Ruddy-cheeked, bushy-sideburned, twinkly-eyed, he was the living epitome of a salty old fisherman.

"If you say so," said the Chicagoan. "How many others have there been?"

"Ten all told. Three trips I've done today, there and back. Why you couldn't all come at once I don't know. But then what do I care? I'm getting paid by the journey, and good money too!"

He started up the engine, brought the boat about, and soon they were pulling out of the harbour, onto the open sea.

Other than the wheelhouse, which had room for the captain only, there was no cover on deck. Sam sat on an upturned plastic crate while the Chicagoan stood, hands in pockets, peering ahead to the horizon. He looked at ease, comfortable despite the smack's dipping and yawing, his legs bent slightly to help him ride the swell.

Eventually he turned to Sam.

"'Bout time we met," he said. "Can't go on ignoring each other for ever." He stuck out a hand. "Rick Ramsay."

"Sam Akehurst."

They shook. His grip was tough, gnarled, tight.

"I noticed you on the train," he said.

"You did?" She couldn't mask her surprise.

"You're hard not to notice." His eye roved; returned. "When I was buying that goddamn awful sandwich made of cardboard and rubber. How do you Brits eat that stuff?"

"We don't," Sam replied. "Only tourists are daft enough to try."

Rick Ramsay grinned, dazzlingly. "Touche. That's when I spotted you, anyways. And you did your darnedest to ignore me."

"In your dreams, Casanova."

"Whatever. So what's going on? What's your take on all this?"

He didn't have to specify what he meant by all this.

"I have no idea," Sam said. "All I know is what it says here." She took out her invitation, which read:

MISS Samantha Akehurst,

You are hereby invited to attend a gathering which may lead to a proposition advantageous to yourself.

Your personal circumstances are known to me.

Your opportunity to seek redress has arrived.

The invitation was unsigned. A date, location and suggested travel arrangements were printed on the reverse. A cheque to cover costs — generously — had also been enclosed in the envelope.

"Yeah," said Ramsay. "Fancy, huh? I had to look up 'redress' in the dictionary. I thought maybe it had something to do with drag queens."

No, you didn't, Sam thought. You're a damn sight smarter than you're letting on.

"Tweaked my curiosity all the same," he went on. "I thought, if nothing else, it's an all-expenses trip to merrie olde England, why not go? Do this, then pop down to see Stonehenge and maybe pay the Queen a visit at Bucking-ham Palace."

"So you're not the sort who normally responds to anonymous, vaguely worded invitations that drop on your doormat?"

"As a rule, no. And neither, I would guess, Sam Akehurst, are you. And yet here we are. What's that say about us, I wonder."

"No life?"

Ramsay gave a husky chortle like rainwater gurgling down a downpipe. "Ain't that the truth."