How long? I didn’t know how long. Until Vjoersterod had been jailed or deported. Even then, it would be safer to find another flat.
‘A few days,’ I said.
I fetched a suitcase and tried to concentrate on what she needed. She began to tell me, item by item, realising I couldn’t think.
‘Washing things. Hair brush. Make-up. Bedsocks. Hot water bottle. Cardigans. Pills...’ She looked with longing at the Possum machine and all the gadgets.
‘I’ll come soon... come back soon for those,’ I promised. With company, just in case.
‘You’ll need some things yourself,’ she said.
‘Hm?’ I squinted at her. ‘Yeah...’
I fetched toothbrush, comb, electric razor. I would sleep in the van, dressed, on the stretcher bed. Better take a clean shirt. And a sweater. Beyond that, I couldn’t be bothered. Shoved them into a grip. Packing done.
‘Could you leave a note for Mrs Woodward?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be so worried if we aren’t here in the morning.’
A note for Mrs Woodward. Found some paper. Ball point pen in my pocket. Note for Mrs Woodward. ‘Gone away for few days. Will write to you.’ Didn’t think she would be much less worried when she read that, but didn’t know what else to put. The writing straggled upwards, as drunk as I felt.
‘All set,’ I said.
The packing had postponed the moment we were both afraid of. I looked at the pump. Its works were encased in a metal cabinet of about the size of a bedside table, with a handle at each side for carrying. Like any large heavy box, it was easy enough for two to manage, but difficult for one. I’d done it often enough before, but not with a whirling head and throbbing bruises. I made a practice shot at picking it up, just to find out.
I found out.
Elizabeth said weakly, ‘Ty... you can’t do it.’
‘Oh yes... I can.’
‘Not after... I mean, it’s hurting you.’
‘The best thing about being drunk,’ I said carefully, ‘is that what you feel you don’t feel, and even if you feel it you don’t care.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Live now, hurt later.’
I pulled back her sheets and my fingers fumbled on the buckle which unfastened the Spirashell. That wouldn’t do, I thought clearly. If I fumbled the buckle I’d never have a chance of doing the transfer in four minutes. I paused, fighting the chaos in my head. Sometimes in my youth I’d played a game against alcohol, treating it like an opponent, drinking too much of it and then daring it to defeat me. I knew from experience that if one concentrated hard enough it was possible to carry out quite adequately the familiar jobs one did when sober. This time it was no game. This time, for real.
I started again on the buckle, sharpening every faculty into that one simple task. It came undone easily. I lifted the Spirashell off her chest and laid it over her knees, where it hissed and sucked at the blankets.
Switched off the electricity. Unplugged the lead. Wound it onto the lugs provided. Disconnected the flexible tube which led to the Spirashell.
Committed now. I tugged the pump across the floor, pulling it on its rocky old casters. Opened the door. Crossed the small landing. The stairs stretched downwards. I put my hand on the wall to steady myself and turned round to go down backwards.
Step by step. One foot down. Lift the pump down one step. Balance it. One foot down. Lift the pump. Balance...
Normally, if Ron or Sue or Mrs Woodward were not there to help, I simply carried it straight down. This time, if I did that, I would fall. I leaned against the wall. One foot down. Lift the pump down. Balance it... It overhung the steps. Only its back two casters were on the ground, the others out in space... If it fell forward, it would knock me down the stairs with it...
Hurry. Four minutes. Half way down it seemed to me with an uprush of panic that the four minutes had already gone by. That I would be still on the stairs when Elizabeth died. That I would never, never get it to the bottom unless I fell down there in a tangled heap.
Step by deliberate step, concentrating acutely on every movement, I reached the ground below. Lugged the pump across the small hall, lifted it over the threshold on to the street. Rolled it to the van.
The worst bit. The floor of the van was a foot off the ground. I climbed in, stretched down, grasped the handles, and tugged. I felt as if I’d been torn apart, like the old Chinese torture of the two trees. The pump came up, in through the door, on to the floor of the van. The world whirled violently round my head. I tripped over the end of the stretcher and fell backwards still holding the pump by one handle. It rocked over, crashed on its side, broke the glass over the gauge which showed the pressures and respirations per minute.
Gasping, feeling I was clamped into a hopeless nightmare, I bent over the pump and lifted it upright. Shoved it into its place. Fastened the straps which held it. Pushed the little wedges under its wheels. Plugged in the leads to and from the batteries. Couldn’t believe I had managed it all, and wasted several seconds checking through again.
If it didn’t work... If some of the broken glass was inside... If it rubbed a hole in its bellows... I couldn’t think straight, didn’t know what to do about it, hoped it would be all right.
Up the stairs. Easy without the pump. Stumbled over half the steps, reached the landing on my knees.
Elizabeth was very frightened, her eyes wide and dark, looking at death because I was drunk. When she had to do her own breathing she had no energy or air left for talking, but this time she managed one appalled, desperate word.
‘Hurry.’
I remembered not to nod. Picked her up, one arm under her knees, one arm round her shoulders, pulling her towards me so that she could rest her head against my shoulder. Like one carries a baby.
She was feather light, but not light enough. She looked at my face and did my moaning for me.
‘Hush,’ I said. ‘Just breathe.’
I went down the stairs leaning against the wall, one step at a time, refusing to fall. Old man alcohol was losing the game.
The step up into the van was awful. More trees. I laid her carefully on the stretcher, putting her limp limbs straight.
Only the Spirashell now. Went back for it, up the stairs. Like going up a down escalator, never ending, moving where it should have been still. Picked up the Spirashell. The easiest burden. Very nearly came to grief down the stairs through tripping over the long concertina connecting tube. Stumbled into the van and thrust it much too heavily on to Elizabeth’s knees.
She was beginning to labour, the tendons in her neck standing out like strings under her effort to get air.
I couldn’t get the tube to screw into its connection in the pump. Cursed, sweated, almost wept. Took a deep breath, choked down the panic, tried again. The tricky two-way nut caught and slipped into a crossed thread, caught properly at last, fastened down firmly. I pressed the battery switch on the pump. The moment of truth.
The bellows nonchalantly swelled and thudded. Elizabeth gave the smallest sound of inexpressible relief. I lifted the Spirashell gently on to her chest, slipped the strap underneath her, and couldn’t do up the buckle because my fingers were finally trembling too much to control. I just knelt there holding the ends tight so that the Spirashell was close enough for its vacuum to work. It pulled her chest safely up and down, up and down, filling her lungs with air. Some of the agonised apprehension drained out of her face, and some fragile colour came back.
Sixteen life-giving breaths later I tried again with the buckle. Fixed it after two more attempts. Sat back on the floor of the van, rested my elbows on my bent knees, and my head on my hands. Shut my eyes. Everything spun in a roaring black whirl. At least, I thought despairingly, at least I had to be nearly as drunk as I was going to get. Which, thanks to having got some of the stuff up, might not now be paralytic.