Take the A-Train (3 page)

A couple of nurses had come in to say goodbye. One had brought me my take-away drugs: pain killers, sleepers, etc. I thanked the nurses and apologised, I hoped sincerely, for any trouble I’d given them. They were all smiles but I knew they’d forget about me by shift end. That was OK, I expected them to. It was the nature of the job.

I used both crutches and pushed myself along beside Fiona, past the open wards, through into the waiting area and out to the lifts. It was strange to be mobile again, even in a limited way; strange to see people uninterested in my welfare.

We descended in the big lift that smelt of old food down to the lower ground floor and out to the car park. ‘I’m over there,’ said Fiona.

I’d never thought to ask what kind of car she had, but I guessed as soon as I saw it sitting in its slot. It was an acid yellow Spitfire – with the roof down. The weather outside was cold and getting colder. ‘You need to put the hood up,’ I said.

‘There isn’t one. It got slashed a month ago and I haven’t had it replaced.’

‘What happens when it rains.’

‘I get wet.’

‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘I suppose that explains the kit.’

She looked down at herself and giggled. The giggle still worked and I smiled, against my better judgement. I was wearing a maroon sweater with a shawl collar over a pale lemon Oxford cotton shirt and ancient 501s with the left leg chopped off to accommodate my cast. I wasn’t dressed for the Arctic.

‘I brought a coat for you to wear. It’s in the boot.’ She dropped my stuff and opened the boot, pulling out my blue Crombie and shaking out the creases. ‘I got it from your flat.’

‘I can’t wear that and use these,’ I said petulantly, referring to the crutches. ‘Fucking hell, Fiona!’

‘Now don’t get difficult,’ she said. ‘I know it’s a drag, but it’s only a ten-minute drive and the fresh air will do you good. Your face looks like a fish belly.’ She cracked up.

I gave her another thin smile and leant the crutches up against the side of the car, put on the coat and thanked Christ for dry weather.

The car was too small for me and the plaster cast, even with the passenger seat way back. Eventually I wedged myself in and gathered the skirts of my coat and the remains of my dignity around myself. With my crutches sticking out of the back seat, we set off.

She drove like I guessed she would, flat out. She pushed the needle of the rev counter into the red in every gear, and the small engine and the tyres protested like hell, but she never let up.

We drove straight to Camberwell. Halfway there she pointed out the three high-rise blocks that stood looming over Kennington Park.

‘I live in the nearest one,’ she shouted over the roar of the engine and the wind. ‘You’re in luck. The lifts are working today.’ She downshifted and overtook a grey Mercedes on the inside coming up to the lights at Kennington Cross. The transmission clunked in disgust. She turned and looked at me and added, ‘At least, they were.’

‘Watch the bloody road!’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.’

I looked through the slipstream and felt my eyes tear from the force and thought how beautiful she looked at that moment, with her face animated and her hair tossed by the wind. ‘I hope so,’ I yelled. ‘Or else I’m camping in the lobby.’

‘You wouldn’t last five minutes,’ she said, and her laugh was ripped away by the wind.

We pulled up in the shadow of the tower block. Fiona dragged my stuff out of the boot and I dragged myself out of the cockpit.

‘I’m going to park the car,’ she said. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘Where do you leave it?’

‘I’ve rented a garage since I lost the third hood in four months.’

‘You were lucky to get one round here.’

‘I wore a very short skirt when I went looking,’ she said. ‘Now the guy who rents it to me wants to be my special friend.’

‘I bet he does!’

‘Free parking.’

‘And?’

‘And I’d rather pay double. Wait here. I won’t be two minutes.’

She was four but I didn’t care. Even under the shadow of that brute of a building it was good to be out in the world again. She came trotting back, chest heaving. Even under all that leather and wool it was quite a sight. ‘Come on,’ she said, gathered up my stuff and set off. I followed her through the filthy glass doors. The place was graffiti heaven. It was freezing cold and someone had pissed in the corner. It smelt like a zoo. There were a bunch of kids, black and white mixed, huddled together in one corner around a beat box. The volume was turned all the way up and the cheap speakers distorted the sound to mush.

‘Damn!’ I said.

The kids perked up when we came in. I guessed we made good sport. They started making comments – plenty of ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ and ‘shits’, all laced together for maximum offence. There were some mentions of my crippled state. Fiona pulled a face and shook her head when she thought I might say something back. Eventually the lift came. A couple of the kids made as if to join us and keep up the game. It was my turn to shake my head then and slide my right hand down its crutch to make a crude club. The kids were young enough to take the hint, just. Another couple of years and who knows?

The lift doors closed behind us and I relaxed against the wall. There was more graffiti inside. It made the interior of the cage oppressive and tight like a prison cell. It smelled like one too, like the lobby, like a shithouse, and I wondered how this girl managed to live here all the time.

‘For God’s sake, Fiona!’ I said.

‘Hard to lets,’ she replied. ‘I queued for two days and a night on a cold pavement outside the town hall to get this place. I’ve put too much effort in to let a few little sods like that frighten me away.’

‘Not so little.’

‘Anyway, it’s your fault, you look like a copper. It’ll be all right once we get inside the flat.’

‘Does that happen often?’ I asked.

‘No, not really. It’s the weather driving them inside. I get some wolf whistles and dirty talk but I ignore it.’

‘And what happens if it’s more than talk?’

‘My dad taught me some moves.’

‘Like?’

‘Army things, plus a little extra. I told you he was in the SAS, didn’t I? I can take care of myself.’

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, I’m here now.’

‘That’s a relief,’ she said, and I suppose standing there propped up by two bits of metal tube and plastic and rubber I wasn’t exactly as reassuring as I might have been.

The lift shuddered upwards. It seemed to take forever on its journey. The floor indicator was history. It had been ripped away from above the door and just two bits of bent wire and some battered numerals were left. A couple of times the lift faltered and seemed to be on the verge of giving up altogether and I thought sourly that I might spend most of my first day of freedom being jacked up or down a lift shaft by the fire brigade. Fiona stayed cool so I assumed the lift’s behaviour was nothing out of the ordinary.

After what seemed like an hour we ground to a halt and the doors slid open with a screech of protest. We walked, or in my case limped, on to a half clean hallway with a door at each end and another jammed half open, leading on to the stairwell. Fiona turned left and dumped my bags in front of her flat. The door was painted sick green and held a security peeper and three key holes. It was battered-looking and someone had tried to get a blunt instrument between door and jamb. The scars on the paint looked fresh.

‘My dad fitted a metal door,’ she explained proudly. ‘And the locks and the dead bolt. The spy hole and the letter box can be locked from the inside.’

‘He’s handy, your dad.’

‘You’d better believe it, and my brother too. So be careful, Sharman, or they’ll come and get you.’

‘I never argue with the military.’

She juggled a set of keys from the pocket of her leather jacket and took an age to open up. What she’d do if anyone came after her whilst she was trying to get through that bank of security I didn’t ask, but I wasn’t happy. I thought I might talk to her father or her brother about it.

The front door opened on to a short hallway with a door each side. At the end was a steep open stair-case. ‘It’s a maisonette,’ she said. ‘Kitchen on the left.’ She threw open the door and I registered a clean white kitchen with a blind pulled down over the window. ‘Living room on the right, but it gets a bit noisy sometimes at night. The people downstairs are party animals, so I don’t use it. It’s all right – upstairs you can’t hear a thing.’ She opened that door and let it bounce back on itself and I had a glimpse of a huge empty room with dark curtains drawn across a wall-width window. ‘Can you manage the stairs?’ she asked. ‘Here, give me your coat.’

I leant the crutches against the wall, shrugged out of the Crombie and handed it to her. I fitted my arms back into the crutches and heaved myself up a dozen stairs and into a hall that turned back on itself at the top.

‘Bathroom,’ she indicated.

It was a medium-sized room with towels folded neatly over a rail and only one pair of tights hanging over the bath. She pulled them down, felt them for dampness, seemed satisfied and brought them with her. ‘I cleaned up for you. It was in a bit of a mess.’

I backed out awkwardly.

‘Bedroom one,’ she said. ‘I use this as a living room.’ Another door opened on to a darkened room, curtains closed again. It was furnished with a two-piece suite that looked expensive, and a TV and video on a trolley with wheels.

‘Bedroom two.’ Another dark, empty room. No furniture, especially no bed.

‘Bedroom three.’ I was getting tired as she showed me a huge room with a built-in wardrobe and dressing table, both dominated by a massive bed – and I mean massive, fully eight feet by six. Even though I estimated that the room was twenty feet square, with a high ceiling, it was dominated by the bed. It had a padded headboard and no baseboard and was covered by a colourful duvet. Fiona ignored it.

‘This is the biggest window,’ she said, and walked in and drew back the curtains.

The wall seemed to be all glass. Outside was a balcony, maybe three or four feet deep, and after that nothing until the hard concrete twenty-seven storeys down. I couldn’t believe that anyone would step out on to that exposed ledge. Beyond the balcony was the view. I’ve never seen one like it. I looked out over the park to the Elephant and the river beyond, and counted seven or eight bridges. I could see right over the City of London to the hills beyond. The city appeared to fill the room. We seemed to be floating over the rooftops as if in a dream.

The place was silent until Fiona slipped a catch and slid the window open. I could hear the city then, the noise of eight million people and their cars, and the wind whistling around the roof like a mad thing, even though down below in the street the day had seemed quite still.

‘Christ!’ I said. ‘That is a view.’

‘I closed all the curtains in the flat so I could surprise you,’ she said. ‘But just you wait for night time.’

‘Draughty up here,’ I said.

‘This is nothing. There’s a three-foot sway when it gets really blowy.’

I turned away from the window. It was too much to take in at one go. ‘By the way, where am I sleeping?’

‘Don’t be coy, Sharman,’ she said. ‘You’re in here with me. I’m as horny as hell, and I’ve been waiting for this for weeks.’

‘But my leg,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry about that, just leave it to me. I guarantee absolutely no pain.’ I gave her a look. ‘Well, maybe just a little.’

‘D
o you want a joint to get you in the mood?’ Fiona asked. This was 9 a.m. remember. ‘Or a drink? Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, do you want something to eat?’ She’d obviously remembered that our relationship was supposed to be nurse/ patient rather than dominatrix/sex slave, although I could handle that.

‘No food,’ I said. ‘I’ve just eaten a Saint Thomas’s egg and I think it’s digesting me. But I could use a beer.’

‘No problem. Get into bed,’ said Fiona.

‘Remember I’m ill,’ I said.

‘Sure, I mean to rest. Christ, I’m nervous all of a sudden.’

‘Don’t spill the beer.’

‘No, I won’t, now get into bed.’ She stood for a minute and I sort of leaned awkwardly against the wardrobe, waiting for her to go. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to get undressed.’

‘Been doing it for years, all by myself,’ I said with forced heartiness.

She went out of the room and I wondered what I’d let myself in for, then shrugged and sat on the side of the bed. I piled my clothes at the end of the bed. I didn’t want to get into wardrobe-space wars for a bit.

I got in between the sheets, dragging my leg behind me. The bed was big and comfortable and the sheets were soft and freshly laundered and smelt of woman, all in all as different from a hospital crib as could be. Like an idiot I got a hard on straight away. I snuggled down and looked straight out over London. Fiona had positioned the bed for maximum visual overload.

She came back with two cans of Bud, freezing from the refrigerator. ‘What do you want?’ she asked as I chugged at one. I must have looked puzzled across the top of the can. ‘Music, TV, a film? I’ve got loads of tapes.’

‘Whatever,’ I said, concentrating on the beer.

She went off again and came back, pushing the TV and video on its trolley. She plugged everything in and pushed a button on the set. ‘Here’s the remote,’ she said, throwing me the little, black plastic box. ‘It works the TV and the video. Figure it out if you can. It took me months.’

I pressed buttons and got two soaps, Ceefax and
Rainbow
. I turned the volume down on Zippy. Whatever happened to
Button Moon
? I used to watch it with my daughter. All of a sudden I felt like crying. I was homesick for the hospital.

Fiona saw I was having some kind of withdrawal and rolled a joint of pungent Thai grass. We smoked it, listening to
Killing Joke
on the stereo.

I lay there for nearly an hour as Fiona changed the records and
Rainbow
turned into The
Gummi Bears
and a few flakes of snow dislodged themselves from the November sky and drifted past the window. She had loaded the joint until it nearly capsized and I felt no pain.