Free I'm on the train! by Wendy Perriam Page B

those days, even pessimism and nihilism had been bracing, and often the subject of heated debates in the wee small hours, over coffee and cheap plonk. Nowadays, staying up too late at night was something of a risk – she might be late for work next morning, or find herself too tired to concentrate.
    All at once, shrilling sirens assaulted her ears, as a car-chase and more gunfire erupted on the screen; the sounds of screeching tyres and whining bullets resounding through the auditorium. The baddies were shooting indiscriminately through the windows of their Cadillac, not just at the cop-cars hurtling in hot pursuit, but also at innocent bystanders. Blood was gushing forth in lurid Technicolor, and shrieks from the wounded and dying only added to the uproar.
    ‘Josh …’ She jogged his arm, spoke right into his ear to avoid annoying other patrons. ‘This is really not my sort of thing. In fact,I’m beginning to get a headache. Mind if I go upstairs for a minute, to get a bit of air?’
    Engrossed, he shook his head; his entire focus on the screen.
    ‘Is that OK with you?’
    ‘Yeah, fine.’
    Having grabbed her coat and bag, she emerged into the foyer again, where the tall young guy was now busy with a pencil, underscoring passages in his book.
    ‘Sorry – shan’t disturb you. I just hate the racket in there!’
    He flashed her a disarming smile. ‘In that case, Schopenhauer would have approved of you. He said the amount of noise anyone can bear stands in inverse proportion to their mental capacity.’
    ‘Really?’ she said, uneasily aware that Josh always turned his music up full-volume.
    ‘I’m Daniel, by the way,’ he added. ‘And you’re not disturbing me. As I said, my brain needs a rest every now and then, in order to absorb this stuff. So sit down, relax and tell me about yourself.’
    ‘Well, I planned to go outside for—’
    ‘It’s noisy out there, too, with all the junketings for Chinese New Year.’
    She nodded. Before the film, Josh had taken her to lunch at an upmarket Chinese restaurant, so jammed with native revellers, they could hardly hear themselves speak. ‘OK,’ she said, subsiding into the chair again. ‘I’ll opt for peace and quiet! And it’s as quiet as the grave down here.’
    ‘It’s either one thing or the other,’ he explained. ‘Manic when a film ends or one’s just about to begin, but otherwise completely calm.’ He swivelled round on his chair to give her his full attention. ‘So, what’s your name?’ he asked.
    ‘Alice,’ she said, wondering how Josh would view this extended tête-à-tête with a young, attractive stranger.
    ‘And what do you do?’
    ‘I work for Roebuck-Rayner – a big PR firm in Belgravia. My main client at the moment is a luxury car-boutique and—’
    ‘A what ?’ He looked aghast.
    ‘Well, that’s what they like to call themselves, although I supposeit’s a sort of dealership. They sell specialist sports cars – top-of- the-range ones, mostly: Ferraris, Aston Martins, Maseratis, Alfa Romeos, all that sort of thing – and my job is to get them into the media spotlight in any way I can.’
    ‘But that’s immoral. Cars are seriously bad for the environment.’
    ‘We can hardly do without them,’ she retorted, bristling at his rudeness, not to mention his naïveté . ‘Or would you prefer us to go back to the horse and cart?’
    ‘Sports cars are particularly evil. They use too much fuel and they’re extremely dangerous.’
    She forbore to tell him that it was Josh’s dream to own a Lamborghini – not yet, of course; no way could he afford it, but, having just been made an associate director, the prospects looked more promising. In truth, she had only got her own job on account of Josh’s influence. In the PR world, personal contacts were crucial and string-pulling a fact of life. ‘How about you?’ she asked, keen to steer the conversation away from poverty, the environment, or his narrow view of morality. ‘Do you