City Girl in Training Read Free

raining and he doesn’t look like a serial killer. What could be the harm?
    c. tell him to get lost and leave him standing on the pavement?
    d. let him take the taxi and wait for another one?
    e. walk?
    H AVING battled with the intricacies of the underground system, only going in the wrong direction twice, I finally emerged into the light of day. When I say light of day, I’m using poetic licence. What actually confronted me was the dark of a wet November evening.
    And when I say wet, I do mean wet. No poet needed. The rain, miserable icy drizzle that had perfectly matched my mood when I’d left home, had intensified to the consistency of stair-rods.
    In the country it would have been quite dark. But this was London where the neon never set; excitingly opulent shop windows and the rainbow colours of a million Christmas lights were reflected in the wet street, cutting through the gathering gloom.
    And there were people, hundreds and hundreds of people, all with somewhere to go and in a hurry to get there.
    I stood in the entrance to the underground, A-Z in hand, trying to orientate myself as impatient travellers pushed past me. On paper, it didn’t seem far to Sophie and Kate Harrington’s flat, but I was well aware that distance, on paper, could be deceiving. And my problems with north and south on the underground system had seriously undermined any confidence in my ability to map read. A taxi seemed like a wise investment and as I glanced up I spotted the yellow light on a cruising black cab.
    I’d never hailed a taxi before—in Maybridge taxis didn’t cruise for custom, you had to telephone for one—but I knew how to do it. In theory. I’d seen people do it on television often enough. You stood on the kerb, raised your hand and yelled ‘Taxi!’…
    I’d never make it to the kerb before it passed so I raised my hand and waved hopefully, but, realising that my self-consciously ladylike rendition of ‘Taxi!’ didn’t stand a chance of being heard over the noise of traffic, I tried again, this time yelling loud enough to wake the dead. I didn’t care. It had worked! The driver was heading for the kerb, pulling up a few yards ahead of me.
    Wow! Who was the mouse now? I thought smugly as I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and, towing it after me, I cut recklessly through the crowds who were charging along, heads collectively down against the rain. Before I got to the kerb, however, someone had already opened the taxi door and was closing his umbrella prior to boarding.
    â€˜Hey, you! That’s mine!’ I declared, uncharacteristically tiger-like in my defence of my first London taxi, despite the fact that my adversary towered above me.
    The black silk umbrella he was holding collapsed in a shower of rainwater, most of which went over me, and the taxi thief glanced at me with every indication of impatience.
    â€˜On the contrary, I hailed it before you even saw it,’ he said, giving me the briefest of glances. Brief was apparently all it took. After a moment’s astonished gaze, he muttered something beneath his breath that I didn’t quite catch—but didn’t for a moment believe was complimentary—and, with a look of resignation that suggested he was being a fool to himself, he stood back and gestured at the open door. ‘Take it. Before you drown.’
    Oh, no. This was bad. I could be mad at a man who nicked my cab, but I couldn’t take it if it was rightfully his, even if my need was clearly the greater.
    He did, after all, have an umbrella.
    But I was already so wet that no amount of rain would make any difference. As I dithered on the kerb, he was rapidly getting the same way. But it had onlytaken a moment’s reflection, a pause long enough for my brain to override my mouth, for me to realise that I had in fact seen him standing at the edge of the pavement in that moment when I’d looked up from the A-Z . That