Полёт фантазии, фантазии в полёте - [69]

In the morning Julia was awakened by Steve’s telephone conversation with Sarah. His voice was surprisingly sweet, when he asked Sarah to wait for him at 12 o’clock at the Royal Cafe where he would bring a brief-case for his Chinese friend.

«Dirty liar! What is he plotting, I wonder», — thought Julia as Steve’s Mercedes was creeping slowly along one of the narrow Soho streets edged with tiny Chinese restaurants. At last the car stopped and an ugly yellow-faced man silently passed Steve a black brief-case. Just for a fragment of a second Steve opened it, but it was enough for Julia to notice neatly packed plastic bags with white powder.

— «That’s it! You want Sarah to be a drug-trafficker. Just you wait!» — When Steve started the car Julia had already made her decision.

It was a bleak October morning when all the bright autumn colours had been eaten up by the grey drizzling rain and there was no hope of sun.

«Damn this headache», — Steve said to himself as they turned onto Trafalgar Square. «Never had such an awful headache in my life… Perhaps because I had no sleep last night. Damn this rain! Hate driving in the rain…» Steve saw the red traffic light and pressed the breaks. Or rather he wanted to press the breaks but his right foot refused to obey and stiffened as if glued to the accelerator. Steve tried again and again but with no result. He had a curious feeling as if someone else was sitting inside his head and hitting it with little hammers that sent wrong commands to his limbs. He made one more frantic effort to escape from the imminent collision with a big yellow truck, but in vain: some unknown force made him press the wrong pedal and at full speed his new silver-green Mercedes crashed into the truck.

Julia’s soul rushed out of Steve’s dead body like a cork out of the bottle and up she went, flying higher and higher as if she were a balloon until she reached the height of Nelson’s column.

The sight of London from this point was so fantastically beautiful that it took Julia’s breath away and for a moment she forgot about the accident.

It had just stopped raining, the sun showed itself from the clouds and the sky was a patchwork of white, grey and blue. And below was London, lying like a miraculous carpet of rich autumn colours: red and yellow, green and golden.

The second of an ambulance horn made Julia turn her eyes to the place of the accident.

— «What an awful sight!» — shuddered Julia as she saw a new silver-green car crashed into the side of a big yellow truck. Through the smashed windscreen she could see Steve’s deformed body stained with blood. The two policemen didn’t even try to take him out as he was positively dead.

— «Ambulance won’t help him», — thought Julia and sighed with relief. She had won: Sarah was saved.

Suddenly Julia noticed another lifeless body lying near the crashed car. The shape of it was so familiar to her that it make her shiver.

«Nonsense! It cannot possibly be mine! How can it be? Mine is waiting for me quietly at the cosy office of the Human Soul Travellers Club. It must be some other woman, who perhaps had been crossing the road and whom I hadn’t noticed before the accident».

Ambulance men carefully placed the injured woman on the stretcher and put her into the van. To disperse her doubts Julia looked at the number plate of the car and horror paralysed her soul. Her worst suspicions had come true — it was the ambulance of the Human Soul Travellers Club.

If Julia had had a body at that moment she would have surely fainted.

— «It’s a mistake! Something went wrong!» — she cried in despair and clicked her fingers. But nothing happened. She clicked again and again — no result. Tears ran down her cheeks, and though she knew she had no eyes, no cheeks, no flesh whatsoever she could feel hot tears running down her face perfectly well.

Poor Julia kept on clicking her non-existent fingers until she heard the sweet patronising voice of Mr. Toffiles. «No use, Mrs. Evans, you have broken the rules of human soul travelling. Remember what I warned you about: a travelling human soul has no right to interfere in other people’s affairs or to influence their behavior. Otherwise it will be penalised. And that’s exactly what has happened with you. Why did you make poor Steve Martin crash into that truck?»

— «Mr. Toffiles, I’ll pay any amount of penalty you say, I’ll never break your sacred rules again, only please let my soul get back into my body!»

— «I’m sorry, Mrs. Evans, it’s too late. But you shouldn’t be so desperate», — Mr. Toffiles’ voice changed from sympathetic to encouraging, — «Just think: now you’ll have all the chances for travelling. You can travel free anywhere you wish. I think that’s exactly what you’ve always dreamed of. Have a good time, Mrs. Evans, and good-bye».

Good-bye, good-bye, — Mr. Toffiles’ voice was gradually dying out as if the distance between hin and Julia was getting longer and longer.

Floating high above the National Gallery, Nelson’s column, Trafalgar square, above the whole of London, so bright and beautiful, living its busy life, its windows glistening in the sun, red buses hurrying along the streets, children and dogs playing on the green grass of the parks — Julia tried to pull herself together and think of her favourite motto: take things easy and be realistic.