Therapy

a lift somewhere, but to use it you have to have a porter, and there are no porters to be found at the taxi drop.
Recently a printed notice appeared at the foot of this paralysed machine:
     
    WELCOME NEWS
    A New Escalator for Euston
     
We are sorry this escalator is out of use. It is life expired [sic]. An order has been placed for the manufacture and installation of a new escalator. It will be finished and ready for use by August 1993.
    Intercity Retail Manager
     
    Thursday evening, 4th March.
    I had lunch with Jake today, at Groucho’s. We saw off two bottles of Beaujolais Villages between us, which I enjoyed at the time but regretted later. I went straight to Euston by taxi and, having some time in hand, copied out the notice at the bottom of the broken escalator, swaying slightly on my feet and giggling to myself, attracting curious glances from passengers as they hurried past and hurled themselves at the steel assault course. “It is life expired.” I like it. It could be a new slogan for British Rail as privatization approaches, instead of “We’re Getting There.”
    I fell asleep in the train and woke feeling like shit just as it was pulling out of Rummidge Expo station. I could pick out the Richmobile in the car park, its pearly paintwork blanched by the arc-lights. I had to wait half an hour at Rummidge Central for a train back, and mooched about for a while in the shopping precinct above the station. Most of the plateglass windows were plastered with SALE notices, or exposed bare and dusty interiors, the shells of liquidated businesses. I bought an evening newspaper, “MAJOR TAKES SWING AT DOOM-MONGERS,” said one headline. “900,000 WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS UNEMPLOYED,” said another. Muzak piped soothingly from hidden speakers.
    I descend to the subterranean gloom of the platforms to catch my train. It is reported running late. Waiting passengers sit hunched with hands in pockets on the wooden benches, their breath condensing in the chill damp air, gazing wistfully along the track to the mouth of a tunnel where a red signal light glows. An adenoidal voice apologizes for the delay, “which is due to operating difficulties. ” It is life expired.
     
    Jake saw Samantha on Tuesday. “Smart kid,” he said. “Thanks for pointing her in my direction.” “I didn’t,” I said. “I only warned her about your deplorable morals.” He laughed. “Don’t worry, my boy, she’s not my type. She has no ankles, have you noticed?” “Can’t say I have,” I said. “I never got that far down.” “Legs are very important to me,” Jake said. “Take the lovely Linda, for example.” He was eloquent for some minutes on the subject of his new secretary’s legs, hissing and flashing like scissor-blades in black nylon tights under her hanky-sized skirt as she walks in and out of his office. “I’ve got to have her,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.” We were well into the second bottle at this stage. I asked him if he didn’t sometimes feel a qualm of guilt about his philandering.
     
JAKE: But of course. That’s the point. That’s the attraction. The attraction of the forbidden. Listen, I’ll tell you a story, (JAKE refills TUBBY’S glass and then his own.) It happened last summer. I was sitting in the garden one Sunday afternoon browsing through the papers — Rhoda was indoors doing something in the kitchen — and the kids next door were playing in their garden in one of those inflatable paddling pools. It was a hot day. They had some friends or relatives visiting, so there were two boys and two girls of about the same age, four to six years old, I suppose. I couldn’t see because of the hedge, but I could hear them alright. You know how water seems to excite kids — makes them even noisier than usual. There was a lot of shouting and shrieking and splashing from next door. I got a bit peeved about it, actually. We didn’t have many weekends last summer when it was warm enough to sit out in the garden, and here was my precious sabbath being ruined. So I levered myself off the lounger and went over to the hedge intending to ask if they could lower the volume a bit. As I approached, I heard one of the little girls say, obviously to one of the little boys, “You’re not allowed to pull our knickers down.” She spoke in a very clear, posh voice, like a juvenile Samantha describing a rule in croquet. “You’re not allowed to pull our knickers down.” Well, I just curled up. I