The birthrate might have gone up if they'd raised the rations after that, but that might cause a population explosion in more ways than one.
Anyhow, it was warmer in there with Frenchy beside me.
"Would you mind," I said, "removing your hat?"
I couldn't see her, but I could tell she was smiling. She reached up and pulled the old hat off and threw it on the floor.
"What about these cops, then?" I asked.
"Oh — I really don't know. Honestly, I haven't done anything. I don't even know anybody who's doing anything."
"Could they be after your full passport?"
"No. They never withdraw them. If they did the passports wouldn't mean anything. People wouldn't know if they were deferring to a man with a withdrawn passport. If you do something like spying for Russia, they just eliminate you. That gets rid of your FP automatically."
"Maybe that's why they're after you ... ?"
"No. They don't involve the police. It's just a quick bullet."
I couldn't help feeling awed that Frenchy, who'd shared my last crusts, knew all this about the inner workings of the regime. I checked the thought instantly. Once you started being interested in them, or hating them or being emotionally involved with them in any way at all — they'd got you. It was something I'd sworn never to forget — only indifference was safe, indifference was the only weapon which kept you free, for what your freedom was worth. They say you get hardened to anything. Well, I'd had nearly ten years of it — disgusting, obscene cruelty carried out by stupid men who, from top to bottom, thought they were masters of the Earth — and I wasn't hardened. That was why I cultivated indifference. And the Leader — Our Führer — was no mad genius either. Mad and stupid. That was even worse. I couldn't understand, then, how he'd managed to do what he'd done. Not then.
"I don't know what it can be," Frenchy was saying, "but I'll know tomorrow when I wake up."
"Why?"
"I'm like that," she said roughly.
"Are you?" I was interested. "Like — what?"
She buried her face in my shoulder. "Don't talk about it, Lowry," she said, coming as near to an appeal as a hard case like Frenchy could.
"OK," I said. You soon learnt to steer away from the wrong topic. The way things, and people, were then.
So we went to sleep. When I woke, Frenchy was lying awake, staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression on her face. I wouldn't have cared if she'd turned into a marmalade cat overnight. I felt hot and itchy after listening to her moans and mutters all night and I could feel a migraine coming on.
The moment I'd acknowledged the idea of a migraine, my gorge rose, I got up and stumbled along the peeling passageway. Once inside the lavatory I knew I shouldn't have gone there. I was going to vomit in the bowl. The water was off. It was too late. I vomited, vomited and vomited. At least this one time the water came on at the right moment and the lavatory flushed.
I dragged myself back. I couldn't see and the pain was terrible.
"Come back to bed," Frenchy said.
"I can't," I said. I couldn't do anything.
"Come on."
I sat on the edge of the bed and lowered myself down. Go away, Frenchy, I said to myself, go away.
But her hands were on that spot, just above my left temple where the pain came from. She crooned and rubbed and to the sound of her crooning I fell asleep.
I woke about a quarter of an hour later and the pain had gone. Frenchy, mac, hat and shoes on, was sitting in my old arm chair, with the begrimed upholstery and shedding springs.
"Thanks, Frenchy," I mumbled. "You're a healer."
"Yeah," she said discouragingly.
"Do you often?"
"Not now," she said. "I used to. I just thought I'd like to help."
"Well,thanks," I said. "Stick around."
"Oh, I'm off now."
"OK. See you tonight, perhaps."
"No. I'm getting out of London. Coming with me?"
"Where. What for?"
"I don't know. I know the cops want me but I don't know why. I just know if I keep away from them for a month or two they won't want me any more."
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"
"I said I'd know what it was about when I awoke. Well, I don't — not really. But I do know the cops want me to do something, or tell them something. And I know there's more to it than just the police. And I know that if I disappear for some time I won't be useful any more. So I'm going on the run."
"I suppose you'll be all right with your FP. No problem. But why don't you co-operate."
"I don't want to," she said.
"Why run? With your FP they can't touch you."
"They can. I'm sure they can."
I gave her a long look. I'd always known Frenchy was odd, by the old standards. But as things were now it was saner to be odd. Still, all this cryptic hide-and-seek, all this prescient stuff, made me wonder.
She stared back. "I'm not cracked. I know what I'm doing. I've got to keep away from the cops for a month or two because I don't want to co-operate. Then it will be OK."
"Do you mean you'll be OK?"
"Don't know. Either that or it'll be too late to do what they want. Are you coming?"
"I might as well," I said. When it came down to it, what had I got to lose? And Frenchy had an FP. We'd be millionaires. Or would we?
"How many FPs in Britain?" I asked.
"About two hundred."
"You can't use it then. If you go on the run using an FP you'd — we'd never go unnoticed. We'll stick out like a searchlight on a moor. And no one will cover for us. Why should they help an FP holder with the cops after her?"
Frenchy frowned. "I'd better stock up here then. Then we can leave London and throw them off the scent."
I nodded and got up and into the rest of my gear. "I'll nip out and spend a few clothing coupons on decent clothes for you. You won't be so memorable then. They'll just think you're some high-up civil servant. Then I'll tell you who to go to. The cops will check with the dodgy suppliers last. They won't expect FP holders to use Sid's Food-mart when they could go to Fortnums. Then I'll give you a list of what to get."
"Thanks, boss," she said. "So I was born yesterday."
"If I'm coming with you I don't want any slip-ups. If we're caught you'll risk an unpleasant little telling-off. And I'll be in a camp before you can say Abie Goldberg."
"No," she said bewilderedly. "I don't think so."
I groaned. "Frenchy, love. I don't know whether you're cracked, or Cassandra's second cousin. But if you can't be specific, let's play it sensible. OK?"
"Mm," she said.
I hurried off to spend my clothing coupons at Arthur's.
It was a soft day, drizzling a bit. I walked through the park. It was like a wood, now. The grass was deep and growing across the paths. Bushes and saplings had sprung up. Someone had built a small compound out of barbed wire on the grass just below the Atheneum. A couple of grubby white goats grazed inside. They must belong to the cops. With rations at two loaves a week people would eat them raw if they could get at them. Look what had happened to the vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street. He shouldn't have been so High Church — all that talk about the body and blood of Christ had set the congregation thinking along unorthodox lines.