Mid Morning

III

 

Caught by the fuzz,

Well I was still on the buzz

In the back of a van

With my head in my hands

 

 

As he dismounts he feels a dull ache in his backside and his hands automatically go to the muscles as he clenches his cheeks in between his hands and makes a little pouting ‘oh’ with his mouth. He feels like an old man with a touch of rheumatism, settling in there. He arches his back to relieve the pain a little completely oblivious that he is being smirked at by his fast approaching girlfriend.

 

“Attractive.”

 

Bee smiles as she pulls her bike next to his and gracefully dismounts running and hopping off her pedal and coming to a stop. He shakes his head, all those dance lessons really paid off, she’s as graceful as a ballerina.

 

“Please tell me you didn’t just do that! You’re such an old man sometimes Al, honestly!”

 

They both laugh and look at the glass fronted building. The golden sign turns silently reading

 

NEW SCOTLAND  ARD

 

“I’m sure there was a Y in there somewhere. Another anomaly, or has it just dropped off?”

 

Bee looks at Al enquiringly, her mind thinking, cogs turning, all fully visible in her bright eyes.

 

“No, I don’t think so I think we can place the blame here fully on vandals. Look...”

 

He points over to the magnolia concrete wall painted impeccably. Underneath one of the windows is an ugly black painted scar. Someone has graffiti tagged “Spaz” on the wall of the one sacred sanctuary of conformity in Central London.

 

“I don’t know how they get away with doing that. Look at all the cameras and the barbed wire. How the hell did they do it without getting caught? This place is open 24 hours too, it’s like fort Knox.”

 

Ali shakes his head and sighs. He absolutely hates non-conformists. If he were a Sixties child, he would have been the one in knee length socks and shorts. Not a free wild child trying every new drug for the thrill of it. Sometimes he wishes he were different, free of his inhibition.

 

“I don’t know I think they’re epically ingenious. But some of them aren’t really that clever. In fact I think they must have skipped school completely.Look?”

 

She points at the CCTV camera pointing towards the ground and the black t-shirt thrown haphazardly over it.

 

“There miss, you may have a point. I’m so glad this incident hasn’t affected our sense of humour, aren’t you?”

 

She smiles at him. Even through the hardest of times, they have never lost their sense of humour. He extends his arm to her as if leading her to the dance floor.

 

“Mademoiselle? Shall we?”

 

She grabs his arm giggling at him.

 

“Sir, I think we shall.”

 

They walk arm in arm towards the glass revolving doors. Behind them the sign for the centre of law and order creaks ominously in the wind.

 

“Do you think we’ll find the centre of all CCTV action in here?”

 

Al asks quietly as if he is discussing a conspiracy of some sort or if he is afraid to be overheard by the invisible police force and detective units normally place here. He can’t quite believe that they are walking into New Scotland Yard in broad daylight without having committed some serious violation of the Law.

 

“It’s a shame you didn’t bring those handcuffs with you from home. We could have had some fun. But then we weren’t expecting everyone on the face of the planet or of London at least, to have disappeared!”

 

Bee cannot help but laugh at the thought.

 

“I’d hate to be able to see your line of thought. Have you had a think where the CCTV central actually is in this building? It’s not as if they will have a floor map like in those Play Station games you play.”

 

He thinks for a moment. She has a point. There will be no map, some of the doors will be security protected with those handle number panels, maybe even as far as the thumbprint scanners that they have in the bank. But who would hear it if an alarm went off here? What was the Law now there were no people to abide by it. Why did they need to abide by any rules any more. In one fowl swoop, the world had been turned on its head. Rational thinking no longer applies.

 

They approach the revolving glass doors hesitantly.

 

“Well, here goes nothing.”

 

She smiles nervously. This is the first time he has seen real concern in her eyes.

 

The doors creak open as if in an old horror movie of old they both jump and look at each other as they enter the marbled halls of New Scotland Yard, and listen to the silence, broken by the odd rustling of paper. Doorways stand empty in the large reception. No phones ring in the empty reception. The secretaries chair is pushed aside as if she’s only just gone to powder her nose.

 

“I’m sure there’s a crime being committed somewhere?”

 

Ali takes a look at Bee. She is in awe of the magnificence of her surroundings. He wonders if she ever thought where her tax was going every month. Apparently twenty two per cent of every British worker buys the type of security marbled floors and tiled walls gives you. Very plush indeed. It’s also peach marble, not the common old black and white quartz stuff. He thinks back to his school Geography classes, thinking that this had to be imported from Greece or Egypt, or somewhere like that.

 

He looks at the reception, memo pads still have writing on them, and the phones are silent. Pens sit in their holders neatly; filing cabinets are locked, as are the doors leading back to the heart of the building. He surveys the ground floor. There is a fire hydrant in the corner that could be used for a spot of illegal activity. It is only then that he notices an open door, just off to the master staircase, which also has a huge barred and darkened glass locked door at the very top. He looks at the walls. Some of them have mirrors looking out on to the reception area. He has the distinct feeling that Big Brother would be watching all parts of this building.

 

She is looking at the Macs behind the reception desk which is also tiled out in peach marble, and clad with a golden list of all New Scotland Yards Superintendents. She runs her slim fingers over the keys of the Mac, jumping a little as the screen comes to life with a ping and a silver apple. They wouldn’t leave call logs like this open for all to see. She is agog at the lack of common sense that no one even bothered to lock their screen whilst not working at it. Maybe said receptionist didn’t get a chance to before the aliens landed she thinks, sighs and raises her eyebrow. She notices a piece of paper on the floor, and picks up. It has roundish scrawl on it, looks like girls writing, the I has a heart over it.

 

Bin done, tower fell down?

 

She hopes that this isn’t a clue of some sort. She was always pathetic at finishing logisticals in the paper, and always got the wrong murderer in Cleudo. She hands it to Ali, who is looking at the wide open electronic handle locked door to their right. He shrugs, but decides that it is better than nothing; he folds it up and tucks it into his shirt pocket.

 

“Well, someone has obviously come this way before us. That door’s been forced.”

 

He walks over towards it and runs his hand down towards the hacked chunk where the lock used to reside.

 

“Well I think we can safely assume that they weren’t skilled at this, and that we are not as alone as we thought we were. Shucks, no rampant sex on the floor of New Scotland Yard for us honey.”

 

She giggles. He always knows how to lighten the mood, and lower the tone. Another thought crosses her mind, which she thinks out loud.

 

“What if they’re dangerous? Maybe we should grab a ‘weapon’ or something? I mean, that’s been done with an axe or something.”

 

She nods at the missing chunk and scopes the reception for a parochial blunt instrument. There is absolutely nothing that she can use in self defence. She wonders why she keeps leaving the damn pepper spray in the car. She has been mugged twice since leaving her rural home for the City and all because she never remembers her pepper spray. She joins Al at the door and feels an icy draft flowing down the set of modernist beech steps spiralling to the first floor of the building.

 

“Hey, Bee, we’ll be ok. I have my weapons right here.”

 

She looks at him incredulously. She has never seen him as a prize fighter.

 

“In that case, I think I may take precautions.”

 

She spots a fire axe in a glass cage by the steps. Looking around she heads back to the reception and grabs a metal bin from behind the grand marble desk. Marching towards the glass cabinet, she swings and hits the glass hard with the bottom of the bin. Bee removes the axe gently from its cradle, looks at Al with a determined nod.

 

“Oh, I do like the GI Jane look on you. It suits you.”

 

He smiles, and starts to head up the stairs. She feels safer in the knowledge that if some thing or someone is on the first floor, at least she can protect herself. An axe is a much better bet than pepper spray. If there are people left on the face of the planet, she hopes that they are all reasonable human beings. But she’s not taking any risks. And she would have no problem at all taking a swing at anyone if it meant saving herself or her man.

 

 

He heads up the stairs. Ali gets a kick from heading into the unexplained; he’s never had to face anything but predictability. He was an honourable student; he always worked hard and applied himself. Predictability is his middle name, he cracks jokes about it at work. He knows how much bonus he will get down to the last penny, and what he’s going to do with the money. The thrill of something this big happening to him makes him excited.

 

Cautiously, they both climb the stairs. It is well lit, and the sun has made a brief appearance outside, causing shadows between the modern maple and chrome banisters. Al stretches on his tip toes to see up to the first floor, looking down at be he gives her a nod, as if to say that the coast is clear to proceed. She visibly relaxes the tense in her shoulders dissolving, but keeps her knuckles taught around the axe handle. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest. She is surprised Al can’t hear it.

 

They reach the first floor. A familiar scene of a forced open door in front of them. Al places his finger against his lips in a ‘shh’ motion. They both stand still and listen. In the distance they hear a high pitched female voice singing.

 

“What song is that?”

 

Bee whispers and looks at Ali, who is coincidentally thinking the same song.

 

“Snow Patrol I think can’t remember the name. Eh? What does that matter, were not alone! But what if she has a gun or something?”

 

Bee listens to the singing.

 

“Sounds like a kid to me? We should be ok?”

 

She shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly and holds onto the axe handle a little tighter pulling it against her jutting pelvic bones in a defensive stance.

 

“Look at the mess she made of the doors, she can’t be alone. And she must be a steroid bunny…”

 

He surveys the splintered wood once again, thinking about what on earth she used to make such a diabolical wreckage of a hard wood door.  Bee pokes him none too lightly in the back.

 

“Well we’ll never know if were going to stand here for the rest of our lives will we? Get a move on!”

 

Suddenly his heart is in his throat and he wishes he had the axe. It would look amazingly bad for him to ask Bee to go first, but he shrugs himself down letting the waves of adrenalin wash over him. His Oxford shirt feels as though it’s constricting him around the neck, so he loosens his tie and undoes the first button of the collar, listening to Bee tut and click her tongue impatiently behind him. She never has been the most patient of people, but he likes that about her, she gets things done. He likes to imagine himself more of a thinker.

 

His grandmothers’ words enter his head for the first time in years ‘pacifism never won the war, sonny Jim’; and fuelled by this remembrance, he pushes the door open gently and peeks around the corner. In front of him is a long corridor, partitioned by the swinging hardwood doors like hospital wards. In front of the first set of doors stands a tall girl, hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. No fringe and strands of over straightened hair drift from the taught band. It explodes into curls after the band. She has an axe in her hand very much like Bee behind him. The only difference is she also has an iPod and is singing to the songs she is listening to whilst trying doors on the left hand side of the corridor. Her back is turned, and she doesn’t seem too worried about being snuck up on as she wiggles her bottom to the rhythm of her secret song.

 

“Well?”

 

Bee rasps at him loosing her patience, and pulls at the back of his shirt. He is torn from the sight back into the stair well.

 

“There’s a girl there trying the doors. She’s dancing with an axe.”

 

He laughs at what he’s just said and she snorts a giggle and stifles it in her nose.

 

“Really? You couldn’t be making that up.”

 

“No, really, she has an iPod and is dancing whilst trying the doors. I don’t really fancy approaching her and tapping her on the back after the damage she’s done to the doors. What is she aims for anything, you know, vital?”

 

She agrees in principle, if she has been wandering around a desolate London City like they have for the past few hours on her own, the shock of seeing two live strangers approaching her with a handshake could just about send her over the edge.

 

“Then what do we do? Ah, wait I have an idea.”

 

Bee hands Al the axe and trots off down the stairs. She returns holding the aluminium waste paper. He looks at her as if she has gone around the bend.

 

“What on earth are you planning to do with that?”

 

He raises the corner of his lip, as if to add to the already confused look on his face.

 

“Watch and learn Al, watch and learn.”

 

She pushes him behind her and goes through the doorway. Pulling pieces of crumpled paper out from the bin, and deftly throws it at the girls back hitting her between her shoulder blades. The girl stops dancing, spins on her heel and looks in stunned silence at the other girl holding the aluminium bin. She drops the axe and stares at Bee fumbling at her ears for the ear plugs. She rips them out.

 

“You’re not real are you? I’m having a trip or something. Please tell me this isn’t happening!”

 

As she exclaims she begins to cry. She then collapses in a heap on the floor, folds her legs and puts her head in her hands sobbing like a child. Bee places the bin on the floor and runs to her. Forgetting any fears of being attacked by the girl. She feels awfully sorry for her. She sits next to her and puts an arm around her to comfort her. Up close she notices the girl although tall and heavy set can only be at most seventeen; a child in woman’s guise.

 

“I’m Bee, I’m really sorry I startled you, but we were so pleased to find someone else. Oh, and this is Al. He’s my ..ahem..better half.”

 

Al places the axe down on the floor gently and walks over slowly as not to alarm the young girl any more.

 

“Yer, we, er, thought everyone was taken by little green men in the night.”

 

His awkwardness makes the girl look up and giggle at him. He notices that she is very pretty, although very young. She has no makeup and a large gap between her front teeth. Her cheekbones are stunning, like a younger Grace Jones.

 

“Whatever man! Even I had more original thought than that one.”

 

The girl sniffles. The last few hours must have been tough on her; Bee thinks and gives her a quick hug, rubbing her back like her mother used to rub hers when the nightmares came when she was much younger.

 

“Well what ever has happened here, were going to get to the bottom of it. We really are pleased to have found you...Erm...”

 

“Tia, my name is Tia. I’m a College student in City; I had a nine o’clock this morning that no one turned up for. And I thought the best place to start looking was here.”

 

Smart girl, Bee thinks. 

 

“Pleased to meet you Tia, have you happened to spot anyone else along the way?”

 

Ali shakes her hand and then pulls her up to her feet, offering a hand to Bee whom he almost pulls off the floor to stand beside him.

 

“I heard a few shots, so I don’t think were alone here, and I don’t think, well, no I’ll re-phrase that; I know there may be some very dodgy people around here. So I grabbed the axe from college and walked about with it. I came down passed St Pauls. Someone has painted the dome blue y’know. Tossers.”

 

Bee and Ali look at each other with the same look of wonderment. Bee starts talking first.

 

“Big Ben is back to front, and the London Eye is inside out. It doesn’t surprise us at all Tia, but it makes us ask the question why. We need to get some answers, it’s really happening. You are not tripping and this is real. We need to get to the CCTV cameras or the surveillance room, whatever they call it but we haven’t got the foggiest where to look.”

 

The girl struggles with her pocket and pulls out a neatly folded piece of paper.

 

“You’ll be needing this then.”

 

She hands Al the paper and he stares at it with incredulity.

 

“But, where…how the hell did you get this?”

 

Tia smiles and taps her nose.

 

“I could tell you but then I’d really have to kill you. And I think I quite likes you both.”

 

Al and Bee look at each other, and then Bee looks puzzlingly at the piece of paper. It’s a floor map of all the floors in New Scotland yard. The place is like a maze, but keyed in neatly on the second floor is the surveillance room, or floor as it seems to be.

 

Clever Tia indeed.

 

“Wow, I won’t ask how or where you got this but now I’m glad we found you a thousand times. We were very lost! And Al was starting to channel his Resident Evil vibe! So we need to head down this corridor to the end, and up the next set of stairs. I think we will be needing those.”

 

She points to the discarded axes on the floor. And instinctively Al picks both up and hands one to Tia.

 

“I think you’re right, but I don’t think you have the expertise required to yield one of these babies.”

 

Tia and Bee snort and roll their eyes at Al who is holding his new weapon proudly.

 

“Right, let’s go and have a look for some more answers.”

 

Bee says chirpily.

 

“Yes or some more questions.”

 

Tia leads the three through the first set of swing doors and down the corridor towards the locked stairwell doors at the question. Thinking to herself all the time that there are bound to be more questions before they find anything resembling answers.

 

The heat of the room hits them as they enter the surveillance centre.

 

“It’s the servers.”

 

Tia seems to know her way around IT and sits at the first available PC.

 

“Passwords, damn I forgot that this place would have security protected passwords. I wonder…”

 

Bee and Al look at each other. The girl obviously knows what she’s doing as she taps away at the keyboard.

 

“There’s got to be more of us lot out there somewhere.”

 

Al whispers to Bee. She nods in agreement. Both are worried that the “others” as they have mentally dubbed them will not be as welcoming as Tia. Some will be holding guns, there are bound to be some complete idiots out there. The type of people they ignore in the “real” world. Randomly, as if sensing some fear coming from her Al drops the axe and places both arms around Bee. She as if sensing some need in him, places her arms around him, looks up at him, smiling and presses her cheek to his chest. They stand together in this embrace, lost to all around them, not caring, lost in each other, and in their solace.

 

 Suddenly the silence is broken with London youth slang.

 

“Hey! You two! Stop making out and have a look at this I think I’ve cracked it.”

 

As if it never happened, they both resume their positions and head to the small bright screen where Tia has placed herself.

 

“I’m in the mainframe, but I think I’m looking at some sort of recording. Look.”

 

She points childishly at the screen. In rough black and white images, London seems to be resuming its daily routine as normal. The first image is Millennium Square, where they were standing not two hours before, together in the quiet in front of the Ferris wheel called the London Eye. There is a queue of people gathering for the wheel and in the background the road surrounding the square is littered with London buses, commuters, cyclists and taxis, all vying for precious charged for space.

 

“What’s the date on this?”

 

Ali asks and searches the small screen. October the 31^st, today’s date. 11.01 am, now’s time.

 

“Ok, this has got to be a joke hasn’t it?”

 

Ali frowns as he looks at the small clock timing the seconds and nano seconds,

 

“I don’t think it is. Look it’s all happening now.”

 

Bee adds. Watching the next image on the screen, Tower Bridge. It’s heaving with traffic and there is even a tour bus stopped on one side for the Tower of London. Again the date and the time are today and now.

 

“It’s got to be wrong. We came over that bridge not two hours ago at the height of the rush hour, and the place was deserted. No cars no people no anything.”

 

Be turns to face Al, who tears himself away from the small computer screen to look at her. He is agog, and in stunned silence. This has made him ask more questions instead of giving him any of the answers he so dearly requires. He looks into Bee’s eyes and sees the same confusion and horrified disillusion in there.

 

“So you’re telling me that we aren’t seeing other people or that other people aren’t seeing us? Are we dead? Are we just ghosts walking about? Maybe we died in our sleep. Did you leave the gas on in the cooker again?”

 

“I’m pretty sure were not dead. And anyway, you felt solid enough this morning. Ghosts are all wispy and stuff aren’t they? And if were dead, how come were driving in my car, and walking and talking and not watching our loved ones crying over our bodies and waiting for a tunnel of  light or something?”

 

He laughs and puts an arm on her shoulder patronisingly.

 

“I don’t think it works like that honey. But it makes sense right? The only thing that doesn’t make sense is…”

 

He nods his head at Tia.

 

“Man, you fail! I ain’t dead. I think you guys ought to take a look at this. Man, seriously freaky…”

 

She points at the screen again. This time it is the security camera they saw on the way into New Scotland Yard.

 

“But there was a t-shirt over that one. I saw it.”

 

Ali protests, pouts, thinks about it and goes to protest again.

 

The screen shows them people leaving and entering the building. There is no graffiti tag on the front of the building either. Police cars to and fro in front of the building. Suited solicitors walk in through the revolving doors. It is as quiet as death itself in the airy surveillance room. All three are watching the comings and goings on the small grey screen. Ali walks over to the front facing windows and pulls the blinds apart. There is nothing outside. Not one living person. He surveys the camera he saw earlier, it is still sheathed with a t-shirt blowing in the breeze. He sees nothing like the scene on the monitors. No police vehicles no suited and booted law men, and middle managers going through their daily schedule. He looks up having his eye caught by movement on the other side of the road. There, looking back at him are two enormous ravens. They seem to look at him and caw simultaneously, as if recognising the awe in his eyes.

 

“Bloody hell.”

 

He turns to the girls who are still held in captive trance by the CCTV.

 

“I think we have company, and that company, as daft as it may sound may be able to provide us with some answers.”

 

He looks back towards the ravens. They are now cawing to each other as if speaking in some unwritten ancient language.  The girls have now joined him at the window, and are looking at the cackling rooks deep in conversation. They seem to be arguing.

 

“Oh my God I think I’m going to puke.”

 

Tia runs for the door and down the corridor for the second floor toilets.

 

“What the f**k is going on here?”

 

He turns to his rock, Bee, who is halfway towards the door following Tia out of the room. She turns to look at him in a flurry of brunette hair and wide eyes.

 

“I don’t know, I really don’t. But I wager a bet that they have something to do with it.”

 

She nods towards the window, fully intending on returning to her march after Tia.

 

Something on the screen pulls her attention to it. It is showing her a picture, of this room, she is not there. Where she stands is emptiness. It sends a shudder running through her. In front of this screen sits an epically fat man, a McDonalds milkshake in his hand, a Big Mac in the other. He is currently stuffing the burger into his mouth and surveying the screen. She looks up to the blinking red light with incredulity. The small camera seems to blink back at her. She suddenly feels nausea rising in her throat too. She shakes her head. Think of Tia, think of Tia. She half stumbles to the door behind her.

 

Al watches her go and resumes watching the Rooks argue, every second spent in this place beggars more questions. What the hell happened here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**********

 

 

 

She retches again and again into the white porcelain toilet bowl. There is nothing left to come up, but her stomach heaves up to her throat. She knew that there was something wrong this morning when she woke up. Life in tenement flats is hardly easy, but she usually wakes up to the sound of her mother and brother arguing in the kitchen, and lots of noise. Being the youngest of five, there is always lots of noise the flat which is built for three or four at most. And, the walls are paper thin. This morning there was nothing. Not a peep. There were no smells either. Her mother usually had toast or bacon on the go in the kitchen. She doesn’t remember a time when her mum forgot to do breakfast. She has the same love of food, and cooking shared by her Caribbean mother.

 

As she got out of bed, things got worse, quickly. She was late for her first lecture, and she snapped a motherboard she was working on and had left on the floor of her small bedroom. Epic failure on her behalf, as she was going to earn some good money from soldering extra memory onto that board. From curiosity more than anything, she opens her door and sticks out her head.

 

“momma?!”

 

No answer. She rubs her eyes and yawns shuffling into the kitchen. There is a note on the worktable.

 

Tia, I’m over at Tony’s baby

Don’t worry, I left you some

Fruit salad in the fridge.

Watermelon honey-your favourite!

Holler at your brother for me in the

Morning baby!

 

 

Why should she have to wake her brother up? He’s a full three years older than her and should be able to get his lazy a*s out of bed for work.  And as for Tony. Ugh, what her mother sees in that Rastafarian waster is beyond her. She’s raised five kids on her won though. It’s about time her momma had some fun.

 

Heading to the bathroom down the long corridor, she knocks on her brothers’ door.

 

“Malachi, get up!”

 

No answer.

 

“Get your damn lazy hide out of your pit Malachi!”

 

She opens the door and lets her eyes adjust to the darkness of the cave. It smells really bad in here. It’s instantly recognisable as man, and cannabis. At least he’s out of bed. She spots some dirty pants on the floor and makes a quick exit.

 

Damn waster.

 

She loves her brother dearly, but knows he’s in with a gang from up North, and dreads to think what he gets up to when he’s not in here. He teases her constantly for being overweight. The Caribbean a*s as he calls it. Also for being a complete and utter technology geek. She thinks that he is rather envious that she has direction and purpose, and that he never quite found his own in life.

 

She closes the door and shuffles down the corridor rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Closing the bathroom cabinet, she takes a long hard look at herself whilst spreading toothpaste on her brush. Smooth black skin and large brown eyes stare back. She doesn’t mind her face, or the fact that she’s five nine and still growing. She smiles and brushes her teeth. She decides to bike into College today.

 

 

This was all three hours ago. Since then she has heard gunshot, pedalled for her life, and been probably the most scared she has ever been. She even considered if she was going insane at one point. She picks herself up, dusts herself down and heads for the sink. She runs the cold water, and splashes her face. She looks at her eyes in the mirror. They look older somehow. She knows that she is a survivor, just like her mother. She nods at her own reflection as if affirming that statement.

 

Where to go from here?

 

It is only then she notices on the mirror, today’s date and the word

 

W  I   T  C  H

 

Scrawled in very small writing in blood red lipstick. She stands back as the door swings open.

 

“You ok?”

 

Bee asks.

 

“Fine, yea, fine. What do you think that this means?”

 

Bee looks at the scrawl and places her hands on her hips.

 

“Again, I know I’m saying this a lot today, but I don’t know. Maybe a clue? We found a note earlier too, someone is leaving us messages. Ours said something about a tower?”

 

Tia looks at the words closely. Ok, so towers and witches.

 

“Before we head anywhere else we need to go to the London Historical museum. See if we can’t find anything about witches maybe?”

 

Bee raises her eyebrow at Tia.

 

“Well it can’t get any weirder than watching two rooks talking to each other, right?”

 

She giggles.

 

“Nah, I think that was the highlight of my morning so far. Let’s go and tell your man what we found. And, Bee?  Thanks for caring.”

 

They leave the bathroom together, like two old friends, having only met an hour previously.