The Best of Science Fiction 12

"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.

I walked on in the drizzle. No one around. Nice fresh day. Nice to get out of London.

"Any food coupons?" said a voice in my ear.

I turned sharply. It was a young woman, so thin her shoulder blades and cheek bones seemed pointed. In her arms was a small baby. Its face was blue. Its violet-shadowed eyes were closed. It was dressed in a tattered blue jumper.

I shrugged. "Sorry, love. I've got a shilling — any use?"

"They'd ask me where I'd got it from. What's the good?" she whispered, never taking her eyes off the child's face.

"What's wrong with the kid?"

"They've cut off the dried milk. Unless you can feed them yourself they starve — I'm hungry."

I took out my diary. "Here's the address of a woman called Jessie Wright. Her baby's just died of diphtheria. She may take the kid on for you."

"Diphtheria?" she said.

"Look, love, your kid's half-dead anyway. It's worth trying."

"Thanks," she said. Tears started to run down her face. She took the piece of paper and walked off.

"Hey ho," said I, walking on.

I crossed the Mall and got the usual suspicious stares from the mixed assortment of soldiery that half-filled it. The uniforms were all the same. You couldn't tell the noble Tommy from the fiendish Hun. I looked to my right and saw Buckingham Palace. From the mast flew a huge flag, a Union Jack with a bloody great swastika superimposed on it. I'd never got rid of my loathing for that symbol, conceived as part of their perverted, crazy mysticism. Field Marshal Wilmot had been an officer in the Brigade of St. George — British fascists who had fought with Hitler almost from the start. A shrewd character that Wilmot. He had a little moustache that was identical with the Leader's — but as he was prematurely bald, hadn't been able to cultivate the lock of hair to go with it. He was fat and bloated with drink and probably drugs. He depended entirely on the Leader. If he hadn't been there it might have been a different story.

I walked down Buckingham Gate and turned right into Victoria Street. The Army and Navy Stores had become exactly what it said — only the military elite could shop there.

Arthur was in business in the former foreign exchange kiosk at Victoria Station. I bunged over the coupons. Sunlight streamed through the shattered canopy of the station. There had been some street fighting around here but it hadn't lasted long.