The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (8 page)

I looked up “morgue” and then, when that didn’t work, “body disposal.”

I was right. They had used churches, warehouses, even swimming pools after some of the worst air raids to store bodies. I doubted if there were any swimming pools near Holborn, but there might be a church.

There was only one way to find out—go back to Holborn and look. I looked at my tube map. Good. I could catch a train straight
to Holborn from here. I went down to the Bakerloo Line and got on a northbound train. It was nearly as empty as the one I’d come out on, but when the doors opened at Waterloo, a huge crowd of people surged onto the train.

It can’t be rush hour yet, I thought, and glanced at my watch. Six-fifteen. Good God. I was supposed to meet Cath at the theater at seven. And I was how many stops from the
theater? I pulled out my tube map and clung to the overhead pole, trying to count. Embankment and then Charing Cross and Piccadilly Circus. Five minutes each, and another five to get out of the station in this crush. I’d make it. Barely.

“Service on the Bakerloo Line has been disrupted from Embankment north,” the automated voice said as we pulled in. “Please seek alternate routes.”

Not now!
I thought, grabbing for my map. Alternate routes. I could take the Northern Line to Leicester Square and then change for Piccadilly Circus. No, it would be faster to get off at Leicester Square and run the extra blocks.

I raced off the train the minute the doors open and down the corridor to the Northern Line. Five to seven, and I was still two stops away from Leicester Square, and four blocks
from the theater. A train was coming in. I could hear its rumble down the corridor. I darted around people, shouting, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” and burst onto the packed northbound platform.

The train must
have been on the southbound tracks. “Next train 4 min.,” the overhead sign said.

Great, I thought, hearing it start up, pushing the air in front of it, creating a vacuum in its wake. Embankment
had been hit. And that was all I needed right now, a blast from the Blitz.

I’d no sooner said it than it hit, whipping my hair and my coat lapels back, rattling the unglued edges of a poster for
Showboat.
There was no blast, no heat, even though Embankment was right on the river, where the fires had been the worst. It was cold, cold, but there was no smell of formaldehyde with it, no stench of
decay. Only the icy chill and a smothering smell of dryness and of dust.

It should have been better than the other ones, but it wasn’t. It was worse. I had to lean against the back wall of the platform for support, my eyes closed, before I could get on the train.

What
are
they? I thought, even though this proved they were the residue of the Blitz. Because Embankment had been hit. And people
must have died, I thought. Because it was death I’d smelled. Death and terror and despair.

I stumbled onto the train. It was jammed tight, and the closeness, the knowledge that any wind, any air, couldn’t reach me through this mass of people, revived me, calmed me, and by the time I pulled in to Leicester Square, I had recovered and was thinking only of how late I was.

Seven-ten. I could still
make it, but just barely. At least Cath had the tickets, and with luck Elliott and Sara would get there in the meantime and they’d all be busy saying hello.

Maybe the Old Man changed his mind, I thought, and decided to come. Maybe yesterday he’d been under the weather, and tonight he’d be his old self.

The train pulled in. I raced down the passage, up the escalator, and out onto Shaftesbury.
It was raining, but I didn’t have time to worry about it.

“Tom! Tom!” a breathless voice shouted behind me.

I turned. Sara was frantically waving at me from half a block away.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she said breathlessly, catching up to me. “I’ve been calling you ever since the tube.”

She’d obviously
been running. Her hair was mussed, and one end of her scarf dangled nearly to the ground.

“I know we’re late,” she said, pulling at my arm, “but I
must
catch my breath. You’re not one of those dreadful men who’ve taken up marathon-running in old age, are you?”

“No,” I said, moving over in front of a shop and out of the path of traffic.

“Elliott’s always talking about getting a Stairmaster.” She pulled her dangling scarf off and wrapped it carelessly around her neck. “I have
no
desire
to get in shape.”

Cath was wrong. That was all there was to it. Her radar had failed her and she was misinterpreting the whole situation.

I must have been staring. Sara put a defensive hand up to her hair. “I know I look a mess,” she said, putting up her umbrella. “Oh, well. How late are we?”

“We’ll make it,” I said, taking her arm, and setting off toward the Lyric. “Where’s Elliott?”

“He’s
meeting us at the theater. Did Cath get her china?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since this morning,” I said.

“Oh, look, there she is,” Sara said, and began waving.

Cath was standing in front of the Lyric, next to the water-spotted sign that said, “Tonight’s Performance Sold Out,” looking numb and cold.

“Why didn’t you wait inside out of the rain?” I said, leading them both into the lobby.

“We ran into each other coming out of the tube,” Sara said, pulling off her scarf. “Or, rather, I saw Tom. I had to
scream
to get his attention. “Isn’t Elliott here yet?”

“No,” Cath said.

“He and Mr. Evers came back after lunch. The day was
not
a success, so don’t bring up the subject. Mrs. Evers insisted on buying everything in the entire gift shop, and then we couldn’t find a taxi. Apparently
there are no taxis down in Kew. I had to take the tube, and it was
blocks
to the station.” She put her hand up to her hair. “I got blown to pieces.”

“Did you change trains at Embankment?” I asked, trying to remember which line went out to Kew Gardens. Maybe she’d felt the wind, too. “Were you on the Bakerloo Line platform?”

“I don’t remember,” Sara said impatiently. “Is that the line for Kew?
You’re the tube expert.”

“Do you want me to check your coats?” I said hastily.

Sara handed me hers,
jamming her long scarf into one sleeve, but Cath shook her head. “I’m cold.”

“You should have waited in the lobby,” I said.

“Should I?” she said, and I looked at her, surprised. Was she mad I was late? Why? We still had fifteen minutes, and Elliott wasn’t even here yet.

“What’s the matter?”
I started to say, but Sara was asking, “Did you get your china?”

“No,” she said, still with that edge of anger in her voice. “Nobody has it.”

“Did you try Selfridge’s?” Sara asked, and I went off to check Sara’s coat. When I came back, Elliott was there.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. He turned to me. “What happened to you this—”

“We were all late,” I said, “except Cath, who, luckily, was the
one with the tickets. You
do
have the tickets?”

Cath nodded and pulled them out of her evening bag. She handed them to me, and we went in. “Right-hand aisle and down to your right,” the usher said. “Row three.”

“No stairs to climb?” Elliott said. “No ladders?”

“No rock-axes and pitons,” I said. “No binoculars.”

“You’re kidding,” Elliott said. “I won’t know how to act.”

I stopped to buy programs
from the usher. By the time we got to Row 3, Cath and Sara were already in their seats. “Good God,” Elliott said as we sidled past the people on the aisle. “I’ll bet you can actually
see
from here.”

“Do you want to sit next to Sara?” I said.

“Good God, no,” Elliott joked. “I want to be able to ogle the chorus girls without her smacking me with her program.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of
play,” I said.

“Cath, what’s this play about?” Elliott said.

She leaned across Sara. “Hayley Mills is in it,” she told him.

“Hayley Mills,” he said reminiscently, leaning back, his hands behind his head. “I thought she was truly sexy when I was ten years old. Especially that dance number in
Bye-Bye, Birdie.”

“You’re thinking of Ann-Margaret, you fool,” Sara said, reaching across me to smack
him with her program. “Hayley Mills was in that one where she’s the little girl who always saw the positive side of things—what was it called?”

I looked across at
Cath, surprised she hadn’t chimed in with the answer—she was the Hayley Mills fan. She was sitting with her coat pulled around her shoulders. Her face looked pinched with cold.

“
You
know Hayley Mills,” Sara said to Elliott. “We watched
her in
The Flame Trees of Thika.”

Elliott nodded. “I always admired her chest. Or am I thinking of Annette?”

“I don’t think this is that kind of play,” Sara said.

It wasn’t that kind of play. Everyone wore high-necked costumes, including Hayley Mills who swept in swathed in a bulky coat. “I’m
so
sorry I’m late, dear,” she said, taking off her coat to reveal a turtleneck sweater and going over
to stand in front of a stage fire. “It’s so cold out. And the air’s so strange.”

Whoever was playing her husband said, “‘Into my heart an air that kills from yon far country blows,’” and Elliott leaned over and whispered, “Oh, God, a
literary
play.”

I’d missed the rest of the husband’s line, but he must have asked Hayley why she was late because she said, “My assistant cut her hand, and I had
to take her to hospital. It took forever for her to get stitched up.”

A hospital. I hadn’t considered that. Their morgues would have been full during the Blitz. Was there a hospital close to Holborn? I would have to ask Elliott at intermission.

A sudden rattle of applause brought me out of my reverie.

The stage was dark. I’d missed Scene I. When the lights went back up, I tried to focus on
the play, so I could discuss it at least halfway intelligibly at the intermission.

“The wind is rising,” Hayley Mills said, looking out an imaginary window.

“Storm brewing,” a man, not her husband, said.

“That’s what I fear,” she said, rubbing her hands along her arms to warm them. “Oh, Derek, what if he finds out about us?”

I glanced sideways across Sara at Cath, but couldn’t see her face
in the darkened theater. She obviously hadn’t known what this play was about, or she’d never have chosen it.

But Hayley wasn’t acting anything like Sara. She chain-smoked, she paced, she hung up the phone hastily when her husband came into the room and was so obviously guilty no one, least of all her husband, could have failed to miss it.

Elliott certainly didn’t. “The husband’s got to be a
complete moron,” he said as soon as the curtain went down for the intermission. “Even the
dog
could deduce that she’s having an affair. Why is it characters in plays never act any way remotely resembling real life?”

“Maybe because people
in real life don’t look like Hayley Mills,” Cath said. “She
does
look wonderful, doesn’t she, Sara? She hasn’t aged a day.”

“You’re joking, right?” Elliott
said. “All right, I know people kid themselves about their spouses having affairs, but—”

“I
have
to go to the bathroom,” Cath said. “I suppose there’ll be a horrible line. Come with me, Sara, and I’ll tell you the saga of my china.” They edged past us.

“Get us a glass of white wine,” Sara called back from the aisle, and Elliott and I shouldered our way to the bar, which took ten minutes, and
another five to get served. Sara and Cath still weren’t back.

“So where were you all day?” Elliott asked me, sipping Sara’s wine. “I looked for you at lunch.”

“I was researching something,” I said. “Holborn Tube station is in Bloomsbury, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” he said. “I rarely take the tube.”

“Are there any hospitals near the tube station?”

“Hospitals?” he said bewilderedly. “I don’t
know. I don’t think so.”

“Or churches?”

“I don’t know. What’s this all about?”

“Have you ever heard of a thing called an inversion layer?” I said. “It’s when air is trapped—”

“They simply must do something about the women’s bathroom situation,” Sara said, grabbing her wine and taking a sip. “I thought we were going to be in there the entire third act.”

“Sounds like an excellent idea,” Elliott
said. “I don’t mean to sound like the Old Man, but if this is any indication, plays truly have gone to hell! I mean, we’re expected to believe that Hayley Mills’ husband is so blind that he can’t see his wife’s in love with—the other one—what’s his name—?”

“Pollyanna,”
Cath said. “I’ve been trying to remember it all through the first two acts. The name of the little girl who always saw the positive
side of things.”

“Sara,” I said, “are there any hospitals near Holborn?”

“The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. That’s the one James Barrie left all the money to,” she said. “Why?”

The Great Ormond Street Hospital. That had to be it. They had used it as a temporary morgue, and the air—

“It’s so
obvious,”
Elliott said, still on the subject of infidelity. “The excuses Hayley Mills’s
character makes for where she’s been—”

“She looks
wonderful, doesn’t she?” Cath said. “How old do you suppose she is? She looks so young!”

The end-of-intermission bell chimed.

“Let’s go,” Cath said, setting her wine down. “I don’t want to have to crawl over all those people again.”

Sara swallowed her wine at one gulp, and we went back down the aisle. We were too late. The people on the end
had to stand up and let us past.

“But don’t you agree,” Elliott said, sitting down, “that any normal person—?”

“Shhh,” Cath said, leaning all the way across Sara and me to shut him up. “The lights are going down.”

They did, and I felt an odd sense of relief, as if we’d just avoided something terrible. The curtain began to go up.

“I still say,” Elliott said in a stage whisper, “that nobody
could have that many clues thrown at him and not realize his wife’s having an affair.”