conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for a book with the title 'Mountains of the Moon'?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Mountains of the Moon
  He nods his head, calculating all of the odds. I show him the way around the map, to a floor cushion in Libya.
  Rounding Cape Horn we get caught in a storm of mosquito netting, hanging from the light fitting: I've been practicing. I move the purple backpack and the medical kit so that he can sit down.
  I make coffee for him in the Swallow Hotel cup and saucer, spilling it everywhere. I hear Pete tapping a Silk Cut cigarette out of the packet; smell the sulphur from his match. He's messing with the camera; hear the slow shutter click and the film winding on. I hear him put it down and then the pages turning.
  I remember introducing Peter and Heath, in the kitchen at Park Lane. They recognized each other from the night in Davros' Cellar; they stood there in the kitchen gleefully insulting each other. That first time Pete came to the house, Gwen didn't quite stress the "t" of his name, her elocution lessons dropped off with an afternoon bottle of Scotch. It's PeTer, actually, he said. I loved him, I loved him then. While the kettle was boiling I went in my room and rolled around with a lion skin, didn't know he had followed me in and was leaning against the door, watching. I try to remove the memory like a sticky thing from my eyebrow.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know another paragraph?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gear change of motion wakes me up fast-forward. Roundabout? Dark A-road? Doomed hills. Died and gone to somewhere unpleasant.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Portsmouth, depart from Platform 9, eight minutes. Tim's anorak is wrapped twice around me. I'm shivering Siberian on the platform bench. A pigeon with one foot asks me for something to eat.
  It shrugs, goes off to ask everyone else. There's a big crowd on the opposite platform, spread out and minding the gap. A Christmas crowd, with gifts and luggage and hats and scarves, all knocking against the cold. I open the zip on the case and lift my prize camera out. Super-zoom over the tracks. Viewfinder. Pan left along the platform on the other side looking for a picture in the crowd. And there she is—what a picture. An old friend. Click. Unmistakable. My old friend.
  And the sleek train on that side, snaking in to take them away. I'm up. I'm running, the camera bag banging on my hip. There's a blockage of Portsmouth people with prams at the barrier. I hurdle over the railing, sprint the distance to the stairs, fly them with the thwump of train doors slamming below. Hammer across the footbridge looking down at the train's roof, and the empty platform and the whistleblower.
  I sway through the silent carriage, checking each seat, through carriages A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Clickerty-clacking, I rattle through the buffet car, through H and I, J, K. Climb over an army camped between compartment doors. Now the train is flying, L, M, N, O, P.
  I spin about. Doors slide open and closed behind me. Calais. I lean rocking by the toilets, on the rocking carriage join. Look through glass doors to the back of the train. Through glass doors to the front, can't remember which way I've just walked. I feel for the butterfly. The toilet door opens beside me. Uh-huh. Here she is. I put my hand out, squeeze her shoulder. A ribbon of corn-colored hair swings around to face me.