He wondered whether to turn back. But the steepness of the path behind him and the length of time it would take now to return to the top, walk all along the big bridge and at last make his way down by Tile Kiln Lane to a point actually some hundred yards or more further up Archway Road persuaded him to try going on.
To begin with the rubbish layers did not present too many difficulties. He was able to pick a way over the compacted slippery stuff, the slime of long-abandoned food mixed greyly with paper and rags, a still gaudy page or two from a colour magazine discernible among it. An occasional large cardboard carton, jutting up like a rock, appeared to present an obstacle until at a touch of his foot it collapsed to powder. Drink cans and aerosols lying everywhere seemed to be ready to roll treacherously under him. But he negotiated them all.
Yet before long the level of the piled-on layers grew higher and their solidity decreased. Attempting a jump on to what looked like the safety of an ancient divan-bed, he was canted in a sudden stomach-emptying collapse to land on all fours, one hand sinking deep into some black sliminess that gave off such a reek of gaseous metallic stench that he was nearly sick where he knelt.
He heaved himself back and wiped desperately his slime-blackened hand on the rotting divan. The lens of an abandoned camera winked at him from the mound below.
Cautiously he manoeuvred himself into an upright position before tugging out one of his grey much-washed handkerchiefs and plastering it across his nose.
Again he considered going back. What stupidity to have put himself at the risk of some such accident as his leap on to the divan had caused. He could lacerate himself on some jutting piece of glass. He could break a leg and lie here taking a long time to die.
No. Go on down.
But go carefully.
Slowly, working out every step in advance, he made his way forward once more. His shoes filled with oozing matter. He had to remove the protective handkerchief so as to use both arms for balance. The stink grew worse, varied, brought him near to vomiting again, seemed to slacken a little. He was convinced that each sucking pace was going to tear one of his tyre-soles from its anchorage. But yard by yard he approached the path’s end.
Once, momentarily distracted by the sight of a record-player apparently in perfect order – how much music had meant to him in the long ago – he misplaced a foot and for the second time lurched helplessly forward as something under him gave way. There was a wild scurrying and a whole nestful of ratlings squirmed and squeaked into new cover. With a heave of his whole body he managed to regain his balance.
And after this the refuse layers began to grow thinner and in another thirty or so careful jumping paces he saw the path itself again. On down he hopped in huge strides like an ungainly fleeing bird from clear patch to clear patch.
At last he reached the bottom and Archway Road once more.
Drawing in huge grateful breaths of fresher air, he sat on the ground, gingerly tugged at the laces of his shoes – the stitches on the tyre-rubber seemed to have held – managed at last to get the slimy soaking things off his feet and then peeled off his ooze-impregnated socks.
How absurd to have got himself into such a situation so near the start of his journey. And, as it had turned out, for nothing. He had not spotted a single source of potential danger, only created more than enough for himself.
Despondently he teased his still wet feet into his second pair of socks and put on his shoes again. Pushing himself up, he resolved that from here on it would be the main roads and nothing but the main roads.
He set off, bullying himself to go at something like a trot to compensate for time ridiculously lost. No more mad escapades, he promised himself. No more whimseys.
Within five minutes he came into sight of the big Archway intersection with the old Whittington Hospital, a towering mass empty and whistling, all yellow brick and pointed grey French château towers, on the far side of the wide road. He stopped opposite the last little corner shop before the hospital, its faded fascia still proclaiming ‘Nova Hair Boutique’.
Carefully he looked down at the wide area, meeting point of eight roads. Here, if anywhere, there might be people. And people, five to one, meant danger.
Would there be one of the stills manufacturing arrack at the old Archway Tavern? He had heard that very often big old pubs were used. Or would that looming dark-grey high block of offices have been taken over as a barracks by the Armed Police? Or, perhaps worse, be the headquarters of one of the private armies? Or did those not actually exist?
He could see no sign of movement.
Yet the high-piled rabbit warren of the hospital opposite could well be concealing more than one marauding gang. The huge building that had been dedicated for a century to righting the evils of the human body – or had it in its last days been one of the places where they had busily turned suspected violent men into those will-less creatures nicknamed zombies? – could all too easily now be a hiding-place for those taking a savage joy in maiming the innocent.
The thought sent him running in a burst of panic, anywhere out of view of watching eyes there, tyre-padded shoes placking out in the silence.
Within a few strides his chest was heaving against the threadbare cloth of his buttoned jacket while the water-flask on his hip jogged in a wild rhythm and the Pernod bottle in his coat pocket swung and butted. But he could not bring himself to slow down. Ahead, one of the pedestrian tunnels leading to the old Underground station abruptly appeared, a pale yellow cavern. Not knowing whether he was right or wrong, he swung into its dark offered safety.
Safety or new danger? His steps twanged suddenly from the tiled walls on either side.
He brought himself to a halt and leant panting and sweaty against the smooth mosaic with, just visible in the fading light, its ancient interlacing patterns of paint-spray graffiti. Spume from a time-flush society, time-flush and gimmick-gorged.
At least he was out of sight here. Should he go further on in? Use the tunnel to get right across to Junction Road? What was the risk ahead? The grey day hardly penetrated even as short a way down as he had run and in front he could see only the faintest trace of light. Anybody might be using the place to hide in. But weren’t there plenty of other lairs all round, most of them better for spying out dangers, or prey?
He decided to risk it.
He would have given now half he possessed to have had a good flashlight. But his last bartered-for dry cell had petered out a year before.
The tunnel he was taking sloped quite steeply down for about twenty yards more and then came to a T-junction. Cautiously looking round the corner there he found that the passage at right angles ran almost a hundred yards along to the right, all the way across Archway Road to the Underground station. At its far end a shaft of daylight was visible.
It looked as though nothing blocked his way and he started forward, short step by short step in the gloom.
But he had not gone even five yards when at the far end there came a swift flurry of movement in the light-shaft and the sound of a shout, muffled but explosive.
Two men had appeared, caught in the distant slanting column of grey daylight as if they were figures in some three-dimensional film. The first, a monkey-like individual enveloped in an overcoat of garish green check, was clutching to his chest as he scuttled along a bright brown suitcase. On his heels came a giant of a fellow, head aureoled in black hair and beard, dressed in khaki trousers and leather jerkin, wielding some sort of long slender-shafted club. Plainly he was the one who had shouted.
Then, just within the column of light, the monkey-figure fell grovelling to his knees.
‘Spare me. Spare me.’
Transfixed, he saw the pursuer raise his odd-looking club high in the air. He felt the blood bolt up into his face.
Shout. He ought to shout. But instead of doing it he had thought it, and no sooner had the thought come into his mind than its contrary had risen up as well. If he shouted, that huge menacing man would turn, see him, c
ome bounding towards him.
Silence kept him entangled.
But he did not attempt to retreat to the arm of the entrance tunnel. A chance to redeem himself might somehow arise.
And at least the giant’s club did not swish murderously down. Instead the fellow swung his foot full into the stomach of his crouching victim.
Who squeaked.
It was a laughable sound. Though far from being able to laugh, he recognised that the picture at the far end of the tunnel had for all its unpleasantness taken on an abruptly comic aspect.
Evidently the giant, too, felt it. Because he promptly delivered another kick, though a much less violent one. And again the crouching figure, still holding tight the cheap-looking tan-brown suitcase, squealed.
‘Oh, spare me, kind sir. Spare me.’
He realised then that the somehow comic victim was an Indian. The curious formality of even the few words he had uttered gave it to him, coupled with the black hair and dark complexion he was now better able to make out. And he guessed then the reason for the attack. Indians, in common with all coloured people, had had an increasingly bad time of it since at least the start of the First Riots. Tropicals, they had begun to be called, and they had been persecuted whenever anybody felt they could get away with it. So this poor devil must have been spotted by the giant with the club and simply chased. For amusement.
And it was plain the giant was amusing himself yet more now. Another jab with the foot. Another squeak.
‘Beats windows. Beats cleanin’ windows this.’
It had taken him some time to decipher the inarticulate sounds the giant had mouthed. But at last he got them. The fellow must have been a window-cleaner in the days when there had been windows and it had seemed important to keep them shining bright.
‘Case. Gi’ us tha’ case.’
It looked as if his demand had reached a core of resistance in the crouching Indian. He said nothing, but visibly tightened his arms round his bright brown suitcase.
At once the long club swung high. And as it did so he saw what it was. Its odd shape had been obscurely worrying him. It was a parking-meter. One of the old parking-meters, a long circular metal shaft with at its head a lozenge-shaped box for collecting the coins and registering the time allowed. He had forgotten all about them. But he remembered now hearing of them being used as weapons in the riots, or at least until the second outbreak when the fighting had been more an affair of rockets, tanks and artillery.
Now the club’s threat was quite enough for the terrified Indian. ‘No,’ he gasped out. ‘No, sir. No.’
He wriggled round almost on to his back and thrust forward the suitcase. The window-cleaner lowered his parking-meter club, leant it carelessly against the wall behind him and took hold of the case between his ham-hands. Then, in one huge wrench, he tore top from bottom. The contents of the pathetically fragile object fanned out in a wild shower, clothes, half a dozen books, hundreds of sheets of white paper and apples. Little green apples tumbled and bounced everywhere.
The window-cleaner stooped, gusts of giggles coming from him, and scooped up as many of them as he could, stuffing them into the pockets of his jerkin. Then he straightened and looked at his victim again.
‘Beats windows,’ he said once more, his thick voice resounding blearily along the tunnel. ‘Spent all my li’ cleaning windows. Never saw nothing. All lies tha’.’
He picked up his long club and gave the now kneeling Indian another jab with it.
‘But ‘sfun now,’ he went on. ‘Fun all the ti’.’
The Indian sank back on to his heels.
‘Ain’t it?’ the window-cleaner demanded. ‘Ain’t it? Fun? Fun?’
He swung the parking-meter back like a shovel, ready to push in another heavy jab.
‘Yes,’ the Indian squeaked out. ‘Oh, yes, my good sir. The greatest fun, undoubtedly.’
‘Ha.’
The massive tormentor stood, legs astride, looking down at his prey.
He searched his brain for some way of putting an end to the business. But all he could think of was John Siggersthwaite.
John Siggersthwaite had been one of his father’s assistants, aged something over sixty, a bachelor, eking out a moderately parsimonious existence, quiet, unassuming, nice, dull. And one evening taking a solitary walk at the edge of Hampstead Heath he had been stopped by a couple of young men who had told him that they were police officers and that he looked like the suspect in a murder case. They had said they would take him to the police-station to check his identity. But, when somewhat apprehensively he had got into their car, they had driven instead to the most unfrequented part of the Heath, ordered him out and, to the accompaniment of a certain amount of jabbing with lighted cigarettes, had garment by garment stripped him stark naked. Then they had left, taking his clothes. It had been no more than a capriciously cruel joke, hardly recognisable then as an indication of the climate of the times. But it had been the end of John Siggersthwaite. He had never regained even the little self-confidence that he had had. Discipline in his classes had leaked away and – Dad had never been one for not getting full value from anybody he paid – quite soon afterwards he had been asked to resign. He had died two months later. Just died, the hospital had said –
‘Coat,’ said the window-cleaner, his voice rumbling down the tunnel.
‘Please?’
‘Coat. Thass ni’ coat.’
The head of the parking-meter club brushed over the garish green overcoat. Its little window caught the light and twinkled sharply.
‘Yes. Yes, certainly. Of course.’
The Indian had got the message. He knelt forwards, hands plucking at the coat’s buttons, and then with an awkward twist of his whole slight frame pulled the garment off. He held it out.
‘Ha.’
The window-cleaner took it one-handed, swirled it round and settled it across his back. It looked like a hussar’s jacket.
‘Stan’ up.’
‘Yes. Yes, sir.’
Again violently he wished there was something he could do. But what was there? Brute strength ruled the day.
‘Trousers.’
The hulking window-cleaner loosed off another fit of loud giggles, the oafish sound tumbling along between the confining walls.
Involuntarily, he closed his eyes. What was about to happen? Some degrading act of sub-sex?
But he had to see, to know exactly what the worst was.
The little Indian was hopping absurdly from one foot to the other getting the trousers – they were grey flannel bags, dating from a doubly past age – down over his ankles and shoes. At last he completed the task. The window-cleaner at once caught hold of the end of each leg in a different hand with the club still easily grasped as well. There came a loud ripping sound.
‘Turn roun’. Turn roun’. Go on, turn roun’.’
The Indian, who was wearing, he now saw, long white underpants coming right down to the calves, shuffled round.
Now it’s going to begin, he thought.
But his sick fears were not realised. With a bellow of a laugh the window-cleaner simply swirled his club round in a wide sweep and brought its flat head smacking on to the side of the Indian’s white wool-clad hip sending him sprawling. Then, for no apparent reason, he turned away and stalked off up the slope of the far tunnel, the looted green overcoat swinging from his bench-broad shoulders.
For less than ten seconds he waited. Then he started forward to the distant shaft of light, sliding his tyre-shod shoes over the smooth floor in an effort not to make any sound.
He reached the far end and, ignoring the huddled figure of the Indian, he got down on to his belly and in obedience to the obscure memory of thrillers read long ago slid forwards until his head just came round the corner of the upward sloping tunnel.
He need not have bothered. The window-cleaner was nowhere in sight.
Slow sucking sobs were coming from the slumped figure on the floor.
‘Are you
all right?’ he asked him quietly, once he was on his feet again.
The Indian rolled over and gave a loud groan.
He went across. The Indian groaned again. He dropped to his knees and gave him a pat or two on his uppermost shoulder.
The Indian pushed himself up on one arm. Peering at him, he saw that his face was a mess of tear-streaks.
‘My dear sir,’ came a sobbed greeting. ‘Oh, my dear sir.’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked again, conscious of the absurdity of the question. ‘I – I’m afraid I saw what happened, but I didn’t …’
‘My dear sir, how could you? I very well understand. Oh, my head. My poor head is splitting.’
The Indian heaved himself into a sitting position, gasped as the weight came on to his bruised hip and then lurched forward till he was kneeling.
For some time they knelt there in silence, face to face. He wished fervently that there was still aspirin to be got. His own last supply had run out two or more years before and there had been times since when he had been driven to weeping despair by a thudding headache.
‘Would you like a drink of water?’ he asked at last, pulling his flask round to the front.
Ought he to give the chap some Pernod? But that was for Jasmine.
‘My dear sir, thank you, but no. It is not water I need. It is safety. Safety from any more such batterings as that.’
‘Well, perhaps I could see you on your way home,’ he offered, inwardly cursing at the likely delay. ‘Is it far?’
A Long Walk to Wimbledon Page 3