by Dick Francis
‘Honey.’ I said to Elizabeth. ‘I’m going to take the pump down first. Then you and the Shira … Spira.’
‘You’re drunk,’ she said miserably.
‘Not surprising,’ I agreed. ‘Now listen, love. You’ll have to breathe on your own. Four minutes. You know you can do it eash … easily.’ She did four minutes every day, while Mrs Woodward gave her a bed bath.
‘Ty, if you drop the pump …’
‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘I won’t … drop … the pump.’
The pump was the only one we had. There was no replacement. Always we lived in the shadow of the threat that one day its simple mechanism would break down. Spares were almost impossible to find, because respirators were an uneconomic item to the manufacturers, and they had discontinued making them. If the pump needed servicing, Mrs Woodward and I worked the bellows by hand while it was being done in the flat. Tiring for an hour. Impossible for a lifetime. If I dropped the pump and punctured the bellows, Elizabeth’s future could be precisely measured.
Four minutes.
‘We’d better,’ I said, considering, ‘Pack some things for you first. Clean nightdress, f’rinstance.’
‘How long … how long will we be going for?’ She was trying hard to keep the fear out of her voice, to treat our flight on a rational, sensible basis. I admired her, understood her effort, liked her for it, loved her, had to make and keep her safe … and I’d never do it, I thought astringently, if I let my mind dribble on in that silly way.
How long? I didn’t know how long. Until Vjoersterod had been jailed or deported. Even then, it would be safer to find another flat.
‘A few days,’ I said.
I fetched a suitcase and tried to concentrate on what she needed. She began to tell me, item by item, realising I couldn’t think.
‘Washing things. Hair brush. Make-up. Bedsocks. Hot water bottle. Cardigans. Pills …’ She looked with longing at the Possum machine and all the gadgets.
‘I’ll come soon … come back soon for those,’ I promised. With company, just in case.
‘You’ll need some things yourself,’ she said.
‘Hm?’ I squinted at her. ‘Yeah …’
I fetched toothbrush, comb, electric razor. I would sleep in the van, dressed, on the stretcher bed. Better take a clean shirt. And a sweater. Beyond that, I couldn’t be bothered. Shoved them into a grip. Packing done.
‘Could you leave a note for Mrs Woodward?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be so worried if we aren’t here in the morning.’
A note for Mrs Woodward. Found some paper. Ball point pen in my pocket. Note for Mrs Woodward. ‘Gone away for few days. Will write to you.’ Didn’t think she would be much less worried when she read that, but didn’t know what else to put. The writing straggled upwards, as drunk as I felt.
‘All set,’ I said.
The packing had postponed the moment we were both afraid of. I looked at the pump. Its works were encased in a metal cabinet of about the size of a bedside table, with a handle at each side for carrying. Like any large heavy box, it was easy enough for two to manage, but difficult for one. I’d done it often enough before, but not with a whirling head and throbbing bruises. I made a practice shot at picking it up, just to find out.
I found out.
Elizabeth said weakly, ‘Ty … you can’t do it.’
‘Oh yes … I can.’
‘Not after … I mean, it’s hurting you.’
‘The best thing about being drunk,’ I said carefully, ‘is that what you feel you don’t feel, and even if you feel it you don’t care.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Live now, hurt later.’
I pulled back her sheets and my fingers fumbled on the buckle which unfastened the Spirashell. That wouldn’t do, I thought clearly. If I fumbled the buckle I’d never have a chance of doing the transfer in four minutes. I paused, fighting the chaos in my head. Sometimes in my youth I’d played a game against alcohol, treating it like an opponent, drinking too much of it and then daring it to defeat me. I knew from experience that if one concentrated hard enough it was possible to carry out quite adequately the familiar jobs one did when sober. This time it was no game. This time, for real.
I started again on the buckle, sharpening every faculty into that one simple task. It came undone easily. I lifted the Spirashell off her chest and laid it over her knees, where it hissed and sucked at the blankets.
Switched off the electricity. Unplugged the lead. Wound it onto the lugs provided. Disconnected the flexible tube which led to the Spirashell.
Committed now. I tugged the pump across the floor, pulling it on its rocky old casters. Opened the door. Crossed the small landing. The stairs stretched downwards. I put my hand on the wall to steady myself and turned round to go down backwards.
Step by step. One foot down. Lift the pump down one step. Balance it. One foot down. Lift the pump. Balance …
Normally, if Ron or Sue or Mrs Woodward were not there to help, I simply carried it straight down. This time, if I did that, I would fall. I leaned against the wall. One foot down. Lift the pump down. Balance it … It overhung the steps. Only its back two casters were on the ground, the others out in space … If it fell forward, it would knock me down the stairs with it …
Hurry. Four minutes. Half way down it seemed to me with an uprush of panic that the four minutes had already gone by. That I would be still on the stairs when Elizabeth died. That I would never, never get it to the bottom unless I fell down there in a tangled heap.
Step by deliberate step, concentrating acutely on every movement, I reached the ground below. Lugged the pump across the small hall, lifted it over the threshold on to the street. Rolled it to the van.
The worst bit. The floor of the van was a foot off the ground. I climbed in, stretched down, grasped the handles, and tugged. I felt as if I’d been torn apart, like the old Chinese torture of the two trees. The pump came up, in through the door, on to the floor of the van. The world whirled violently round my head. I tripped over the end of the stretcher and fell backwards still holding the pump by one handle. It rocked over, crashed on its side, broke the glass over the gauge which showed the pressures and respirations per minute.
Gasping, feeling I was clamped into a hopeless nightmare, I bent over the pump and lifted it upright. Shoved it into its place. Fastened the straps which held it. Pushed the little wedges under its wheels. Plugged in the leads to and from the batteries. Couldn’t believe I had managed it all, and wasted several seconds checking through again.
If it didn’t work … If some of the broken glass was inside … If it rubbed a hole in its bellows … I couldn’t think straight, didn’t know what to do about it, hoped it would be all right.
Up the stairs. Easy without the pump. Stumbled over half the steps, reached the landing on my knees.
Elizabeth was very frightened, her eyes wide and dark, looking at death because I was drunk. When she had to do her own breathing she had no energy or air left for talking, but this time she managed one appalled, desperate word.
‘Hurry.’
I remembered not to nod. Picked her up, one arm under her knees, one arm round her shoulders, pulling her towards me so that she could rest her head against my shoulder. Like one carries a baby.
She was feather light, but not light enough. She looked at my face and did my moaning for me.
‘Hush,’ I said. ‘Just breathe.’
I went down the stairs leaning against the wall, one step at a time, refusing to fall. Old man alcohol was losing the game.
The step up into the van was awful. More trees. I laid her carefully on the stretcher, putting her limp limbs straight.
Only the Spirashell now. Went back for it, up the stairs. Like going up a down escalator, never ending, moving where it should have been still. Picked up the Spirashell. The easiest burden. Very nearly came to grief down the stairs through tripping over the long concertina connecting tube. Stumbled into the van and thrust it mu
ch too heavily on to Elizabeth’s knees.
She was beginning to labour, the tendons in her neck standing out like strings under her effort to get air.
I couldn’t get the tube to screw into its connection in the pump. Cursed, sweated, almost wept. Took a deep breath, choked down the panic, tried again. The tricky two-way nut caught and slipped into a crossed thread, caught properly at last, fastened down firmly. I pressed the battery switch on the pump. The moment of truth.
The bellows nonchalantly swelled and thudded. Elizabeth gave the smallest sound of inexpressible relief. I lifted the Spirashell gently on to her chest, slipped the strap underneath her, and couldn’t do up the buckle because my fingers were finally trembling too much to control. I just knelt there holding the ends tight so that the Spirashell was close enough for its vacuum to work. It pulled her chest safely up and down, up and down, filling her lungs with air. Some of the agonised apprehension drained out of her face, and some fragile colour came back.
Sixteen life-giving breaths later I tried again with the buckle. Fixed it after two more attempts. Sat back on the floor of the van, rested my elbows on my bent knees, and my head on my hands. Shut my eyes. Everything spun in a roaring black whirl. At least, I thought despairingly, at least I had to be nearly as drunk as I was going to get. Which, thanks to having got some of the stuff up, might not now be paralytic.
Elizabeth said with effortful calm, ‘Ty, you aren’t fit to drive.’
‘Never know what you can do till you try.’
‘Wait a little while. Wait till you’re better.’
‘Won’t be better for hours.’ My tongue slipped on the words, fuzzy and thick. It sounded terrible. I opened my eyes, focussed carefully on the floor in front of me. The swimming gyrations in my head gradually slowed down to manageable proportions. Thought about the things I still had to do.
‘Got to get the shoot … suitcases.’
‘Wait, Ty. Wait a while.’
She didn’t understand that waiting would do no good. If I didn’t keep moving I would go to sleep. Even while I thought it I could feel the insidious languor tempting me to do just that. Sleep. Sleep deadly sleep.
I climbed out of the van, stood holding on to it, waiting for some sort of balance to come back.
‘Won’t be long,’ I said. Couldn’t afford to be long. She couldn’t be left alone. In case.
Co-ordination had again deteriorated. The stairs proved worse than ever. I kept lifting my feet up far higher than was necessary, and half missing the step when I put them down. Stumbled upwards, banging into the walls. In the flat, propped up the note for Mrs Woodward so she couldn’t miss it. Tucked Elizabeth’s hot water bottle under my arm, carried the suitcases to the door, switched off the light, let myself out. Started down the stairs and dropped the lot. It solved the problem of carrying them, anyway. To prevent myself following them I finished the journey sitting down, lowering myself from step to step.
I picked up the hot water bottle and took it out to Elizabeth.
‘I thought … Did you fall?’ She was acutely anxious.
‘Dropped the cases.’ I felt an insane urge to giggle. ‘S’all right.’ Dropped the cases, but not the pump, not Elizabeth. Old man alcohol could stuff it.
I fetched the bags and put them on the floor of the van. Shut the doors. Swayed round to the front and climbed into the driving seat. Sat there trying very hard to be sober. A losing battle, but not yet lost.
I looked at Elizabeth. Her head was relaxed on the pillows, her eyes shut. She’d reached the stage, I supposed, when constant fear was too much of a burden and it was almost a relief to give up hope and surrender to disaster. She’d surrendered for nothing, if I could help it.
Eyes front. Method needed. Do things by numbers, slowly. Switched off the light inside the van. Suddenly very dark. Switched it on again. Not a good start. Start again.
Switched on the side lights. Much better. Switch on ignition. Check fuel. Pretty low after the run to Berkshire, but enough for five miles. Pull out the choke. Start engine. Turn out light inside van.
Without conscious thought I found the gear and let out the clutch. The van rolled forward up the mews.
Simple.
Stopped at the entrance, very carefully indeed. No one walking down the pavement, stepping out in front of me. Turned my head left and right, looking for traffic. All the lights in the road swayed and dipped. I couldn’t see anything coming. Took my foot off the clutch. Turned out into the road. Gently accelerated. All clear so far.
Part of my mind was stone cold. In that area, I was sharply aware that to drive too slowly was as obvious a giveaway as meandering all over the road. To drive too fast meant no margin for a sudden stop. My reaction times were a laugh. Hitting someone wouldn’t be.
As long as I kept my head still and my eyes front, it wasn’t impossible. I concentrated fiercely on seeing pedestrian crossings, stationary cars, traffic lights. Seeing them in time to do something about them. I seemed to be looking down a small cone of clarity: everything in my peripheral vision was a shimmering blur.
I stopped without a jerk at some red lights. Fine. Marvellous. They changed to green. A sudden hollow void in my stomach. I couldn’t remember the way. Knew it well, really. The man in the car behind began flashing his headlights. Thought of the old joke … What’s the definition of a split second? The interval between the lights going green and the man behind hooting or flashing. Couldn’t afford to sit there doing nothing. Let in the clutch and went straight on, realising that if I strayed off course and got lost I would be sunk. The small print on my maps was for other times. Couldn’t ask anyone the way, they might turn me over to the police. Breathalysers, and all that. I’d turn the crystals black.
Ten yards over the crossing I remembered the way to Welbeck Street. I hadn’t gone wrong. A vote of thanks to the unconscious mind. Hip hip hooray. For God’s sake mind that taxi … U-turns in front of drunken drivers ought to be banned …
Too much traffic altogether. Cars swimming out of side roads like shiny half-seen fish with yellow eyes. Cars with orange rear direction blinkers as blinding as the sun. Buses charging across to the kerb and pulling up in six feet at the stops. People running where they shouldn’t cross, saving the seconds and risking the years.
Fight them all. Defeat the inefficiency of crashing. Stamp on the enemy in the blood, beat the drug confusing the brain … Stop the world spinning, hold tight to a straight and steady twenty miles an hour through an imaginary earthquake. Keep death off the roads. Arrive alive. Fasten your safety belts. London welcomes careful drivers …
I wouldn’t like to do it again. Apart from the sheer physical exertion involved in keeping control of my arms and legs there was also a surging recklessness trying to conquer every care I took. An inner voice saying, ‘spin the wheel largely, go on, you can straighten out fine round the bend’ and an answering flicker saying faintly, ‘careful, careful, careful, careful …’
Caution won. Mainly, I imagine, through distaste at what would happen to me if I were caught. Only pulling up safely at the other end could possibly justify what was to all intents a crime. I knew that, and clung to it.
Welbeck Street had receded since I went there last.
15
Tonio must have been looking out for us, because he opened the front door and came out on to the pavement before I had climbed out of the van. True, I had been a long time climbing out of the van. The waves of defeated intoxication had swept in as soon as I’d put on the brakes. Not defeated after all. Just postponed.
I finally made it on to the road, put one foot in front of the other round the front of the van, and leaned against the near side wing.
Tonio peered at me with absolute incredulity.
‘You’re drunk.’
‘You’re so right.’
‘Elizabeth …’ he said anxiously.
I nodded my head towards the van and wished I hadn’t. Hung on to the wing mirror. Still liable for drunk in c
harge, even on his pavement.
‘Ty,’ he said, ‘for God’s sake, man. Pull yourself together.’
‘You try,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’
He gave me a withering look and went round to the back of the van to open the doors. I heard him inside, talking to Elizabeth. Tried hard not to slither down the wing and fold up into the gutter. Remotely watched a man in a raincoat get out of a taxi away down the street and cross into a telephone box. The taxi waited for him. Knew I couldn’t drive any further, would have to persuade Tonio to do it, or get someone else. No use thinking any more that one could remain sober by will power. One couldn’t. Old bloody man alcohol sneaked up on you just when you thought you’d got him licked.
Tonio reappeared at my elbow.
‘Get in the passenger seat,’ he said. ‘And give me the keys, so that you can’t be held to be in charge. I’ll drive you to the nursing home. But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait ten minutes or so, because I still have that patient with me and there’s a prescription to write … Are you taking in a word I say?’
‘The lot.’
‘Get in, then.’ He opened the door for me, and put his hand on my arm when I rocked. ‘If Elizabeth needs me, blow the horn.’
‘Right.’
I sat in the seat, slid down, and put my head back. Sleep began to creep in round the edges.
‘You all right?’ I said to Elizabeth.
Her head was behind me. I heard her murmur quietly, ‘Yes.’
The pump hummed rhythmically, aiding and abetting the whisky. The sense of urgency drifted away. Tonio would drive us … Elizabeth was safe. My eyelids gave up the struggle. I sank into a pit, whirling and disorientated. Not an unpleasant feeling if one didn’t fight it.
Tonio opened the door and shook me awake.
‘Drink this,’ he said. A mug of coffee, black and sweet. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
He went back into the house, propping the door open with a heavy wrought-iron facsimile of the Pisa Tower. The coffee was too hot. With exaggerated care I put the mug down on the floor. Straightened up wishing the load of ache across my shoulders would let up and go away, but was much too full of the world’s oldest anaesthetic to feel it very clearly.