We stutter forward, holding our signs like shields. She is older than me, maybe late-thirties. While she is not obese, she is a long way from being skinny. Her dark hair is cut short, but she hides behind a protective fringe. She is wearing long sleeves and it makes me think of something she told me late one night.
   ‘I cut myself,’ she wrote, ‘I have scars.’
    The information had felt intimate, like a lover’s gift, but now I’m facing a woman who I do not know. Is she thinking the same? I am tall and skinny, all legs and arms, and I do not have any scars; this will be my first time. We are opposites: American and English. Female and Male. Fat and Thin. Small and Tall. Old and Young. Experienced and Virginal. Sinusoid and Quasimodo. I lower my sign first.
    “You made it,” I say.
    She nods with very small shakes of her head that wobble her chin.
    “You made it too,” she says with a small laugh as we make brief eye contact.
We are both nervous then. I hate myself for not thinking this through, not guessing that this encounter would be awkward. There is a silence that could never intrude our electronic communications.
    “Shall we hire the car?” she asks.
To business then, her question defines our relationship.
    “Good plan,” I say.
    And so we fall back on what we already know, we don’t learn anything new about each other. We walk side by side but never touching, like protons and electrons. The rental signs are clear, we follow them without the need to speak, our cardboard signs hanging from our fingers, like disappointment. I go to the first counter: Avis.
    “Budget is cheaper,” she says, “I checked on Expedia.”
       I remember my upgrade to first class and my bacon sandwich, and think, what does it matter, why should we care? But I’m the one who bought my train ticket seven days in advance for £10.25. I know why she wants to get the cheapest car. It’s the same reason she’s never cut herself deep enough to die, it’s the same reason she’s flown across the Atlantic to do this with me.
    We hire the smallest car from Budget; it’s a Renault Clio. The practical advantage of this is the small interior will concentrate the carbon monoxide from the burning charcoal. I sign the papers, and the attendant photocopies my driving licence. Sinusoid doesn’t want to drive; she is worried she will get us in a wreck. Insuring an American driver is also more expensive, even though she is an older woman. I do not know how much older, it is a question I could maybe type, but never speak.
    When we sit in the car I feel more relaxed, it is as though we are back in front of our computer screens. Our relationship built without eye contact, body language, or physical intimacy returns a little.
    “Did you write a letter?” I ask.
    “Yes,” she says and taps her small backpack by her feet. “Did you?”
    “Yes.”
    We drive out of the airport and come straight to a massive roundabout. I feel confronted with destinations again; every one of those places is an option. More than that: an exit. I turn to look at Sinusoid.
    “We could go anywhere.”
    “I thought you knew a place?” She frowns, she doesn’t understand. In America they do not have roundabouts.
    “I mean we could head south to the Chunnel and drive all over Europe. We could go east and aim for Norway, west to Ireland!”
    “You serious?”
I don’t know her well enough; is that hope or anger?
    “No.” I say, and snort.
    “God Damn,” she says in her southern drawl. “Don’t do that.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I thought you were serious for a minute.” She snorts, shakes her head.
    We drive west from Heathrow, towards Windsor Great Park. There is a car park on top of a hill where you can see most of London; I found it out on Google Maps. It is twelve and a half miles and should take twenty-one minutes. The green lights of the LCD clock read 19:17. It will be dark by eight.

4

  

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