Her voice could have frozen the foam atop a pint of bitter: "Excuse me!" It was the voice of someone used to issuing orders and having them carried out. Or else. Because that's what being alive means. Of course it does. You're stupid if you think otherwise.
"Excuse me!"
She spoke from a dark place, and not just of the soul. The coldness came from an open window leading into a small, glum, gloomy room just inside the North Gate at Lord's.
It was early last Saturday evening, and a couple of reporters who had been beavering away for hours on stories about the next day's World Cup final had discredited themselves - an in-joke: they had packed away their accreditation passes - and were on their way out of the ground, babbling to one another as they walked. To the pub perchance ... "Excuse! Me!"
Finally, she had their attention...