But winners never give up.
I watch him roll on the woodchip and push himself to his feet. He holds the edge of the slide for support as he sways from booze or pain. Then he roots through his clothes and tugs out the familiar shape of a quarter bottle of whisky. He empties what little there is into his mouth as his eyes drench me in hate.
‘Cunt,’ he says. I turn away but then catch a glimpse of something spinning in the air. Instinctively I shield my eyes but then I feel the thick heel of the bottle crack into my skull. I yelp and drop to my knees, still clutching my head. The pain is dull and sickening and I try to breathe through it, but then out of the blackness, a knee crashes into my temple. I drop to the soft ground, the tang of wet earth filling my nose. And then his limbs are over me, searching for the knife.
‘I’m going to fucking kill you,’ he says.
‘I’m stronger than you, Rory!’ I scream. It escapes from me, that name. He’s always there, finding a way in, in these unguarded moments. Or, I wonder, is it the blow to my head that has derailed me?
‘Rory?’ He looks at me, confused. ‘Psycho bastard,’ he adds, backing away.
‘Rory!’ I shout and then I stagger away, unable to control my steps as I zigzag into the slicing rain.
2
Tuesday
The sound of sirens splits the night. I stop for a second. Triangulating, calculating. That Doppler effect – is it getting nearer or further? Who are those sirens for? Me? Are they coming to rescue me, or catch me? My logical brain takes over and calculates the variables. I have to get out of the park. Maybe you’d think he won, scared me off his pitch, saw me off. But in this world strength means more. I won. I have the physical strength and he knows I can return. These guys, they hunt in packs sometimes, and there could be another one not far behind.
In my mind’s eye is the zonal map of London I carry in my head. Red Zones are the areas I stay away from now: Camden, King’s Cross, Dalston, Bow, Mile End, Peckham, Old Kent Road. There are air holes there which are safe but those aren’t places I can be in for long. Those streets have been colonised by gangs that will stab a person to earn ranking points. I could head for the neutral Blue Zone: Vauxhall, Camberwell, Elephant, Oval. I can be in those spaces and stay unmolested for a time. The Green Zone, where I am now, is supposed to be fine: Dulwich, Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster, City, Holborn. But I was attacked right in the middle of it. Nowhere is completely safe. It’s a question of playing the odds. For example, I stay away from the Purple Zone, the truly unpredictable spaces: Paddington, Edgware, Caledonian Road, Seven Sisters, Tottenham. Safe, if you know what you are doing, but take a wrong turn or even the right one on the wrong day, and there’s no telling what will come for you. I breathe and push through the metal gates. The sirens are following.
The rain is coming down in sheets. I need shelter. I need to get somewhere dry, to give myself a chance to heal and recover. I consult the map in my head. Walworth Road leads to the Elephant and Castle. The Elephant to St Georges Circus. St Georges to Waterloo. Waterloo to the Strand. I am grateful for my head when it works. That this map is here, always ready to use, dry and crisp, the Zones pulsing. I look around and slowly through the throbbing in my head I come to a realisation – I don’t know where I am.
I try to recalibrate. Where was I? I had been in Hyde Park. It feels like a certainty until suddenly, it no longer does. Have I been running or hobbling in this rain, in this dark, wet cloak of a night, for this last chunk of time? I can’t tell. This pounding in my brain is relentless, a dull, thick fog that I cannot reach through. That boot to the head has really done some damage.
I feel myself panicking now. The sirens are still chasing me. The rain is throwing itself down and all I can feel is the slick soak of my clothes. I have to get dry. I have to find some shelter. This has happened to me before and I nearly died from the pneumonia. You could recover from it, this cold and this rain, but for me it would take days for these clothes to dry out. I couldn’t survive it in my state. I’d drop into a wet death like that.
Where am I? There’s a couple there just ahead, leaning into one another for cover under a blue and yellow golf umbrella, I mouth words at them as they walk by but they hustle past, heads down. There was a definite look from the man. He wrinkled his face away from me and I think even this rain can’t rinse the stench from my body.
I need a sign.
I trudge through puddles that I don’t see at first and curse, because these boots sponge up water. Reaching into my coat sleeves I pull out the balls of paper that are now sodden and pulpy and slop them on to the ground. I can stop racing now, I think. Whatever was pursuing me isn’t any longer. He won’t have come all the way here. Over my shoulder I see that the road is clear. The sirens have died away to a whisper, catching or saving someone else. The first street I see is South Street. The sign says W1 Westminster – I’m in Mayfair. Green Zone. That’s right, I remember now. I had been in Hyde Park. I think.
The road is quiet. I know these roads from before. In a previous life, these roads were soft to the touch. I know that if I walk along here the road will adopt another identity and become something else. South Street and its high-faced mansions recede behind me. And yes, now here is Farm Street emerging under my feet. I think there’s a church here, or at least there is in my memory. Perhaps a library – something established and permanent.
As I lumber on through the rain, I see with a sinking feeling a flash of light, blazing blue in the pavement. Then, seconds later, a deep roar of thunder before the heavy rain turns, just like that, into a deluge.
I duck under the great stone steps of one of the houses and wait in the shelter of the cavity. Despite the cold there’s nothing for it but to take my coat off and wring it out. Rainwater runs through my fists as I squeeze first the sleeves, now the flanks. When I put it back on, it’s a pound or two lighter and my hands are raw.
I reach into the lining then and find my dry pocket. I shut my eyes as my fingers fumble for my cigarettes. I pull them out and open the box. Thank God, they are dry. Fighting frozen fingers, I tap the box against my palm until a cigarette magically rises. I mouth it, light it and take in a lungful of smoke. A spike of pain comes driving into my brain, causing me to clutch my head.
I freeze until the pain subsides and then when it does, through the smoke I see a door. It is black, painted in high gloss, as the others are in this road. But it’s smaller than the main one at the top of the stairs. Maybe it had once been a tradesman’s entrance, or an annexe or a flat? I try to wipe the rain from my eyes, but it clings, blurring my vision. Something doesn’t feel right. And then I see it.
The door is ajar. Just.
3
Tuesday
There’s no light coming from the gap in the door. In that infinite bordered space, there is nothing and everything. I rub my left eye to clear the smears but the mist lingers.
My head is still thumping, and between the waves of sickness, I tug at the memory of what happened. Rory attacked me. No, not Rory. A man. Just a drunk in the park. I dig the tips of my fingers hard into my temples. For a moment the pain subsides, but then returns and with it comes other pain that I had relegated to the edges. My ribs ache. My legs are trembling. I take a final drag of my cigarette before flicking it into a storm drain. I look up.
The darkness in the gap behind the door pulls at me. I could go in, I think. I could. It would be dry. Just for a few minutes. I push the door slowly, keeping my ears pricked for anything beyond, any voices, or even a television, but there’s nothing. Then I pause. I can’t go into someone’s house. It’s illegal. But still, I keep pushing. I could shelter in the hallway, just until the rain stops? The door gives way smoothly under my touch and I step into the space behind it. There’s a smell that I recognise. A kind of ‘closed-up’ odour that develops in empty houses. It’s as if the absence of a person from a house, even for a day, begins a kind of decay. As if the separation from its heart makes the house die a little. Inside, I shut the door behind me, softly. The darkness begins to recede as I blink furiously. It’s not warm in here, but not cold either and not wet. I want to sink to the floor and rest just a little, in this covered nook that’s resolving before me into a narrow, tiled corridor. Clearer with each passing second.