He satdown on the steps and buried his head in his hands.It would be arich comfort to him, no doubt, fucked-up and lurching in and out ofrehab in his twenties, to be able to think he wasn’t to blame.Loneliness went through him like a knife.He seldom let himselfconsider this: his isolation, in this house, in his glitteringsocial matrix, surrounded by friends who wouldn’t give a toss if hedisappeared tomorrow as completely as the other nineteen thousandnine hundred and ninety-nine…
The pain, now that he let it rise up, was almost unbearable.Flinching from it, he tried to think of something else, anyassociated train of thought he could ride out on.What else had heread in theGuardianlately?Yes, a review of the statistics on the numbers ofmigrant workers entering the UK since membership of the EuropeanUnion had been extended two years ago.That was it; that was thethought that had been tugging at his mind since he had learnedwhere Sasha was from.Romania had been admitted.What did it mean?Laurie did try to retain facts like these as part of hisstudent-of-politics persona, but he knew he’d been flicking throughthe paper for cinema times and the Steve Bell cartoon.It meant, hethought, that Romanians could enter the country without a visa.They were free to travel here, work here.
Perhapsthere was no need for Sasha to be in hiding at all.He was Roma, agypsy, part of a societal underclass who perhaps did not haveaccess to such information, who instinctively stayed beneath radar.Maybe he didn’t know.Laurie got up.This thought was inspiring tohim, driving off the shadows of his day.Sasha had tried to makehim promise not to seek him out again, but this would be in a goodcause.After Sanderson’s classes tomorrow, he would go down to theEmbankment.
For now,though, he would go to bed.Without pills and without guilt.He haddone as much as lay within his power.Laurie felt his mindclearing, and remembered the night sky he had seen above theStrand, that unlikely perfection of starlight.The house no longerfelt threatening around him, and he made his way calmly to thefront door for a breath of fresh air before turning in, to see iftonight was the same.
Openingthe door into the black-and-white tiled porch, he gasped.Themassive old house cost a fortune to heat, but Sir William hadseveral fortunes sensibly invested, and his mother, delicatehothouse plant that she was, liked the place kept at subtropicaltemperatures.Stepping from hall to porch was like diving into coldwater.Ice flowers painted the delicate stained glass on theinside.Shivering, feeling his lungs catch with the change, Lauriewent to touch them.They did not melt but slightly adhered the skinof his fingertips to their wild fractal ferns and blossoms, burninghim as he pulled back.
Heunlocked the front door and stood on the top step in the goldenglow from the fanlight and the carriage lanterns that adorned bothmarble pillars.Yes, the skies were clear again, eerily lucid, eachstar like a separate human cry.He could scarcely breathe.Thisnight would sweep like a scythe through London’s lostsouls.
They were legion.Laurie couldn’t help them.His father’svoice said,Damn good thing.Cull thebuggers like foxes.“Fuck you,” Lauriewhispered fiercely, turning back indoors.You just did what youcould, didn’t you?And he could rescue one.
He madehis way downstairs and tapped cautiously on the door to thechauffeur’s rooms.It was after eleven, and he knew Charlie likedto turn in early on nights when he wasn’t needed.But Charlieopened up straightaway, his dressing gown over his day clothes.“You all right, son?”
“Yes.Are you waiting to hear from my father?Do you reckonhe’ll want the car again tonight?”
Charlieshrugged.He had been Lady Fitzroy’s driver since before hermarriage, and Laurie was aware that he had no illusions about heror her husband.Probably Gibson had already spoken to him.“If hedoes, he can call a taxi, for my money.Do you need me to take yousomewhere?”
Laurieconsidered.It was tempting—he was a decent driver, but the Daimlerwas like a whale in the narrow London streets.He didn’t have theright, though, to ask Charlie to collude in what he was doing oracquiesce to it, even by his silence.“No,” he said.“I’ve just gotcabin fever from all this cramming.I fancy a run.”
Charlienodded sympathetically.He was a practical soul.No doubt hethought the young heir ought to be out chasing girls and gettinginto trouble like a normal embryonic baronet, not taxing hisunremarkable brains over textbooks.“Off you go.She’s got a fulltank.Have her back by morning, that’s all, and don’t bloodyspeed.”
* **
Drivingthrough the winter night.It felt to Laurie more like sailing, inthis vast car whose suspension absorbed every bump in the road.Hetouched buttons and heard invisible whispering fingers wipe awaysteam on the windows’ insides before it could form.Unreal.Floating past brilliant shop displays, the wealth of the world laidout in them, absurd bathrooms of Carrara marble, bedrooms, diningsuites, beneath whose unreal outward-looking windows huddled unrealhuman souls—stripped of reality, of human status, by poverty.Laurie, having chosen one of them to save, was now beginning tounderstand his hypocrisy in ignoring the rest.He told himself thathe would never accept the injustice.But nor would he let it makehim bring the Daimler to a halt until he found the object of hissearch.He swallowed down the contradictions with an effort.He hadto find Sasha; that was all.
Hisplace in the doorway to Lindley’s was vacant.A dull ache ofanxiety went through Laurie.Had he drawn too much attention toSasha the other night, only succeeded in driving him from his patchto somewhere even less hospitable?Continuing down the Strand,looking out for police cars and trying not to go conspicuouslyslow, he scanned the pavement.A taxi braked sharply in front ofhim, and he missed its rear end by three inches, drawing hisattention fiercely back to the road.He could not afford analtercation, the lengthy exchange of insurance details.He had asense of sands running through a glass, time running out.Why?Itwas nerves only, the feel of the strange car, ice forming under thewheels.Sasha must have survived winter nights before.Probably hehad found shelter—sold his soul to Christian Outreach in exchangefor a bed, and maybe not such a bad bargain as Laurie had thought,not on a night like this.
TheStrand broadened out to the multilaned chaos of Trafalgar Square,and he concentrated on negotiating around it, keeping to the insideuntil he could escape and go back the way he had come.A fine hailwas beginning to fleck the windscreen, bouncing and stinging,floating veils of light across the square.Nelson’s Column driftedin and out of view.Just a little farther, indicating left andmoving with the mix of assertion and courtesy he’d learned fromCharlie, lane after lane and back out onto the Strand in theopposite direction, past coffee shops and all-night grocerystores.
There.Not Sasha but Gyorgy, barelydistinguishable from the group of black plastic bags where he hadtaken refuge.Laurie was sure of it; every detail of that sunnyafternoon on the Embankment was crisp in his memory.Every word.“He’s one of us.”Right.Gripping the wheel, Laurie prayed the solidarity extended tothe pavement, to places to get through the night.Snapping theDaimler’s hazards on, ignoring the chorus of bus and taxi hornsthat immediately began in his wake, he pulled to a halt, got outwearing his mother’s mask of blue-blooded thunder—what Hannah hadonce less politely referred to as his fuck-off face—and indicatedto them, with one brusque gesture, that they should just damn wellgo past him.Resisting the urge to vault the Daimler’s front end,he walked around instead, blinking in the rainy headlights, andcautiously approached the old man.
“Gyorgy?”
He wassleepy.It took him a moment to look up.Half-blinded by dazzle, ittook Laurie almost ten seconds to work out that he was cradlingSasha in his lap.
“Christ,” he whispered and dropped to his knees among the bags.Sasha was barely more than a loose arrangement of bones and oldclothes in the old man’s arms, drained of the bright energy which,in the riverside sunlight, had made him look almost strong.“What’swrong with him?”
Gyorgyraised an eyebrow.He did not seem much surprised to see Lauriehere.“Cold,” he said simply.“Too much cold for the young onestonight.”He made an effort to close the dirty blanket over Sasha’schest.“More blood in them to freeze than in old men like me.Yousee?”
“Yes.I see.”Laurie barely could, for sudden tears.“Ishe…?”
The oldman made no attempt to reply to the half-formed question but liftedhis burden a little, as if proffering him in Laurie’s direction sothat he could find out for himself.Laurie reached out shakingfingers to touch the pulse at Sasha’s neck.
Yes.Alive.Skin like a fridge-cooled peach.Laurie took a deep breath.“Listen,” he said.“I want to take him away, off the street.Iswear to you, I won’t hurt him.”
Gyorgy’sdark brow rucked.“Not mine to give or keep,” he said.“But hewon’t sell his soul, gajo.”
“I know.I don’t want it.I just don’t want him to die here.Help me?”
Togetherthey got him to his feet.He came around a little at the movementand regarded Laurie with unseeing eyes.Laurie saw with a pang thatfrost had caught in his lashes.Quickly Laurie ducked beneath thearm Gyorgy was holding and drew it over his shoulders.“There.I’vegot you.Don’t be scared.”Taking most of Sasha’s weight, he turnedto the old man.“Thank you.What can I do for you?Where can yougo?”
“With you, wouldn’t hurt,” came the rasping reply, and for onewild moment Laurie considered it.Why the fuck not?The Daimlerwould take six, the house in Mayfair probably fifty if it was usedto capacity.Maybe he should just harvest up as many as he could,drop them at Sir William’s feet, and let him deal withit.
ButGyorgy was backing away, grinning, waving a hand.“Tenner keeps mein St.Martin’s overnight, boy.They let you stay as long as youcan buy their coffee.”
Lauriehanded him twenty, not so much generosity as the fact that he hadnothing smaller—seldom did—that anything smaller felt like loosechange to him, scarcely useful as currency.He opened the Daimler’spassenger door, pushed it wide with one foot, and eased Sasha in.The leather-scented warmth breathing out into the night wassuddenly intoxicating to him, even after such short exposure to thebitter dark.Sasha took a startled breath and opened his eyes wide,stiffened from head to foot in a kind of convulsion of terror, andtried to launch himself straight back out onto the street, as ifthe night, however deadly, must be preferable to falling into astranger’s hands.God alone knew what he thought was happening tohim—abduction, arrest…
