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Monday. While I’m out at work, we receive a delivery. I find it blocking up the hallway when I get back that evening.

The Chair. And
Shane
. And a message (stuck to the seat, on that so-familiar notepaper, in that so-familiar hand) which says:

‘Bols, you cunt.

And this is a fucking Mies van der Rohe–

Don’t you (or your skinny arse) know
anything?
’

Skinny arse?

Skinny
arse?

So did I ever even
hint
that Furniture Design was my forte?

Did I?

And here’s another thing: to consciously
choose
to abuse the very booze you were
christened
in?

No bloody
wonder
that arty-farty SOB didn’t want to let on.

Bols?!

What’s wrong with Remy Martin?

The next day, on the dawning of Day 40, I bump into Hilary. He’s standing on the park steps, by the wire, casually perusing a poster of Leonardo Di Caprio (which some imbecile has hung up there), his Fortune Reading sign tucked under one arm, that infernal headscarf tossed around his neck. And he’s clutching two cups of coffee in a plastic holder. One bun. He’s obviously waiting for somebody. I clamber up and join him.

‘Quiet, isn’t it?’ I say, glancing around (nobody about but a couple of guards, and the usual straggle of suited city-folk scurrying to work).

‘Yup.’

Blaine is still asleep.

We both stare up at him. We’re the only two people around (strange, eh? That an event can be so huge in one moment, yet so very intimate the next?).

‘Got some bad news for you,’ he says, clearing his throat.

‘Oh yeah?’

(For a moment I think it’s going to be something about Aphra. But it’s not. What am I even
thinking?
Of
course
it won’t be.)

‘You’re gonna get the sack. Tomorrow.’

He turns and offers me a coffee.

‘I got you this,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

And he smiles.

So what can I
do
? I take the cup.

‘Could only afford one bun,’ he says.

(
Hmmn
. Now
here’s
an interesting social dilemma…)

It’s during this small, almost
domestic
interlude that Blaine suddenly awakens. One second he’s fast asleep, lying flat, totally
comatose
. The next, he’s rocketed up. With an awful gasp. His eyes staring. His mouth hanging open.

(The fluidity of
movement
. The
momentum
. The
panic.
)

Then he turns–in that brief instant–he
turns
, still jolted, and he stares straight at me.

One

Two

Three

Then, ‘Oh. It’s
you
,’ his face seems to say, and it
relaxes
(his expression relieved yet
irritable
, like I’m some sickly, needy
dog
who happens to’ve wandered into view). A weak smile. He lifts up his hand, automatically.

David Blaine–
the
David Blaine–waves at me.

Without prompting.

Good
God
.

(Do I wave
back
, you’re wondering. Of
course
I don’t. I
can’t
. I’m holding the damn
coffee
carton in one hand, see? And in the other I’m holding the bloody
bun
Hilary gave me.)

He turns and grabs his notebook (like Aphra said he would,
just
like she said) and he scratches his curly head with the end of his pencil. He calms himself down. He slowly realigns his celebrity mantle (a little to the left.
Okay
. Now a little to the right…I’m actually a multi-
multi
millionaire. Did you happen to
know
that?). Then he sighs and he begins to write…

I blink. I hide my confusion by sipping the coffee. It’s almost cold. ‘Coffee’s almost cold,’ I gripe.

Wednesday, I get the
sack
.

Hey!
Mayor Ken Livingstone? You can suck my fat
cock
.

Thursday, Bly pops around to see me and casually lets slip how Hilary got his job back.

But in
my
department.

Did the fucking interview
Monday
.

Yup.
That’s
how they get’cha.

(
Aw
. And there was you idly thinking how there was gonna be some kind of life-affirming
romance
between Bly and me once that dirty hussy Aphra was out of the picture…

That bitch got me
fired
.

So pull your damn
horns
in.)

Three days and counting…

Everything speeds up.

And everything slows down.

Concurrently.

Funny how life can do that.

Bly and I actually stroll down there together–
companionably
, if you
must
know–that last Thursday night. And its
packed
with mums and with dads, with teens and with kids. And there’s this twenty-four-hour homeless
singing
marathon (A bunch of students determined to use their charitable instincts to drive the poor bastard round the bend again). A blonde cockney girl with a grating voice is banging relentlessly on her tambourine and hollering. And Blaine’s there, exhausted-seeming–lying on his side–his hood pulled up, like a bemused King of Siam, welcoming a hotch-potch of eccentric foreigners to his wayward fiefdom.

But later–after we go–there must’ve been a riot. The following morning the entire pavement is a skating rink of yellow yolk and albumen. The atmosphere is leaden. And there are schoolboys on the bridge, hurling onions at him. A local woman walks by, with her dogs, she stands and stares at them. ‘Shame on you,’ she keeps saying. ‘
Shame
on you.’

But the boys keep on throwing, their eyes glazed over, like they can’t even see her, like they can’t even see him.

The cockney girl is still there, still hollering, still banging on her tambourine. And she seems to be singing straight
at
them. She’s plum in the firing line of all those onions (remember that deal with the angle of the bridge and everything?) but she seems actively intent on provoking them further. And I don’t know why. I’m not sure whose
side
she’s on. And I’m not honestly sure if
she
knows, either.

It’s been so long.

Soon the fences come down.

They erect a huge screen.

The last day. A Sunday. By early afternoon, gangs of people are starting to line the bridge already. And there are dense crowds on the embankment, including huge Asian families from the East End who are wandering around cheerfully, secure–for
once
–in the knowledge that they won’t be the people having the fruit thrown at them.

The stairs are jammed. The T-shirts are selling. Strange music is playing over the loudspeaker (dippy, shitty, modern,
hippie
stuff with a female singer). The angle of the box has been readjusted, to give a larger crowd a much better view of it, and on the massive screen a static image of Blaine is being projected, an unflattering shot, which looks like it might possibly be the passport photo of a down-at-heel worker from the Algerian Embassy.

There is an ambulance.

Blaine has his back to the crowd. He’s talking–through a hatch–to the people in the disabled access / viewing area behind him. It’s a long conversation. But the crowds don’t care. They’re so full of happy anticipation. Sometimes he lifts up his mattress and peaks out through the glass bottom and interacts with the people directly below him.

He looks wan, and so thin, now. His hair is flattened down over his forehead. And every so often he pulls at the beard on his chin, neurotically, as if he longs to yank the bristle clear out of the skin. But he’s holding it together. In fact he’s
finding
himself again. Little by little that necessary transition is taking place–from sitting-duck to superstar, from total access to none.

Bly says she’ll come, and even
Solomon
says he might drop by (you believe
that
? Then you’ll believe anything). Twenty minutes till lift-off, though, and I’m here all alone, slightly surprised that the bridge isn’t busier.

At the far end–apart from the roasted chestnut stall and the hot-dog seller–it’s still relatively negotiable. Way off in the distance you can see the box–hanging, luminescent–but a tree obscures the big screen where a documentary is being played (this is presumably Korine’s big moment) in which Blaine appears to be pulling out his own heart on a quiet London street, in front of a bemused-looking woman who plainly just wishes he’d shut up and fuck off.

There’s shots of city pigeons, creepy, glockenspiel music, simpletons gazing confusedly at the camera, nudists, red balloons, all subtly intercut with ardent fans making speeches about how Blaine has taught us all something unforgettable about the human spirit.

I walk on, past the ticket kiosk (by the first of the two main towers), squeeze around the corner–things are getting pretty
tight
here–and see a woman climbing up on to some thick, hazardous-looking grey railings. I follow her lead and clamber up on to the other end. We balance precariously together there.

People of all colours are rushing by. Hasidic Jews in abundance with their hats, their ornate ringlets and their crazy silk attire. Kurds, Turks, Africans, hard-core Muslims, hooded gangs of city urchins. People with prams.
Toddlers
. An old Indian guy–like an ancient
mystic
of some kind–with his hair caught up into a bright blue turban, being pushed along in a wheelchair.

And the Pool of London is full of boats (to the foreground of the
Belfast
, which is lit from below, generating a mess of funnels and geometric shadows, like some kind of lovely, moist, mad-angled Stanley Spencer); they’re mainly police launches (this thing could potentially be a logistical
disaster
), there’s the fire-rescue launch, and the harbour master…

Has this bridge
ever
been so full of laughter and bustle?

But we can’t see him (not from here, not with the naked eye), because the TV lights reflect off the box, so he’s just this hunched black shadow, like a fly swatted against the glass, a smear. Only very rarely does the huge screen project live images of him. And when it does, he offers such a strange and violent contrast to the carnival around him. Like one of those videotaped
kidnap
victims, cruelly manipulated by terrorists to pull his home nation’s heartstrings.

Time passes. The party continues. But tonight we’re
ALL
to be held to ransom by the TV executives. Forty-four days–to the minute, to the
second
–comes and goes without incident, and
still
he remains suspended. Some people are getting emotional, are shouting, ‘
Let him down! Let him go
!’ A nervous voice over an intercom system tells us that there’s only
one
more commercial break, and then…

And then finally–
finally
–it’s time. There’s not a countdown, there’s not a drum roll, just a green crane lowering a perspex box, a smattering of applause, and when it lands, with a thump, he doesn’t climb straight out. He stays in. He seems almost
afraid
to leave (remember Kafka? ‘The Hunger Artist?’). He’s changed his clothes; still in his trademark black, but wearing a loose robe and a scarf. And there’s something so formal, so poignant, so
dressed-up
about him.

He’s posing for photographs. The stretcher is there, the ambulancemen in their fluorescent yellow jackets. Some scales. They take off his coat, his scarf, and weigh him.
Weigh him?

He’s lost four stone, they announce.

(So what’re
we
meant to do now? Cheer? Like he’s Weight-watcher of the Year?)

He seems–it’s hard to tell–quiet? Overwhelmed? Bemused? He suddenly starts shaking. They wrap him up in a blanket. They ask him some questions. He begins to say something, and just as he opens his mouth, a terrible cacophony–or a magnificent one, depending how you look at things–roars out over the river.

Eh?

I spin about on my railings, craning my neck, but can’t see anything. I jump down into the crowd. My T-shirt gets caught and I’m left momentarily dangling. I tear it free, push my way through to the edge of the bridge and peer over.