D. Compton - The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe

She tried walking in the clogs: two tiny paces forward and two back. The thick socks helped her to keep them on. She thought she’d manage. She slid her arms into the vast survival jacket, put on goggles and sou’wester, and was ready.

She was a freak, a shambling grostesque. Opening that cubicle door, facing the world, took more courage than anything else on that courage-demanding day. She was disgusting. If she wasn’t picked up for being Katherine Mortenhoe in breach of a three hundred thousand pound contract, she’d be picked up for being a danger to public health and morals… She reasoned with herself, reminded herself of the Fringe People about the city, weird, self-absorbed transients to be stared at or not stared at depending on how you were brought up, but never on any account to be spoken to. Even the police, seeing them as booby-trapped, liable to go off at any minute, preferred where possible to pass by on the other side.

So Katherine drew a deep breath, opened the cubicle door, picked up her holdall, and walked out. She was free. Free from Harry, free from Vincent, free from Dr Mason, free from everyone except herself. And thus free, exultantly, to explore that particular bondage.

On her way out across the heliport concourse, clattering still awkwardly on her wooden soles, she sought out the policemen who had been so kind. She walked past them slowly, brazenly. One of them looked steadfastly the other way. His companion shook a playful, appeasing truncheon. It came to her that in them she was seeing her one-time, ordinary self. Both of them, unconsciously, in their own different ways, were warding off the evil eye.

When Harry rang to tell Vincent his wife had skipped it I was sitting there, right across the Ferriman desk. We’d only just got in from the police station, and I was scarcely gay. Bailing me out had taken a terribly long time and a great number of buff forms in triplicate. Even if I’d been as innocent as a lamb I wouldn’t have felt it, not by the time they’d finished with me. So goddamned civil, every one of them.

Harry was in a state. I could hear every word, even from where I was sitting. Vincent smiled at me, at Harry, and held the receiver well away from his ear, so’s I’d feel I belonged.

‘…And now she’s disappeared. No luggage or anything. Just disappeared.’

‘Taken her handbag?’

‘I expect so. Yes — of course she’s taken her handbag.’

‘Then we don’t have to worry, do we?’

A great one for essentials, Vincent was. A long pause followed, long enough for him to cut and light one of his cigars. A pause during which Harry breathed, audibly screwing himself up.

‘I… don’t know what you must think of us — of her. I mean, she signed a contract, and now—’

‘So did you, Harry. You signed a contract too.’

‘I’ve stuck to it. I’ve done my part. I wouldn’t be ringing you if—’

‘You’re worried about all that money, Harry. Of course you are.’ Vincent sounded so very kind and gentle and understanding.

‘Not at all. I’m worried about my wife.’

I’d never imagined I would like Harry. Now I was certain I wouldn’t. Vincent, on the other hand, loved him more and more with every moment. The more people failed, the more he loved them. He loved them for confirming his judgment. And he was my boss. I worked for him. I chose to work for him.

‘We’ll look after your wife, Harry. You mustn’t worry. And we’ll make sure she sticks to the contract.’

‘Need it be the police?’

‘Who said anything about the police?’

‘Well, she’s broken the law, hasn’t she?’

‘I can understand your concern for her, Harry.’ His anger against her. ‘Look, old man, she’s not even in breach of contract until four. And after that it’d take a court order, an injunction, and God knows what else, before we could call in the police. So you don’t have to worry.’

‘I’m glad. Thank you, Vincent. Thank you very much.’

Again he breathed. The questions really important to him were no longer askable. Possibly, just possibly, he believed he didn’t want to ask them, believed he hadn’t even thought of them. Vincent tried to knock the first quarter-inch of ash off his cigar but it wouldn’t come away. He frowned at it.

‘Harry? You still there?’

‘I—’ Of course he was still there.

‘It was good of you to call, Harry. Keep this between ourselves, shall we? Just till I’ve thought what to do?’

‘Of course. But how will you—?’

‘Good man. Leave the whole thing to me, then. And Harry? You mustn’t worry, Harry. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’

He rang off. Even if Harry hadn’t been worried before, he certainly would be now. Vincent leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Katherine Mortenhoe had skipped it, had placed herself outside the law. The poor thieving dope should have known better. Men like Vincent, corporations like NTV, don’t cheat all that easy.

‘Thanks to those bloody marchers,’ Vincent said, ‘she never met you. You can go to her as a stranger. As a friend… It’s the opportunity of your professional career.’

He’d made it sound just about as nasty as he could. By way of an inoculation, I suppose.

When I finally arrived at the church on Coronation Square it was late in the day, and I was glad of my shabby anorak against the damp, gray evening. The jeans and duffle bag were mine, and the two old gardening sweaters from my days with Tracey, but the anorak had been Vincent’s idea. An assistant had borrowed it from the wardrobe mistress. She had them in all sizes and colors and stages of decay, and she’d made me sign for it in her little book.

I checked in at the church vestry — the vicar just waved me through and made a mark on a board — and followed arrows down an aisle to the main dormitory transept. The lights were already lit, yellow bulbs under tin shades on the end of long flexes, and I saw Katherine Mortenhoe almost at once. She was sitting on her bunk, isolated from the listless grumbling of the others by her trouble. As far as they were concerned, she might not have been there at all. This was no fringie commune — if you were in trouble here nobody knew you. Their troubles were their own. They fed them, and were fed by them. Otherwise you could be damn sure they wouldn’t be here. It was well known that Vicar Pemberton took in those whom none of the government agencies would have.

There were other women, but not even they took any notice of Katherine Mortenhoe. They sat bundled in layers of greatcoats, tying and untying the strings around their various paper parcels, busily not seeing Katherine Mortenhoe. Not seeing her trouble.

D.T.’s, you’d have said. Meths, surgical spirit, window cleaner… you name it, she’d been drinking it. She had the worst shakes anybody in that noble company of shakers had probably ever seen. So they kept away. Lived and let live. Died and let die.

I picked a bunk four away from hers, sat down, took off my boots. If I was angry with her, it was for playing a game with us and losing. If I was angry with myself, it was for letting my night in the police cell so get me down. I’d do far better if I left out all the guilt bit and got on with the job. I was a reporter. And there was always the chance that I might be able actually to help.

At least she wasn’t flailing and wailing. Her shakes were most discreet. I watched her in long shot. Nobody’d be surprised if I went over and spoke to her. Though I wasn’t dressed like her, wasn’t quite a fringie, we were obviously neither of us hard-core church property. Transients, more like, on the way from somewhere to somewhere. So nobody’d be surprised if we sort of teamed up… First though, I needed some establishing shots. Something for the opening sequence. And from what I could see of her around the goggles she didn’t look too miserable. Just caught in one of Dr Mason’s rigors, and waiting for it to go away. I even, methodical Katherine Mortenhoe, saw her glance at her watch.