The Doorkeepers (30 page)

After cleaning his teeth, he went to the closet and took out a pair of dark blue chinos, a pale blue check shirt, and a tan linen coat. Maybe it wasn't exactly period costume, but it was reasonably inconspicuous. He had seen three or four people in the other London wearing linen coats. Admittedly, they had all been clerics, but that was a chance that he was prepared to take.

He left his room and went down to the lobby, to the night porter's desk. The night porter was a gray-haired black man, who was sitting comfortably in his chair with the cryptic crossword in
The Daily Telegraph.

“Morning, sir,” he said. “Looking for a drink?”

“No, no. I… uh … I wondered if you had any candles.”

“Candles?”

“It's a religious thing. Every fourth Tuesday I light a candle for my father, and a candle for my mother, and a candle in memory of John Lennon.”

The porter took off his glasses and gave Josh a long, unfocused look. Then he said, “Are you serious, sir?”

“Do I look as if I'm joking?”

“No, sir, you don't. But then different people have a different sense of humor.”

“Listen, I'm serious. I'm looking for candles.”

The porter rummaged in the bottom drawer of his desk and eventually produced four wax nightlights, in little aluminum-foil cups.

“That's the best I can do, I'm afraid. But you're welcome to them.”

“They're great,” said Josh. “Absolutely ideal.”

“They're nightlights, that's all. I only keep them here in case of power cuts. You're not going to light them in your room, are you?”

“No, no. I'm going to do this outside.”

“Well, that's OK. We don't allow candles in the rooms. Not even for religious purposes.” He picked up his glasses and said,
“You could help me with this clue, though. ‘It's disgusting that hell is so elegant.' Eleven letters.”

“Don't ask me. I was never any good at cryptic crosswords.”

Josh left the hotel and hailed a passing taxi, reaching Star Yard at about twenty after one in the morning. His footsteps echoed against the buildings on either side. The only background noise was the harsh brushing of a roadsweeping truck as it made its way slowly up Chancery Lane.

As he knelt by the niche that led to the other London, he thought he saw a brief shadowy flicker, further up the passageway. He turned his head, and saw a gray cat running around the corner. He stood up, wondering if he ought to go after it. It meant something, he was sure, but he didn't know what. But he waited and waited and it didn't reappear, so he knelt back down again, and set out three of the nightlights, and lit them.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
he breathed to himself. He waited until he was sure that the nightlights were burning properly, and then he jumped into the niche.

Putting out one hand to steady himself against the wall, he looked back at the London he had left. The nightlights were still burning, their flames dipping in the breeze; and beyond the nightlights, with the flames reflected in its eyes, stood the gray cat, staring at him.

“Ladslove?” Josh challenged it.

The cat continued to watch him with the solemnity that only cats can muster. Then it turned away and disappeared.

Josh turned left, and then right, and then left. It was very dark between the buildings, and when he looked up he couldn't even see the stars. He was beginning to feel very tired, and the wounds of the Holy Harp were feeling sore. What was worse, he had to make sure that he breathed through his nose, because the slightest flow of air across his deeply-drilled teeth was agony.

He saw light up ahead – not as bright as the sodium lights that he had left behind him, but the same distinctive orange. He stepped out of the niche, back into Star Yard. He heard traffic, and the distant clanging of bells. There was a strong smell of burning in the wind, and another smell, like dust.

Cautiously, he walked as far as Carey Street. It was deserted, except for three parked trucks and an old-fashioned-looking automobile. There were no streetlights anywhere, and not a single light in any of the buildings all around him, but there was a glow in the sky above the rooftops, and so he guessed that this part of the city was suffering from a power blackout. He heard a woman's high heels walking very quickly down a side alley, but he couldn't see her.

It
felt
like the same London that he and Nancy had first ventured into. He recognized the Law Society and the Public Record Office – and down at the end of Chancery Lane, although it was closed for the night, he saw the same newsstand where they had tried to buy a paper. But as he walked down to Fleet Street, the smell of burning grew stronger, and before he could reach the corner, a firetruck drove past, with a silver bell clanging on its front bumper, and firefighters standing on its running-boards.

He soon saw where it was headed. Less than a mile away, the great dome of St Paul's Cathedral was surrounded by fires. Thick gray smoke was billowing up into the night sky, and powerful searchlights were criss-crossing through it, as if they were fencing with each other. The air was filled with distant shouts and panicky bells and the deep, soft rumbling noise of buildings burning.

There was hardly any traffic around – only one or two small private cars speeding along Farringdon Street with their headlights shuttered – and not a soul on the sidewalks. No sign of the Hooded Men, thankfully, or their drummers, or their dog-handlers. Josh didn't have much of a plan, apart from finding Nancy, but he knew that he was going to need help. He started to walk toward the British Museum, keeping close to the walls, and stepping back into the shadows whenever he heard a vehicle approaching.

He was walking along a narrow alley off Drury Lane when a voice called out, “What's your hurry, darling?”

He stopped. A woman was standing in a doorway opposite. All he could see was the glow of her cigarette and the light shining on her stockinged leg.

“Got a spare ten minutes, darling?” she asked him.

“I'm sorry, I'm in kind of a hurry.”

“You won't regret it, sweetheart, I promise you. Five pounds and you can do anything you like.”

“Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”

There was a pause, and then the woman said, “Here, you're not a
Yank,
are you?”

The way she asked him, Josh was suddenly aware that he ought to be careful what he said. “I'm just on my way to meet some friends, that's all.”

She stepped out of the doorway. She looked much younger than she sounded. Nineteen or twenty, not much older. She walked in an odd tilting way because her shoes were too high. She had upswept blonde hair and she wore a purple satin dress with padded shoulders, a deep décolletage, and a handstitched hemline that finished just above her knee. She was heavily made up, with thin plucked eyebrows, but she hardly needed it. She had a pretty, almost elfin face and huge dark eyes.

“Come on, darling. You can spare a fiver, can't you? I'm starving.”

“I'm sorry. I don't have any money at all. If I did, believe me, you could have it for nothing.”

She came up to him, lifted her hand, and turned his face to the side so that she could see him better. “You sound like a Yank. You didn't get shot down, did you?”

“Shot down? No. You've got to be kidding me. I can't even fly.”

“So what are you? A spy? I could make a lot of money out of you, if you're a spy.”

“Listen,” said Josh. “I came here looking for a friend of mine, that's all. I'm not a pilot and I'm not a spy. If you really want to know I'm an alternative veterinarian.”

“What's that when it's at home?”

“I don't really have time to explain. Now, if you'll excuse me.”

“You
are
a spy, aren't you? A Yank spy. They give you fifty quid if you turn one in.”

Josh heard the distant
crump-crump-crump
of anti-aircraft guns. More searchlights played tic-tac-toe in the sky.

“This may sound like kind of a dumb question,” he asked the girl. “But… is there a
war
going on here?”

“Oh, no. It's fireworks night, that's all.”

“God, you British and your sarcasm. There's a war on, isn't there?”

She came up close to him, and gripped the lapels of his coat, and pouted at him, and licked her lips, and lifted her thigh up against his leg. “Where have you been?” she asked him, with a smoker's catch in her voice. “How come you don't know there's a war on? You're not a loony, are you?”

In the far distance, Josh heard the droning of aero-engines. Not jets – piston engines, and there were scores of them, by the sound of it. The whole night started to throb, and the
crump-crump-crump
of anti-aircraft fire grew deafening.

“Second wave,” said the girl, in a matter-of-fact voice. “We'd better get under cover.”

She opened the door behind her and stepped inside. Josh stayed where he was, unsure whether she wanted him to follow her. “What are you waiting for?” she asked him, from the darkness. “You don't want to get blown to bits, do you?”

Josh entered the shadows. The girl closed the door behind him and switched on the light. He found himself standing in a narrow, cabbagey-smelling hallway. On the right, there was a gloomy flight of stairs covered in old brown linoleum. On the left, there was a door which obviously led down to the cellar. “Come on,” said the girl. “We'll be safe in here. Unless we cop a direct hit, that is.” Josh hesitated, but he suddenly heard a shrilling chorus of whistles in the air high above them, followed by seven or eight deafening bangs. They couldn't have been more than half a mile away, and Josh felt the jolt through the soles of his feet.

“Don't hang about. My Aunt Maisie hung about, and got her head blown halfway down the garden.” The girl led the way down the steps. Josh closed the cellar door behind him and followed her. “See … look,” she said. “I've got it quite homely, really.” The cellar walls were limewashed white. Two brick arches supported the ceiling, and formed three separate
rooms: a makeshift bedroom at the far end, which was curtained off with a thick gray blanket, a living area with two old armchairs and a sagging sofa, and a kitchen with a paraffin stove and a few cans of food – corned beef, peas and carrots and a box of Shredded Wheat.

The cellar smelled of damp and stale cigarette smoke and unwashed sheets, but the girl was wearing a strong, cheap lavender perfume, which mostly overwhelmed it. She sat down in one of the armchairs, crossed her legs so that her dress rode high on her white, bruised thighs, and held out a packet of Senior Service cigarettes. “Gasper?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, it'll do you good. Look at the state you're in.”

“Are you kidding me? Don't you know how bad for you those things are? You don't want to survive all this bombing and die of lung cancer, do you?”

“Lung cancer, darling? What are you talking about? My doctor
told
me to smoke. He said it was good for my nerves.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled it deeply, blowing out twin tusks of smoke from her nostrils. “I think I'd die if I couldn't have a fag.”

Above them, Josh could hear the pulsing of engines coming closer and closer, punctuated by dozens of ground-shaking explosions. It sounded as if somebody were stalking along a corridor, violently slamming one door after another. After each explosion, dust sifted down from the ceiling, which the girl nonchalantly brushed off her knees with her hand.

“It's murder on your hair, all this dust. They said it was going to be bad tonight. I reckon we'll have to throw in the towel if it goes on like this.”

There was another immense explosion, very close by. The lights went out for a moment, and they could hear masonry and glass dropping on to the ceiling.

Josh held out his hand. “Guess I'd better introduce myself, if we're going to die together. Josh Winward.”

The girl said, “Petty Horrocks. Stupid name, isn't it, Petty? Better than Petunia, though.”

“How long have you lived here, Petty?”

“Three months, give or take. My mum and dad moved out to the country when the war started, but I couldn't stand it there. Lincolnshire, do me a favor. Nothing but sugar beets and lads as thick as shit. I told them I'd rather be blown to bits than die of boredom. So I came back to London; and this place was empty; and that was that.”

“And you survive …?”

“By screwing anybody who's got a fiver. Or two pounds ten for a blow job. Sorry if that offends you. But at least I can go dancing in the evenings and have a laugh.”

“I guess we all have to survive the best way we can.”

Another five or six bombs fell, but this time they sounded further away. All the same, the droning of aero-engines continued, and Josh guessed that there must have been nearly a hundred airplanes passing overhead.

“We won't be able to put up with this much longer, you know,” said Petty, in a matter-of-fact voice, tapping her cigarette ash on the floor. “The docks is all gone, Covent Garden's gone. They even dropped a bomb on the Odeon in Leicester Square. Fifty-eight people killed, right in the middle of a Ronald Shiner film. Serves them right for going to see it, that's what I say. Still, I won't be sorry when it's all over.”

Josh said, “Listen, I know it all looks pretty bad at the moment. But you guys are going to win this war. I promise.”

“Oh, yes, and how do you know that?”

“I just know it. Trust me.”

“I bet you're a loony. Where did you escape from? It's all right. You can tell me. I won't grass on you, promise.”

“I'm not a loony. I happen to have… privileged information, that's all.”

“So you
are
a spy!”

“I told you. I came here looking for a friend of mine, that's all. But you shouldn't worry about the war. Once the United States gets involved – that's going to be the end of it.”