The Crack (6 page)

The sun, as brown as the thick clouds that had covered it, plunged the landscape into a state of monochrome, and Thirsk and Harcourt, as they sat holding their glasses on the wooden benches, looked like figures in an early sepia photograph of Victorian London.

They were in a pub off Belgrave Square. Only one more effort was needed to reach St George's.

Thirsk sighed heavily. ‘I don't know,' he said as Harcourt looked at him inquiringly. ‘I don't know.'

This was the first time in his professional life that Thirsk had made such a statement and Harcourt goggled at him.

‘Where are all the people?' Thirsk said with exasperated patience. ‘They shirked, Harcourt.'

‘Shirked?' wondered Harcourt.

‘They were in great need,' Thirsk said with another heavy sigh. ‘And they resisted.'

Harcourt, understanding at last, sighed in sympathy. ‘If they had gone into analysis, this would never have happened.'

‘If they had regressed,' Thirsk corrected him sternly. ‘Imagine, a situation like this – half London falls down, a great
crack appears in the river – how would a regressing patient deal with it?'

‘He'd love it,' trilled Harcourt.

‘Exactly. Happy in their exploration of a new environment. An opportunity, without nuclear family relationships, to form new life structures.'

‘And think of playing in the mud of the river-bed,' Harcourt enthused.

Thirsk frowned at him and rose with dignity, gathering his robes. ‘One thing has become clear,' he pronounced as they made their footsore way to Hyde Park Corner. ‘Our place is no longer here. We have a duty to rescue these people. We cannot remain a small fraternity, surrounded by ignorance and hostility.'

Thirsk puffed out his cheeks as he spoke and Harcourt looked up at him anxiously. ‘But there's no one here to be ignorant or hostile,' he ventured.

‘We need to be in a place which vaunts its sanity, but is under the surface a society dying of disease,' Thirsk went on. His voice was dreamy, as always, when he launched into what was known to his followers as the Thirsk manifesto.

Harcourt gulped. ‘Do you mean the States?' he asked doubtfully.

‘I mean–' Thirsk, in spite of his lacerated feet, increased his pace ‘–I mean, of course, Harcourt, the Other Side.'

Envisaging the old-fashioned mental hospitals crammed with victims of the Crack and receiving shock treatment for their disorders, Harcourt shuddered.

Thirsk's voice broke into his unpleasant reverie. ‘Here we are, Harcourt. Let us pray that our children haven't been too badly treated in the oppressive situation in which we left them. The patients – unregressed and unreconstructed as they are–'

It was clear to both analysts, as they approached St George's, that they had nothing to fear on that score. The top storey of the hospital, once the main operating theatre and now used by Thirsk's children as a picnicking site, was blazing merrily, Ned and Mary's barbecue having got out of control almost as soon as it started. From the ground, with whoops of joy, the children trained hose-pipes on the coiling flames. Terrified heads poked
out of the windows on the floor beneath and a cry for help went up when Thirsk and Harcourt were seen advancing.

‘Fire and the father complex,' Thirsk mused as they drew nearer. ‘Interesting.'

‘A doctor! There's a doctor coming!' cried one misguided cardiac case from the terminal ward. ‘Get us out of here, doctor!'

‘What shall we do?' Harcourt asked nervously. Since childhood, he had feared fire.

On seeing their true father, the children shrieked with excitement and lowered their hose-pipes to run towards him. A powerful jet of water struck Thirsk in the eye and he staggered for a moment, blinded by the impact.

Dribbling and cooing, Mrs Withers crawled over the furrowed road and grabbed at Thirsk's hem. Ned and Mary, strong and brawny as they were, almost knocked their healer over in their enthusiasm at the reunion. Only Jo-Jo wailed in his surprisingly low-pitched voice in a push-chair by the entrance to Casualty Admissions. Even the fire overhead failed to excite him. His attempts at breast-feeding had brought him frustration rather than fulfilment.

‘We get them out of here,' Thirsk said with his old firmness. He pointed in the direction of Hyde Park. ‘A quick session there under the trees. And then we make for the river.'

‘But the patients?' said Harcourt.

‘These are our patients,' Thirsk replied. ‘We are responsible for them. And it is our duty to find more. I told you that.'

‘I see.' Harcourt looked up once more at the craning heads above. The fire, gaining momentum now, made a tapestry of scarlet and orange against the brown sky. Tying hospital sheets together, several women from the maternity ward began to descend, their babies strapped to their backs.

‘Let's go quickly,' Thirsk said in an impatient tone. ‘We don't want to be lumbered with unsolicited patients, for Christ's sake.'

Baba and Pierre Courvoisier stood for a moment gazing at each other. Then Courvoisier reached out and put his arms round Baba's waist. They drew close together, their feet sinking gently into the soft mud. A half-submerged baby's rattle clung to Baba's leg. As they kissed, the bright ruins of Albert Bridge danced before their eyes.

For Courvoisier, everything was forgotten in the ecstasy of the moment. The Common Market, and his ambitious scheme to bring luxury foods to the rich at special bulk prices. His long-nosed English wife, who had been such a help in his career. His Wiltshire and Garonne estates where he liked to survey the acres and feel at peace with himself. All was forgotten – for Baba.

And for her, the past melted and disappeared, a meaningless succession of disappointing romances. Simon Mangrove, whom she would have been foolish enough to marry if the bumper cars had not luckily intervened, meant no more to her now than her first fiancé, the idiot son of a supermarket millionaire who had spent all his money at the Playboy and was now incarcerated in an asylum somewhere in the North. In between was a row of faceless men who had wanted Baba for her tail and ears, and nothing else. And Baba could tell that Pierre – explorer, romantic and protective father-figure – loved her for herself. Life was beginning anew. For Baba, the Crack had brought happiness.

Courvoisier's hand tenderly pulled at the bunny outfit. It gave way easily and soon Baba was standing naked before him. In spite of the brown fog, which meant that without binoculars it would be almost impossible for the people on shore to see her, she blushed. These were unusual circumstances – but all the same Baba preferred to undress in the privacy of a bachelor flat.

Courvoisier kissed the small white breasts, which looked like water lilies growing in a muddy pond.

‘My beautiful Baba,' he murmured. ‘The world comes to an end and you are born. My spotless virgin – my goddess.'

Baba shivered slightly in the dank air. For a moment it crossed her mind that the river-bed might be infested with terrible and contagious diseases. Then she remembered that this, surely, was what an explorer's wife had to put up with all the time. She smiled bravely.

‘Where did you come from and where will you lead me?' moaned Courvoisier as he drew Baba closer into his arms. With his left hand he pulled at his trousers until they fell into the mire round his ankles. Overhead a seagull screeched as it flapped its way over the strange new landscape.

Courvoisier pressed his member into Baba with a snort of triumph that sounded like a gun going off. For a time, oblivious of the gently widening Crack and the ominous wavelets of mud that lapped now just below their knees, the lovers lived only for themselves.

‘Where will you lead me?' Courvoisier sighed when he had done. Separate again, he and Baba stood hand in hand only a few feet from the edge of the Crack. He was still, satisfied: but Baba could feel ambition and energy working in him once more. Dazed, she stood beside him and felt his mind race with plans for the future. At last she turned to him tentatively. ‘Where were you thinking of going?' she asked.

Courvoisier, as if he had already forgotten her existence, turned to her with a preoccupied air. ‘Going?' He dropped her hand to make an expansive gesture. ‘I'll tell you, my dear girl, where I was going. To the other side, of course. I, Pierre Courvoisier, am to be the first man to reach the other side. To bring back reports of conditions. To set up a further and more exhaustive expedition.'

His eyes softened as he saw Baba's anxious expression grow. ‘With my Baba,' he added. ‘Never fear, Baba, if wild and strange people are found there. Pierre will care for you. And if I fall sick, you will care for me.'

With a wince of distaste, Courvoisier hitched his muddy trousers up to his waist. ‘We must lose no time,' he said briskly.
He pulled a length of rope from the pocket of his suit. ‘I took the precaution of bringing this with me. And I will jump first. You, Baba, will hold this rope. And don't–' he gave a heroic smile ‘–let go, will you? That's a girl.'

‘Jump?' cried Baba. ‘But Pierre, look at the distance!'

It was true that while they were making love the Crack seemed to have grown several yards. Courvoisier paled, then shrugged.

‘Don't go,' Baba pleaded. ‘I'll never see you again if you do. And just when we'd found each other, too!'

Tears ran down Baba's cheeks. Having fallen in the course of the passionate love-making, she was now entirely covered in mud, and only her face, small and pinched with worry, stood out white against the slime brown of her body.

It also occurred to Baba that there was a terrible similarity between Pierre Courvoisier and Simon Mangrove. Perhaps it applied to all men – they couldn't leave danger alone. They had to show off. Remembering Mangrove's death, she began to sob loudly. All men were the same.

Courvoisier, for the first time, began to waver. Was it sensible to leap without proper equipment? This, unlike his Common Market activities, affected him and not the rest of mankind. And he had just fallen in love. He stood back for a moment and considered.

‘I'm being chased,' Baba whispered to him. ‘A woman – I don't know what she's made of – she's trying to kill me! I promise, it's the truth!'

Courvoisier, his confidence returning, smiled on her benignly. ‘A woman? You don't know what she's made of?'

Rapidly and finally, he decided to jump. Poor Baba was clearly a little affected mentally by yesterday's catastrophe. On the other side, they could start a new life. On the other side, untouched by the Bowlbys and McDougalls, who, Courvoisier always felt, made a mockery of his internationalism and brought the country a bad name, they could live innocently and happily together.

Baba felt Courvoisier's decision and reflected with a speed that left her almost exhausted. She grabbed at his arm and looked earnestly up at him.

‘Pierre,' she sighed. ‘I think at this time you should tell me something about yourself. I mean –' she gulped, Courvoisier was looking forbidding now ‘– I mean, you're not
married
, are you?'

Courvoisier flinched. It was true that if he reached the other side he might well find his wife there, and his children. He pictured their faces as he waded ashore, the naked and mud-clothed Baba trailing behind him. If, in Wiltshire, they had heard news of this extraordinary disaster …

‘I can tell you are,' sobbed Baba. ‘I'm not coming.'

And why shouldn't they have heard news of it, Courvoisier thought grimly. They would have jumped on the first train from Salisbury – the train would have ground to a halt, the driver scratching his head in perplexity as he jammed on the brakes just before Waterloo Bridge. His head shot sharply to the left. Waterloo Bridge, or what was left of it, was invisible from here. Suppose the driver hadn't been able to stop in time … He saw the twisted coaches, their occupants crushed and lifeless, lying in the thick mud of the river-bed.

Love and concern for his wife and family flooded through Courvoisier and left him motionless. Then he pulled himself together. These adventures were part of life. Baba was a wonderful girl. Yet it was his code that wife and family came first.

Baba stepped back dejectedly towards the overthrown embankment. The piece of rope Courvoisier had given her hung from her hands. For the first time she realized that her bunny outfit had sunk irretrievably into the mud. A surge of grief and resignation descended on her, and she felt that never again would she be as unhappy as this. Only one thing remained firmly in her mind. She must reach the Playboy and get fitted out again. And she must at all costs avoid the deathly Rene Mangrove.

‘Baba! Come here!' Courvoisier had made up his mind to jump and nothing would stop him. There was no reason, though, to leave Baba behind. Didn't plenty of men have mistresses? And he a Frenchman! He must have been affected, too, by the Crack, to imagine a pure new life with a Bunny girl when his wife was possibly in danger on the other side.
Once he had settled her comfortably … he saw a sweet little flat for Baba somewhere in Clapham, with a comfortable home for himself and his wife in Battersea. Better make sure we're as near the river as we can manage, he muttered to himself. When all this gets sorted out, the riverside houses are bound to go up in value. He had always wanted to live on the Left Bank.

Courvoisier tugged impatiently on the rope and Baba felt herself dragged back to his side. Like a lamb to the slaughter, she thought sadly as she stumbled towards him.

‘Darling!' Courvoisier bestowed a last, meaningful kiss. ‘Hold the rope firmly, and then I'll pull you over! You know I can't live without you.'

Baba shrugged. A numb indecision seemed to have come over her and she stood uncertainly on the edge of the Crack. Perhaps, if he really wanted her …