The Light of Day (28 page)

Miller got up, so I stood up, too. He came down the steps with the tackle and looped it around one shoulder like a bandolier. 'I will go first,’ he said. 'Arthur will follow me. Then you, Hans. Is there anything else? Ah yes, there is.'

He went and relieved himself in the corner by the fire hose. When he had finished Fischer did the same thing.

I was smoking. 'Put that out now,' Miller said. He looked
at Fischer. 'Are you ready?'

Fischer nodded, then, an instant before the light went out,
f
saw him cross himself. That is something I
dont
understand. I mean, he was asking a blessing, or whatever it is, when he was going to commit a sin.

Miller went up the stairs slowly. At the top he paused, looking all round, getting his bearings. Then he bent his head down to mine.

‘Karl said that you may have vertigo,' he said softly, 'but it is all quite simple. Follow me at three paces. Do not look sideways or back, only ahead. There
 
is one step down from this ironwork. Then there is lead sheet. I will step down, go three paces and wait a little so that your eyes can adjust themselves.'

I had been so long in the darkness mat the intermittent glare of the pea-light had been almost painful. Outside on the roof, the moonlight seemed to make everything as bright as day; too bright for my liking; I was certain that someone would see us from the ground and start shooting
¹
. Fischer must have had the same feeling. I heard him swear under his breath behind me.

Miller's teeth gleamed for an instant; then he started to move forward past the three cupolas over the quarters of the White Eunuchs. There was a space of about five feet between the cupolas and the edge of the roof. Staying close to the cupolas and looking only ahead as Miller had instructed me, I had no sensation at all of being on a high place. For a while, my only problem was keeping up with him. Harper had compared him to a fly. To me he looked more like an earwig as he slithered round the last of the three cupolas and scuttled on, leaning inwards over the slight hump in the centre of the roof. He stopped only once. He had crossed the roof of the Audience Chamber, to avoid what looked like three large fanlights over the Gate of Felicity, and was returning to the Eunuchs' roof when another fanlight appeared and the flat surface narrowed slightly. The way across was only about two feet wide.

I saw the ground below and started to go down on my knees—I might just have been able to crawl across by myself, I suppose—when he reached back, gripped my
fore
arm and drew me after him. It was done so quickly that I had no time to get sick and lose my balance. His fingers were like steel clamps.

Then we were level with the kitchens and I could see the conical bases of their ten squat chimneys stretching away to the right Miller led the way to the left. The flat space here was over thirty feet wide and I had no trouble. There was a four-foot rise then, which brought us over the big room with the exhibition of miniatures and glass in it. Ahead, I could see the whole of one cupola and, beyond it, the top of another smaller one. The smaller one, I knew, was the one on the roof of the Treasury Museum.

Miller began to move more slowly and carefully as he skirted the big cupola. Every now and again he stopped. Then I saw him lower himself over a ledge. When his feet found whatever there was below, only his head and shoulders were showing.

I was following round the big cupola, and had started to move away from it towards the ledge, when Miller turned and beckoned to me He had moved a yard or two towards the outer edge of the roof, so I changed direction towards him. That is how it was that when I came to the ledge I saw too much.

There was the vaulted roof of the Treasury, and the cupola with a flat space about four feet wide all around the base of it. That is where Miller was standing But beyond him there was nothing, just a great black emptiness, and then, horribly far away below, the faint white hairline of a road in the moonlight.

I felt myself starting to lose my balance and fall, so I knelt down quickly and clung to the lead surface of the roof. Then I began retching. I couldn't help it; I've never been able to help it. From what I've heard from people who get sea-sick, that must be the same sort of feeling; only my feeling about heights is worse.

I had nothing in my stomach to throw up, but that didn't make any difference. My stomach went on trying to throw up.

Fischer began kicking me and hissing at me to be silent Miller reached up and dragged me by the ankles down over
the ledge, then made me sit with my back against the side of the cupola. He shoved my head hard between my knees. I heard a scuffling noise as he helped Fischer down off the ledge, then their whispering. 'Will he be all right?'

‘He
will have to be.'

The fat fool.' Fischer kicked me as I started to retch again.

Miller stopped him. That will do no good. You will have to help. As long as he gets no nearer the edge it may be possible.'

I opened my eyes just enough to see Miller's feet. He was laying out the anchor rope round the cupola and presently he pulled one end of it down between my back and the part I was leaning against. A moment or two later, he crouched down in front of me and began knotting the rope. When that was done, he slipped on the upper Mock of the lifting tackle. Then he brought his head close to mine.

'Can you hear me, Arthur?'

‘Yes.'

'If you didn't have to move you'd feel safe here, wouldn't you?'

'I don't know.'

‘You are safe now, aren't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then listen. You can handle the tackle from here. Open your eyes and look up at me.'

I managed to do so. He had taken his coat off and looked skinnier than ever. 'Hans will be at the edge,' he went on,
 
'and with his good hand will hold my coat in place there. In that way the ropes will run smoothly over it and not be cut . You understand?'

‘Yes.'

'And you will not have to go near the edge—only let out rope and pull in when you are told.'

'I don't know. Supposing I let it slip?’

Well, that would be bad, because then you would have only Hans to deal with, and he would certainly make sure that you slipped, too.'

The teeth, as he smiled, were like rows of gravestones.

Suddenly, he picked up a coil of rope from the lead
beside
him and put it in my hands.

'Get ready to take the strain,’ he said, 'and remember that it stretches. I don't mind how slowly I go down or how quickly I come up. Hans will give you the signals to lower, stop and raise.' He pointed to a ridge in the lead. 'Brace your feet against this. So.'

The day Mum died, the Imam came and intoned verses from the Koran:
'Now taste the torment of the fire you called a lie.'

Miller slipped the end of the rope around my chest and knotted it firmly. Then he hauled in the slack. 'Are you ready, Arthur?’

I nodded.

Then looked at Hans.

I let my eyes go to Fischer's legs and then his body. He was lying on his right side with his shoulder on Miller's coat and his right hand on the tackle ready to guide it. I dared not look any nearer the edge. I knew I would pass out if I did.

I saw Miller put a pair of gloves on, step into the sling, then crouch down and move out of sight.

'Now,' Fischer whispered.

The strain didn't come suddenly; the stretch in the nylon had to be taken up first. My hands were slippery with sweat and I had looped the rope round the sleeve of my left arm to give me more purchase. When the full strain came, the loop tightened like a tourniquet. Then the pressure fluctuated and I could feel Miller bouncing in the sling as the tackle settled down.

'Steady.' Fischer held his right hand palm downwards over the tackle.

The movement in the block by die anchor rope beside me ceased.

‘Lower slowly.’

I let the rope slide round my arm and the bouncing began again.

‘Keep going, smoothly.’

I went on paying out the rope. There was less bouncing now, just an occasional vibration. Miller was using his feet
to steady himself against the wall as he descended. I watched the coil of rope beside me growing smaller and had another terror to fight. The end of the rope was tied round my chest. I couldn't untie it now without letting go. If there were not enough rope in the coil to reach the shutter below, Fischer would make me move nearer to the edge.

There were about six feet left to go when he raised his hand. 'Stop. Hold still.'

I was so relieved that I didn't notice the pain in my arm from the tightened loop; I just closed my eyes and kept my head down.

There were slight movements on the rope, and, after a moment or two, faint clicking sounds as he went to work on the metal shutters. Minutes went by. My left arm began to go numb. Then there was another sound from below, a sort of hollow tapping. It only lasted a moment, before Fischer hissed at me. I opened my eyes again.

‘Lower a little, very slowly.'

As I obeyed I felt the tension in the rope suddenly slacken. Miller was inside.

‘Rest.'

I loosened the rope on my arm and massaged it until the pins-and-needles began. I didn't try to massage them away. They kept my mind on my arm and away from other things, such as the day the games master had made me dive. When you got into the cadet corps you had to be able to swim, and, once a week, all the boys in each squad who couldn't do so were marched to the Lewisham Public Baths to take lessons. When you had learned to swim you had to dive. I didn't mind the swimming part, but when my head went under water I was always afraid of drowning. For a time I didn't have to, because I kept telling the games master that I had bad ears; but then he said that I would have to get a doctor's certificate. I tried to write one myself, but I didn't know the proper words to use and he caught me out. I expected him to send me with a note to The Bristle, but instead he made me dive. I say 'dive'. What he did was pick me up by one arm and a leg and throw me in the deep end; and he kept on doing it.

Every time I managed to get out, even
while I was still choking up water, he would throw me in again. One of the
attendants at the Baths had to stop him in the end. He was married, so I wrote a letter to his wife telling her how he messed about with certain boys in the changing cubicles and pestered them to feel him. I was careless, though, because I used the same handwriting as I had used on
the
certificate, and he knew for certain it was me. He couldn't prove it, of course, because he had torn up the certificate. He took me into a lobby and accused me and called me an 'unspeakable little cad’; but that was all he did. He was really shaken. When I realized it, I could have kicked myself. If I had known that he actually had been messing about with boys in the cubicles, I could have put the police on to him. As it was, I had simply warned him to be more careful. He had
min,
curly brown hair with an officer's moustache, and walked as if he had springs on the soles of his feet The term after that he left and went to another school.

Fischer hissed at me and I opened my eyes.

Take the strain.'

I wrapped the rope round my waist this time so that I could use my weight to push away from the edge if necessary.

‘
Ready?'

I nodded and held on tight. There was a jerk as Miller got his weight into the sling again. Then Fischer nodded.

‘Up.'

I started to pull. The friction of the rope against the coat on the edge of the roof made it terribly hard. The sweat ran into my eyes. Twice I had to stop and knot the rope round my waist so that I could wipe my hands and ease the cramp in my fingers; but the coil got larger again and then Fischer began to use his good hand on one of the ropes in the tackle.

'Slow . . . slower . . . stop.’

Suddenly, the tackle ran free and Miller, grinning, was crawling across the roof towards me. He patted my leg,

'Merci,
mon cher collègue'
he said

I
shut my eyes and nodded. Through the singing in my
ears I could hear him reporting to Fischer as he gathered in the tackle.

'All those we counted on and a few more to garnish the dish. I even fastened the shutters again.'

I felt him untying the rope from my chest. When I opened my eyes he was clipping the velvet bag to his belt. Fischer was fumbling with the knots in the anchor rope. I crawled over and began to help him. All I wanted was to get away, and I knew that they would have to help me.

Fischer with his injured hand needed help to get back on to the upper roof level. Then Miller somehow managed to heave me up high enough for me to claw my way over the ledge. I crawled then on my hands and knees to the shelter of the big cupola. By the time Miller reached me, I was able to stand up.

We started back, as we had started out, with Miller in the lead. This time, however, there was no turn to make. We left the White Eunuchs' quarters on our right and went on over the kitchen roofs to the wall by the Gate of Salvation. There was one awkward place—for me, that is—by the old water tower, but I somehow got past it on my hands and knees. Then we were on the wall overlooking the Courtyard of the Janissaries.