Black Out (30 page)

‘I cannot see you,’ was all she said.

In a position that threatened imminent cramp Troy squatted awkwardly and peeled back his overcoat, tore at his trouser buttons, freed his cock and collapsed into her as she locked her hands into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled him down upon her.

‘I shall come,’ she cried softly. It sounded to Troy like a promise she was making to herself. But it was he who came. Instantly. Almost without movement. Emptying into her in wave after wave.

He relaxed on to an elbow, his face towards the dull glow of the fire. Brack lay on her back, uncurled one leg. In profile she was silhouetted against the gaslight. Was she smiling? He had not seen her smile since the night she had trounced him at the Adelphi with her tale of the boy and his bicycle. She had not had cause to smile. She slept. Her breathing came so regularly it must be sleep. It seemed an age. Her eyes opened. Closed. Opened again. She turned fractionally towards him. Ran a finger up his cheekbone and wrapped the hand into his hair.

‘There is a bed, I take it?’

‘Of course. Upstairs.’

‘Help me up.’

Troy stood. The most foolish position ever devised for a man he thought. Trousers around ankles. And held out a hand to pull her to her feet. She walked past him and up the staircase. He heard her feet in the room above, the clump on clump as she kicked off her shoes. He prised his off, toe to heel, and stepped out of his trousers. It came to him that he had no idea how to undress, how much to undress, how to get up the stairs dressed, half-dressed or naked. But knew he could not walk upstairs bare-arse naked. He slipped off his jacket, socks and tie and stood a while in his shirt and pants. He could delay no longer, bought himself a fraction of time by dutifully turning off the gas fire and followed her up.

She had lit a candle by the bedside and was undressing with her back to him. The flame danced in the draughts of an ancient house. She stepped out of her skirt and pulled her blouse over her head in that cross-armed action that only women ever seemed to master. She reached her arms behind her to unclip her brassière and suddenly was naked. Her shape outlined against the candlelight, the long, curving waistline, the broad shoulders, the willowy legs and boyish hips, was at once irresistible to Troy. She stood stock-still. He did not know if she was waiting. Her shoulders heaved gently with the weight of breathing, and her sigh, scarcely audible though it was, seemed to fill the room. He approached and kissed the back of her neck at the hairline. She squirmed her head, turned her whole body to him, kissed him on the mouth, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Without shoes she was still a good three inches taller than he, a shadow looming above him, cutting off the dancing light, and she tilted her head on one side to nip gently at his bottom lip. His hands were level with her upper thighs, he slid them between her legs and felt the crisp, puckered skin where his semen had dried upon her. He drew his fingers to her seam and felt the nip as her teeth tightened on his lip. He stroked slowly at her. She shifted softly on her feet, parting her legs. She let go of his lip. It stabbed with pain. She lay back on the bed legs spread looking back at him. Foolish. Man alone in shirt and underpants. The child too bashful to share communal showers until forced. Who needed a candle at the bedside every night but made his
mother turn her back as he undressed. He unbuttoned his shirt. Dropped it to the floor. Foolish and foolisher. Man in underpants. He felt her eyes settle on the final item of clothing. Watching the erection that thrust up his pants like a tentpole. She would not be the one to speak, she would not be the one to release his foolishness with a provocative, jokey ‘get ’em off’. He let them go and climbed on to the foot of the bed. Foolish no more. She crooked an arm and scratched lazily at the pectoral of her left breast. He heard the rasp of nails on skin. He advanced an inch or two over her on hands and knees. She rose up and sank her teeth into the muscle above one of his nipples and worked his cock with both hands. He grew and burned and his chest needled and stung. He pushed her back against the pillows, tangled his fists in the dense black hair and took her. Rising and falling, thrusting hard as she arched her back against him, twisting vainly to bite at his hands. The wind shook the windows, caught the candle. The flame blew cleanly out and in the dark she screamed.

He awoke to the sound of clapping. The irony of applause did not escape him. It was almost dawn. He was alone. The bedroom window was open and the blackout clapped in the rising breeze of morning. He went quietly downstairs. The front door was open, shifting gently back and forth in the same breeze. He found his trousers and pulled them on. Barefoot and shirtless he stepped into the street half-expecting to see her simply standing waiting. From what he knew it seemed in character. No light had yet penetrated the court. He peered to the left, out towards the obvious exit into St Martin’s Lane. It felt like a clenched fist. High and fast, catching him on the side of the head right between the eyebrow and the ear and pole-axeing him with a single blow. His vision was green and sightless but for a moment or two he remained conscious. Almost enough to know that someone was giving him a damn good kicking. The head, the kidneys, the ribs. Then green turned to
red. Blood mist, blood moon. It was familiar. Almost welcoming. He had transgressed.

Again he woke. Stretched out on the sofa in the living room. A blanket across him. Ruby the Whore sat in the armchair, drinking tea. Troy found he could speak. The blow to the head had missed his jaw.

‘How long…?’

‘About ten minutes. I heard the rumpus from the other end of the alley. But he’d gone by the time I got to you.’

Troy groaned. Tasted blood. As he drew in breath his ribcage expanded into cutting pain. He leaned over the side of the sofa and vomited.

‘Go on, Freddie, you puke it all up. Make you feel a lot better that will. I seen some kickings in my time. You been worked over by a pro.’

Troy wrenched himself back on to the sofa, feeling his whole body come back to life in one searing jolt of pain.

‘Wasstime?’

‘About six thirty.’

‘Call Bayswater 6242. Ask for Jack.’

Troy leaned over the sofa and puked again. Just before he passed out he heard Ruby dialling Wildeve’s number. When he woke again Wildeve was standing over him. He raised himself up on one elbow. Wildeve furrowed his brow.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Bloody.’

‘You need a doctor.’

‘No. Just get me on my feet.’

‘Freddie, for God’s sake. Someone’s kicked the shit out of you!’

‘Someone? Someone? I know damn well who it was!’

‘You must see a doctor.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Onions will put me on sick leave if he gets so much as a whisper of this. We’re close, we’re that close …’

‘Close? Close to what?’

‘He’s here. She thinks he’s flown the coop, but he’s here.’

‘Who does?’

‘Brack.’

‘Freddie, what on earth are you on about?’

Troy fell back on the sofa.

‘Wayne is back,’ he said.

‘Wayne did this?’

‘Why do you doubt it?’

‘It … it … doesn’t seem credible. Why would he take the risk? Look, I’ve got to call a doctor. For one thing that cut on your head is bleeding rather badly.’

‘No,’ said Troy. ‘Get Kolankiewicz. I can’t afford to be laid up by some stickler of a quack now. We have to get back out there. He’s here, he’s here!!!’

The expression on Wildeve’s face, the silent exchange of looks between Wildeve and Ruby told Troy that he was yelling, that to them he was a bleeding, battered, hysterical fool. He breathed deeply in an effort to slow the pace of heart and mind. Ruby came over to him and fussed silently. Pulling the blanket up to his chin, propping a cushion under his head so that he could see Wildeve without straining, wiping a rivulet of blood from his eyes. Wildeve leaned over once, pulled a face of mild disgust and turned his back on him. Moments passed to the tune of a thumping blood-vessel. The room swam a little, then steadied itself like a ship righting itself from listing. Troy heard Wildeve on the phone telling Kolankiewicz he knew what time it was but and but again.

‘He’s on his way. Are you settled now?’

Troy nodded.

‘Then tell me about it. Slowly.’

‘Onions gets to hear nothing of this.

‘Agreed. I’ll cover for you until you’re on your feet.’

‘OK. OK. Wayne was hiding out in the Savoy. He’s probably back there now.’

‘Well I’ll be blowed,’ said Wildeve. ‘Spitting distance the whole
bloody time!’ He paused, then added with the merest hint of incredulity, ‘How do you know?’

And Troy realised for the first time that he could not tell Wildeve how he had come by this information. Worse, he could not think of a fitting lie.

Ruby slept stretched full length in front of the fire. Wildeve sipped tea and kept out of the way. Kolankiewicz raged.

‘What did I tell you? What did I tell you!’

He shone his Ever Ready penlight into Troy’s eyes, and plucked at his eyelids. Troy winced at the pain and at the breath of the man. Who in their right mind ate garlic liver-sausage for breakfast? Where on earth did he get the stuff off the ration? It could hardly be on it.

‘How many finger I hold up?’

Dozens danced like Mickey Mouse’s demonic broomsticks dashing to the well and back. Troy hesitated.

‘Tell the truth for once,’ said Kolankiewicz.

‘Two,’ guessed Troy.

‘Jesus Christ. All five, you lying bastard! How do you expect me to help you. Trust me I’m a doctor. Trust me or I kick you in the balls right now!’

‘Too many to count.’

‘Ach … ach … smartyarse. Listen, Troy. You got pressure on the optic nerve from the blood-vessels at the back of the eye. Not serious. All you need is rest and darkness. The swelling in your head goes down and the pressure on the nerve with it. But if you arse about you play with trouble. You got me?’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Trouble trouble. You are at risk.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you could go blind.’

Kolankiewicz rummaged around in his bag and came up with a curved stainless-steel needle.

‘You need stitches in your head and on your chest. Two or three in each case. I got no anaesthetic and I hope it hurts. It might convince you to stop getting bashed about. Otherwise I predict a good chance you will join my regular client list.’

It hurt. Troy yelled. Wildeve excused himself to the kitchen. Ruby awoke with a start and followed him. Kolankiewicz tied the last knot and dived into his Gladstone bag once more. Troy watched the needle spurt as Kolankiewicz held the hypodermic up to the light.

‘You sod,’ he said, ‘you had anaesthetic all along.’

‘Not anaesthetic,’ Kolankiewicz said, ‘sedative.’

He whacked the needle into Troy’s arm before he could protest.

‘You got about five minutes to get yourself upstairs to bed. I give you enough to put down a brewer’s dray horse. If you show your face at the Yard within a week Onions hears everything. You understand me? Good. Now, if you excuse me the dead are waiting.’

He slammed out. Troy felt the first giddy, sub-orgasmic rush of the drug and called for Wildeve. Wildeve hooked an arm around his shoulders and lugged him up the stairs. The staircase spun, Troy’s legs abandoned him and a delicious narcotic elation flooded swiftly through his veins. The world was a painless, pleasant place. From outside the crystal bowl of his euphoria Wildeve’s pleading reached him.

‘Freddie, what the hell do I tell Onions? Where are you for the next week?’

Troy thought fast with what little power of thought remained.

‘Norfolk,’ he muttered. ’Suffolk. Lots … lots of air bases. Gone to … catch … catch …’

He resisted the pool of warm, pink light that invited him in and struggled with a final thought. There was something terribly important he had to tell to Jack. Terribly important. If only …

‘Savoy,’ he slurred out. ‘Check apartment. Wayne. Brack. Check apartment.’

He sank back on to the pillows. Ruby elbowed Wildeve aside and from nowhere produced a pair of striped winceyette pyjamas.
The last thing Troy saw was her pulling off his trousers and trying to thread his legs into the pyjamas.

He woke from dreams of flight. He had been a kite high over Hampstead Heath tethered to Wildeve, who pulled on the wire and swirled him above the clouds. The view of London was tremendous. Night fell with exaggerated speed, the rolling night of trick photography. London lit up like Regent Street at Christmas. And not a bomber to be seen. He sat up in bed wondering how he could have such a vision of the city, somewhat in awe of the power of imagination until he remembered watching a night of the Blitz from atop Primrose Hill years ago. Incendiaries roaring up like gas jets off a stove. Suddenly it all looked remarkably like the view from Primrose Hill. Hardly quotidian but less the feat of untramelled imagination. He swung his legs off the bed. He ached dully but felt nothing he could honestly call pain. He pulled up his pyjama jacket. Two inches below the right nipple blood had caked around three black stitches. Connecting him but unconnected to him it seemed. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt the ridge of blood above his right ear. He stood. Less giddy than lightweight. His feet floated where his brain half-heartedly said they should go.

From the top of the stairs he saw Ruby with her back to him. She was ushering a man gently out into the street with a hand in the small of his back. The door closed, she leaned against it and tucked a ten-shilling note into the top of her stocking. Then she felt Troy’s eyes upon her.

‘Don’t get moral. I’ve a living to earn. And if I did it in all the old familiar places there’d have been no one here to look after you.’

Troy said nothing. He sat on a step about halfway down. She smiled.

‘I could cut you in of course. But that would be living off immoral earnings.’

She held out a hand to Troy. He stood and padded softly down the stairs, dishevelled in his pyjamas.