'48

  ‘How’ve you survived, Hoke? How have you lived on your own like this for three years?’ Curiosity, and maybe some concern, was edging aside her coolness.

  ‘It’s easier to get by when you’ve only got yourself to take care of. You can move faster and make your own decisions. It’s a lot simpler this way.’

  ‘You sound bitter.’

  I gave a small, dry chuckle. ‘Really? Well now.’ I left it at that.

  ‘The aeroplane that came over last night…’

  ‘A Dornier Do 217. German medium bomber, the Flying Pencil they used to call it Whoever’s flying it doesn’t realize the war’s over, or doesn’t care. And there’s no way we can communicate.’ I tucked the rag back into my pocket ‘Maybe one night I’ll be waiting for him in a Spitfire or Hurricane and finish it once and for all.’

  ‘No. No more killing, Hoke. Hasn’t there been enough?’

  ‘Try telling it to that guy.’ I indicated the sky with my thumb and I could have meant the mad German pilot or the Creator Himself. It didn’t matter which.

  ‘What’s the point of continuing the hatred? Look what it’s already done to us.’ She lowered her head and I could see the beginnings of tears glittering in her eyelashes.

  I could stand my own self-pity, but not somebody else’s. I pushed myself to my feet and reached down for my battered and torn leather jacket ‘I’m gonna clean up, then get a bite t’eat,’ I said.

  She joined me, brushing dust from her seat, and suddenly I was the one who was curious.

  ‘How d’you get out of the hotel? Past all those dead people, I mean. Weren’t you afraid?’

  ‘Of what? Empty shells? You think I’m scared of ghosts too?’ From the glint behind those unshed tears in her eyes I guessed Muriel had offered some kind of explanation, maybe even some excuse, for last night. ‘No, I’m more afraid of maniacs still dropping bombs or lunatics trying to steal my blood.’

  ‘I can ease your mind as far as one of those threats is concerned. Let me show you the safest place to be in the hotel when the bomber comes over again.’

  I led her across the street and through the brick, zigzag barrier protecting the Savoy’s River Room windows and back entrance, Cagney immediately rousing from his doze to follow us. Inside the gloomy entrance hall I picked up the flashlight I always left in a corner by the stairway in case of emergencies or my own late-night arrivals, then took her downstairs to the hotel’s vast basement area. We entered a long room on the left of the hallway and I played the flashlight over pink-curtained bunk-beds, all of them numbered.

  ‘Sleeping quarters for the rich and famous,’ I explained. ‘At the first sound of an air-raid siren, Savoy guests were ushered down here for their own safety.’

  I moved the light on, showing Cissie the discreet alcoves, heavy drapes across them turning their interiors into small but private chambers. ‘For your royalty, big shots, even princes and princesses. If they were gonna shelter from the bombs, they were gonna do it in comfort.’

  I picked out a bust resting on a pedestal at the far end of the room. ‘Abe Lincoln,’ I told her. ‘This place is dedicated to him. The Yanks who came here looked on it as another tiny state of the Union wedged between the Strand and the Thames. A lot of work for the US was carried out down here, and a lot of bridges built between your country and mine.’ I shone the light up at the ceiling and around the pillars. ‘It’s reinforced with thousands of feet of steel tubing and timber beams, all strengthened by concrete. The place is bomb-proof, Cissie, so if you get scared next time that damn crazy starts blitzing us again, just get yourself down here. Safest place in town.’

  I felt her shiver beside me.

  ‘Thanks for the tour,’ she said, ‘but can we leave now? There’s something horrible about this room.’

  I turned the flashlight on her and saw her eyes were wide and constantly moving, as if she expected something to jump out at her from the dark at any moment.

  ‘I thought you weren’t afraid of ghosts.’

  She was already backing away. ‘I’m not, but it’s like the Underground station down here, it feels like a mausoleum. Hoke, have you looked behind those curtains?’

  She had a point. It was one thing to be surrounded by the dead, but another to be enclosed with them, especially in the dark. I began to feel uneasy myself.

  I followed her from the Abraham Lincoln Room and we climbed back to ground level. She became calmer standing in the light from the entrance doors, but I could tell she was still agitated. Could be I’d made a mistake taking her down there, because it had only underlined the fact that we were holed up in one huge tomb, and whether Cissie believed in spirits or not, the idea had to be a mite unnerving. Y’see, I’d forgotten how accustomed I’d become to living with the dead all around me. These people, save for Potter, weren’t used to the new cities yet.

  ‘How long have we got to stay here?’ Cissie demanded to know.

  I’d been trying to make things easier for her, so I guess I got a little irritated by her tone. ‘Lady, you can leave whenever you like.’

  ‘But…’ she started to say, ‘but surely…’

  I was stone-faced.

  ‘Surely we’ll stay together.’ Her hands were held towards me, palms facing, more in exasperation than pleading. ‘We need each other, Hoke, can’t you understand that? Could you really go on living by yourself, with only…only a dog for company?’

  Cagney, who’d stayed in a sunny spot by the entrance, cocked his head. He looked from Cissie to me, as if waiting for the reply.

  ‘Cagney’s been enough so far,’ I shot back. ‘He doesn’t gripe and he doesn’t need nurse-maiding. Yeah, I’ll stick with the mutt.’

  She left me then, stomping up the stairs, head and shoulders stiff with suppressed – outrage, resentment, good old-fashioned pique? I didn’t know which – and I had to resist the urge to call her back. Cagney made a noise deep in his throat, a kind of drawn-out groan, and rolled his eyes at me.

  ‘Quit it,’ I snapped, and went back out into the sunshine.

  Muriel was waiting for me when I eventually got back to the suite. She was standing by the window, a hand parting the net curtain so she could watch feeble strands of smoke rising from somewhere across the river, another piece of real estate damaged in last night’s explosions. She dropped the curtain and hurried towards me as I closed the door.

  ‘I’ve been so anxious,’ she said and stopped a few steps away when she saw the dust in my hair and clothes. ‘My goodness, what have you been up to? You look so…dirty.’

  I’d left Cagney outside where he could guard the corridor, a position he was well used to by now, so I didn’t have to contend with his growling suspicion of this stranger in the room. Again I wondered at his swift acceptance of Cissie, particularly as I hadn’t been there to make the introductions in the first place. I remembered I was still rankled with the girl, so any credit I gave her was limited. Tossing my jacket onto the bed and ignoring Muriel’s question, I headed straight for the bathroom. She followed me in.

  Muriel started the shower for me as I tugged off my undershirt and I heard her gasp when she saw the massive bruising on my chest and the inflamed edges of the gunshot nick showing around the dressing. She took in some of the other cuts and bruises on my arms and body, shaking her head in sympathy as she did so.

  ‘Does it hurt badly?’ It was a dumb question and she knew it. ‘Do you have any pain-killers that I can get for you?’ she added quickly.

  I shook my head and took her by the elbow. ‘I’m gonna take my shower alone,’ I told her.

  ‘Let me help. You must be sore all over.’

  Yeah, I was sore, and I ached too, some of that from the day’s work I’d just done, but I didn’t need anybody’s help to wash myself. ‘I’d like some privacy, Muriel.’

  Disappointment, hurt – I guess both were in those grey-blue eyes of hers. ‘Can’t I stay and talk to you? Last night-’

  I cut her off. ‘Last night, was la
st night You needed me, and I wanted you – last night Today’s another day, kid.’ Bogart couldn’t have put it better.

  Now she looked stunned. ‘I don’t understand,’ was all she could think of to say.

  ‘Look, you came to me for one thing last night and you got it.’ I’d never spoken to a girl like that before and I think I was almost as shocked as Muriel, although my anger covered it. Not only had the world changed, but I had too. I didn’t back off though, and the English Rose before me wilted under the blast. ‘You think you fooled me with all that stuff about seeing ghosts? Christ, I knew what you wanted soon as I opened the door. You and your friend, you just want a man around to look out for you, keep you out of danger, keep you fed. Well you picked the wrong guy, y’hear me? Maybe you better start cosying up to your friend Vilhelm. Sure, he’ll take care of you. Didn’t you know he’s the new Master Race?’

  ‘Why are you so angry?’ she pleaded. ‘What have I done?’

  Why? The heck of it was that I didn’t know myself. Maybe I was scared of getting involved with other people after I’d spent so long looking out for myself. Was I angry at their intrusion, the sudden burden of having all these people around me? Or in truth, was I plain ashamed of myself for taking this girl to the same bed Sally and I had first made love in? I felt my face redden and it wasn’t through rage. Yeah, that was it, or at least a big part of it. Maybe it was foolish, but I felt I’d betrayed the one love of my life, someone I’d sworn eternal love for, no matter what Stupid kid’s stuff? No, not really. Despite the war going on, and both of us knowing that we could die the next day or even that night, we’d made promises to each other that we vowed to keep. Not only had I broken my part of the deal, but I’d done it in the very bedroom Sally and I had honeymooned in. Although I’d had pangs of guilt at the time – all of them easily overwhelmed by the moment itself – the real sense of what I’d done had hit me with its full force when I’d opened the door to Suite 318-319 and found Muriel standing there. Sure I was mad, madder than hell, but not at Muriel, not at Cissie, not at any of them (‘cept Stern, but that was different). I was mad at myself. And I was ashamed. The combination was bad.

  But I couldn’t say all this to Muriel. No, instead I spun away from her and smashed the heel of my hand into the mirror over the washbasin, cracking the glass and fragmenting my image. I heard her give out a small scream and when I glared at her over my raised arm, my palm still pressed against the splintered glass, blood beginning to drip into the sink below it, she seemed about ready to run. I felt stupid, but I must have appeared insane.

  I was ready to make some comment – it could’ve been an apology or a cuss – when Cagney started barking up a storm outside in the corridor. We heard shouting, more barking; something thumped against the bedroom door.

  I moved fast, pushing Muriel aside and taking time to snatch the Colt from its holster inside my jacket. Then I was at the door, yanking it open. I stopped dead, gun hand extended.

  Cagney was upset. He was damn-near rabid. Crouched low, snout wrinkled over yellow teeth, haunches quivering, the dog was getting ready to launch itself at something or someone standing beside the door I’d just thrown open.

  ‘It is wild.’ Shit – vild.

  I took a step forward into the corridor so that I could see him. The German had his back pressed against the wall and there was real fear in those pallid eyes of his. Like mine, one of his arms was outstretched, at the end of it the muzzle of a small automatic. He was pointing it at Cagney.

  My reaction was almost instinctive, the thought and the movement instantaneous: I smashed my own weapon down hard on Stern’s exposed wrist Spittle shot from the German’s open mouth with the shock and his gun clattered to the floor. He bent forward, clutching at his arm, and I brought my gun hand up again, catching him on the forehead so that he straightened and his head slammed against the wall behind. He slid to the floor and I went with him, grabbing the lapel of his jacket and jabbing the Colt’s muzzle into his scarred neck.

  ‘Please stop.’

  His jaw must’ve been numbed, because the two words weren’t that coherent. I understood them though.

  ‘The animal…’ he managed to blurt. ‘It was…it was going to attack me…when I tried to enter your room.’ That’s what he tried to say, but it didn’t come out quite that well. I couldn’t have cared less anyway – I was ready to blow his brains out.

  ‘Hoke!’

  Female’s voice, but I wasn’t taking enough notice to decide whose. It was time to settle the score with the German and I was just mad enough to do it right then and there. Blood oozing from my cut hand made the gun’s grip slippery, but still I pressed it into the flesh of his neck. A scream then and I glanced round to see Muriel standing in the doorway. It was Cissie who attacked me though.

  Her knee connected with the side of my head, knocking me aside. Then her fingers tangled themselves in my hair and she pulled me backwards, so that I sprawled onto my back. She followed through by kneeling on my chest and grabbing at my gun hand, while Cagney leapt around us, yapping and too excited to figure out which one of us to attack. With a quick swipe of my other hand, I knocked Cissie away and raised my shoulders off the carpeted floor, the Colt finding its target once more.

  ‘Don’t shoot him!’

  Now it was Muriel who was getting in the way. She positioned herself between me and the stunned German and screamed down at me.

  ‘Stop it, stop it now! We can’t go on killing one another, don’t you understand?’

  To complete the picture, Albert Potter came lumbering along the corridor from his suite. For some reason he still had the warning rattle he’d used last night in his hand and for one bad moment I thought he was gonna blast our ears with it again. Instead he shouted: ‘What the bleedin ‘ell’s goin on? Can’t a fellah get a decent kip around ‘ere?’ Mercifully, he tucked the rattle back into one of the large pockets in his overalls.

  Cissie, a leg still across my chest, finally got both hands around my wrist and pulled the gun away from its mark.

  ‘Please, Hoke, give it up,’ she pleaded and there was a sob at the end of her words.

  I glanced at her, saw the tears beginning to roll, and I guess it was that that took the wind out of me. I was still full of rage, but some of its energy had left me. I let my head slump back onto the carpet, and as I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, I relaxed my grip on the gun, let my arm go limp. Still Cissie clung to my wrist, not trusting me.

  ‘Okay. I’m done,’ I assured her. ‘Just get him outta my sight for a while.’ They knew I meant Stern and not the dog who, now that the commotion was over, was trying to lick my face.

  I heard someone helping the German to his feet, and then he was standing over me, looking down. There was no wariness in his eyes, no fear, only a simmering anger.

  ‘You are a fool,’ he hissed. ‘There was no need for this. I am not your enemy.’

  I ignored him, then suddenly remembered the gun he’d been aiming at Cagney. I sat up, fast, Cissie’s grip instantly tightening on my wrist. With relief I saw that Potter had picked up the German’s weapon.

  ‘What’s this then?’ the warden mused, as if he’d never seen a gun before.

  ‘It’s a US military issue Colt 380,’ I informed him, and he nodded his head like he knew all along. ‘Don’t let Stern have it,’ I warned.

  ‘Do you really think I would shoot you?’ Stern sounded almost regretful. ‘After all that has happened…’ He waved his hands around as if indicating the world outside. ‘I found this weapon in my room and kept it for my own protection. I believe I was wise to do so. But do you honestly believe I have the desire to kill again? If you do, then you really are insane, Hoke. The Blood Death has made you so.’

  With that he walked away from us, one hand held to his injured forehead. He disappeared inside his room and we heard the door close quietly behind him.

  Supper that evening was a miserable affair. No one felt much like talking and Stern d
idn’t even join us. Let him sulk, I thought, it didn’t bother me none. Potter did his best to get things going by reminiscing, relating stories of the Blitz, some of them funny, some of them not so. He told us how one night when he was on his rounds, he’d found Ed Murrow, the famous American war correspondent, lying in the gutter outside the Savoy, not rolling drunk, as Potter had first assumed, but picking up the sounds of wailing sirens and enemy bombs hitting their targets with his microphone, these authentic noises of war to be broadcast across the Atlantic. He told us about the authorities’ grand idea of turning gas masks into Mickey Mouse faces so the kids wouldn’t be afraid to wear them; how once he’d chased a couple of looters through Covent Garden only to see them both blown to pieces before his eyes by a land mine, one of the looter’s legs landing on his shoulder as he’d stood there surprised; how on a cold, frosty dawn he’d come upon an elderly, white-haired lady sitting up in bed, totally bewildered as to why she was in the open, one floor up, two walls of her house completely demolished. He told us about the fireman he’d witnessed breaking down a warehouse door across the street, the poor man sucked inside by the firestorm when the door collapsed, to be burned to nothing, not even his bones left in the ashes; the warning whistle Potter always carried but which got stuck in his throat when a nearby explosion caused him to suck instead of blow, only a hefty blow on the back by a Heavy Rescue worker, who wondered why Potter was turning blue, saving his life when the whistle popped back into his mouth; the effigy of Adolf Hitler, wearing baggy grey bloomers, hanging by the neck from a crooked bus stop sign in Whitehall; the milk-cart horse painted with white stripes so that it wouldn’t get knocked down on dark winter mornings.

  Potter rambled on, amused and saddened in turn by his own stories, while across the room Muriel gave me an occasional long meaningful look, which I ignored, and Cissie, who’d taken over the cooking, shot me an angry glance from time to time, which I also ignored. We ate mostly in silence, Potter finally giving up the chatter, and both girls left the suite as soon as pans and plates were washed. Muriel’s ‘good night’ was kind of stiff, and Cissie didn’t bother. So the warden and me, we cracked open another Jack Daniel’s and finished it between us.