by Seth Lynch
Gritting my teeth, I hobble along to the end of the corridor. Here I notice a door with a stairwell sign on it. There's also an unshuttered window and I can see outside. I'm about three storeys up. I lean my shoulder into the swing door and stagger into the stairwell. The steps conspire to do me harm as I stumble over each one of them. Giving up means death; this torture must be endured. The plaster stops my knee from bending and the banister is only on the right-hand side; my right hand is useless. I can picture the line of my fracture by the surges of pain which course through my leg.
I make it down to the ground floor, where I lean against a wall to recuperate. My body is fracturing into fissures of glowing pain. I repress the urge to cry. Perhaps if I called out, a nurse or a porter would come and take me to my room, back to my bed. Before I can open my mouth a small germ within me assumes command. It doesn't take any crap and thinks only of survival; I'm on my belly creeping towards the door. Whenever I pause I can hear people talking. The sound emanates from a fixed position somewhere down the corridor. In the trenches I would have ordered two snipers to triangulate on the sound, and then open fire. With a great deal of silent cursing I manage to crawl to the door, open it a slither, and peep through. It's a dimly lit corridor with a reception desk at the far end. I can make out two people up there. One looks like an orderly, the other is a shadow behind a desk.
There is a window on this floor, same as there was up on the third. If my leg wasn't in plaster this would be easy. I stay on the floor with the door slightly open. If anybody comes down the stairs behind me I should hear them from a few flights up. I watch the reception desk – they are the only ones likely to walk up here. They don't look like they're going anywhere. In a real hospital I could just walk up there, bid them goodnight, and leave. Or I could let them take care of me. If this were a real hospital I wouldn't have been hidden away in that room. I hope that window is open.
Getting back on my feet is difficult. I scramble around, grabbing hold of the door handle to stop myself falling.
This is it – if I don't make it out now I won't have the strength to try again. I pull the door open and slip into the corridor. I press myself against the wall and keep my head turned towards the people on the reception desk. I count to three then make straight for the window. I place the bundle of clothes on the window sill. Got to keep up the momentum. The window is stiff. I shove it hard and it screeches opens. I duck back through the doorway scared witless that the game is up. I stand there breathing hard and clenching my fist, as if I am in any shape to fight my way out of this. There is silence for a moment and then the talking recommences. They must be able to see my clothes by the window sill.
Laziness or inertia keeps them at the reception desk. Now that the window is open I should be able to get out easily enough. They ignored the open window and the pile of clothes, will they also ignore a man in pyjamas crawling out the window? I doubt it. I pull the door open and drag my leg over to the window. Without looking back I give the window another shove. This time it doesn't make much of a noise. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. I can't angle my leg up enough to get it up over the ledge. Without this damnable plaster I'd be halfway down the boulevard by now. There isn't anything to hand that I can cut it off with and I don't have time to go looking. I lift myself up with my back to the open window and the cold night air. There isn't enough room for me to turn around now. I hold the sill in my hands and lean back. My head is outside and my back is parallel with the ground. The strain on my fingers is too great. My right hand can hardly hold on at all. Before I know what is happening I tumble out the window and land on my back. Surprisingly, this hardly hurts at all.
I fight the urge to remain lying where I am. I'm out of their grasp but I'm not safe. Getting up isn't easy: I flail around like an upturned beetle for a while, then grimace and groan as I use the wall to climb to my feet. The road is about twenty metres away. Between me and it there is a collection of rusted iron bed parts. There is no option for me now but to pick a route through it all and hope I don't get tetanus.
This is a side road; to escape I will need to get around to the main road at the front of the building. A few people are out walking, but they don't pay me much attention; I'm just another oddity out on the streets at night. I flag down a taxicab.
'Rue Challot, and quick,' I say.
'Are you OK?'
'No chit-chat, just drive.'
We spin through the city – the lights whirl and dance on the window. People's faces appear in the darkness. The sounds of the night sweep over me like waves on a beach. A repetitive puffing noise plays over in my ears. I'm going to vomit. The roads keep on coming. Buildings lighted and dark pass by. The heat is intolerable. I jerk the window down and drink in vast gulps of cold air. We stop and I push a handful of notes at the driver. He comes round to open my door and helps me onto the pavement. I make it into the building and up to my bed.
*
Light streams through my window. Filatre stands at my bedside puffing on his pipe.
'What's happened to you, old chum?' he asks.
I answer but Filatre isn't there anymore. I can hear him talking somewhere in the distance.
'Oh my God! Reggie, what's happened to you?'
'Megan?'
'Yes, darling, it's me.'
'It hurts.'
I think Megan is arguing with someone. I think it might be a doctor. Filatre appears at my bedside again. He isn't holding his pipe anymore.
'The doctor wants you to go in, old chum. He's called the Henry Dunant Hospital, they filled him in.'
'Filled him in with what?'
'They think you tried to kill yourself.'
'What, how?'
'Jumping off a building, that's what they say.'
'Which building? I was in the river. Someone must have hit me.' I put a hand to the back of my head and run my fingers over a large lump. 'They must have coshed me then rolled me over the wall. I was lucky that barge was there.'
'Who are they?' Filatre asks.
'Lord knows. They didn't leave a calling card.'
'Were you robbed?'
'No I wasn't. It must have been...I don't know who.'
'Marty!' Megan is standing by the bed with the doctor. 'Marty must have done it.'
'How would he know me?'
'One moment, Reggie,' she turns to face the doctor. 'Look, doctor, he's not going in and he's not a suicide case. Can't you give him something for the pain?'
The doctor must have been persuaded as he's sticking a shot of morphine in my arm.
'Can you recall anything else, old chum?' Filatre asks.
'Not much. I was walking by the river. I woke up on a coal barge in total pain.'
'Before all of that, what did you do yesterday?'
The drug is starting to work. I feel a tingling excitement passing through my body.
'Can you remember what you did yesterday?'
'Yes, I think I can. I went to Lacmans'. I say!' I reach for my jacket which has been slung on a nearby chair. Megan sees what I'm reaching for and passes it to me. My notebook is in the inside pocket. I can't quite concentrate or focus enough to read. I hand the book to Megan who skims through it.
'He went to Lacman Brothers and interviewed some staff. Then on to an ex-secretary of Marty's. She wasn't in. Did you do anything else?'
'I went for a walk near the river.'
'So,' Filatre says, 'is it possible somebody followed you from Lacmans' and then waited for an opportunity to do you in?'
'I can't think who could have done that. I can't think of anything much at all.'
'Perhaps we should leave it for a while,' Filatre says. 'There's not much we can do now and I'm certain that these questions are doing nothing to aid your recovery.'
*
I pass in and out of consciousness, aware of very little. I know the doctor gave me another shot. I may have received hundreds more. I could not say for how many days
I have been lying in this bed. Nearly every time I have called her name, Megan has been there to answer.
I hear people talking, mentioning the name 'Lady Soames'. There is laughter and the clink of a pair of glasses. I wish they'd shut up and shove off.
'Who the hell is Lady Soames?' I say.
'Oh, so you are awake now. I am Lady Soames. I know it's been a long time but I can't believe you have forgotten all about me.'
A strange woman is standing in front of the sun-filled window. The bright light has transformed her into a cameo.
'Aunt Bess!'
'Little Reggie, always in trouble.'
She puts her hands to my cheeks and places a kiss on my forehead. The smell of her perfume transports me to my youth. I feel safe having her here.
'How did you...'
'Megan, of course.'
'I called her, Reggie, I had to,' Megan says.
'They need help to care for you, Reggie dear. O my little darling, I wish you could have called me before. I've missed you so terribly.'
'I couldn't. I mean, I just couldn't.'
'Your mother has never stopped worrying about you.'
'That's all she ever does, Aunt Bess, she worries. She worries and worries and sometimes she cries. She never actually does anything.'
'Some things are beyond a mother's control, Reggie.'
'Only if the mother wants it that way.'
'Her first duty is to her husband.'
'Until she has a child, then her first duty should be to them, or at least some sort of duty.'
'Let's not talk about it now, Reggie dear, I can see it aggrieves you.'
She's right; I do feel aggrieved. I picture the bridge with water flowing beneath. I hold on to the image until my feelings of resentment subside.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Easter bells are ringing. The churches are trying to outdo each other. Five days have passed since I was hit and my head is finally calming down. Thinking is possible for longer durations. The leg is still in plaster and my right hand is bandaged up. Someone has rigged a make-shift traction system and attached it to my leg. I guess the doc-tor did that. I must have seen it before without it having registered. Or it did register and I forgot all about it?
My memory is patchy. The notebook helps as I go over the day of the attack. If it were solely an incident of crime, without ulterior motive, then I was just plain unlucky. My prolonged existence will be better guaranteed if I assume that I was targeted. Whoever attacked me meant to murder to me. I was not an unfortunate victim of circumstance.
The attack might not have been related to events on the day it took place. No, that sort of thinking is no good; I'm ruling out coincidences. The attack must have been directly related to my visiting the Lacmans and asking questions. All of this adds up to one thing. I'm getting closer to Marty.
Someone from Lacmans' either followed me and then hit me, or they tipped off somebody else. Who? There was that miserable old sod at the door. A man from whom all life seems to have been drained away, leaving him sour and vindictive husk. Then there was the girl on reception, or Marty's last secretary. There could have been somebody else lurking in the shadows, but I'm going to stick to certainties.
The secretary doesn't feel right. She didn't really know who I was. The receptionist was helpful, maybe she... no, it was the old man. He had that look about him, snidey and conspiratorial. He's the sort of person I can imagine striking a blow from behind, yet I can't quite visualise him actually doing it. He isn't agile enough. What's more, he would've had to have followed me straight away and I'm sure I looked back and saw him still at the door.
I run through the suspects again, returning as always to the three from Lacmans'. From the three I always filter down to the doorman. At one point I consider the kid, Stefan. He may have followed me for a few days before carrying out the attack. If it were him, wouldn't he have struck nearer my office? I can't see him following me all day then whacking me on the head. Stefan is the sort to use a penknife, not wield a cosh. Perhaps I ought to start wearing a thick jumper in case he does attack.
That old bastard, the doorman. Philippe. He must have done it. I'm going to make him wish he'd never lived. As soon as I'm able to get out of bed, I'm going to dash his brains out. No, I'm going to break each of his bones - one by one - and leave him on a railway track for a train to finish him off. He is going to feel all the pain I felt and so much more.
I write out a telegram for my client – letting her know I will be out of action for a while. After that I write out a note for someone who once passed as a friend of mine. I leave them on the side table together with a list of books I want to read. I may as well make the most of the next few weeks in bed.
Pain mingles with the pages from my books to feed my dreams. I sleep and wake according to a rhythm I'm too dull to detect. Conversations, real and imagined, float through my room. For a while I am one of Charlemagne's knights. An injured knight laid up in his tent listening to the battles being fought around him.
Days fluctuate from bliss to desperation. If I were inclined, I would make a note of my mood and how it relates to my doses of morphine. Doctors the world over would tremble as they devour my findings. However, I'm not so inclined: those doctors can tremble from the DTs instead.
In the middle of a dream, a villain appears in the bedroom doorway. His body casts a long shadow across the room to my bed. He taps a cosh in to the open palm of his left hand. He grins a twisted grin full of broken, black, teeth. His face, hideous and deformed, is my own. A scream dies in the dryness at the back of my throat. No sooner have I reached out a pointing arm than he's gone.
I become more aware of myself and my room. The pain is traceable to distinct areas of my body. For the last few days I have been reading The Three Musketeers. There's an hour's reading left in that book and then it's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. After that I'll move to something modern and English. Aunt Bess has brought me Point Counter Point; I can read it and imagine the life I might have led.
Megan brings in my gramophone and places it near the bed. Getting up to change the records proves too much of a strain for me. When Filatre appears I make him serve as my Jazz-wallah, playing records according to my whims.
I could easily be persuaded to retire to my bed on a permanent basis. Bring me books, wine, opium, and women. What more has this world to offer?
*
After being laid up for three weeks, I'm out of traction and able to hobble around. I'm also starting to keep normal hours. I have breakfast in the morning and sleep mainly at night, a few naps excluded. Aunt Bess is staying nearby at the Hotel Welcome. I always thought she was the sort to stay at the Ritz. Apparently the Welcome makes her feel she is a part of the bohemian artistic set. She and Megan, as well as caring for me, have started going on trips. They go shopping and eating out together - I fear they are becoming friends. The doctor makes regular calls and I have a nurse who visits every day. Tomorrow she will be removing the plaster.
'Up and about, old chum? Fancy a game?'
Filatre stands in a fog of pipe smoke holding a chess board under one arm. He smiles apprehensively when I look at him. I bet that crafty fox has been learning some new openings.
'Why ever not?'
Filatre beats me without mercy three times in succession. I lose my bishops and knights like a polar explorer losing his toes. I have yet to regain the art of concentration.
'Let's not play another game today,' I say. 'My ego won't survive another beating.'
'As you wish.' Filatre takes a look at his pipe bowl and gives it a good scraping. Then: 'I say, you are being rather well looked after. You've had a nurse and the doctor over most days. Then there is Megan; that girl must love you some. The way she sits and watches you sleep or reads in the chair besides your bed. Not many young ladies nowadays would keep that up the way she has.'
'Yes, she has been smashing.'
'Your Aunt too, she seems
to be a very nice lady.'
'She is really. Whenever I was with her I always felt that that was how it should have been with my mother.'
'I can imagine she is a very caring woman – there is a lot of compassion there.'
'I suppose there is.'
'She has a kindness in her smile and her nose wrinkles like a hamster's. You know...'
'You don't need my blessing, Filatre. If you did, you'd have it.'
Filatre blusters for a few minutes before giving in and quizzing me in detail about my aunt. He leaves when Megan returns with the nurse.
Megan sits and watches as the nurse cuts through the plaster. Underneath it lurks a pasty-looking stick where once a proud leg had lain. An unpleasant smell comes from the leg and, although repulsive, I find I have to keep sniffing at it. This reminds me of the time one of my corporals had to have his leg amputated. The thing had gone gangrenous and it smelt similar to this. I think this might be why I can't stop sniffing it – I want to make sure it's not gangrenous.
'For God's sake, Reggie, will you stop doing that.'
Megan looks repulsed as I try to get my nose closer to my thigh. The nurse is starting to look like she might give lunch a miss too.
'Sorry girls, I have a morbid curiosity, that's all. The smell reminds me of gangrene.'
'I see,' the nurse says. 'Give me five minutes, monsieur Salazar.'
The nurse leaves and returns with some sponges and water. Without asking for permission she begins sponging my leg with carbolic soap. When she's finished I give it a final sniff. The old stench has gone and my leg now smells how a hospital should but so rarely does. The nurse leaves and is replaced a moment later by Filatre.
'I say, old chum, there is an unfortunate at the door. Says you asked to see him.'