“It’s just me,” Laurie said helplessly.
Theconfused gaze found him and focused.“Laurie!”
“Yes.Just hang on.I’m going to get help for you.”
But where from?Laurie thought a normal person might know, onewho went to ordinary hospitals from time to time instead ofdiscreet private healthcare clinics in leafy suburbs.He glancedaround for signs that might jog his memory.Charing Cross wasnearby, but the station and the hospital were in two differentparts of the city, weren’t they?A choking panic rose in him.Hehad only thought as far as getting Sasha into the car—that fantasyof transfiguring cold into warmth for him, giving him refuge, likeLaurie was some alchemical magician or god.He hadn’t thought whathe would do with a dying boy in the passenger seat beside him.Heput out a hand.He remembered how Sasha’s had closed on his wristbeneath the bridge.Fuck, Sasha didn’thave to think twice, did he?He knew whatto do to protect people.He wasn’t useless, not like Laurie, whodidn’t even know quite what he was looking for, the right place tofeel for the pulse.
But Sasha stirred and suddenly clasped his hand hard inreturn.“Laurie,” he repeated, as if it was the only name thatcould mean anything to him.He twisted around in the seat—almosttoo weak to fight the belt that Laurie had automatically fastenedfor him, just as he always did for Clara—and stared at him,wide-eyed.“Itisyou.I was on the pavement, and…I saw lights.I saw my mother,and then…I saw you.”
“You’ll be all right,” Laurie told him past a raw, dry pain inhis throat.“You’ve got hypothermia.I’m going to get you to adoctor.”
“Oh, God.No hospitals.”
The griphad tightened.Laurie was grateful for the Daimler’s automaticgears; he couldn’t have brought himself to break free if both theirlives had depended on it.“Look, I don’t think…I don’t think youhave to hide, Sasha.It’s what I came out here to tell you.Youdon’t need a visa to come to the UK anymore.Did you knowthat?”
Sasha stared at him.His pale face began one of its slow,compelling transformations, from stoic stillness to the broad,loving grin Laurie couldn’t work out what he’d done to deserve.“Ofcourse,stupid.But you do need a passport.Papers of somekind.”
“Oh.”
“Or I wouldn’t have come over the Channel in the back of acontainer truck full of frozen yogurts.It was”—he trailed off andshuddered, eyes becoming distant even while he took in Laurie’sface with that loving hunger—“it was colder than I am now.Therewere twelve of us.Five of them died.I ran for it while they werechecking the corpses at Dover.”
“Oh, God.”
“I tried to tell you.I’m not legal.I’m no good.Let me out,Laurie.Go home.”
“We’re both going home.”Laurie heard, with surprise, the snapof decision and authority in his voice.What made him think hecould do this, or even that it was right?It was as if Sasha’s gripon his hand could squeeze out of him all uncertainty, all mistrustin himself.“If you won’t go to a hospital, you have to let me takecare of you.”
“Your father…” Sasha paused, caught in a fit of coughing as theDaimler’s warm air fought the chill in his lungs.“Your father willtake me by the hood of my coat and hang me from the nearestlamppost.”
“Oh, screw my father,” Laurie said with a brave insouciance,smilingly undermining himself a second later with, “Anyway, he’sout.I won’t let him anywhere near you.”He hesitated, knowing whatit was to be without choice, even in the best gilded cage.“Okay.Look, I’m sorry.Just say the word and I’ll stop.I’ll take youback to Gyorgy, or anywhere you want to go.”
Apurring silence fell inside the opulent car.No word came.After amoment, Sasha relinquished Laurie’s hand, placing it carefully backon the wheel.Still no word.At the next junction, Laurie took theturn for Mayfair.
Chapter Four
Thegreat house had several portals, each appropriate to the class ofperson who might be expected to come and go through them.Gibsonand Charlie, as long-term family staff, had their own quarters andtheir own route to the street.Day staff—Lady Fitzroy’s floatingpopulation of au pairs, companions, personal shoppers, and musictutors—used a lowlier doorway from the garden at the side.Best ofall for Laurie—always had been, on occasions when he needed toescape the cage without the grand parade through hallway and downsteps—was a seldom-used door around the back, once the methodprevious Baronet Fitzroys had used to conceal the comings andgoings of coal men, maids, and other such personnel as did not fitwell with the mansion’s magnificent facade.An old stone stairwellled all the way down to it from the garret where Laurie and Claranow kept their roost.Back then, an underpaid Victorian workforcecould do their work and retire to their sleeping quarters withoutbeing seen by the family at all.
Reflecting on the ironic beauty of this, Laurie parked theDaimler in the alleyway that led to it.Only the first stretch ofthe alley was visible to surrounding houses.Once he’d negotiatedthe corner, he was invisible, safe in a refuge he knew he wasoutgrowing but could not work out how to abandon.
Tonightat least it served a purpose for somebody else.He went around tothe passenger door and half lifted Sasha out into hisarms.
* **
His roomwas filled with firelit shadows.Similarities suddenly hit himbetween this sparsely furnished garret and the place beneath thebridge—uncertain light making odd shapes flicker on the walls, asense of hiding away.
Enormousdifferences too.The most significant: the bright gas fire designedto look like an open one, convincing enough but for itsinexhaustibility.Effortless heat at the touch of a switch.Feelingas if he were seeing it for the first time himself, Laurie guidedSasha to kneel by it.“There.Not too close.I think you’re meantto warm up slowly.Here, let me take your coat.”Their hands met ashe reached for the damp parka, warm skin brushing on cold, andSasha looked up at him, expression hard to interpret.Gratitude,certainly.Some kind of frightened promise.
Lauriegave up trying to read him in favour of practical concerns.“Right,” he said.“You stay there.I’m going to get you somefood.”
He randownstairs.A cracking good short-order chef, Laurie was.Betweenhis parents, for whom each meal turned into a long, turgid ritual,and a kitchen full of staff determined to wait on him hand andfoot, he had learned the art of the lightning raid.He knew whereMrs.Gibson kept the frozen-ready meals she and Charlie would serveup for themselves after a late-night Fitzroy party, knew whichcooked fastest and tasted best out of the microwave.That was theextent of his culinary talents, but it would do for tonight.Hemade a mug of instant coffee, put it on a tray, then added apitcher of fresh orange juice.Hot food and vitamins, those werewhat he should provide.He picked out the best-looking apples andgrapes from the fruit dish.Would that do?He had no idea, but itwould be academic if Sasha starved to death upstairs in themeantime.Balancing the tray with unconscious grace on the flat ofone hand, he let himself back out onto the servants’stairs.
InLaurie’s room, Sasha was waiting for him.He had taken off everystitch of his clothing and was lying on the hearthrug in a postureeven Laurie’s total inexperience told him was meant to beseductive.“Christ!”Laurie said and dropped the tray, then caughtit before it had fallen an inch, with the reflexes that made himsuch a valuable backstage props handler.China and glass clatteredbut remained upright.“What are you doing?”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?Nothing’s fornothing.”
Lauriecame to the fireside and carefully set the tray down.Then hestrode over to his bed and grabbed the warm dressing gown he’ddiscarded there that morning.This was convenient, in a way, hetold himself through the racing thud of his own heart.All hisvisitor’s clothes were soaked and filthy; he’d been looking forsome way to part Sasha from them.He took the dressing gown,crouched behind Sasha, and said, “Here.Arm.Arm,” just as he didfor Clara on those school mornings when unwillingness to go madeher forget the basics of putting on her coat.“Yes.Some things arefor nothing.This is.God, Sasha.How could you thinkthat?”
“Why would I think anything else?”
