When they had been in the Plover she had asked him why he was called “Buzz”. It had seemed such a funny sort of a name. Apparently he had been christened Roy, and “Buzz” had been his Mam’s idea. He had told her that when he had been little he had never been able to keep still, was always dashing about all over the place. A regular buzz bomb his Mam had called him and the nickname had stuck. He’d said it was gruesome really, as later on his Mam had been killed by one of them . . . one of them buzz bombs. Rosie, too, had had a nickname when she’d been a tiddler. “Ladybird” her father had called her. That was before he’d gone off that Saturday night about six years ago. He’d gone off and they’d never heard from him since.
They walked on and Logwood Grove fell behind them. The streets became increasingly emptied of lights save for those of the widely spaced standards sentinelled along the pavements. The high walls blurred into dreary lines of featureless sooted brick.
They pushed on purposefully, just as if they had some fixed destination. Lofty began to press against her breast with his arm, rubbing his elbow up and down. She didn’t care much for Lofty. A tunnel leading to the loading yard of a warehouse gaped at them on their right from across the road. They all stopped and regarded it speculatively. “How about it, Rosie?” Buzz said.
She shook her head emphatically. “Too cold and dirty.” She gave an encouraging laugh. “Come to that, how about giving us another drink? And coming to that, Buzz, what do you think I am? Some sort of a public convenience?”
“I wouldn’t say that, Buzz, would you?” asked Lofty innocently. “It wouldn’t be polite. ‘Mr. Manners’—that’s me!”
The boys guffawed at this witticism and Buzz passed over the bottle. “Don’t know so much about the ‘public’,” he said to Rosie, “but you’re certainly convenient!” A thin drizzle began to blow into their faces and he turned up the collar of his coat. His eyes went again to the dark opening. “We might do worse,” he said at last. “At least it’s got a roof!”
Rosie wrinkled her nose. “It smells,” she said. “It must be a tannery.” She took another gulp of the whisky. “I won’t think all that much of you two if you can’t find somewhere better than that! Reg Mullion once took me to a hotel.”
“Reg Mullion!” said Lofty. “The Savoy, I suppose?” he ended with heavy sarcasm.
Her small eyes in the childish pudding face hardened. “No,” said Rosie. “I never said it was up West.” Her expression grew mutinous, her podgy hands tightening on her red plastic bag.
“Oh, all right,” said Lofty. “Tell you what, we’ll go on for another five minutes and if nothing better turns up we’ll come back here. Fair enough?” he demanded.
“Fair enough,” agreed Buzz.
Rosie said nothing.
They walked on more briskly in the direction of the gasometer. Suddenly Rosie tugged at Buzz’s sleeve. “Look down there!” she said.
They were standing at the top of a short flight of stairs which led to the entrance of a squat single-storeyed building. On either side of the doorway was a ponderously barred window and, what had caught her attention, was the fact that there was the glimmer of a key that had been left in the lock.
Buzz whistled softly. “Shelter from the stormy blast!” he said. “This calls for another slug!” He took out the bottle of Haig and passed it round. When it came to his turn he drank for a long time until it was finished and then slung it across the road. There was a thud as it struck the wall opposite, the fragments of jagged glass tinkling as they starred down on to the pavement. They found this immensely amusing, for they were more than a little drunk and their laughter was prolonged and meaningless.
Lofty was the first down the steps, then came Rosie holding cautiously on to the handrail. Buzz paused for a moment before he followed, looking automatically up and down the road to see if they might have been observed.
The key was a Yale and the door swung open easily. The interior of the building was stygian, the blackness almost palpable. They stood bunched together, hesitating on the threshold. Buzz pushed the other two aside, his hand searching for a switch.
Seemingly from their midst there came the eerie throb of ghostly dance music. “What the hell . . .” said Lofty, looking up to the level of the road.
Rosie gave a hiccup. “It’s only me, stupid,” she said. “I brought my transistor.”
Buzz found the switch and at the end of the white tiled room glaring strip lights sprang to dazzling life. Rosie blinked around her uncomprehendingly. Her feet tapped on the glazed surface of the floor. She clicked her fingers, her pin heels stamping out a flamenco rhythm, her young mouth puffed out into a reddened trumpet. “Let’s have a ball!” she said. She began to dance, still snapping her fingers, her tight skirt molding her rounded buttocks. Buzz strutted towards her in time to the music and struck an attitude.
The room was square and there was an opaque and dusty skylight built into the ceiling. The only furnishings consisted of a metal trolley on one side of the entrance and a desk and a chair of tubular steel on the other. At the end, away from where they stood, was what looked to them to be an enormous deep-freeze. The walls and floor were of unrelieved and clinical porcelain slabs.
Rosie turned up the volume of the transistor radio. The acoustics in the bare aseptic room amplified the sound to the same deafening degree as they would have experienced had they been in an empty swimming bath. Abruptly Lofty told her to modify it. He was staring round and frowning. He could have imagined no more bleak and uncomfortable surroundings for love making than those in which he now found himself.
“Oh close the door do, Lofty,” said Rosie impatiently. “It’s like an ice box!”
Without thinking Lofty obeyed, giving it a violent jerk, and the key, which had been left in the lock on the outside, dropped unheard on to the rain washed flagstones of the area.
Buzz took Rosie in his arms and they moved away to the music. Lofty sat down in the utilitarian chair and watched them through the smoke of his cigarette. He took out his bottle of gin and put it on the table in front of him. “You don’t half look ghastly under them lights,” he said. “You put me in mind of Dracula and his bride. That’s what!” He looked at them, grinning, playing with the ornate ring on his middle finger. “You might both of you be made out of green cheese or something!” he mocked.
“You don’t look no heart throb yourself, Lover Boy,” Buzz called back. “More like something the dog didn’t fancy and brought up on the parlor carpet, if you asks me.”
“No one’s asking you,” Rosie said. “And no one’s asking for no uncalled for remarks either! See what he’s doing, Buzz?” she went on pertly. “He’s scoffing all the booze, that’s what!” She broke off dancing and pulled Buzz over to the table by his lapel. “Share and share alike is my motto!”
“All right, all right,” said Lofty. “Keep calm! Come and get it; but there’s no more where that came from when it’s gone, so I’m warning you.”
“Oh, isn’t there?” said Rosie. “That’s all you know. How wrong can you get?” She picked up the scarlet bag. “I’ve another half stowed away in here.” She smiled broadly. “You can’t expect the boys to pay for everything all the time, can you?” she said. “Leastways that’s what my Mam taught me.”
“Is that all she taught you?” said Lofty. “Maybe now you could teach your old lady a trick or two?”
“That’s right,” said Buzz. “Maybe she could at that!” Lofty gave him the bottle. “One for you . . .” Buzz said. “One for me . . .” he tipped back his head, “and one for little Rosie,” he finished. His breath reeked of spirits as he handed her the bottle. He gave her a slap on the bottom for good luck.
“Well, what about it, Rosie?” said Lofty, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What about what?” she said eyeing him.
�
��What about our having a twirl?” he asked innocently.
She put the tiny radio set down next to the gin bottle. “Okidoke,” she said. She held out her arms. Even when drunk they were all of them expert dancers.
Buzz settled himself in Lofty’s place, tilting his chair and resting his elastic sided boots on the table’s top. “‘Not me’,” he sang, “‘not me . . . not me . . . not me . . . not me . . . but you!’”
The room was all at once plunged in darkness. “Hey!” came Lofty’s voice. “What’s the big idea? Don’t act so silly, Buzz. You crazy sod!”
Buzz gave a laugh. “None of my doing,” he said. “Power cut!” He listened to the uninterrupted slither of their feet on the polished tiles.
“No you don’t, Lofty!” It was Rosie’s voice raised in protest. “No you don’t. Give over!”
Buzz gave a shout of laughter and the beam of a torch cut through the gloom, freezing the dancers in alarm. “Carry on, kids,” Buzz said. “It’s only yours truly. Thought we’d been raided?” He smiled, benevolently playing the beam round the walls until allowing it to come to rest on the big dual doors of what he took to be some sort of a refrigerator. “I’d like to know what they keep in there,” he said thoughtfully. “What about it, Lofty? What about a look see?”
Lofty and Rosie came over towards him, one side of the girl’s purple coat touched by the shaft of light. “Why not take a look?” she said. “After all, it’s their carelessness! But first let’s all have a little drink. It’s on me later on, don’t forget. Do you think it’s stopped raining?” she asked. “It must be getting ever so late.” She stood on tiptoe trying to peer out of one of the grimy barred windows. Unable to see anything she went to the door by which they had entered. “Flash it over here, Buzz,” she said. He did so and she flicked idly at the small circular guard over the keyhole. There was a significant silence, but when she spoke she sounded frightened. “We’ve gone and locked ourselves in, Buzz,” she said rather breathlessly. “It must have happened when you slammed the door, Lofty. Whatever shall we do?”
Lofty went across to verify what she had said. “We’ve had it,” he announced, “so far as getting out of here is concerned.” He waited for his friends’ reaction.
Buzz directed the torch on to the massive rolled gold watch bracelet on his wrist. “It’s after midnight,” he said, “and we ain’t done no harm. Someone will be along to let us out in the morning. An old caretaker, most likely, and if he tries to make any trouble Lofty and me can dot him one and run for it.” He smiled. “Meanwhile we’ve got each other and something to drink, so what’s the worry?” He held up the Gordon’s by the neck. “Let’s have ourselves a good time and enjoy it. Wine . . . Woman . . . and Song!”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” said Rosie. “Perhaps he won’t come at all.”
“He’ll come,” Buzz said. “He’ll be along as soon as he misses the key.”
Seeing that Rosie continued to appear anxious they all had another round and Lofty said: “Well—aren’t we going to have a look?” He nodded towards the huge cupboard. “Maybe it’s not even locked.” Hands in pockets he lounged off, kicking out at the metal trolley as he passed by and causing it to move smoothly on its castors. “Hi, Rosie!” he said “Want a ride?” Picking her up, and despite her struggles, he dumped her on to its enamelled top at the same time giving it a hearty push.
Rosie squealed as she was carried away into the darkness. The trolley jarred to a halt against the far wall. The young men followed it, walking together in step to the wide closed doors, the beam of the torch focusing down to a smaller circle as they approached.
There were two handles, one on each panel, and they pulled it open with no difficulty. Inside were ranged five long deep trays on rollers. Buzz tugged experimentally at the one on the top. It slid forward. Upon it lay the corpse of a woman, shrouded in a sheet. They stared at it with incredulity.
Rosie gave a stifled shriek. “Push it back, Buzz,” she said, fighting panic. “It’s a stiff. You know where you are, don’t you? We’re in a morgue, that’s where we are! And what’s more we’re shut in! Locked up in a mortuary!” She started to shake uncontrollably. Lofty thought uneasily that she was about to have hysterics, and Buzz, to quieten her, obeyed.
“Stiffs can’t do you no injury,” he said. “For Christ’s sake take a pull on yourself, Rosie. Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He fell silent, following her train of thought and then said: “There’s another door in the side wall. I noticed it earlier on.”
They took the torch and crossed over to investigate, but again there was no key. Had they but known it, it gave access to the Coroner’s Court.
Curiously, the circumstances of their being immured with the dead gave both Lofty and Buzz a thrill of peculiar excitement.
They returned to the table. Buzz took possession of the bottle. “Ladies first!” he said, handing it to Rosie. She drank and the color began to come back into her face. The boys followed suit, the spirit burning their throats. Lofty coughed. Buzz held the empty bottle upside down. “Another dead man!” he said.
“Don’t!” said Rosie.
Buzz opened Rosie’s bag and took from it her liquor contribution. “We’ve enough left to keep us going ’til morning, so cheer up, all. Let’s have some fun. We’re alive and kicking,” he added, “which is more than that poor bitch is!” His words were slurred and his laugh thick. “Get with it!” He turned up the radio. “You suggested we should have a ball, Rosie . . . well, here goes! Ladies and gentlemen,” he commanded, “take your partners! Lofty—you can have Rosie.”
“Buzz,” she said, “what do you mean? What are you going to do?”
He waltzed over to where the dead woman lay and began to pull out the metal shelves, no more of which, he discovered, had any occupant. “Oho!” he shouted. “Party’s complete. Even numbers! Two girls and two chaps.” He eased out the top shelf and carefully lowered its burden into his arms. By now he was very drunk. “Howdy, m’ darlin’,” he said. “Time to shake a leg!” Laughing, he threw back his head. “It’s knees up, Mother Brown!” The body he was embracing was young and in life must have been quite pretty.
Lofty and Rosie stood beside the table watching his antics bemusedly. They passed the bottle between them from hand to hand. “Buzz!” shouted Lofty, flushed and swaying slightly. “Action stations! Change partners!” His mouth, above the straggling reddish beard hung loosely open. He belched loudly.
The light from the torch was beginning to dim and the darkness crowded closer. “Not on your life,” cried Buzz. “I’m capable of finding my own bleeding dates without your help. And see this one dance!”
Lofty ran forward, sliding over the floor towards the cabinet, his arms flailing wildly. “We’ll make this an ‘excuse me!’”
Rosie remained by the diminishing light watching them dance, her expression fatuously vacant. Although afraid, she was beginning to be affected by the boys’ bravado.
“Why be a wall flower when there’s a gentleman in the stag line?” Lofty called, pointing to himself. “Do you suffer from B.O.? Won’t your best friends tell you?” He grinned over at her. “Come along and join us, Rosie.” He tapped Buzz on the shoulder, at the same time making a low bow.
“Don’t be scared, Rosie,” Buzz said encouragingly. “Somebody may do the same for us one of these days!”
Rosie walked slowly and reluctantly forward towards them. The transistor’s music changed from pop to a waltz. It was an old classic. “If you were the only girl in the world”. . .
Dancing across the fading path of the torch their shadows were enormous and distorted as they passed brokenly over the tiled walls. Fuddled by alcohol and numb with fright Rosie could scarcely force her legs to move.
“Tell you what,” said Buzz, “what do you say to our giving this here mademoiselle a break? Doctors can
make mistakes same as the rest of us, can’t they? You read about it every day. Let’s give ’er the kiss of life. It’s worth a try, isn’t it? She’s got nothing to lose, and if we succeed then we’ll be smashing heroes. Might even get a mention in the News of the World.”
As he spoke he was revolving within a few feet of the trolley, and with exaggerated care he stopped and propped his partner up against it. Rosie was within a short distance of the tubular table. She had broken away from Lofty who was isolated in the middle of the room.
There was a strained silence broken only by the labor of heavy breathing. Minutes went by. “Phew!” said Buzz. “This is too bloody much like hard work. You ’ave a go, Rosie, then if it’s no damn good I vote we pack it up.”
Rosie leant forward, and suddenly she screamed. “It’s alive! It’s . . . I mean her . . . eyelids fluttered. I swear that they did. You’re wicked. Why can’t you leave her alone? Why can’t you? She’s not dead at all. Oh, my God!” She released her grip of the body and it slumped forward, spreadeagled across the table, and upsetting the torch in its fall. The torch rolled to the edge and toppled down on to the floor, breaking the bulb. They were in total darkness.
Rosie continued to scream, long ear piercing monotone notes of terror. Batting around, unable to see where they were going, the boys could do nothing with her. Then they closed with her, and after short periods of exhaustion during which they held her tightly she would begin anew, the knuckles of one hand pressed against her lips. She quivered with horror, racked by her shuddering.
“Strike a match, Buzz,” said Lofty.
“Got none left,” he said. “Aint you got no lighter?”
“No, God blast it! Needed a new flint.”
“Let me go. Let me go. I must get out of here. Please let me go.” Rosie said the words over and over again like an incantation.
The Smell of Evil Page 17