but I got there and slumped down in the driver’s seat. Not surprisingly, the door lock seemed to be undamaged. Car door locks are for stopping ten-year-olds, not anyone who seriously wants to open them. The mobile phone was still in the pocket of my coat along with the car keys. My wallet was on my hip. It seemed I’d lost nothing at all but some skin off my knuckles and some pride.
I wasn’t ready to drive just yet and I wondered what the last beer had done to my blood alcohol. So many things to worry about these days. Like having lost a metre or two as a runner and not being able to hit as hard as I once could. I swung my legs inside and tested my shoulder by putting both hands on the wheel. Painful, but possible. For the first time in my life I wished my car was an automatic. I leaned back against the seat and took some deep breaths. My knee, jaw and shoulder hurt. Not vital spots. I put the phone on the passenger seat and that’s when I remembered the files and Baldy’s mate’s awkward running style. He’d looked that way because he was carrying the two folders in his right hand.
I swore, thumped the steering wheel and felt the pain travel along my shoulder and down my arm. I still wasn’t thinking straight and it occurred to me that being beaten up was a punishment for being careless.
‘Cliff, what in hell’s happened to you?’
Vita Drewe was standing by the car door. She was wearing shorts and sneakers and a T-shirt with Chinese characters printed across it. A largish dog on a leash was sniffing at the upholstery.
‘Stay, Dylan!’ She let go of the leash; the dog backed and sat with its tongue lolling out. She leaned closer to look at me. ‘Kee-rist, you’ve got a bruise there. Anything broken?’
I shook my head dopily and wished I hadn’t. ‘Don’t think so. They took the files. Two men. What’re you doing here?’
‘This is where I walk Dylan. Run some. I’m just here, that’s all. You smell of beer.’
‘Good Samaritan came by. People are decent. They helped me. But I really needed the help a bit earlier on. Not the man I used to be.’
‘OK. Let’s get you outa there and round the other side. I’ll drive. You mind Dylan getting in the back? He’ll behave, likes riding in cars.’
‘Can you drive? You hate cars. This is a manual.’
She helped me out, flicked up the knob on the back door and reached across to open the passenger door while I leaned against the car and looked at Dylan who looked back. Sceptically, I thought. I folded myself into the seat and she closed the door. A click of the tongue and Dylan was in the back.
She settled behind the wheel. ‘Can I drive a manual? I drove a Land Rover from Cape Town to Cairo.’
‘Bullshit.’
She laughed. ‘You’re right. I lie a little. But I can get this heap from here to my place.’
7
She handled the Falcon well, not crunching the gears and quickly getting used to the brakes and steering. Dylan growled contentedly in the back and only briefly pawed at the vinyl. He could have clawed it all up for mine, I was hurting too much to care. I’d have bet on a terrace house, but Vita told me that her place was a basement flat under a pathology laboratory on Victoria Road. She followed a complex pattern of lanes to get to the barred back gate. The light was failing but I could see a grassy area with shrubs and a few tall trees.
‘I’m sorta the watchperson,’ she said. ‘But Dylan does the work. It’s cheap rent and the traffic roar from the road up front only drives me half nuts half the time. I guess the car’ll be fifty per cent safe here in the alley.’
‘There’s a steering lock.’
‘I know a guy can get through them with a ballpein hammer in three seconds flat. But OK. Out you get, boy.’
She was talking to the dog. He sprang from the car and lifted his leg against a wheel. I should be so mobile. I climbed out stiffly, trying not to crouch and hobble like Olivier playing Richard III. She took some keys on a ring from a pocket in her shorts and unlocked the gate. Dylan bounded through and immediately began what looked like a search and destroy patrol. He was a German shepherd, mostly black and tan, with a bit of something else in him that reduced his bulk. A nice dog to be nice to. He came running back as Vita and I went up the path to the back of the red brick building. The dog was frisky.
‘You cost him his run.’
‘Tell him I’m sorry. He got a ride in the car to compensate.’
‘True. I’ll try to explain that to him.’
Another key unlocked a security grille on the back door and the door itself. We went through into a cool, dark space that smelled vaguely of something I identified with Fiji. I was aware that my thought processes were still jangled.
‘Cliff Hardy.’ I said.
‘Say what?’
‘I was testing to see if I had concussion. I remember my name and you’re Vita Drewe.’
‘Right.’
‘Curry. I can smell curry. I think I’ve got some circuits crossed.’
She steered me through to another dim room and helped me to lower myself onto a couch. She dropped her bag and my jacket beside me. ‘Fear not,’ she said. ‘I’m cooking a curry. I’m a curry freak. I like to come back all sweaty from a run and eat curry and sweat some more. Kooky, huh?’
I closed my eyes. I didn’t have the energy to reply, but I was glad curry smelled like curry.
‘Take it easy. I’ll just get your shoes off here and get a cushion under your head. Let’s see your eyes.’
I opened up and found myself looking at a slightly wrinkled, narrow brow, a beaky nose and intense, dark eyes. I blinked. ‘You win the staring contest.’
‘Big deal. Any bleeding from your ears? No? Not a skull fracture. I don’t think you have concussion. A bit of shock, maybe. Rest up. I’ll feed Dylan and be back pronto.’
Shock? I thought. From a couple of taps like that? In my book, if I wasn’t concussed I was OK. I struggled up into a sitting position and looked around the room-minimal furniture, books galore, lots of music on vinyl and cassette. A piece of cloth-covered pasteboard with a massive montage of photographs, paper clippings, postcards and stickers occupied most of one wall. I guessed I could get a pretty good reading of Vita Drewe’s life from it if I had the strength to get up and take a look. I made it to my feet and snuffled across the room. I leaned against the wall and looked at the mass of images. Somehow, I’d expected Vita herself to appear in many of them but she was in very few. About some things she hadn’t been lying-there were river scenes and desert scenes and other rugged outdoor stuff. The whole kaleidoscope was difficult to take in quickly but, at a guess, there were as many pictures of men as of women. It looked as if I was wrong about the significance of the portrait of V. Woolf.
‘What are you doing?’
She came into the room silently, having taken off her squeaky sneakers. She’d let her hair out and it fell thick and slightly crinkly to her shoulders. She had a can of mineral water in one hand and a packet of Panadol in the other-a modern Flo Nightingale.
‘Snooping.’
‘Hey, that’s cool. I wouldn’t have it all up there like that if I didn’t want people to look, right? But you shouldn’t be moving around till we’re sure you’re OK.’
I liked that ‘we’. I liked this strange woman with her skinny limbs and crinkly hair and face-transforming smile. My head had stopped aching, but that might have been in anticipation of the pain-killers. My face felt tight and puffy but my knee felt all right; only the shoulder bothered me-not a bad outcome.
‘The Panadol’s a great idea,’ I said. ‘But have you got anything else to wash ‘em down with?’
‘I’ve got a bottle of Jack Daniels left over from my thirtieth birthday party. Somebody must’ve thought I drank that stuff.’
‘You don’t?’
She grinned. ‘I do. Sometimes.’
I staggered back to the couch and faked a collapse, hurting my shoulder. ‘I reckon that’s what I need.’
She threw the packet to me and I fumbled the catch but held it. She spun around and went out, the dark
