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neighbours staring in silence at the majestic apparition. Even the football game had stopped.
    Given the car, the driver came as no surprise; he was decked out in a stiff grey-brown chauffeur’s uniform, complete with peaked cap.
    He didn’t bother with the front door, walking round Greg’s vegetable patch to the patio, scattering scrawny chickens in his wake. The way he walked gave him the authority. Easy powerful strides, backed up by wide powerful shoulders and a deep chest. He was young, mid-twenties, confident and alert.
    He looked round curiously as he approached. Greg sympathized, the little estate had begun to resemble a sort of upmarket hippie commune. Shambolic.
    Eleanor wrapped a towel around her breasts, knotting it at the side. Greg climbed to his feet, wearily.
    The chauffeur gave Eleanor a courteous little half-bow, eyes lingering. He caught himself and turned self-consciously to Greg. “Mr Mandel?”
    “Yes.”
    “My employer would like to interview you for a job.”
    “I have a phone.”
    “He would like to do it in person, and today.”
    “What sort of job?”
    “I have no idea.” The chauffeur reached inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “This is for your time.” It was two thousand pounds New Sterling, in brand-new fifties.
    Greg handed it down to Eleanor, who riffled the crisp plastic notes, staring incredulously.
    “Who is your employer?” he asked the chauffeur.
    “He wishes to introduce himself.”
    Greg shrugged, not that impatient for details. People with money had learnt to become circumspect in advertising the fact. Furtiveness was a national habit now, not even the Second Restoration had changed that. The PSP’s local committees had become well versed at diverting private resources to benefit the community. And they’d made some pretty individualistic interpretations on what constituted ‘community’.
    Greg tried to get a feel from his intuition. Nothing, it was playing coy. And then there was the money. Two thousand just for an interview. Crazy. Eleanor was waiting, her wide eyes slightly troubled. He glanced down at the frayed edges of his sawn-off jeans. “Have I got time to change first?”
    The Rolls-Royce’s dinosaur mechanics made even less noise than an electric car, sublime engineering. There was a glass screen between Greg and the chauffeur, frosty roses etched around the edges. It stayed up for the whole drive, leaving questions stillborn. He sank into the generous leather cushioning of the rear seat and watched the world go by through sombre smoked windows. Chilly air-conditioning made him glad of the light suit he was wearing.
    They drove through Edith Weston and on to the A1, heading south. The big car’s wheelbase bridged the minor roads completely. Over a decade of neglect by the PSP had allowed grass and speedwells to spread out from the kerbs, spongy moss formed a continuous emerald strip where the white lines used to be. It was only thanks to farm traffic and bicycles that the roads had been kept open at all during the depth of the dark years.
    Horses and cyclists pulled on to the verge to let them pass, curious faces gaping at the outlandish relic. The impulse to give a royal wave was virtually irresistible.
    There was some traffic on the dual-carriageway A1—horse-drawn drays, electric cars, and small methane-fuelled vans. The Rolls-Royce outpaced them effortlessly, its suspension gliding evenly over the deep ruts of crumbling tarmac.
    The northbound side of the Welland bridge had collapsed, leaving behind a row of crumbling concrete pillars leaning at a precarious angle out of the fast-moving muddy water, pregnant from five weeks of heavy rains. The bridge had been swept away four years ago in the annual flooding which had long since scoured the valley clean of all its villages and farms. During the dry season the river shrank back to its usual level, exposing a livid gash of grey-blue clay speckled with bricks and shattered roofing timbers,