Hammer

Chapter 1 1
OCTOBER LIGHT. Afternoon light. He strides back to work along Mayfair streets with his sandwich in its little triangular piece of packaging.

Summer, when it came, came late, but now the good weather is hanging on into these shortened autumnal days. He walks through Berkeley Square, across the small park in the middle of it. The plane trees rustle with a breeze unfelt at street level, shedding substantial leaves, which descend slowly enough to surprise the eye, as though through liquid. Businessmen out, eating lunches, their ties removed, collars loosened. A woman with her back against the trunk of a tree in her skirt suit, her shoes off, her feet placed together on the dry dirt beneath the spreading roots. A couple cross-legged on the grass, each on a plastic bag rent open to its maximum extent.

It is a wishful performance, Martin thinks, as if Londoners hope that the embrace of these fine days can somehow prolong them, as if the inhabitants of the city think that they can dream it southward.

At the exit of the square, a bustle of pigeons peck at crumbs beneath a bench, brazen, flapping off only as he is almost upon them, and then taking back the space with their Mick Jagger struts as soon as he has passed. He pauses at the road as a taxi accelerates to beat the lights. He crosses, heads for the auction house.

The afternoon trade is picking up in the boutiques and the art shops. He sees the assistants at work. Greeting, straining to not strain. Working to facilitate, to go unnoticed until needed. See-through men and women like him. Chameleons or shades. Some classical category of the damned or forgotten.

ONE CAN feel the imminence of the contemporary sale as soon as one is through the doors. Thronging of people taking their last looks at the lots-a few prospective buyers, and then the enthusiasts, the art students, the odd tourist wandered in. The clatter of the end of lunch service in the restaurant. The clip at which the other

Joe Mungo Reed was born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, England. He has a degree in philosophy and politics from the University of Edinburgh, an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Manchester. He is the author of the novel, We Begin Our Ascent, and his short stories have appeared in VQR, the London Evening Standard, and Corriere della Sera. He is currently living in Edinburgh, UK.