
stand on the platform like one of George Romero's zombies, all dull-eyed and listless. Most
mornings he had to be nudged awake to get on the train when it arrived, sometimes on time,
and sometimes not. It all depended on how the train company felt about it. And if you didn't
like it, you were of course free to take your custom to some other train company. Except that
there wasn't another train company.
By the time the train lurched into Bath, the city was already wide awake and bustling with
eager, impatient people hurrying to their jobs, positively radiating motivation and can-do.
Toby tried not to look at them. He found them depressing beyond words. The streets were
crowded, and the roads were packed bumper to bumper with snarling, cursing commuter
traffic. At this time of the day, the air was so thick with pollution that even the pigeons were
coughing, and the noise level was appalling. Head down, shoulders hunched, Toby trudged
through the din, wearing his best get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-kill-you look.
Toby didn't care for cities. They had far too much personality, like a bully forever
punching you on the arm to get your attention. Toby had spent three years living in the East
End of London, back when he was a student; an area that would have profited greatly from a
heavily armed UN peacekeeping force. Lacking the funds necessary to reach the more
civilised areas of London, Toby endured three very long years to get his BA (English
Literature and Philosophy, Joint Honours) and then ran back to his home town at the first
opportunity. Cities crammed too many people together in too confined a space, and then the
powers that be wondered why people fought each other all the time. Toby thought cities were
like natural disasters; enjoyable only if viewed from a safe distance. Bath, for example, had
interesting places to look at like a dog has fleas, but for the most part Toby couldn't be
bothered to fight his way through the crowds to get to them.
Toby had worked in Bath for over a year, but had never once considered moving there to
live.
By the time he got to Gandalf's, ready for the great unlocking at nine a.m., Toby was
usually awake enough to know where he was, but not nearly together enough to interact with
customers, so the other staff usually provided him with useful, mindless activities to occupy
him until he was fully conscious. 'Carry these boxes down into the cellar. Carry these boxes
up from the cellar. Plug in this hoover and follow it around for a while.'
Toby quite liked working in the bookshop. Stacking shelves appealed to his sense of order,
and he liked dealing with customers, even the ones who came in ten minutes before closing
time looking for a book, but couldn't remember the title or the author's name, though they
were almost sure they could describe the cover . . . But at the end of each and every day he
was still just a shop assistant; another faceless drone in the great hive of the city, doing the
same things over and over, achieving nothing, creating nothing. Every day was just like every
other day, and always would be, world without end, amen, amen.
Toby had just turned thirty-three, and he resented it deeply. He didn't feel old, far from it;
but his youth, supposedly the most promising part of his life, was now officially over. When
he was younger, he'd always thought he'd have his life sorted out by the time he was thirty,
that all the important decisions would be made by then. He'd have a chosen career, a wife and
kids and a mortgage, just like everyone else. He'd have worked out who he was, and what he
wanted out of life. But thirty came round as just another year, just another birthday, and
brought no special wisdom with it. He'd had jobs, but none of them meant anything; and
girlfriends, but none of them came to anything. He had ambition, but no focus; dreams, but no
vocation. He drifted through his days, and years, and didn't realise how much time had passed
until he looked back and wondered where it had all gone.
Most of his contemporaries were married, usually for all the wrong reasons:
companionship, regular sex, baby on the way. Peer pressure, fears of growing old, alone.
There were remarkably few great loves or passions that Toby could detect. Some had already