Having narrowly avoided hitting her with the actual car, he hit her instead with the car door as he leant across and flung it open at her.
It caught her hand and knocked away her umbrella, which then bowled wildly away across the road.
Shit! yelled Arthur as helpfully as he cold, leapt out of his own door, narrowly avoided being run down by McKeena’s AllWeather Haulage, and watched in horror as it ran down Fenny’s umbrella instead. The lorry swept along the motorway and away.
The umbrella lay like a recently swatted daddy-long-legs, expiring sadly on the ground. Tiny gusts of wind made it twitch a little.
He picked it up.
Er, he said. There didn’t seem to be a lot of point in offering the thing back to her.
How did you know my name? she said.
Er, well, he said. Look, I’ll get you another one…
He looked at her and tailed off.
She was tallish with dark hair which fell in waves around a pale and serious face. Standing still, alone, she seemed almost sombre, like a statue to some important but unpopular virtue in a formal garden. She seemed to be looking at something other than what she looked as if she was looking at.
But when she smiled, as she did now, it was as if she suddenly arrived from somewhere. Warmth and life flooded into her face, and impossibly graceful movement into her body. The effect was very disconcerting, and it disconcerted Arthur like hell.
She grinned, tossed her bag into the back and swivelled herself into the front seat.
Don’t worry about the umbrella, she said to him as she climbed in. It was my brother’s and he can’t have liked it or he wouldn’t have given it to me. She laughed and pulled on her seatbelt. You’re not a friend of my brother’s are you?
No.
Her voice was the only part of her which didn’t say “Good”.
Her physical presence there in the car, his car, was quite extraordinary to Arthur. He felt, as he let the car pull slowly away, that he could hardly think or breathe, and hoped that neither of these functions were vital to his driving or they were in trouble.
So what he had experienced in the other car, her brother’s car, the night he had returned exhausted and bewildered from his nightmare years in the stars had not been the unbalance of the moment, or, if it had been, he was at least twice as unbalanced now, and quite liable to fall off whatever it is that wellbalanced people are supposed to be balancing on.
So… he said, hoping to kick the conversation off to an exciting start.
He was meant to pick me up my brother but phoned to say he couldn’t make it. I asked about buses but the man started to look at the calendar rather than a timetable, so I decided to hitch. So.
So.
尽管他很惊险地没有让一辆真车撞上她，但在他凑过身去冒失地开门时却让她撞到了车门上。
车门打到了她的手并打飞了雨伞，雨伞随后狂野地滚过了路面。
“可恶！”阿瑟一边无益地喊着，一边从他那侧车门跳出来，差点被“麦克基纳风雨无阻货运”的卡车撞到，并且惊恐地看到卡车碾过芬妮的伞。大卡车在高速路上渐行渐远。
而那把伞躺在地上就像一只刚被拍扁了的长脚蜘蛛，正在悲惨地咽下最后一口气。一小股旋风让它打了个转儿。
他把伞捡了起来。
“呃，”他说。看起来把那玩意儿还给她没什么意义。
“你怎么知道我的名字？”她说。
“呃，那个，”他说。“这样，我会再赔你一把伞。”
他看着她，感觉自己在变小。
她的身材高挑，波浪似的深色头发披在苍白而严肃的脸上，就好像是一个布置得整整齐齐的花园中的雕像，而那个雕像是为了表彰某种重要却不流行的美德。她看上去正看着某样除了她好像正在看的东西之外的某样东西。
但是当她微笑的时候，就好像她现在这样，就好像她突然重回了人间。温暖和生气涌上她的面颊，不可思议地优雅地传遍全身。这造成的效果非常令人慌乱，令阿瑟慌乱到了极点。
她露齿一笑，把包甩到后座上然后飘进前座。
“别担心那把雨伞，”她在他爬进车子里的时候说。“那是我哥的伞，他根本不喜欢它，也不会把它送给我。”她一边笑着一边系上安全带。“你不是我哥的朋友吧？”
“不是啊。”
除了嘴上没说出来，她的全身上下都透着一个虚线的词：“太棒了”。
她在车中的实体，在他的车中的实体，对阿瑟来说意义非凡。阿瑟让车慢慢行驶，他感到，感到自己难以思考难以呼吸。他只希望思考和呼吸对驾车而言不是很重要，也不会有麻烦。
在噩梦般的星际旅行后终于筋疲力尽不知所措地回到地球的那个晚上，他在另一辆车里，在她哥哥的车里的体验，看来并不是那么神魂颠倒了，或者说，如果那一次就算神魂颠倒了，他现在就是双倍的神魂颠倒，而且非常容易脱离一个神魂正常的人应该干的事儿。
“这样……”他说着，希望让谈话能有个精彩的开头。
“他打算来接我——就是我哥——但他又打电话说他来不了。我去询问公交车的时间，但那个人只顾着看日历而不看时间表，所以我就决定搭便车。“就这样。”
“这样啊。”