‘Stay with me and don’t go poking your noses into any closed rooms,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t like what you’d find. And hey…’ I paused, making sure I had their full attention. ‘There are some parts we have to go through that are gonna upset you. Unfortunately there’s no other way…’
Muriel shuddered and turned from the stairs. Cissie held her own upper arms as if a chill breeze had followed her through from the street
‘I thought the hotel would be empty,’ murmured Muriel. ‘I didn’t realize…’ Her voice sharpened and there was enough daylight inside the entrance hall to see the astonished curiosity in her eyes. ‘Why would you choose to live in a…in a…morgue like this? There must be so many other places.’
I brushed past her to reach the stairs. ‘This is just one of a few safe places, lady, and one I was already familiar with.’
‘I don’t understand.’
On the third step, I turned to look down at her. ‘Did you ever hear of the 1st American Eagle Squadron?’
She nodded slowly, but it was Potter who spoke up. ‘Yanks and Canadians who couldn’t wait for their own countries to come off the fence.’
‘We joined in your war early, fought with the RAF when you needed all the pilots you could get,’ I said, too weary to explain fully, but ready to satisfy this girl’s curiosity if it would get her moving again. ‘We made our unofficial HQ in this hotel. Suite 618-619. We drank, we caroused, we played poker, we did anything to take our minds off killing and being killed for a coupla hours. The American Bar became our watering hole, though I don’t remember any of us ever paying for a drink. Hell, we even got into Tich’s Bar with the war correspondents.’ I didn’t tell them about Sally, how I’d courted her here, my turn to impress her after she’d shown me all the good things in her town, bomb damage or not, how I’d loved her, and yeah, one year before the last V2s had landed, had married her here in the Savoy Chapel. 318-319 was our honeymoon suite, but the hotel had only charged us room rate and had thrown in champagne and flowers as a wedding gift. I didn’t explain because there wasn’t time and there was no point. Besides, these people meant nothing to me – I didn’t owe them a thing. ‘Cept maybe the German. Yeah, he had something coming, and that was why I wanted them all to stay with me for now. I wanted him to suffer just a little before he took his last breath, but I was too beat up to play it out right then. When I put the Kraut away, I wanted to enjoy the moment. Heck, I wanted to celebrate it.
‘So why are we hanging around?’ Cissie said, looking from me to the others, then back to me again. ‘You mentioned the water’s still running, didn’t you? And I bet the bar’s open all hours, isn’t it? So what are we waiting for?’
She joined me on the stairs and when I failed to budge because my thoughts were still otherwise engaged, she prompted me with: ‘Mine’s a large gin and tonic, easy on the tonic, heavy on the gin. Hey, Mr Fighter Pilot, did you hear me? A girl could die a thirst aroun’ here.’ Her attempt at Mae West was pretty cruddy – maybe it was the hint of hysteria that spoilt it – but it changed my mood. For a short while, anyway.
I took them up to the next level, through an art deco foyer with dusty chandelier and fountain-etched mirror, then up more stairs into twilight corridors, past doors with fancy names – Iolanthe, Mikado, Sorcerer, Gondoliers – and over thick carpets that smelled of mildew. The further we ventured, the gloomier it became, until after a sharp turn the way ahead radiated a palish grey again. Soon we’d entered that grey.
‘Oh dear God.’ Muriel’s fingertips covered her lips.
‘How could…?’ Slowly Cissie had turned her eyes on me, away from the spectacle that spread out before us, away from the vast front foyer where the rich and the gracious and the businessmen on expenses had taken late-morning or afternoon tea, or evening cocktails, in elegant easy chairs or sofas set between brown marble columns and exotic potted palms, surrounded by tasteful murals and high mirrors, ormolu clocks and knee-high tables laid with finest chinaware and tiered cake-stands, served by waiters in tails, with reception clerks in morning dress bustling through it all with courteous calm, the war outside an inconvenience but never a hindrance to the Savoy, service as normal even if the building itself had become a little battered and the menus reduced to basic (if stylish) fare; where now rotted figures slumped in those same elegant easy chairs, or sprawled across those knee-high tables amid broken crockery, or lay on carpets thick with dust, the foyer nothing more than a vast emporium of horribly macabre tableaux, each one solidified in death, the plants merely dried stems, the chandeliers grey with dust, and the humans only desiccated husks. And beyond this, through the open doors to the grand restaurant overlooking the park and river, opened only for lunchtime custom in the dark days, the scene was repeated, but rendered even more grotesque by the sun’s brightness through the high, broad, taped windows. Cissie had diverted her eyes from this to look at me with…with what? Not with Muriel’s astonished curiosity when we’d first entered the building. Horror, then? Yeah, horror and something more. Dismay would come closest Her sentence might have finished with, ‘How could you live in a charnel house like this and remain sane?’
Well, lady, I hadn’t claimed to have all my marbles.
I didn’t say that, though. I just couldn’t be bothered any more. I ignored those bewildered hazel eyes and her unfinished question.
‘The stairway’s along here,’ I said instead, moving off to the right towards the Savoy’s stately vestibule and entrance hall, sensing their eyes on my back, their disgust I kept walking and knew they’d follow me anyway, like frightened stray sheep in need of a leader.
Up a broad set of steps I took them, past a balcony overlooking the vestibule, then down a high-ceilinged hallway towards the stairs next to the defunct elevator. On the way, but without changing pace, I took a quick peek into a half-open doorway, checking on the Velocette Mk II motorbike I’d hidden away in there. It nestled in the shadows like some great black and fabulous insect, tank full, parts greased and free from rust, spark plugs clean, all primed and ready for a swift start, and just a glimpse of it stirred something deep down in my gut It was the sudden urge to get away, I guess, to climb aboard that machine and roar out of the hotel and free myself from these people and the liability that went with knowing them. Involvement was something I neither wanted nor needed, because that kind of burden only brought more grief.
My own exhaustion smothered the impulse no sooner than it was roused (besides, I hadn’t forgotten Stern and why I wanted him here) and I kept going, heading towards the staircase beside the elevator.
It was a sluggish climb and by the time we reached the third floor our line was strung out. Without waiting for the others I left the stairway to walk down a long gloomy corridor, coming to a halt and waiting for the others to catch up only when I reached the sharp left turn at its end.
The German was the last one to reach me and briefly I wondered why. He was much stronger than the others, so had he taken time out to explore possible escape routes while trailing behind, investigating rooms close to the stairway on the landings we passed, looking for doors to the fire escape? What the hell – he had a right. None of it would help him, though, not when the moment came.
I turned my back on them and unlocked the door to Suite 318-319.
8
TO THEM IT MUST have looked like an Aladdin’s Cave – an Aladdin’s Cave of junk, canned food, cardboard boxes, and weapons, all kinds of stuff that came in handy when you lived in a city where shopping was free but nobody produced any more; and where blood-bandits roamed the empty streets, so that shopping was sometimes a risky business.
My suite in the Savoy had lost some of its elegance because of the clutter, no doubt about that, and there was a whole lot less room than when I’d first moved in. We were crowded inside a tiny vestibule between the bedroom and sitting room, the jumble spilling into both, and to our right was a marble bathroom with a stirrup pump that fed from the half-filled tub standing in the door
way in case of sudden fire (what good the pump would do in a real emergency was debatable, but it might at least buy me time to escape into the hallway). The pastel-coloured walls of both rooms were easily overwhelmed by the flashy labels of canned foods and mixed jars, and only the king-size bed was free of clutter in the maze that was my refuge; the mess was everywhere, things piled high on easy chairs and mirrored dressing table, a selection of handguns and cartons of ammo on the lounger, a shotgun leaning against the writing desk. Boxes full of items I couldn’t even remember poked out of the half-open closet. A radio that would never broadcast again stood on a small occasional table by an armchair heaped with magazines and books, and on the fancy Louis-Seize escritoire was my wind-up gramophone, a stack of dusty records next to it, Bing Crosby still on the turntable.
The two girls had already wandered into the sitting room and were gawking about – ration-book kids in an overstocked candy store. I didn’t know what they’d been living on the past three years, but from the wonder in their eyes I guessed their cuisine had been pretty dull. Muriel glanced back at me, gave me a smile, then went to a cabinet set against the near wall where a mountain of canned stuff was piled high. She picked one can out and the mountain threatened to topple; it steadied itself, though, and she read the can’s label.
‘Creamola Custard Pudding,’ she said in awe.
Cissie giggled and put a finger against another label. ‘Fancy Quality Fish Roll,’ she read aloud, and her interest instantly moved on. ‘Mrs Peek’s Puddings. Batchelors Peas. Oh wow, peaches…’
‘Ostermilk for Babies?’ Muriel said questioningly from another stack.
‘Look.’ Cissie again. ‘He’s got coffee. Three whole bottles of Camp Coffee.’
‘Handy eggs.’ Muriel. ‘Ugh, dried whole egg.’
‘All I can get hold of,’ I put in, beginning to enjoy their enjoyment
‘Spam. Oh dear, lots of Spam.’ Muriel sounded disappointed, but I could tell she was joshing.
‘And Weetabix,’ said Cissie, a grin spread all over her face as she scanned the rest of the room. ‘Bovril, Ovaltine, Peek Frean biscuits, marmalade. My oh my, you’re determined not to go hungry, Yank.’ She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Are those fresh vegetables over there?’ she asked, pointing.
‘A week or so old,’ I assured her. ‘Grew ‘em myself on one of my allotments. It wasn’t easy after last winter.’
She was already picking up potatoes and examining each one individually. ‘After everyone had gone or died at the sanatorium we tried to grow our own, but somehow it never worked out. I suppose we’d both have been useless as land girls, but that’s the problem when one of you has been brought up in a London pub and the other’s the daughter of a lord.’ She indicated her friend, and it was easy to figure which one was the lord’s daughter.
‘Didn’t you get supplies from the nearest town?’ I asked, surprised.
‘We were too scared to go far,’ replied Muriel, her interest still on the gold mine of food around her. ‘The nearest houses were the furthest we strayed. Mostly we ate from the centre’s own stores. We were afraid we’d catch some disease off the dead, or even be infected with the Blood Death itself. Nobody knew anything, you see, not even the scientists in charge of research. Are those cabbages I see?’
She hurried to another box on the floor. ‘Oh, and Brussels sprouts, and onions. You must have worked hard to have achieved all this, Mr Hoke.’
‘Just Hoke,’ I told her, then shook my head. ‘All I’ve done is kept a few things going. It isn’t much, considering.’
‘May I?’ Stern had followed us through to the sitting room and had lifted a single pack of Camels from a carton on a straight-backed chair.
I nodded and he quickly broke open the pack. He put the cigarette between his lips, then searched around for matches.
‘Over there,’ I pointed to the mantelpiece above an extinct electric fire.
As he took a box of Swan Vestas from my stockpile of matches, he studied himself in the dust-dulled mirror over the mantelpiece and frowned. He was filthy, but it must have come as a slight shock. Maybe he’d always thought his kind didn’t pick up the dirt like the rest of us.
‘I need to wash,’ he said, more to his own reflection than to me. ‘You say there is plenty of water in this hotel?’ Now he was looking at me, but only through the mirror.
‘The Savoy has its own artesian wells, but the pumps are out of action. The tanks are still pretty full, though.’
‘Me first,’ Cissie insisted quickly. ‘I can’t go another minute stinking like this.’
I guessed stinking wasn’t a word Muriel used a lot, especially when it applied to her own body, but she was nodding in agreement ‘Yes, I’d like to get cleaned up too. Then perhaps we can enjoy some of this lovely food; I’m beginning to feel quite faint and it’s not just from fatigue.’
I addressed them all: ‘You’re in a building full of bath-rooms, so you won’t have to take turns. But stick to this floor, don’t go wandering off.’
I noticed the German, now puffing away at his cigarette, had strolled over to the M1 carbine leaning against the writing desk and my hand went inside my jacket when I thought he was going to pick it up. Instead he passed by the rifle and went to the tall window overlooking the park and River Thames below. The drapes were open, but a lace curtain covered the glass.
When he raised a hand to draw the lace aside, I said, ‘Leave it alone. I close the curtains at night if I’m using light –’ I indicated the candles and lamps set around the room ‘– and in the daytime the netting is always kept in place.’
‘In case someone looks up and wonders?’ he mused, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew there was a half-smile there. ‘Quite unlikely, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Unlikely or not, I don’t take chances.’
‘I could do with a stiffener.’ Potter had sat himself down on the edge of the sofa and was eyeing the array of bottles crowding the low coffee table in front of him. Gin, vodka, and several brands of whisky – Famous Grouse, Haig, Johnnie Walker, and even good ol’ Jack Daniel’s, as well as bourbon and rye – all of them severely rationed during the war, but not nowadays. Hell, there was even the Savoy’s own special blend to drink, a Scotch as fine as any I’d tasted, and I’d tasted a lot during my lonely nights in this city. Then there were the wines – hocks, moselles (yeah, German, old stock, I guess), clarets and burgundies, even some vintage stuff – sharing space on the edge and underneath the table with cartons of cigarettes – Lucky Strike, Camel, Wills Capstan, Churchmans No 1, and some I hadn’t even taken note of. Genocide had turned me into a heavy smoker as well as an inebriate.
‘Help yourself,’ I said to Potter as his roving gaze took in all that was on offer. ‘I’ll get you a clean glass.’
‘No need, son, no need.’ He gave a satisfied grunt and reached for the Grouse. ‘Plannin to drink an’ smoke yerself to death, was yer?’
He didn’t wait for a reply, nor did I bother with one. His plump fist closed over the neck of the bottle and he gave the top a twist
‘Yer know, I was always scared to come inta the Savoy after those last V2s dropped.’ He paused to hold the bottle up and examined the golden liquid before he drank, the loose cap in the palm of his other hand. ‘Even though I’d seen you comin and goin a few times, I was still frightened of what I might find in ‘ere. I coulda raided the American Bar easy enough if I’d had the spunk to come inside, but nah, somehow it wasn’t in me.’
He took his first swallow, the whisky glugging into his throat.
‘You weren’t afraid of entering the Civil Defence shelter,’ I reminded him.
‘That was different. I knew most of them people. I wasn’t as funny about it. But this lot in here – toffs, rich people, even some of our own leaders, members of the War Office an’ that – well, I didn’t feel it was my place to intrude.’ He took another, longer, swig from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and eyed me again. ‘If yer
know what I mean.’
I didn’t think I did, but I was in no mood to think about it. I faced the others. ‘You can have your own separate rooms along this hallway, but don’t go any further. All the suites on this side of the third floor interconnect, though the doors are locked right now.’
‘You are a cautious man, Hoke.’ Stern had remained by the window and the light shining through the nets revealed how spoilt his tweed jacket and pants, so neat and clean when we’d first met, had become. A sleeve and a pocket were torn, his shirt collar crumpled; yet as he drew on the cigarette, his arm across his chest, hand holding his other raised elbow, he still had that air of superiority about him, that icy arrogance we’d come to expect from the Master Race. Movies and propaganda had told us this was how they were, how it was part of their Aryan nature, and I’d never doubted it for one moment.
‘A cautious man…’ he went on, and I wondered if it was mockery I saw again in those colourless eyes ‘…yet today you were almost caught by those Blackshirts, as you call them.’
‘Sometimes it happens,’ I said by way of explanation. Going to the coffee table, I picked up a Johnnie Walker, one-quarter full, its cap missing. ‘But it won’t happen again,’ I added before taking a long, long drink.
That evening, using two of my three portable gas cookers, I made them all a meal. It was only Spam, tinned peas and boiled potatoes, followed by peaches and custard, but they made ecstatic sounds as they wolfed it down.
Earlier I’d shown them other rooms they could use as their own sleeping quarters, the two girls moving in to a suite next door to mine, Potter and Stern in separate rooms further down the corridor, the old warden at the end of the line. I kept all the interconnecting doors locked. They were surprised to find that these rooms were used as store rooms as well, although none of them was as cluttered as my own suite, but there were no complaints. Not that I cared one way or the other. I left them to settle in and went back to my rooms where I threw off my filthy, ripped clothes and showered – the reduced water pressure still allowed a Niagara Falls soaking under those big Savoy shower heads. Although goosebump cold, the water freshened me up a whole lot. A fast shave was followed by some attention to my injuries. The wound where the bullet had passed through the shoulder of my leather jacket was only skin deep and iodine (Christ, that hurt) with padding held in place by sticky plaster took care of it My ankle was puffy and soft, but I knew no bones were broken, so the swelling would go down within a day or so if I bandaged it tight. The bruising on the same leg was just beginning to show through and was already looking ugly; it stretched from calf to mid-thigh and the muscles underneath were stiff and painful. For a while walking would be a problem, but no big deal. Cuts and grazes were soon dealt with and the rest of the bruises could take care of themselves. My hair was singed – the front looked like scorched corn – and the skin on my face and the backs of my hands was puckered and flaky; likewise, though, no serious damage. Oh yeah, and the knuckles of my right hand were scraped raw. All things considered, I’d been lucky that day – more lucky than I deserved – and I’d also been taught a lesson. Lately I’d become complacent, figured myself too smart to be nailed by the crazies. Well, I’d been wrong. Stupid and wrong. And the booze was taking over. Like I’d told the German, it wouldn’t happen again.
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