The Doorkeepers (31 page)

Petty looked baffled. “You just said we were going to win.”

“Of course you're going to win. We'll be sending over planes and ground troops and tanks and you name it.”

“Oh, great. How are we going to stand up to that? We've got
hardly any air force and most of our army got killed in France and the
King George V
was sunk last week and that was our only battleship.”

“I don't understand. We're sending more of everything. The Germans are going to collapse.”

Petty blew out smoke and shook her head in bewilderment. “The
Germans?
What have the Germans got to do with it?”

“They're bombing you to hell, aren't they?”

“The
Germans?
That proves it, you need locking up. The Germans wouldn't bomb us. They've done nothing but send us ships and tanks and food. They're our
allies,
the Germans. Same royal family, same blood. Why would the Germans want to bomb us?”

Josh was speechless at first. Then he pointed a single finger upward, and said, “Those are not Germans?”

“Of course they're not Germans. They're bloody Yanks.”

“Americans?
Americans
are bombing London?”

Petty sucked on her cigarette and tugged her hemline up a little higher. “Do you know something, I believe you. You can't be a spy. You're too bloody stupid to be a spy. In fact you're too bloody stupid to be a loony.”

“Jesus. Americans are bombing London. But why?”

“Don't ask me, darling. They call it the War of Independence. They don't want to be part of the good old British Empire any more. And of course the bloody French are helping them, letting them base all their bombers in France. But, you know, what can you do? I don't think there's any point in fighting. They're going to win anyway, aren't they? The sooner they invade, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Life is going to be ten times better, under the Yanks. All cocks and chocolate.”

It was then that Josh knew for sure that Ella had been right, and he was wrong. The world needed to turn through a complete twenty-four hour cycle before you could venture through the doors again. The first parallel London was the London of Frank Mordant and the Hoodies. This must be the second London. And who knew how many infinitely different versions of London lay beyond, like the endless reflections in a dressing-table mirror?

*        *        *

The bombing eased for a while, although Petty said that they should stay in the cellar until they heard the “all clear”.

“Cup of tea?” she asked him.

“No thanks. You don't have anything stronger, do you?”

She produced a half-bottle of Gordon's gin from under her chair and poured two large measures into teacups. “What shall we drink to?” she asked.

“Peace,” Josh suggested.

“I don't know. How about clean knickers?”

“OK, then.” He lifted his cup. “Peace, and clean knickers.”

“That's what I'm really looking forward to, when it's all over,” said Petty. “Clean white cotton knickers, with a lacy frill.”

Josh said, “How long has this been going on? This war?”

“Do you know, I can't make out if you're having me on toast.”

“I promise you, I'm serious.”

“Well, all right, then. But I still think you're kidding me. The war's been going on for nearly a year now. The bloody Government said it would all be over by Christmas. I don't know why they didn't just let the Yanks go off on their own. But, oh no. Treason, they called it, and then the Navy sank that big American aircraft carrier, and that was it. All bloody hell broke loose.” She looked at Josh for a long time, playing with one of her earrings. It was a plastic poodle with green glass eyes. “I like you, you know,” she said, after a while. “I know you're supposed to be the enemy and everything. But you've got something about you, you know? You're thoughtful.”

“I'm confused, if that's what you mean.”

“I just don't understand how you don't know nothing about the war. The Yanks have been bombing us for months and months. It's not exactly something you wouldn't notice.”

“I haven't been here. I've been … away.”

“Bloody hell, where? Mars?”

Josh leaned forward. “If you want to know the truth, I came from another London.”

Petty gave him a smile of bewilderment.
“Another
London?”

“I know it's hard to believe, but there are probably hundreds of Londons, all of them different, all with a different history. There are doors between them – ways to get through – and if you know how to do it you can get through these doors, from one London into the next. In the London I came from, there's no war, no bombing, nothing. There's plenty to eat and drink. There are restaurants, nightclubs, you name it. Clean knickers, too.”

Petty blew out smoke. “If that's true, what did you come here for? To see how miserable we all are, and have a good old laugh about it?”

“I came here by accident. I was trying to find another London, but not this one.”

“So what are you going to do? Listen to me! I'm talking like I really believe you.”

“I'm going to try to get back to the London I started from, and have another crack at finding the right one.”

Petty didn't say anything for a while, but she didn't take her eyes away from him, either. She started to gnaw at the side of her thumbnail. At last she said, “You're having me on toast, aren't you?”

“Why should I do that? If it's a joke, it's a pretty goddamned stupid one, isn't it?”

“Perhaps you're expecting to have your wicked way with me, without paying for it.”

“I don't want my way with you, wicked or otherwise. I'm involved with somebody else.”

“What, engaged, are you?”

“Kind of.”

“Would she mind if you took me back with you?”

“Say what?”

“Your fiancée or whatever she is. Would she mind if you took me back with you? To
your
London, with the restaurants and the nightclubs and everything?”

“So you
do
believe me?”

“I don't know. Either you're completely bonkers or else you're telling the truth. But you don't
talk
like you're bonkers. You meet loads of people with shell-shock and that, and they talk
about their families like they're still alive, and stuff like that, and then you find out that they all got bombed. I had one bloke who thought he was an angel. But you don't talk like one of them.”

Josh checked his watch. It was a quarter after three in the morning, and he was exhausted. “Do you mind if I get some sleep?” he asked. “I have to wait a full twenty-four hours before I can go back to my own London. Otherwise I'll end up in another London like this. Or worse.”

“Couldn't be worse, darling,” said Petty, finishing her gin. “Why don't you and me lie down for a while?”

“I'll take the couch. No problem at all.”

“Oh, rubbish. Let's go to bed. I'm too knackered to rape you anyway.”

She stood up and tugged her satin dress over her head. Underneath, she was wearing nothing but a grubby white bra. Josh had thought that she was wearing pantyhose, but she had simply colored her legs with foundation cream, which ended just above her hemline, where she was startlingly white. She was plump and full-breasted, with a rounded tummy, and she wasn't unattractive, but there were bruises all over her – finger-bruises mostly, where men had gripped her thighs and her buttocks and her breasts. Josh felt powerless and sad, and he cursed all men for everything they do, their wars and their religions.

He watched her as she cleaned her teeth with an old, splayed toothbrush. She drew back the blanket that separated the “bedroom” from the rest of the cellar, and climbed into bed. Josh waited for a few minutes, but tiredness was overwhelming him, and eventually he stood up, took off his coat, and stripped down to his shorts. He climbed into bed next to Petty and lay there staring at the lime washed ceiling.

She turned over and touched some of the reddened scabs from the Holy Harp. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “Who did those?”

“It's a long story.”

“I don't mind. Everybody says that I'm a very good listener. You have to be, when you're on the game. That's what they come for, you know. The listening, more than the sex.”

She kept on stroking him, but the effect was more soporific
than erotic. She played with his nipples, and then ran her fingertips down his sides. His eyes closed. He wasn't quite asleep, but he was very close to it. Her fingers trailed lightly across his stomach muscles, almost as lightly as butterflies. He saw darkness and thought that he was back in bed in Mill Valley, in the middle of the night. He was sure that he could hear cicadas, and the wind-chimes jangling out on his verandah.

“Wouldn't it be lovely if there
was
another world?” said Petty, as she inserted her finger into his navel. “No war, no bombing. Everybody being nice to each other. Imagine.”

Josh slept. He was very far away. He was sitting in the bookstore coffee house in Mill Valley, trying to discourage a little mongrel called Duchovny from jumping up and annoying people. Nancy was there, and she was laughing. He could see her eyes sparkling and the sun shining through the feathers in her hair. He reached out to take her hand, but she wouldn't let him, even though she was still laughing. Somehow her laughter began to sound tinny, and false.

“They're coming,” she said. “Can't you hear them drumming?”

He opened his eyes. The cellar was shaking. The whole world was shaking. It sounded as if thousands of airplanes were flying overhead, thousands of them. Their droning made the door rattle and the brickwork crack and the cheap aluminum saucepans drop off their shelves. Josh looked at Petty: she was fast asleep, lying on her back with her mouth open. He shook her and shouted, “Petty! Petty, wake up!”

She opened her eyes and blinked at him. “What's the matter? I was having a good dream then. I was dancing, and all these blokes were clapping and throwing me money.” She looked around, almost as if she expected to find the bedspread strewn with five-pound notes.

“It's another raid!” Josh shouted at her.

The roaring of aero-engines was enormous now. It seemed to blot out everything: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and any sense of logic. Josh felt as if he were drowning in it.

“There's nothing we can do!” Petty screamed at him. “This is as safe as anywhere else!”

They heard whistling, not far away. That dreadful, triumphant
wheeeeeeee!
Then the sticks of bombs began to land, fifteen or sixteen at a time, running up St Martin's Lane and Charing Cross Road in a series of minor earthquakes. They heard a gas main explode. They heard tons of masonry falling into the road. They heard bells, and bells, and more bells.

“Oh Mary Mother of God protect us,” prayed Petty.

“Are you a Catholic?” asked Josh.

She frowned at him. She was still naked, and there were red wrinkled marks from the sheets on the side of her left breast, where she had been sleeping.

“Yes, I'm a Catholic. What difference does it make?”

“It doesn't.”

A huge explosion at the lower end of Drury Lane made the whole house shake. Josh heard windows bursting and bricks collapsing, and it sounded as if a whole truckload of bricks had been unloaded on the floor right above their heads.

“Oh please God don't let us be buried alive,” begged Petty.

Josh didn't say anything, but was thinking the exact same thought. Of all the deaths that he could imagine, being buried alive was the one that filled him with the greatest dread.

Another bomb hit Drury Lane, much closer this time. The impact made Josh's ears sing, and almost threw them out of bed. Josh lay on top of Petty and pulled the blankets over his head, while even more masonry dropped on to the floor above them, and brick dust sifted down from every crevice in the ceiling.

Under the blankets, they clung to each other, sweaty and hot, but both of them praying to survive. They heard another whistle, much louder this time, and growing louder, as if a train were hurtling toward them, and Petty held him so tight that she almost suffocated him. “Whatever happens,” she breathed in his ear, “remember that I love you.”

“How can you love me? You don't even know who I am.”

“I know. But you're going to be holding me tight when I die. I can't ask any more than that, can I?”

She lifted her head and kissed him. Her mouth tasted of gin and cigarettes, but all the same it was warm and soft and she obviously wanted him. At the same instant the world seemed to come to a stop. Josh felt an enormous compression in his ears, and the next thing he knew he was flung out of bed across the cellar, hitting his head on one of the armchairs and landing upside down in the kitchen, scattering cans and cartons and cutlery. Petty was hurled against the cellar steps and lay hunched up with her head in the corner as if she were playing turtles.

Tons of rubble dropped on top of the cellar. The lights went out, and they were left in choking darkness. Josh stayed where
he was for a while, his feet up in the air, trying to get his breath back. Then he called out, “Petty?”

Petty didn't answer. Josh managed to roll himself sideways, bringing down another clatter of pots and pans, and crawled on his hands and knees across the grit-strewn floor. “Petty, can you hear me, is everything OK?”

He caught his hand on a protruding nail, and he could feel the blood running down his forearm. “Petty?” he called. “Petty, for God's sake, talk to me.”

Groping sideways, he managed to find the bottom of the stairs, and then Petty's right foot. He felt his way up her body until he reached her head. Her hair was thick with dust and thousands of tiny fragments of glass. She might have been bleeding, but it was impossible for him to tell because his own hand was bleeding, too, and everything felt sticky and wet.