I rinsed my mouth out with clean water and straightened up. Groaned as the heavy yoke of bruises across my shoulders reminded me I had other troubles besides drink. Went back to Elizabeth concentrating on not knocking into the walls and doors, and picked up the telephone.
A blank. Couldn’t remember the number.
Think.
Out it came. Willie Onroy answered.
‘Willie,’ I said. ‘Move that horse out of box sixty eight. That was the opposition you were talking to earlier. Put on all the guards you can, and move the horse to another box. Stake out sixty eight and see if you can catch any would-be nobblers in the act.’
‘Ty! Will do.’
‘Can’t stop, Willie. Sorry about this.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll see no one reaches him. I think like you, that it’s essential that he should be kept safe until the race.’
‘They may be determined...’
‘So am I.’
I put the receiver back in its cradle with his reassurance shoring me up, and met Elizabeth’s horrified gaze.
‘Ty,’ she said faintly, ‘What are you doing?’
I sat down for a moment on the arm of the chair. I felt terrible. Battered, sick and drunk.
I said, ‘Listen, honey. Listen well. I can’t say it twice. I can’t put things back to where they were before I wrote the articles.’
‘You told him you would,’ she interrupted in bewilderment.
‘I know I did. I had to. But I can’t. I’ve told the Stewards about him. I can’t go back on that. In fact I won’t. He’s utter poison, and he’s got to be stopped.
‘Let someone else do it.’
‘That’s the classic path to oppression.’
‘But why you?’ A protesting wail, but a serious question.
‘I don’t know... someone has to.’
‘But you gave in to him... you let him...’ She looked at me with wide, appalled eyes, struck by sudden realisation. ‘He’ll come back.’
‘Yes. When he finds out that Tiddely Pom has changed boxes and the whole stable is bristling with guards, he’ll guess I warned them, and he’ll come back. So I’m moving you out of here. Away. At once.’
‘You don’t mean now?’
‘I do indeed.’
‘But Ty... all that whisky... Wouldn’t it be better to leave it until the morning?’
I shook my head. The room began spinning. I held on to the chair and waited for it to stop. In the morning I would be sore and ill, much worse than at that moment; and the morning might anyway be too late. Heathbury and back would take less than three hours in a Rolls.
‘Ring up Sue Davis and see if Ron can come along to help. I’m going downstairs to get the van out. O.K.?’
‘I don’t want to go.’
I understood her reluctance. She had so little grasp on life that even a long-planned daytime move left her worried and insecure. This sudden bustle into the night seemed the dangerous course to her, and staying in a familiar warm home the safe one. Whereas they were the other way round.
‘We must.’ I said. ‘We absolutely must.’
I stood up carefully and concentrated on walking a straight path to the door. Made it with considerable success. Down the stairs. Opened the garage doors, started the van, and backed it out into the mews. A new set of batteries for Elizabeth’s pump were in the garage. I lifted them into the van and put them in place. Waves of giddiness swept through me every time I bent my head down. I began to lose hope that I could retain any control of my brain at all. Too much whisky sloshing about in it. Too much altogether.
I went upstairs again. Elizabeth had the receiver to her ear and her eyes were worried.
‘There isn’t any reply. Sue and Ron must be out.’
I swore inwardly. Even at the best of times it was difficult to manage the transfer to the van on my own. This was far from the best of times.
I took the receiver out of the cradle, disconnected the Davis’s vainly ringing number, and dialled that of Antonio Perelli. To my bottomless relief, he answered.
‘Tonio, will you call the nursing home and tell them I’m bringing Elizabeth over.’
‘Do you mean now, tonight?’
‘Almost at once, yes.’
‘Bronchial infection?’ He sounded brisk, preparing to be reassuring, acknowledging the urgency.
‘No. She’s well. It’s a different sort of danger. I’ll tell you later. Look... could you possibly down tools and come over here and help me with her?’
‘I can’t just now, Ty. Not if she isn’t ill.’
‘But life and death, all the same,’ I said with desperate flippancy.
‘I really can’t, Ty. I’m expecting another patient.’
‘Oh. Well, just ring the nursing home, huh?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘And... er... bring Elizabeth here on the way. Would you do that? It isn’t much of a detour. I’d like just to be sure she’s in good shape. I’ll leave my patient for a few minutes, and just say hello to her in the van. All right?’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Tonio.’
‘I’m sorry...’
‘Don’t give it a thought,’ I said. ‘Be seeing you.’
The room whirled when I put the receiver down. I held on to the bedhead to steady myself, and looked at my watch. Couldn’t focus on the dial. The figures were just a blur. I made myself see. Concentrated hard. The numbers and the hands came back sharp and clear. Ten thirty-seven. As if it mattered.
Three more trips to make up and down the stairs: Correction; five. Better start, or I’d never finish. I took the pillows and blankets off my bed, folded them as I would need them in the van, and took them down. When I’d made up the stretcher bed ready for Elizabeth, I felt an overpowering urge to lie down on it myself and go to sleep. Dragged myself back to the stairs instead.
Ridiculous, I thought. Ridiculous to try to do anything in the state I was in. Best to unscramble the eggs and go to bed. Wait till morning. Go to sleep. Sleep.
If I went to sleep I would sleep for hours. Sleep away our margin of safety. Put it into the red time-expired section. Cost us too much.
I shook myself out of it. If I walked carefully, I could stop the world spinning round me. If I thought slowly, I could still think. There was a block now somewhere between my brain and my tongue, but if the words themselves came out slurred and wrong, I still knew with moderate clarity what I had intended them to be.
‘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.