Eventually she found a snack bar where they would serve her sandwiches through a window. She sat on a bench opposite a television store, where a man's face in various colors and sizes was mouthing. Her eyes kept closing as she ate. A Scientologist approached to offer her a personality profile, but she waved him away. She hoped the group that she meant to expose had less power than the ------------------------------------157
Scientologists, who had sued the Olympia Press out of existence for criticizing them.
She restrained herself from going back to Euston at once, and struggled along Oxford Street for a while, through the swarm of tourists. Now and then she took refuge in stores, some of which were cooler, but the store detectives followed her until she left. Though she was glad to be so convincing, she could hardly afford to be arrested.
At Marble Arch she turned along Park Lane. Silver limousines glided by, uniformed doormen glowered at her in case she thought of approaching their hotels. She managed an hour's sleep in Hyde Park, but woke shivering, despite the sunshine. In a chemist's she bought Beecham's Powders--she ought to have done so earlier--and persuaded the shopgirl to give her a glass of hot water in which to dissolve the lemony medicine.
She wandered along Piccadilly to Leicester Square. Above the roofs, cranes groped about the sky. She felt as though her mind were up there with them, trying to catch hold of something, perhaps her body. When she'd sat for a while in Leicester Square she went to see a film called Eraserhead. At least the cinema should be less humid, and the film might wake her up; the film buffs at the Other News had said it was hilarious.
But she was asleep before it began, and when a snore jerked her awake a man was disemboweling a deformed baby with a pair of scissors. She closed her eyes hastily, until the cries of the baby woke her halfway through the identical scene. A lump of darkness with eyes the color of snails was glaring at her over its shoulder. She stumbled out of the cinema before she could be asked to leave, only to find that the day had vanished. She'd entered the cinema in broad daylight, yet now it was dark except for headlights sloshing over the wet road. She'd slept through two performances of the film. ------------------------------------158
She hurried down the Charing Cross Road, over pavements stained with neon. The Tottenham Court Road felt like a film of the start of her afternoon walk, a film running jerkily in reverse. Her haste stoked her body, which was prickling. Before she reached the Euston Road she had to cling to a lamppost in case she was about to be sick.
When she arrived in the Euston hall she slowed, panting. Her sounds were thin and unreal, too tiny even to echo. A hovering voice boomed, announcing trains. A few people stood about, dwarfed by the hall and the voice. She went in search of a seat, her legs trembling.
The few seats--narrow ledges obviously meant to deter sleepers--were all occupied. Were there seats on the platforms? If she bought a platform ticket, would the collector let her past the barrier? If he did she would be out of sight of anyone who came looking for vagrants. She was faltering near the barriers when she saw a journalist she knew, striding toward her up the slope from the Edinburgh train.
She had almost acknowledged him before she realized what she would be doing. Instead she dodged into the ladies' room, and felt absurdly furtive. No doubt she might feel more absurd before her search was over.
The matron in charge of the ladies' room gave her a glass of hot water in which to take another Beecham's. "Are you all right, dear?" the woman said anxiously, and Gerry had to say that it was just a mild cold. In the mirror she saw what the woman was seeing: her spots were worse, accentuated by her unhealthy pallor; her bunches of hair looked like muddy rope. Even more than sleep, when all this was over she looked forward to lying in a hot bath for hours.
Now she had to go into the station hall. She'd grown almost used to sleeping upright--that way she was less ------------------------------------159
likely to be moved on--but tonight she was afraid she didn't have the strength. Everything would wake her, the bundles of newspapers thumping the floor like falling drunks, the amplified voices calling for the staff, the winos breathing in her face, the policemen who were there when she opened her eyes as though they were waiting to arrest her. The only people she wanted to wake her had no names.
Eventually she found a pillar to lean against, in the middle of the hall. She made sure that the von Daniken book protruded from the bag between her feet, to advertise her as gullible and in search of some vague mystical secret, then she closed her eyes. Perhaps she was delirious, for she seemed to sink at once into a cocoon; the pillar at her back turned soft and horizontal. The warm subdued light behind her eyelids drew her down into itself.
"I said, would you like to come to us for the night?" It was a Salvation Army officer, who looked patient when she peered blearily at him, even when she mumbled ungratefully. She couldn't be sure that he wasn't a dream, derived irrationally from her Salvation Army research. Everything seemed as unconvincing as the clock which said she had dozed for an hour.
The awakening had left her unable to sleep, and her cold was worse. The pillar was tilting, the floor was a deck in a storm, the captain was a giant who stooped toward her, shouting about trains. Of course she was in a station, Euston Station, and people were wandering about listening to radios, or were those the voices of the people? It was impossible to tell, they were so small and blurred. One thing seemed clear: if she was given the chance now to infiltrate the group, she would be very little use.
She had no choice. She must go home for the night and try to sleep off the cold, and hope she hadn't missed her chance. Surely one night wouldn't matter. When she came ------------------------------------160
back to Euston she'd make sure she was better prepared for the climate.
She swayed against the pillar and blinked at the clock, which had somehow gained half an hour. How was she to get home now that the trains had stopped for the night? She'd been ignored sometimes by cabbies when she had looked more presentable than this. If she queued in the rank below Euston, surely a cabby would take her when she showed him her money. She forced her eyes open, and thought she was misreading the clock: how could it be ten minutes later than a couple of thoughts ago? Yet it was, and a shabby young woman with hair like combed tar was gazing at her. "Do you want a bed?"
Gerry was about to refuse when she felt how ill she was: the long-faced young woman, the station, her own body were distant and ungraspable as ice. She couldn't face an argument with a cabby. "Where are you from?" she said.
"The London Refuge. We've got a van outside. It doesn't matter if you haven't any money."
No doubt that meant the bed would be the worse for wear, but the offer seemed irresistible. If other people were sleeping at the London Refuge, perhaps they might be able to tell Gerry something about the people with no names; down-and-outs were one group she hadn't questioned, yet they might be the ones who knew. She followed the young woman into the drizzling night.
When they reached a nondescript van in a side street a young man, tonsured like an untidy monk, came up behind her. She hadn't realized he was following. "You'll have to ride in the back," he said, unlocking the doors.
Gerry thought there was room on the front seat for three, but she didn't feel like arguing, even when she saw the clutter in the back, boxes and rusty tools and bricks, so grimy they almost looked merged. She clambered over ------------------------------------161
them into the available space, and the doors were locked behind her at once.
She'd hardly settled herself when the van jerked forward. The partition behind the driver was windowless, and she couldn't see much out of the back windows except for streetlamps, fleeing into the night. She managed to prop herself against the side of the van, and attempted to decide whether she had seen the young man and woman before. Hadn't she glimpsed them several times at Euston? On the way to the van she had noticed white hairs showing through the woman's dye.
Whenever the van slow
ed Gerry craned toward the windows, and so when it reached its destination she saw where she was: Earls Court, just off the Cromwell Road. She could almost have recognized it from the noise.
When the young man unlocked the doors she found she was in a driveway beneath a tangle of trees, in front of a three-story house. All around the porch the ground looked scurfy with paint. Perhaps the trees helped trap the noise, but it seemed even louder here. Certainly the swaying foliage sounded like the trucks which went roaring nose-to-tail toward the highway. She felt clogged with noise and catarrh.
When she looked up at the house, Barbara Waugh was gazing at her from an upper window.
For a moment she thought she had grown more delirious, then she realized that it was a thin young girl who looked like Barbara. It could only be Angela, and she gasped-- but she had stumbled against a corner of the van, and her escorts must think that was why she'd made the sound. "You're tired," the young woman said indifferently as they led her to the house.
Gerry glanced up without moving her head before they reached the porch. Angela was withdrawing into the dim room, and seemed to be surrounded by several figures; ------------------------------------162
were they urging or forcing her away from the window? The woman from Euston unlocked the scabby front door as Gerry climbed the cracked steps. Beyond the door the hallway and the unshaded light bulb were a dingy shade of brown. Quickly, in case they wondered why she was hesitating, she stepped forward into the house. ------------------------------------163
163
Nineteen
When the front door closed behind her she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to act normally, that she was too tired or too ill to keep up the pretense. But she had only to behave as if she was tired, and that was no task. In fact she almost dropped her bag, having forgotten that it was in her hand, as the woman led her upstairs.
Within the house the noise of traffic was muffled, a dull blurred static mass of sound. It seemed to merge with the dingy light into a single medium that choked her senses. Perhaps the wallpaper was brown, perhaps the patches of carpet on the stairs had a pattern and a color. Were voices muttering beyond the door of the room where she had seen Angela? She couldn't be sure.
There were three doors on the first landing, and three at the top, where the woman led Gerry. Beside the grayish light bulb a skylight was boarded up. The woman opened a ------------------------------------164
door and clicked a switch, but the room beyond stayed dark. "Not working," she said flatly. "You have the bed nearest the door."
When Gerry ventured forward she could just make out two ranks of mattresses against the walls, three beds in each rank. The light from the open door barely reached the one she had been given; dim shapes were huddled on the others. The woman waited as Gerry stripped to her panties and pulled the single blanket over her, then she closed the door.
For a moment Gerry was afraid of being locked in, but the woman went downstairs at once; the creaks of the stairs just pierced the sound of traffic. Gerry lay hemmed in by the other beds, by darkness that smelled musty, even through her cold. She had managed to infiltrate the group. It was as easy as this.
She had no doubt they would try to draw her in, perhaps as soon as she woke in the morning; fringe religions, much like any other kind, must seize you when and where you were most vulnerable. She was less apprehensive now, and felt all at once less delirious. They could try their best to brainwash her, she wouldn't end up like Iris. That sort of thing could only work on personalities less susceptible than hers.
She needed to sleep so as to be ready for them, but would she be able to do so? Sleeping in a room with people she had never seen made her obscurely nervous, and besides, there was the noise. Presumably the group chose to live in houses such as this because the noise brought down the rent, assuming that they didn't move in as squatters, as it seemed they had near the Portobello Road. She was wondering if she would be able to doze when she fell asleep.
When she woke it was still dark, yet she felt refreshed and not at all delirious. Only her throat felt so ragged she ------------------------------------165
was glad not to have to speak. She lay and waited for her eyes to adjust. The window was uncurtained, but the trees were as good as shutters; glimmers of rain trickled over the leaves. The traffic noise had acquired a whining note. Apart from that she could hear only her clogged breathing. She could hear no breathing from the other beds.
Of course the rumble of traffic could swallow most noises, yet all at once she was nervous. She levered herself upright on the bed and leaned toward her neighbor. The huddled figure seemed to be making no sound at all. Gerry held on to the edge of her mattress and leaned further, but her grip was weaker than she thought, for she lost her balance. Her free hand poked the shape on the next bed-- poked deep into the shape.
She managed not to cry out, for she'd realized that there had never been a figure, only a pillow entangled with blankets. Shouldn't the sound of her fall have woken the people in the other beds? She made herself go quickly to each, though she was nervous in case one of them loomed up toward her in the dark. All of the figures were unmade beds.
She stood beside the window, where there was marginally more light. Her bed looked as if a figure lay there now. She had no reason to be uneasy that she could see--presumably the people who slept in this room were elsewhere--and yet she was seeking one. Suddenly she realized what was wrong: though she was nearer the traffic, the whining was further away. It had nothing to do with the traffic. It was the cry of a child in the house.
Well, she knew the group had children, and presumably they cried sometimes. After a while she went back to her mattress, but instead of lying down she squatted there, straining to make out the child's cry. Outside the window branches dripped and shifted, disturbing the dim figures on ------------------------------------166
the mattresses. What was wrong with the crying? Why did it sound so muffled?
At last, reluctantly, she stood up and eased the door open. However slowly she turned the doorknob, it squeaked. She tiptoed onto the deserted landing, between two closed ominous doors. The wailing was somewhere below her, and she could hear what was wrong. It sounded not only muffled but gagged.
She ought to ignore it. If she betrayed herself now the group might flee before they could be stopped--but how could she ignore the crying? Suppose it was Barbara's daughter? It didn't matter who it was, Gerry had to find out what was being done to the child. She dressed hurriedly, then she picked up her bag in case someone might find her notebook and crept to the stairs.
By walking down close to the edges of the stairs she managed to avoid their creaks, but the banister was wobbly. Halfway down she swayed and had to grab it, only to find that it gave with a loud creak. For a moment she thought it would fall away, throwing her into the stairwell. She clung to it for minutes while she tried to catch her breath and wondered if anyone had heard the creak.
Eventually she reached the lower landing. In the brownish light the three doors looked unreal, sketched and painted on an unbroken wall. Beyond the middle door, in the room at whose window she'd glimpsed Angela, she was certain that voices were muttering. The traffic noise must have prevented whoever was there from hearing the banister. Did that mean that if anyone came behind her she wouldn't hear them for the noise?
The cry was still below her. It seemed distant as ever. She tiptoed past the doors and down the stairs. The hallway looked steeped in soupy light as it floated up toward her. All at once the cry stopped, and so did she, halfway down the last flight of stairs. She could see the front door, ------------------------------------167
and now she realized it was mortise-locked. Whatever she found, she wouldn't be able to leave that way.
But she had to stay here until she found out everything about the group. Surely she wasn't putting herself at risk, surely they would understand that anyone would have come down to help the child--anyone, not just a spy. Perhaps
the child was all right now, but she had to be sure.
When she reached the hall she glanced uneasily up the deserted stairs, then she made herself turn her back on the locked front door. There were four doors to the hall, including one beneath the stairs; presumably that led to a cellar. Metal outlines gleamed in the kitchen at the end of the hall. That left two rooms. She went to the first, between the stairs and the front door.
When she pushed the door a garment fell within. She heard its fall, and felt the soft obstruction as she continued pushing. She was afraid that the garment would make the door wobble, make her more audible, but there was no sound beyond a faint slithering. Before long the door was open wide enough for her to look in.
This room was less dim than the room on the top floor had been; more light seeped between the tree trunks than through the foliage. A few moments passed before she was able to see. She stared toward the uncurtained window and ignored the illusion of movement beside her. As her eyes grew sharper, she made out that the room was completely bare. There was nothing at all behind the door, not even a hook where a garment could have hung.
At once she was so frightened that she wasn't sure she could move. She leaned there, half into the room, her hands clutching the door frame one above the other, unable to let go. Most of all she was afraid to look up. She didn't have to, she could see that the child wasn't in the room, she could let go, she could shove herself away from the door frame, out of the room. She fell back into the hall ------------------------------------168
and barely managed not to slam the door as she closed it tight.
There was one more closed room, toward the cellar and the kitchen. She had to go on, she couldn't get out of the house. Nevertheless she went first to the kitchen, whose open door made it less threatening. In the gloom she distinguished the outlines of a sink unit, a stove, a table attended by a few chairs. There was nothing else to see.
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