The Tumbled House

  Panting, wicked pink spots on sallow cheeks, he blundered out of the room, swinging a bicycle chain. The other man peered out of the window, hesitated, and hesitated again, looking down. Bennie on her knees, grabbed her bag, waited till Adam’s head was out of the window again, then fled from the room, cannoned into the Negro who was crouched on the landing, fell down two stairs, saved herself and went on.

  The noise had brought no one out yet. Harmonica still playing. Past it. Down to the ground floor. Front door open. No sign of Boy. Out in the street. Next door open. Light in passage. She went in. Boy’s feet disappearing up the stairs. She waited till they’d gone, then slid across to the telephone and dialled 999.

  The bedroom door in the other house had delayed Michael. It had been locked and of course no key. His chisel had done the job but by the time he was out he knew there was danger in going down. He waited on the top landing and listened. Footsteps.

  The light came on on the first landing.

  “Adam!” came Boy’s voice, cautiously. “ You up there?”

  Michael worked round the landing to the next door, but was locked. The furthest door, by the stairs had light under it.

  Boy came up four steps of the second flight and then stopped, came up two more.

  “Adam!” he called.

  Michael fancied he heard some sort of scrapings from the room he had just come through. He dodged across the landing to the lighted door and opened it.

  A thin elderly man with a mottled face got up sharply from a chair, and a glass tinkled. “My dear sir, bursting into the—the … have you no—no reverence for the house of.… Don’t hide, Mary, there’s nothing, nothing to be ashamed of.…” He groped across the room towards a bottle and a glass among the cluttered photographs on the mantelshelf. “I’ll lodge a protest with the——”

  “Adam!” shouted Boy from the top of the stairs. “ He’s ’ere! I got ’im!”

  Michael grabbed up a bentwood chair by the door and threw it as he turned: Boy swung with his chain as the chair came down on him. He went sprawling across the stair head. As Michael tried to get past he kicked; he got to his knees and caught Michael round the knees; Michael hit him twice in the face. That for Peter. Pleasure in that. Boy half fell back, a flailing foot caught Michael in the shoulder as he too fell; Michael grabbed up his dropped chisel and swung it at Boy’s head: changed his aim; it caught Boy on the shoulder bone; he howled with pain, doubled up.

  Michael clawed himself to his feet: sounds from the further bedroom: Adam had at last risked the climb.

  “My dear sir,” said the old man, “this is out—outrageous, brawling … have you no reverence——”

  Michael pushed past him, got down the first flight; two women: “Oo’re you? ’ere, what’s all this? what’s the row?” Past them, half shoving them out of the way. Down the next flight. Boy was on his feet again; could tell that from the shouts, Adam with him, no time to lose. Bennie.

  “Darling!” she said. “Oh, thank God, I thought——”

  “Not out of the wood yet.”

  They turned together and got to the front door.

  “No!” said Bennie. There was no one about. “If they catch you in the street. Back here!” She pulled him towards his own house.

  “But what——”

  “Double back. They won’t expect—— Is there anyone you can go to?”

  “Rhys!” He led the way into his own house again. They had been moving all the time and only seconds had passed. With luck Kenny would come out and not know where they had gone.

  The first floor. Phil the Pinter’s Ball. A small mischievous tattered man with twisted eyebrows took a harmonica from his lips, stared at the two people who had burst in.

  “Shorn, boy, what are you doing here—”

  “Go on playing,” said Michael. He shut the door and limped quickly to the window; this one looked out at the front; he put his eye to a slit in the bund. “ They’re out there now.”

  “Well, won’t you sit down, my dear?”

  “Please go on playing, Mr Rhys.”

  “How shall we get out if they wait.…” said Michael.

  “I’ve sent for the police.”

  Michael turned and stared at her in alarm. “ For the police?”

  “We’ve nothing to hide now.”

  “My God, if they.…”

  “The police?” said the Welshman. “Did you say the police? Here, I don’t want none of that. I don’t want them here, boy.…”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t involve——”

  “Oh, will it not! If they come up here——”

  “Shut up! Or go on playing. We shall be gone in five minutes.”

  “Take care they don’t see you,” Bennie urged Michael.

  Rhys moved his eyebrows about. Then doubtfully he shook out his harmonica and played a tentative scale or two, eyeing Bennie all the time.

  She looked round the room. There was one cupboard and what looked like a chest covered with a blanket. If it came to that Michael might get in the cupboard, if she——

  “Boy’s gone back in the other house,” Michael said. “Adam’s keeping watch. I suppose they’re sure we couldn’t have got to the end of the street.”

  “They must have followed me when I came,” Bennie muttered. “One must have followed me and then phoned for the other.”

  Rhys began to play Land of My Fathers.

  “Are you all right, Michael? He didn’t——”

  “No. I nearly killed him. In some ways I wish I had.”

  Time passed. Then a noisy argument broke out at the door of the next house. Michael couldn’t see what was going on. Adam went quickly forward and out of sight. A car came round the corner, moved slowly down the cul-de-sac, evidently looking for a number.

  “They’re here,” Michael said. “ It’s really the police this time.”

  Bennie was at the window. She saw Boy Kenny break away from some other man and bolt quickly for the railway line. He jumped over the wall as the police car stopped.

  “Come on,” Bennie said.

  “But it might be dangerous now.”

  “It’s the one safe time!” She took Michael’s hand and pulled him only half-convinced to the door. As they went out the harmonica stopped and Rhys called something after them.

  Bennie said: “Just be—as if it’s nothing to do with us.”

  They went down the stairs. Two policemen were at the door of the next house—where of course the phone call had come from—listening to a confused story of what had happened from the people gathered round the steps. There was no sign of Adam. A third policeman had run towards the railway lines.

  Michael and Bennie turned out, as one of the policemen and then the other went into the next house. The driver of the police car looked at them suspiciously and seemed about to speak to them, but they kept their eyes on the half-dozen people in the doorway of the house. No sign of Adam. They got past.

  “You were right, Bennie,” Michael breathed.

  “Don’t look round, darling. Just walk. We’re nearly clear, darling. Just walk.”

  They got to the end of the cul-de-sac. The police hadn’t yet come out. They turned left because there were more lights that way and because it took them away from the railway.

  “Are you all right?” she asked again. “ Did he——”

  “No. I’m all right.”

  “Did you hurt your leg?”

  “We could do with a taxi.”

  “It’s hopeless on a wet night, and in this district. Shall we find a box and telephone for one?”

  “No. Go on. I shan’t be happy till we’re out of here.”

  They went on, waiting every second for running feet. The street they were in was perversely, unnaturally empty; two old cars squatted in the rain; an upturned pram at the top of area steps; one old woman hobbled in the distance.

  “Which way is it?”

  “I’m not certain. Right, I think.”

  “I led the
m to you,” she said. “I’ll never forget that.”

  “It’s all right now. You’ve got your bag?”

  “Yes.”

  They came to the end of the street. Michael looked sombrely over his shoulder. The encounter with Boy seemed to have I taken the relief out of him. They turned right. He walked along with a white empty face, his arm loosely in hers.

  After another hundred yards they came suddenly into Ladbroke Grove. “This way.” He pushed his sodden hair out of his eyes. “Darling, you’ll be soaked to the skin.”

  “D’you think I care? Michael, think. This looks like the end of a—very dark passage. You’re free! Thank God for that! Don’t bother about Boy and his friend. They can’t touch you now!”

  A bus came splashing to a standstill and they got on. He wouldn’t go upstairs and they collapsed on the nearest seat. She said: “ Shall we go to my flat: it’s a bit nearer?”

  “No, I’d rather get home.”

  To Bennie, just to be on the bus again was to come out of the nightmare of those decaying streets. And as she had said, it looked like the end of the whole nightmare. Getting on this bus with Michael was putting a seal on a miraculous deliverance. The clock had been put back two weeks. The unbelievable had happened; the past was there for re-living. She squeezed Michael’s hand and told him he’d have to pay for her as she daren’t open her bag. He smiled, and then twitched with pain as he felt in his pocket for some coins.

  “Michael, what is it?”

  “Nothing much. My leg has been giving me hell since we left.”

  “D’you mean the wound?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if it was the scrap with Boy or whether it was when I was climbing across the windows, but it’s been—well.…”

  “D’you think the wound has opened again? Is it bleeding?”

  “I don’t think so. But the bullet’s still in and I expect that’s giving trouble.”

  She sat up. “You didn’t tell me! Have you seen a doctor?”

  “Sort of. He said he couldn’t interfere, that it would have to be taken out in hospital.”

  “When? But when?”

  “Whenever I could fix it. I couldn’t go to a public hospital with a .25 bullet in my leg. That would soon settle things. If I hadn’t been stuck away in fear of being arrested I should have had it done in some shady nursing-home before now.”

  She was silent for a few seconds. “ Where exactly is it?”

  “Here.” He pointed.

  “Will you let me see it when you get in? I’ve had first-aid training.”

  Michael nodded bleakly. “If you like. Maybe we can get the same doctor to look at it. I have his number.”

  The bus lurched and splashed down Kensington Church Street. Bennie watched him. There was sweat under his hair, a different dampness from the dampness of rain.

  “Darling,” she said. “ I don’t think this is good enough. We’d better go straight to a doctor. You see there might be internal——”

  “No. Not on any account. When we’re just free from the whole business?”

  “Yes, but there are worse things than——”

  “Listen. I’m not going to get in another jam. I’ll be all right when I get to bed. We’ll have the doctor I had before.… There’s a taxi-rank round the corner. Get off here.”

  They slid off the bus at the traffic lights and he led the way through the rain. The rank was empty. They waited on the corner. A taxi with its flag lit turned out of the next street but away from them. They shouted in vain. Mere buses went past. Two engaged taxis and some private cars. Then a taxi at last. They got in somehow, and Michael bit his lip to keep back the grunt of agony as he sat down.

  It seemed no way once they were in. Michael climbed out and began to pull himself up the steps. Bennie turned her back on the taxi driver to open her bag and groped for her own money. By the time she had paid, Michael was inside.

  She found him sitting in the living-room, his face deadly white as if he was going to faint.

  “Darling, lie down at once. Let me see where it is.”

  “A drop of brandy first. Then phone that doctor.”

  She flew into kitchen and went through the bottles there, found brandy, slopped it in a glass. While she was gone he had found the number.

  “Just sip it,” she said, “until I’ve had a chance of looking at the thing.…”

  “Look afterwards. Phone Gros.”

  He took the glass and drank some of the brandy while she was dialling.

  “Can I speak to Dr Gros, please?”

  A guarded voice said: “Who is it?”

  “I’m speaking for Mr Michael Shorn. He attended him about ten days ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr Gros is out.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “We’re expecting him.”

  “Could you tell him to come round at once to Roland Gardens? Mr Shorn is very unwell. It’s very urgent.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Bennie slammed down the receiver. When she turned she saw something trickling down the side of Michael’s shoe. At first in the shadow she thought it was oil.

  “Michael!” She went to him in horror.

  “The thing’s pretty swollen. You’ll have a job—to get my clothes off.”

  She flew into the kitchen where she had seen scissors, fled back, knelt at his feet, began to cut the trousers by the seam. As she did so blood got on her hands. She cut the trousers right up and the thin pants.

  “Oh, dear God!” she said.

  The leg was very swollen. The way he was sitting she could hardly see the bullet wound, but she could see it was a bad haemorrhage. The blood was forcing its way out along the track of the old wound. Every beat of his heart was pumping the blood into the tissues of his leg and out of his body.

  She somehow pulled him down on to the floor, so that he was quite flat, began to put pressure above the artery. It didn’t work. Her fingers when she took them away left nasty pits in the swelling of the groin but she had done no good.

  “Darling,” he said. “ It’s—bit easier.…” He was half fainting already.

  She snatched up a table napkin, tied it tightly round the thigh below the wound. She couldn’t get it anywhere else. Her hands and knees sticky with blood, she managed to drag the telephone directory on to the floor beside her, turned over the pages, which stuck together with the blood.

  “Darling,” he said. “Did Gros—say he was coming?”

  She got the bandage as tight as she could and then lifted the leg and propped it up on the chair. She jumped up to the phone, dialled. The thing rang five times.

  “St George’s Hospital.”

  “Will you put me through at once to the casualty officer?”

  “Casualty officer. Just one moment.”

  She was trembling so much she could hardly hold the phone. Michael opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  “Casualty officer.”

  She said: “I’m speaking from 191 Roland Gardens. A man is bleeding from a gunshot wound. If you don’t get him into hospital at once he’ll bleed to death. Can you send an ambulance very quickly?”

  “At 191 Roland Gardens? Yes. What is the name?”

  “Marlowe.”

  “Mrs Marlowe? I’ll do that right away.…” There was a moment’s pause. She could hear him giving instructions. “Now, Mrs Marlowe,” said the voice calmly and reassuringly. “ I’m sure you can help while the ambulance is on its way. Where is the wound?”

  “High up on the inside of the thigh below or just in the buttock. Too high for a tourniquet. I think it has broken into an artery—the femoral artery.”

  “You’re a nurse?”

  “An air stewardess.”

  “Oh, very well, then, you’ll know that you can quickly check the bleeding by pressure. You know of course about the Poupart ligament?”

  “I know about it, but I can’t find it! There’s too much swelling. All the groin is swollen and pulpy. What pressure I
can bring makes practically no difference!”

  There was a pause. The voice was a little less confident. “How long is it since this happened?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Probably, fifteen minutes.”

  Another pause. “ It’s a man, is it? A young man. I suppose you won’t know his blood group?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the ambulance is well on its way now, Mrs Marlowe. I’ll see that everything is got ready for the moment he arrives. Don’t worry.”

  “How long will it be getting here?”

  “Not more than ten minutes. It will depend a little on the traffic.”

  When Bennie hung up Michael was lying in a pool of blood.

  “Oh, dear God!” she said, tears starting on to her lashes. He was practically unconscious now. She felt around the swollen limb and above it, pressing into the groin again. Any pressure might help a little to keep back the pumping blood. “Oh, dear God, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do?”

  She felt for Michael’s pulse. It was shallow and quick. She put her face against his; his skin was cold and sweaty. His eyelids flickered but he didn’t come round. Her tears fell on his face.

  She stood up, went out into the hall, switched on the hall light, opened the front door. It was still raining. Why did she ever let him dismiss the first taxi; why hadn’t she insisted on going straight to the nearest hospital; why hadn’t she now got a taxi; if there was a taxi even now, it would get them to the hospital in less than twenty minutes; why hadn’t she done that to begin with. Oh, God, save him, even if it means his leg; oh, God, send the ambulance; I can’t go back into that room and watch him bleeding to death. She had a picture vivid in her mind of the great arteries branching and stemming from each other, with the heart endlessly pumping through them a relatively small quantity of blood. One breach in that main system. Seven or eight pints, that’s all; if he loses a pint every four minutes; oh, God, where’s the ambulance? “Taxi!” she screamed as one turned in at the end of the road; she ran down the steps; even now it would save time; even now, if they could carry him m; the taxi had been turning round; it went off, turning into Brompton Road. She stopped and ran back, stumbling up the steps, went in to the door of the flat, stood on the threshold, swaying. The pool of blood had spread; it had soaked the rug and was creeping off the edge in a thick red finger along the floorboard, moving like snake towards the wall. It was like his life creeping away into a corner.