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As I resist the urge to draw out my warrant card, I merely resort to sign language in one last act of defiance.
Headlights approach and, feeling desperate, I step into the road and hold up my hand with a firmness that has always served me well until now and, as the tyres squeal and the brakes scream, I wonder if that was a step too far.
“What the hell?”
The car door slams as the disgruntled driver exits and stares at me in utter amazement as I say firmly, “I need a cab.”
“Do I look like an Uber?”
I squint into the darkness and must admit this car is a little grander than the usual taxi around these parts and I shrug? “How was I to know?”
“So, you thought just flagging down any car would do?” He rolls his eyes. “What’s the matter? Do you believe in your own magic and think if you wished hard enough, you could magic a cab out of thin air?”
“I’m sorry, ok but there was a fifty-fifty chance you would be a cab.”
“And you were willing to gamble your life on a fifty-fifty chance.” He shakes his head despairingly. “I could be a murderer, you know, or worse.”
“Worse than a murderer, I doubt it.”
The traffic behind him starts a concerto of the loudest kind and with an irritated grumble he says roughly, “Get in. I’ll drop you to the nearest cab company.”
Spying the group of guys filming me on their phone, I say eagerly, “Thanks but word of warning, if you try anything, you will be wishing Iwasa murderer–got it?”
Before he can answer me, I jump into the back of his car and sigh with pleasure when the warm air reaches out and wraps me in a loving embrace.
The driver’s door slams and as he puts the car into gear, it rolls away from the scene of my humiliation and he says angrily, “You are the most stupid woman I have ever met. What possessed you to dress up like a pantomime fairy and walk the streets of London at night? You’re certifiably insane.”
“For your information, I am working, and this costume was probably thought up by the arrogant idiot who rules over the rest of us in his ivory tower while making decisions that ruin lives.”
“Wait, what did you say?”
“Oh please, do you need a hearing aid for Christmas? Don’t pretend you never heard me.”
“Are you talking about fairyland at Harvey’s?”
“Of course I am. Do you honestly think I’d dress up in this monstrosity willingly?”
“You seem stupid enough.” He snarls. “I mean, what sane person steps in front of the moving traffic?”
“A desperate one, perhaps. Someone so keen to get home and try to forget the day from hell lining another man’s pocket just so he can spend Christmas in the Caribbean or on his own private island, more likely.”
“Wow, you have a huge chip on your shoulder.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Come to think of it, people like you rub me up the wrong way.”
“People like me. I take it you’re referring to the hard-working masses who endure hardship and humiliation just to pay inflated rents to landlords who capitalise on people’s misery.”
“I take it back.”
“What back?”
“You don’t have a chip on your shoulder. You’re staggering under a boulder.”
“Says you.”
“Yes, says me.”
