They heard the lift ascending and the clank as the doors were opened. The apartment door had remained ajar and through it came a cubic, brusquely striding woman carrying a small suitcase. She looked irritated.
‘Nurse Bentley,’ said the doctor with satisfaction. ‘I’m glad they got you.’
‘Out of bed,’ responded the woman tartly. ‘I was up all night.’
Donovan introduced Savage. Her handshake was as heavy as a man’s. She examined the room as though checking the exits. Then she sniffed once and went directly into the second bedroom. The doctor smiled and eyed Savage before following her. Savage remained in the sitting room. He put his hands to his face. He had sat up all night also and now he realised how weary he was.
‘Hello . . . Frank?’
‘Oh, yes, hello Jean. I was going to call you.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I’m sorry. I . . . I got back last night and . . . well, I have a problem.’
Her voice immediately became concerned. ‘You haven’t had another . . . ?’
‘Turn?’ he completed. ‘No. That’s all right.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘When I got back there was a young woman . . . a girl really . . . lying outside. She’s got bronchitis. The doctor’s just gone. There’s a nurse here.’
He heard her deep inhalation. It was a moment before she answered. ‘You’re incredible,’ she said eventually.
‘Absolutely bloody incredible. How . . . did this happen? You don’t know her? She just happened to be lying there?’
Savage replied carefully. ‘I do know her slightly. Her name is Korky . . . that’s what she’s called anyway.’
‘Korky? And how do you know this Korky?’ It was her police voice.
‘She spent the night here a few nights ago. She followed me back from the launderette and she slept here. Don’t misunderstand. Not with me. In the other room. Then she disappeared and now she’s here again, very ill.’
Her voice was disbelieving. ‘You didn’t mention her last night.’
‘I know. But there was nothing in it. I never thought I’d see her again. I didn’t think it was worth telling you.’
‘No, I don’t imagine you did. For someone who is supposed to be a hermit you mix with a lot of people.’
‘I’ve met a few,’ he said flatly, adding: ‘Including you.’ He was sorry he had said it.
‘All right. Including me,’ she muttered. ‘Is this Porky . . .’
‘Korky.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Korky. What a bloody silly name anyway. Is she going to hospital?’
‘No. She doesn’t want to. She’s staying here.’
‘With you.’
‘Yes, with me.’
Nine
It was two weeks before Nurse Bentley decided it was safe to go home at night. She had brought in a camp bed which she called ‘My truckle’, and she lay on it outside Korky’s door, listening even when her eyes were closed. She had a morbid manner; she relished recalling patients she had nursed, the stories often ending sombrely. ‘He very nearly lost her,’ Savage heard her whisper to Mrs Tomelty on the stairs, the voice echoing up through the lift shaft.
Dr Donovan came in twice a day for the first week and every day after that. Korky said that she could sense when it was him in the lift. ‘I love him looking at me with his crossed eyes,’ she murmured. ‘She’s going to come through now,’ he said to Savage after the first week.
‘You thought she wouldn’t?’ asked Savage feeling shocked.
‘Well . . . she will now. What are you going to do with her?’
Savage blinked at the question. ‘I hadn’t thought a lot about it,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been more concerned with her getting better. What happens next I don’t know.’
‘You can’t just let her out on the streets again.’ The doctor’s squint fixed him. ‘Her physical condition is really poor for someone of that age. Seventeen.’
‘I know. She looks terrible.’
Donovan swung his bag thoughtfully. ‘You’ll have to think of something. Talk it out with her when she’s well. But she can’t go back.’ He pointed out of the window. ‘Not out there, Mr Savage.’
They had been standing on the landing outside the apartment, the door propped open by Savage’s back. He turned pensively into the room once Donovan had left. Nurse Bentley had gone home to feed her cat. John, the gerbil, was nowhere to be seen. Knocking first, Savage went into the girl’s room.
‘Where’s John?’ she asked. She was sitting up, her face as pale as her pillow. She wore a pink cotton nightdress that Mrs Tomelty had brought in. Her plastic, battery radio was by the bedside, playing distantly.
‘I can’t see him,’ answered Savage. ‘I looked.’
‘I keep being afraid he might do a runner,’ she said. ‘It could be he might not like it here. He’s not used to heights.’ Concern creased her thin face. ‘There’s no way he could jump from the balcony is there?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’d hate to think of my gerbil splattered over somebody’s car.’ She smiled narrowly at him. ‘I’m nearly better now, aren’t I? I’ll be up and away soon.’
‘Away to where?’ he asked. She made room for him to sit on the side of her small bed and he wondered if she had overheard his exchange with the doctor at the door.
‘Where I came from I suppose.’ She pointed towards the window.
He patted her veined hand. ‘Let’s not make any plans,’ he said inadequately. ‘You’ve got to be fully all right. That’s going to take another couple of weeks.’
‘What have you been doing? You’ve still got that old typewriter thing? Did I muck up your work moving in on you, being ill?’
He shook his head. ‘It needed mucking up. Some of it is so dull. Islands are only lumps of land surrounded by water, after all. Once you start listing them, putting in figures about them, population and so forth, they all begin to sound very much the same.’
‘Have you been to many of them?’
‘None,’ he admitted. ‘That’s the funny thing. I just became interested when I was in hospital but now I’m beginning to wonder why I started.’
‘It’s a dream,’ she decided like an expert. She rolled her eyes. ‘One of those things you have fantasies about.’ Her ringed eyes went around the room. ‘Being up here is a bit like being on an island. It’s an island over London.’ Her lips tightened. ‘I’m sorry, Savage, for all this. You’ve been good to me,’ she said. ‘Better than a father.’
They regarded each other and both turned off in embarrassment. ‘Go and find John,’ she suggested quickly. ‘He must be somewhere.’
Savage said he would and went into the other room. The apartment was soon searched. ‘I can’t find him,’ he called. ‘He’s not gone out. I’m almost sure of that.’
Korky appeared at the bedroom door, holding on to the jamb, leaning forward with weakness, her straight nightdress trailing on the floor with one fragile foot projecting. Her arms were like driftwood, her face drained. Savage turned and saw her. ‘You can’t get up,’ he said sharply. ‘Not yet, Korky.’
She began to cough, held her chest and said: ‘I want to look for John.’
‘He’s not here. I can’t find him.’
The girl’s smile became ghostly. ‘I bet I know where the bugger’s gone,’ she said. She staggered forward a step. Quickly Savage stepped to her and caught her. ‘You’ve got to go back to bed,’ he pleaded.
‘All right, I will,’ she said holding on to him. ‘Let me just look in one place.’ Supported by him she staggered into the room. ‘So this is how it is,’ she said stopping and looking around. ‘I forgot. I could hear you moving in here and I heard you typing but I couldn’t quite picture what it was like except I knew you had a balcony.’ She gave a snigger. ‘I even thought of climbing from the roof on to that, on your balcony, and spying on you through the window.’ She looked away from him and then moved further across the
carpet. ‘I bet he’s down in the sofa. Down among the springs and stuff. He did it once before. When I was living with that Jasper.’
Savage helped her to the sofa. She sat down gratefully, her knees projecting like points through the nightdress, leaned towards the back of the cushions and pushed her hand into the crevice. ‘John,’ she called weakly, hoarsely. ‘Are you in there?’
She glanced towards Savage for help. ‘If you can get your hands down the back and sort of make the opening a bit bigger, I’ll call down to him. He might hear me then.’
Kneeling on the carpet Savage put his hands in the aperture of the sofa and pulled it apart. ‘That’s it,’ she whispered. ‘Thanks.’ She bent, the angles of her body showing through the nightdress, and called softly: ‘John . . . John . . . are you down there?’ There was an immediate scraping movement within the sofa. A spring echoed. Savage was astonished, Korky delighted. ‘There,’ she said. ‘He’s got in there. Like I told you.’ With difficulty she lowered her face to the crevice. ‘John . . . John boy.’ There came another distinct sound of frenzied clawing. Korky straightened weakly. ‘He’ll be all right. He’s safe, that’s the thing.’ She began to cough but stopped herself.
‘How long is he likely to be in there?’ asked Savage calmly.
Korky gave a pleased shrug. ‘God knows. When he wants to, he’ll come out. Next summer even.’
‘He’ll come out when he’s hungry?’
‘He might not. We’ll have to push food down to him.’
‘But he can’t . . .’
‘He might come out,’ she repeated like someone abrogating responsibility. ‘But if he doesn’t he doesn’t. I can keep calling him until I’m blue in the face but there’s no way he’s obedient. They’re hard to train.’
‘I think you had better go back to bed,’ suggested Savage hollowly. ‘Before the nurse comes back.’
Korky nodded and straightened up. ‘Carry me back, will you?’ she asked. ‘Like you did before.’
Savage regarded her uncertainly.
‘Don’t be cruel. I’m a sick girl,’ she said.
He stepped to her and and picked up her feathery body; she smiled into his serious face. ‘Misery,’ she said putting her arms about his neck. He eased her into the bed and she waited for him to pull the bedclothes around her. With a sigh he did.
Savage went from the room and made the tea. He brought it back to her and watched her drink like a child unspeaking from the cup. Her eyes, outsized in her narrow face, lifted: ‘He wouldn’t come out when he got into Jasper’s sofa.’
‘Who was Jasper?’
‘You know. I told you. He was the one with the band. I stayed with him. When John wouldn’t come out he got very uptight about it. One day he got a chopper and chopped the sofa up. Trashed it completely. We were high, mind, and it was a rented place. Then he threatened to chop John up as well. That is when I decided I really wanted out. Apart from the other things.’
Tentatively she returned the cup to him. ‘That was a good cup of tea,’ she approved like an old prim lady. ‘I’ve never liked tea all that much before.’ She lay against the pillow. ‘I feel shagged out, Savage.’
Her eyes closed. Her eyelids were almost transparent. She breathed regularly. He eased her skimpy body down into the bed. With the cup he went to the door, looking back at her once before going out. He took the cup into the kitchen and washed it under the tap. Whatever was he going to do with her?
After almost a month Dr Donovan said she could go outside. ‘If it’s a half-decent day, no rain, no wind, and you don’t venture far,’ he warned.
‘I won’t do a runner,’ she said briefly eyeing Savage. ‘I want just to see a few things out there. Buildings and shops and cars. It’s strange how you get to miss them. I’ve seen masses of sky.’ She nodded towards the window. ‘I can’t use any more sky.’
‘Get a taxi,’ suggested the doctor to Savage. ‘Have a cruise around. Look at the world. Then come back.’
‘Can I have the window down?’ she enquired mischievously. ‘To wave to people.’
‘No,’ he reproved. ‘It’s best that the window stays up.’
As he went the doctor patted her lightly on her flat hair. ‘You saved my life,’ she responded soberly. Her eyes dipped from one man to the other. ‘You both did.’
‘Keep it saved,’ advised Dr Donovan without emphasis. ‘Until you’re ninety.’ He picked up his bag and went.
‘He did,’ repeated Korky when the lift had descended. ‘Him and you between you.’ They were sitting opposite each other in the room. She was wearing a red high-necked sweater and jeans bought by Mrs Tomelty which were too baggy.
Savage had gone out the day before to have his hair cut. ‘You do look like a soldier again,’ she had said. ‘I can see how you were.’ Now she regarded him quizzically.
‘What’s going to happen now?’ she asked. The uncertainty was genuine. ‘Now I’m better, almost?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor me, either. No idea.’
She rescued him from the silence which followed. ‘Let’s go out,’ she said formally. ‘Get the taxi, like he said. Take a cruise around. Will that be all right?’
‘Of course.’
‘I bet I’ve cost you a fortune. The nurse for one. All the other things as well.’ Her expression was low but he laughed and said: ‘Don’t let’s worry about that.’
‘What you are worried about is what next. Like I’m worried.’
‘We can sort it out later,’ he hedged. ‘Let’s get the taxi.’
‘When later?’
‘Later.’
He telephoned for the taxi and it was there in ten minutes. Korky was wrapped heavily, her chalky, thin face projecting from layers of clothes. She wore her fake fur which had been washed by Mrs Tomelty. ‘Paddington is going to enjoy this too,’ she said. ‘It’s his first time out as well.’
Savage rang for the lift. ‘Is this how we got up here?’ she asked. ‘On that night. Or did you carry me?’
‘We came up in the lift,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how but we did.’ The lift arrived. ‘When I was in bed I used to hear this thing banging up and down,’ she said as he closed the gates. ‘I used to play a game trying to imagine who was in it. I had a sort of dream that my dad, my real dad was coming up in it. He came into the room. But when I opened my eyes it was you.’
‘Only me,’ Savage smiled. At the bottom he helped her from the lift. She sniffed the sharp air. ‘God, that’s how it smells,’ she said. She held his arm. ‘Yes, it was only you.’
The driver left his seat when he saw how unsteadily the girl emerged from the door of the apartment block. ‘Been taken bad, has she?’ he asked Savage solicitously.
‘I was,’ Korky answered. ‘But I’m all right now. We’re going to have a bit of a tour.’
The driver glanced towards Savage. ‘Just drive around for half an hour, will you,’ said Savage. ‘This is her first time out. Like she says, a tour.’
‘What is it you want to see?’ asked the driver when he had regained his seat. ‘I can show you some traffic jams. There’s a lovely one in Earl’s Court Road.’ He half-turned: ‘But I expect you’d like a spin around the park, wouldn’t you?’
‘Anywhere,’ said Korky leaning forward in her bulky, clean pink coat. ‘Surprise us.’
The driver appeared to enjoy the challenge and give it some thought. ‘Notting Hill,’ he decided like an announcement. ‘Bayswater Road, Marble Arch, up to Baker Street Station and then through the Park. We could go to the Zoo.’
As they drove they dropped to silence. The driver, looking at them in his mirror, saw the girl staring, almost searching, from the window, and the man was expressionless, looking ahead. Then the driver saw the girl move closer to him and he put his arm around her.
‘I’ve kipped over there,’ she said to Savage as they turned into Gloucester Place. ‘See that doorway. Paddington and me. There’s a sort of bit going back, like a cupboard wi
thout a door. I slept in there a couple of nights in the warm weather. It was all right. And he was saying about the Zoo. I had a place near the Zoo as well. Right across from it. The lions woke me up in the night, roaring.’
The driver was enjoying himself. He took them around some Victorian streets almost concealed behind buildings lining the main road. ‘Look at them houses,’ said Korky caustically. ‘Who wants to live in a house like that?’
Savage grinned but the driver’s eyebrows went up. They halted at lights. ‘Those blue things,’ she said directly to the taxi man. ‘Like dinner plates on the walls. What are they for?’
‘The blue plaques, miss? They put them up on the houses where famous people lived. It gives a little bit of history, telling you what they’ve done.’
‘Just because they’re famous?’
Savage saw the driver’s frown in his mirror. ‘Some people like being famous, miss.’ He started off from the lights. ‘That one there on the corner. That’s a famous actor. I forget who. Sir Somebody Something.’
‘What does he act in?’
‘Nothing now. He’s dead. But that’s where he lived.’
Turning her pasty face to Savage, she enquired: ‘Would you like one of them?’
‘A plaque?’ He grinned again. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I did. I wouldn’t get one.’
‘You might. You could.’ She made a circular sign with her finger. ‘Sir Frank Inigo Savage,’ she recited. Then, very slowly: ‘Who helped poor, sick, homeless, girls.’
The driver choked and Savage felt himself colour. Korky was enlarging on the theme. ‘Or me. Me, I could have one. “Here lived Korky the Cat.” ’ She paused. ‘The cat who walked by herself.’
They were back in Upper Regent Street, going towards Oxford Circus. ‘All these people,’ she sighed. ‘I wouldn’t want to be crowded up like that. Working in offices and going into shops. I can’t stand shops.’
They reached a corner where two youths were squatting. Each had a notice on the front of his box and there was a begging dish in front of them. Korky looked interested. ‘Working together,’ she said knowledgeably. ‘Fair shares afterwards.’ Her voice had dropped. Tiredly she turned to Savage. ‘I think I’ve had enough now,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the lot. Please, I want to go back home.’
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