Rémy fell fast. His limbs felt loose, boneless, his guitar case pressing into his back as his music carried him through the solidity of the earth. Sensing the end of his fall, he lowered his pitch, slowing his descent, and skidded to a stop in shallow sewer water in an abandoned World War Two air-raid shelter, far below ground level.
With considerable effort, he dragged himself up against a damp wall. The music flattened to a throb in the back of his head, but his breathing was coming in shallow bursts. If he didn’t get control of himself, he’d hyperventilate and pass out.
Needing a distraction, he picked up his harmonica, but he was too scared to play again so quickly after what had just happened. Instead, he held the harmonica away from his lips and went through the motions. Fingering the spaces, flexing his lips, filling his cheeks with his breath. He repeated the movements until he felt calmer, his imagination still.
His left ear was bleeding. He pulled his shirt cuff from under his jacket and wiped it. Even such a small movement caused his stomach to somersault as if he’d just stepped off a roller coaster. Leaning over, he retched, his body heaving violently into the curve of a sewer pipe. Then he tucked his knees to his chest. His head was filling with a cacophony of screams, as if the past inhabitants of the shelter were packed in with him, bereft for the lost world above. Flashes of light flared like white-hot sparklers behind his eyes. Rémy rocked in anguish.
This is what dying sounds like.
When the noise finally stopped and the pain dropped to a dull ache behind his ears, he put a shaking hand to the tablet at his chest. It was cool to the touch. He inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply until his racing pulse settled and he could think clearly again. The Professor was right. Sometimes a deep breath was like an angel’s caress.
Thank God for the Professor.
*
If it hadn’t been for the Professor’s help, Rémy didn’t think he would have survived beyond his first days in London.
Before making his way into the city from Heathrow, he had busked for an hour outside the Tube entrance to earn some cash, using an old McDonald’s cup to collect the money. He didn’t want to risk using the pre-paid Visa card he’d bought with Tia Rosa’s cash any more than he had to. He was more worried about running out of funds than running into the Camarilla. He didn’t think he’d been followed across the Atlantic. Given the man in the peacoat, he now knew he’d misjudged.
A young goth couple, with tats crawling up their necks and down their arms, stopped to listen. They were thin but they looked clean, no twitching limbs or hollow expressions like the junkies that often gathered in the stairwell of Rémy’s apartment building back home.
‘You’re pretty good,’ said the girl.
‘Thanks,’ said Rémy.
He began another song. Later, when he was packing up he spotted the couple again, leaning against the opposite wall, watching him.
The girl approached, held out her hand. ‘Cassie. This here’s my cousin, Seymour.’
Rémy shook her hand and smiled cautiously at Seymour. ‘RD.’
‘Do you have a place to stay tonight, RD?’ Cassie said.
‘Sure I do,’ Rémy said warily.
‘If you change your mind,’ said Cassie, handing him an address written on the back of a receipt. ‘It’s not the Savoy, but we’d find a space for you.’
‘I don’t have any money.’
‘Rent’s negotiable.’ Cassie grinned. ‘You could, you know, sing for your supper.’
Remy knew something was off with these two, but his eyes were burning from a lack of sleep and his whole body ached with grief and loneliness. Despite his misgivings, he said, ‘OK. Thanks.’
The flat was in a condemned building in Croydon. Inside, the floor was carpeted with old mattresses and one or two foam yoga mats. Teenagers in various states of unconsciousness lay on top of most of them, some tangled in couples, others curled up like children, their arms flopped over their eyes. The few windows were draped with black bin bags. The filthy flocked wallpaper was damp and peeling, hanging from the walls like loose skin.
In the corner next to the bathroom, someone had rigged up a hot plate beside an electric kettle and a jar of instant coffee. Crouched nearby a kid, not much older than eleven or twelve, was licking the inside of a can of beans.
Someone had written, ‘ALWAYS KNOCK TWICE’ in black marker on the bathroom door. The place reeked of pain and hopelessness. Rémy didn’t need any more of either. He couldn’t stay.
Rémy waited until Cassie and Seymour were snoring on the tartan sleeping bags next to him. Then he crept down the stairs. Before he squeezed out through the loose boards barricading the door, Rémy took out his harmonica. He closed his eyes for a second before playing a soft bluesy melody.
He hoped everyone liked lasagne.