I recognised the second car and the white leg extended to the road through the open passenger door. David’s silver Jaguar lay slewed across the road, its chromium bumper twisted into the right wheel housing. Sally and David sat together in the front seat. Neither had been hurt, but the Jaguar’s windscreen had burst, covering the passenger compartment and the roadway with nuggets of glass. Sally lay back, her thighs spread, one hand resting on David’s arm. She was looking down at the glass that covered their laps, which neither of them made any attempt to brush away. Watching them, I was struck by their self-conscious pose, like dancers arrested in an audience-catching flourish at the end of their performance. They were uninterested in each other’s well-being, but only in the postures they assumed within the cabin of the Jaguar, as if they were memorising for future use the exact geometry of Sally’s exposed thighs and the ribbed leather of the upholstery, the precise angle between David’s crotch and the jut and rake of the steering wheel.

The police sergeant spoke to them through the window, but they ignored him, staring in a rapt way at their own hands. They seemed almost to be rehearsing themselves for a performance to come, some even more elaborately staged collision. There was no trace of shock in Sally’s face, but a thin smile that was faintly sexual in its self-regard.

The traffic crept towards the bridge, but I stopped the car and opened my door, ready to offer my help before the ambulance arrived.

“Daddy…!” Henry warned. “The policeman’s shouting at you!”

A fist drummed on the roof over my head. I acknowledged the patrolman’s signal, waved encouragingly to Sally and David, and rejoined the queue crossing the bridge. A few pedestrians stood at the kerb, staring idly at the damaged cars. They stepped back, making room for a more appreciative audience that had now arrived. Spectators returning from the air show were leaving their cars in a side street and in the car park of a riverside pub. They gathered around the Jaguar, inspecting the damaged bodywork and the pattern of tyre marks scored into the road with the practised eyes of enthusiasts judging a display of aerobatics. Two cine-cameras recorded the scene, and the police made no attempt to stop them, so impressed were they by the knowledgeability of this sympathetic audience. Yet no one made the smallest effort to help Sally and David, and a man in a flying jacket even protested when an ambulance appeared on the scene and the attendants lifting Sally from the Jaguar blocked the viewfinder of his expensive camera. As I watched, a new street theatre had been born.

*   *   *