Another six inches, another stoppage. Brian switches on their fine new radio-cassette and tunes in to Capital Radio, which helpfully tells him that a power failure and a series of accidents are paralysing West and North-west London. Stay at home, advises the radio, unless your journey is absolutely necessary. Brian twiddles the knob and finds a discussion on the World Service about Eastern Europe, in which various experts assure their listeners that, despite glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, the Eastern European dictatorships will never be overthrown. The Berlin Wall will stand for ever.

Alix and Brian listen for a few minutes, trustingly. Why should they doubt it? They do not know what is in store for them. They do not know that the End of History will shortly be announced.

They listen, and then they get bored. Brian changes programmes, looking for music, finding Nilsson. A man on the other side of the road goes mad and drives his car on to the pavement. Alix fixes her attention on a little scene just ahead of them. A pretty and petite young traffic warden with blonde hair peeping from beneath her cap and a high, fresh country complexion and glossy gaily painted lips is in altercation with a young man whose beaten-up old banger has been clamped. Alix cannot hear what they are saying, but she can read it from their body language. She, on her dignity, is protesting that the clamping is nothing to do with her, it is done by a different department. He is pointing to a message on his windscreen, no doubt protesting Breakdown or Meter Broken. She is telling him that this is nothing to do with her either, and neither is this (eloquent gesture) amazing snarl-up. The young man, tall, dark, with long hair and high Mexican cheekbones, wearing a leather jacket and jewellery, fancies himself, and in Alix’s view rightly, for he is a good-looker. The traffic warden fancies herself too, also rightly. As Alix watches, the young man kicks one of his own flattish tyres, shrugs his shoulders, and turns away with some final defiant wisecrack. And, as Alix continues to watch, the traffic warden begins to laugh. The young man turns back towards her, caught by surprise. The warden laughs and laughs. He makes some comment, which drives her further into hilarity. She laughs from a full throat, she hits out at him in mirth with her little gloved hand. She gasps some riposte. Both of them collapse. He has to lean on the rusty battered flank of his incapacitated and insulted property. She tries to control herself, looks round to see if anyone is watching her betrayal of the dignity of her uniform, and again succumbs. It is a dumbshow, a scene from the commedia dell’arte. They are both as happy as can be, there on the dirty pavement in Lisson Grove.